They help her fasten it… for a price

This chapter was written collaboratively with an AI at aidungeon.io.

“Girls, who has a safety pin for this poor girl’s skirt?”

One of the girls rummaged around in her fashionable bag, eventually pulling out a small safety pin. Anna thought it was surely too small to hold together the gathered fabric of her skirt. The girl handed the pin to the leader. The head girl walked over to Anna and expertly pinned up her skirt. To Anna’s surprise, the pin seemed to be holding, despite its small size. Despite her help, Anna had a hard time meeting the girl's eyes, and looked down at her bare feet.

"I'm sorry,” the girl said, “I'll let you get back to work now." They turned and walked away. Anna was still trembling.

“Oh, one more thing,” the girl turned and said. “What’s your name?”

“It’s Ann—uh…” Anna said automatically, before realizing she shouldn’t be revealing her identity to strange girls who caught her in an embarrassing situation.

“Anna.” The girl smiled. “It suits you.”

The girl approached Anna slowly.

“Well, Anna, would you mind if I got some of your socials, in case you ever need me to help you out again?”

"My socials?" Anna said with a frown.

"Oh, you know, Facebook, Twitter, Tiktok, Instagram, whatever you're on. I want you to be able to reach me as many ways as you can."

The girl extended a smartphone and smiled.

"Just open the apps and enter your info so I can follow you. Then you can follow me back!”

There was no way Anna wanted these people knowing anything about her, but she felt pressured to comply. She hesitantly took the phone.

“Let’s start with Facebook,” the girl said. “Just type your name in the search bar.”

Anna’s heard pounded with uncertainty as she slowly began typing.

“Anna Young, huh? Looks like there are quite a few of you on here. Why don’t we look for the profile that has your pictures?”

“I-I don’t have any pictures on Facebook,” Anna stammered desperately. Maybe she could get away with giving the girls someone else’s profile to friend.

“Well, that can’t be true, can it?” the girl said. “Someone else must have tagged you, at least. Why don’t we just open your profile and see?”

Anna gulped. Her hands shaking, she opened the profile page.

The girl looked it over. “125 friends in common, huh? Small world.” She grinned with more than a little wickedness. With thr Facebok profile still open, she passed the phone to her friend, who smiled, understanding what the head girl meant. She looked at Anna’s phone screen, simultaneously typing Anna’s info on her own phone, then started clicking on things on Anna’s phone. A moment later, she passed Anna’s phone back to the leader. The head girl then closed the Facebook app.

"A-aren't you going to friend me?" Anna stammered.

"Mm, on second thought, we don't know each other very well," the girl said. "It wouldn't be right for you to friend a total stranger. I'll just look you up if I need to get in touch with you again…” she switched to another open app and looked at the phone, “@young_anna2004.”

“Wh-what?” Anna stammered, as the girl rapidly tap-tap-tapped through different screens.

“Looks like you use the same screen name on every platform. Easy for people to find you, right? And you have a lot of followers, huh? Good for you.”

Anna stood there in terror. Where was she going with this?

The girl pressed the sleep button on the phone. The screen went dark. She handed it back to Anna.

"Okay, I think I have all the info I need on you," she smiled. "See you around."

All the info? Info for what?

The girls and she began to walk away.

"Oh, one other thing," the girl said, walking back to Anna.

“Smile." She got close to Anna and held her phone at arm’s length, with the camera open. Anna did as she was told and **** a smile. The girl grinned from ear to ear as she took a selfie of the two of them.

"Thanks, Anna. I'll see you later."

With that, she turned around, and the five of them walked out of sight once more.

See you? What did that mean? Anna’s mind reeled, wondering what this girl wanted with her.