DISCLAIMER: This is not my story. It's my friend's, Janet. For this story, I'm just being a good friend who posted this fanfiction for her because I have an account. And because I liked it. Magical Starsign belongs to BrownieBrown.
NOTE: This is written from the POV of her heroine, Jenny.
Coming from a dimension that doesn't have much to spend money on besides hotels and gummy frogs, we were intrigued by the variety of stores on Earth, especially the one called Starbucks. The 'star' part piqued my curiosity, and since there appeared to be one on every street corner, I insisted that we go inside next time we passed one.
Surprisingly, it had nothing to do with stars. Instead, it turned out to be a coffee shop! But before we had much chance to look around, Lassi dragged us outside.
"Ooh, what a cute store!" Lassi squealed, pointing across the street. She made a beeline for the store, and Sorbet and I followed eagerly behind her. Pico rolled his eyes, but Sorbet grabbed his hand and dragged him to the store along with us. Mokka and Chai were the only ones left behind in the Starbucks.
"I think I love this dimension," Mokka murmured.
Chai snickered. "What now, sappy-robot?"
"Look." Mokka pointed to the chalkboard above the counter, on which the selection of drinks was written. The word 'mocha' appeared at least half a dozen times.
"Whoa, my name's up there, too!" Chai said, pointing to the tea section. "We must be famous here or something!"
"Odd, considering we've never made a trip to this dimension before."
"But awesome all the same!" Chai said.
"Yes, awesome indeed."
An employee overheard their conversation and strolled over. "Can I… help… you?" the teenage boy said, thrown off by the sight of a robot and a salamander standing at the counter.
"Yes, I'll try the mocha frappucino," Mokka said.
"And a chai tea for me," Chai added, grinning.
"Okay…" said the surprised teenager. A robot and a talking salamander, he thought. I must be hallucinating.
Chai tossed a wad of bills that he obviously hadn't counted out beforehand on the counter. Well, at least the hallucinations have money. He decided not to tell them he owed them a lot of change now. An amphibian would not understand change. A robot might, but could probably sweet-talk the cash register into letting him get it himself if he really wanted it.
The worker grabbed a couple of plastic cups and a Sharpie from behind the counter. "What are your names?" he asked.
"My name is Mokka," the robot bleeped.
"And I'm Chai," the salamander piped in.
"I'm Joey," he said politely, tapping his nametag. He scribbled the code for their orders on the cups—no need to write the same thing twice—and turned to the door of the storage room, thinking, Now I've really gone insane.
"What do you mean we're all out of chocolate syrup and chai tea bags?!" Joey yelled in exasperation.
"I meant what I said," said his boss coolly. "No more chai tea or mocha frappucinos. You'll just have to tell those two customers to come back later. And then you'll have to go make an emergency run to the store."
"And then I'll have to put up Help Wanted signs all over this place, 'cause I'm sick of being your only employee who works here on Sundays," he grumbled to himself.
"Suit yourself," the boss said, waving him out the door.
When he emerged from the storage room, he was again taken aback by the salamander and robot that were still standing there, looking as excited as ever. "I'm sorry, you guys, but we're fresh out of…" He paused, remembering something. "What did you say your names were again?"
Chai pointed to the robot—"Mokka"—and then to himself. "Chai."
"Hmm…" Joey swung his legs over the counter, and then reached down and grabbed Chai. He picked him up and ran his tongue along Chai's forehead.
"EEEWW!!" Chai squealed, squirming.
"Oddly enough, you do taste like chai tea," Joey said when he pulled his tongue away, leaving Chai still trapped in his hands straining to reach the napkins. Without letting go, he stepped off the counter and grabbed something out of a box just behind the storage room door. Seeing his friend's predicament, Mokka tossed a napkin to poor Chai, who immediately buried his face in it.
Joey hopped back over the counter, this time with a black trash bag clutched in his free hand. Chai's eyes went wide as he was slipped inside of it.
Mokka panicked. "Red alert! Red alert!" he screamed, bolting for the door. But he too was scooped up in the garbage bag, landing on top of Chai at an awkward angle. The Starbucks employee carried the squirming trash bag back behind the counter and through the door of the storage room, tossing it in an empty cardboard box and tying a knot in the top.
"This is the end," Chai sobbed. "We're going to end up as drinks!"
"Try not to flood the bag," Mokka teased, but really he was gravely serious. They would never get out of this trash bag until someone wanted them for their afternoon coffee or tea.
The bell over the door rang four times. Disappointed by what we found in the store across the street, and getting worried about where Mokka and Chai had disappeared to, the rest of us had returned to Starbucks already.
Lassi bounced on her tiptoes to see over the counter and meet the eyes of the teenager standing behind it. This has been a really weird day, he thought. "Can I help you?"
"Yeah, I'll have a mocha frappucino, and… Sorbet, what did you want again?" she called across the room.
"Chai tea," Sorbet responded.
"And a chai tea," Lassi said.
A mischievous gleam sparkled in the boy's eyes. "Coming right up."
"Hey, speaking of Mokka and Chai…" Lassi said to Sorbet. "Where the heck are they?"
Just then, she heard two familiar screams. The Starbucks worker stepped out of the storage room with a writhing garbage bag in his hand. Chai clawed at the inside of the bag, stretching the black plastic until it was nearly transparent and he could make out the blurred silhouettes of three humans and a rabbit through it. "Jenny!' he cried. "Save us!!" A door on the side of the room closed behind them, and the whir of a blender starting up drowned out their screams.
"I think this qualifies as a desperate situation when it's okay to use magic," I declared.
Pico cheered.
Lassi led the way over the counter, and kicked open the side door to the kitchen. Joey was trying to ram Mokka into the blender with one hand, holding the bag with Chai still in it in the other. Lassi pounced on top of him, knocking both Chai and Mokka out of his grasp. "Cancel my order," she growled dramatically. "Instead, I order you to release my friends."
"Oops, these… things are your friends? Well, if you've got money, I can shove them in a plastic cup for you and there you go. But otherwise, we're all out of chocolate syrup and chai tea—I can't just give them up."
"Maybe if I set your stupid coffee shop on fire, you'll change your mind," Pico said, an ember flickering on his fingertips.
"Pico!" Chai wheezed. "I'm running out of air in here! Get me out!"
"Huh?" Even for someone who'd been all over the Baklava solar system, a talking trash bag was a little out of the ordinary. "Chai, is that… What the heck are you doing in there?"
"What does it look like? I got salamander-napped to be turned into tea! NOW GET ME OUTTA HERE!!"
"Aw, man. The one time in this dimension that I'm allowed to use magic, I'm the one who has to save you? I wanna fight!"
Chai stretched the bag transparent again and glared at Pico.
"Fine… Just watch your tail. I don't want to set you on fire."
The plastic trash bag melted open, and Chai scurried out, running in circles around the kitchen with his tail on fire. It was inevitable. Sorbet flicked a perfectly aimed ice ball at Chai's tail and put it out.
Meanwhile, Mokka had been trying to talk the blender into spitting him out. "I know I'm too big to fit in here, so if you don't let go of me, you'll probably break, okay?" First a talking trash bag and now a machine whisperer—this was a weird day.
Since no one else seemed to notice that Mokka was still stuck in there, I ran to the rescue. Typical. The metal plates on his face turned a little red when he saw it was me trying to yank the blender off his head. "It's… not… coming… off," I grunted.
Then, I noticed the little metal hammer dangling beside the fire alarm. I grabbed Mokka's hand—his face plates were bright red now—and towed him over to the wall. "Now, I'll try to just break the glass, but this might hurt a little."
I was aiming for the glass at the base of the blender, but my finger slipped and I whacked him squarely on the back of the head. Oops. Well, at least it got him unstuck.
Mokka forgot all about his own pain when he noticed the shattered blender. "Poor little kitchen appliance. Well, you got what you were asking for."
Chai, Lassi, and Pico had just finished tying Joey up in trash bags, including the molten one that Chai had escaped from. "Let's see how you like it in there," Chai cackled.
"I don't like it… I'm sorry… will someone get me out…"
"Ignore the talking trash bag," Chai said, slapping it with his charred tail.
So we didn't exactly escape from this whole ordeal unscathed. Chai got his tail set on fire, and Mokka got a dent in the back of his head. At least nobody got made into a drink, and we were all back together again. For the most part. "Hey, where's Sorbet?" I asked.
"Sorbet? She took off a while ago," Pico said. "Said she was going to the ice cream shop."
Oh no. Here we go again.