Tales of a Peculiar Pirate

23. Polly the Salesman

"Lookin good fledge," remarked SAT as Polly stepped back into Mr. Croix's restaurant now decked in a casual tee and jeans, a stark contrast to her previous old-fashioned look. However, her high and kind of messy ponytail had not changed.

"Thanks. I've gotta say I'm feelin' pretty good too. So how's the plan looking?"

Polly joined the small circle of Mr. Croix, SAT, Wiki, and Ed at the table they were at. Somehow all the grilled cheese sandwiches that had been taking up space had disappeared in the two hours she was gone. Not a crumb nor a trace of grease was left.

"It's a ways past lunch, which means the prime time for eating a grilled cheese is over," began Croix. "But that's fine and dandy because we planned to start promoting tomorrow anyways. It's just too bad we had to do what we did with all the sandwiches I already made."

Polly wanted to ask how exactly the sandwiches had gone poof, but she feared the answer. She wasn't sure if she'd rather learn all that food had been wasted or the group had become patrons of the god of binge eaters and inhaled it all. So, she chose to stay quiet.

"Tomorrow I'm hopin' you fellas can come around 11 AM and we can draw in some customers lookin' for lunch. I was thinkin' I'd send each of y'all out to a different district of the island, probably the poorer ones if I'm bein' honest. I doubt the richer ones would let us go wanderin' around pandering goods."

"Anything you need us to do today?" asked Polly.

"I think everything for today's been taken care of," Croix replied. "Really appreciate the help you fellas have given me, I don't know if I could thank y'all enough."

"It's no problem, good sir, but you might want to save the thanks for after we bring you some customers."

"You've got a fair point there."

Polly and Co. departed shortly after, and Polly, SAT, and Wiki figured they'd show Ed around The Capital and then spend the rest of the day rolling around like potatoes at Melonpan. And so the day passed with the four finally having a day to enjoy doing nothing. It was a change of pace Polly appreciated for the start of her adventures had been their fair share of hectic.

Back in her room, Polly had returned to her blanket burrito and there was not a single thought floating in her completely empty head, just the way she liked it. Though it was only late afternoon, she began to drift asleep, and succeeded in sleeping long enough to finally get her sleep schedule back on track.

x x x

The sun was high in the sky, lively conversation and the scent of fresh baked bread filled the air, and Polly felt like a minimum wage worker trying to get people to check out a way overpriced car wash for a club fundraiser.

She held a tray with a small heap of squares of grilled cheese sandwiches rather than a large cardboard sign, so there was a limit to how many fancy tricks she could do to draw attention.

It was times like this Polly wished she had actually stuck to learning a musical instrument so she could whip out a violin and bang out some tunes and watch people throw coins in her violin case, or in this case come up to her and ask how she was able to play a violin while holding a tray full of grilled cheese squares.

To that, Polly imagined she'd respond with something along the lines of, "While you were not buying grilled cheese sandwiches from Croix's Crispy Crunches, it's walking distance from The Capital by the way, I studied the blade," and fwip her long brown ponytail around to really drive the point home. Of course she'd take great care to ensure no stray strands of hair would accidentally hit the sandwiches because that'd just be nasty.