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Then she noticed that the lettuce was moving. It seemed to be quivering ever so slightly. Also…was it making a sound? Alli leaned forward and put her ear to the mound of lettuce. Sure enough, there was a quiet crunching sound coming from it. What was this stuff, anyway?
She poked at it with her fork again—harder this time—and was startled by a piercing squeak.
“Oh!” Alli gasped and dropped her fork with a clatter. The green and purple lettuce leaves shook and then a small, furry face looked out from between them. The fur was bright pink and the eyes were brilliant green, but other than that, it looked a lot like a guinea pig, she thought.
“Oh my goodness!” she exclaimed. “Just look at you! Is the rest of you as cute as your face, little guy?”
Reaching down, she carefully pulled the other lettuce leaves aside to reveal a plump, furry body that matched the face. It really did look like a guinea pig, Alli thought, other than the fact that it had a long, furry tail that looked like it belonged on a Golden Retriever or an Irish Setter. The tail was twice as long as the pink guinea pig creature’s body, when it was unfurled, and had long, feathery fronds floating all around it.
“So are you an extra rare Chub?” Alli cooed at the little creature. “I’m so sorry I poked you with my fork—I didn’t know you were in there. Hey, could I pet you, do you think?”
Moving slowly, she reached down to try and stroke the silky little head. But the Chub seemed to take a sudden fright at her gesture. As her hand came down, it reared up on its chubby hind legs and hissed at her, showing long, sharp, green teeth that matched its eyes.
Then its long, silky tail began to spin a little like a helicopter’s blades. Throwing lettuce in every direction, it lifted right off the plate. Still hissing at Alli, it zipped away, it’s chubby pink body dangling by its swiftly rotating tail.
“Wow.” Alli watched it go, feeling like she had the one time in college when she’d dropped acid. The little creature dived out of sight behind the bed and abruptly stopped hissing. She supposed she would have to try and find it later. This was definitely turning out to be the strangest meal she’d ever had.
Not that she’d gotten to eat much of anything. Her stomach growled again and she looked doubtfully down at the menu.
“I don’t suppose I could just have a chicken Caesar salad or a cheeseburger, could I?” she asked out loud. But nothing happened. Apparently she could only order from the menu.
“All right.” Alli sighed. “I guess I’ll try the Zornk stew.”
The silver domed platter and the spilled lettuce disappeared to be replaced by a lovely china soup bowl. It was filled with steaming multi-hued blue broth that had pink and purple chunks floating in it.
Alli picked up a silver spoon and dipped it into the broth. In it were swirls of sky blue along with streaks of turquoise and navy and cerulean. It looked like someone had taken all blue crayons from a child’s box and melted them into a soup.
She wasn’t hoping for much, so she wasn’t surprised when the sip she took tasted a little like a cross between sweet dill pickle juice and Vietnamese fish sauce. Sweet…sour…tangy…strange were the words that came to mind.
Not great.
Determined to try again, Alli picked up the new fork which had appeared by her plate and stabbed one of the purple chunks. She nibbled it carefully, not sure what to expect.
The purple chunk had a flavor rather like cooked sweet potato but the chewy texture of tough steak. It was edible, but only just barely. Alli ate it because she was so hungry and then tried one of the pink chunks. This one had the texture of a cooked carrot—which was okay—but the flavor of a half-sour pickle mixed with blackberries, which wasn’t so great.
She ate a few more of the rubbery steak-textured, sweet potato-flavored chunks and then gave up on the stew.
“Please take this away and give me, uh…” She scanned the Dessert listings. Well, the U’ka-tok was definitely out—she had no interest in eating tentacles and antennae, no matter how buttery the pastry they were wrapped in was.
“Give me some of the blib-blabs,” Alli said. They sounded like some kind of fruit, which was nice—she hoped, anyway.
At once the soup bowl and spoon disappeared to be replaced by a magnificent silver ewer filled with a perfectly arranged pyramid of grape-sized fruit. They were round and seemed to glow slightly with a yellow light from within. Their pale, silky golden skins were covered in sparkling crystals of what looked like light purple sugar.
“Okay now—this looks pretty good,” Alli murmured to herself hopefully. Maybe for once she would like what she had ordered.
