Azalea descended into the ball pit, armed with spray sanitizer and minimum-wage determination as the fluorescent lights flickered on the empty plastic orbs. It was the third urine-cident she’d handled this week, but Azalea’s team spirit had earned her McDonald’s Employee of the Month three times. If she kept up with the trophies from her other job, she’d have a whole shelf full of framed awards certificates pretty soon.
Thinking about the Shelf of Honors helped during the smellier moments.
She was returning from the supply closet when the perfect child pushed through the doors.
His small sticky hands clung to his mother’s scrub pants, as she ushered him into line behind the third register, firing off a text on her flip phone. His whine had the edges of a hangry meltdown, and his sandy brown hair stuck out at odd angles from his bowl cut.
He was perfect.
Azalea raced for the counter, breathless. But shouldering through the after-school rush hour crowd was as maddening as coaxing McFlurries out of the broken machines. Azalea darted past distracted teens, juked around a man clearing his tray—until a stray hamburger wrapper on the floor sent her stumbling. She caught herself on a chair that hadn’t been pushed in, wincing at the cold steel that stung her fingers, but she didn’t have time—only one customer ahead of them now—
She slipped behind the counter just as the patron in front of them fumbled for exact change.
“It’s time for your break,” she told her coworker at the register. It wasn’t, but he didn’t argue. She straightened her uniform as the boy and his mother had reached the cashier.
“Benjamin, please stop kicking the counter,” sighed the mother. “One Happy Meal, plain hamburger…”
Azalea had prepared one earlier that day for just this occasion—but where was the bag? She searched the warming table for the inconspicuous dog-ear, chest pounding. Damn it—someone must have taken it while she’d been cleaning. She grimaced, tossed a Big Mac into the Happy Meal bag, then turned back to the mother and the boy with a bright smile.
“Here you go.” Azalea handed over the bag and one limp prepackaged salad with a friendly wave to the counter-high boy. He frowned, and hid behind his mother.
Heart pounding, she swiped the woman’s credit card—Allison Temple, it read—then waved them goodbye. She’d only bought herself a few minutes.
“I’ll be right there,” she told the next person in line, then slipped into the kitchen.
In the chaos of sizzling patties and beeping deep fryers, Azalea’s coworkers were too busy to pay much attention as she grabbed a plain burger off the line. She held it under the table, slipped an inconspicuous finger between the bun, digging in until she could feel the warm, greasy meat under her dirty fingernail, focusing, focusing…
And it was done.
She wrapped it just in time. The mother, Allison, was waving at Azalea from across the counter.
“Hi, sorry, I think we got the wrong order.” She handed Azalea the Big Mac. “He won’t eat onions,” she added apologetically.
“Of course.” Azalea beamed. “Well, good news, I’ve got one ready here.”
She set the hamburger on the counter.
Allison gave her a grateful smile, then disappeared back to the table with the squirming child.
Azalea punched in orders and swiped cards. Across the room, the boy dove face-first into the burger, emerging with crumbs clinging to his cheeks. A squirt of ketchup dribbled down his chin onto his Nickelodeon t-shirt. She smiled. It was nearly time for her break.
The legends always warned human children: never eat food from a fae. But they hadn’t really taught them what to look out for, had they? A child might be cautious of pale women flaunting Turkish Delight, dark bottles commanding their own consumption, pomegranates in exotic underworlds. But an ordinary hamburger that was extraordinarily delicious…
The boy swallowed the last of the burger and began picking at the vinyl seat cushion. He rocked and fidgeted in his chair, staring with longing at the PlayPlace, as if the plastic tubes sang a siren song. His mother licked a napkin and dabbed roughly at the crimson mess on his face.
“Twenty minutes,” she said, as if a four-year-old had a concept of time.
Allison cleared the table as her son sprinted to the PlayPlace, then located a nearby chair and produced a crumpled tabloid magazine from her purse.
A knocking drew her attention; when she looked up, Benjamin was in one of the bubbles that protruded from the tubes, waving in excitement and grinning. Shadows flitted behind him. She returned his wave with a tired smile. Twenty-five minutes passed without further interruption.
Allison checked her watch, and set the magazine down.
“Benjamin,” she called up the slides. No response.
Behind her, another mother cooed: no, sweetie, we can’t take it home, it would miss its friends in the ball pit, followed by a volcanic wail. An older child, maybe seven, sprinted across the rubber mats in pursuit of a sibling.
“Could you find my son in there?” she asked them. “He’s got a bright green t-shirt, his name’s Benjamin…tell him it’s time to come out.”
It was another ten minutes—calling, threatening, describing Benjamin to young scouts—before the other children retrieved a counter-high boy with sticky fingers and a sandy brown bowl cut, wiping sleep from his eyes. Allison scolded him as they pushed out of the glass play-place.
But the changeling was silent.
Behind the gate to the Fae realm—under the pit, through the winding plastic tubes only ever seen by children who’d tasted the doomed food—Azalea stroked the boy’s soft hair with satisfaction. Employee of the Month at McDonald’s meant nothing when compared to Employee of the Century at the Changeling X-change.
Benjamin’s eyes drooped as he nuzzled into her neck, and she carried him down, dreaming of the newest trophy on her shelf.
About the author:
Ray Chanteur is a professional teen whisperer and an alumnus of Mary Robinette Kowal’s Short Story Cohort, with work published or forthcoming in Mslexia Magazine, Cat Eye Press, and here at Flash Point Science Fiction. When she’s not working or writing, she knits socks, runs slowly, and cooks too much soup. You can find her on ray-is-writing.bsky.social.
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