AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER ONE
FORD
Istood in the middleof 57th and West 58th Street next to an alpaca wearing a Santa hat. Fortunately, it wasn't a spitty day, otherwise the local NYC population would be covered in the regurgitated green stuff that hung around Pickles’ neck. That alpaca was accurate at a good twenty paces like a showdown gunslinger at high noon.
So far, only two yellow taxis wore his wrath at the limit of his range.
I pulled up the map app on my phone–try saying that ten times fast–scrolling through the streets that showed up, but there was no sign of any Plaza Hotel I could see, despite knowing it existed. The building was a pre-prohibition landmark, and I still couldn't locate it no matter how many blocks I walked in any direction.
Currently, my luck was divided into an eight block radius, and growing alongside my impatience with myself to navigate a city.The desert is easier to locate than this.I swore I was getting farther and farther away from my destination, and my own alpaca hooves ached. Pickles nuzzled at his lucerne bucket, but it slid so far down his camelid neck that he couldn't reach the thing. His plaintive honk alerted me to his plight.
“You’re not going to starve, big fella.” I reached around him, fixing the slim aluminium handle to his Christmas harness, the metal glinting dully against the red and green twists. Pickles dived into the bucket with the renewed fervor of a desperate camel. His Santa hat slipped sideways, and I caught the fluffy thing before it hit the grimey nondescript slush at my feet.
"It had to be snowing for this damn wedding," I muttered, dangling the Santa hat between my fingers.
Not that the wedding was mine; I was in town for an old friend’s celebration who I roomed with at Columbia in my early twenties on an exchange program. That had been an alpacalypse of its own, and this trip had the same makings to it already, before I headed back to Western Australia to the largest herd of alpacas and vicuna in my home country.
Somewhere along the line, I thought that bringing my prime breeding stock to the States and double dipping for this trip was a good idea, but a month after arriving, I realised just how impossible it was to house an alpaca in a cityscape at Christmas.
I grumbled away under my breath, flicking the Santa hat against my fingers. Men stuffed with pillows and dressed in similar costumes to Pickles decorated every corner I passed, all with no Plaza Hotel appearing miraculously in front of me.
Pausing near a green grocer shop, I leaned back against the painted glass with its cheery Christmas messages scrawled in three languages. Pickles stopped next to me and grunted softly.
The Santa hat dipped in my hands as a fistful of change and some notes tugged at the material.
"Cute." A rugged-up couple wearing matching ugly sweaters with a small child stuffed into a puffer jacket star suit and mittens paused in front of us. "Can we get a picture?"
I stared at the couple, and then at the proffered child lifted at chest height. "Oh. No. I'm not busking," I assured them.
"It's just one photo,mate." The father put on an atrocious Australian over his New Yorker twang. "One selfie with the llama."
“Alpaca,” I corrected softly.
“Whatever.” He cackled a little, his eyes wide in that slightly crazed look parents get around this time of year in a bid to do anything to prevent their offspring melting down in a seasonal tantrum.
From the way the lowered child stomped around and rested his forehead wearily against Pickles’ foreleg, I suspected he would shortly join those squalling ranks.
I gritted my teeth, and forced a smile. "He can stand next to Pickles."
"Pickles!" the kid screeched, gender unknown, in the suit that consumed the tiny body except for his nose, half frozen mouth, and a pair of eyes peering up. Mood forgotten, the child bounced off the icy slush and grabbed at Pickles’ chest fuzz.
Pickles lowered his head and touched his nose to the boy, whuffling curiously. The kid tugged harder.
"Super cute."
The parents backed up a step as a low growl that shouldn't be possible emanated from Pickles’ throat. I watch the small bead actively travel the three feet up his long straight neck from one of his four stomachs, and put out my hand a moment too late.
"No, you damn beast. Best back off– gah." I cursed into the palm I slapped over my face as Pickles sprayed the parents with the stinking green contents of his stomach and sent me a victorious side-eye.
"Shit." The father wasn’t quite so discreet.
"Trouble. Big trouble, fella." I wrapped my arm around Pickles’ neck, pulling him forcefully up before he could divulge the contents of the other three onto the child who managed to miss the spray pattern, still dangling from Pickles’ manly chest fuzz.
The pungent scent of marinated lucerne mixed with hotdogs from the stand half a block away in a heady scent that wouldn't be leaving my nostrils any time soon.
The father bellowed with laughter like Pickles’ spit was the best thing he had ever seen, while the wife attempted to pick pieces of gooey grass from her hair. Oblivious, the child chuckled, attacking Pickles in his star suit and bouncing off his fleece, his attention already drawn to the next shiny thing along the block.
"Thanks." An extra note was added to my Santa hat.
