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the man and explaining what she wanted.
    “ I just want to draw them,” she said, shrinking under his gaze, “I won't touch or bother them or anything like that. It's for, um, school.”
    The man grunted something like reluctant quiescence before going off to harangue some middle schoolers Val recognized from last year, when she was in eighth grade, for pestering the beta fish and laughing as they attacked the glass.
    Val shook her head, hoping she hadn't been that annoying at twelve, and sat cross-legged in front of the kitten pen, wincing a little at the grimy dustiness of the floor. A few of the kittens crawled over to the wall to stare at her and mew. Val was flooded with the urge to coo over them, but the image of the stern-faced store manager dampened that impulse.
    Slowly, conscious of the manager's menacing presence, Val began to sketch. At first she used grids to try and map the proportions of the kittens' faces. She realized immediately that she had made their foreheads much too small and their cheeks much too fat in her preliminary sketch.
    As she sat erasing, she was aware of a shadow crossing her pad. She looked up, startled, to see the fat man hovering over her. “Are you an artist?”
    “ I guess,” said Val, stiffening a little as she looked back at her paper.
    “ Hmm.” The man grunted again. “That's quite good.”
    “ Thank you.” She could feel her cheeks getting warm. She wished he would go away.
    “ There's a boy works here — he's an artist, too.”
    At that, Val looked up. “Really? How old is he?”
    “ Old enough to know better, young enough to worry about.”
    Now what on earth did that mean? Val wanted to ask him more, but the man had grown tired of the subject and walked off towards the rows of bird cages, shaking his head and muttering as he resumed tailing the rowdy group of preteens through the store.
    That was weird.
    Val finished her sketches, brushing the man's strange words off like the dust from the floor, and checked her phone for new messages. No calls from her mother, which meant she was probably still shopping. Instead of calling for early pickup, Val walked over to the Starbucks two stores down to get herself a drink while she waited.
    The coffee shop was crowded because of the grocery stores nearby. Val waited in line, flipping through her sketchbook to study her drawings, and also secretly hoping that someone walking by might comment, when she was suddenly compelled to look up.
    There, sitting at one of the tables by the window with a half-drunk espresso, was the boy from Petville. Staring — at her.
    (There's a boy works here. He's an artist, too.)
    I wonder if he's the artist.
    But such a coincidence seemed too great. There had to be dozens of people his age — our age — working there. The artist could have been anyone, a college student, maybe.
    Funny, though, her running into him here.
    Don't be stupid. He's probably on break or something.
    “ What can I get for you today?” the barista asked.
    “ An iced hazelnut latte, please.”
    “ That'll be three dollars and fifty cents.”
    Val came up with exactly two-fifty. The barista fixed her with an annoyed look, glancing over Val's shoulder at the long line building up behind her. Val's face flushed. Where is that other dollar? I know I had more money in here.
    “ Miss? You still owe me a dollar. People are waiting.”
    “ I know. Um.” Val wished the floor would just open up and swallow her whole. “I don't think — ”
    “ I'll take care of it,” said a deep, amused voice.
    Val looked up in shock. Gavin had left both his table and his drink unattended, and was handing the barista a crumpled dollar. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. It was like something out of a book. She didn't know this boy or anything about him, really, and yet here he was, stepping in to her rescue like a hero from a harlequin romance.
    Except he's not the hero , she reminded herself. Lisa had made that painfully