Chrome and marble. Where else could be found such an incongruous combination than in a state of the art, modern, highly efficient eating place in the heart of Frangea?

The Squeaky Tomato owed its existence to the legendary properties of cheese. Full of healthy vitality and so versatile it could be moulded into anything, blended with everything. Like water some said, it was both useful as a solid and a liquid, though unlike water the gaseous version was less welcome.

Every geometric shape in the big book of three dimensionality was represented in a salad platter. Infinite string that defied physics in twists and loops tangled amid savoury dishes. Melted with fruits and with pastries, whipped into fluffy confections that melted in their turn. There was no limit to what it could achieve.

Then came the tomato. The fruit that jostled in neighbourly fashion with vegetables until it seemed one. Sliced and diced, sandwiched and baked, fried and liquified into tangy sauce. When combined with its natural companion cheese the variety seemed endless and those who ran the Squeaky Tomato knew this.

Marble and chrome. Substances less pliable, more durable. High of polish and quick to clean. Great slabs of speckled stone embraced by glimmering tubes of metal in ways that defied nature. The way the two substances, so utterly unlike, from such distant origins, clung together in regimented rows of tables and counters with wicker chairs clustered around like suppliants to their hard and shiny souls seemed almost arcane if one thought too deeply upon it.

Esper toyed with all these thoughts as she watched her busy surroundings in the popular eatery on Pinecone Boulevard during lunch. The source or inspiration for them all sat opposite her. Vetta Mindal quietly demolished with relish a plate of macaroni cheese dressed in fennel sauce and a slurpy pyramid of liquid tomato squeezed from the squeaky plastic ball that gave the place its signature name. The girl from Poldorama was not watching anyone in the place as she ate. Rather her eyes drifted from her plate to her lemonade but more often out the window, through the flood of bright sunlight to the distinct glitter of the building opposite.

"They're not making a good job of it," Esper said, knowing the girl's thoughts. Her full name was Sentimentalia Placidia Rosala but it was easier to call her by her initials only, especially as this conjured up her particular talent. Esper had a peculiar ability to almost seem telepathic in the way she detected the inner musings of others, almost to the point of being avoided by some who feared their secrets were hers for the reading.

"Mm?" Vetta said, as if her thoughts were unreadable, for to read implied coherency and little of that was known to pass between the ears of the soft and friendly blonde who sparkled with an inner optimism so bright it might mind blind a true telepath.

"I mean, they could have called it the Cheesery. Sounds more inviting," Esper observed wisely, spooning a piece of her own cheesecake flan with crunchy bread crumbs into her mouth, before chasing it around with her tongue and then swallowing so the process could be repeated. "The Cheetery sounds, you know, uninviting."

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"It looks lovely inside," the other girl admitted with a sinful blush.

"So why have such short and inconvenient opening hours? I'm sure yesterday the doors were unlocked for less than thirty minutes during peak time. Look now," and she too stared fixated at the rival eatery across the way. "Somebody stopped to glance in and that idle waitress gave them such a glare back. Like a dragon guarding golden treasure, she's singlehandedly chasing the customers away."

"The condiment racks are made of gold," Vetta mumbled into her macaroni.

"Can I get you anything else miss, and miss?" a waitress came up just then clutching a scribble pad and virtual pencil that could write on air.

"There, see? Look how helpful the staff are here? Almost like friends," Esper said. "No thanks, we're good," she then dismissed the girl with a wave of the hand without even looking at her. The waitress bobbed acquiescence, thinking how amazing it would be to have a friend who studied at Miss Plazenby's upon the hill.

"They do appear to be hindering their cause a little," Vetta admitted.

"A little! Have you seen those prices?"

"Perhaps Meresinth's idea might be a trifle unnecessary," the other girl blushed.

"Idea? What has that mad creature concocted now to get herself and everyone else in trouble," Esper asked in growing alarm.

"Trifle? Did I say trifle?" and Vetta grabbed a menu nervously. "I don't think I've tried the cheese trifle yet," and she scanned the list of desserts with extravagant interest, prompting the helpful waitress to hover just on the periphery of the service sector.

Esper did not have to wait long for an elucidation of the diversion tactics of Vetta for a small crowd had begun to appear on the sidewalk opposite, like mist in a winter's evening. Brightly dressed, with some holding banners, it looked very much like a protest rally of sorts.

"Something happening over there," Esper said and stood, as others in the Squeaky Tomato were doing. One or two customers nearer the window cheered and clapped. "We're finished here. Let's go see," and she snatched the menus from Vetta, paid the table bill and pulled the vaguely reluctant girl from her comfortable wicker seat. They were out the door in a flash and paused to watch the milling crowd across the road. Esper stopped the traffic and approached the motley assemblage who could be heard chanting some mantra of defiance in voices of varied enthusiasm. A figure in their midst could be seen orchestrating things gleefully.

"That's Merry!" Esper said, loud enough to be heard by the girl, though she ignored this familiar utterance of her name. Dressed in an inconspicuous baggy teeshirt tinted a dirty pink and midnight blue slacks she looked nothing like an elegant Plazenby girl at the moment. She was working under cover. The shirt had gold letters upon it that encouraged support for local businesses and the banners waved aloft by others, male and female, mostly youngsters, proclaimed the same message.

"I see Anthera Malabona," Vetta said, brightening at sight of an additional dorm mate amid the demonstrators. The girl so named adjusted her spectacles and waved at the approaching pair from across the road.

They were marching up and down in front of the Cheetery unopposed, chanting their message in time to the rhythm of their feet in a well rehearsed choreography. Framed in the main window, next the gilt bill of fare notice, the solitary waitress in her crisp uniform stared out at this commotion with a look of amused interest. She seemed neither outraged not alarmed at the demonstration which was intent on threatening her livelihood. Then Vetta recognised another member of the protest group. A tall lad, clutching his own yellow banner with a hasty scrawl upon it, stepped out of the circling procession and greeted the Poldorama girl with a mischievous grin.

"What are you doing here?" Vetta asked in surprise. "Who is keeping a careful eye on your shop full of precious leftovers?" for it was indeed Don Flotsam, standing there unabashed at being caught out in the open amid the glitzy surroundings of Pinecone Boulevard.