Page 64 of Should the Sky Fall

“So we can go sometime?” Cal asks hopefully.

Dawson grins. “Sure, we can go. But don’t tell Gabe and Zeke we cheated on them.”

“I thought it would be further,” Cal comments when they park in front of Woolworths less than ten minutes later.

“On foot, yeah. We’d need to go around. This is the highway.”

Inside the store is too cool for Cal’s tastes. He shivers, and Dawson must notice.

“Yeah, I know. They blast the aircon all year long like crazy. But you’ll appreciate it in the midst of summer with the temps flying up to forty.” He pulls out the list he’d made, and, after a short consideration, tears it in half. “Here.” He hands Cal one of the halves. “You can get stuff from the shelves, and I’ll go produce. If you can’t find something, just look up at the signs for each aisle.”

“Okay,” Cal says, scanning his half with apprehension. It’ll be fine. Dawson said there are signs for everything. How hard can it be?

Taking two trolleys, Dawson hands one to Cal and takes the other. “Meet you at the registers.” He waves as he strolls away, presumably to the produce section.

Cal scans the list again. Flour, sugar, bread, pasta, rice… That should be easy enough. No need to panic.

A little more confident, he pushes his trolley in the direction Dawson showed him. Keeping his gaze up, he passes three aisles before coming across the sign that mentions both flour and sugar. Great. At least he doesn’t have to look for each single item scattered all over the supermarket. Better even, flour is right at the beginning of the aisle. Happy with his discovery, he reaches for a bag with blue packaging—and panics again.

Oh no.

His eyes jump erratically between countless types of packaging, with different colors and different names.Plain flour, self-raising flour, spelt flour, gluten free self-raising flour—

He reads the list again, which is absolutely unhelpful. Dawson didn’t specify which one. Maybe it doesn’t matter?

If it didn’t matter, there wouldn’t be so many options.

Oh God. How is he supposed to do this? If he grabs the wrong one, Dawson will be disappointed with him, but if he doesn’t take any, Dawson will have to do it himself. Again. And Cal will look like a useless idiot.

“Are you okay, dear? You seem to be having a crisis,” someone speaks next to him. He turns towards the voice, finding an elderly woman watching him with a combination of concern and amusement.

“I…I’m supposed to get flour, but there are so many choices.” He looks at the list again, part of him hoping it has changed since he last looked.

The woman hums thoughtfully. “Are you making anything specific?”

“No, we’re just restocking.”

She taps a finger on the bag in blue packaging Cal was looking at earlier. “Can’t go wrong with plain, as the name suggests.”

He nods, grabbing the bag and putting it in the trolley. “Alright. Thank you. I was worried I’d mess up.”

She chuckles knowingly. “Let me guess. Missus would rip you a new one?”

Cal blinks at her. He didn’t understand a word she just said. “Missus?”

“Your wife?”

“I have a husband.”

Before he can ask why Dawson should be ‘ripping him a new one’, she says,“Oh.” Her surprise is quickly replaced by a smile. “A man who knows his way around the kitchen. I like that.” She nods at Cal’s hand still gripping the list. “Anything else on the list you need help with?”

Does he? What are the chances that there is more than one type of sugar? Or bread?

“Everything,” he says, just to be safe.

“Oh, boy,” she murmurs, her eyes sparkling as she runs them over Cal. “You’re like Bambi. Come on, love.” She wraps her slim fingers around his wrist. “Let’s get this done so your husband doesn’t lose his mind. I’m Margaret, by the way. You can call me Maggie.”

Ten minutes later, it’s clear Cal made the right call asking Maggie for help with the rest of the list. Turns out that there are more types of bread than there are flour. He’s not going to comment on sugar. Also, why is it so important what shape the pasta comes in? Doesn’t it all taste the same?