Buttered Ed

Ed didn't see things the way his other friends did. He didn't understand Eddy's need for money, or any of the big words Double D used to describe things to him, but there was one thing he did understand better than anyone else.

The deliciousness of buttered toast.

"Sarah, are we out of toast?"

No answer came from the top of the stairs, where his little sister was getting ready for school.

"Sarah!"

"What Ed!"

"Are we out of toast?"

The slam of Sarah's hairbrush and her stomping feet were of no worry to Ed, he had gotten used to her tantrums. It was only during a special time of month that he became nervous. She pushed past him, no easy feat considering the difference in size. Canned food, various boxes of cereal, and other food stuffs slammed around in the cupboards as she searched, her half-brushed, rust-colored hair seeming to fluff up like an irritated animal.

"Um, Baby-Sister, your hair is-"

"I KNOW ED! If you didn't have me down here looking for bread it wouldn't look this way! We're out of bread, tell mom when she gets home."

He pouted, "But Sarah, what am I supposed to eat?"

Pulling him down to her level by his lips, she yelled in his face, "I DON'T KNOW, FIGURE IT OUT IDIOT!"

Rubbing his lips after she released him, he pulled out a bowl and milk as her footsteps faded back up the stairs. Ruffling through the now ravaged cupboard, he turned back to the stairs, "Sarah! We're out of Chunky Puffs!"

Something else that Ed understood finally came to the fore front of his mind when he heard her brush slam and the house shake with her yell. Even though it wasn't that angry time of the month, she was still a force to be reckoned with. He high-tailed it out of the house, just managing to dodge a plate that hissed past his head, and only after he had escaped her throwing range did he slow his sprint to an easy lope. Furrowing his unibrow, the disconnected gears in his head attempted to grind out a solution to the problem the morning had handed to him. In between thoughts of perfectly buttered toast, Ed could vaguely hear his name being said, and he looked up, coming eye to eye with one of his pals, "Heya Eddy."

Eddy poked his friend in the forehead with a meaty finger, "What's wrong with you lumpy?"

Fat tears filled Ed's eyes, "The worst thing ever Eddy! My house doesn't have any buttered toast!"

Eddy rolled his eyes as he loped alongside his friend, "Jeez, don't get all bent out of shape. The school has toast."

Ed's brain snapped into high gear, locking onto the one place where he could get the one thing he wanted. Before Eddy could react, he found himself thrown Ed's shoulder, flying at a breakneck speed towards the school a few blocks away

"ED!" he screamed, "PUT ME DOWN!"

"BUTTERED TOAST EDDY!"

All the way to the high school they ran, Eddy wriggling his substantial body to and fro in order to escape his friends grip, Ed failing to notice his friend's shouts of discomfort. Only when Ed smacked Eddy's head on the door frame of the front doors did Eddy finally fall into a silent daze.

Ed set Eddy down amongst the sweet smells of the cafeteria, and caught the edge of a bump that was beginning to rise on Eddy's head, "You should be more careful Eddy."

Eddy grumbled something unintelligible, and then waved Ed away, "Go get your stupid breakfast Ed, I'm going to wait here for sock-head."

"Okey-dokey lemon pokey."

Moving into the food line, he found himself behind Rolf. Panic touched his heart when he looked at the tray that normally held toast was now filled with pancakes!

"Oh no." He groaned as he realized that he'd forgotten to check his weekly breakfast/lunch calendar in his haste to escape his sister's wrath. With head hanging low, he picked up a small plastic bowl of chunky puffs and a carton of milk. Just as he re-entered the lunch room, resigned to not so good breakfast of stale school chunky puffs and thin school milk, the smell of the best thing in the whole world caught his attention. Following his nose, he pulled up short at a table where Eddy had always told him to never go. A pretty blonde girl with manicured hands was unrolling a paper sack, and what she pulled out silenced the warning voices in Ed's head with a deep growl from his stomach. It was toasted to golden perfection, and as though Ed was hearing a siren's song, he found himself irresistibly attracted towards it and the yellow square that sat in the center. In just a few steps, he found himself standing right next to May Kanker.

"Uh, hi May."

She looked up, baby blue eyes as warm as a freshly dried blanket lighting up as they met his hazelnut brown, "Oh, hey Ed."

Ed bit his lip and cast his eyes around, "So uh, where are your sisters?"

"On their way. They were fighting over the bathroom when I left. Where are Eddy and Double D?"

He pointed at the table where the two sat, one with a slack jaw, the other with a slight smile.

"I see."

Awkwardness filled the air, and the gears in Ed's head reminded him of the terrors that the Kanker sister's had inflicted on him and his friends all through childhood. The chasing had eventually stopped, but the memories stayed fresh.

"So."

"Yeah."

Ed was confused. His eyes seemed to want to stray away from the toast, and he kept catching them resting on May. Even as his brain and his eyes played tug-of-war, his heart was doing backflips. He had once found her kind of gross; but now, well, she wasn't at all. Simple, yes, that was apparent even in the way she dressed. A plain white t-shirt and old-style bell-bottoms conformed to a shapely body, and her blonde hair was untouched by everything except a brush.

"Uh, Ed?"

He blinked, "Yea May?"

"Why do you keep looking at me like that?"

He blushed, "I was uh..well I was…can I have some buttered toast?"

His brain lost the war with his eyes as she smiled. He remembered back when that smile meant smooches and an hour of washing just to get the lip-stick off his face. Now he saw nothing but pretty things in that smile, even her slightly large front teeth didn't look frightening.

She handed him half the piece of toast, and he blurted out as he took it, "You look like a bunny."

May giggled, and he felt it go right into his stomach, where the butterflies were flying. Setting a hand on his arm, she said, "I have a rabbit at home if you would like to come over after school."

"Uh, okay."

Ed had found something else besides buttered toast that he understood.

May Kanker