I looked back at Toby. “It means we’re getting a menu.”
Five minutes later, we were all running out to the car together, my dad clutching two leather-bound menus with a smile on his face. “How did you do that?” I asked as we ran, the contents of Toby’s bag clinking as she walked.
My dad beeped open the car and we all got in, nobody wasting any time. “I just told her,” he said as he started the car and screeched out of his parking spot, “that I was thinking about hosting a campaign fund-raiser there and wanted to see what kind of options they had available.”
“And she believed you?” I asked.
My dad nodded to the menus he’d dropped on the dashboard. “Enough to give me those,” he said. “I just need to return them tomorrow. Along with a signed picture for their wall.”
“Awesome,” Toby said, leaning forward between our seats as far as her seat belt would allow. “Onward!”
TOM
Did you have success at the diner?
ME
“What’s with the elephant?” I asked, taking my phone back from Toby as we ran up the steps to Captain Pizza. We’d called in our order on the way, and I was just crossing my fingers that, even though it was a Friday night, they would actually have our pizza ready on time. I saw, next door, my dad striding into Paradise Ice Cream, where he was going to try to get the Ice Cream Tasting Spoon, despite the fact that they weren’t disposable at Paradise but actual spoons that you dropped into a mason jar to be washed and reused. We were getting tight on time, but with luck, we’d be leaving the pizza parlor with three items checked off the list—Pizza With Three Toppings, Bottle of Soda, and Napkins.
“Because elephants never forget,” Toby said, like this was the most obvious answer in the world, as she yanked open the door. “And I’m not going to forget either.”
“We got the menus,” I reminded her as we ran up to the counter. The restaurant was half-filled already, and I hoped it wasn’t going to affect how fast they were getting to-go orders out.
“Even so,” Toby said darkly.
“Hey!” a blond girl in a CAPTAIN PIZZA shirt said as we approached the counter. DAWN, read the lettering in military typeface on her T-shirt. “Can I help you?”
“Picking up for Walker,” I said as I glanced down at the clock on my phone. “Large pie with toppings on three-fourths of it, and one-fourth plain.” I had been the one placing the order, so this had been my attempt to try to get some pizza I could actually eat, since I wasn’t going to touch the sausage-mushroom-onion combo that Toby swore to me was actually really good.
“And we need a bottle of soda,” Toby said, slapping her hand on the counter while I silently tried to tell her to take it down a notch. “And napkins! All the napkins you have!”
“Okay,” Dawn said, looking a little freaked out as she turned to look at the to-go boxes stacked above the oven.
“I’ve got the soda,” a voice behind us said, and a girl with short dark hair came out from where she’d been sitting in a booth. She wasn’t wearing a Captain Pizza uniform, and it took me a moment to recognize her as Emily Hughes.
“Hi,” I said immediately, then hesitated. I knew who she was, and I was pretty sure she knew me, since I’d been in AP Physics with her last year. But I mostly knew her because everyone knew who Emily Hughes was—she was half of the school’s golden couple.
She smiled back at me. “Oh, hi, Andie,” she said. “How’s it going?”
“We’re kind of in a hurry?” Toby said.
Emily just laughed. “Sure,” she said, crossing behind the counter and heading to the refrigerated cases. “What kind of soda?”
“Any kind!” Toby yelled, as I said, “Diet Coke?”
“Pie’s up,” Dawn said. She slid it across the counter to me. I handed her a twenty, and she turned to the register to ring me up. As she did, I noticed the back of her shirt read, CAPTAIN PIZZA . . . YOU BETTER MARSHAL YOUR APPETITE!
I looked at Toby, then nodded at the shirt, and saw her eyes widen. This could easily take care of Business Slogan with a Pun. “Um, so,” I said as I took back my change from Dawn and dropped a dollar in the tip jar, “do you guys sell those shirts here?”
“These?” Dawn asked, glancing down at herself and making a face. “Why would you want this?”
Emily placed the two-liter bottle of Diet Coke in front of me and came to stand next to Dawn, leaning her elbows on the counter.
“It’s . . . ,” I started, trying to think of some excuse that would make sense, but finally decided we didn’t have time for me to come up with anything rational and that I should probably just to go with the truth. “We’re doing a scavenger hunt, and we need something that has a business slogan with a pun,” I explained.
“Ah,” Dawn said, turning to Emily. “So you’re trying to check items off a list?” she asked, nudging her. “What’s that like?”