Pumpkin Patch Princess

CHAPTER EIGHT: A Diet of Salad and Jealousy

"That's very decent of you, Maudie."

We headed into the cafeteria, where there was much more activity than before. Almost all of the umbrella tables on the lower branches of the wandwood tree were filled.

"Noelle, take Alfonso and get whatever you guys want. Muffet and I will meet up with you in a few," Maud said, popping the frog on my shoulder before I could protest. She and the cat wandered off to the yogurt stand together.

I glanced at Alfonso, who did not look happy to be stuck with me. He was surprisingly heavy, but not as slimy as I had expected. I decided that because I was Maud's trainee and he was her pet – and he had to be, no matter what she said – I would just have to try to be nice.

"So, Alfonso. What would you like to eat?" I asked politely.

The frog's beady yellow eyes were fixed on the popcorn trolley.

"Flies and popcorn. You are a true epicurean," I told him, taking out my badge to pay for a giant funnel of buttered popcorn, which Alfonso immediately jumped into. While he crunched away blissfully, I walked to the sandwich cart for a classic BLT: basilisk, lettuce, and tomato. Only when I stood in line to pay for my food did I realize who was standing nearby.

"I guess C.A.F.E. doesn't have quite the good taste I thought it did." Jessaline's glance took in my bulging sandwich, sloshing drink, and the popcorn funnel on which Alfonso was currently enthroned, chewing away with half-closed eyes.

"It's nice to see you, too, Snapp-dragon," I said shortly. I was starving and not in the mood to bandy insults with my nemesis.

She quirked a perfect eyebrow at the frog. "New pet? I didn't realize you had stooped so low that you'd begun frequenting cesspools."

Alfonso's yellow eyes popped open and he crushed a popcorn in one of his little amphibian hands.

"Don't tell me you sleep with that thing like a teddy bear," she went on, sneering. "Although that's so pathetic, it wouldn't surprise me in the least."

I clucked my tongue. "You'd better be more polite than that to a valued staff member, Jessaline," I scolded her. "That's my trainer you're talking about. She's in frog form now, but wait until you see her as a bat. She especially likes to nest in long, red hair."

"That is not your trainer," Jessaline said, though she looked uncertain as she ran a hand through her hair.

"Come on, Maud. Let's pay for our food," I said to Alfonso. "We don't have to stand here and be insulted like this."

The joke would have been complete had the real Maud not walked up to us at that very moment, with a yogurt-licking Muffet draped around her shoulders and a large basket of fried cockatrice fingers in one hand. "I hate it when they run out of barbecue sauce, don't you?" She noticed Jessaline gawking at her. "Oh, hi. Are you a friend of Noelle's? I'm her trainer, Maud."

Jessaline managed to give me a withering stare and Maud a bright smile at the same time. She had always been a good multi-tasker. "Jessaline Snapp. I just got into the program, too," she said, shoving past me to shake the fairy godmother's hand.

"Good for you," Maud said warmly. "I'm glad Noelle will have someone to sit with during Trainee Week. Why don't you join us?" She didn't see me shaking my head and giving her a frantic thumbs-down behind Jessaline.

"Why, of course. I'd love to," the Snapp-dragon replied.

I exchanged dark glances with Alfonso, who took a huffy bite of popcorn.

"My trainer and I already have a table. Come with me." Jessaline sashayed ahead of us.

Muffet peered at me from Maud's shoulders. "What was with all the winking and waving, Noelle?"