Finding a suitable bag proved to be a lot less hassle than Adi might have expected. If she'd been shopping on her own, she would have visited a few shops in town, or maybe gone to one of the big arcades in Schwingford. She would have looked at a dozen bags, unsure which would be considered smart or casual by the average observer. Then she would have tried to measure them up, and found that she didn't know how to convert the size of a pack of diapers into the size that a bag would have to be in order to contain them. And if she could work out which ones were actually large enough, then she would have been lost in indecision, wondering which styles she could carry without arousing suspicion.
It was so much better to ask for an expert opinion. And Toni was an expert in shopping, even if she studied the mainstream like a scientist peering at bacteria under a microscope, and was equally careful not to get too close to it. Within twenty minutes, she'd led Adi to the three best shops in the centre for this kind of thing, and quickly sized up bags by eye before presenting Adi with two options which would both – she said – be perfectly adequate for both capacity and social acceptability. It didn't take much longer to discuss which would be suitable for the open day, where she hoped to impress potential suitors and their administrative masters, and which ones she could take out of the house without Mom thinking she was packing for the weekend,
"There's a few more things we should look at," Toni declared, when she'd finally chosen some suitable bags for Adi.
"I don't need a makeover," Adi protested. "I just..."
Then she stopped, and thought about what she was saying. She was going to an open day on monday, to look around the college where she was going to be spending the next few years, but it was also something like an interview. She could put on her smartest suit, but there was a good chance she'd look like a nerd who'd got kicked out of some nineties sitcom. She didn't care what other people wore, but just like with the bag she knew her clothes would matter.
"Okay," she conceded, glad that Toni had given her space to think rather than interrupting. "Maybe I need to update my wardrobe a little, something smart for Monday. But not a whole makeover, right? I don't have that kind of money."
"That's not actually what I was thinking of," Toni shook her head, but the grin never left her face. "Come on, there's some stuff I don't think you've thought about properly."
Adi trailed after her friend, racking her brain to work out what she might have missed. Something Toni thought was a little funny, that was for sure. But what could she have thought of? Adi was supposed to be the smart one, she was the one who'd think of everything. So what had she missed?