Chapter Twenty-Six - Just Along for the Ride

Teddy didn’t know what was up with the sleepy lady getting them all to cram into some taxi, but the Boss didn't comment on it, so she went along for the ride.

Her job wasn’t to ask questions and stuff like that, it was to keep the Boss safe.

Going around all over with the Boss and the Melanie lady who was actually a hero and who was also able to make people sleep was just part of that. She kind of wished that the Boss could have found someone who wasn’t a hero to pair up with, but that was okay. Less okay was the amount of walking they’d done. Teddy’s legs were kind of short and stubby.

They were perfectly good legs, made that way so that her centre of balance could stay low. But that meant that for every step the Boss took Teddy had to take two. It was real tiring.

She relaxed into the taxi’s seat. She got to sit in the middle seat, so if she perked up a bit she could see the road out ahead over the mileage meter thing. The driver was being real careful, probably because she was clearly wearing a bear mask that put the fear of bears in him.

The ride was pretty quiet. The Boss didn’t talk much at the best of times, and Melanie who was also Melaton was pecking away at her phone, clearly one of the sheep that had fallen for the capitalist cellphone trap.

The silence was alright. It was also boring. “So, where’re we going?” she asked. She’d gotten something about pizza? She’d never had any of that, but she thought it was something she’d like to eat.

“Um,” The Boss said. “We’re going to the place with...” she looked over to the driver, then cleared her throat. The Boss was real clever that way. “We’re going to see about buying a few slices of pizza, and talking with someone.”

“Oh,” Teddy said. “Alright.”

The Boss smiled at her and placed a hand atop Teddy’s head to pat her hair. It was real nice, like a hug for her head. It got even better when the Boss started to absentmindedly fiddle with Teddy’s ears.

It probably made the Boss happy too because Teddy had great ears. They were her most bear-like feature when she wasn’t actually a bear, after all.

She wondered what it would feel like for the Boss to play with her ears when she was big. Maybe while riding her into combat?

But the Boss didn’t have any attacks that worked from afar... or from up close. So she’d need a gun or something.

Teddy didn’t know why she knew what an AK-47 was, but she did, and she wished that the boss could ride her into battle while spraying capitalists pigs with a pair of them.

“Yeah,” Teddy whispered.

“Hmm?” The Boss asked.

“Nothing,” Teddy said. “I was just thinking about stuff.”

“Oh, okay.”

Melaton looked up from her phone just as the taxi started to slow down. “We here?” she asked.

“Yes ma’am,” the driver said as he came to a full stop and the car pitched back and forth a bit. “That will be eleven fifty,” he said.

Melaton slid a green twenty through the grating and stepped out. “C’mon kids,” she said. Teddy unbuckled herself--belt buckles were, in her opinion, stupid, but the Boss insisted--and scrambled out on the Boss’s side.

The moment they were all out the taxi clunked a few times, then sped off, leaving the three of them standing on the side of a road.

Teddy looked around. There was a bit of a field, with big bushes and long grass cut up by footpaths covered in cigarette butts to one side, it was squished between a row of homes with fenced-in backyards and the back of what looked like a grocery store.

Closer by was a four-way stop with a cigar store on one side and a pizzeria on the other. She figured that the pizza-place, with its nearly-deserted parking lot, was their objective.

Most of the other buildings around were all little homes. The word ‘bungalow’ came to mind, but she wasn’t so sure that these homes were that kind.

She sniffed the air, then sniffed it some more. Sure, it stank of cars and trash, but under all the stink was a heavenly smell that had her moving towards the pizza place as if in a trance.

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“Kid’s got the right of it,” Melaton said. “That’s the place.”

Teddy barely noticed the Boss grabbing her hand and slowing her down so that Melaton could move into the pizza place first. The heroine held the door open from inside, so Teddy could slip in right after her.

Her nostrils flared, she took in a huge breath from her nose, and then Teddy almost fainted.

It smelled so good. Like grease and old cheese and raw onions and mushrooms. Just being there made her feel all clammy and delicious.

Then she took in the place. It had one table, with two little metal chairs, and a small sofa off to one side. There was a really old soda machine with a cracked front next to that, then the lobby place ended at a big wrap-around counter.

She climbed onto her tippy-paws to look over the edge of the counter and at the wonders beyond.

There was a skinny guy in a stained white outfit, rubbing at his nose with a knuckle while the dough was being squished in some sort of vice. He pulled it out, all flat and wobbly, then spun it around a few times before dropping it onto a flour-covered metal plate and shoving the edges in with his knuckles.

That was neat, but the person that captured her attention was a huge man wearing an apron that couldn’t wrap even halfway around his stomach. He had huge hairy arms that were flicking back and forth as he laid down a thumb-thick layer of pepperoni on a sea of tomato sauce. Then he reached into a bag and grabbed a double-fistfull of cheese that he dropped onto the pizza he was working on.

It was, in a word, art.

Teddy wanted one of those pizzas more than she’d ever wanted anything in the past two or so hours.

She turned to the Boss and hit her with the best bear-cub eyes she could manage. The Boss sighed and ruffled her hair. “We’ll see,” she said.

That was close enough.

“Hey!” Melaton called out.

The big guy paused in the act of dismantling some mushrooms with a big knife and no concern about his thumbs. “Yeah?” he asked before turning around and taking in Teddy’s fearsome appearance, the Boss’s cool costume, and also Melaton.

“We’re looking for someone,” Melaton said. “I think you might be able to help.”

The big artist wiped his greasy hands with his apron as he came closer. “Maybe,” he said. “Who’re you looking for?”

Melaton shifted so that she was leaning up against the counter. “We’re looking for a criminal called Homie,” she said.

The guy at the back, the tall skinny one, dropped his pizza dough to the ground with a dull splat.

“Five-second rule!” Teddy shouted.

He didn’t seem to care. The boy took one look at all of them, gasped, and bolted towards the back.

“Hey!” the big guy said.

“Crap,” Melaton added.

Teddy didn’t know what was going on, only that the boy running towards the back skidded to a stop near the door, turned over to a pair of potato fryers, and dipped his hands into them.

He screamed as he whipped his arms out and twin whip-like gouts of boiling oil shot out towards the front.

Teddy jumped to the side and tackled the Boss to the ground and out of the way as the oily whips snapped at the air above her. A fine drizzle of oil splattered around them and Teddy winced as some of it landed on her exposed calves. It hurt a bunch! Like getting stung by a bunch of small wet bees.

“Damnit!” Melaton said before she vaulted over the counter.

The big guy was screaming now and the door at the back slammed shut with a dull thump.

“Where’d he go?” Teddy asked. He had tried to hurt the boss. She’d eat him!

“You can’t leave from the back,” the big guy said. “He’ll have to circle around.”

Teddy scrambled off the Boss and rushed towards the front. She saw the Boss rolling over onto her knees, her eyes wide behind her mask as she looked around. The Boss was clever though, she’d figure it out.

In the meantime, Teddy had a jerk to catch. If she did it right, she was sure she’d get a meal out of it.