“Big day,” Alec said, studying her face for a reaction.
He’d expected excitement, or smugness, maybe even a twinge of guilt at all the torture they’d put their parents through, a sort of practice she wasn’t accustomed to, no matter how much she had decided she wanted to be a little less Golden.
He didn’t see any of that in her face, though. He saw the usual evenly spaced freckles, the wide, light-green eyes, the perfect blonde ringlets that haloed her head. But there was something else. It was impossible to believe it was anything other than abject sadness.
“You’re about to get everything you want,” he said, scrutinizing her, but she gave nothing away.
“Yup,” she said, though it was clear she didn’t agree.
“You know, after this, you can probably go back to being nice, and they’ll totally forgive you,” he said.
He, on the other hand, could go back to being his usual rotten self after this, and he’d receive zero credit for having been decent to his family for the last week.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” she said, taking a seat on the carpet beside his bed.
As she started to pick at the lint in the rug, Alec started to wonder if that’s what she wanted, to go back to being the good one.
And he was surprised to find that regardless of what she wanted, that was what he wanted. All this plotting and counterplotting was getting exhausting. He thought he could outplay his sister and protect his status as the bad egg, and maybe he still could. But what was it all for anyway? So he could keep himself exiled to his own little island in the house?
Had it really been that bad hanging out with her for the last week?
She started to stand up and walk toward the door, avoiding eye contact with Alec, and he found himself saying what he said next without even thinking.
“Happy birthday,” he said, and this time, she did turn to look at him.
And she smiled. He thought it was real. He didn’t want to think it was anything other than that. This morning had been very confusing.
The party was all the barely controlled chaos it had been in previous years. Kids standing on chairs rubbing balloons on one another’s heads to create static. Parents calling out “Where’s Jimmy? Has anyone seen Jimmy?” Freddy Fazbear staff expertly sidestepping spilled orange drink and fielding requests for more ranch dressing.
Amid the chaos, Alec could see one or two kids from the party walking around the restaurant with a two-foot Lonely Freddy in tow. It might have been cute if it hadn’t been so creepy, watching this not-quite-tall but not-quite-short bear follow its “friend” around, listening and waiting for cues before acting autonomously. And Aunt Gigi’s comment may have rung a little too true for Alec’s comfort, but that day, he saw that truth in all its baldness—the kids who played too rough, whose noses crusted around the nostrils, whose faces twisted into sour frowns, were the ones followed by the bears and no one else.
Hazel wasn’t quite the Golden Hazel she’d been in previous years, but she was more or less back to her old self. She politely thanked her friends for buying her the gifts she acted like she wasn’t expecting. She helped her mom pass cake around to all the guests and her parents before taking a bite herself. She spent equal time with each kid who attended, making sure not to let anyone feel left out as they breezed from game to game in the arcade.
Alec sat in the corner and played his role of the sulking, teenaged older brother. By all rights, if he’d wanted one, he easily could have earned his own Lonely Freddy.
In a strange turn of events, his parents seemed relieved to see everything return to its normal, inadequate existence. Whereas in previous years, they would have been urging him to go play with his sister, nudging him to smile, prodding him to help them drag the presents to the car, this year they seemed just fine with allowing him to slouch in a chair and scowl at the partygoers.
“I think it’s all going pretty well, don’t you?” his dad asked his mom and Aunt Gigi.
“Did anyone remind the staff that Charlotte can’t have chocolate? I should probably go remind them,” his mom said.
“It’s going great,” Aunt Gigi said, casting a sideways look at Alec, who simply shrugged.
Actually, it was going great. His sister was once again recognizable to their parents, the party only had an hour left until things were to wind down, and no one had gotten injured or poisoned. All in all, a notable success.
Except it wasn’t a success. Alec hadn’t been able to play his trump card yet. And he hadn’t been able to play it because Hazel wasn’t playing her part anymore.
She’d done everything: played Skee-Ball, fought zombies in the virtual reality battleground, shot about a million baskets, watched two full performances of the Freddy Fazbear band … Yet every time the Party Prepper had come into the room trying to convince her to head over to the Wind Tunnel to snag the coupon for her prize, she found a reason not to go in. Instead, she’d look toward Alec, as though in some sort of silent standoff, and say to the Party Prepper, “I don’t know if I want to do that anymore.”
“But honey, that’s all you’ve been talking about for weeks is trying to win the Yarg Foxy,” their mom would say, but every time, she would blow the Party Prepper off and run away to play some other game with her friends.
Aunt Gigi shrugged. “Maybe she doesn’t want it anymore. Kids are fickle.”
Alec had been so prepared. He’d snuck away when nobody was looking. He’d sifted through three full buckets of coupons, tickets, and confetti that clung to him like spiderwebs, until at last he’d found the single Yarg Foxy ticket in the materials meant for the Wind Tunnel. He’d pocketed the coupon and gone about his sulking way, and no one was the wiser.
But if Hazel wasn’t going to take her turn in the Wind Tunnel, it was all for nothing.
Alec realized if he was going to expose her for the brat she was, he was going to have to take a more active role than he had been taking.
“Maybe she’s afraid of being disappointed,” he said to his mom, and his mom seemed to think that was a pretty reasonable idea.
“Alec, you two have been getting along so famously lately. Maybe you should try to convince her. I’m just afraid she’s going to leave today and regret not even trying.”
“Sure thing, Mom,” Alec said, laying it on a little thick, but it fooled his mom, and she nodded approvingly as he headed to the arcade to fetch his sister.
He found her by the Whack-a-Mole tables.
“Oh, Hazel, a word?” he said, pulling her by the elbow with a sappy smile while her friends distracted themselves. He found himself standing once again in the aisle between the Fazbear stage and the arcade. Only this time, there was no creepy bear to stare blankly off in the distance. The platform and bear had been removed, leaving only an impression on the carpet in front of the pillar.
“What gives?” Alec said once they were out of earshot.
“What do you mean?” she actually had the nerve to say, squirming out of his grip while she looked back to wave to her friends.
“I mean you’re back to being perfect little Hazel, and Mom and Dad are catching on,” he said, hoping she’d take the bait.
“What’re you talking about? Mom and Dad are thrilled. Everything is back to normal.”
She seemed mad at him for some reason, and he wondered for a second if she’d figured his plan out to expose her as a phony.
Which is maybe why he played his hand a little too aggressively.
“You know, the party’s almost over. You’re going to go home without your stupid toy if you don’t get in that Wind Tunnel.”
She shrugged, looking down. Her freckles practically disappeared under her flushed cheeks.
“Maybe I don’t need the toy anymore,” she said.
“Of course you do!” he said, unleashing the full magnitude of his anger. She was clearly doing everything she could to push him to his limit. “You’re not gonna get everything you want forever. Soon, you’re goin
g to get older, and you won’t be so precious, and then who’s going to like you?”
In all of her ten years, outside of the infant months, Alec had never seen his sister cry. Maybe she had thrown a fit or two when she was a toddler, but he’d always found better places to be when that sort of drama went down.
But in that moment, for reasons he couldn’t begin to understand, he watched as her light-green eyes rippled with tears. And though she wouldn’t let them spill to her cheeks, he could tell it was a monumental effort on her part to keep them in.
“Fine,” she said, and not a word more. She shoved past him and walked straight through her crowd of friends in the arcade toward the party room, greeting her mom and dad and aunt with nary a smile before demanding to be let into the Wind Tunnel.
“Oh … oh, yes! Okay!” their mom said, not the enthusiasm she’d been counting on, but she was quick to take action. “She’s ready for the Wind Tunnel!” she called out to the Freddy’s staff like they were her ladies-in-waiting.
Two employees prepped the chamber by emptying the buckets of game tickets and coupons and sticky cellophane confetti into the top of the tube before flipping a switch to activate a strobe light that couldn’t be looked at for too long without causing a touch of nausea.
Another flip of a switch, and the wind in the tunnel was activated, sending the assortment of paper and mylar whirling through the tube, mixing up the prize coupons in a dizzying frenzy.
They switched the machine off again, then rather unceremoniously grabbed Hazel by the wrists and pulled her through the little entrance door to the tube. The strobe lights reactivated, and as moths to a flickering flame, her friends migrated from the arcade back into the party room to witness the birthday girl’s tornado of potential prizes.
“Are. You. Ready??” asked an employee.
Hazel simply nodded, and Alec watched with measured awe as the storm kicked up around her, whipping her golden curls in front of her face and momentarily obscuring her behind the chaos.
“Grab the tickets!” her friends screamed from behind Alec.
“Oh! Oh, the Yarg Foxy coupon! It’s right there, baby, it’s right there!” his mom hollered, jumping up and down as though that could help. But Alec knew better. He touched the side of his jeans pocket where the single crinkled Yarg Foxy coupon resided.
Hazel barely reacted to the screams, though. She held her hands out haphazardly, making minimal attempts to grasp at any of the frenzied papers that flitted in and out of her fingers.
“Is she okay?” their dad asked, squinting into the chaos of the tube. “You don’t think she’s gonna puke, do you?”
“Oh boy, that would be a mess,” Aunt Gigi said, and Alec had to stifle a snort.
“Come on, Hazel!” he shouted above the crowd, pretending to cheer along with them. “Get that certificate! Get that fox!”
But it was no use. Either she couldn’t hear, or she simply didn’t care.
When the Wind Tunnel timer buzzed, Freddy Fazbear associates dutifully pulled the plug, and the storm inside the enclosure came to an abrupt end.
“Okay, boys and girls!” the employee shouted into a microphone. “Let’s see what the birthday girl has won!”
Kids from the party pushed and shoved toward the cylinder with Hazel inside it, and she sidestepped their greedy hands as they snatched at the free tickets like they were actual dollar bills.
“Well, Hannah, what’ve we got?” said the employee.
“It’s Hazel,” Aunt Gigi corrected.
“Okay!” said the employee, ignoring Aunt Gigi and stepping dramatically over to Hazel as she cast him a wary look. “Let’s see here!”
She handed him all the papers she had reluctantly grasped against her body, allowing him to sift through the various coupons and announce each one like she’d won the lottery.
“One free fountain drink! A bonus round at the Sky Dunk! One … no, make that two promotional Freddy Fazbear character cups!”
As the employee came to the end of the stack Hazel had captured, their mother started to shift nervously.
“She didn’t get the fox,” Alec heard her fret to their dad.
“Meg, relax. She doesn’t even want it anymore.”
“Yes, she does, Ian. She’s just trying to be a big girl.”
“Well, Hannah, that’s quite a haul!” the employee said once he’d read off all the prizes.
“Hazel!” Aunt Gigi yelled, and this time the announcer looked over his shoulder long enough to cast her a sidelong glance.
“Hazel,” he corrected, grimacing at Aunt Gigi, who smiled her fakest smile back.
“Wait!” screamed the girl named Charlotte who couldn’t eat chocolate. “Look in her hair!”
Sure enough, as her friends spun her to the side, Hazel’s curls cradled a small glittery ticket that looked different than any of the others she’d managed to capture in the tunnel.
But Alec recognized it immediately.
“It’s the Yarg Foxy! It’s the Yarg Foxy!” screamed Charlotte.
It’s not possible, Alec thought. Anger burbled in the pit of his stomach and began to churn, ready to erupt at any second.
He remembered the tube before the Wind Tunnel had turned on. There’d been little scraps in there from the last round. And in that small pile of glittery confetti and tickets, a single Yarg Foxy coupon must have been hiding, waiting to be kicked up again by a renewed wind.
Alec was certain she hadn’t meant for it to, but Hazel’s face completely transformed. It was only for a fraction of a second, but he was looking at her at just the right time. And in that split second, he saw her utter relief at having won the prize she was determined not to want when the day came to get it.
And no one would get to see the epic tantrum of Golden Hazel, the girl who had everything but didn’t get the fox.
“That’s right, boys and girls! Hazel has won her very own Yarg Foxy!” the announcer cried, and the kids from the party practically went into convulsions.
They followed the employee all the way to the prize counter and swarmed him as he lifted the boxed Yarg Foxy from the highest shelf, bestowing it upon Hazel like she’d just been crowned the queen.
“What a relief!” Their mom sighed, falling back into a chair.
Alec looked at her like she’d just grown a second head. A relief?
“It’s a joke!” he said, and she scowled at Alec.
“How can you say that? You know how much she wanted that toy.”
“Does she look like she wants the stupid toy?” he groused, still furious that Hazel was doing all she could to hide the fact that she was the spoiled one.
Alec watched as she unboxed the fox and held it in her hands, smiling at it like it was some sort of long forgotten treasure.
“Let me see, let me see!” her friends begged, but Hazel smiled shyly and shook her head.
“Honey, why don’t you want to play with it?” their dad asked, and Hazel simply demurred. It wasn’t until her friends had lost interest and migrated back toward the arcade that their mom finally pulled Hazel aside.
“Sweetie, what is it? Don’t you want the fox anymore?” she asked, and Alec had just about had all he could take.
“Of course not! She gets everything she wants, and she’s still not satisfied! But aw, isn’t it sad that Hazel doesn’t want the fox anymore?” Alec bellowed. He mocked. He sneered. But no one was listening.
That’s when Hazel excused herself for a good long while. It had to have been at least ten minutes.
“I told you she was going to throw up,” their dad said. “I’ll go check on her.”
But just as he was headed to the back room where Hazel had disappeared, she reappeared with the fox, still clutching it in her hands like it was suddenly very important to her after all.
“Hazel, sweetie, are you feeling okay?” their mom asked, stroking Hazel’s curls, and suddenly, Hazel didn’t look so glum or distracted (or nauseous, to hear their dad tell it). Instead,
she leaned into her mom and whispered something that made their mom practically melt into a little puddle, right there on the Freddy Fazbear’s floor.
Then their mom did something unexpected.
“Alec, come here, hon,” she said, and Alec eyed them both suspiciously. To be fair, so did their dad and Aunt Gigi.
“Just come here,” their mom said, rolling her eyes, but she was still smiling.
Alec approached his mom and sister with caution. He had the distinct impression he was walking into a trap.
“Go on, Hazel. Tell him what you told me,” their mom said.
Hazel looked mortified. Her face was practically buried in the plush fox.
“Look at you. Shy as ever. Okay, I’ll just be right over here,” their mom cooed, and Alec was about to climb out of his skin.
“What the heck are you doing?” he whispered through gritted teeth. He was so close—so close—to beating his sister at her own game.
No, his own game. This was his to win.
“Nothing,” she said. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“Do what?” Alec said, growing nervous. He looked up at his parents, but it didn’t appear they’d heard anything.
“I don’t want to pretend to be bad anymore. It was just to get you to like me.”
Alec was speechless.
“Huh?”
“Here,” she said, and shoved the Yarg Foxy into his chest. “It’s for you.”
“Aw, sweetie, look!” their mom said, and their dad shushed her, but their parents and Aunt Gigi continued to stare.
“You can’t be serious,” Alec said.
“I only wanted it so I could give it to you,” she said.
“What the heck am I gonna do with a stupid fox?” he asked. No, he demanded. This was all just too much. How had she so expertly bested him?
“I wanted you to stop hating me so much. Just take it, okay?” she said, and shoved it into his chest.
None of this was working out the way it was supposed to. She was supposed to miss out on the fox, throw the epic fit he just knew she’d been storing up inside all week, and when his parents and all her friends saw her for the spoiled brat she really was, life should have gone back to the way Alec had enjoyed it before: with him to act in relative obscurity, without the burden of Golden Hazel’s constant goodness.
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