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“Clean up, aisle five,” the bored store clerk called over the intercom, interrupting the store’s bland background music—a mix of soft rock and contemporary Christian pop. “Cleaning supplies and detergents.”

He replaced the microphone in its cradle, accidentally leaving it slightly askew, so that it still broadcast his words to the rest of the store.

“What happened this time?”

“Some blond freak dropped a bottle of liquid soap and it smashed. What else is new?”

His friend realized the error before he did and nudged the handset, settling it firmly into its holder. “Didn’t the boss already chew you over for not putting that down right?” he asked.

“Eh, what does it matter?” the original announcer replied. “I’m quitting Friday anyway.”

* * *

“Jareth, so help me god, if you don’t stop hexing everything you touch, I will—” Sarah noticed her audience in time to cut off her threat before she made herself look too much of a fool.

Her uninvited shopping companion leaned against the shelves leisurely and flicked an invisible speck of dust from his lapels. “Really, Sarah, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he drawled. “I didn’t do anything except what you asked me to. That’s all I’ve ever done.”

The bony teen looked from one customer to the other, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing nervously. “Um... Is everything okay here?” His eyes flicked from the brunette, her arms crossed angrily, to the blond in the strange clothes—where did he get them? A thrift store?—to the electric green mess on the floor, beside which lay the broken remains of a plastic detergent bottle.

The brunette suddenly smiled disarmingly, unfolding her arms to lean on the handle of the shopping cart beside her. “Oh yes, we’re perfectly alright. My friend here—”

The clerk wasn’t so slow that he missed the murderous glare she sent in the blond’s direction, though it only lasted a millisecond.

“—just thought that that bottle looked terribly like Surge, and wanted to try it. I’m sorry. We’ll get out of your way now.”

The boy nodded slowly, careful not to make any sudden moves.

“Well, come along, dear. Let’s let him get to work,” the woman said brightly, looping her arm through the man’s and steering him and the cart expertly out of the aisle.

Jareth snagged a second bottle of soap as they passed and dropped it in the cart. Sarah had asked him to get her one, after all.

* * *

“Would you care to explain why, precisely, that pimply excuse for a human being was looking at me as though I smelled of bog?” Jareth demanded quietly once they were safely away, this time perusing the pet food aisle. “And what in the gods’ name is Surge?”

“Surge is—was—a type of soda. He’s probably too young to know about it, but it was about that shade of green, and it made kids intolerably hyper. It came out when I was about the age Toby is now, but it was discontinued because it had some chemical in it that the FDA objected to,” Sarah explained absently, looking from her shopping list to the bags of cat food on the shelves.

“And the look he gave me?” Jareth prompted testily.

Sarah glanced up at him briefly from the corner of her eye. “I implied that you wanted to drink dish soap,” she said shortly. “Which, by the way, would make you sick to your stomach. Of course he looked at you like you’re an idiot. Who else would manage to break a bottle of detergent? They’re made to resist being dropped on the ground.”

Jareth’s eyes narrowed dangerously, and he opened his mouth for an angry retort, but Sarah interrupted him again.

“Come on. I think that’s everything.” A bag of cat food was now nestled in among her other selections, and she resumed piloting her cart, this time toward the cash registers at the front of the store.

* * *

The pimpled teenager watched them leave warily, hiding behind his mop as they passed his aisle again. They were still bickering animatedly, he noticed to himself.