Page 43 of Aru Shah and the End of Time

She walked into a telephone pole.

“You are theDaughter of Death,” hissed Aru. “You don’t walk into a telephone pole because of a boy.”

“I didn’t! I tripped. It wasn’t because…you know. It’s not because he did the thing with his mouth where it went up and his teeth showed.”

“You mean when he smiled?”

“Yeah,” said Mini, rubbing furiously at her bright red cheeks. “That.”

Boo glared at them from the top of a grocery cart. “What took you so long? I almost started aging.”

“You don’t age?” asked Aru.

“If you do, you can use the sprig of youth,” offered Mini. “Not sure how it works, though. Do we just hit you with it?”

Boo flew to Aru’s shoulder and then poked his head out from underneath her hair. “You shall donosuch thing, fiendish girl!”

“I was only offering to help,” said Mini, crossing her arms.

“Well, stop offering before you get one of us killed,” said Boo. “Now, before you go into the Costco, remember that it won’t become the Night Bazaar until you stop looking so hard.”

Aru blinked. “What does that mean?”

“It means go to the frozen food aisle, and start counting all the breakfast items. That should be enough to make your mind detach itself from reality and drift off. Or you could do algebra. Or read James Joyce’sFinnegans Wake. That’s my go-to.”

“That sounds dangerous…” started Mini, but with one glare from Aru, she took a deep breath. “But I am the Daughter of Death, and so that sounds…like something I should like?”

Aru grinned.

The moment they walked inside, Aru was hit with that musty, industrial smell of supermarket. Why was everything made of concrete here? And it was so cold….

Even if it was the middle of summer and so blazing hot outside that the road was melting, supermarkets were always freezing. Aru wished she’d brought a sweatshirt with her.

On her shoulder, Boo had made a strange nest for himself out of her hair and was now peering out of the hair-turned-shawl like an angry grandmother. “Not that way! That leads to the electronics. Too many bright, shiny things.”

There were tons of people walking around them. Moms and dads and kids with those weird sneakers that had wheels on the bottom. There were allkindsof people, too—white, black, Hispanic, Asian, tall, short, fat, skinny. Not all appeared human, either. Some of them were feathered or furred, fanged or feline.

Aru’s eyes widened. “Are they all…likeus?”

“Dense as bricks?” offered Boo.

“No, like—”

“Scrawny heroes?” Boo guessed again.

“Ugh!”

“I don’t know what anughis, but probably not,” said Boo smugly. “But if you are asking whether they all have a connection to an Otherworld…Yes.”

“Like ours?”

“Liketheirs,” said Boo. “Whatevertheirversion of the Otherworld happens to be. But let’s not get into the question of metaphysics. Many things can coexist. Several gods can live in one universe. It’s like fingers on a hand. They’re all different, but still part of a hand.”

They passed a display of potted trees. Apple trees with glistening fruit the color of pearls. Pear trees with fruit that looked like hammered gold. There was even a giant Christmas tree, sparkling with the flames of a hundred candles nestled on its branches.

Aru watched as a redheaded girl reached for the Christmas tree. The girl giggled and, right in front of Aru, steppedintothe tree. The tree gave a contented little shake. But no sooner had she settled into the tree than a tall woman with long strawberry blond hair started knocking on the trunk.

“Come out of there, now!” she said. She had an accent. Irish? “I swear on the Dagda, I’ll—”