Day 1074

Annie

It had taken a week or so, but Annie had made a friend that wasn't an adult.

She had mostly kept to herself after Vince's mishap with Donald, only really speaking to the former when they were both in their room. She did not really have time to see him at any other point as he was usually with Lucia. Bonnie was often hunting or checking the perimeter with Anders, which left Annie with only Maya, and occassionally Gary, for company.

After the first few days of Maya picking her up, the adult instead organised for Annie to meet her at the stockroom, trusting the eight-year-old to make the short walk down to the ground floor on her own. A couple of days into the new routine Annie had not been looking where she was running and accidentally bumped into a boy a year or two older than she was. The conversation following the confusion was suitably childish:

"Sorry," the boy said.

"That was my fault." Annie replied.

"I haven't seen you before." The boy admitted, scratching his cheek with a dark-skinned hand. "There aren't many kids here. Do you like to play?"

"Play what?"

The boy shrugged. "Anything. Action figures... sports... stuff like that. There's a cool toy store in the mall that no one really goes in so we can play there if you want?"

Annie shrugged. "Okay. I'm working with Maya at the moment but when I'm done I can meet you there."

"Cool," the boy smiled, then held out his hand. "I'm Cole."

"Annie." The girl shook his hand, then turned to run to the stockroom.

They met up later that day and enjoyed an hour or so of pretending they were elsewhere with toys and games and things until Cole said he had to leave or his mother would wonder where he was. Annie agreed and assumed the same of Vince, but asked if they could come back tomorrow. Cole told her it would be fine, and each day after that the two friends met up at the toy store to play together. Three weeks after arriving at the mall, Maya caught on to Annie's routine of meeting Cole after she finished work and started allowing the child to leave her side earlier and earlier so she could play with her friend for longer.

As Annie made her way to the toy store to find Cole, she found herself wondering how long it had been since she had made a friend her age. Becca had been double her age and Wyatt had probably been four times her age so she had to cast her mind back even further.

The neighbour kids; that was it. Before the walkers showed up she had dinner at their house every night. Mostly to avoid her father but also because she was friends with the kids there. She couldn't seem to remember their names any more. They were long dead, anyway.

To her surprise, Cole was already playing alone in the toy store. When he saw her approaching the place his eyes lit up as he'd been unexpecting her to arrive so early.

"Cool!" he exclaimed.

"I didn't know you played on your own until I got here." Annie admitted. "I feel bad now, because you're on your own for so long."

"Yeah," Cole said, "It's cool on my own, but with more than one person it's way cooler." He held up a dinosaur. "I'm gonna be the stegosaurus."

Most of the toys still had tags on them, so Annie picked up a random dinosaur toy and examined it. "Okay," she announced, "I'm gonna be..."

She paused as she looked at the tag. What had Vince said when they were looking at the map all those weeks ago? 'Sound it out' or something. Say each letter.

"...The Veel-oh-see-array-paytor." she mumbled.

"The what?" Cole asked, furrowing his brow.

"The Vel-oh-see-ray-patorr." Annie repeated, studying the dinosaur's tag angrily. Why didn't the letters make sense when they were together?! She could pick letters apart and study them individually, but why couldn't she read words?

Cole snickered. "That's a velociraptor, you dweeb."

Annie felt a pit form in her stomach as her face heated up. She had embarrassed herself and she was no longer in the mood to play with Cole. Instead she dropped the toy dinosaur and buried her face in her hands.

"Annie?" Cole asked, trying to avoid eye contact as his arms dropped to his sides. "What is it? Did I say something mean? I'm sorry!"

"Why am I so dumb?!" Annie moaned, balling her hands into fists and slamming them on the floor. "I can't read right and I just get people into trouble all the time! I'm a stupid idiot!"

"Annie!" Cole muttered. "You're not stupid!"

"Oh yeah?" Annie mumbled, wiping her nose on her sleeve, "How?"

"I didn't know you couldn't read properly, Annie," Cole said, looking guilty. "I never would've teased if you'd said. You're not stupid, you're way better with the toys than I am, I just break them all the time but you know how they work, you can make the ones that you have to put together and stuff/ And you're really nice and you always let me choose which toys to play with first."

Annie looked up and brushed her hair out of her face. Cole was still avoiding eye contact but she caught him glancing at her out of the corners of his eyes every few seconds.

"The other kids here are all jerks to me." Cole mumbled, sniffing. "They were mean to me when we first came here, but you were nice to me and you didn't hate me right away. Just because you can't read too good doesn't mean you're dumb, you're really smart in other ways. You're a really good friend."

Annie smiled. "Thanks. You're a better friend because you can say that to me."

"Do you... um... wanna hug?" Cole asked nervously. "To cheer up?"

Annie nodded and the two of them embraced. She liked Cole as a friend and got the sense that people who were more than friends hugged often, but she wasn't too phased as she knew she didn't like him in the grown-up way.

"Cole!" Someone called. "Get out here!"

Cole broke away from Annie, eyes wide. "Oh! Oh, no!"

The door to the toy store opened and a woman stepped inside. Annie's eyes narrowed as she recognised the woman to be the one who had suggested kicking her, Vince and Bonnie out when they first found out that Vince had attacked Donald. The adult returned the glare.

"Cole," the woman demanded. Cole didn't need any more instructions. He stood up and walked over to the woman who scowled and scolded him in a hushed tone, accompanied with a lot of pointing and threat-making. After a minute or so she was done and told Cole to go and pick up his things.

"What's going on?" Annie asked. Cole avoided her gaze as he picked up his backpack and collected a few toys to take with him.

"Sorry," he muttered, "My mom says I can't play with you any more."

Annie's eyes widened and she looked at Cole's mother. She glared at the eight year old and said, "You stay away from my son. You and your friends are evil."

"What?" Annie asked. "I was just playing with him..."

"I don't want him to be tainted like you." Cole's mother snarled, pointing at her. "You're trouble and you tried to attack Donald. Now get out and run back to your 'friends'. Stay away from my boy."

The woman walked out and Cole followed her. Just before he left the store and shrugged, muttering sadly. "Sorry, Annie, but what my mom says goes."

Annie waited for her friend to leave and then scowled, throwing the toy raptor across the room.

"You're mom's..." she began angrily, "Your mom's a... a shit."