Page 52 of Queen of Nothing

That’s when I spot it.

The stall with the second-hand treasures.

A treasure in particular has me handing over a few dollar bills.

The man running the stall is familiar to me—then I place him as the very same one who runs the antique shop.

He gives a stiff, judgemental smile as he hands over the music sheets.

And it startles me.

Then, Sal pulls on the leash again, and it cuts into my flesh. “Look, look, look!”

I stuff the sheets of piano compositions into my back pocket. “The parade is about to start—”

“Cars!”

I trace his little finger that points over to the carpark, nestled behind the buildings of Main Street, but with direct access from Town Hall’s courtyard.

I let a sigh deflate me.

I am so not interested in cars.

But Sal is.

Serena spends too much time telling him about the past, about a grandfather he’s named after, the one who loves cars.

It’s not worth the argument with Sal while he’s hopped up on sugar, in public, and my patience is thinning.

“You don’t want to watch the parade?”

He shakes his head, face scrunched up in that stubborn expression of his that threatens a full-on tantrum, and honestly, I can’t blame him.

The parade doesn’t sound too interesting.

Rumours from the pharmacy, where I work, is that the parade is mostly beauty queens from the towns around here, going all the way back twenty years or so.

I did think that was strange when Sawyer—a guy I work with—told me, but then I looked up what beauty queen means, and the oddness just became something dull.

The internet is my favourite thing about the krum world. Maybe the only thing I like about it.

The closer we get to the carpark, the more Sal bounces his steps with glee.

It irritates me.

Sal’s love for cars is fake.

It’s performative.

It’s a love borrowed from his mother, who was taught it from her grandfather, and Sal imitates that passion annoyingly for the next whole hour.

He wants to sit inside every car.

He wants pictures with every car.

He wants to tell anyone nearby about the cars—which is really just regurgitated warbled lines from a cartoon film about cars that he’s obsessed with.

For the most part, he garbles nonsense, because he’s not even three years old, and if it’s not nonsense, it’s a string of random words and broken sentences.