GIRL, UNPLUGGED
YA Novel Chapter 16 | 8 Minute Read
This is Chapter 16 of a YA novel. To see where the story began, check out the GIRL, UNPLUGGED table of contents post, or head to the GIRL, UNPLUGGED section of the Story Hoarder Substack page to see all the chapters.
This chapter is an 8 minute read.
CHAPTER 16: Souvenirs
Stella stood in the stairwell and took a hair tie out of her bag and pulled her long, curly hair back into a high and tight ponytail. “It looks like we’re staying. For now. Everyone’s taking their sweet time eating. I want to go to the gift shop, you guys want to come with me, or do you want to wait for everyone else?” Stella couldn’t resist taking charge.
“I can use the distraction,” Rainbow said.
“Yeah. Why not?” I said, following the two up the stairs.
When we got to the door of the shop Rainbow said, “Thing is, Stella, I don’t think I can afford anything there with the cash I have left.”
When Stella turned her ponytail flung through the air, missing Rainbow’s face by an inch. “Really Rainbow?” She turned to look at me. “Are you not getting this?” She spread her arms out beside her and said, “We are taking what we need. That’s all. It’s a state of emergency.”
Rainbow shook her head. “I don’t think I can. Food is one thing. Look, Stella, it’s not that long of a walk. I don’t think we really need anything that badly.” I had to agree with her. I was sure nothing in that one room gift shop was going to fill the gaping hole in my chest.
“We can pay them back later,” Stella said. “I’m not looking for some big haul of wind-up toys. Just look around and see if there’s anything that might be helpful — don’t they usually sell flashlights in these places?” She started looking around where the cash register was.
“A flashlight wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Rainbow said. “Maybe there are light pens, or something.” She took a tiny turn to look through the items right by the door of the shop, as if she wanted to be able to make the quickest escape possible in the event anyone walked by to ask what was going on. I watched both of them, looking, quietly through all these items. I stood my ground wondering what my parents would think about me taking part in this. Like Rainbow said — food was one thing — taking souvenirs like this felt entirely unnecessary. I thought about the story I wanted to tell Rog at the end of all of this. Was this a part of it?
In the center of the gift shop there were the bins of crap that Rog was always drawn to in gift shops — filled with dino-shaped erasers, super bouncy balls, and keychains. Stella was right, sometimes you could find a minuscule flashlight attached to a keychain or, like Rainbow suggested, a pen, but they were barely functional. I couldn’t imagine finding something worth the crime.
“More city maps?” Stella asked.
“What the heck do we need the map for, Stella?” Rainbow asked. “Here’s how you get home: walk downtown. Keep going. Go and go until you are A: on the ferry, or B: swimming!”
I laughed pretty hard because Rainbow was right, getting home was easy, really easy, the debate over the best path home was a silly distraction, but I can’t think of one time that I was in the city, trying to get home and I didn’t —maybe out of habit more than need — take my phone out of my pocket and look at the GPS map. I kind of wanted to hold on to one of the maps just to have something to look at on our walk home.
“Ha ha, very funny, Rainbow,” Stella said, sticking her tongue out at Rainbow. “I guess I just miss my pictures,” she said pulling her phone out of her pocket.
I nodded.
“Really?” Rainbow asked, scrunching up her face. “You guys miss it that much?”
Stella laughed. “You ready for ridiculous?” She held up the map. “I was thinking it could be our GPS!” Stella bit her lip, trying to stifle a big laugh before it finally burst free. Rainbow and I joined in her laugh before she calmed to continue. “Look. I know that I know how to get home, but I don’t trust myself. I could use the map — like I used to use my phone — to verify my truth or something.”
I stopped laughing. Verify my truth. Is that what it was? Those last words hung heavy, and made sense. How much of my dallying online was about me verifying my own truth? About the world, about myself, about who I wanted to be?
“Pictures are pretty powerful is all,” Stella said, tapping the map in her hand. We were all quiet for a moment until Rainbow broke the silence.
“Oh-em-gee!” Rainbow squeed. “That reminds me —“ she stepped out of the gift shop and looked both ways as if she was checking to see if the coast was clear for something. “Natalie, what’s the deal with you and Russ?” I gulped, remembering the Russ and Rainbow moment earlier. Was she asking out of curiosity, or was she sizing me up? Rainbow was sweet, but girls got real funny when it came to boys they liked. She turned to me, “That pic he posted was so adorbs! I wanted to ask you about that as soon as we got back from lunch. And then all this happened.”
I kept looking through the bins of dino-shaped erasers, super bouncy balls, and keychains. So far nothing useful. Nothing to help me hide my blushing. “Oh. That was from the Catch ‘Em Crazy stuff. We just caught a rare dragon egg.” I said.
“So, you didn’t spend lunch with Murph?” Stella asked, squinting in my direction.
“No, no. It wasn’t like that. The egg — It was for my brother. Russ got one for his sister. They’re friends — my brother and his sister. It was just a minute, that’s all.” I shrugged and dove back into the bins.
“What did Murph say?” Rainbow asked.
Oh Rainbow, now you’re killing me. I looked back up at her thinking back to Murph’s face when he saw Russ and I together, and the awkward post-lunch lack of conversation. And then I was thinking about how he left.
“He didn’t say anything. It really wasn’t a big deal.”
“I’ll bet he never saw it. Knowing Murph he wasn’t even online yet,” Stella said.
“Oh that’s true!” Rainbow said.
I wondered why these girls knew about Murph’s connectivity habits.
“Well,” Stella said. “It’s always good to know who’s around to help you make your boy jealous.”
Rainbow laughed. I didn’t. Make Murph jealous? Why would I ever want to do that? And even if I did, how would I go about doing that? The idea seemed so ridiculous. The idea that Russ would linger about waiting for the moment for me to use him as a pawn in some scary game of relationship strategy was bizarre. I shook my head. I was going to leave it at that — continue looking through the bins and distract myself out of this weird conversation — but I couldn’t just let it stay like that. “I don’t think so, Stella. Today was probably the first time Russ and I ever spoke. He took that picture for his sister. That’s all.”
“Hmmm,” Stella said. “You might not see it, sweetie, but I never saw that boy move as fast as he did when he was running after you heading back into this museum this afternoon. He thought you were in danger, and he was scared.”
My mind started to fill with rephrasings of retorts about how Russ would have done that for any one of us in danger. He was a nice guy. That’s all it was. Then I saw a bin filled with plastic cylinders that I thought looked familiar. I walked in to get a closer look. I reached in, pulled one out and, grabbing each side of the cylinder with one hand, I bent it until I heard and felt a crack within. The fluorescent glow began at the center and, when I shook the cylinder, spread throughout. I thanked every guardian angel that ever took a shift watching my back. “These should be useful with lights out, right?”
“More glow sticks?” Stella hopped off the counter, came over to me, and helped me put all of them into my backpack. “These are perfect! As our reward for a job well done I say we all pick up a little something for our boys of the moment.” I waited for some comment about Russ when Stella decided to change targets. “I’m sure you can find something Colin will like, Rainbow.”
Rainbow turned scarlet and picked up the banter with Stella. I didn’t want to hear her correct Stella and tell her that it was really Russ she liked. I focused on finding something for Rog, the only boy I had been planning on getting a gift for in this shop today, anyway. Super easy shopping: a package of slime. I was putting it into my backpack when I spotted a box of sketching pencils that would be perfect for Murph. I couldn’t help but think of how happy he would be if I had a chance to give them to him. Even if he didn’t like me anymore, he would like the pencils. I slipped the package in his bag.
I took an extra pen for myself and I was about to leave it at that. Then I remembered what I was going to use that pen for:
my new notebook.
Which lead me to thinking about why I had that notebook in the first place:
Russ.
I looked around quickly and told myself that if there was actually anything between me and Russ then I should be able to think of something to get him in the gift shop.
I was stumped.
I didn’t even know Russ well enough to know what to get him as a souvenir. That settled it, right? It was pathetic, all I could think of was — I grabbed a keychain — a token of thanks for all the car rides he gave to Rog and for the notebook.
That was all.
I was being polite.
It meant nothing more.
“I’m done shopping, I’m just going to head out to the cots, okay?” I said to Stella and Rainbow who had moved to the extra careful selection of the “perfect” gift for their boy of choice. They went from one item to the next, pulling each off the counter, discussing their “meanings” and giggling. I didn’t want to watch, and I didn’t want to participate — especially if it turned out Rainbow was shopping for Russ.
“That was quick!” Stella said. “What’d you pick up?” “Just something for my brother, you know —“ I said with a small smile. I don’t know why I didn’t tell them about the other things.
“Oh, okay, you stick in the mud! I do forget how shy you are sometimes, Natalie. We will crack you out of that shell someday, I hope!” Stella was back to her sugary sweet self. It was strangely sickening even though I kind of believed she had good intentions. I forced a laugh as a sort of thank you and left.
No one had come back up to the lobby yet, and everything was still scattered all over the place — a couple of cots, the maps, Rose’s “area.” I decided to park myself under the dinosaur bones which sat under a huge skylight until someone came and told me to do differently.
I looked around and realized that I was still expecting the lights to come on. I hadn’t fully internalized that they weren’t coming on, I had a thought that they were coming on a bit late today. It was maddening every single time it happened.
The lights are gone! The power is gone, Nat! Stop expecting something different!
I sat with that for a moment. The lights were not coming on. It was only going to get darker. I had those glow sticks, but I have tons of experience with glow sticks (Rog was kind of obsessed with them as a toddler), if I crack one now it will glow through the night and there’s no way to turn it off in the day, so it will glow all the way through tomorrow and probably have nothing left for tomorrow night. So the glow sticks are great… for now. Then what? Darkness all the time?
I couldn’t just sit in the silence thinking about it. I opened my backpack.
Written in Natalie’s Notebook
Sun down 10/6
The shadows are stretching. It will be dark soon. I fear the dinosaur will come to life if the stars don't come to light our way. I know that’s a ridiculous thing to write, but this is scary. Maybe not because of an impossible threat of dinosaurs, but maybe because I don’t understand how to live in this world that my teacher and some science guy seem to think might be stuck this way for a while. A world where miscommunication can lead to physical injuries, not just nasty comments. A world where, when someone walks away from you, you really don’t know how you will ever connect with them again.
Leave a comment - Question of the Week
Thanks for continuing to read the GIRL, UNPLUGGED novel here on the Story Hoarder Substack page. Who would you be getting a souvenir for in the museum gift shop? What would you be lookoing for?
If this is your first time here…
Don’t forget to subscribe so you get all of my story hoard delivered to your inbox every time a new piece is released!