Giggling as she ran through the aisles at Target, Esfir found herself utterly delighted by all of the back to school supplies. So many pretty folders and notebooks and backpacks and things! And since she was starting first grade in a few days, her momma had said she was allowed to get some new supplies. So far, she had a pretty turquoise pencil box and a pack of tiny stickers to decorate it with and some new, glittery pencils. Esfir had wanted pens with multicolor ink, but Momma had told her that those were for older kids.

Still, her feelings had been assuaged with a cute notebook covered in colorful cartoon-y owls. She’d been disappointed in the lack of any Steven Universe branded supplies, but maybe that was just as well. She wouldn’t have wanted to ruin anything like that by taking it to school! Pausing in her mad dash, Esfir hurried back to the cart her mother was pushing and climbed onto the front, balancing on the bottom bar. Her eyes feasted on all the supplies, though she wrinkled her nose in distaste for the plain, boring socks and shirts for her school uniform. She saw so many neat outfits, why couldn’t she wear those instead of a boring old uniform? It really wasn’t fair. Though… maybe she could talk her mother into letting her get cute hair clips or earrings? IT couldn’t hurt to ask, right? Of course not! Besides, she was going to be a First Grader. Surely that deserved some sort of special something?

“Momma, momma, momma,” she chanted breathlessly, still clinging to the cart. “We can still look at the cute clothes, can’t we? I don’t haveta wear a uniform alla time!”

Smiling winningly, she gave a tiny wiggle of delight when her mother laughed and agreed with her. Mother and daughter made their way to the girl’s clothing and Esfir leapt from the cart to root through some of the shirts, pausing to stare longingly at one with a smiling corgi puppy on it. It was so cute. It was also a lot more money than Esfir liked. How sad. A moment later, though, the shirt was plucked from her hands as her mother eyed it carefully.

“You have plenty of pants and skirts that this would go with, little one. I think we can get it for you. Tell you what, let’s try to find some matching earrings. Maybe one of these packs with multiple pairs in them. Go look, sweetie.”

Throwing her arms about her mother’s legs, Esfir hugged as hard as she could before running to where the earrings for little girls were kept and going carefully through them. The shirt had little flowers on it along with the puppy. So she would look for flower earrings! After several minutes of meticulous searching, Esfir found a 10-pack that not only was on sale, but was made up of tiny, brightly colored, glittery balls and flowers. It was perfect! Holding it up for her momma’s inspection, Esfor grinned happily as the earrings were approved and placed in the cart.

“All right, Esfir, I think we have enough now. Let’s go get checked out and go home.”