How Little a Decade Can Matter

Pumpkin Latte

"I don't wanna!!!" Icy whined as she crossed her arms, sticking her tongue out at her older brother. "Come on already! Jeez, it's just the supermarket. You'll live." Sammy groaned as he tried to gently plead with his younger sister. "No! No! No! The grocery story is borin- EEP'' Icy's sentence was soon cut off as her older brother picked her up suddenly. "We're going." And just like that, Sammy got Icy in the car, and they left. The two of them made it to the supermarket.

It was located in the outlets; many different stores, made for all different kinds of stores, were located there. There was a pink perfume shop, a high-end jewelry
shop, a muted, dark green library, a bright candy shop, a fast food restaurant, and of course, the supermarket.

"Ooooo! Can we go to the candy shop! Please, please!" "No, Icy." "Pleaseee??" Sammy just ignored his sister's pleads. He opened up his shopping list: " 1 gallon of milk. 2 packs of cheese, ham, paper towels, toilet paper, cereal for Icy, coffee
creamer for the cafe. (Why are they making ME do it??? Aren't they already supplied?? Who cares if I spilled it.)" "Uh-huh." He muttered. He looked down to Icy, who was wrapped around his hand- or was supposed to be wrapped around his hand. Where'd she go? The little girl completely ran off. "Fuck, fuck fuck!" Sammy bit his tongue as his eyes anxiously darted across the building trying to find sight of his younger sister.

He started wandering around the building, trying to find
any sight of her. Then, at the corner of his eye he saw his sister's white and blue gradient hair in
the craft aisle. His eyes widened and he immediately speeded to her.
"ICY, GOD-god dammit, what were you thinking? What if you got kidnapped or something? Don't run off like that! Jeez." Sammy lectured, crouched down to his sister's level.
Icy's eyes started tearing up as she looked down, mumbling, "I-I-I-m sorry..." Suddenly, the two of them heard a mocking snicker coming from the other side of the aisle.

Sammy got up, aggravated that someone laughed at the two of them. "YOU GOT A
PROBLEM OR SOMETHING? DO YOU WANNA GET POPPED?" Sammy blindly shouted, not
paying attention to the person he was shouting out or the people who turned their heads to examine the scene. "That's bullshit, Sammy, you wouldn't dare." The person tilted her head, prosthetic hands
behind her back, her eyes looking up at Sammy, despite her looking down on his entire existence.

"HOW DO YOU KNOW MY NAME- oh shit, it's you, Gabie." Sammy started to yell until he realized who it was; he was still incredibly irritated, yet he knew who he was dealing with, truly despising her. Sighing with his fists closed, Sammy turned around, grabbing Icy's hand and
began to walk off, thinking that was the end of their interaction, until-
"I see you're always the same, eh?" Gabie snarkily blurted out, a smirk on her face, those mechanical arms of her's were now crossed.

"What did you say to me." Gabie cleared her throat, unfazed. "You're so irresponsible, ever since I met you," a grin was now apparent on her face, while Sammy looked furious, his little sister watching nervously behind him. Gabie carried on, "And how long was that? A decade? You never will change, will you, Sammy? How dumb can someone get? Geez, I know your brain is small, but really? Not noticing when your own sister ran off in a crowded store? You really are too deep in your own head."

Sammy saw red. He was visibly blinded in anger, yet Gabie saw and didn't care. She just let her mouth go on. "To think that you trashing the cafe the other day was idiototic! I see that I was wrong. You are completely careless! A lost cause, really!" Gabie, containing her laughter, took a couple of steps closer. "And you have always been this way. There is a 0.000 repeated percent chance of you ever changing. No matter how hard you try, you will always be chronically
idiototic."

A final smirk from Gabie, "You will never change-" POW.
Gabie lost her balance and stumbled back, leaning herself on a shelf in the aisle. Her eyes glared at Sammy. He was holding his fist, looking down on her. Icy was completely stunned, and she took a few steps away from her older brother. "You bitch." Sammy growled. "This is what I mean! You never think before you act." Gabie hissed, her hands on the cheek that Sammy punched. Sammy clenched his fist again and made an attempt to swing at her again, however Gabie ducked down causing Sammy to crash his fist into the wall. Gabie

stood up behind him, making a quick glance at Icy before she kicked Sammy to the ground. Grabbing her pepper spray out of her bag, aiming it at Sammy. "Watch it." She uttered bluntly. She was about to press the trigger until-

"HANDS UP THIS INSTANT."
Gabie's head jolted to where that voice came from. She noticed the security guard as well as
the crowd that formed around her and Sammy. Gabie turned her face away from the crowd,
embarrassed and flushed. She dropped the pepper spray to the ground, muffling something on
how it wasn't that big of a deal.
"Get up little boy" The security guard motioned to Sammy. Sammy groaned and got up, following the security guard and Gabie outside of the store, Icy following right behind them,
scared.

"You two do know that fighting in the store and punching a hole into the wall is not only not allowed in the store, but also against the law?" The security guard stated bluntly while Gabie and Sammy stayed silent. "Regarding that the two of you are both underage, we'll have to
inform the police and both of your parents about this, as well as information about the juvenile
detention." "My parents aren't in town..." Sammy grumbled, crossing his arms."

"That's what they all say, I've dealt with kids like you thinking you're coooooll and touuuugh
for getting into fights, listen-"
"I'll give you 4,000 dollars, right now. If we all just forget this never happened." Gabie blurted out, interrupting the security guard.
"Are you trying to bribe me?" The security guard questioned. "And you're obviously bluffing." "8,000." Gabie, again blurred out, with completely no expression, however instead of waiting for a response, she hastily grabbed a check from her bag, quickly writing everything she needed too. She basically threw it to the security guard, before tugging on both Sammy and Icy signaling them that she was planning to dart away, in which they both immediately caught onto, and hastily ran away from the security guard.

"Huff...Hufff.. I think we lost him." Sammy said while panting and looking from side to side, trying to spot the security guard. Thankfully, he was nowhere to be seen. "Did you just throw away 8,000 dollars like that?" Sammy turned to Gabie.
"Huh? Oh yeah, It was actually 7,000 dollars though, it was faster to write." Gabie explained , not turning an eye to Sammy. "Where's Icy..." Gabie grumbled. Icy enthusiastically yelled out, "Right here!!!" The three of them all looked at each other in silence for a couple of seconds, still trying to process everything that happened.
"I'm gonna get going now. I have to make sure my parents don't get a message from that
security guard, they'll kill me." Gabie interrupted the silence.

"No apology?" Sammy inquired irritatingly. Gabie just looked back at him, then looked away
and left. "That bastard- I HATE HER!" Sammy kicked one of the pebbles from the cement. He
sighed, "I doubt we can go back to the outlets, there's another store around here, how about we go there? There's an ice cream place near there too!" Trying to make a grin appear on his face. "Ice cream! Ice cream!" Icy shouted out joyously, jumping up and down. The visit to the other
mall went smoothly, as he didn't bump into Gabie, or lost his sister this time.

Sammy found what
he needed, and even bought an extra pack of yoyleberry candy for Icy.
"Are you ready for ice cream?" Sammy asked Icy, to which she nodded up and down with haste, extremely excited. They entered the shop, where a cashier greeted them warmly. Icy was filled with excitement, she immediately went to look at the flavors, unable to contain her excitement. Icy got a strawberry and banana ice cream cone with caramel cheesecake bites that was dripping down her hand, Sammy got a regular chocolate cone with peanuts on top of it.

Once Sammy paid and the two of them left the ice cream shop, Icy couldn't help but enthusiastically hug her brother and joyfully giggled, "You're the best big brother ever!!!" Sammy couldn't help but genuinely smile at that.

"Let's go home, Icy.

// Thanks to my friend, Calculationrecords, for writing this during my writer's block!