Chapter 5
"Gawrsh, Sora, these arrows sure are confusing!" Goofy scratched his head.
"No kidding!" said Sora. "Most of these signs don't make any sense. No passing? Merge? Yield to peds? I don't even know what a 'ped' is!"
"Whatever it is, is sure smells good," said Donald. "Let's follow that smell and get us some peds!"
"If you say so," said Sora. "I could go for a bite to eat, myself. Say, Goofy, on a scale of one to ten, how hungry would you say you are?"
"Me?" said Goofy. "I'll say about an eight. I'll bet those peds are good enough to drop my hunger at least 1000 points!"
"A thousand, huh?" said Sora. "I'd say a thousand is good for the first ped I see, but on my second time around, I'll bet it's worth at least 2000."
"That's pretty ambitious," said Goofy. "I'm gonna go get me some peds for 2000 points, then!"
"Race ya!" said Sora. "You too, Donald."
But Donald wasn't there.
"Donald?" Sora looked around.
"Over here!" said Donald from the front steps of a building from which the delicious aroma emanated. "While you two are talking about racing, I'm gonna get my food first."
"Wait up," said Goofy, and the rest of the crew followed Donald to what appeared, upon closer inspection, to be the front door of a residential building. More specifically, it was a house, and more specifically still, it was a house with both sound and smell detectable from the outside. The smell resembled that of a bakery, and the sound resembled that of a party.
"Sora," said Donald, "do you think a ped is a kind of bread?"
"Let's find out," said Sora, who then turned the knob on the door and walked in.
Inside, a whole horde of children of various ages turned their heads in unison to the door. Most of the seven faces in the living room displayed expressions that could accurately be described as gawking at the uninvited guests. Clearly, Sora and company had interrupted a girl tearing open the wrapping paper on a gift box, two toddlers throwing some sort of dinner rolls at each other, a set of young triplet boys skipping around the girl in a circle, and another young boy gazing longingly at a multilayered cake standing on top of a table over to the side. The cake smelled warm.
"So a ped is a cake," said Donald. "Good deal."
"What's that?" said one of the triplets. "Big and hairy, dumb as an ox – must be one of Mira's guests. Miii-raaaa! Your boooooyfriend's here!"
The girl took a moment to get over the shock of someone she'd never seen before waltzing into her home, and then she slapped either the boy who spoke or one of the two who looked just like him. She didn't' appear to care which it was.
"I've never even seen any of those guys before," Mira huffed. "Come to think of it," she turned to Sora, "what are you doing here? Are you robbers?"
"No…" said Sora.
"Oh," said Mira, "then you must be here on a Disneyland promotional advertisement. I know what those are about."
"Uh, no," said Sora.
"Ooh, then Daddy must have hired you to perform at my party! Come to think of it, you look just like the kid from one of the video games my kid brother is always playing."
"That Sora from Kingdom Hearts!" shouted the boy who had been staring at the cake. "It's Sora! It's really Sora! Can I have your autograph, mister?"
"Gawrsh," said Goofy, "Sora's getting attention from girls, and he's getting young boys to ask for his autograph. This trip's working out nicely for him so far."
"Cut it out, you guys," said Sora.
"You're here to entertain, then?" said Mira.
"I'm not an entertainer," said Sora, "and I don't know what a Kingdom Heart is. Really, we're all just hungry, and we thought you could spare us some peds."
"Peds?"
"Cake!" said Goofy.
"Oh, cake!" said Mira. "Uh, you seem nice, and you're about my age. Why not?"
"Yippie!" Donald jumped several feet into the air and waved his arms wildly! "Now you're talking!"
"It's my birthday, you know," said Mira. "It'll be nice to have someone come to my party for once."
"Who are all these guys, then?" said Sora. "It looks like you have lots of friends."
"Who, these?" said Mira. "They're not friends. I'm not even completely sure they're human. You see, they're my obnoxious little brothers."
Donald snickered. "I know how obnoxious little tykes can be. You have my sympathy, Miss Mira."
"Miss?" she said. "Oh, please, call me Mira. I'm no princess."
"You look like one," said Sora, noticing for the first time that Mira bore more than a casual resemblance to Kairi. She had roughly the same eyes and hair and facial structure, though she dressed differently. Sora also noticed that Mira's face turned a shade of pink upon hearing him.
"Miss Mira," said Goofy, "we would love to have some cake at your party, but we really don't have that much time to stop and eat. We're on a mission to find King Mickey."
"Oh," said Mira. "I didn't realize that. You're just lost and hungry. I see how it is."
"You don't have to be like that," said Sora. "If you really want, you can come with us. We're used to taking along guests, and you probably know this place better than we do."
"Are you inviting me to go with you to Disneyland?" Mira's expression brightened.
"If that's where King Mickey is," said Sora, "then that's where we're going to go, and you're more than welcome to come along with us."
Mira just about bubbled over with glee. She clasped her hands together, smiled like she was taking morphine intravenously, and hopped up and down twice. "Let me go get dressed!" she said, and then she ran upstairs.
"Sora," said Jiminy Cricket, peering out from Sora's pocket, "what are you thinking? You know you really shouldn't, how do you say, play the field like that, right?"
"Huh?"
"You've
already got a girlfriend in Kairi, and now you've invited this new
girl out on a date."
"Who cares as long as we get cake out of it?" said Donald.
"Sora should care!" insisted Jiminy. "I can assure you that Kairi does."
"Is it really a date?" said Sora.
"You and I both know it is," said Jiminy, "and no amount of rationalizing is going to get you out of this one. As your conscience, I really can't stand for this sort of thing."
"We'll see what Mira thinks," said Sora.
And then, as if in response to Sora's statement, a door opened somewhere, and Mira appeared at the top of the stairs, wearing a shimmering purple dress, reflective earrings, and what looked like a dab of makeup on her cheeks. Sora found himself unable to speak.
"How do I look?" said Mira. "And more importantly, are you ready to go?"
