AN: For Gumball2.

Secondhand Souls

Leni Loud was of the firm belief that nearly everything had a soul.

Not just people, but animals and even some inanimate objects as well, though of course she did not suffer under any delusion that their spirits were in any way as sophisticated as those of human beings.

Whenever she, for example, dressed the mannequins for display at the department store at which she worked, she liked to imagine a certain warm presence emanating from within their hollow chests, as faint as the pale glow of fireflies trapped within paper lanterns. Perhaps it was merely because their human shapes made them easy to anthropomorphize, but she always took extra care to treat them delicately and with dignity whenever she draped them in the latest fashions. Sometimes, she would even go so far as to compliment them on how cute they looked in their outfits, though mostly as a way to amuse herself during particularly slow shifts. Logically, of course, she knew that the mannequins could neither hear her nor talk back, but that did not mean she could not at least pretend they were thankful for her small gestures of kindness in their own silent way.

Truly, if there was one thing that Leni had in abundance, it was an excess of empathy, even for those that were viewed by many as little more than pretty yet empty shells.

Walking into thrift stores always filled Leni with a certain inexplicable heartache.

All of the cast-aside clothes hung carelessly on wire-hangers along cold metal racks, the open storage bins of toys that were either broken or missing key accessories, the sterile hospital-waiting-room-esque lighting, the walls lined with bric-a-brac and kitschy porcelain figures the likes of which only seemed to exist in secondhand shops…

Not to mention the lingering and slightly mildewy scent of decay, akin to the smell of an old attic during a rainstorm.

Whenever Leni entered the Royal Woods Goodwill, she had the feeling that the building shared a similar sort of energy to that of an animal shelter full of kenneled pets waiting to be adopted.

Lori held a far less sentimental view. "This place is literally so grody," she mused to herself as she stepped out of the warmth of Spring and into the air-conditioned building with Leni at her side. "Let's not stay here too long."

Leni hummed and nodded absently in acknowledgment, if not agreement, as she surveyed the landscape and plotted her next course of action. Navigating the Goodwill and its many ramshackle and loosely organized offerings was always a tricky endeavor, and for a girl as prone to distraction as she was, it was easy to become lost in its labyrinthian aisles. Still, she had a plan, and was determined to see it through.

She grabbed a shopping cart, one that had a tall metal spire attached to the side and jutting straight up to prevent people from taking it out of the store, and began to weave her way through the shop, dodging an elderly couple with their arms loaded with tchotchkes and a pack of college students no doubt looking to buy inexpensive furniture for their dorms.

Someday fairly soon, Lori would be just like them; scouring thrift shops in search of a used microwave and a barely-functioning toaster and a battered brown sofa to take with her once she left for college.

For an instant, Leni saw suddenly a clear mental picture of her sister standing over such a couch in a Salvation Army, rubbing her hand against her chin in a pantomime motion of deep thought as she considered whether or not she could hide whatever food stains there were that marked the pillows by flipping the cushions over…

For now though, they were together, and Leni intended to enjoy her day with Lori to the fullest and savor her time with the girl who occupied so many roles in her life; that of a big sister, roommate, and best friend all wrapped up into one.

Given enough time, Leni could become lost for hours in feeling different materials between her fingers.

Unfortunately for her, she did not have hours to spare. Lori had already made that perfectly clear; their visit was to be merely a short stop before carrying on with the rest of their day, and nothing more. That did not mean, however, that Leni could not still brush her hand down the line of clothes that were hung on the rack in front of her, reveling in the sensations of those many materials against her skin. The soft cotton of a tattery dress all patterned with sunflowers, the smooth silk of a white blouse stained with grape juice all over the front, the warm and hearty flannel of a red and black button-down shirt, the-

Ah, that was what she had come to the women's clothes section in search for! In the bliss of feeling fabrics on her fingertips, she had nearly forgotten. With an excited gasp and a flourish, she pulled the shirt from off the rack and held it before her eyes, examining it closely for defects.

Thankfully, there were quite a few.

The collar was wrinkled, the sleeves were frayed around the elbows, and a few of the buttons were missing completely. Unlike the flannel shirts that were for sale at Reininger's, which were factory produced to appear elegantly disheveled even when brand new, this particular garment bore tears and rips that could only have come from being worn day-in and day-out by someone who once loved the way in which the fabric shielded their body from the cold.

Truly, there was history woven into its fibers; a soul.

"Luna is so going to love this!" Leni practically squealed to herself as she placed the shirt into her cart, unable to contain her giddiness. Though she did not quite understand the appeal of grunge-fashion herself, Luna had quite an affinity for such a style, and that was all that mattered. Being the most fashionable member of her family carried with it a certain set of responsibilities, and none were more important to Leni than making sure her sisters and brother were all totally comfortable with expressing themselves through their clothes. Now, if only she could find a pair of blue jeans with the knees torn to shreds, then the outfit would be complete.

Luna was going to look so beautiful in her own special way while dressed in the clothes that her big sister had picked out for her, and Leni could not wait to see it for herself.

"Hey, this is actually a pretty great find!"

Smiling, Leni turned to her left and saw Lori standing a few feet down the rack, holding a black pea-coat out in front of her and admiring its craftsmanship. Unlike the button-down, the wool garment appeared to be in excellent condition, aside from a few white strands of cat hair stuck to the lapel.

It did Leni's heart good to see Lori take such a shine to the coat. As far as she was concerned, there were few better feelings on earth than walking into a thrift store without much hope and stumbling by chance upon a hidden treasure. If anybody deserved to experience such a wonderful sensation, then it was her beloved big sister.

"I've seen coats like that on sale at the Gap for a hundred-thirty dollars," Leni said, impressed. "Here, you could have it for five. You're, like, so lucky!"

"I'll say! 'Looks to be in pretty good shape, too. I wonder why it was donated…" Threading her arms through the sleeves, Lori put the garment on, finding it to be a perfect fit. "What do you think?" she asked, twirling around once on the spot to show the outfit off before striking a pose and looking so much like one of the models in the catalogues that Leni loved to browse through while laying on her bed.

Words at first failed the younger girl, as they so often did, while she searched for the best way to describe how she was struck by Lori's effortless grace. Even in an action as simple as showing off a secondhand coat, her older sister carried herself with such an air of elegant maturity; so natural, so unrehearsed…

"That looks totes cute on you!" Leni said in a chipper tone. "Once winter rolls around, you're gonna be so stylish."

Such a simple statement did not quite capture the full breadth of her opinion, but Lori seemed pleased enough with the compliment. She smiled as she removed the coat from off her back and placed it into the cart, where it could not have contrasted more vividly with the run-down flannel shirt.

Leni knew, however, that both articles of clothing were each in their own way perfect.

After sifting through the clothes section and finding a few more worthwhile additions to Luna's wardrobe, including a black muscle-shirt emblazoned with Led Zeppelin's Icarus logo, Leni's next stop was the store's back corner, where used appliances sat on shelves and old cookware lay in plastic tubs on the floor. Lori, meanwhile went off to explore a little on her own.

Though she did not quite appreciate the feel of wood as much as fabric, and could never have told oak from pine as well as she could polyester from nylon, for example, Leni still took great joy in reaching into one of those bins and pulling out a mixing spoon made from dark-brown teak.

Her thumbnail went lightly scratching at the grain in the wood, leaving behind a faint mark in the varnish alongside those which were already scarred onto the handle from however many years of use. Rustic and quaint, it was the sort of utensil that might once have belonged to a doting mother who surely used it to stir cookie-batter or serve homemade stew for her family on cold Winter nights.

Now it would belong to Luan.

There were many who believed the fourth youngest of the Loud children to have no passions outside of telling jokes and pulling pranks, but Leni knew better. There were many nights when, lured out of her bedroom by the sound of cheerful whistling coming from downstairs, Leni would make her way to the kitchen and silently watch Luan happily knead her hands into a mass of dough as she went to work making pies, looking so at-peace and content. Even if those pies usually ended up being thrown into her brother or sisters' faces sooner or later, Leni, as a seamstress and fashion designer, could definitely understand the appeals of the baking process, like the feeling of zen that came from carrying on with a repetitive task and the sense of accomplishment gained from creating something beautiful out of raw materials.

Leni could picture it clearly; the two sisters standing side-by-side at the kitchen counter, pink aprons lined with lace covering their fronts and white chef hats crowning their heads (such cute outfits!) as Luan taught Leni the fine art of braising and saucing, meringue and sift, mead, flute, and flour.

All while using the baking utensils that Leni had picked up at the Goodwill. Whether the resulting pies came out burnt or undercooked, as long as she could share the experience with her little sister, she knew that they would taste just as scrumptious either way. Admittedly, her father was a better baker, but Luan and she did not spend nearly as much quality time together as she would have liked.

Into the cart went the spoon, along with a few whisks and dented pie tins and a rolling pin, etc…

A cracked DVD case, as well, was dropped in from seemingly out of nowhere.

"Check out what I found over in the used movies," Lori said excitedly as she sidled next to her sister, drawing Leni's attention to the fingerprint-smudged cover, which depicted five cute cartoon dinosaurs walking across a felled tree while a tyrannosaurus rex (Leni could vaguely recall that it was referred to as a Sharptooth in the film) loomed menacingly in the background. The Land Before Time, it read in great big letters. "Remember watching this when we were little?"

Leni's response was instinctual. She bent her elbows and brought her arms close to her chest with the hands hanging limply at the wrists. "Yup yup yup!" she said in a high pitched giggling voice in imitation of Ducky, the saurolophus who had been her favorite character as a child.

Lori smiled and chuckled warmly at the adorable impression. "God, it's been ages since I last saw it. I wonder if it still holds up…"

"We should have a movie night with the little kids and find out. It'll be, like, so much fun!" Already Leni was looking forward to the screening, which came to vivid life within her imagination. There they would all sit on the living room couch, cuddling together in their pajamas while the film played on the television, Lucy smiling her shy little smile at being included in the fun (Vampires of Melancholia would no longer be the only thing she would share with her sisters), Lana and Lola munching away at a bowl of potato chips sitting between them, Lisa pointing out all of the scientific inaccuracies in the movie's depiction of dinosaurs, everybody laughing and smiling and having such a wonderful time…

Of course, it would not only be all smiles and laughter throughout the film. Like all of the best children's movies, there was darkness to clash against the light in The Land Before Time. There were moments of heartrending sorrow like the death of Littlefoot's mother and sequences of terror such as those that featured the Sharptooth. Luckily for the little ones, they would have two big sisters there to wipe away their tears and embrace them in loving hugs if they became saddened or scared.

"That's a great idea!" Lori agreed. "You know, I think I might have been wrong about this place. There's some pretty great stuff here if you do a little digging." One further glance into the cart, however, seemed to change her mind yet again. "On the other hand, there's an awful lot of junk, too." For illustrative sake, she plucked a lightly rusted eggbeater from out of the buggy, holding it up before her eyes and turning the handcrank on the side, looking so very unimpressed by the slow and twitching way in which those beaters spun. "What're you doing buying all this old cooking stuff?"

Leni was not sure why she should feel so embarrassed by her sister's question, but still she felt a light blush come to her cheeks. "I was, like, hoping me and Luan could bake some pies together…"

"Right, I get that, but what I'm saying is why go through the trouble of buying all this junk when you could just use what Dad's already got in the kitchen?" A small laugh danced behind her voice, as if she were struck by a certain absurdity in her sister's actions.

Typical Lori; always so sensible and practical…

Of course, Leni realized that she had a point. Their family kitchen was already fully stocked with quality cookery within its cupboards, most of it in far better condition than what she had found in the thrift store. Still, Leni felt some inexplicable drawing towards the pots and pans in her cart. She only hoped that she could place that pull into words that Lori could understand. A tall order for a girl without much faith in her ability to verbalize her feelings. It was often so difficult for her to draw water from that deep well of emotion that ran within her. "I dunno…" Not exactly a great start. "I guess part of it is that I think there's something special in owning things for yourself. Besides, I kinda feel sorry for all this stuff, you know?" It was the best that she could come up with on the spot. At least until Lori grew bored with playing with the eggbeater, rolling her eyes and dropping it back into the cart, where it landed with an anticlimactic thud onto the soft wool of the pea-coat. "It's like…take that old eggbeater, for example," Leni continued. "Think about all the birthday cakes its helped make over the years, all the people its made happy, only for it to wind up here; abandoned, just because it's a little old and wonky. But I bet it's still got a few cakes left in it still." She paused, thought of what she had said, and seemed to slightly reconsider her words. "Or pies; whichever. All it needs is for somebody to give it a loving home, and ours is the most loving home I can think of. Does that make sense?" Somehow, she doubted it.

Lori at first seemed taken aback by her sister's philosophy. "…You talk about these things like they have feelings," she observed. There was no sarcasm in her voice; no mockery or cynicism or any disrespect whatsoever. If anything, there was admiration in her tone.

Such subtleties of speech were lost on Leni at first. "I know," she muttered, casting her head downward. "Does that make me weird?"

"Actually, I think that's one of the most amazing things about you," Lori said kindly. "You are such an empathetic person, Leni…" Smiling faintly, she looked once more to all of the items in the cart, seeing them with new eyes. "You know, you're probably right; all of this stuff has probably made a lot of people happy over the years. Maybe that's why people donate things to the thrift store in the first place; so that they can find their way into the hands of others who need them more. These things haven't been abandoned, Leni. They've just been given another chance."

Leni had to admit that the idea was a nice one, and a smile came to her lips almost in spite of herself as she considered her sister's words. Even that faded, however, once she saw Lori turn her attention towards browsing a nearby shelf of appliances, where her gaze seemed to linger upon a green slow-cooker that looked to have been from the 1970s. It would have been a perfect amenity for Lori's dorm once she left for college; she could simply throw in a bunch of ingredients in the morning, set it on low, and have a meal ready once she was done with classes. However, the older girl ultimately passed it by in favor of a popcorn maker, which she took into her arms and placed into the cart.

"Let's give this a nice home too," Lori said with a light giggle. "It'll be perfect for our movie night!"

Leni could not help but feel slightly relieved. "Totes!" she beamed. "I bet it makes way yummier popcorn than the microwave."

Lori nodded in agreement, and together they began to walk away from the used appliances. Just as they were about to turn a corner and disappear into an aisle of bedsheets and comforters, Leni felt the same calling that had attracted her to the flannel shirt and the used cookware, and spared a small glance back over her shoulder to the crock-pot.

It looked so forlorn there on its shelf…

A twinge of guilt sparked in Leni's subconscious. Did that old slow-cooker not deserve, just as the flannel shirt and pea-coat and faulty eggbeater, an opportunity to once again live out its purpose? To cook warm food to fill Lori's tummy after a long day of studying and make her dorm a comfy place to live?

Perhaps it did, but before Leni could turn around and snatch it up for her sister, a young man came by and took it into his arms and carried it away, and just like that it was gone from her life forever. That was the thing about thrift stores; donations were always coming and going at a rapid rate, there and gone like plumes of smoke. Leni reckoned that within the course of a mere few weeks, the shop's entire inventory would be switched out for new (new being a relative term) items.

It reminded her of a scene in The Land Before Time in which the ground shook beneath the characters' feet, the earth splitting apart and reforming into an entirely new landscape within a scant few moments.

There would come a day within the next few months when Leni and Lori would walk into that same building and find an entirely unfamiliar Goodwill laid out before them, one with its shelves stocked with other slow-cookers, along with coffee-makers and blenders and countless other amenities. On that fateful day, Leni would gladly (gladly was also a relative term) help her sister pick out amenities for her future dorm.

Till then, she had more pressing things to buy.

Within the half-hour, Lori and Leni stood in the long check-out line at the front of the shop, their cart practically overflowing.

So many treasures lay within their mesh steel buggy, all for less than fifty dollars in total cost. In addition to the cookware and clothes and The Land Before Time, Leni had picked out a few gifts for the rest of her siblings as well. A whole stack of DVDs now sat in the small seat in the cart intended for small children to sit, an appropriate spot considering the other films that she had picked out; favorites from her childhood including The Brave Little Toaster and Muppets from Space and The Prince of Egypt. Her movie night with her youngest sisters was shaping up to be a true marathon, and Leni could not have been more excited.

For Lily, who was too young perhaps to appreciate the full depths of such movies, she had found a few plush animals. They were all in desperate need of a trip to the family washing machine, and a few of them had lost most of their stuffing over the years, but nothing was beyond repair for a girl as skilled with a needle and thread as Leni was. As Lori and she stepped forward to the second spot in the line, she spared a smiling glance down to the brown Beanie-Baby dragon in her cart. According to the tag attached to its ear, its name was Scorch, though it had lost so many of its beads through a hole in its belly that it now more closely resembled a felt sock than a fierce dragon. It had to have been waiting countless months for a girl like Leni to arrive and take it home to fix it up and return it to the loving arms of a giggling child.

For Lynn, she had found a few grass-stained baseballs with autographs from Minor League players faded along the red stitching, as well as an aluminum bat that had been laying in wait alongside a few used hockey sticks and tennis rackets in an umbrella stand near the entrance. Though she was not much of an athlete herself, she could still easily tell that the bat had a few more homeruns left in it. If nothing else, Lynn could wield it during trips to the park with her big sister, who would throw those old baseballs for the younger girl to swing at and send flying into the sky.

For her parents, she had found a vintage VHS camcorder, perfect for taking home-movies of their children and crystalizing precious memories in videotape like butterflies in amber.

Lastly, for Lincoln, she had found an old book; The Complete Drawing Course. While her brother was already a talented artist (she had never felt so honored in her entire life than when she saw herself drawn as a superhero within the panels of a comic-book that he had made), that did not mean that he could not still improve in his craft. She was certain that her gift would help him along on his path towards becoming a professional graphic-novelist.

Best of all, when she flipped through the pages, she had found simple sketches scrawled in the margins and on the inner cover, mostly anatomy exercises featuring faceless figures that resembled shopping-mall mannequins. If ever there was evidence that the items within her cart each contained something resembling a soul, then it could be found in those crude drawings.

As the two sisters cashed out and left the shop, Leni imagined the book's previous owner, who by now was surely an accomplished painter with his hands perpetually stained with a rainbow's assortment of colorful inks and the smell of acrylics clinging to his clothes, rooting around in his attic and stumbling upon the old book to which he owed so much to. Smiling gently, he would drive it down to the Goodwill, where it could find its way into the hands of a budding artist and help them achieve their dream, just as it did for him.

With the sun at her back and a soft Spring breeze on her face, Leni walked with her sister through the store's parking lot, their arms weighed down with their purchases. It was as if she were an angel carrying the items from out of limbo and into a brighter and more beautiful afterlife. Originally, their plan had been to go to the mall following their visit to Goodwill, but now Leni simply wanted to return home and shower her family with their gifts, eagerly anticipating their happy faces.

Besides, as much a fan of the mall as she undoubtedly was, Leni doubted that anything she could find there could be better than what she had found amongst those tattered clothes, dented pie-tins, children's movies, and old books.