1Chapter 10 – Side Quest!
During the late afternoon, The Happy Octopus bustled like a gaggle of slobbering lawyers circling a twelve-car pileup comprising at least six ambulances, with a clientele that looked like the reject group after a Cirque du Soleil audition marathon and a menu rich in snails that only a sophisticated urbanite or a neolithic hunter-gatherer–and no one else–could call a satisfying meal. That's what rich people eat, you know. The garbage parts of the food.
Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Jiminy managed to blend in fairly well with the rest of the riffraff. That relieved Jiminy, who worried a bit that their waiter would question why a gigantic dog and an ill-tempered duck were ordering the calamari, to say nothing of how the house exterminator would react to a large cricket who also happened to be a paying customer. In fact, if you took down a list of the parties currently dining and ordered them according to how outlandish they appeared to a more normal observer, Sora's party would fall somewhere in the middle. You would get the same result if you ordered them according to how creepy or intimidating each party was.
At the top of the creepy list would be a young boy sitting by himself in a corner booth, picking at his bowl of soup du jour with a knife. His high creep factor came both from his apparent obliviousness to the plain fact that you can't eat soup with a knife and the fact that he was a dead ringer for Riku, only with blond hair. That, and his knife was more the "dagger" variety than the "dinner knife" variety. He wore a perpetual scowl that made him look like he would stab the maitre'd if he got his order wrong.
"Is that Riku?" Sora asked his buddies.
"Couldn't be," said Donald.
"He looks just like him, though," said Sora, staring rather impolitely in the stranger's direction.
"I don't think he looks murderous enough," said Goofy. "Besides, Riku has white hair. That kid has blond hair. There's a world of difference."
"Hey," said Sora, "I happen to be a world-renowned expert on hair care products. Have you seen my coiffure lately? You know how much gunk I have to put into it to get it to look this good and stay this good? Remember how it didn't budge from its lofty shape even when we went through that obnoxious underwater level?"
"Gawrsh, Sora," said Goofy, "I don't remember that level too well at all. I spent the whole time concentrating on holding my breath."
"Well, it did," said Sora. "I had perfect hair even underwater, and you don't get that from being the kind of guy who doesn't know the difference between conditioner and moisturizing formula. No, guys, I am this game's... uh, I mean, this adventure's Boss of Hair Care. If I were in a Mega Man game, when you killed me you'd get equipped with Hair Razor. If I were in a one-on-one hair battle with Cloud Strife himself, I'd win on sheer intimidation factor. I am, in sort, The Man."
"Full of yourself, too," Donald mumbled.
"What was that?" said Sora. "Never mind. My point is that I, Sora the Boss of Hair, can tell that that boy in the corner could very well be Riku hiding under the cover of Seashell Blond #4 hair dye. I know it!"
"Man," said Donald, "I thought Jiminy was a pain when he got on a roll."
"What's that supposed to mean?" said Sora.
"It means the boy just walked off while we were busy talking!" By this point, Donald could not help but hop up and down and squawk his reply, drawing a few stares from the other patrons.
Goofy leaned in to the middle of the table. "Sora, are you getting jealous because he looks like Riku, and your new girlfriend looks like Kairi, and you know how Riku likes to hit on Kairi, and..."
Thwack! Sora bopped Goofy over the head with the Keyblade. "I've had about enough of you and this whole stupid world!" He glared at his friend.
"Now, Sora," said Goofy, "we all know you get a little touchy around anyone even resembling a girl..."
"And that includes Riku," Donald added.
"But that doesn't give you permission to hit your friend," continued Goofy. "And for that, I must punish you. Tornado!"
Goofy leaped up from his seat, twirled around like a whirlwind, and whipped by Sora's chair, pulling Sora himself into his vortex. The attack didn't last long, but it was more than enough to leave the two of them dizzy. When they both regained the ability to stand upright unassisted, they sat back down at their plates.
Sora's plate held a surprise for him: he could see his reflection in one of the cleared-out corners. "My hair! Goofy, what did you do to my hair!"
"You look goofy," said Goofy. "A-hyuck."
"That's not funny," said Sora.
Donald, on the verge of a laughing fit, disagreed. "How is that not funny? That's the funniest thing I've seen since we got to this lousy stinking world."
"Anybody got a comb?" said Sora. "A comb, some Wonderlocks Magic Hair Get, and maybe a chisel. I need them, now!"
"Calm down," said Goofy.
"Yeah," said Donald. "This place has put us all on edge.
"I think it's because Mira is in trouble," said Sora.
"Every girl you meet gets into mortal danger within a few minutes of you two being introduced," said Donald. "Ever notice that?"
Sora shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Now that you mention it..."
"Like Alice," said Donald, and Sora's face perked up. "You met her, you flirted a little, and she nearly got beheaded. And Jane. She got kidnapped by that guy with the goofy mustache. Jasmine, she found herself spirited away by that sorcerer. Remember, tall, dark, and ugly? The mighty morbid power monger? Bad news for her, huh? And then there was Wendy. Kidnapped by pirates may be cool to a very young Fred Savage, but it's not so great if you're actually being snatched away from your family. Who else?"
Jiminy picked up where Donald left off. "Belle, she had those problems with Maleficent, the big bully. Ariel nearly found herself the centerpiece of a fish fry just after you met her."
"Exactly," said Donald. "You're just bad news for girls, Sora. Sorry to say."
"Oh, you should talk," said Sora. "I saw The Three Caballeros. Women run from you like you're a rabid tiger on meth."
"How do you even know what that is?" said Donald. "Seriously."
"You learn a lot when your best friend growing up is Riku," said Sora.
"I told you he was a bad apple," said Jiminy. "Just goes to show."
"Goes to show what?" said Sora.
"Goes to show why you turned out the way you did."
"What's that supposed to mean?" said Sora.
"It means this," a new voice cut in. "Would you three gentlemen like to come aside with me for a minute?"
The maitre'd motioned for Donald, Goofy, and Sora to come with him. Jiminy, indignant at not being noticed despite the fact that the same maitre'd had recently served him his dinner, followed along, cursing softly to himself. They eventually ended up in a room adjoining the kitchen.
The maitre'd continued. "I noticed you three were causing a bit of, how you say, a ruckus?"
"That's us," said Donald proudly.
"You're scaring off customers. Everyone here looks a little, how to say? Wacky. Very wacky. But you and your tornadoes and your arguing and your man dressed as duck belching the alphabet, that is too much. I cannot take more, so I must throw you out."
"Gawrsh," said Goofy, "I hate it when that happens."
"That is unless you complete this task I am about to set before you. Behold, my table. What do you see here?"
He pointed to a serving table covered in a plain white tablecloth. Nothing sat on it.
"Nothing," said Donald.
"Nada," said Jiminy.
"Zilch," said Goofy.
"Slightly less than Kairi eats per meal," said Sora.
"Exactly," said the maitre'd. "What you do not see is my masterpiece, a giant root beer cake. Root beer flavor, cake texture, jalapeno icing. Perfection. I was going to submit it to the annual Jim Morrison Memorial Strange Days Wacky Cake Flavor Competition (formerly a musical competition, but we all know why that is not the case now), but a boy about your age stole it from me. From me! He stole it! He stole my cake! Right out from under my nose, he stole it! It was the cake he stole, and the thing he stole was the cake! He did not steal the table, and the tablecloth is right out. Just the cake."
"Just the cake?" said Sora, apparently slow on the uptake.
"The cake, and the plate it was on."
"Then why did you go to such great lengths to establish that it was just the cake?"
"Just because!"
Sora thought he could see a tiny cloud of steam rising from the top of the maitre'd's head, but he decided not to point it out to him.
"Anyway," the maitre'd said, "I want you to catch the thief and give him a good whacking, okay? I saw from your earlier classless display that you are the violent types, so I expect you will be able to do what I ask. Do it, and you shall be rewarded."
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" said Sora.
Goofy chuckled. "I think so, Sora, but me and Pippy Longstocking? What would the kids look like?"
"I think so, Sora," said Donald, "but where are we going to find any lederhosen around here?"
"I think so, Sora," said Jiminy, "but isn't Kathy Lee Gifford already married?"
"No, you doofus! Doofuses. Doofusi. Doofi. How do you make the plural of that? Never mind." said Sora. "I'm thinking... side quest!"
