Mia's shadow was causing trouble.

It would scrape off when she wiped her feet coming inside, or sometimes the shadow would grab onto furniture when she's going by and it'd hold until it tore itself away from Mia and could run loose.

When that happened, it took forever to catch it. We had to use a net, but we had to make sure the shadow was caught by the net's shadow. That meant that while I ran around with the net, Mia was behind me with a flashlight trying to focus the light.

"Maybe we could try gluing it to my shoes," Mia said the sixth time we caught it.

"Mom'd notice," I said, trying to tape the shadow to her feet. The shadow was wiggly and felt like dish soap.

"There," I said, finished. "That'll hold it."

A week later, Mia was watering the grass. The water loosened the tape and zoom! went the shadow, gone away into the neighbor's yard.

"What do I do?" Mia said.

I looked around. "Can you take one from somewhere else?"

"From where?"

I pointed at the grass. "All these have shadows, right? So take a bunch of them. Mush them together until you have one that's you-sized."

Mia thought about this. Then she made like she was mashing play dough, even though her hands were empty, and darkness started growing at her feet. Soon, Mia had another shadow. When she moved, it moved, and when she was still, it was still.

"There," I said. "Should've done this weeks ago!"

Mia jumped, and her shadow jumped too. "I'm gonna miss my old one, though. I wonder where it went?"

I shrugged. "Who knows?"

And we went back to doing yard work.

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