The chime of the small bell signalled a new arrival to the Red Pineapple. I walked through the front door as the clock hit 8:00, just in time for work. I’d needed to get up pretty early to catch the bus to drive me across town, but despite that, I felt well-rested after my recovery day.

Freddie followed me into the restaurant. We’d taken the same bus and let me tell you, Freddie was not a morning person. I’d seen more approachable wolverines. Saying good morning to him was a mistake I would not be repeating. I think I’d have better luck defusing an IED with my teeth.

We weren’t the first ones there. Red was sleeping on a chair in the corner, his Red Pineapple ball cap pulled down over his eyes.

Clanging in the kitchen alerted me to another presence. A moment later, Lucky bounded over to me, beaming. “Arthur! Look at you, all back to normal!” She began to check me over, circling me and poking me in various places.

I didn’t really feel like going through a TSA screening first thing in the morning, but I don’t think I could have stopped Lucky if I tried. “Um, yeah, I’m feeling a lot better. Could you not- OW!” She jabbed my ribs.

As I flinched away, Lucky stood up straight, satisfied. “No lingering injuries. Even your ankle looks good.”

Holding a hand to my ribs, I looked down at my left foot. I had taken off the boot this morning; it felt perfectly fine. “Couldn’t you have just asked?”

“Well, I could have, but then I’d have to trust that you know what you’re talking about and so far you haven’t proven that.”

I scoffed. “I may be clueless about the insanity of the Pineapple, but I know when my own ankle is broken!”

Freddie brushed past me, bumping my shoulder. “Quit yellin’.” He stomped off to his drive-thru window, grumbling under his breath.

“Oh, don’t mind him,” Lucky said. “He’s just a gwumpy beawr in da mowning.” She let her voice carry.

“Shut yer mouth, Fox!” A pencil crayon came hurtling out into the front room where we were standing. Lucky dodged to the side. The pencil whistled past her, followed by a meaty thwack.

“Argh!” Red vaulted upright, drawing his pistol as he was rudely awoken by the Burnt Sienna to the eye. “MI5! Cover blown! Take da package! Go, go!” He blinked and slowly realized he wasn’t in the middle of a Soviet espionage mission. He sheepishly put away his weapon and adjusted his coat. “Um, morning, comrades.”

“Good morning!” Lucky waved vigourously.

I smirked at Red as he tried to recover some dignity after the vicious pencil crayon attack. “Mornin’. You slept here?”

Red stretched, loosening his back. “Da. I accidentally lost house to dat sneaky Trigger in poker game.”

“How do you accidentally lose your house? Didn’t you bet it?”

Red shrugged. “Well, I was planning to win. I’m sure he cheat.”

“Or, you’re just no good at cards.” Lucky danced around the tall man, practically purring as she teased him. Her tail playfully batted across his face.

Red waved his hands and spit out fox hair as he chased Lucky away. “I’m great at cards! And stop trying to charm me with wily ways, vulpine devil!”

Lucky’s infectious laugh bounced off the walls as she scampered away into the kitchen.

With a scoff, Red shook his head. He clapped a hand on my shoulder and said seriously, “Don’t let pleasant demeanour fool you, Arthur. These women here are crazy!”

I wanted to point out that everything I’d encountered in the past few days had been crazy, but instead, I just nodded.

Red straightened, took a deep breath and clapped his hands. “Ok. Good. You’ll do fine. Try not to get ass kicked too much today.” He headed into the kitchen.

I followed, pushing past the saloon doors, leaving them swinging in my wake. “Wait, what do you mean?

Red grinned and looked up at the monitor on the kitchen wall. “Oh, would you look at that. I have delivery.” He glanced side to side before snatching a container of sliced peppers off the counter. “Got to go.” He rushed out the back, into the garage.

Hands on hips, I glanced at the monitor. It wasn’t even turned on yet. “Jerk.”

Lucky had begun to prep veggies and was busy chopping onions.

I wondered over. “What should I do?”

“Well, you’ll be training most of the day, whenever Skylar is ready.” She set down her knife and opened the fridge. A moment later, she tossed a large chunk of pepperoni at me. “But, until then, start slicing.”

SLAP.

Ten pounds of meat to the face. Stumbling, I managed to catch it before it hit the floor.

Laughing, Lucky motioned to the industrial-grade slicer in the corner by the mixer.

“Uh, I don’t know how to use that thing.”

“Oh, it’s easy. Just turn it on with the green button and push whatever needs chopping through the back. The big red button is to stop it, so push that you somehow chop your hand off.”

I narrowed my eyes at the slicer. “That’s not likely, is it?”

Lucky grinned. “Depends how dumb you are.”

I crossed my arms and gave her a look. “I know not to stick my arm in a spinning blade.”

Lucky picked up her knife again, spun it with a flourish, and continued chopping. “Well, there you go. Nothing to worry about.”

I managed to fire up the slicer without losing any digits and soon, the tube of pepperoni was cut into a hundred or more little disks of meat. Lucky handed me a few more types of meat to slice, before she got me to mix some dough. The ingredients were pre-packaged in large bags. All I needed to do was add oil and yeast to some warm water and dump it all in the giant steel bowl. The massive mixer that looked more like a medieval torture device than a kitchen implement took care of the rest.

For the next hour and a half, Lucky taught me how to get the ball rolling in the Red Pineapple. Together, we knocked out all the prep, even some of the once-a-week stuff, like making a new batch of garlic butter. A handful of orders came through in the early hours, but Freddie took care of them since they were basic pizzas. Red and Chin would pop in from time to time to grab the pies before heading out for delivery.

Eventually, as I was failing horribly to roll a pizza, the door to Atlantis creaked open and Skylar entered the restaurant.

Freddie, who looked physically pained as he watched me butcher the pizza, grabbed the misshapen lump of dough out of my hands. “Alright, that’s enough of that. I could make a better pizza with a steamroller. Get out of here, go see Skylar.”

My cheeks were slightly pink. It shouldn’t have been so difficult to make a flat circle, but the best I had done was a lumpy trapezoid, more of a rhombus, really. And nobody wanted a rhombus pizza. “I’ll get better.”

Freddie grunted. “You certainly can’t get any worse.”

I bit my lip awkwardly as I backed away, covered in flour. Flour on my shirt, my pants, my hands and arms, up on my face and in my hair, even somehow in my ear. I looked like a low-budget abominable snowman.

As I headed back toward the office where Skylar had gone, a wave of nerves rose in my stomach. Last time I’d seen her, I’d just been blown up and nearly executed by the Bitter Saints. That’s when Skylar had told me I’d been dangled as bait for the Saints, placed in harm’s way so they could investigate some weird glowing battery thing the assassin bikers carried with them.

I still wasn’t sure how I felt about that. No, scratch that. I knew how I felt. Terrible. The word betrayed came to mind. Backstabbed. Double-crossed. Bamboozled. Hoodwinked. Seeing the rest of my coworkers hadn’t evoked any of these feelings, but approaching Skylar, a knot of bitterness lodged itself in my chest. I could feel it, like when you eat potatoes too fast and they get stuck halfway down. Except this knot lacked the unparallelled versatility of everyone’s favourite tuber.

Skylar exited the office and noticed me. Her eyebrows shot up her forehead as she witnessed my cosplay of a powdered donut. “I’m impressed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone spill that much flour before.”

It took some effort, but I managed to stifle a harsh quip and reply normally. “Well, my speciality is making a mess.”

Skylar nodded slowly. “Yeah, I think I’m realizing that.” Her hair was done up in a high ponytail today. Subtle eyeliner and shadow brought out the striking blue of her eyes. She looked gorgeous and it made me mad.

Girls who threw me under the bus for personal gain shouldn’t be allowed to look so good.

I must not have been doing a very good job of hiding what I was thinking, because Skylar narrowed her eyes and tipped her head curiously. After a moment, she shrugged. “Ok, Arthur. Since you’ve already mingled with some of the more aggressive individuals in the Other Life, Carol has decided that you need to be trained in self-defence.”

I crossed my arms. “That’s a good idea.” And maybe we could have trained Arthur before we threw him to the wolves too, I thought sarcastically.

Skylar spun on her heel and headed toward the garage. A wave of her hand beckoned me to follow. I did, but only after making a face at the back of her head. Because I was a mature adult who handled disagreements with tact and thoughtfulness.

Rap music was blasting out of the speakers in the garage, the deep beat punctuated by the clanging of tools as Jaz worked. Only two of the red delivery cars were in the garage presently, and neither of them looked to be getting repairs. I wondered what Jaz was working on then. I spotted a disemboweled air conditioning unit lying discarded on the floor, but that didn’t really give me any clues.

Skylar paid no mind to the goings-on of the garage. Of course, she’d been working here for years and the novelty of things being repaired in a repair garage (no, really?) was bound to wear off eventually. Weaving her way through the maze of rolling toolboxes, half-used jugs of assorted oils and fluids, scraps of cloth that were filthier than the spills they were supposedly cleaning up and, for some reason, a pair of crash test dummies seated on dingy office chairs with the names Kyle and Kyle II painted on their foreheads, Skylar led me to the back corner of the garage.

Amid the clutter and junk, a space had been cleared out to make a little gymnasium. Along with a trio of dented lockers, there was a weight machine, a stationary bike, a rack of dumbbells and a punching bag hanging from the ceiling on a thick chain that was either made for deep sea anchors or restraining Jormungandr. (Yeah, I know who that big-ass apocalypse snake is. I’d started my research-all-mythologies project) In the centre of the space was a wrestling ring, complete with the bouncy straps. Judging by all the stains, scratches and paint splatters across it, I was guessing it was second-hand. In one corner, a long gash had been sewn shut with steel cable. There was a faded sticker of an anthropomorphic banana wearing a poncho and sombrero. A mascot for some Mexican restaurant, but the name had been scuffed beyond legibility by the feet of countless combatants.

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I cleared my throat. “So, you gonna teach me how to do an RKO?”

Skylar rolled her eyes as she opened the first locker and grabbed two pairs of fingerless kickboxing gloves. She tossed one pair to me and slipped the others on as she stepped through the ropes with practised ease.

I bobbled the gloves and dropped one. It slid under the nearby car. I could hear Skylar sigh as I crawled underneath the chassis to retrieve the glove.

By the time I fetched the glove and slid both onto my hands, Skylar was already in the ring, stretching and loosening up. The few practice jabs and hooks she threw would have been at home in a heavyweight championship fight. She danced around the ring, light and nimble on her feet.

My mouth went dry. “Are we sure this is a good idea? I mean, I just got off the IR. Don’t we need a doctor’s note to clear me for this sort of thing?”

Skylar came to a halt but kept her knees flexed as she bounced on the balls of her feet. “Don’t worry about it. You’re fine. Hughes said you’d be good to go after a day of rest.”

“That seems a little quick after sustaining extreme trauma,” I spread my hands, trying to find an excuse. “Are we sure this Hughes guy knows what he’s talking about? Is he even a doctor?”

From her vantage point up on the ring, Skylar stared down at me with a flat expression. “He’s the most highly decorated Corpsman in the 12th Fleet of the Seraph Armada. He’s saved people from diseases the CDC hasn’t even heard of.”

“What’s the 12th Fleet?” I asked. And why was he wearing bunny slippers? I added silently.

Skylar groaned. “Oh my god, you know nothing.”

“Yes! When has that ever been in question?”

With a roll of her eyes, Skylar beckoned me into the ring. “I’ll tell you after training. Now come on.”

I folded my arms and stood my ground. “You’re always annoyed at how little I know, but you never answer any of my questions. So, really, it’s your fault that I don’t know anything.”

Her glare nearly broke my resolve, but I raised my chin and stared back.

Our staring contest ended when Skylar leaned over the ropes, grabbed the back of my head and slammed my face into the padded corner pole. A burst of light exploded across my vision as I felt my nose crunch. I stumbled back, hands flying up to my nose as blood spilled over the bottom half of my face. “WHAT THE HELL!”

“First lesson: Don’t piss me off.”

I glared at her from my hunched over position, nose leaking crimson.

“Second lesson: React. Pretty much everything out there can kill you and you’ll make it really easy if you just stand there when someone lunges at you.” She gestured to my face and the padded pole, which was imprinted with a bloody outline of my face.

I spluttered in indignation. “Well, I didn’t think my manager was going to bash my face into a pole for asking a question!”

“It doesn’t matter that you didn’t expect that. You didn’t do anything. You didn’t even try to dodge.”

“You moved too fast!”

Skylar sighed, looking up at the ceiling. “I hope you at least die quickly. I can’t teach you if you don’t want to learn.” Turning away, she began taking off her gloves.

A heat filled my gut, a rising wave of anger that had been building up over the past few days. I glared at Skylar through my eyebrows, the pretty, perfect, always right Skylar, who had decided I was her personal punching bag the moment I first stepped into the Red Pineapple. The rational part of my brain begged me not to do it, knowing it was incredibly stupid, but Caveman Brain was angry and Caveman Brain gave Rational Brain a wedgie and shoved him into a locker to shut him up.

Egged on by furious stupidity, I clambered over the ropes and launched myself at Skylar’s turned back. The creaking of shoes on rubber alerted her and she turned around just in time for a full-speed right hook to catch her across the mouth. I may not have had proper form or technique, but I still knew how to hit something. Skylar let out a surprised yelp as my fist cracked against her jaw and sent her to the mat.

Needles of white-hot pain lanced up through my hand and I clutched it with a hiss. I had been hoping to follow up my punch with a witty one-liner, but Caveman Brain could only come up with “OWWWWW!”

Skylar wiped blood from her busted lip, eyes locked on me. I braced myself for a barrage of insults, but instead, she laughed. For a split second, I wondered if I had hit her so hard that she had mixed up the sounds for pain and laughter.

“That’s the spirit, Arthur. Now we can get started.” Skylar pushed herself to her feet with a dangerous smile that bared bloody teeth. In that moment, she reminded me of a shark, a tiger, a werewolf, something that knew how to kill and enjoyed it. A wereshiger.

All of my anger wilted away. Caveman Brain and Rational Brain agreed on a single thought. “Uh oh.”

What transpired over the next five minutes was comparable to a coughing baby trying to fight a silverback gorilla. The only moments when I wasn’t being pinned to the mat in one of twenty excruciatingly painful ways, was when my body was being flung through the air for the umpteenth time. I swung my fists wildly and even threw a few kicks, but none of them landed and on the third kick, Skylar grabbed my leg and spun me around and WEEEEEEEEEEEEE, launched me over the ropes like a humanoid discus. I bowled over a pile of old tires, knocking a whole stack on top of myself.

One of the tires rolled across the garage and disappeared behind a car. I could hear it wobbling faster and faster as it spun itself to the ground. As I stared up at the ceiling, Jaz’s face appeared in my vision. A smirk curled one side of her mouth.

“Training’s going well, I see.” The mechanic seemed to be enjoying my pain.

I wiped blood from my nose and let out a groan. “This isn’t training. This is assault.”

Grinning, Jaz reached out her hand to help me up. “That’s cuz you’re blocking her punches with your face instead of your arms, Tiny. Keep your hands up. And don’t stand still. Keep moving.”

I grimaced as my body protested the jostling of Jaz helping me out of the tire pile. I was one big, walking bruise. “Thanks for the tips.”

Jaz shrugged as she looked over to where Skylar was leaning on the ropes of the wrestling ring. “It won’t help much.”

“Great.” I stepped back toward the ring. Skylar was waiting for me. I glared up at her. This time, however, she actually held the ropes apart for me. Maybe she thought that would even out all the face-punching. It didn’t.

“Jaz is right,” Skylar said as I entered the ring and faced her again. “Hands up and move your feet.”

“How come I had to get tips from Jaz when you’re supposed to be teaching me? You haven’t taught me a single thing.”

Skylar beckoned me to get into position. “Yes, I have. I just prefer to teach by example.”

I scoffed. “By example? Well, you’ve done a horrible job.”

“You’re also getting on my nerves,” Skylar said, matter-of-factly. “So this first session is stress relief.”

I gave her a flat stare. “Glad I can help. Using me as bait and nearly getting me killed wasn’t enough, so you had to beat me up.”

“Ugh, how long are you gonna keep milking that?”

I crossed my arms. “What’s the average lifespan?”

“For you? Another two weeks,” Skylar said. “If you’re lucky.” I walked right into that one.

I was really starting to hate how much people were telling me how inevitable my upcoming death was. I grit my teeth. “Then, how bout you actually teach me how to survive! You’ve already given up on me! I’m not a dead man walking, not yet. So do your job and help me learn how to survive.”

For a moment, Skylar didn’t reply but considered me silently. Then, she nodded. “Ok. Somewhere under all that loser, you’ve got a spine, Arthur.”

I swear, it was impossible for people to compliment me without also roasting me. Did I just have that insultable of a face?

Skylar adjusted her ponytail, before using her feet to move my legs into a proper position. “Let’s start with the basics then.” She began to explain the forms for what she called Eit Zordaw, which somehow wasn’t a name from a space fantasy soap opera.

Over the next hour, I trained with Skylar, actual training, not the attempted murder from earlier. It turned out that Skylar was a really good instructor when she wasn’t hating my guts. She explained the concepts and techniques simply and concisely, starting with basic blocks and parries. She showed me how to catch someone’s hand and find a pressure point, which made most people’s knees buckle. Of course, she taught me by practicing on me, which meant a lot of knee buckling and begging for mercy. But by the time our session was over, I could actually do a handful of things correctly. It wasn’t much and if I got into an actual fight, I would still very much be turned into Arthur pudding, but it was a start.

When we at last stopped, I was heaving and sweating like that one guy at every gym who somehow leaves all the equipment swampy after using it. Skylar exited the ring and tossed me a towel before grabbing one of her own. I was too tired to catch it and it landed on my face.

“Not bad, Arthur.” She said. “You still have a long way to go before you could even take Freddie, so we’ll be doing a lot more of these.”

“Hooray.” My voice was muffled by the towel.

“I have other stuff to get done, so once you clean up, go help Lucky.”

I grunted by way of acknowledgement. A second later, I heard the locker door close and Skylar’s footsteps fade away. I stayed hidden under my towel for several minutes, trying to catch my breath and move as little as possible. Eventually, I hauled myself upward, put away the gloves and dried off before limping back into the restaurant.

Lucky must have heard me enter, because her voice echoed out from the kitchen. “Hey, Arthur, now that you’re done training, I can finish your kitchen orientation.”

Dragging my feet, I plodded into the main cooking zone as Lucky continued talking.

“… and once we’re done that, I’ll show you the fastest way to make fries and - !” The cook finally faced me and froze. Her eyes widened and her tail stood straight up.

“Is it that bad?” I groaned. My right eye was struggling to open and my nose felt like it was the size of a tomato. I’d tried to wash all the blood off, but judging by the throbbing ache from every part of my face, bruises were forming. Probably those nasty yellow-green ones that looked like leprosy. I didn’t actually know what leprosy looked like, but it seemed close enough.

Lucky managed a smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “No, it’s not that bad. Hardly noticeable, even.”

I tried raising my eyebrow, but I’m pretty sure Skylar had punched it into my skull because it wouldn’t move. “You’re a really bad liar.”

Lucky exhaled, relieved she didn’t have to pretend any longer. “Oh my god, Skylar didn’t hold back. It looks like a hundred bees took offence at your face and decided committing mass suicide to sting you was worth it to make sure you looked as horrible as possible.”

Wow, right for the jugular. No sugar-coating.

“Gee, thanks.” I grumbled and looked around for a chair to plop down in and sulk, but there weren’t any in the kitchen. I slouched and crossed my arms, hoping the sulking was coming across.

Lucky kept going. “Ugh, you are hideous right now. You know those deep sea fish that turn all blobby and gross when you take them out of water? That’s you right now.”

“Ok. This is a little much.”

“And your nose. Have you ever heard of the Elephant Man?”

I scoffed. “Come on. It’s not that bad.” I finally caught Lucky’s cheeky grin and realized she was messing with me. Despite the pain, I managed a chuckle.

Lucky’s tail curled as she spun around. “Come on. Let’s get you making some food. It’ll take your mind off your horrible ugliness that will haunt your life forever.”

I wanted to be annoyed at her, but I just couldn’t. It wasn’t fair. Lucky was too damn likable.

“You’re the worst,” I told her.

She winked at me. “I know.”

Under Lucky’s tutelage and merciless roasting off my face, I managed to stumble my way to a handful of edible dishes. Lucky even slipped a compliment in between her good-natured jibes, despite each dish taking so long that customers would have had to book an appointment two weeks in advance to get it on time.

Before I knew it, the afternoon had passed and it was time to clock out. Lucky had me spend the final twenty minutes cleaning up, while she lounged off to the side and scrolled on her phone. I was stiff and sore, but despite the bruises and the fact that I was Chore Boy, this was the best I felt since first discovering the Red Pineapple.

While I was sweeping, Lucky finally looked up from her phone. “So, Artie, you have any plans for the weekend?”

I paused. Was it Friday already? Wait, Friday! Lexa Safar! Party! Tonight! A big red warning siren went off in my head. WEE-WOO-WEE-WOO. I didn’t know how to party, how to be cool. What was I supposed to do?

I could already see headlines in the news: Biggest Loser To Ever Exist Ruins Party By Showing Up. More At 8:00. The anchor was me in a suit with a stupidly large moustache.

“Um, Arthur? Hello? Where’d you go?”

I shook away the AINN (Arthur’s Insecurities News Network) to see Lucky giving me a strange look. I cleared my throat. “Um, sorry. You just reminded me that I was invited to a party tonight at my new place.”

Lucky clapped her hands. “Ooh, nice.”

I grimaced and rubbed a hand through my hair. The flour from earlier had mixed with my sweat and made a gross paste that stuck to my fingers. “Yeah, it’s supposed to be a greeting for me, since my house burned down, but the girl hosting it is super rich and popular and I don’t know how to fit in with that crowd at all.” I tried to surreptitiously wipe the paste off on my pants.

Lucky watched me do that and grinned. “You don’t say.”

“I thought about asking Freddie if he’d come, but…”

“Ha! You think you could get Freddie to go to a party?” Lucky snorted. “Last time I tried to get him to leave his apartment after work, I had to physically drag him outside.”

Just then, the garage door opened and in walked Jaz. “What’s this about a party?”

Lucky spun around and answered her with a flick of her tail. “Oh, you know, Little Artie here got invited to his first big party.”

“And let me guess. You clueless when it comes to the party scene.” Jaz said, throwing her arm around my shoulder roughly. I almost fell over. “It sounds like you need some help.”

“Oh, he definitely does,” Lucky purred.

My eyes darted back and forth between the two. I didn’t like the way they were grinning.

“Alright, dude,” Jaz said. “You don’t need to beg. We’ll help you survive this-” she pretended to shudder. “Party.”

“Wha…”

Lucky chimed in, winking at Jaz. “Fine, we’ll come, if you insist.”

“I didn’t…” Lucky shut him up by slapping her tail lightly across his mouth.

“Time and address?” Jaz asked although it felt like more of an order. I didn’t want to be beaten up twice today and the next thing I knew, both girls were putting the numbers in their phones as I blurted it out.

“Sweet.” Jaz shoved me toward the door. “Now get out of here.”

“Go clean up. You’re a mess,” Lucky piped up over the taller girl’s shoulder. “And try and fix your face.”

“Or maybe just wear a mask,” Jaz said. “I’ve got a balaclava in my car you can borrow.”

Lucky raised a brow. “Hang on, why do you have that? It’s summer.”

Jaz scratched her nose. “Um… See you later Arthur.” She pushed me outside, ignoring Lucky’s question.

As the door creaked closed behind me and the sounds of late afternoon traffic echoed in my ears, I blinked a few times, confused. “What just happened?”

The only one around to answer was me and since I was the one who didn’t know, I couldn’t answer the question. So, instead, I shrugged and headed toward the bus stop. To home and a party. And hopefully not the most embarrassing night of my life.