"We have new neighbors," Maia says.
"I don't care," I respond, pouring milk into my bowl. I open the cabinet next to the fridge and reach into it, only for my hand to grasp empty space between the second and fourth canisters on the top shelf.
If breakfast is the most important meal of the day, then cereal is sacred; thus, the vandalism of another's designated cereal jar is a heinous act of domestic war.
I whip around, scanning the kitchen table for potential offenders. Dad's hunched so far over his laptop that only his messy brown hair is visible while his pancakes sit untouched; Riza's pouring a generous helping of maple syrup onto her own plate; and Maia's eating cereal from a cup like a heathen. A medium-sized cylindrical canister with a red plastic top sits empty on the table in front of her.
"Maia, what the hell?" I demand.
She has the audacity to gorge on another spoonful before snapping "What?" with her mouth full of cereal.
I accusingly point my own spoon at her. "That's my cereal."
Maia rolls her eyes and scoffs. "It was in the pantry. That doesn't make it yours."
I'm only vaguely aware of my voice mounting when I say, "Yes, it does, because I was the one who put it in the cart when we went to the grocery! And it's in my container!"
The kitchen door slams open, and we all jump at the sound. Balancing my bowl of milk precariously from the counter to the kitchen table, I scurry to my seat between Riza and the cereal thief.
Mom — our unofficial, uncontested, and outright unquestioned chief and executive commander — walks into the kitchen and glares at Maia, then at me. Her eyes stop on my bowl.
"Matthias," she says, pinching the bridge of her nose, "Why are you drinking milk from a bowl?"
"Maia ate all my Frosty Flakes!" I gesture at the empty canister.
"They're called Frosted Flakes, dumbass," she sneers.
"Stop," Mom says, her voice tightening. Maia and I visibly stiffen at the sound of it.
"If you want more cereal, go to the store. Both of you. We need groceries, anyway. I'll give you a list."
Maia opens her mouth to protest, but Mom is already stepping out of the kitchen, closing the door quietly behind her. It never ceases to amaze me, the amount of power my mother holds over us. Maia and I sit in silence, sulking, resigned to our fates.
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Mindlessly, I stare at the rows of packaged meat neatly lined at the bottom of the open fridge. I put myself in Nietszche's place and imagine them as the void. It doesn't take long for the lamb chops to stare back at me.
The clattering sound of Maia tossing one into our cart shakes me from my thoughts. I blink away the rows of lean-cut red squares, and turn to focus on the back of Maia's teal-dyed head as she walks further from me. I jog to catch up to her.
"So what's with the neighbor thing?" I ask.
"I thought you said you didn't care," she says, not looking back. She sounds like a petulant child. I resist the urge to mimic her and roll my eyes instead.
"Yeah, before I found out it had to do with Garrett. Punk owed me money."
She still doesn't say anything. I sigh dramatically, just to be a nuisance, and resort to staring down the produce once more. We're now in the dairy section. I decide that the gallon of soymilk Maia picks out deserves extra scrutiny.
I'm in the middle of debating whether to continue pestering her about the Thompsons' sudden disappearance when, from somewhere in our cart, a high-pitched beeping noise begins to keen.
Maia shoves me aside and scrambles at our pile of groceries, throwing various boxes and plastic-wrapped vegetables around until she digs up her purse. From its snakeskin depths, she pulls out an offensively orange contraption that looks like something between a price gun from the 80s and Han Solo's blaster pistol.
"Maia," I say slowly, "That better not be what I think—"
Her hand snaps up to silence me.
"Shut up, Matt. I'm getting a reading."
I look up at the ceiling and send out a silent prayer.
Dear Lord give me strength. Or a different sister. Or one less. The latter, preferably.
I don't know exactly when, or why it began, but sometime between Maia's high school graduation and today, three years later, she decided to dedicate the rest of her life to cryptid hunting. If she ever heard me use that exact terminology she'd skewer me on the spot; she doesn't like to think she hunts ghosts, or whatever supernatural creature she's looking for. Rather, she considers herself something more like their "buddy" — an ally in this cruel human-infested world. Even if it means being a pest to the horrible, nasty humans she has the misfortune of living with.
Hence, the ghost thermometer.
I push the cart to the side as she begins to walk away from it.
"We're in the frozen section, of course you're getting a reading," I hiss. "I don't know if you noticed, but it's really freaking cold here!"
Nervously, I look across both sides of the aisle to see if anyone's watching us. By some miracle, there's not a single person in sight. I guess Target isn't much of a Sunday destination.
Maia continues down the aisle, brandishing her thermo-gun.
"This isn't just a thermometer, Matt. It's a thermal scanner," she says with a matter-of-fact tone just barely short of obnoxious.
"That explains nothing," I reply.
She doesn't respond. I follow her, reaching for the orange monstrosity, but she lifts it high with one hand and grabs my face with the other, mushing my cheeks in a death grip.
Her eyes are dark, intense and focused. Almost like how Mom usually looks, but unlike Mom, concentration is foreign on Maia's face. It freaks me out a little, seeing it there.
Her voice is quiet when she says, "There's a dead zone."
She releases my face to hold the scanner with both hands. I crane my neck to look over her shoulder. The scanner's digital screen displays rows of alternating pale blue rectangles and yellow lines, indicating the refrigerators and the insulators running along their edges. On the top left corner is a small ink-like blob, a void of deep blue. I look up from the screen, aligning the thermal image with the real world; the dead zone is just around the corner.
Maia stalks to the source, crouched, her footfalls impressively silent. I barely notice myself shadowing her steps.
As we near the corner, she presses her back to the shelves. I follow suit. Slowly, she peers over the edge.
"Do you see anything?" I whisper.
Maia's lip quirks downward.
"No, not from this angle."
Maia's grip on the scanner tightens. Like in a cheesy Netflix teen movie when the protagonist is unable to stop himself from getting into an awkward situation, I feel the world slow down around me. I manage to grab onto her arm, but it's not enough to stop her from jumping to the center of the aisle with me in tow, scanner brandished at the source of the void.
Where the dead zone on the scanner lines up with the real world stands a tall teenager holding a quart of Ben & Jerry's in each hand. He turns around to look at us.
We stand there for a few moments, all three of us just blinking at each other. Ice cream guy is, as I mentioned, unfairly tall. Although he towers over Maia and I easily, he doesn't seem to be strongly-built, the puffiness of his military green bomber jacket exaggerating his thin frame. His long hair is tied in a bun, and he's dressed like he came out of the 90s grunge scene.
"Um," he starts, but never finishes the sentence.
"Hi," Maia blurts, her face morphing from tan to tomato in an instant.
"I can, uh, explain."
We stare at each other for a few more blinks, until Maia speaks up again.
"So, uh, you see, there's a— a dead zone. A drop in temperature. Right where you're standing."
She waves the thermal scanner. Like that explains everything.
"Well, yeah," he says, glancing at the open fridge. "It's cold."
Maia coughs, "Yep. Yeah. I see."
"We're gonna go now," I say quickly, dragging Maia back to the dairy aisle.
"Enjoy your ice cream!"
On our way back to the abandoned cart I snag a carton of coffee creamer, the last item on the list Mom gave us, and head for the checkout, pushing the cart with one hand and tugging along a stupefied Maia in the other.
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((A/N: Welcome to MNTV! If you've made it this far, thank you so much for giving my piece a read. If you really like what you've read, please leave a vote and comment — they're really encouraging and I would love to get reader feedback, it only makes the story better. Updates are every Saturday!))