Eleanor, 18 and sort-of kind-of in college, stuffs her apron into a locker and checking her face in the magnetic mirror stuck to the inside door, smudges her daytime precise rim of eyeliner into a blur with a cotton swab from a makeup case shaped like a cat’s head. A quick hit of plum gloss, and several zippers later—boots, hoodie, cat head, bag—she clicks the padlock in place and leaves work through the rear exit.

Glancing around the parking lot, she spots Ellie jumping down from the brick wall surrounding a couple of wobbly young trees the mall planted last spring. “Hey Ells”

“Lenore! Lenore! What took you so long?” asked Ellie, still six or was it actually six now?

“This is the usual time, you’re just more impatient today,” she pats the smaller one’s head. “Pizza tonight?”

“Pizza evvvvery birthday! Pizza every night! Forever and ever!”

Forever. And ever. Lenore and Ellie cross the lot to the payphone to call in an order. The usual. Twenty minutes, enough time to swing into the rental joint before picking it up. They discuss the pros and cons of slasher flicks (pros: scary, not scary / cons: not scary, scary) on the way and leave with a giant animal flick from the 50s—the usual way of things. This time it was a tarantula (scary / not scary, like these things always are and aren’t.)

Walking into the corner pizza shop, Ellie is doing a pizza chant with a little cha-cha accompaniment. The teenager at the counter smiles, “Large, extra cheese for Ellie J and her lovely sister.”

Ellie grins. “OoooOooo! Simon and Lenore sittin’ inna treeee.”

Lenore wrinkles her brow. He was the only person in school who still bothered with her by graduation, so the closest she’d gotten to a friend who wasn’t permanently a child but it wasn't, couldn't be like that. She couldn’t muster even a quarter of the feelings for him that she felt for…

“Simon, be a little less obvious. You’ll scare that birdie away,” says the most perfect fox in the history of human foxiness as she slides a paper bag across the counter. “These too; a birthday treat.”

“Oh! That’s right. We should do something. Are you doing something?” Simon starts, then turning to the fox, “Whatchoo doin’ later, sis?”

“We got plans to eat pizza and watch a scary spider movie! Birthday twins only. Sorry!” Ellie says, taking the bag from Amira. “Fries!”

“Cheese fries,” Amira answered, “with jalapenos.” 

Four identical eyes lit up with a duet of thanks.

“You two are definitely related. It’s super weird how you share a birthday,” says Simon. “What a strange coincidence.”

Lenore sighs. “I guess. Never really thought about it.” 

Fidgeting Ellie says, “This super weirdo is super hungry. I’ll tell you guys all about the giant tarantula next time.”

“But no spoilers,” he says, then looking up at Lenore, “I finish up at 11 if you wanna spoil it for me though.”

She turns keeping her frown to herself. If he thinks she won't be as cold to him in front of Amira... he is correct. “I dunno if I’ve even got the energy to keep up with her. Thanks again for the food you guys,” she says pushing the door open over Ellie’s head. The smaller one resuming her pizza dance, hop-skips out to the sidewalk. “Yeah! Yeah! Thank you! Thank you!”

Around the corner and two blocks down, they stop at the mailbox next to the Spin Cycle laundromat and bike repair shop they live above. Lenore pulls a pink envelope out and propping the pizza on a small lip on the building’s facade unlocks her apartment door. 

“We’re home!” sings Ellie, her greeting acknowledged by a thump from the next room and the click of claws on the wood floor. “And we got fries, Philip!”

“Do not give the cat jalapeno fries!” 

The cat narrows his eyes at Lenore and jumps into the chair to be closer to Ellie, leaning into her side. “He don’t mind! You don’t even wanna think about the stuff he ate before we found him, but I’ll say this—sometimes it was alive.” 

“I guess he won’t eat what he doesn’t want.”

Philip maybe nodded. Or maybe he was just nuzzling. Lenore was never quite sure what was real and what was a child’s imagination. Or her imagination. She’d given up being sure about most things six years previously.