Saving Rain

by Kelsey Kingsley

While I sat on a chair at the back of the store, eating my sandwich and trying to figure out how to send Harry a picture in a text message on that damn phone, I spotted movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see a boy of maybe ten or eleven watching me. I was sure he thought he was hiding effectively behind the rack of bananas, but the kid hid worse than I would behind a flagpole. But I pretended not to see him. I wondered where his mom or dad was. If they knew he was missing or if they knew their kid was doing a bang-up job of snooping on the new guy in town. And I bit back a laugh when he leaned too far to the left and tripped over his own feet. “Shit,” he muttered under his breath, realizing he had blown his cover, only to turn right into the banana rack and knock several bunches off their hooks. “Ah, man …” I stood up, dusting the sandwich crumbs off the bib of my apron. “Don’t worry about it. I got it.” “What? N-no, it’s—” He looked over his shoulder, and his eyes raked over my body before widening with awe. “Wow. You’re, like, really tall.” “Huh.” I made a show of pressing my hands to my head and looking down at the floor. “Look at that. I guess I am.” “How tall are you?” “Last time I checked”—I pointed to the glowing Produce sign I was regularly having to duck under in order to mop the floor between the apples and oranges—“as tall as it takes to smack my head on that.” The kid stared at the sign, his mouth open in shock. “Whoa.” “Yeah. I keep asking Howar...