She didn’t grab him. Instead, she lowered her open palm, flat against the ground, creating a wall of flesh and bone. The baker skidded to a halt, trapped. Then, with one enormous index finger, she gently booped him. He tumbled backwards, unharmed, into the sandbox of the playground.
He looked up.
“Your turn to choose the game.”
“You’re safe now,” she cooed. “Base.” giant girl games
He watched as she leaned down, her long brown hair sweeping over Main Street like a slow-motion avalanche, scooping up a dozen parked cars. She arranged them in a neat circle in the empty lot by the mall. A tea party. Her fingers, huge and surprisingly careful, placed a water tower in the center like a sugar bowl.
“Now you hide,” she commanded the empty cars.
“Ready or not!” she boomed, her voice a gentle hurricane. “Here I come!” She didn’t grab him
She didn’t crush them. That was the terrifying, bizarre mercy of it. Instead, she reached down with the tweezers and delicately plucked the cruiser from the asphalt, wheels spinning in the air. She held it up to her face, giggling.
“You’re not hiding,” she said.
It was the strangest game of hide-and-seek ever played. Leo hadn’t signed up for it. No one had. She’d just… appeared last Tuesday, a new constellation in their sky, and decided the entire valley was her dollhouse. Then, with one enormous index finger, she gently booped him
“Found you,” she whispered, a warm gust of breath that flattened the trees on Elm Street.
“Okay,” she said, her voice suddenly quiet, almost a whisper that rumbled the foundations. She lifted her hand, palm open, and placed it before him like a landing pad.
Easy for them to say. His apartment was three blocks from her left foot.