As if to make up for the orange apples' strangeness, Jeremy chose two golden deliciouses from the raised right here bin. He pulled off a bag of his own. In went the apples. Even so, he pointed at the sign and said, “That's really lame. We're so mixed up with the alternates by now, who can tell what started out here and what didn't? And who cares, anyway?”

“Some people don't like anything new. Some people probably didn't like TV and telephones when they were first starting up,” Amanda said. She took an apple from a different bin.

Her brother grabbed another one, too. “I know, I know. They ought to look at what things are like in some of the alternates. That would teach them a lesson.”

“I doubt it,” Amanda said. “People like that don't learn lessons.”

“Don't I wish you were wrong.” Jeremy put another apple in his sack. “How much have we got?” They set both bags of apples on the tray of a produce scale, and added fruit till they had two kilos. Then they took the bags to the express checkout line.

The checker gave them a dirty look. “Why didn't you buy all the same kind?” he said.

“Because we like different kinds,” Amanda answered.

“But they all have different prices per kilo,” the checker grumbled. Jeremy probably would have got angry by himself. Amanda only smiled, which worked better. The checker muttered something, but he pulled out his handheld so he could see which kind cost what. He looked at the total on the register. “It comes to 557 dollars.”

“Here.” Amanda gave him five benjamins, a fifty-dollar piece, and a smaller ten-dollar coin. He ran the benjamins through a reader to make sure they were genuine, then put them and the coins in the register. He gave her back three little aluminum dollars. She stuck them in the hip pocket of her shorts.

Jeremy grabbed the apples. “Come on,” he said, looking at his watch. “There'll be a northbound bus in five minutes.”