Puppeteer

Four.

I get an email.

First of all, I'm even surprised I checked because I never even bother most of the time.

Either way, it's blank and the title is "email" and I feel like that Poppy girl who sent this must think she's succeeded in making me look very stupid.

I delete it in an instant though, and I text Jael hoping that I can lighten up the mood.

Costume ideas?

I tap on my phone and wait for a total of sixteen seconds before I receive a reply from her.

Come over?

I whisper-shout a "yes", grateful that at least one of my bestfriends isn't horrendously mad at me and walk down like two blocks to Jael' s house.

The second I'm there, I'm greeted by Jael's smiling face.

"At least you aren't still mad at me" I say, sighing.

"Of course not. Although, you should really think about apologizing to Josh cause--"

"Yeah I know." I quickly cut in.

There would've been an awkward silence if Jael did notice my grave tone and go right into, "Right! Costume ideas!"

And so four tabs and sixteen webpages later we're still sitting down hopeless in front of Jael's desktop screen.

That's when my phone starts buzzing like crazy and I start to ask myself why I didn't block notifications from my email app.

And when I check it, it's from the same unknown address with the same title "email".

They're like twenty seven of them and I plan to report spam right after I'm done viewing just one.

So I click on it, and this one unlike the last isn't blank. In fact it's filled with pictures of Halloween costumes.

"What the--" But I can't even complete what I'm saying before Jael screams "Oh my gosh!" and grabs my phone.

"These are perfect!" She squeals.

"Yes I suppose they are a nice idea for Halloween costumes but--"

I stare at the picture of a jester costume on my phone, with the bicorn and the cap and bells and everything and a weird purple mask to go with it.

And then I cringe at the pink princess dress Jael looks so inclined to.

"Let's have these."

"What? No I'm not looking like a fool on Halloween." I instantly respond.

"Renwil, I caught the joke by the way. But still, Halloween is the one night of the year people choose to look as stupid as they possibly can without any fear of regret."

But if I'm reading between the lines correctly, Jael is actually saying, "You owe this to us Renwil for making such a nasty remark earlier."

So I sigh and say okay.

"Good." She grins, now there should be a place to order somewhere.

If I wasn't a reasonable enough person is say the order button just popped out of nowhere but I don't want to look unreasonable.

For some very unnerving reason it's free and when Jael tasks me the job of making sure I get the package because she set the address to my house, I start to get very, very suspicious about these Halloween dresses.

I start to wonder if this was the email Poppy'd promised earlier.

I didn't know she ran an online shop.

Once I'm done with Jael, I go home an set a reminder to wait for the package.

Then I decide to text Yeshua.

I can see he's online, and so I type.

Hey Josh
Costume party's next week
Picked out sth yet?

But Yeshua leaves my message at seen and doesn't reply, and then I start to feel a whole lot guilt tripped.

I shouldn't have said that to him.

The next morning I stay home just so I  can get the dresses when they arrive.

The doorbell rings and I open to see the parcel on the ground. No mailman, nothing to sign, zilch.

I keep Jael's in my schoolbag so that I can remember to give it to her and I place mine in my wardrobe, not bothered in the least to try it on because it looks perfectly my size.

A number texts me "Did you get it" and I reply with a "Who is this", only to realize that it's Poppy.

Then I go out to Downie's.