First Flight by Connor Wright

buzzed against his leg in the middle of putting things away. He glanced at the number, then answered the call. “Yeah?”
    “Hi, Jesse.”
    “What do you want, Kevin?”
    Chris pulled a shrimp out of the bag and carefully worked the meat free of the hard orange tail. The tone of Jesse’s voice was unsettling, but he hadn’t asked him to leave, so it must be all right.
    “I just called to see if you wanted to hang out.”
    “You want to hang out?” Jesse considered the carton of ice cream he held, then put in the freezer. “Why?”
    “Because I miss you,” Kevin said. “Don’t you miss me?”
    “Oh. Well….” He glanced at Chris, then put the last of their ice cream away.
    “Come on. I’ll make it worth it. You know, just the way you like it.”
    Chris’s head was bent as he concentrated on another shrimp. Jesse caught the little flash of satisfied triumph as the shrimp came free of its former exoskeleton and shook his head. “No. I’m just gonna stay home. Bye.”
    “What, with Chris? I’m offering to blow you and you want to—”
    “I’m not interested,” Jesse said and hung up.
    “You’re not going to go hang out?” Chris started on a third shrimp.
    “Nope. I just wanna stay here, see what’s on TV or watch a movie or something,” he said, smiling as Chris offered him the shrimp. “With you. Thanks.”
    Chris watched Jesse’s face as the man took the meat from him, their fingers barely touching. His little voice approved of touching, as well as Jesse’s plan to stay home with him . “Okay,” he said and retrieved another shrimp.

Chapter Eight
     
    “ O OPSIE !”
    Chris turned at the exclamation, certain that it was not a genuine expression of remorse. To his dismay, nearly all of his carefully stacked apples were now on the floor. He looked around, but the only person to be seen was the back of someone looking at broccoli, on the far side of the display that held the apples and oranges.
    An hour later, a strange soft thumping and bumping caught his attention, and he hurried around Mrs. Schultz just in time to see a last half-dozen oranges roll off the display and onto the floor. Chris grumbled to himself as he knelt to check each one and decide if it went back on display or not.
    Forty-five minutes after that, Betsy’s voice interrupted him as he was discussing cantaloupes. “Chris!”
    “Yes?” Chris peered around Mr. Bunting’s shoulder.
    “Chris, why did you leave the one off of the price of melons? We’ve had a half-dozen pi— unhappy customers who’ve insisted that they’re ninety-nine cents!” Betsy crossed her arms and glared at him. “So I checked the specials sign, and sure enough, it says they’re a dollar instead of two dollars. All the other prices are wrong, too.”
    “I wrote them down just as you said,” Chris said, a strange feeling coming over him. It was almost like his first morning all over again but much worse. “I need to finish helping Mr. Bunting and then I will talk to you.”
    “Just fix the sign when you’re done here, okay? Great.”
    The sign, a blackboard on which the specials were chalked, showed clear evidence of someone else erasing his carefully placed numbers. Chris just shook his head and wrote them in again, then went off to finish straightening up the celery.
    Or he would have, had there been any celery to straighten up. He rubbed his eyes, then walked along the display case. Red potatoes, white potatoes, baking potatoes, carrots, a gap with sad little celery leaves stuck to the bottom of it, cucumbers, avocados. No, the celery was still gone. There was some in the back, so he’d simply restock it.
    “Excuse me, young man,” a voice said, as he pulled a cart laden with boxes through the double doors that led to the loading dock.
    “Yes?” Chris turned and smiled at the small old woman—Mrs. Fitzpatrick—who was standing by the radishes.
    “The man stacking celery is very rude! I’d like you to speak to him about how he