Chapter 9
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He walked slowly back to the pub, muttering slowly under his breath. One of the Australian bar staff asked if he wanted a drink, and he ordered without paying much attention to what he had asked for, then went out into the beer garden, still muttering.
He was still muttering to himself when his drink arrived. He paused briefly to peer puzzledly at it. He was sure he hadn’t ordered anything that came with a small dancing pink elephant on the glass. He shrugged, took a sip, and went back to muttering. So engrossed in his muttering was he that he hadn’t noticed he had chosen to sit next to the only other occupied table in the not-exactly-small beer garden.
Behind him, the tall man who looked suspiciously like a yeti in clothes sighed exasperatedly. A tree overhanging the garden caught his eye, and he heaved himself up and ambled over to it, rooting around in the grass for a moment, before picking something up and returning to his seat.
The man was still muttering “advanced computing optical recognition network” repeatedly under his breath, debating to himself what it might be. He was happily oblivious of the sighs emanating from the table next to him. He didn’t notice an object coming hurtling through the air towards him. He did, however notice it land in his drink. Before it started to dissolve, he had enough time to see it was an acorn. Movement nearby caught his eye, and he glanced up as the couple next to him stood up. He kept glancing up and up and up until the man had finally finished standing up. The yeti-like being flicked another acorn at the drink, rolled his eyes, turned to his companion and rumbled “tea and cake”.
Tearing his gaze away from the couple, remembering at last that it was both rude and indiscreet to stare, the man watched the remains of the second acorn dissolve in his drink. He was glad he had only had a sip of the drink before the acorns started landing in it. It wasn’t so much the way the drink was dissolving them, more the funny shades of purple and orange it was flashing. And he had a feeling that he might have already regretted having had even that sip. Shaking his head to clear those thoughts, he then proceeded to slap himself upside the head.
“Acorns! Of course!”
He raced up the normal stairs and into his room, slammed the door and started babbling excitedly about squirrels and acorns. Out of sight, two socks exchanged meaningful glances.
Last edited by ShortNCuddlyAm; 08-23-2009 at 08:06 PM.
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