Page 6 of The Serpent King

“Thought I’d give you a taste. Are you on Twitter?”

“I have an account for the store.”

“I tweeted to tell my 102,678 followers that I’m currently standing in the best vintage store in the state of Tennessee and that they should come check it out.”

“Wow. Thanks, I—”

Lydia raised a finger and picked up her phone. “Hang on. Let’s see what we’re getting. Okay, we’ve got seventy-five favorites, fifty-three retweets. Thanks for the tip, will def check it out…Always trust your taste…Need to make a trip to Nashville, maybe we can meet up and do some shopping…”

“What if—”

Lydia raised her finger again. “Oooh, here’s a good one. This is from Sandra Chen-Liebowitz. That name probably doesn’t ring a bell, but she’s an associate features editor at Cosmo. Let’s see what she has to say: Great tip, actually working on Nashville feature as we speak. Thanks! So you maybe made the pages of Cosmo. Convinced?”

April regarded Lydia for a second and threw up her hands with a little laugh. “Okay. Okay. You win.”

“We win.”

“So, you’re basically the coolest girl in school, I guess?”

Lydia laughed. Dill and Travis joined her. “Oh my. Yes, I’m the coolest. Now, most popular? Let’s just say that being Internet famous carries little cachet among my classmates.”

“It kind of carries negative cachet,” Dill said.

“What he said. Not much high school cachet to be had in being a female who has, you know, vocal opinions about anything.”

“Well, I’m impressed,” April said.

“Fantastic. Now, while you’re ringing up my friend, I’ll be figuring out how best to spend three hundred dollars here.”

“How about you?” April said to Travis. “I’m not sure we have much that fits someone as tall as you, but we might.”

Travis blushed and looked up with a crooked smile. “Oh, no thanks, ma’am. I mostly wear the same thing every day so I can think about other stuff.”

April and Lydia shared a look. Lydia shook her head. April’s face registered understanding.

Lydia had no trouble whatsoever spending her clothing allowance. Before they left, she had Dill take about fifty pictures of her wearing her new outfits in various combinations. And she had him take about twenty more of her and April. She and April exchanged phone numbers and promised to stay in touch.

They began sweating immediately upon walking outside. It was at least ninety-five degrees. The late-afternoon sun blazed. The cicadas’ hum throbbed like a heartbeat on an ultrasound.

Lydia motioned for everyone to huddle up. “Let’s get some pictures of all of us together. Last school shopping trip to Nashville.”

Dill forced a smile. “Come on, dude, you can do better than that,” Lydia said. He tried again. No better.

“Hey, Lydia, could you take a couple of pictures of me with my staff?”

Lydia was exuberant over the coup she’d scored for Dill, her own clothing finds, and her stylish older new friend. Still, she feigned great annoyance, for consistency’s sake. “Oh all right. Go on. Fetch thy staff.”

Travis bounded to the car and grabbed it. He returned and assumed a grim, contemplative stance. “Okay.”

Lydia took several pictures. Travis changed poses: leaning on his staff, holding the staff at the ready to strike. “Make sure you can see my dragon necklace in them.”

“Dude. I’m not a beginner at making sure cute accessories feature prominently in photos.”

When she finished, Travis came up beside her to look at her work, a wide, childlike grin lighting up his face. He smelled of sweat and the musty odor of clothes that had been left too long in the washing machine before going into the dryer.

“I look good in these,” he murmured. “Like Raynar Northbrook from Bloodfall.”

Dill craned to take a peek. “Oh, those have Raynar Northbrook written all over them.” His teasing went over Travis’s head.