Return of the Teaser, Chapter Two

No sooner had Mini-Flash Juniper departed than her doppelganger struck up a series of self-pitying complaints that she was hungry. Since an acre of oilseed in Flashsatsumas’s underwear wouldn’t have made him any less cautious about the company he was required to keep, his first thought was to veto any kind of excursion to the food-court. On the other hand however, he and the real Mini-Flash Juniper might just as easily have taken such a trip, and maintaining the illusion of normality was the task she’d charged him with. In addition, for all Flashsatsumas knew the counter-Juniper might have been the kind of entity which needed material sustenance, and that would mean her pleas for the same were actuated by necessity rather than sneakiness.

Nor was it that Flashsatsumas didn’t think back at least a little to the day off he’d spent at the war-moon. That, however, as he assured himself robustly, had been a learning-curve.

Thanks to it, he knew of one girl who wasn’t going to get the better of him today.

So they went, and Flashsatsumas showed the counter-Juniper how to take an empty tray at the start of the long indoor concourse. Prior to that was the drinks-dispenser, which Flashsatsumas demonstrated likewise. Taking up a disposable cup and putting it under his nozzle of choice, he clicked the switch with the rim so that swirls of fizzy liquid scooched inside.

Like the real Mini-Flash Juniper, the other one picked things up fast. That was true in both senses, for her characteristically light fingers found out at once a giant-size cup which was more like a red and white paper bucket. Into this she sluiced sparkling black froth until a yellowish head of foam threatened to slop over. Another resemblance though was apparently in motor-control and exactitude, for not a drop did the counter-Juniper spill between the dripping spout and her lips, whereat she glugged the gargantuan beverage in one go then gasped loudly and with satisfaction at Flashsatsumas.

“I’m having another of those,” decided the counter-Juniper.

If this could be called a request, Flashsatsumas granted it, and so the counter-Juniper parked a second brimming bucket on her tray. This latter she then proceeded to slide the along the waist-high surface which wound its way through the provender, and soon enough she’d convinced Flashsatsumas her hunger hadn’t been a sham. Rational beings would have surely had more sense than to try and tackle such a repast as hers on a full stomach. Ignoring the main courses and salads, the counter-Juniper heaped up every kind of ice cream sundae and frosted dessert, all the while happily swigging. So it was that when she finally slewed her overloaded sweet-trolley to a waitress by the till, all liquid refreshment was once again gone.

“Just look,” was the counter-Juniper’s comment on this sad state of affairs.

Long-suffering Flashsatsumas went back to the start of the trail for her, after making it clear this one was to be her last.

Beside the cash-register stood a display whose like was to be seen at that same spot in every dining establishment on the camp, where candy-sticks were considered a fit accompaniment for any meal. The counter-Juniper took a single slim pack.

“These too, please,” she told the waitress secretively.

When Flashsatsumas returned, the counter-Juniper was standing just where she’d been, legs together. And the only candy-sticks in sight were those by the till.

“With the two drinks she’s already had, that’s,” said the waitress, naming a sum so astronomical that Flashsatsumas didn’t notice the small cost which had been added to it.

Thereupon he led the way over to a vacant table, more determined than ever to take charge. Had he opted for traditional Earth-courtesy instead, he might have observed that the counter-Juniper was taking curious tiny steps, putting her best foot forward very daintily while continuing to squeeze her thighs and knees.

A little boy at a table just behind the one Flashsatsumas chose was more observant by far.

His eyes fairly brightened as the counter-Juniper sat, the latter all innocence, though she had to poke out her pleats in back an inordinate distance while smoothing them.

The little boy’s cooling burger and chips might have started to feel the pangs of neglect.

She for her part caught his dizzy gaze at once, and winked at him over Flashsatsumas’s shoulder. Having come into the world with a wink, the counter-Juniper liked doing it.

“You’re not here to pull faces,” said Flashsatsumas sternly.

So the counter-Juniper set down to something else she liked, first guzzling her way through a chocolate and mint mountain which towered in a tall glass, then spearing a big icy peach which sat in a circle of little creamy swirls and gulping this former whole like an egg-yolk. All the while she washed down each mouthful with a heavy draught from her cup, and Flashsatsumas, faintly ill, was glad he’d limited his own intake to the single sensibly-sized drink he still sipped.

The other boy was off his food likewise, albeit for rather different reasons. He’d hoped coming here for a bite would cheer him up after National Pentathletes, but had never in his wildest dreams imagined it would do the job so well.

“Eat properly please, both hands on the table,” Flashsatsumas commanded at length.

His companion banged her errant one back where it had been, pettish. “You don’t know what it’s like, having to wear these stupid itchy stockings,” she complained.

Flashsatsumas added “give me strength” to his ever-growing list of terran idioms.

“If you need to scratch, you can,” he granted her.

At once the counter-Juniper’s hand dropped out of his line of sight again. Not so the little boy’s however, and nothing on the menu could have so made him lick his lips.

For he had watched that same hand lift the girl’s hemline clear of her quivery blue legs. That there were candy-sticks gripped between them was frankly incidental to such a view. Although the tall fair-haired female was by some distance the little boy’s senior, he wasn’t as little as all that. His long-forgotten burger and chips sat where they were and congealed, probably by now in need of counselling.

It took the counter-Juniper a while, because she had to keep putting her hand back on the table to feign an intermittent itch. Yet the little boy could honestly say it was a pleasure to watch her work, first deftly flipping the packet open with her thumb, and scattering the contents onto her lap where her skirt was still rumpled and tucked. From thereon, whenever her hand went to that hollow it would rub the sticks two or three at a time around and around between the finger-pads, crumbling them to a fine powder, until at last there was nothing but a pile of such dust upon the pleats.

This was timed to coincide with the counter-Juniper draining her cup. “Please may I have another drink, Flashsatsumas?” she requested sweetly.

“No,” replied the heartless one. “Three’s enough.”

“Then please will you go and buy me a pair of waterproof knickers?” she went on. “It’s that or another drink, because I’m not budging from this chair either way.”

As soon as Flashsatsumas had flung off to the dispensers one last time, the counter-Juniper rose with her skirt pinced between both thumbs and forefingers, so as to hold it level over the table-top. The little boy’s lunchtime was just about complete. There was still more than half of Flashsatsumas’s drink left, and into it the counter-Juniper dumped every mote of the dosage she’d heaped. It fizzed and sizzled wickedly as it dissolved fast. Then dusting off her hands and dress she sat down again with a bump, flattening under her the empty packet.

Flashsatsumas was paying at the till. “Are you not having one too, love?” tutted the waitress, who’d been keeping an eye on them both. “You don’t want to let that one boss you around.”

Quickly Flashsatsumas ran through his list.

“I am starting to wish mine was something stronger,” he concurred.

Then he headed back with the king-size drink, feeling rather pleased with himself. His good mood lasted until he took one sip from his own, and passed out insensible on the food-court floor.

END OF CHAPTER TWO