"Come on Linda, I always tell ya to tie up those laces, don't I? Alright, I'll remake the burgers..."
Chef was obviously annoyed, but he was trying to hide it. I was too shocked to see him to even notice that, though. What was he doing at a muggle restaurant? Sure, he was a good chef, but why would he work at any restaurant, let alone a muggle restaurant?
I wanted to ask him all of these things, but of course I couldn't while Ben and Linda, muggles, were there.
Chef made eye contact with me for a split second, and I couldn't read his expression as to whether he recognised me or not. Even if he did, he didn't say anything about it.
I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't recognise me. I was twelve when I saw him, and now I was sixteen. But then again, he was a werewolf. He'd surely be able to tell that I was a werewolf by my scent.
Before I could do anything, Chef had gone back to the kitchen, Linda had gone back to work, and Ben was talking to me again.
I suddenly really wanted the job, especially if Chef worked there. Maybe I could get some inside information about what was happening with the werewolves now. I also just wanted to know what the hell he was doing here.
In order to get the job though, I had to do well in the interview. So, I spoke to Ben in the most polite, professional way I thought was possible.
Once he'd gone through all of us, Ben came back into the pantry room to tell us who he was going to hire, and, to my delight, he wanted me to work at the restaurant.
To my disappointment, however, none of the other marauders had been hired, and they all had to leave with everyone else who wasn't being hired, and I was left alone in the pantry room with Ben and the four other people he was hiring.
"Alrighty guys, so you five were my favourite of the group," said Ben. "Can you all come in to start tomorrow morning at eleven? Great! See you all then!"
I walked out of the pantry room, and outside the restaurant to find the other three marauders waiting for me.
"Damn Moony, good job!" James cried.
"So, are you going to just work on your own?" Peter asked. "Or try somewhere else to work with us."
I really wanted to work with them, but I also wanted to find out what was happening with Chef. I stood there silently, thinking, for a minute, before I said, "I think I'll take the job here."
I arrived at Wimpy five minutes before eleven o'clock the next morning, and the four other people that had been hired were already there when I arrived.
"Hey, Remus!" said Ben, bouncing over to me energetically. He then handed me some red clothes. "This is your uniform. Go get changed, then meet me back here, yeah?"
I took the uniform to the bathroom and got changed quickly, then walked over to where Ben was. He was now standing behind the counter, taking the order of a customer. I waited until they left before I approached him, not sure what else to do.
"Alrighty, Remus!" he said, grinning at me as I walked over to him. "To take a customer's order, you just write down whatever they say.." he waved a small piece of paper around in front of my face, on which he'd written down the order from the previous customer. "Then you take that paper to the kitchen and put it in the massive pile near the chefs... it's enormous, so you can't miss it, trust me."
"Alright," I said.
"And the food will come out from the kitchen, if it's for table service, it'll say the table number... also, make sure you ask them if they want takeaway or to eat in when you take the order! If it's table service ask where they're sitting then look at the number on that table and write it down. If it's for takeaway, write their name on the order, yeah?"
"Alright," I said again.
"Anyway, when the order's ready either call out their name or take it to the table. So, yeah... I think that's all you need to know, just yell out if you need anything, yeah?"
"Alright," I said for the third time.
"OK, so go serve some customers for the next four hours, then you're good to go," said Ben, spinning around and leaving me to figure the rest out. I awkwardly walked towards the front counter, where no one was standing.
After about a minute of standing there awkwardly, a customer approached me. It was a man who looked about in his thirties.
"Hey, mate, are you guys still running that deal for a burger and chips for twenty pence?" he asked me.
"Um..." I said. I wasn't even sure how much twenty pence was worth in wizard money, so I didn't know if that deal was considered expensive or cheap, and I'd literally never heard of this restaurant until two days ago, so how the hell was I supposed to know the answer to that?
"That deal isn't valid on a Saturday," came a voice from behind me. It was Linda, the girl who'd dropped the burger on me the previous day. "A burger and chips would come to thirty pence today."
"Ugh, never mind then..." said the man, and he turned around and left.
"Thanks, sorry, I had no idea about the deal..." I said.
"It's all good, I owed you one after what happened yesterday," said Linda.
"Don't worry about it, honestly," I said.
"Thanks, but I'm probably going to feel bad for the rest of my life," said Linda. "I'm never usually like that. I've worked here for almost two years now and I've never done anything like that."
"Well, that's impressive that you'd never dropped anything on someone in two years," I said.
"Thanks," said Linda. "Anyway... do you want to go into the kitchen and see if there are any orders to take out?"
"Yeah, sure."
"Cool," she said. "You should aim to do that pretty much whenever you're not already serving a customer."
"OK, will do," I said, walking into the kitchen eagerly, hoping that Chef would be there.
Unfortunately, he wasn't. I scanned the entire kitchen for him and took a few sniffs, but all that was there were a few muggle chefs and a lot of food for me to take out.
Ben had asked me to come in again the next night, which was fine by me because I wanted to speak to Chef, and I hoped that he'd be there.
I arrived at the restaurant ten minutes early, and as soon as I was in and had served two customers, I walked into the kitchen, and the moment I opened the doors, I smelt a werewolf.
I scanned the kitchen until I saw him, throwing burger patties onto a huge barbeque. I looked around at the other cooks, and they all looked too busy to notice me, so I approached Chef.
"Um... hi," I said.
"What time do you finish?" he asked under his breath, not looking up from the barbeque.
I felt my stomach squirm. "I only just started; I don't finish until nine."
"I go on break at half past nine," said Chef. "Would you be able to wait for me after you finish?"
"Uh, yeah, probably," I said. "I mean, my dad can easily go back home because... well, you would know I guess."
"OK. Meet me outside at nine-thirty, then?" he asked.
"OK."
When I finished at nine o'clock, Dad was standing outside the restaurant waiting for me.
"Hey, Dad," I said. "They want me to work an extra hour, I just came out to tell you... do you reckon you could apparate home and come back at ten?"
"Oh, yeah, of course," said Dad. "See you then."
"Thanks, Dad," I said, and he spun on the spot and disappeared.
I looked at where he'd been standing for a second, then sat down at one of the empty tables and pulled my pen out of my pocket.
I'd never used a pen before I'd started working at Wimpy. I'd seen my mum use them, but never had any interest in writing with anything other than a quill. I liked the pen, though. It was a lot easier than having to dip the quill in a bottle of ink every five seconds.
I doodled on my arm to pass the time, and by the time Chef finally came out of the restaurant, I had drawn up quite the masterpiece of random squiggles.
I stood up when he came out, and the first thing he did was smell me.
"You're Remus Lupin, aren't ya?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said.
"You sound different," he said. "Ya not a kid anymore, eh?"
"I'll be of age next year," I said.
"Wow," he said. "What are ya doing working here?"
"Just a summer job," I said. "What are you doing here? Why aren't you with the pack?"
"Ah, well..." he paused and looked at the floor. "Just wanna make some money."
He was lying. I could tell he was lying from his tone, body language, and smell. But what was I supposed to say?
"Does Greyback know?" I asked.
"Know what?" he asked, clearly playing dumb.
"That you're working at a muggle restaurant?" I asked.
"I dunno, do your parents know ya working at a muggle restaurant?" he asked.
"Yeah, they do, how do you not know whether he knows? Did you tell him?" I asked.
"Tell who? Look, kid, I gotta go back to work... but... but I don't think you should work here," he said. "Look, I'm not meant to tell anyone, but the staff and customers are gonna be werewolves after the moon in August."
I felt a drop in the pit of my stomach. "The pack's going to attack, aren't they? You're just spying on them..."
"This will be the eleventh restaurant we've done this to," said Chef, giving up on lying to me.
"And you're in on it!? I thought you weren't... you're horrible, too..."
"I'm not horrible, I'm just a werewolf," he said. "Unless you're going to work with the pack, please quit the job now and don't come back to this restaurant."
As if I'm going to let you attack a bunch of muggles now that you've told me what you're going to do, I thought, and he seemed to be able to tell what I was thinking, because he said, "If you do come back and try to interfere, I may have to kill ya. And you're a good kid, I don't wanna do that."
And he turned away and walked back into the restaurant, leaving me out there in the night, alone, with my dad who wouldn't be coming for another half an hour.
