Angela had already been wandering around for a little while (the building was so big, and so empty!) when she heard footsteps behind her. She wasn’t sure what sort of people would be in a building like this one, with its fading paint and dinged-up metal walls, but someone had to be better than no one, right? She could run very fast, if they weren’t nice. Curious, she turned around.
A cowboy. He had the hat and the boots and the belt and everything, like he had stepped straight out of one of those old movies Opa liked to watch. Like someone had just gone straight back in time and brought him back with them and plonked him into the hallways, so out of place surrounded by grey metal and fluorescent lights instead of desert sand.
“...Yes,” she whispered, staring at the man as he crouched down. He smelled like smoke and he spoke English, and not Swiss German. That made sense for a cowboy, but all the labeling in the hallway was in English too, and that made no sense for Switzerland. And her parents were nowhere to be found either, and she didn’t know what was going on, she didn’t know this person, she didn’t know what this place was for, she didn’t know, she didn’t know-
Her lip wobbled, but she set her chin stubbornly and blinked hard. No. Crying never fixed anything, Mama said. If she didn’t know something, she should do her best to find out, not give up and stop trying.
“Yes. I’m lost,” she said again, a little bit louder this time. Her English didn’t sound like his - his was all twangy and American, the vowels drawled long and slow - but she did her best. “Do you work here?”