Backing her car slowly down the driveway, she thought for a moment that she had heard something crack and pop underneath one of the tyres, but figuring it was just gravel probably caught within the tread, she ignored it as she plotted the automobile out into the street and then along the curb in front of her home. Smiling at the little girl, her niece Mandy, sitting in the backseat, she peered out through the windscreen as her fifteen year old son came walking down the driveway.
As she pushed the button to roll down the passenger side window, she called out to Justin, "Hurry up, slowpoke," and reengaging the mechanism, she rolled the window back up.
Listening to his mother, disliking it when she called him a slowpoke, Justin merely looked down, disliking it just as much when his mom insisted on taking him clothes shopping, especially with his bratty, six year old cousin Mandy. Seeing something lying in the driveway, figuring it was one of Mandy's toys, Justin reached down and picked it up, noting that it was clearly broken and that his mother must have run it over with the auto.
"Well," he thought. "That will teach her for leaving her toys lay about," and turning about, just as his mother honked, he held up a hand with his pointer-finger extended and called out, "One minute," and heading for the trash bins in between the two garage doors, he threw the trinket inside, watching as broke into multiple fragments as struck the side of the trash bin and several bogs. From behind him, his mom honked again, and sighing, he let the lid drop down and began walking down the driveway towards the car.
As he climbed in the passenger side, his mother shifted the car into first, telling him, "You could stand to learn a lesson in picking up the pace," as she did so.
Instead of answering her, Justin glanced back at Mandy, who was playing with some doll as she sat in her booster seat, and commented, "Yeah. Well some us could stand to learn a lesson about picking up there toys instead of leaving them lying about where they can get stepped on, run over and generally broken," and facing forward, he barely heard his mother when she told him to leave his cousin alone and that she was only six.
Looking out the passenger side window, knowing that his mother would take Mandy's side, Justin tuned her out as he watched the passing houses and scenery. When they got to the department store, his mother told him to help her with Mandy and muttering, "I'll get us a cart," he exited the car and headed for the nearest cart-corral, he wondered how he could duck out and simply not do any form of clothes shopping with his mother, least of his cousin, who he wished that his aunt and uncle hadn't dumped on them because they suddenly decided that they need to "get away from it all".
"Don't be so moody," his mother told him as he returned with the cart and placing Mandy in it, she commented, "I've seen the state much of your clothes are in, including your underwear and socks, so you'll just have to put up with doing something I can clearly see you don't want to do."
Muttering, "Mom," Justin idly scratched at the palm of his hand, wondering if maybe a sliver of whatever that toy was had gotten lodged under his skin.
"Come along," she replied as she started to push the cart and seeing no way out, Justin followed.
Inside, his mother immediately made a bee-line for the little girl's section, unfolding a list and commenting, "I told your aunt Patty and Uncle George I would pick something things up for Mandy," as she did so, to which Justin just shrugged and after he was sure she was done speaking, asked, "Can I go back to electronics until you need me?"
"No," she told him firmly. "If you go back there, I shant be able to unglue from one of those silly video games they have running back there and I'll have to choose your clothes for you and you'll just be miserable and take it out on me and..."
Holding up a hand to get her to stop, Justin told her, "All right. All right. I'll stick around why you take an hour or more in the sissy section of the store."
As he his glared at him, Justin merely shrugged and turned away as she told him, "Don't be cheeky."
Following behind his mother, watching as she picked up one ridiculously bright and cheerful outfit after another, commenting, "This is cute," or "You'd look adorable in this," or "Isn't this pretty," to a child who was clearly more interested in her doll than clothes, Justin idly scratched at his palm, sure that he must have a sliver underneath his skin.
When his mother paused before a rack of pyjamas, Justin looked down at his hand and peering at his palm, noting that it was a slightly redder shade then it normally was, figuring it was because he had been rubbing it, he squinted and attempted to see if something was lodged under his skin. His mother started walking again and as they passed a shelf of clearance items, she knocked something that Justin thought looked a little like the one-piece underwear Mandy had worn when she was younger only with a black tail with a white tip sewn to the backside of it.
Picking it up, he nearly yelped in surprise when he got a static electric jolt off of the garment. Gazing down at it, noting that it was something left over from last year hallowe'en and that there were a pair of ears that matched the tail attached via a thin plastic strip to the onesie, he tossed it back onto the shelf, but stopped when it felt like it had become hooked on something and glancing down at his hand, Justin saw that there was a thin sliver of what appeared to be metal poking out of his palm. Looking over at his mother, who was now going through a pile of cute skirts, Justin turned away in frustration at being dragged along into a section of the store he clearly did not want to be in and started to work at the sliver.
As he pulled it slowly out, he gazed around the girl's section of the store, thinking that, in a way, some of the things being offered where actually kind of cute. Heading back to the pyjamas, he picked a pair of footed ones up, liking how they were all white except for the foot and cuff part, which looked like somebody had splashed light purple paint on them.
"Put them in the cart if you want them," his mother told him as she passed, not really paying attention.
Suddenly realising what he was doing and thinking, Justin glanced about in a guilty manner, put the pyjamas back, blinked and thought it was odd that it even came to mind that such a thing, clearly meant for a girl no older then Mandy, would even look cute, let along even fit. Idly scratching his palm, he glanced over at his mother, who was slowly moving out of the girl's section, Justin blinked a couple more times, grabbed the pyjamas, two different pairs of footed ones with Hello Kitty print on them and hastily followed after his mother, where he dumped the three articles of clothes into the cart and promptly forgot about them as his mother made her way toward the section of the store for teenage boys.
As he followed her, Justin glanced one more time back at the girl's section in a longing manner, blinked and shaking his head, turned away as he thought, "What is the matter with me?" and he looked at Mandy's doll out of the corner of his eye, suddenly wanting one just like it so that he and Mandy could play dress-up or pretend together.
“Perhaps a plush Hello Kitty,” he thought and the mentally groaned as he realised what it was he just thought about, unable to understand what was wrong with him, but sure it meant he was a pervert of some kind.