Library: Episode 8
A grocery list had been found, about a foot away from the door to the cafeteria, including such varied items as Rasinets, orange juice, a sledge hammer, dill pickles, and lock picks. Pyla, as official grocery shopper, had been nominated for a trip to the new System-wide Food Wookie. It was a very convenient system. The store came through on a regular route, like a city bus. Shoppers would board, do their shopping, and then get off at their stop.
"JARETH! I NEED MONEY! Oh, there you are. Could you give me some money to buy groceries?" Pyla had just come bounding into the Principal's office, in the middle of one of his semi-regular meetings with the Librarian. She was chewing him out for the incident at the White House, and he was feeling decidedly uncharitable. He was still wearing his Avon suit.
"No, Pyla, you may not have money for groceries. If you and Reea want food, get your own money to pay for it."
"No, silly... Not for me and Reea, it's for the cafeteria lady and Tuxedo Bob!" Jareth winced eloquently, not wanting to know who or what Tuxedo Bob was, how Pyla came to know about him, and why he had a grocery list for her to fill. He merely reached for his wallet and handed her his credit card, relatively sure he was making a very, very large mistake in entrusting such a precious peice of plastic to her but not quite capable of caring. Pyla grinned.
"OOO!! Alderaanian Express PLASTIC!" She happily skipped out the door, grabbed Spike, passing him in the hallway and figuring a Home Ec teacher would need supplies for class, and to the Wookie stop.
In the System-wide Food Wookie
"Attention shoppers, this is your captain speaking. We are currently experiencing turbulence on Aisle 78. Barf bags are our Blue Light special for the day, 60 for only five Republic credits. Thank you." Spike, who was supposed to be getting the cashews for his class's latest project, was instead watching as Happy Meals on legs from various parts of the System tumbled wildly in the sudden pocket of anti-gravity that had appeared in Aisle 78. Pyla emerged from Aisle 74, weighted down with cheesy poofs, beef jerky, charcoal briquets and Slim Fast. She'd had to special order the cheesy poofs, but they were worth it. Catching sight of Spike, who was not retrieving his part of the list, she threw a can of Slim Fast at him.
"HEY! Pyla to Spike, come in Spike! Get those cashews or the Librarian will have both our butts for breakfast!" She paused for half a second, thinking over what she just said. "Hey... nice alliteration..."
Spike, who was rubbing the side of his head and glaring at the can of Slim Fast as if it had personally insulted him, which, in fact, it had, grumbled something under his breath about disliking Zero G conditions and floated down the Aisle. "Note to self: take advantage of the bloody Blue Light special..."
Back in Jareth's Office
When people said the Librarian was an unpleasant person, they didn't know what they were talking about. She wasn't just unpleasant. She was caustic, hateful, sadistic, and generically evil. She was quite a bit beyond merely "unpleasant." At least, that's what Jareth thought of her. It was enough to make him want to turn the TYs into goblins and make them sing with him.
"Allowing the TYs to so much as go near the White House, you should be ashamed of yourself. The damage they could have done would have been irreparable. I can only bend time and space in the Library, you know that, so why did you tempt fate and send them somewhere I couldn't clean up after them? And another thing, who do you think pays for everything here? The gas money it took to drive that stinking Mackadelic all the way to Earth and around it is going to break us. What is wrong with you?" Seeing that he was drifting into that strange Labyrinthine area of his brain that fostered such goals as abducting small children and making teenager girls retrieve them, she punched him. It was more effective than clearing her throat. "JARETH!" For the second time that day, he found himself looking into the face of a pale haired woman screaming his name. Normally, he wouldn't have minded the screaming of his name, or even the pale haired woman, but circumstance had a really evil sense of humor.
"Listen to me when I'm chewing you out!"
The Wookie
Spike, still very uncomfortable thanks to the effects of Aisle 78, staggered up to the Pharmacy. A kind looking man in fatigues that couldn't have come from anywhere except the Korean... I mean, Vietnam... I mean, Korean... Whichever War, and wearing a name tag stating in nice block letters that he wanted to help you and his name was Hawkeye.
"Do you have any bloody nausea medication that would help a connoseur of Happy Meals on legs?" Spike would have growled, but then the little bit of blood he'd managed to choke down before that damnable chip made him spit out his fellow shopper would have come shooting back out of him and he would have been in an even worse state... Unless of course Malastarian blood was bad for vampires...
Hawkeye, who's name tag now proclaimed that he was an employee of expertise, replied in a cheerful but somehow not sickeningly so, even for such a dour fellow as Spike. "I think I could dig something up." He pulled a shovel out of nowhere and turned his back on the nauseous vampire and began digging. Literally. Apparently, he was a man who said what he meant and meant what he said. As bed pans, syringes, empty pill bottles, dialysis machines, blood tests, pregnancy tests, standardized tests, and an enema bag flew past his head, Spike wondered what exactly he was going to be given. He didn't have to wonder for long. Hawkeye turned around with a syringe in one hand and a bottle of milky fluid in the other, the shovel returning to whatever mysterious space/time pocket it had come from. The smile on the pharmacist's face was still cheerful, but had a note to it that implied Spike was not going to enjoy what came next. Indeed, he did not. The entirety of the Food Wookiee heard his yelp of complaint as the needle on the end of the syringe full of milky fluid was jabbed into his undead but still tender posterior. Immediately after the yelp came the word "Magnificent."
Jareth's Office
Xena and Gabrielle came through the door of the office, just as the Librarian slugged Jareth for the fifteenth time. Jareth's eyebrows were smearing. The Librarian's fist had a permanent Avon Eyebrow Pencil in frosted Demon Spawn mark on it. Jareth's usually darkened upper eyelids were darker than usual, and not because of his eyeshadow. His hair was in more of a dissarray than usual, and his nose seemed a little more out of alignment than he might have liked. Xena and Gabrielle pulled an about face, figuring Jareth could hear about their discovery of the identity of the Lunch Lady later. He wouldn't have liked to hear about the needed paint job in the Kitchen, anyway. The blaster fire had left some impressive scorch marks... and there were acid burns on the pots. Lt. Ripley wasn't especially agreeable, either.
The Food Wookiee
Immediately after being jabbed in the butt with a very sharp object, Spike had turned around and decked Hawkeye, who's name tag now proclaimed that he was pleased to meet you. Slinging Hawkeye over his shoulder, he dashed off to find Pyla. She'd know what he was allowed to do with him.. He saw visions of roasted Pharmacist dancing through his head.
Later that Evening, back at the Library School for TYs
Dinner was served. The TYs recoiled in horror. Spike leered. The Librarian sniffed, not showing either approval or a distinct lack thereof. The Nocturnal Terrors and most of the teaching staff were curiously absent. Giles, who felt a need to keep an eye on Spike at all times, grimiaced.
"Meatloaf again? Don't you know any other recipes?"
Hawkeye gave them all a funny look through his unswollen eye and dug in. "It beats turnips, quit complaining." The newly instated Library Physician and Surgeon gulped down three helpings before he realized that the hamsters he'd seen running around earlier were gone.