Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Mr. Sinclair, Mrs. Sinclair, how are you today?”

“I was doing just fine before you dragged me dow-”

Smack.

“Ouch!”

“We’re well, thank you Principal Coleman. Please, call me Sue.”

“You can call me Russell, then. Sue, Charles-”

“I didn’t say you could call me Charles.”

“...Mr. Sinclair, Sue, I called you today to discuss Erica’s recent… exploits.”

“What do you mean? She hasn’t caused any trouble, has she?”

“Unfortunately, she has. Do you know the rainbow loom craft that’s become more popular lately?”

“Yes, we bought Erica a kit for Christmas and a lot of extra rubber bands. She loves it. She and her friends watch YouTube tutorials on them all the time to make more kinds of bracelets.”

“Well, Erica has taken to selling her bracelets in front of the school. Normally, this wouldn’t be all that much of an issue, but…”

“But what?”

“It seems that another student had taken to trying the same thing. Shortly after this new student set up their own stands and ‘businesses’, they were taken down. It has recently come to light that Erica had blackmailed and threatened this student into doing so to… eliminate her competition.”

“That’s my girl!”

“Charles!”

“What? It’s important for her to learn about-”

Smack.

“Ow, Sue!”

“I’m so sorry, Russell. We’ll talk to her, I promise.”

“Thank you, Sue. I’d like to reiterate that we have a strict no bullying policy, and blackmail is definitely under that umbrella. This is her first strike, so she’s only getting off with a warning.”

“Thank you, Russell.”

“I would also like to mention that in the future, any such businesses and markets will be prohibited on school grounds. This will be announced during school tomorrow, but I would appreciate it if you emphasized this to Erica.”

“Of course.”

“I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Sue, Ch- Mr. Sinclair. Have a good day.”

“You too, Russell.”

“Hmph.”

“...”

“...”

“But this is a good thing, Sue—”

"Charles!"

___________

It began a long, long time ago.

Well, the incident in question began only a few months ago, but the seeds in which the incident grew from were planted a long, long time ago.

When she was little, Erica would sit on her dad’s lap and watch TV with him in the evenings. Lucas and her mom would be reading some story together in Lucas’s room while the two of them cuddled on the comfortable couch in a dark room lit up only by the harsh light of the TV. More than anything else, they watched My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. They laughed at the funny scenarios, awed at the sweet life lessons and gasped at the more tense scenes (of which there were a surprising number). When the screen switched from talking, kaleidoscope ponies to commercials with real humans, her dad would lean down and quietly say, as they watched the colorful and loud ads for medication and Xboxes and toys and insurance, “You could do that, sweet pea. You can create anything you want in the world, do whatever you want in the world, and you’ll be successful. All you gotta do is learn how.”

“How?” Erica would ask him, wide and innocent eyes staring up at him.

“I’ll teach you when you’re older,” he’d tease, poking her on the nose and winking at her. She would whine for a few minutes before being distracted by Twilight Sparkle and her pony-friends, or by her mom calling them in for dinner.

But she never truly forgot.

Her dad’s words were internalized, and even when he forgot to teach her, she learned. In the fourth grade, Erica taught herself about supply and demand, about monopolies and corporations. She learned about capitalism and communism and everything in between. She doubled down on her math homework, and peeked over her dad’s shoulder as he sat, hunched over his laptop on the kitchen table, as he did the taxes and paid the bills. She learned and studied and excelled because she would be successful, just like her dad told her she would.

So, yes, it began a long time ago. But, what would later be ominously called the First Incident (because obviously there would be later incidents), had begun just a few months into her first year of middle school.

On a picture-perfect evening, with the vibrant colors of orange, yellow, and red of the sky hiding futilely behind the silhouettes of the towering Hawkins trees, she had been sitting, cross-legged on the floor of their dark living room, watching My Little Pony (it’s a good show and anyone who says otherwise, or worse, makes fun of it, will be summarily annihilated before day’s end) on cable, for once, instead of Netflix. She ignored Lucas’s grumbling about wanting to watch his own, “better” shows as he sat on the couch behind her, pretending he wasn’t enjoying it either. If he actually hated it, they both knew he could leave.

At the climax of the episode, when Applejack and Rainbow Dash finally had the confrontation the entire episode had been building to, their mom had called, “Erica! Set the table please!” from the kitchen.

“One more minute!” Erica responded irritably.

“Now, Erica!”

Erica heaved an annoyed sigh before standing. As she trudged into the kitchen, she pointed at Lucas who had begun to suspiciously eye the remote. “If you touch that remote I will destroy you.”

Lucas sunk back down into the couch with a grumble and a roll of his eyes, used to her threats but knowing she would deliver.

A few minutes later, when Erica finished setting the table and walked back into the living room, the episode had ended and the commercials were rolling. She flopped onto the floor in disappointment, upset that she missed the resolution between Applejack and Rainbow Dash’s argument, even if it had been a rerun.

Erica, laying on her back, limbs askew, had tilted her head to gaze blankly at the TV. The sound from it was muffled because of her ear being squashed up against the recently vacuumed carpet (how clean it was, though, with Lucas having been the one to vacuum, is up for debate).

“I am stuck on Band-aid brand ‘cause Band-Aids stick on me-"

“We are farmers, bum de dum dum dum dum dum-"

“-troducing Rainbow Loom!” the perky commercial lady exclaimed brightly after the multitude of various catchy jingles, catching Erica’s attention. “The creation station to make anything by hand with stretchy bands!” The bodiless voice continued, the screen showing a girl smiling widely as she used a hook to move rubber bands of all colors around a white loom. At the end of the commercial, a wrist was held up to show the multi-colored bracelets.

Erica had rolled onto her stomach midway through the commercial and propped herself up on her arms so she could face the TV head on as she peered curiously at it. She vaguely remembered hearing about it over the summer, but she hadn’t cared because Sally Johnson was the one who mentioned it, and she never gives a shit about anything Sally says. Besides, she doesn’t need rubber band bracelets and doesn’t really see the appeal. Metal bracelets look much better to her.

“Like what you see?” Lucas was, she noticed when she rolled back toward him, raising an eyebrow at her scrutiny of the commercial.

Erica scoffed and shook her head. “No. I was just trying to remember where I heard of it before.”

Lucas smirked and rolled his eyes. “Sure,” he drawled. “I totally believe you. It’s not like it’s the most popular gift for little middle school girls, right? Am I looking at a future Christmas gift for you?”

“Maybe the gift’ll have your name on it,” she snarked back. “Since you like to talk about it so much. Besides, you’re only a freshman, you’re not that far off since you were a ‘little middle school girl,’ yourself.”

Lucas launched a pillow at her in retaliation. Erica huffed indignantly when it collided with her face and fell to the ground with a soft thump. She stood slowly, bringing the pillow with her, and grinned sharply as she swung it around. Lucas made a huge mistake. She’s been to quite a few slumber parties, and she’s got a mean pillow swing.

Within minutes of their vicious pillow fight, their mom entered the scene, yelling at them to knock it off and sit their butts on their chairs to eat dinner. She had looked about ready to drag the both of them to the kitchen by their ears if they didn’t get moving immediately.

As Erica sat at the table with her family, hair frizzy from the pillows that crashed into her face and grumpily eating her asparagus (it’s objectively the worst vegetable, just the facts), the commercial she had seen moments before slips from her mind as easily as sand through a sieve.

Until, of course, that Christmas when she found a wrapped present with her name on it that hid the multicolored box underneath announcing Rainbow Loom! in large, comic sans letters.

___________

As Erica expected, she didn’t like Rainbow Loom all that much. Sure, it was sort of entertaining to make one or two, but they were gaudy and she didn’t like to wear them. Why should she, when she’s got so many pretty, tasteful bracelets in her jewelry box? So, she stashed the loom, the hook and all her bands into a box. She shoved the box into some corner of the garage, hoping her mom would find it years from now and just donate it instead of trying to convince her to let it collect dust in her room for a couple more months.

Two weeks after Christmas break, Erica was eating lunch with her best friend, Tina, in the middle school lunchroom. Usually they ate their PB&J and gross school cafeteria food, respectively, in Mr. O’Ryan’s classroom, their homeroom teacher (because the lunchroom is disgusting and both of them prefer to avoid it and other people at all costs), but he was absent that day.

Erica sighed loudly. “Tina, I just don’t get it. Why do we need to know every part of the sentence?” She picked at the edge of the round table they were sitting at, peeling off a bit of tape that was a much brighter shade of blue than the table. As she peeled the tape off completely, she discovered a black crack in the table.

Tina shrugged, barely looking up from the English notes she took the previous period.

“I’ll never have to use this in real life.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Erica watched Tina glance at her through the curtain of Tina’s blond hair. “Maybe you won’t, but someone will. So they have to teach it. And we have to learn it.”

Erica rolled her eyes at the general stupidity of people and took an aggressive bite out of her carrot stick, putting the piece of tape back and smoothing it over the crack with a finger.

For a few moments, all that could be heard was Erica’s obnoxiously loud carrot-crunching and Tina’s fork hitting the tray with a clack everytime she missed the actual food because of being so engrossed in her notes.

“...but why do I need to know what a preposition is, Tina?”

Tina sat up straight, closed her eyes and heaved a great sigh of exasperation before, like the patient angel she is, launched into an explanation of prepositions.

Erica smirked a little as she stared down at her plate. She had finely honed her abilities as an annoying younger sister, and often used them for evil against her friend and classmates when she was bored. Tina was the only one who didn’t really mind, which is part of why Erica likes her so much. That, and under Tina’s facade of a goodie-two-shoes (an act Erica replicates when in school), she’s just as ruthless as Erica.

They met several years ago when they were in the second grade; Tina had just moved to Hawkins from New Jersey, under circumstances that she steadfastly refuses to tell Erica, even years later (more to mess with her than anything else, Erica suspects). Their teacher at the time, Mrs. Grass, assigned Tina to the seat right beside Erica. For a few days they didn’t talk to each other very much. But then Mrs. Grass assigned an assignment where they had to write out every number between one and five hundred. (And honestly, what kind of assignment is that? Numbers just repeat after a while! It’s not that complicated.)

As everyone in the class painstakingly wrote out all of the numbers, Erica cursed and plotted the completely hypothetical demise of her inept teacher under her breath.

Apparently she hadn’t been quiet enough because when she muttered, “Spiders. I am going to pour spiders into all of her stupid drawers to avenge this indignity-”, Tina had quietly interrupted her.

“That isn’t a good idea,” Tina had whispered, when Mrs. Grass was on the other side of the room, trying to find someone to help for the assignment (which she wouldn’t. They were seven, not dumb, and they can count for god’s sake).

Erica turned her head slightly towards her and raised an eyebrow at her, still angrily scribbling numbers on her paper. “Then what would you suggest?”

“Fake spiders.” Tina smiled angelically. “Everywhere. From her drawers, to her bookshelves, to the walls, to her own purse. Then we wouldn’t get in trouble for starting an infestation.”

“I like that idea,” Erica had said after a moment of thought, smirking at Tina mischievously. “But I would sprinkle in some real ones too, so she’d be kept on her toes. Spiders wander inside buildings all the time, after all.”

Tina had smirked back, and a mutual respect blossomed between them, a respect, and later friendship, that would persist even through arguments, plots, siblings, cover stories and excuses for parents, the rare detention and what felt like the end of the world (but was just a missing pet).

(Tina's her best friend, and they would do anything for each other. Erica didn't need any other friends. She didn't.)

Erica attempted to tune back into the conversation, listening to Tina say, “-show direction, time, place and location. You use them all the time, Erica. Like, ‘in,’ ‘at,’ ‘on,’ and a coup-”

But as much as Erica loved Tina, she could only endure grammatical lectures for brief periods during English class, and even then she only tolerated it. So, she began listening into the conversations happening at the tables around her, disregarding the high chance of death.

“-oes Matt really like me?”

“Totally!”

“He’s kind of a jerk, but I guess his freckles are kinda cute…”

Boring, and if they’re talking about the Matt that Erica thought they were talking about, there are zero physical qualities that can redeem his lack of tact, common sense and human decency.

“I was reading the English homework for later an-”

Nope. Erica was done thinking about English.

“Mr. Connor is such an assho-”

Honestly, Erica agreed with that, but she doesn’t like to listen in on people bitching about other people. At least, she doesn’t like it when she can’t join in, because otherwise it’s just annoying.

“I would kill to be able to make a Starburst bracelet like the one in that YouTube video.”

Now that… that gave Erica pause.

“Oh my gosh, I know right? I suck so much at making anything but the single chain, but everything else is so difficult!”

“Right? I can’t even do a fishtail!”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I don’t have the patience for it."

“And I can never figure out what colors to pi-”

Tina shoved her shoulder, hard, unaware of the impending havoc they would soon wreak. “Are you even listening to me?”

Erica shushed her and whispered, “Listen.”

Tina quieted down just in time for them to hear, “Honestly, I would pay for someone else to make them for me. Like, I get that making them is half the fun, but is it fun when I feel like I’m going to cry from frustration at any moment?”

The girl and her friends laughed before one of them said, “Yeah, who knew Rainbow Loom would be so difficult?”

The Rainbow Loom girls, as Erica has dubbed them in her mind, drift to other topics. Erica turned to Tina and smiled slyly at her. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

Tina smiled back. “Undoubtedly.”

This was going to be fun.

___________

“This is the worst,” Erica declared, collapsing onto her bed despondently.

She had spent the past hour trying to figure out how to make a single Starburst bracelet, specifically because that one girl really liked it, whilst Tina had managed to make three.

Sometimes, Erica wonders what kind of magic created her best friend for her to be this good at everything.

Erica twisted onto her bed so she could watch as Tina, who was lounging on the floor, deftly weaved another Starburst Rainbow Loom bracelet, feeling incredibly frustrated.

Thing is, Erica is good at most things too. She usually doesn’t have the need to feel jealous of how good Tina is at everything, because she’s right there beside her. From English to science to sports to art, they’re typically equals in most things. But for this perceived failure, Erica felt a pit of jealousy, anger and disappointment in her gut (the latter two probably directed at herself) for not managing to get the hang of wrestling stupid rubber bands into submission.

She’s used to being smart, hell, more than smart, even among her brother and his nerd friends. So this is… hitting her a little hard.

Logically, Erica knew it didn’t have anything to do with being smart. It has everything to do with being able to find the correct band and pull it in the way it needed to go to create the desired pattern, and none of it really requires actual knowledge or intelligence (to a certain point). But for some reason, she just couldn’t do it.

Erica slid back to the floor next to Tina and picked up her fully prepared loom. Her hook was sticking up from the middle of what should become one of the starbursts. Grasping her hook, Erica put the hook through the hole of the peg and dug through the bands before gently attempting to pull the bottom band through the middle of the peg and onto one of the outside pegs.

It didn’t work. The band became much too thin, and it didn’t quite wrap around the other bands like it was supposed to, as shown by the definitely credible YouTube video they had watched.

“Why can’t I get this?” Erica lamented.

“It’s fine, Erica,” Tina said. “I got this part, okay?”

“But I have to help! If you’re doing everything then mom will make me give you most of the money! And I’ll feel guilty, I guess.”

Stubbornly calm and slightly bemused, Tina responded, “That’s sweet, I guess, but it’s okay. We don’t have to make too many bracelets right now. Just enough to get started. I can make the harder bracelets while you make the easier bracelets. Besides, you were always better at math and people than me. Why don’t you get started on the managerial aspect of starting a Rainbow Loom business? Like, what colors work best together? What kind of bracelets should we offer? Things like that.”

“I guess you’re right,” Erica sighed, making a show of begrudgingly standing up. The pit of jealousy in her gut began to dissipate somewhat at her best friend’s words, and was replaced with cool relief. Of course, she doesn’t need to be good at everything. That’s what bureaucracy is for. Everyone has their own part. And, not to toot her own horn, she was very good at the business aspect. Figuring out what the people want and all.

She was a little stupid for even getting caught up in wallowing. Only a little, though, because as previously established, she’s smart.

Erica quickly strolled over to the other side of the room and sat in her wheeled chair, the momentum allowing her to smoothly swing and roll right up to her desk. She opened her laptop and set it on her left before grabbing a notebook and a pen, ignoring Tina who is undoubtedly rolling her eyes at Erica’s dramatics.

She opened her notebook and flipped to a blank page while her laptop turned on.

She wrote “Erica and Tina’s Rainbow Loom Business” at the top of the page.

Pausing momentarily, she added “(name work in progress)” directly underneath, because that is a mouthful if she ever saw one. It was the kind of name Lucas or, god forbid, Mike Wheeler, would come up with, so it obviously wasn’t good enough for Erica and Tina.

Quickly, Erica searched for the different types of Rainbow Loom bracelet designs and quickly encountered a problem: there were way too many bracelets to feasibly make even one each.

So, she began to make a list of the most recognizable and interesting ones.

1. Single

2. Fishtail

3. Spiral

4. Triple Single

And so it continued until the list arrived at the likes of more complicated bracelets like Starburst, Arrowhead, Bowtie Stitch, and more.

Erica’s plan was that, essentially, the more difficult it was to make the bracelet, the more it would cost. For example, the single bracelet, the kind that everyone learns to make the second they get their Rainbow Loom, would cost only a dollar, maybe even less than that because anyone can make it with little difficulty.

The more difficult patterns, like the Arrowhead and Starburst, would cost much more. At some point, Erica would have to come up with an equation to figure out how to determine the price between how difficult the bracelet was to make and how complicated the bracelets look. If the bracelet looked easy to make, people would be less willing to buy it at a high price.

As Erica searched for more patterns, she discovered another problem- or, rather, an intriguing prospect.

Spinning her chair around to face Tina, who had moved on to her seventh Starburst, Erica asked, “What do you think about making something besides bracelets?”

Tina’s head snapped up, and she quickly joined Erica at the computer with a curious look on her face.

The screen displayed a Pinterest board with picture upon picture of Rainbow Loom creations- and not just bracelets, though there were many there that seemed to send the wheels in Tina’s mind spinning.

No, the intriguing thing about this Pinterest board was the figurines, 3-D and otherwise, that were sprinkled throughout the page. Flat snowflakes, characters and more covered the page, but so did round, hollowed out Halloween baskets and witches hats, pencil covers and keychains and so much more.

Erica tilted her head up to look at Tina. She could only see half of Tina’s face from her vantage point, but she didn’t need to see her entire face to know that Tina’s eyes had begun to crinkle in glee, and that her face lit up from a massive, devious grin.

“I think I’m going to enjoy this.” Tina smiled, snatching the laptop away (ignoring Erica’s indignant sputtering) and plopping down on the ground to discover more of the, apparently vast, world of Rainbow Loom.

Erica stared at Tina as she muttered, scrolling through and occasionally typing. Erica pinched the bridge of her nose and murmured, “This was a terrible idea.”

“True,” Tina said, not looking up from the laptop. “But it’ll get us money, so do our social lives really matter?”

Erica rolled her eyes before smiling fondly. “True. But we’re definitely going to need more people for this.”

When Tina ignored her and didn’t respond, Erica sighed and picked up her phone to research color theory.

___________

After a week and a half of frantic weaving, researching and drawing, Erica and Tina confidently strolled into the lunchroom on a dreary Wednesday and set up their new Rainbow Loom stand. They chose a typically abandoned table as their storefront. The table was at the back of the room, so far that it would be hard to see it from people at the door, who would have to look over the heads of hundreds of preteens. It sat in front of a wall (and beside the trash cans, but Erica moved those away), so they could hang up their poster that proudly announced, “E + T Loom Designs!” in elegant calligraphy with carefully detailed drawings of a beautiful Rainbow Loom bracelet underneath, courtesy of Lucas’s friend, Will Byers (who was paid twenty bucks despite his protests, because while Erica would love to take the service for free, Will really was too sweet to take advantage of).

The two quickly brushed off whatever crumbs on the table and benches left from the previous day and laid out some of their supply and a pricing sheet.

The supply was displayed strategically. The simpler bracelets, such as the single and fishtail bracelets that Erica made herself, were much closer to the front and sides of the table, where their customers would be. Erica was anticipating that something would be stolen (probably by some stupid boy), so she was making the appropriate precautions.

Tina’s more complicated products were placed closer to the middle of the table and closer to the two of them because, honestly, if Erica was broke she would totally steal one of them (and she would absolutely get away with it, too). Tina’s bracelets were complicated, multilayered and time consuming to make. They were solid rubber bands, not flimsy and unstructured like the single chain. Each was intricately entwined to make amazing accessories, something never seen in person before by anyone in their small town middle school.

(Oh god, it hasn’t even been a day and her inner-monologue is already becoming an advertisement. What has she gotten herself into?)

Some of Tina’s bracelets formed colorful flowers or starbursts. Others had really cool patterns that Erica had never seen anyone wear before. One particularly colorful one looked like four fishtails piled on top of each other. Tina had even managed to get some poisonous green and black bands to form the face of a creeper from Minecraft! Erica’s favorite was a bracelet with soft red and white bands that formed a flower charm in the middle, with a pearl bead in the center of the flower (she convinced Tina to make her one in her favorite colors). Each and every one of Tina’s bracelets were entirely unique, from their colors to their designs.

This was, of course, not even mentioning the various other things Tina made besides the bracelets. She made multi-colored pencil coverings, little flowers and stars (some, she had managed to attach to bracelets), snowflakes, delicious looking ice cream cones, 3-D turtles and Happy Feet penguins.

To Erica, who couldn’t make a single Starburst bracelet, it was incredible. And, she knew, it would be completely unfathomable to her classmates.

Unfortunately, Tina didn’t want any of her figurines on the table that day, instead choosing to stockpile them in a box in her bedroom, and Erica agreed with her. Better to save the figurines for a rainy day. (Figuratively. It was actually raining that day.)

Bracelets it was, for now.

And, for that day, they were absolutely enough.

For the first few minutes of lunch, no one paid them any attention. Most kids immediately rushed to the lunch line to get their food, and the kids with lunch from home were too engrossed in their conversations to notice the two girls next to the trash cans.

The first girl to meander over to their table about six minutes in (where they were both sitting primly, arms crossed and flat on the round, blue table), squealed so loudly that if she had reached a higher frequency it would have only been heard by dogs.

That, of course, drew in the first wave of customers.

“Oh-em-gee!” one of them shrieked, each indistinguishable from the other until they say something to Erica, who thought that they just looked like a sea of brown and blond hair as they swarmed the table. This particular girl had brown hair and way too much flashy makeup for an eleven year old. “How much does this one cost?” She held up one of Erica’s fishtail bracelets on the tip of her finger.

Erica smiled thinly. “As shown on the pricing sheet, the single bracelets, which are the ones you first make when you get your Rainbow Loom kit, are only a dollar. The fishtails are two dollars, and the spirals are four dollars. If you need help figuring out which is which, please let us know.”

Another girl, a blond one with obnoxiously large glasses pointed at the bracelets in the center. “What about those?”

Tina answered this time. “Each of those have a different price depending on how difficult it was to make them. This one,” she placed her Minecraft creeper bracelet on her palm and raised it to show the crowd, “would be seventeen dollars.”

The blond girl cried, “What?!” amidst suddenly shocked clamoring of the crowd. “That’s super expensive for a Rainbow Loom bracelet,” said another girl, this one with nearly platinum hair.

The chatter rose until Tina couldn’t be heard anymore, at which point she shot an annoyed look at them before looking at Erica pleadingly.

Erica rolled her eyes at the crowd in commiseration. She stood up and yelled, “Hey! If you want an actual answer, shut your dam- dang,” Erica corrected at a kick to her leg from Tina, who had always been more aware of their audience, “mouths!”

The girls quickly quiet down, though a few of them have sour looks on their faces, as if they sucked on a lemon.

“Tina,” Erica said deliberately, gesturing to her, “made all of the more intricate bracelets. For each one she made, it took a massive amount of research to learn to make, a massive amount of time to make, and a massive amount of rubber bands. The price of each bracelet here correlates to the time of her life she could have spent doing homework or being with her family.” At this point, the eyes of many of the girls were darting to the ceiling and each other guiltily.

“With that in mind,” Erica continued, “the price is fair, right?” She doesn’t add the unsaid “or else” to the already fairly threatening sentence (for a middle schooler, she could admit to herself) because that would probably be going too far, even for her.

Rapid nods followed Erica’s words. Erica, satisfied that they understood, sat back down gracefully, much more gracefully than she usually bothers (because, honestly, just collapsing on various surfaces is a lot more fun).

After a few moments of the pair and the horde staring at each other, Erica raised a judgemental eyebrow. "So are any of you gonna buy something, or are we gonna waste time chit chattin’ like idiots?"

Tina snorted in amusement and elbowed Erica’s side as the herd of girls started to browse their selection again. “That was probably a little harsh,” she whispered, amusement laced into every word.

“Nah,” Erica said simply, leaning back to observe which bracelets were attracting more attention than others.

As lunch wore on and the minutes left in the hour dwindled, more and more people came up to their table to look and browse. Their new business appeared to have become the most interesting thing in the school (which wasn’t much of an achievement) based on the sheer number of people coming up to look.

Most of the people that came up didn’t buy anything; apparently, most middle schoolers don’t just carry money around. The ones that did buy something made jokes about the bracelets being “better than the school slop.” Which is fair, Erica completely agreed.

At the end of the lunch period, their stock of Erica’s simple bracelets were half gone and only a quarter of Tina’s bracelets were gone, which they pretty much expected. Who’s gonna carry around twenty bucks for no reason? They knew that the next few days would be much better for them.

(Erica honestly hadn't really been expecting people to not try and haggle down the prices for Tina's bracelets. Erica was well aware that seventeen dollars was fucking ridiculous for a Rainbow Loom bracelet. Good thing her classmates are idiotic fools.)

After three more periods, Tina and Erica smugly and triumphantly strutted out of the school, secure in their success and knowing it could only get better from there.

___________

“What the hell do you mean you’re shutting us down?"

“Language,” Tina muttered half-heartedly, staring at the teacher in shock.

Erica was- she was seething. They were open for one day and they’re already being forced to stop? Being forced to- to give up?

“Erica, Tina, please understand,” Mr. O’Ryan implored. And the betrayal of this coming from Mr. O’Ryan made it worse, if that was even possible. From a single glance at Tina and her twisted expression, Erica could tell that she felt the same. “You can’t sell unsanctioned items in the school cafeteria. A lot of teachers, even the principal, received complaints from parents last night about kids not eating because they spent their lunch money on bracelets.”

“Kids fundraise in the cafeteria all the time, why is it never a problem then? How is it different?” Erica demanded.

“How is that our fault?” Tina questioned at the same time, her expression becoming more murderous with each passing second. Erica could feel her own face forming a similar expression.

He grimaced apologetically. “It’s not a question of fault, Tina. And Erica, it’s just… it’s just different, okay?”

Erica crossed her arms and leveled him with her best LookTM.

“Don’t give me that,” he huffed, straightening up. “This isn’t my decision, either. I’m just the messenger, kiddos.”

He strode away, and Erica did her best not to hate him.

“That was bullshit,” Erica declared when he was out of earshot.

Tina nodded in agreement before saying, “And we’re not going to take that lying down.”

Erica scoffed. “Of course not.”

For the entirety of homeroom and every other class they shared, Erica and Tina sat, hunched over, and whispered furiously and conspiratorially, occasionally shooting nasty glares at whichever teacher they had for the next forty-five minutes.

At lunch, kids were disappointed when they walked into the lunchroom to see Erica and Tina sitting at their usual table, eating lunch, instead of beckoning them to where they were sitting the previous day at the table near the trash cans.

They had brought more money, after all.

Only a few people were brave enough to approach them to ask what happened, looking more like they were walking closer to a pair of hungry lions than a pair of preteen girls.

“Why aren’t you selling Rainbow Loom bracelets today?” they asked.

Erica would scowl into the distance at the question and Tina would stare blankly at whatever unfortunate soul that came up to them before the two returned to their food, a PB&J and a tray of school slop, and ignoring them. The brave souls would walk away to their anxiously waiting friends sullenly, disappointed at missing their chance.

The faculty that had been warned to make sure the two followed the new directions watched the duo throughout the day, especially at lunch, and were relieved. Thank goodness, they thought. The girls had given up.

The girls had not.

The next day, a cheerful, bright and sunny Friday, right after school was out, saw a card table set out on the grassy area outside of the school, two tall poles behind it, holding up a sign saying “E + T Loom Designs!” in beautiful calligraphy. Seated at this table, primly sitting in metal fold-out chairs and hands folded neatly, was Erica and Tina, braving the cold January afternoon to heroically distribute their amazing bracelets. Both smiled smugly as students poured out of the building and they gestured invitingly to the dozens of bracelets laying before them.

Lines of kids formed, stretching out into the parking lot, each eagerly awaiting the chance to spend their parents’ money. Teachers despaired from their classrooms as they gazed outside, shouts of glee, excited exclamations, angry yelling and a multitude of car horns filling the air.

The principal, when he heard the news, buried his head in his hands, feeling a migraine forming, before he joined the many cars waiting impatiently to get out of the parking lot so he could go home and take a nap.

Mr. O’Ryan had taken one look at the girls and their stand before throwing his head back and laughing, before walking home, not even attempting to drive home.

The girls stayed there for a long time, explaining prices, selling their bracelets, reassuring customers that they would be back soon, and gleefully counting their money. When the customers, the cacophony that came with them, and the bracelets diminished, the girls packed up whatever they had left and departed from the parking lot, smug in the knowledge that they had won this battle.

And if anyone dared to make it a war, they were confident they would win that, too.

___________

For an entire week after that fateful Friday, the students of Hawkins Middle were disappointed to find that Erica and Tina’s “E + T Loom Designs!” was nowhere to be found.

They were busy, alright? Hawkins is extremely behind most schools so, there they were, doing midterm exams in late January. They were studying for that, on top of regular school work, so neither Erica nor Tina had the time to make any substantial amount of bracelets.

But, Erica thought, maybe it was worth it if their return was met with this. This being another massive crowd of prepubescent preteens, all clamoring to purchase and own an amazing bracelet (and no, Erica was not biased, they were objectively amazing bracelets. Especially Tina’s. Just the facts). Honestly, she’d expected, and hoped, for this kind of reception after their debut outside the school, but she was still blown away. Erica knew Tina felt the same, from the way her eyes had widened marginally, noticeable only to Erica and the customers first in line if they were paying attention.

A little after five minutes of interacting with customers (Erica becoming more and more murderous as the stupid people and questions continued to grace her presence), the one person who could get on her nerves quicker and easier than anyone else in this god-forsaken town strolled up to stand directly in front of the table, his bestie at his side.

“Hey Erica.” Lucas grinned.

“Go away,” Erica deadpanned, attempting to drive him away with the silent, sheer fury in her gaze.

“No,” he said cheerfully, the asshole, before leisurely picking up a green and black fishtail.

Erica glared at him and opened her mouth to spit some appropriately clever and vitriolic insult, but unfortunately Dustin opened his own faster.

“Hi Erica! Hi Tina!” he cheered, grinning widely. “These are amazing!” he continued enthusiastically, pointing to one of Tina’s back, orange and red starbursts.

Erica deflated slightly, unable to be that rude in the face of Dustin Henderson’s enthusiasm while simultaneously being unable to admit it with Lucas being right there and grinning at her, stupidly smug.

Erica fumbled for a response, wondering if insulting the Party’s collective intelligence would be sufficient, when Tina, Erica’s saving grace, an utter angel, saved her. “Thanks, Dustin. How’s it going?”

Erica and Lucas have had the same friends for the longest time. With the number of times that Lucas’s “Party” came over to their house over the years, and the number of times Tina had come over, there was bound to be some overlap. So, yes, Dustin knew Tina and Tina knew Dustin, along with most of Lucas’s other friends.

It was kind of irritating, to be honest, because Lucas definitely didn’t know any of her other friends besides Tina. Which, okay, Erica doesn’t really have any other friends, or at least anyone like Tina, but still.

“Pretty well!” Dustin responded to Tina’s question. “Lucas suggested coming over here because he knows you guys have been working on it all week.”

Tina smirked and said, “Aww, you came to check in on your sister? Make sure she’s doing alright?”

“Stop.” Lucas mumbled. Erica shoved Tina so hard she almost fell out of her chair while she and Dustin cackled at their expense. Erica and Lucas shared commiserating looks before realizing what they were doing and started to glare at each other again.

Tina interrupted their glaring contest (rude, Erica always thoroughly enjoyed defeating Lucas in those) by saying, “Where’s everyone else?”

“The others would have come, but Mike and Will are being gross and El and Max are being dumb, well, as dumb as those two can be, so it’s just us today. Lucky for you, we’re awesome.” Dustin responded, smiling brightly.

“Are you actually gonna buy something?” Erica finally asked them. “We have paying customers here.” She gestured to the line behind them that was growing into the second parking lot.

Lucas rolled his eyes before grabbing an Arrow Stitch bracelet with blue, silver and light green bands. Dustin picked a red and blue spiral bracelet.

“That’ll be four dollars, Dustin,” Tina said with a smile.

As Dustin rummaged around in his pocket for some cash, Erica looked Lucas dead in the eye and said, “That’ll be twenty dollars.”

Lucas’s eyes went round with shock before he exclaimed, “What the fuck?! Erica?!”

Cackling evilly in her head, Erica gleefully repeated, “That’ll be twenty dollars. If you don’t pay, you’ll be removed from the premises.” She nodded at two boys who diligently stood several feet to their left, who asked to be security guards and chase down anyone who tried to run without paying in exchange for two free or discounted bracelets of their choosing (depending on which bracelets they picked).

“What the fuck?” Dustin chuckled nervously, eyes darting toward the boys, seemingly torn between fear (of Erica, probably. They’re freshmen in high school, after all, and the “security guards” were only in seventh grade) and glee (probably at Lucas’s misfortune).

“I’m not paying that much for a bracelet! Don’t I get a family discount?” Lucas demanded.

With a straight face, Erica replied, “Oh, of course. I’ll adjust the price, thank you for reminding me. Just let me confer with my partner, please.”

Erica turned to Tina, and they stared at each other in silence for a moment, before Erica nodded in satisfaction.

“I’ve adjusted the price.” Erica hummed after she turned back to Lucas, ignoring Dustin confusedly pointing out that neither of them even said anything. “It’s twenty three dollars.”

Lucas sputtered, “But that’s higher than before!”

“Exactly.” Erica smiled. “The price has been appropriately adjusted for you, my dearest brother.”

“What did I do to deserve this?” Lucas demanded, rather dramatically in Erica’s opinion, as he begrudgingly handed her the money.

Erica rolled her eyes. “You ate the last five cookies that Mom made. All at once. You had this coming. Go away. See you later, Dustin.”

Lucas pouted pathetically, flouncing away with Dustin at his heels, who called out a brief, “See you guys!”

“Kinda harsh,” Tina commented idly, smiling at the next customer, a boy with floppy hair who looked to be about their age.

“He deserved it,” Erica defended. “Mom’s cookies are amazing, and he deprived me of them!”

Tina giggled at her misfortune before giving her full attention to their newest customer.

___________

During the third week after they started their newest venture, kids started to wear their bracelets around school openly. Before, only a couple kids wore Rainbow Loom bracelets to school, and then it was usually a single color, single chain bracelet. Now, they wear Erica’s simple bracelets with cool color schemes, and Tina’s amazing designs.

Before, loom bracelets were neat. A nice way to pass the time, a brief moment of pride for whoever made and wore it.

With Erica and Tina around, loom bracelets became cool, became popular.

And people kept coming back for more.

With almost all of Tina’s bracelets being completely unique, people came back, wanting to see what was the newest, coolest bracelet they had, and they went quickly. So quick that the line, while long, took very little time for people to get through at all.

Unless, of course, the people in line wanted to do more than buy something.

After stowing away the money from a red-headed seventh grade girl that bought a basket-weave bracelet, Erica glanced up at Tina’s unexpected silence. Usually, Tina was the one who began the interaction between the next customer, mostly because Erica was typically held up trying to sort the change and cash. (They had talked about getting a Square for people to pay with before Erica, after a few minutes of debating the merits, dully pointed out, "They're all middle schoolers. Nobody has credit cards.")

Upon glancing up, Erica groaned aloud.

“What?” Erica ground out.

Steve put a hand to his chest, like he was a Victorian woman clutching his pearl necklace. “Are you not happy to see us?” he asked, faux hurt and offense lining his words.

“That’s so rude,” Robin continued, quickly catching on to the bit. “After all we’ve done for you-”

“You haven’t done shit,” Erica interrupted, becoming resigned to their newest round of antics in only a few seconds. She’s had practice, after all.

Steve’s scandalized gasp is belied by the growing grin on his face as he said, “Baby Sinclair,”

“Don’t call me that.”

“After all these years of babysitting,-”

“Advice,” Robin added.

“-encouragement,-”

“Ice cream,” Robin sang.

“-shut up, don’t remind her, safety-”

“Tears,” Erica interrupted, staring at them impassively.

The two paused, gaping at her for a few moments, enough time for Erica to notice Tina struggling to hold in her laughter from the corner of her eye.

The Dynamic Duo (who really shouldn’t be that immature. Weren’t they adults?) glanced at each other, before shrugging. “Yeah, there’s probably been some tears over the years. But we’ve done so much more-"

“Are y’all gonna buy something or not?” Erica interrupted. Again.

Robin snorted. “What are you, a southerner? Who says y’all? Have we taught you nothing?"

Erica sighed. “You have, in fact, taught me nothing other than what it sounds like when a grown-ass man pines uselessly over two other grown-ass men for over a year.”

Steve reeled back, pointed at Erica and cried, “That was uncalled for!” as Robin doubled over laughing hysterically.

“This is why she’s my favorite!” Robin declared, grabbing Erica’s hand and holding it up like she just won a contest. Erica really didn’t want to win this contest.

“Joy,” Erica muttered.

Erica has known Steve and Robin for a long time. Back when her brother was in middle school, Steve babysat him and his friends when no one else was available. Eventually, if Lucas and his friends had to choose who would babysit them, they would usually pick Steve.

Since her brother liked Steve so much, she was forced to be babysat by him by default. It wasn’t all bad, to be honest, especially when she was younger. He would teach her how to swing a baseball bat correctly, or how to cook pasta, or how to blackmail her brother (she already knew how, but he knew some tricks from when he was “King Steve” of Hawkins High and had to fight to maintain his popularity).

At some point, Steve met Robin (and wasn’t that a weird thought, that they didn’t just come into the world as the best of friends), and Erica was sure they would start dating for about two point five seconds. Then she got the memo that Robin was a lesbian, through and through, after spending less than a day around her. The rant about how badass and pretty Nancy Wheeler was kind of gave it away. The various other rants about many other girls really drove it home for Erica (seriously, Erica just wants her to stop gushing about her newest crush of the week). The most recent girl that Robin had become obsessed with was Vicki, who Robin could be heard talking about if one was brave enough to venture into Family Video at any time, ever.

Usually, it was amusing to hang around the two of them, with Robin constantly and ruthlessly making fun of Steve at any and every opportunity. However, Erica had recently started to dread hanging out with Steve because he would inevitably either begin talking about Billy Hargrove or Eddie Munson incessantly, or he would be flirting with Billy or Eddie if one of them “happened” to be renting a movie when Steve had a shift.

It was ridiculous and disgusting. Erica wanted no part of it. (In general. She wasn’t stupid enough to care that they were all boys.)

Tina interrupted them. “As much as I love watching Erica suffer,” the betrayal, “we do have a couple customers. Can you please either buy something or move to the side and harass Erica there?”

What the fuck.

Steve laughed, delighted by the suggestion, before saying, “Thanks for the offer, but we were actually going to buy something.”

“Then get on with it.”

The four descended into silence as Steve and Robin began to examine the bracelets in earnest, quietly conferring about which ones they should buy.

“Do you think Vicki would like this one?” Robin whispered loudly, pushing a green and blue double braid bracelet across the table towards Steve. After a moment of contemplation from Steve, she continued, talking quickly, “Because I know that her favorite color is green, but I also know that she thinks the color blue is overrated. But at the same time, green and blue go so well together, y’know? So maybe she’d excuse the blue in the face of that? Or maybe she would like the colors to be opposite. Isn’t red the opposite of green? Those are Christmas colors, though, and I don’t know about you, but I refuse to look at green and red together for too long in any month except December-”

Erica rolled her eyes at the rant and turned to Tina, pointing at Robin like she's saying, Get a load of this weirdo.

“Rob.” Steve physically turned Robin around and grabbed her shoulders to get her attention. “She’s your girlfriend. She’ll like it no matter what. Chill.”

Huh. Guess Vicki finally had enough of watching Robin try and fail to flirt with her.

Robin sighed. “You’re right. I’m probably overthinking it.”

“That’s because you are,” he said, then turning to Erica. “We’d like to get that one,” he pointed at the green and blue Vicki bracelet, “and these two.” He gestured to a yellow and green fishtail and a blue and black spiral.

“That’ll be twenty seven dollars in total,” Tina announced cheerfully.

“Steep,” Steve commented as he got out his wallet.

Tina’s smile became strained. “We’re not explaining why again.”

“No, no,” Robin said. “We get it. Money is money.”

Erica rolled her eyes.

“How’d you even find out we were doing this?” Erica asked when the thought occurred to her, Steve almost finished finding the correct amount of money. “We’re not exactly advertising.”

Steve chuckled.

“Maybe you’re not,” Robin said, amused, “but Dustin certainly is. He doesn’t shut up about it, ever.”

“He mentioned it, like, five times during one visit to Family Video. I’m pretty sure all of his science classes and everyone in the Dungeons and Demons club know about it,” Steve continued.

“Dungeons and Dragons,” Erica corrected.

“Tomato, tomahto.” He waved his hand dismissively, as if swatting the words away.

“Thanks, guys!” Robin exclaimed as Steve handed them the money and got ready to leave.

“Don’t mention it,” Erica said, dry as a desert.

Steve gestured to something further down the parking lot and added, “And good luck with the competition!”

As the two leisurely strolled away, they were unknowing of the chaos and (mostly metaphorical) bloodshed they had unintentionally been the catalyst to. All they had seen was a stand, similar to Erica and Tina’s, that was being set up on the other side of the school parking lot.

As the two walked away, Erica’s head had snapped to where Steve had gestured, eyes narrowed at the distant figure. The figure looked straight at Erica and saluted her mockingly.

Erica fucking snarled. She didn't even know that she, as a human, could do that.

Their newest customer jumped, their eyes darting wildly in fear.

Tina put a hand on Erica’s shoulder. Her eyes were deceptively calm, masking a raging fire behind them when Erica turned toward her. Not today, Tina mouthed, shaking her head.

Not acknowledging the silent command (plea), Erica turned to the customer.

She smiled sweetly. Savagely. The customer squirmed.

“Welcome!” Erica exclaimed. “Please, take your pick.”

It seemed their newest battle had begun. And Erica would be damned if they didn’t win.

___________

Sally fucking Johnson.

There is no one that Erica loathed more than Sally Johnson.

Erica liked to say that nobody could get on her nerves, could make her angry, as fast as Lucas, her dearest brother.

But that simply wasn’t true, because unfortunately for Erica, that honor goes to Sally Johnson.

Erica doesn’t remember meeting Sally. It was like the second she began school, Sally materialized, sent from hell itself, for the sole purpose of making Erica’s life as difficult as possible.

In kindergarten, they had been standing next to each other in line for the bathroom. Erica had tapped Sally on the shoulder to say something, she doesn’t remember what, and Sally had given Erica the worst stink-eye her tiny self had ever seen at that point before whipping her head to face forwards, deliberately making her ponytail hit Erica’s face in the process. Which, honestly, isn’t that big of a deal, but was the equivalent of killing her father in front of her for tiny-Erica, and just the beginning of the grudge between them.

In first grade, Sally made fun of Erica’s persistent lisp throughout the year and even in later years, after Erica had managed to get rid of it. It took a long time before she could speak without being worried about how she sounded.

Second grade was the first time Sally commented on Erica’s race. Even though Sally was shut down and told off by their teacher, and even though Tina had immediately reassured Erica that Sally was being an idiot, the comment stayed with her. “Her hair is so weird,” Sally had said. “I’m glad I’m not black; I wouldn’t want hair like that.”

Third grade was the first time Sally purposefully tripped her. She had been walking into school, holding a project, a diorama that her mom had helped her make about the ecosystem and habitat of her favorite animal, the cheetah. Erica was preoccupied ranting to Tina about something or other and hadn’t noticed Sally nearing them and sticking her foot out. There was a loud crack as the diorama broke her fall. Almost nothing from it could be salvaged for her presentation.

The first time Erica managed to find her tongue and snap back at Sally was in the fourth grade, and for a while afterward, Sally left her alone, red-faced and embarrassed from the veritable verbal smackdown.

Sally’s silence, unsurprisingly, didn’t last long. But the insults were tamer, and the tripping and pushing became nonexistent with the knowledge that Erica would fight back.

From then on, they sniped and taunted, their insults so quick that for observers, it was like watching a tennis match. The rage that used to fester in Erica’s chest from the more unacceptable comments began to die down until all that was left was, though she refused to admit it, a petty grudge that showed itself in stupid ways; by stubbornly, childishly, ignoring Sally when she was talking; by going ridiculous lengths to prove her wrong, even if it was just for Erica’s own benefit; by refusing to partner with Sally for anything, ever.

But this? Sally trying to become a competitor for Erica and Tina’s business? It began to rekindle the embers of her old anger.

Erica hoped that she would get to burn someone.

When the two had confronted Sally the Monday after Steve and Robin’s visit, all Sally had to say was, “You don’t have the monopoly on Rainbow Loom, Erica. I can do what I want- sell what I want.”

“If you think,” Erica had said slowly, furiously, to the smirking girl, “that I’ll just let this slide, you are sorely mistaken.”

Sally had smiled smugly before strutting away like a peacock (that didn’t know it lost its feathers).

Erica had glared after her, not moving until Tina pulled her in the direction of their first class.

Every day, Sally set up her stand after school in the parking lot, selling her shitty, beginner bracelets. And every day, people actually bought them.

It was concerning to Erica, if she was being honest.

They only set up their own stand on Fridays so they could restock and Tina could experiment with her creations. They had much better quality products than Sally, but Sally was open every day of the school week.

When Tina ranted about this during a sleepover, saying that it took time and effort to create new things and make new bracelets, time that Sally was rapidly taking away, Erica had an idea.

“We could hire new people,” Erica suggested, pondering the merit of the idea herself.

Tina scoffed a little. “And what will they do?”

“Well,” Erica drawled. “They could help me mass produce the simpler bracelets, and help you make your bracelets so that we could be open more often.”

“And if they take the skills they learn from us to Sally?”

Erica smiled viciously. “Then they won’t know what hit them.”

So, on a sunny Thursday morning, Erica and Tina posted help wanted flyers on every bulletin board in the school, reposting them throughout the day when they were taken down.

The next day, wanted posters for Sally’s business cropped up.

E + T Loom Designs was open for business for the first time since Sally started selling her own bracelets on that fourth Friday. While their line was miles longer than Sally’s (figuratively, obviously, otherwise they wouldn’t have been worried about Sally), there were noticeably less people in line than usual. Whether that was from the hype dying down or from Sally stealing their customers, Erica didn’t know.

Between customers, Erica would glare at Sally’s stand. Unmoving, hands clenched in her lap, eyes narrowed. Sometimes, Sally would look over at Erica and smirk at her obvious hatred, pleased that she was having such an effect on her. Not wanting to ever let Sally win in any way, Erica would attempt to be more absorbed with Tina and the customers, but the shortening line reminded her of their predicament and her glare would make a reappearance. When she tried to murder Sally with her gaze alone, she was oblivious to almost everything else until she heard Tina’s voice welcoming the newest customer.

Which is precisely what snapped her out of her most recent funk.

“Hi,” one of their newest customers responded to Tina’s overly cheery customer-voice. The one that spoke was a girl with strawberry blonde hair and granny glasses, her back and shoulders were straight, her every word was lined with confidence, and she wore one of Erica’s fishtail bracelets with black, gray, white and purple bands. The boy next to her, on the other hand, shifted from foot to foot, could barely make eye contact with Erica, and he wore one of Tina’s starburst bracelets in every color of the rainbow. “You guys are hiring, right?”

Erica sat up straighter.

“Yes,” Erica said. “We are.”

“Cool…”

For a few seconds, the two pairs stared at each other, unsure of what to do next. None of them have been employed or hired someone before, after all.

“Well,” Tina drawled. “If you want to join, what are your qualifications? Are either of you able to make Rainbow Loom bracelets?”

The boy piped up tentatively, “We’re both pretty good at making the easier bracelets.”

The girl scoffed. “Please.” She looked Tina in the eyes. “Jamie’s selling himself short. The only person I’ve ever seen make a bracelet as good as him is you.”

“Ava!” The boy—Jamie—hissed. “Don’t- don’t say that!”

“It’s true,” Ava retorted confidently. “They’ll never find someone better than you to help out.”

“Okay,” Erica interrupted them. “We’ll hire you.”

She’s desperate, okay?

Ava’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Just like that?”

Erica smirked. “Just like that. The cut you’ll get from the profits will depend on how many bracelets you make and how helpful you are, but the two of you will share about twenty percent of the profits, which will be adjustable. You will also have to bring your own looms, but we have bands to use for the bracelets themselves. Although, more would definitely be appreciated. Of course, if it turns out that you suck at making bracelets, we’ll fire you.”

Ava and Jamie shared a look and Ava nodded, but her eyes had glazed over with confusion when Erica mentioned their cut, like her mind had drifted off when she realized she didn’t know what Erica was talking about, and Jamie was still fidgeting.

Seemingly speaking for the two, Ava said, “So we have a deal? You’ll pay us to work for you?”

Erica saw Tina smiling reassuringly at them, like she could sense the remnants of Jamie’s apprehension. “It seems we do.”

“I’d like to warn you.” Erica continued, giving the two her own bright, threatening grin that made Lucas retreat to even the Mayfield-Hargrove household at the sight, “Neither of us will take kindly to either of you deciding you would rather work for… our competition, after you start working for us.”

Jamie nodded with wide eyes, hands beginning to shake as he fidgeted, while Ava scowled before nodding reluctantly.

“Great!” Erica tried to make her smile less threatening, with little success, if Jamie’s persistently terrified expression was any indication. “We’ll start your training tomorrow!”

“Tomorrow’s Saturday?” Jamie questioned tentatively.

“Yes, it is.”

After a few moments of the pairs staring at each other, Erica said, “Are you gonna buy something or what?”

“Uh-?”

Tina rolled her eyes at Erica and made grabby-hands at Ava's phone which was, as most phones are, permanently attached to her hand.

Ava bemusedly handed over her phone. Tina, presumably because of a lack of patience, decided to not wait for Ava to open her phone to enter any information like a normal person, and instead took a video of herself reciting Erica's address. “Be there at one in the afternoon tomorrow," Tina said as she handed the phone back to Ava, whose face screamed befuddlement.

“Don’t be late,” Erica added.

As the two walked off, buying two fishtails, Erica and Tina regarded them quietly.

“She’d probably be good at selling bracelets,” Tina commented.

“She’s got the confidence for it,” Erica agreed. “It would probably be best if he stayed behind the scenes.”

“I agree. He could barely talk to us.”

Erica smiled slightly. “We are pretty intimidating, though.”

Tina scoffed, batting Erica on the shoulder lightly. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

Erica opened her mouth to retort when a voice interrupted them.

“Don’t tell me you two are scheming?”

“Sure am, Mayfield. Got a problem?”

Max smirked, El a little too close to her side to be considered just friendly. “As long as I’m not affected.”

Erica smirked back at her. “You won’t be.”

Max laughed lightly before she and El began to browse the selection.

“How’d you hear about us?” Tina asked them.

“Robin.” El answered succinctly.

For as long as Erica could remember, El Hopper has been a girl of few words; she hadn’t said a word to anyone outside of her dad until her first day of first grade, thought to be completely mute by all of her previous preschool and kindergarten teachers. Even on the few occasions when the Sinclairs hosted a campaign, El rarely chimed in and when she did, she didn’t say much.

As the years went by, she began to say more, but her words were always very carefully measured, as if she believed that each word had true meaning.

Erica doesn’t know where the hell she got that from, what with the company she keeps. None of them could stop talking.

“We were bothering Steve and Robin at Family Video and we noticed their bracelets, so they told us about you guys,” Max clarified. “That, and Dustin’s been practically announcing it to the entire school for weeks now.”

Erica sighed. Of course he was.

In the end, they each bought a bracelet. Max bought a light blue and purple fishtail and El bought a navy blue and yellow fishtail. They promptly traded, grinning at each other, exclaiming that the colors were their favorite.

Sickening. “Gross.”

Tina snickered at the look and Erica’s face as they walked away. “Those two are staring into each other’s eyes pretty often nowadays, if you catch my drift.”*

Erica physically recoiled from Tina, looking at her in disgust. “‘If you catch my drift?’ What are you, eighty? When did you get old?” Erica demanded.

Tina cackled and the sky turned orange over the frigid February evening.

___________

That Wednesday, E + T Loom Designs once again opened for business, thanks to the combined efforts of Erica and Tina, and their newest employees, Jamie and Ava.

Jamie was, true to Ava’s word, fantastic at making Tina’s complicated designs. He learned quickly, only needing one demonstration from Tina and a trial run before getting the hang of each bracelet. Tina was constantly singing his praises, relieved to have her workload lightened. Between the two of them, they managed to make triple the amount of bracelets she usually makes.

Ava, on the other hand, was not able to follow Tina’s instructions with the same ease as Jamie. Tina quickly abandoned teaching her in favor of Jamie, though they got along well and had a similar taste in old-ass 80s music. However, Ava did have a talent for weaving the simpler bracelets just as, if not more quickly than Erica. By Tuesday, there was practically nowhere left for Erica to store everything.

As expected, Ava also had a delightful no-bullshit attitude that served her well as she helped Tina sell bracelets when Erica had to help one of her “friends” out of a crisis. Apparently, Lucas and Dustin had visited again and Ava managed to shut down their antics quickly.

Nobody even remotely associated with Lucas's friends (no, she's not friends with them, shut up Ava-) showed up on Wednesday, presumably not knowing that they were selling that day. Erica, seated between Tina and Ava at their stand, was blissfully headache-free with the absence of their shenanigans.

Of course, her left eye continued to twitch violently because of Sally's rapidly growing business, but that's neither here nor there. (No, Tina, she doesn't need to get that checked out by a doctor, it can be easily fixed with murde-)

Apparently, being open every day of the week created a reliable and consistent clientele. A clientele consisting of impatient airheads, but a consistent clientele regardless.

"We could hire somebody to sabotage her production," Ava volunteered when they had a lull between customers.

"Or just spy on her and report back," Tina muttered.

Erica sighed. "The first is corporate espionage and the second is also corporate espionage, but also morally reprehensible."

"And?"

Erica scowled at Tina. "Don't you remember when we almost got detention two years ago for spying on Jackie? We do not want detention right now. They could stop us from keeping this location!"

"And corporate espionage?"

"Well, that would probably result in the same thing. Probably."

"So," Ava hedged, "we shouldn't risk it?"

"No. Unfortunately, we shouldn't."

"Damn," Ava said. "My friend Lily would've loved to do that."

Tina raised an eyebrow at that. "Lily?"

___________

The next day, a girl named Lily was inducted into E + T Loom Designs.

She was pretty good at making bracelets.

She was better at marketing.

She was even better at being a bodyguard. She was really fast and pretty strong (she's already had to tackle a runner to the ground), and Erica could finally fire those two seventh grade boys. Good riddance. They were getting way too many free bracelets.

___________

It was a beautiful Friday afternoon. The sun was slowly crawling across the sky, which was as blue as a robin's egg, without a cloud to be seen, and it was fucking cold.

It's Indiana, alright? When it gets cold, it’s cold. Erica almost wished she had her epiphany to sell Rainbow Loom bracelets in late April, because at least then she would've been suffering from the stupidity of her classmates and her brother’s friends in the warmth.

But no. It's February and she's cold and she still has to deal with stupidity.

She was carefully separating the bills from the latest purchase with shaking, glove-clad hands when Tina abruptly snorted. “Erica, it’s for you.”

Erica sighed deeply, wondering what she did in a past life to deserve this. She looked up, expecting to see her brother or one of his friends. Instead, she was faced with their siblings.

Oh thank God. Kind of reasonable people.

“Hi, Erica,” Nancy greeted her with a faint smile, Jonathan already surveying everything on the table.

“Wheeler. Byers,” Erica acknowledged tiredly.

Nancy’s smile widened. “I’m guessing our brothers have been bothering you?”

Erica rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Yep,” she said, popping the p. “Them, Steve and Robin. Although, neither Mike or Will have visited yet. I'm kind of glad, though. Your brother is a jerk, Wheeler."

Nancy snorted. "Yes, he most definitely is."

At that, the conversation trailed off and Nancy joined Jonathan in browsing. She quickly chose two Tina bracelets; a white, silver and dark green bracelet that looked like two Starburst bracelets stacked on top of each other, and what looked like a double fishtail bracelet with pastel pink and blue bands. She lingered at the table, trying her best to unobtrusively wait for Jonathan to pick something.

After a few moments, Jonathan sighed and stepped back. "Yeah, I'll never find something. I was going to get something for mom, but…" He gestured slightly helplessly at the table. "I have no idea which she would like, if she would wear this kind of bracelet at all."

Nancy flashed him a quick, understanding smile before going to pay for her bracelets. At Erica's vaguely curious look, she said, "The pink and blue one is for Holly. She's been desperate for one for weeks. The other one is for Barbara."

"Barbara Holland?" Ava asked.

"That’s her," Nancy said with a slight smile.

“Huh. What happened to her? She used to babysit me. It was like one day she just vanished.”

“She’s fine, she and her parents just moved to Colorado midway through our freshman year,” Nancy explained.

“Oh, cool.”

After a slight lull in the conversation, Jonathan said, looking uncomfortable at the awkwardness, “Right, uh. We’ll just be going now? See you later, Erica.”

Tina watched them leave with furrowed eyebrows and a disappointed expression. “That was the least entertaining visit we’ve had so far. Dustin’s slacking. I should tell him to step it up.”

Erica jerked in her seat. “What?! You absolutely shouldn’t! Tina??”

Ava nodded in agreement. “I want to meet more of Erica’s chaotic family.”

“They are not my family!”

Her denials fell on deaf ears, and it took all of Erica’s willpower to not pout at them childishly.

___________

The next Tuesday, Jamie, Ava, and Tina invaded Erica’s room again to try and prepare for reopening again on Wednesday. Erica left the confines of her room a few minutes before in an effort to escape Ava’s incessant teasing about Jamie’s lack of love life while he sputtered in embarrassment. If she had to hear Ava jokingly wax poetic about Jamie's crush, Bob Taylor, for a second longer than she absolutely had to, she was going to scream.

“I’m going to kill one of them if they don’t stop, Mom,” Erica groused. When she laughed, Erica insisted, “I really will!”

“Sure you will, honey.” Her mom’s eyes danced with amusement as she handed Erica a platter towered high with mini sandwiches. “This thing better be licked clean by the time your friends leave, Erica. I won’t have any parents think I’m starving their children.”

Erica rolled her eyes as she stalked off to her room, though the effect was ruined by the careful way she held the plate to prevent anything from falling.

Once Erica reached her room and relayed her mother’s message, Tina immediately began to stuff sandwiches in her mouth.

At the disgusted looks on Jamie and Ava’s faces, Tina hastily swallowed and explained, “You really don’t want to get on Mrs. Sinclair’s bad side.”

Erica and Tina shuddered in unison, thinking about the number of lectures and rants they heard Lucas receive when he did something especially stupid. (They rarely get lectures because in the rare event that they do something dumb, they at least have the intelligence to not get caught.)

Ava and Jamie shrugged at each other after a moment and followed Tina’s lead.

After a few moments of silent chewing, Erica sighed. “Okay, why the hell do you like Bob so much?”

Jamie’s and Ava’s eyes light up as they begin to ramble about him adoringly and mockingly, respectively.

___________

“All I’m saying,” Erica said, as patiently as she could (which wasn’t very), “is that we should save them for when we absolutely need them. When the hype is dying off, you know?”

“But that’s now!” Ava argued.

Lily, from where she’s standing stoically—as if the cold Hawkins-winter air doesn't bother her—a few feet to the side, prepared to sprint at thieves any moment, added, “We’re getting a quarter of our former customers, Erica. And Sally’s doing better every day because of how often she’s open.”

“She’s got a point,” Tina interjected, her voice startlingly calm and even in comparison to Ava’s heated whispers, Lily’s goading comments and Erica’s steadily rising arguments.

“But-!”

A dark shadow fell over their table as they tried to discuss when they should start selling the Loom figurines that Tina had been working on for months. (Jamie wasn’t allowed to help her with it. Erica and Tina agreed; if they were betrayed, they had to have at least the figurines in their corner. It may be paranoid, but someone is out to get them and their business.)

Immediately, Erica closed her eyes in dismay, trying to gather her strength for the inevitably exhausting conversation she was about to have. The shadow was much too tall to be one of the typical middle school customers. So it had to be a high schooler.

So it had to be one of them.

She opened her eyes after what felt like five minutes of silence from all three of her friends, but was more like thirty seconds, to see Billy Hargrove smirking at her with Heather Holloway leaning into him, her head on his shoulder. She gazed at the three of them and their table disinterestedly as she absently picked at the cuff of his jean jacket.

“Fuck you. Go away.”

Billy’s smirk widened. “Watch your fucking language, little Sinclair. There are young ears around here.”

Erica scowled fiercely, willing him to spontaneously disappear, and hopefully take Holloway with him.

“Go. Away.”

“Why should I? Not like there’s anyone else in line around here.”

Erica’s scowl deepened. He wasn’t wrong. It was getting closer to around that time when most kids with the money to buy something already had. If fucking Billy hadn’t stopped by, Erica would probably be griping at Tina for making her help pack everything up after she failed to get out of it.

“Fine. Then buy something.”

Billy hummed consideringly. “Hmm. No.”

“Then why the fuck are you here?”

Erica ignored his mocking, “little ears!” and turned to Ava and Tina. Both of which looked apathetic and unwilling to help her. Tina even raised her eyebrows at Erica, as if saying, this is your problem, you get to deal with it.

“I’m here to make sure you remember movie night at Harrington’s.”

“How could I forget? Lucas and Dustin only mention it every other minute.”

“Last week you seemed to ‘forget’ it.”

“I ‘forgot’ nothing. Go the fuck away, Hargrove.”

Billy held his hands up in surrender. “I know where I’m not wanted.”

He and Heather, who still looked incredibly bored with everything being said, strolled off to his Camaro across the parking lot while Erica scowled at their backs.

Lily, who had been watching the two with narrow eyes, began to noisily pack up all the leftovers. “Why do you know so many weird high schoolers, Erica?”

“It wasn’t a choice,” she told her friend. (And when did Ava and Jamie and Lily become her friends? Was it when they proved themselves at least a little trustworthy? When they ravenously ate her mother’s amazing and disgustingly healthy sandwiches and snacks together while they frantically weaved hundreds of bracelets and in Tina’s case, figurines? When they all laughed at her misfortune as they watched the latest high school nerd walk away? When they, together, endured the numerous and tedious talks from teachers to, please, move this somewhere else while they stubbornly refused? Was it when-)

“Are they dating?” Lily asked, full of questions, apparently.

“No,” Erica ground out between her teeth. “They’re just friends. Why do you care?”

Lily hummed consideringly and ignored her.

“And why do they always only visit in pairs?” Ava wondered.

“They don’t always- huh. I guess they do…”**

___________

“Nope. Get out of here,” Erica said with zero hesitation.

“What?!”

“We have a strict No-Wheeler policy here, you’re gonna have to go.”

“Nancy was here only two weeks ago!”

“Sorry, I meant a No-Mike-Wheeler policy. Go away.”

“Why!?”

“We only provide goods for people who have a modicum of emotional intelligence. So you don’t qualify, obviously.”

“To be fair,” Will hesitantly interjected, “he’s getting better. He started to date me, hasn’t he?”

“Yeah!”

Unimpressed, Erica said, “You’re on thin fucking ice. Buy something and go.”

They were gone within the minute.

“They’re actually kind of cute together,” Tina said consideringly.

“Don’t want to hear it. I’ve known them all my life. They’re all assholes in disguise. But unlike my brother, who has a semi-decent front for the unsuspecting innocents of Hawkins, Mike Wheeler’s disguise is the equivalent of a fake plastic mustache and a stupid-ass, obviously fake accent. The only tolerable one, including Lucas, is Will. If he came alone, he would’ve gotten a discount.”

___________

“Have a good day,” Tina said and then Erica’s day was ruined because a cackling Eddie Munson and a giggly Chrissy Cunningham walked up to the table.

Erica’s head slammed onto the table in frustration.

Eddie poked her the top of her head in concern. “Uhh- Lady Applejack? Should I call an ambulance?”

“No. If you do, I’ll kill you.”

Eddie took a step back. “Woah, hold your ponies, Applejack! We just wanted to get a couple bracelets to celebrate a successful pra-”

Erica held up her hand without lifting her head. “I’m gonna stop you right there. I would like plausible deniability if anyone comes to ask me about whatever you just did so just buy your shit and leave.”

Eddie held his hands up in surrender. “Sure, I won’t tell you about how awesome and cathartic it would be to deface Jason Carver’s locker by covering it entirely with rainbow paint in revenge for cheating on Chrissy here. Because it would be awesome. Just imagine his face if that happened.”

Chrissy, at that point, was almost silent from how hard she was laughing.

“Go away,” Erica said tiredly to the darkness.

___________

“Okay, but I’m Billy and Steve all the way,” Jamie said to Ava as he carefully laid out bracelets on the table.

Ava scoffed and threw a bracelet at his face. “No way! Eddie and Steve are so much better!”

Jamie rolled his eyes. “You’re just saying that because they co-parent Dustin.”

“And you’re just saying that Billy and Steve are better because of the tension. Don’t you remember when Billy beat Steve up? Eddie and Steve are so much less toxic.”

“Why not all three of them?” Lily asked as she drifted by them.

Jamie and Ava paused as they considered this, clearly thinking hard.

Ava said, “My point still stands.”

“Oh please-”

“Hey!” They all looked at Erica, who had been watching the whole time. She was glaring at them with both hands on her hips. “Get back to work! We won’t beat Sally by sitting around! And stop gossiping about my babysitter’s love life!”

___________

Erica liked to think that she was a calm, rational person, capable of making sound decisions, like deciding to take out the trash or do the dishes before her mother asked her to in an effort to incur her favor, or like deciding to do her homework soon after it was initially given in an effort to avoid the inescapable depths of procrastination.

Erica liked to think that she was a nice person. A person who was able to observe social niceties and make other people feel included and welcome. A person who had sound morals, who wouldn’t do things liable to get her suspended or expelled from school.

Erica wasn’t either of these people. Or, perhaps, she is. Maybe she just doesn’t care if these facets of her are temporarily shunted off to the side, or maybe she just doesn’t adhere to modern societal expectations regarding being a rational and nice person.

Erica may not be either of these people because one night, as she laid in her bed and stared up at the dark ceiling and clutched her blanket to her chin, she decided that at some point, if Sally dragged her little business on the coattails of her own for much longer, she would do something about it.

After all, Sally definitely didn’t want anyone to know about the Halloween Party Incident from only a year ago. She even swore Erica to secrecy. Erica had complied at the time for an occasion such as this one.

One day, Erica knew she would reach the end of her rope. One day, Sally will push a little too far. And that’s when she’ll regret ever putting herself in the direct crosshairs of Erica Sinclair.

___________

“Oh my god, I love your bracelet!”

“Thanks! I bought it from Sally’s Rainbow Loom business!”

“That’s so cool! Is she still selling ones like these?”

“Yeah! They’re called Starbursts. I think that Erica and Tina sell some just like this!”

The Starburst bracelet on the girl’s hand was identical to the bracelet Tina had sold a girl only a month earlier. Identical, even down to Tina’s signature embellishment where the c-clip connected either side.

So, Sally either recreated the design entirely or she resold something that Tina made.

Erica couldn’t stand for either option.

Erica felt her eyes harden and her fists clench. She stood up slowly, gaining the attention of the entire class, burning holes into them and, to herself, said-

___________

“That’s it. We’re doing this the hard way.”

It had been a really slow day. It was a Friday, mid-way through March, a day that they could typically count on a decent amount of customers. But as the afternoon drew on and only a few people stopped by, Erica’s mood grew worse and worse.

“What do you mean?” Jamie inquired from where he and Ava sat on a blanket behind Erica and Tina. Most days, Jamie wasn’t around for selling the bracelets at all, but when he was, he and Ava just hung out while Erica and Tina were preoccupied. Lily often joined them when she wasn’t chasing anyone down for daring to cross them.

“I mean this,” Erica spat, jabbing her finger violently in Sally’s direction across the parking lot, “has gone on for far too long. We can’t run her out of business; she’s open every day of the week, has somehow garnered a loyal clientele, and bands are incredibly cheap, if she’s even paying for them herself! Even though you and Tina make the better products by far, she won’t stop, and I’m not. Having it.”***

Tina exchanged worried looks with her friends. Every step Erica took seemed to encourage her fury, every word like throwing gasoline on a fire. Tina hadn’t seen Erica like this for a long time, if ever.

Erica continued her rant furiously, beginning to pace across the sidewalk in front of the stand, unconcerned with running into potential customers. There wouldn’t be any. It was getting a little late in the afternoon, after all. “I’m done playing these games! Ava said it herself. We have less than a quarter of the customers we used to have!”

“Erica,” Tina tried, worry and warning creeping into her voice.

“No! If Sally isn’t going to stop this anytime soon, then I’m going to.”

“Erica, don’t do anything drasti-”

Erica gazed at Sally’s booth. “I’m going to do something drastic.”

Without another word, Erica marched toward Sally’s stand, which, like theirs, was still up.

Within moments, Erica was standing in front of Sally. To Tina, they were merely distant figures. If she hadn’t known any better, she might’ve thought they were friends. She couldn’t see their facial expressions or hear their words, after all.

Then Sally stood up. Tina watched Sally’s face turn an angry red, watched her gesture angrily, watched Erica cross her arms in that smug way of hers.

Tina watched as Sally’s face drained of any color at all as she stepped backwards, away from Erica.

Tina watched as Sally packed up her table and her wares, each movement becoming sharper and angrier as she went. She watched as Sally began to walk home, not even waiting for her parents’ who always come to pick her up.

When Erica arrived back at the table, Tina didn’t know what to think.

“Don’t tell me,” Tina requested. “I don’t want to know what you told her.”

It wasn’t that Tina disagreed with anything Erica may or may not have done, exactly. And she did understand where Erica was coming from. But, despite that, if Tina knew exactly what Erica said, she could be implicated in whatever consequence there may or may not be.

To be honest, Tina thought, staring at Erica, she might have even done the same thing herself, given the chance.

Erica nodded. “It wasn’t anything actually bad. Just-”

“I don’t want to know.”

___________

For one blissfully quiet and peaceful week, E + T Loom Designs went unchallenged. The number of customers they got in the two days they were open that week increased exponentially, especially with the introduction of Loom Figurines; dozens of bands masterfully woven to create 3-D figures of animals like frogs, cats, and dogs, figures of cartoon characters, figures of plants and food and so much more.

For a week, two measly days of selling loom creations, everything was fine. The sun shone brightly every day, there were minimal visits from the peanut gallery that is the Party, as they like to call themselves, and they were making a good bit of money to spend at the ice cream shop across the street from Melvald’s.

The next Monday, it was cloudy.

The next Monday, Sally Johnson looked strangely smug for a girl who was just summarily defeated by her rival.

The next Monday, right before first period could start, the intercom turned on with a crackle.

“Can Erica Sinclair please come to the office?"

Shit.

___________

“You blackmailed one of your fellow students, Erica! We can’t just let that slide!”

“It wouldn’t have ruined her life or anything!”

“Blackmail is still unacceptable for any student in Hawkins Middle, regardless of whether or not it will ruin anyone’s life.”

“Adults do it all the time!”

“I- From now on, you and your friends will stop selling anything on school grounds for the rest of your lives-”

“What?!”

“-and selling products anywhere on school grounds for any reason outside of school-approved fundraisers will be strictly prohibited for everyone because of you. I’m going to call your parents, I will explain what’s happened, and you will never do anything like this again. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Go back to class.”

___________

For two weeks, students in Hawkins Middle and High school alike had to endure an existence without any Rainbow Loom businesses. For two weeks, their lives were that much less colorful.

On the Sunday before the exact two-week mark of their forceful shutdown, in the neighborhood that was in plain view of the middle school (not on school property, of course not. They're not rule-breakers, after all. Just rule benders), a simple card table with folding legs could be found in front of two conveniently placed poles. The table was covered with rubbery bracelets and a poster hanging between the poles proudly declared, “E + T Loom Designs!” in elegant calligraphy.

Anyone who knew Erica Sinclair could agree on one thing: No matter the odds, no matter who was against her, she would succeed, and she would win.

It was just a matter of when. Just the facts.