Alex offered his hand and helped Chloe up from her chair. She lifelessly shrugged on a long wool coat with her best friend’s help. Alex wrapped his arm around the shoulders of Chloe’s shell and led her out of the court house.

“Hmm. I’m sort of at a loss for solutions to this zombie-type state you’re in,” Alex told Chloe with a smile. Her eyebrows furrowed and her eyes focused.

“What?” she asked.

“What?” Alex answered.

“What?!”

“Ice cream.”

The conversation was much too hard to follow in Chloe’s opinion, but then again, she had been zoning out. It was hard to come up with words so she just decided on, “Huh?”

“We,” Alex paused to point at Chloe and himself, “Should go,” his fingers walked down a railing, “Get ice cream.”

He pulled his arm away and scooped imaginary ice cream into an imaginary cone to hand to Chloe.

“Isn’t it sort of cold for ice cream?”

Alex gasped, “Too cold for ice cream at the North Pole Cafe? Impossible.”

“Alright,” Chloe agreed, “vanilla with french fries.”