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Peach hugged her friends again and watched them walk away, and she couldn’t help but feel like she’d just been paid off.
*
What do you do with a hundred dollars when you have an hour to kill at the airport? The choice was too great. Peach worked out that she could buy fifty-nine Krispy Kreme donuts. Or she could buy herself seventy-two choc chip cookies. Or ninety-nine cans of cola.
But she wanted something longer-lasting. Something to remind her of her stay here. A souvenir from the worst trip of a lifetime. So, she found herself gravitating toward Build-A-Bear. The cool thing about Build-A-Bear was that they didn’t just sell bears. They had a PAW Patrol stuffie of Chase, and Peach had always wanted the money to buy one.
She went into the store with a guilty feeling in the pit of her stomach. It felt so extravagant to buy something like this. She bought PAW Patrol clothes and had a branded backpack too, but she always bought them second-hand. Most of them were dirty or ripped and none of them fit her quite right.
This stuffie was going to be brand-new.
As the assistant walked her through all the different options, her mind whirled. What clothes did she want? A rainbow stripe dress, of course. What accessories? A guacamole wristie, naturally. And what about the sound? And the scent? The PAW Patrol theme tune. And bubblegum.
She took the finished stuffie up to the counter, faintly amused with herself. What had started out as a guilty pleasure had turned into a really fun experience. Chase looked silly as heck but that was part of the fun. What shocked her was how much he cost. Almost all her money had gone on one stuffed toy! She could have kept that money for rent or for heating or for treats for the dogs at the rescue center, but you know what? It felt good to treat herself for once.
She walked out of the store, swinging the bag happily in one hand, and holding Teddy nice and steady in the other.
“What shall I get with my last thirteen dollars, Teddy? Something sensible like a salad?”
She looked down and saw that Teddy was asleep. He did that sometimes when he got stressed. So did she, to be fair.
“Nah,” she said to herself. “I’ll get seven donuts. And with the remaining sixty cents I’ll buy a lettuce.” She laughed a hollow laugh.
It wasn’t really fair when she thought about it. How come someone as good at math as she was had ended up with no money? And how come someone as fun as she was had ended up with no friends?
I should take this ridiculous stuffie back to the store and get a refund, she thought sadly.Save the money for something important.
But as much as she wanted to head back to the shop and feel that hundred dollars safely back in her pocket, she found that she couldn’t move. She was completely frozen to the spot. Her fingers were firmly clasped around the handle of the bag.
This could just be the beginning, Peach, she said to herself.A drop in the ocean.
She visualized ten million dollars, which was actually way too much money to visualize. In her head, it kinda looked like that huge heap of gold coins Scrooge McDuck swam around in the cartoonDuck Tales.
Why shouldn’t she get a turn at being Scrooge?
What was so wrong with that?
Quick as a flash, she put down the dog carrier, and she sent a text message to Daisy.
What’s Isaac’s number?
Before she even got her answer, she said under her breath, “PAW Patrol is on a roll!”
*
The cab ride to Isaac’s place was… interesting. Peach only had thirteen dollars in her pocket, and she knew that wouldn’t cover the ride. She just had to hope and pray that Isaac would pay the fare.
She was also taking a great big leap of faith in doing this. She messaged the dog grooming parlor to tell them to stick their job where the sun don’t shine. Actually, she didn’t say it like that because she was a good girl. She wrote a long, sweet email about how it was time for her to find her true calling. (Her true calling happened to be ten million dollars, but she didn’t mention that part.)
Then, she messaged the rescue center, which was a whole lot harder. She told them she wouldn’t be volunteering for a while, but would be back when she could. It just didn’t feel right ending things completely with them. Maybe when she was a multimillionaire she’d head back there and do the odd shift. Working as a volunteer would be so much more fun if she had a millionaire’s mansion to go back to at the end of the day. She just had to be careful not to take every single dog back home with her…
Daisy kept sending Peach text messages during the cab ride, but Peach decided not to answer them.
Why did you ask for Isaac’s number?
Are you going to send him an angry text?
Are you still sore about the thing with Teddy?
