Mal’s was already running at a near-loss.
“Time, schmime,” Emerson said dismissively. “We’ll just make more of it!”
Mal shot her A Look, one that was more than a little wounded. Emerson didn’t understand what that meant, but Mal’s Dollar City shifts did. They couldn’t just wander in late, like Emerson sometimes did for their Monday and Tuesday shifts at the Haus. And Mal’s growing stack of late assignments understood too. The closer they got to the middle of the semester, they only kept compounding, as did their mom’s acute awareness of their existence—and Mal’s failure.
“I have extra time the next couple of weeks,” Parker volunteered. “I’ve been working on some costume things, but I’ll wrap those up soon. I can fully be a zine queen for this.”
“Oooh, I like that,” James said. “Count me in too.”
“What should we make them about?” asked Nylan.
“Literally anything,” Emerson said, like this was an invitation, not an indictment. “I was thinking of making a zine about making zines!”
“That’s so meta,” James cooed, impressed.
“I learned this dice game from one of the girls in my Secrets & Sorcery game earlier this week called Paladin, Wizard, Rogue,” Parker mused. “It could make a cool zine too, and it’s super quick to explain.”
“I like where this is going!” Emerson exclaimed. “And they’re so quick and easy to make, I bet even our esteemed editor in chief can find the time to write one!”
“No.”
Though Mal hadn’t meant for it to, the word came out loud and flat and final. Mal didn’t write. They were the editor for a reason.
“Or not,” James said quietly.
“We’ll work on them,” Emerson said, undeterred. “But I think we could do it. And there’s this cool Halloween-y festival in my neighborhood at the end of the month—we could absolutely get a table there to sell them. It’ll be great!”
Mal doubted this—but Emerson had, as Emerson did, used that Way she had about her. The whole staff was now ignited with excited chatter about what they might make, texting Kodi and Stella to let them know the new plan and pulling sheets of paper from their notebooks so Emerson could show them the folds she was talking about.
Faster than Mal could sayWe’ve veered dramatically off course, and this is not at all in The Plan, it was settled: on Thursday, October 31, from five to ten in the evening,MixxedMediawould host what Emerson insisted was their First Annual Mini Zine Fest at something called the Haint History Festival in Mainstrasse Village.
“Sound good, Editor in Chief?” Emerson asked, plopping back into her chair beside Mal, who sat on the very edge of theirs.
It sounded like a lot of things—a bunch of work, new things to learn, another date Mal would have to cram into their planner—butgoodwasn’t one of them.
“It sounds,” Mal sighed.
Friday, 11:14PM
hey
you seemed really spiky tonight
are you okay?????
I’m fine.
literally the first thing i say when im not at all fine is IM FINE
Okay, I’m not.
That was a whole lot, Emerson.
im sorry!!!!!! i get carried away
We could have talked about that beforehand.
Or at all.
