Chapter Three

Aimes and Pawson pushed through the door to The Back. The warm inviting lights of the department store gave way to cooler clinical colors. The room was impossibly tall and expansive, lined with racks that went up further than the eye could see. The middle of the room was organized into aisles, with tall shelves - taller than both of them, even on the second floor - dividing the space. In front of the two adventurers was a railing and a set of stairs leading down into the room proper.

"The building didn't look this tall from outside..." Pawson said quietly to himself, but Aimes was already heading down the stairs. She held the rail for balance and Pawson toddled along after her.

"It looks like the shelves are labeled," Aimes said, reading each sign taped to the sides of the shelves. Housewares. Bedding. Clothing. The two of them hadn't seen a single label that said Toys before Aimes was distracted by a different one.

"Diapers! Oh, do you think they have something festive? Like a Christmas one, or Las Posadas?"

"You don't even like printed diapers," Pawson argued, following his friend off course.

"No, but there are exceptions. Special occasions, holidays. And you know, if the fancy ones were anywhere near the quality and capacity as my white ones, I'd be more open-minded! The last thing I wanna worry about when being chased by pixies is if my diaper is going to leak."

"We're supposed to be looking for the toys," Pawson reminded her.

"But they're right here!" Aimes argued. "Let me just check them out."

The rack for diapers was a tall one, and Pawson's stuffy little mind's eye was filled to the brim with visions of Aimes climbing the edges of the racking like a monkey climbing a tree, or a baby climbing a jungle gym, and the thought made his stomach ache with worry.

"Only if we can find a ladder first…"

It was a concession that Aimes didn't want to make, but she had to pick her battles too. There was a ladder just one aisle over, and it took both of them working together to lug it all the way to the shelves of diapers. Pawson held the bottom, which was good ladder safety, and Aimes went halfway up to pick a pack of diapers off the shelf.

"A lot of these are too small," Aimes lamented, which was the same lament she would often have any time she was shopping for diapers. But then she found a box on the third shelf that was her size. She pulled it forward and rummaged around inside until she picked up a plastic pack.

"Look, Pawson! These ones have string lights on them! And the color in the lights goes away when they get wet."

"That would be convenient," Pawson said aloud. Her usual diapers didn't have wetness indicators, and Pawson had to constantly remind her to change if she needed to.

"I bet they didn't even have these on the shelf in the store," Aimes said more to herself than to her companion. "That's why we had to come to The Back. I don't know why they don't just make The Back a part of The Front."

Just then, the loud bang of a door closing echoed through the impossibly large room. Aimes caught sight of someone coming down the stairs, but it wasn't the woman who had offered to help. She quickly put the diapers back on the shelf and slid down the ladder. Her and Pawson ducked behind a large box of packing peanuts. Both of them were quiet for a while, until Aimes peeked her head above the box and saw the person heading deeper into The Back. When they were finally out of earshot, Aimes let out a sigh of relief.

"Wait," Pawson said after a moment of realization. "Why didn't we just ask them to help us find the thing you're looking for?" It's not like they would really get in much trouble for walking into the back of a department store.

"Well, this seemed like more fun," Aimes said happily. "It's a stealth mission!"

"You turn everything into a game, don't you?" Pawson asked rhetorically, but he got an answer anyway.

"Anything I can, sure."

Aimes checked a few of the signs nearby and found one that said Toys. It had an arrow pointing pointing to the right, where the mysterious worker had gone.

"Maybe they are trying to get the toy I want, and it's the last one," Aimes said, talking about the worker they were following.

"Or maybe they are looking for something totally unrelated," Pawson offered.

"Nuhuh Pawson, it's like what that Clocko guy says: the simplest answer is always the best one!"

"...are you talking about Occam's razor?" Pawson asked uncertainly. There were so many flaws with what Aimes had said that he didn't know where to start. But before he could try, Aimes shushed him for being too loud.

Aimes and Pawson hurried down the aisle toward the back of The Back. Or rather, Aimes hurried, ducking behind one box after another as the floor worker came into view. Pawson followed at a brisk pace for a teddy bear and hid behind nothing.

Eventually the aisle ended. In front of Aimes and Pawson was an archway, lit up with string lights. Written in colorful cursive lights, along the top of the arch, said "Toys". On the other side was a massive room, just like the entryway, but this one was filled to the top with colorful boxes and packages. There were no overhead lights, but instead warm bulbs on strings draped over the racks, filling the space with bright yellow light. Racks were stacked haphazardly, diagonally, and seemingly randomly, and in one of the corners was a mountain of toys. They were not in boxes or packages: just loose toys stacked on top of one another twenty feet high. For someone who liked toys - like Aimes - it was a paradise.

"Woah..." Aimes and Pawson both said at the same time.

"This doesn't make a lick of sense," Pawson said skeptically. "Everything else was racked and palletized and ordered and this is... this is..."

"Amazing!" Aimes finished.

"...chaos." Pawson corrected. "Let's just find what you're looking for and get out of here before we get in trouble."

So that was what they did. Aimes & Pawson made it past three rows of shelves - which were very distracting for Aimes - before Aimes took a half step backward and put her arm out to keep Pawson from walking forward any further. Just as Pawson was about to ask what was going on, Aimes turned toward him and put her finger to her lips: the universal sign to be quiet.

Aimes slowly peered around the edge of the shelf and Pawson did the same, albeit a few feet lower. And what they both saw was that worker from before, dressed in black pressed clothes that seemed a little too big for them. The cuffs at the bottom were brushing the floor and they had to keep pushing up the sleeves of their jacket. The worker was picking up one toy after another, muttering to themself, and then choosing a new one.

"No, it's supposed to be a pink and blue, not pink and yellow... oh, and look at this one? A knick on the side! We have to do better than this..."

Pawson looked up at Aimes with confusion, and Aimes looked back down at him with wide eyes. She reached up to her own face and tapped her ear.

She couldn't hear what the worker was saying, perhaps? That was Pawson's first thought. Then Aimes pointed at the person and tapped her ear again. Pawson looked at the worker, then at their ear. It was pointy? Like...

Aimes made the mistake of taking a step forward just as the worker paused for breath. The slight rustling of her diaper echoed awkwardly in the room, bouncing off the walls and bending over shelves. The worker with their unusual ears turned to face Aimes and Pawson, who quickly ducked behind the shelf.

"Is someone there?" the worker called. They were quiet as they listened for an answer. Then Aimes and Pawson heard footsteps. Aimes looked around in a panic. On the shelf beside her, she found a bag of individually wrapped hard candies, which weren't toys, but Aimes didn't have time to wonder about that. She silently motioned Pawson away and then tore the bag. A cascade of crinkling candies tumbled onto the hard concrete and Aimes dashed after Pawson and hid behind the corner.

A few more footsteps.

"Oh, I guess some of these fell out... shoddy packaging job, Merry. I'll get Noel to fix it up."

For a good few minutes, even as footsteps paced around the room, Aimes was too nervous to move again. Usually her diaper didn't crinkle all that loudly, but there was something about the acoustics of the room. She exchanged glances with Pawson every so often, who was halfway between bewildered and anxious. And then finally, after what felt like an eternity, the echoing of the footsteps faded deeper and deeper into nothing.

"That was close," Aimes mumbled, letting out a huge sigh of relief.

"You acted like it was a life or death situation," Pawson said, hiding his own relief. "We would probably have just been kicked out."

"Kicked out and put on the naughty list," Aimes said, shivering. "You saw those ears, right?"

"There's no way it's one of Santa's elves," Pawson said skeptically, preempting his best friend's theory. But after a moment of looking around the massive toy room, he added: "Probably."

"It's the simplest solution," Aimes argued.

"That is not true in the slightest," Pawson said. "Either way, we should get out of here before someone comes to clean up the mess you made. Good thinking though."

"Thank you," Aimes said cheerfully. "Of course, I have to find that toy first."

Pawson was afraid of that.