“Ah.” Elisa cursed herself for bursting the girl’s happy mood. It had to be tough for her and for Alex to go day to day without her mother. No way was Elisa going to ask about the mother, either. Definitely had to be a difficult topic. “Well, it sounds like your teacher likes to see texture and creativity in your projects.”
Crafts had been some of Elisa’s favorite hobbies once upon a time. She’d loved scrapbooking, working with different papers of various weights and printed with colorful patterns. But it’d be too obvious to get space-themed paper or stickers. Others would’ve done it. Boom was looking for something different.
Elisa’s gaze fell on a nearby sales rack. “Have you ever done origami?”
Boom scrunched up her face. “Ori-what?”
“Origami.” Elisa led her over to the rack and picked up a packet of square paper, colored in soft swirls of white and gold. It had a shimmery, pearlescent quality to it. “You fold fine paper in complex patterns to make different kinds of shapes. The Japanese do it. They make paper cranes and frogs and flowers, all kinds of things. I know there’s a pattern to fold the paper into a sort of ball or balloon and we could attach it to your board in all the places where you’re showing Pluto in orbit or in its place with the other planets of the solar system. Then we could take LED lights and put them inside the paper balls to make them light up with a battery. So it’ll be different from just the lights and more unusual.”
“Oh, I’ve seen the kids in some of the anime shows do the cranes and the stars.” Boom beamed at her, the previous melancholy evaporated. “That sounds cool!”
Relief washed through her. It wouldn’t cost Alex too much more, either. There were some fun sets of blinking LED earrings on sale over by the register that’d make installing them inside the origami planets easy. “Then we’ve got a plan.”
They grabbed the rest of their supplies and headed for the register. In a few minutes, they were ready to head out and Elisa glanced out the glass doors of the store. She’d left her car parked in front of Revolution MMA a few storefronts down in the same shopping center. She wondered if she should check on it while she was here.
Abruptly she froze. Her heart jumped up and fear constricted her throat.
“What?” Boom stopped with her, small hand trapped in hers.
Her heart beat so loud the sound filled her ears as Elisa watched a man idly stroll by her car and look inside. Could be a random passerby. Maybe. But she didn’t think so. Most people came to a shopping center with a purpose. They parked their cars and headed into a particular store. There was a purpose to what those people did.
“Boom, do you know if there’s ever been car robberies in this area?” Elisa tried to keep the question light and mildly inquisitive.
Boom craned her neck to look for her father’s car. “Not really. Sifu Gary and Sifu Greg say we should always pay attention to who is around us out in the parking lot and lock the car door as soon as we get in. They say we shouldn’t ever sit in the car checking our phones or playing games. Because someone could just walk by and jump in the car with us or break the window to get at us and our stuff. But that’s any parking lot and mostly at night.”
“Those are good things to keep in mind.” Elisa forced out the response in a whisper as the man she’d seen took a lap down the row of cars and came back to hers. Hers was the only car he peered into. And then he bent down to check out something near her tire.
Nope. She was not sticking around to watch more. If she and Boom headed to Revolution MMA, it’d be toward her car and the man messing with it, too. Better to go to Alex’s car and put some distance between them. Now.
“Let’s go.” Elisa grasped Boom’s hand more firmly and almost yanked the girl off her feet in the rush to leave the store and break for Alex’s car.
Boom exclaimed in surprise but stretched her long legs to keep up.
Keeping her head down, Elisa hustled Boom into the car and then hurried to the other side. Every time she glanced back, the man was still on the ground between her car and another one, studying something under hers.
Boom’s comment about never sitting in the car checking phones echoed in her spinning thoughts and Elisa decided not to call Alex, just get back to him. Locking the car doors, Elisa forced herself to pull out smoothly and drive away at normal speed. First of all, she wasn’t sure if she knew how to peel out of a parking lot but it didn’t seem like a good idea and would definitely attract the stranger’s attention. Second, she needed to drive safely with Boom in the car.
Going for the calmest tone possible, she cleared her throat. “Boom, why don’t you call your dad and tell him we’re on our way back.”
“Sure.”
That way, if they were delayed, Alex would know something had gone wrong. Hopefully, it wouldn’t.
Her heart raced the entire ride home and she could only give Boom lame excuses as to why she’d rushed them out of there. After a few abortive rounds of questioning, Boom settled back into the passenger seat.
When they pulled through the gate of the kennels and up the long drive, Boom reached over and patted Elisa’s arm. “Don’t worry, Elisa. We’re home now and Dad’s here.”
*