A Piece of the Pie (Chapters 17-18)

Chapter 17 – Luno Versa

We walked downstairs and through a couple of corridors to reach the dining hall, where a number of people were already merrily chatting away and sharing breakfast. Bright sunlight shone through gigantic round windows covering the walls. The variety of food was incredible.

I myself decided to have some banana pancakes and some kind of tropical orangeish-mangoish juice.

We devoured our respective plates stacked high with pancakes and bacon and eggs and fruits and... I could go on for a while.

"Dudes, the food here is awesome!" Sam summarized the meal before taking his final bite of a giant waffle.

Full up from our grub, the boys and I decided to do a little bit of exploring. There were so many corridors in the castle, all filled with paintings and photographs of many people from what I assumed were locations all around the city.

Strad's kingdom really seems like a paradise.

After exploring the castle, we decided to take a stroll into the rest of the city.

Everywhere we walked we were greeted with warm smiles and music. Think of a happy medieval coastal town – minus the medieval part – where people were going about their business carting supplies, running shops, selling fruits and vegetables I'd never even imagined from roadside stands.

They also happen to have a level of technology that seriously outdoes our own on Earth: kids riding about on hover-boards (proper ones), shopkeepers consulting non-glitchy holographic panels – I bumped into a man who had a bionic arm! Like a fully souped-up bionic arm like the pirate dude from Treasure Planet. I apologized quickly to avoid being vaporized, but he just smiled and said no harm done. I'm still convinced he could have charged that sucker up and reduced me to a pile of smoking ash.

Most of the buildings were low and flat on top, where music from rooftop boomboxes floated gently over the cool morning air.

We arrived at the beach, and dipped in for a little swim. Our clothes were a little rank, so when we got out we decide to head to a shop and pick up some new duds. Our other option other than what the girls gave us yesterday – the now presently ripe clothing – was our winter gear, which doesn't go so great with the summer weather anyway. Now that I actually thought about it I believe we forgot our winter gear in the dirt hole in which we spent the night before last.

We each purchased a pair of clean shorts and a tee, and paid the store owner with some change Vera had given us. Their money looked kind of like our loonies, except that it was all blue and came in a lot of different shapes which were definitely not loonie shapes. My Vans look a little ratty, but I'm not too concerned, most people seem to get about the town in bare feet, as pretty much everywhere was soft grass or sand anyway.

Just when I thought things could not get any better, I saw it... a huge sign hanging a few metres away:

PETEY’S PIZZA

We hustled in and grabbed some slices for lunch.

Big slices. I'm talking like... oh man, you'd have to see them. I have searched far and wide for the perfect pizza, some establishments have come close, but this stuff was beyond belief, as if my mum made it just right.

Re-energized, we continued our little expedition. We approached a field where some dudes were playing soccer. They saw us and immediately convinced us to join in.

It was loads of fun. I was inevitably embarrassed when one of the guys, Tim, started pulling some trippy move around me and I tripped over my own feet and landed on my face.

I managed to reclaim my pitch cred with a sliding tackle to prevent a goal and win us the game. And thus we parted with our new friends and started to head back to the castle. 

Chapter 18 – Reminiscing

When we arrived back at the castle, Strad invited us to a barbecue out in the courtyard. It was a little different than I was used to, as the barbecue stretched four metres long, manned by three dudes, each with a beer in hand – now that I've seen it there really is no other way to barbecue properly. The burgers were awfully tasty, and presently Strad was asking us a little about where we're from.

"I moved to Canada from Saudi Arabia when I was eight weeks old," Mouk was saying, giving me a brotherly pat on the back.

"Aren't you like a prince or something, heir to a family fortune?" Sam teased Mouk, popping a chip into his mouth.

"My dad's a tailor, and my mum's a vet," Mouk laughed along, "so yes, the Kamidgbi Empire is doing quite prosperously."

"Dude, the first time I met you was at a keg party that got busted in the dorms – you were freaking out you were gonna lose your scholarship and rambling on about how your parents had worked so hard to make it, and now you would end up on the street..." I added to Mouk's story. I knew the story of how we met would come back to me eventually.

"Hey, I remember that party," Sam chipped in, "I also remember Dim sharing some concoction with you that we made – all I know is you seemed pretty cheery after that."

"Yeah, that drink was delicious," Jake added thoughtfully, "wish we could remember what we put in it."

"And so I met all these losers back when I was eighteen," Mouk turned back to Strad with a smile unable to contain itself at the corner of his mouth.

"And your life has been better ever since," Jake grinned and Mouk punched him in the shoulder.

"Sam and Dim here are from out west –" Jake started.

"– pretty much spent the early years surfing, riding powder, and skating. Our parents were all Maritime kids, and we've travelled east to west across the country quite a bit," Sam added.

"And I'm originally from San Diego in the States. It's where I was born, but my dad has been stationed all over the place, he's in the Marine Corps."

"And now what do you all do?" Strad asked.

"We're at college right now. Being full time students means we spend some of our time studying, and partying maybe just a little more than is healthy. A chunk of time is spent hungover, then actually keeping the grades up, and working to offset the cost of those grades."

I figured that makes a fairly accurate and honest pie graph representation of our university schedule breakdown.

"Sounds like you make a pretty okay time of it," Strad grinned, taking a chomp out of a dill pickle, "you'll have to visit some sights here in the city. I'm sure the girls would be happy to show you around."

"We could all go out tonight?" Feo suggested from the other end of the table.