Al Tastes Revenge: Part Two

Al’s Bedroom, That Night...

“Pineapples...” Al muttered in his sleep. He began to dream, wrestling with the sheets on his bed as his head tossed and turned, his eyes squinted with fear. “PINEAPPLES!!”

Inside Al’s Mind...

Colours swirled in and out of each other. Al felt himself falling, falling through a swirl of pineapples. He screamed, thrashing as he span wildly and uncontrollably. Suddenly, he landed.

     He gasped in horror. A gigantic pineapple, something like 50 feet tall, stood. It had a face, a wide, grinning mouth, and a look of hunger that was definitely disconcerting.

     Al turned tail and fled, screaming, as the the pineapple gave chase. With a hideous cackle, it opened its wide mouth and chomped down onto the Chia...

     Al groaned, climbing onto his feet and rubbing his head. He looked around, eyes wide with fear. Al was at the Academy of Lupology, the school of his youth. It was exactly as he remembered it, but everything was in black and white.

     He was standing at the far side of the lunch room, watching the other students eat their lunches. He recognized many faces and voices, heard laughter and shouting. He smiled. It had been happy times there.

     He noticed some students eagerly gathered around a lunch table, where a young Chia, dressed in red pants, round glasses, and a white jacket with red letters printing ‘AL’ (for Academy of Lupology, not Al, except it IS an odd coincidence) sat. All the other students, Neopets of all kinds, were in the same uniform as the small Chia. Al frowned. The biggest and most menacing of the group was a dark, shadowy figure, smirking.

     “Eat it! Eat it! Eat it! Eat it!” They chanted, as the Chia winced.

     Under the watchful gaze of the shadowy figure, he hesitantly raised a three-month-old pineapple. It was absolutely hideous, like no disgusting, rotten food ever before concocted. The Chia frowned, then turned to look directly into Al’s eyes. Al gasped.

     “No!!” Al muttered. “NO!”

     The Chia swallowed nervously, then turned his gaze back onto the pineapple. He closed his eyes, and opened his mouth. Suddenly, the green Lupe jumped up and shoved the entire pineapple into the young Chia’s face.

     The students burst into laughter as the Chia fell to the floor, his glasses broken and covered in brown pineapple juice. He clutched his face, tasting and smelling and experiencing all the horrible unpleasantness of the overripe pineapple.

     The dark figure laughed, a familiar, frightening laugh. A laugh that Al had most certainly heard before, and never wanted to hear again. Suddenly, the shadows fell away from him, and his face was clear. A green Lupe, a horribly thin, nasty green Lupe was there, with a cruel expression smeared on his face. He sneered and wiped the juice from his hands off on the Chia’s hair.

     Al gasped. He put his hands up to his face, and suddenly felt pineapple juice there. He snapped his hand back, and suddenly saw that it was pineapple coloured. His eyes widened, and he realized that he had turned into a pineapple Chia.

     Al screamed, a long, bellowing, mournful, terrified scream.

     He suddenly coughed, cleared his throat, took another breath, and screamed once more.

     “NO! PINEAPPLES!! PINEAAAPPLEEEES!!!! AUUUUUUUUUUUGH-”

     The sun woke Al up.

     He burst out of his bedroom, then turned and halted, braking. His feet, in socks, scrabbled on the polished floors, and he fell over. He managed to get onto his feet, then fled down the hallway. He skittered down the stairs, falling down a few steps once or twice before reaching the bottom, where he tripped and knocked a painting off the wall.

     Still panicked, he tripped his way out the door, where the sky was a muddy mess of gray and white cloud and large patches of bright, sunny blue. He fell to the still wet ground, throwing his head skyward and screaming to the sky.

     “PINEAPPLES!! PINEAPPLES!! OH, WHY?!?”

     A Pteri flying overhead managed to drop its bag of groceries, and a can of fresh, Mystery Island pineapples plummeted from the sky, smashed Al on the head, bounced off, and rolled down the path into the gutter. Al’s own eyes rolled for a minute before he flopped onto the ground like a limp fish, out cold.

     “Pineapples…” He muttered, as he slipped into unconsciousness once more.

     His flowers would awaken that morning to find a strange bedfellow. (Get it? Eheh...)

Somewhere in Lupe Forest...

Lector Hannibalpaw smiled as he lazily chewed on a bit of licorice, reclined on a rock. The small grove of pine trees he occupied was swaying slightly, making the skewed sunlight dance across his slick, slithery features. His sharp, white teeth shone, bits of red stuck to them as he smiled at the partially obscured sun, his sunken green face squinted, but his yellow eyes wide open.

     “Soon, soon, I’ll get to have a

     bit...

     of...

     fun. I’m certain Al has fond memories of that day.

     Yes...

     Very fond memories.”

     Lector closed his mouth and let his tongue dig the red food particles from in between his teeth. He spat red juice onto the ground, wiped his mouth, and took a seat on a rock, inspecting his tail.

     “I do love a...

     challenge.

     Certainly, I hope Al doesn’t still think he’s a better food critic than I was. That snooty, rich little brat. In school, he was always bragging about all the wonderful foods he had, never willing to SHARE with anyone. Of course, the students all wanted to get him, but I was the only one brave enough...not that I was a student.

     I do...

     Hate...

     Lupology. I just happened to drop in at the right time, and just happened to have...”

     A slow, sinister smile spread across Hannibalpaw’s disturbing features.

     “Pineapple. Yes. Oh, but pineapples ARE the ultimate instrument of evil! Oh, how much more mismatched, low down, and common can you get than pineapple? And

     EVEN

     MORE

     INSULTING!

     It was three...months...

     old!!...

     But Al wanted to be polite. He wanted to be tolerant, a ‘man of the world’, so he…

     ATE IT!

     I couldn’t believe it! Oh, but it was so funny...it certainly put him down. But then...so many years later...”

     Hannibalpaw scowled, remembering more recent events.

     “Feeding me that...

     vegetarian slop...

     When I CRAVED meat.

     Tricking me like that...

     Not very nice,

     I

     Must

     Say...

     Revenge is sweet, but NOT against moi!

     He thought he came off easy, but I know he has something

     ...Unpleasant...

     In store.”

     Lector grinned. He patted the small pink cooler sitting next to him. It could have been the light, but it seemed to wriggle in response.

     “I have something even nicer for Al. Something even...

     MORE...

     Exotic! Something that, if digested, which simply isn’t possible, SHOULD...

     Oh...

     Fatten him up a bit...”

     Hannibalpaw chuckled, patting the hat on his head, standing, and picking up the cooler. He walked down the path.

     “Just you wait, Al. Tonight, you shall eat...

     Eye...

     For...

     An...

     Eye...

     ...

     PIE!”

Soupaw’s Soup Shack…

As the sky grew dark, the lights flickered on in the now empty restaurant. ‘CLOSED’ was declared loudly by the sign hanging on the glass door, in which Soupaw was clearly visible. He scurried back and forth along with his busboy, a blue Acara with lots of zits and braces, clearing away the tables and chairs like an old pro.

     Soupaw panted, wiping sweat from his brow as the last chair was stacked up. Only one table and two seats were left open in the entire restaurant. In a desperate attempt to make it seem less lonely and intimidating, Soupaw had left the salt and pepper shakers and a small pot with some plastic flowers in them on the blank white tablecloth. It did give it a very nice feel. Soupaw wished he served bottled beverages, so he could put a candle in one and maybe spruce it up even more…

     His thoughts died out as the bell rang and the door opened. There, standing in the doorway, was a small blue Chia.

     He wore his trustiest lab coat, the pockets deceptively shallow, the lining slightly uneven, the buttons all uniform. Some of his hair was in his face, but most of it stuck out in other directions. His round, lightly-framed glasses tilted slightly to the left on his face.

     He came, not with the look of a lupologist, but with the look of a true culinary artist.

     “I am Alexander T. Chia.” He stated, in a shaky but firm voice. “Party of two.”

     “Whatever.” The Acara muttered from behind the podium, upon hearing Al's shaky request. Whatever (for that was the Acara’s name) picked up a menu and led Al to the solitary table, pulling back the chair for him so he could jump up onto it and sit down comfortably.

     Al stared at the Acara with the eyes of a dead man.

     “What is the soup of the day?” He asked.

     “Oh, I’m not sure you’ll be...

     wanting...

     that.”

To be continued...