“Look at you, hotshot,” she said, from twelve steps away.
“What? No.” Mal waved a hand, dismissive. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“No, it’s okay.” Maddie finally caught up. “It’s neat to see you in action.”
“It’s nothing, really,” Mal replied quickly.
Their sister smiled, a little sadly, then shook her head to herself. “It’s super cool, Mal. You’re, like, really good at this.”
Mal’s first instinct was to dismiss this; these weren’t words they heard often. But… hearing them felt nice, especially from their sister, who knew Mal at their Least Good At Things. “You mean it?”
Maddie held out her pinkie. “Pinkie promise.”
“Really?”
“I don’t mess around, Mal. You know me.”
Mal smiled and linked their pinkie with Maddie’s.
“I canalmostsee why you keep ditching me for this stuff,” Maddie said, still smiling, but with a hint of something else, something resigned, underneath.
Mal’s smile faltered. “I don’tmeanto.”
“I know,” Maddie said, giving herself a little shake. “And you’re not. I just miss you lately is all.”
It was a strange thing to say for two siblings who slept down the hall from each other every night, but Mal felt it too—a lonesome longing, a certain shift they couldn’t quite pin down. They nodded. “I miss you too.”
A quiet moment opened in the space between them.
“Come on,” Mal finally said. “We can’t be late for school.”
“Coming,” Maddie said, and rushed to catch up.
When they got to the front doors, they went their separate ways.
Mal hadn’t been lying about sales being slow. They hadn’t been trying to soften a blow or to motivate people. They were much too upfront for that. Slow sales were just the truth, something they’d learned from long weeks of trying to sellCollageto classmates at lunch. People picked food over fine arts every time.
And so, when Mal sold through four of their first ten copies in first period, they were surprised. And when they had had to dip into their second bundle by the end of third, they were a little suspicious. And when Emerson bounced by them in the hallway before lunch, saying she couldn’t talk because Nylan needed a restock too, Mal was downright confused.
It wasn’t supposed to be this easy.
But as Mal met Maddie on the way to the cafeteria, their backpack was light onMixxedMediaissues and heavy on pocket change. Though most folks had paid for their copies with wrinkled dollar bills, many had paid in silver coins, and at least one issue had been bought with four rolls of pennies that looked suspiciously similar to the ones student council rolled from penny wars (a spare change donation drive to see which class could bring in the most pennies). After a girl from Mal’s chemistry class stopped them in the lunch line, they added another fistful of coins to their backpack.
“Are you, like, famous now, Mal?” Maddie joked.
“I… don’t know?”
The real answer was no, that was Maddie’s job—to be inthe spotlight. But Maldidfeel at least a littleseenby the two other students who quickly snuck over to their lunch table for an issue.
As they chewed through a stack of Tater Tots, they tried to figure outwhy. Why people kept wanting copies. Why they knew Mal had them. They were sure it had at least a little bit to do with the zines being contraband—though it could never be Mal, they understood that for a lot of kids, things being against the rules was fundamentallyappealing, not appalling. But by the end of lunch, when Maddie’s teammate, Alyssa, leaned across the table and said, “You better make more room for Parker’s comic next issue—it’s hilarious,” they thought it might have at least a little bit to do with what they were actuallydoingin the zine.
It wasn’t just Mal who kept getting stopped, either. On the way back from lunch, Emerson pulled Mal away from Maddie—“I’m going to—yoink! I’ll give them right back!”—and toward their locker.
Before stuffing it full with bundles ofMixxedMediaearlier today, Mal hadn’t used their locker since… maybe ever. No one really did anymore. They were relics of the past, a place now mostly for nefarious things, or for couples to hide and make out.
Now,therewas a thought—one that suddenly flooded the page of Mal’s brain in bold, all-capital typeface:MAKING OUT WITH EMERSON PIKE.It was the first time doing something like that had ever occurred to Mal, but as Emerson rounded on them with a cheeky smile and a glint in her eye, it was suddenly all Malcouldthink about.
Their pulse quickened; Mal could feel it in their throat.
