“So.. this is the place?”
Cherry was driving in her minivan. Kalani called dibs on shotgun so he could direct Cherry on where to go, while everyone else was in the back. They had just pulled into a parking lot.
“Yup! This is it!”
The five of them hopped out of the car & looked at the restaurant. It was called Banana Man’s Banana Land. It looked kind of tropical-themed, which kind of made sense for a banana restaurant.
“Banana Man’s Banana Land.. what a corny name.”
“It’s not the worst name for a restaurant.”
“True. Let’s head in.”
The group entered the restaurant & was instantly greeted with a surprisingly nice interior. The walls were painted a light blue, with some light yellow to represent sand, & some palm trees painted on as well. The chairs were all banana-shaped, & the tables were round & yellow. Up at the counter was a short man wearing what the group assumed was a banana outfit. He seemed to be the only employee.
“Hi!” he smiled. “Welcome to Banana Man’s Banana Land! The name’s Pim, how may I help you 5 today?”
They all looked at the menu. As Kalani had said, there were plenty of banana-themed items on the menu. Nobody really knew what to get. Eventually, they decided on what to get.
“Alright, so that’s 5 banana smoothies, two banana nut muffins, one banana bread, & two banana puddings!” Pim typed some stuff into his cash register. “That’ll be.. $16.99!”
Juniper whipped out xyr credit card. “Don’t worry, I’ll cover it,” ae nodded, swiping aer credit card into the card swipe machine & punching in aer PIN number.
“Thanks!” Pim smiled. “Y’all go find a seat while I prepare your food!”
The group looked at all the tables available in the restaurant, which was all of them, because they were the only customers. There was only one table that was able to fit 5 people, so that was the one they all sat at.
“So.. what do we do now?” Nora asked, sitting down in the banana-shaped chair.
“I guess we just.. talk? I dunno.” Leslie shrugged. “The book is still kind of a big subject.”
“True. How are we even supposed to tell where it is?”
“If these necklaces just magically appeared on us, then maybe the necklaces would just.. signal us if we’re close, right?”
“Magic isn’t real, so probably not.”
“Oh, c’mon. This again?”
“Remember back in high school when Leslie got really into ghost-hunting? & we never found any ghosts?”
“Well, that’s DIFFERENT. Those are ghosts. These are necklaces that some shadow person in our dreams gave us. Whole different scenario.”
“Oh, whatever.” Cherry rolled her eyes.
Pim approached the table with everyone’s food. “Breakfast is served!” he announced, setting the food onto the table. “Hope you enjoy!”
As he walked away, the group started digging into their meals. Surprisingly, it was actually very well-made!
“Oh, this food fucks.”
“Holy shit, yea, this rules.”
The group was munching down on their food, savoring every bite.
“This is so good! Why aren’t there more customers here?” Juniper grinned, taking a bite out of their banana nut muffin.
“Exactly! You’d think there would be some advertising at least.”
“Kalani, you were the one who told us about this. How did you find out about it?”
“Oh, I saw it a couple days ago while driving. Opening day.”
“Huh. Strange.”
“How many people were here during opening day?”
“I saw like.. 3 or 4 people, I think.”
“Only 4 people on opening day? No advertising?” Cherry mumbled. “This place sounds kinda sketchy, don’tcha think?”
“I mean.. yea, but the food’s good, so who cares?”
“Alright, whatever.”
As the group finished up their meal, Leslie checked the time on the clock (which was banana-shaped) on the wall.
“It’s 8:30.” they said.
“Wow. Earlier than I thought.”
“Yeah. Maybe we should, like.. do that thing we were gonna do?”
“The book thing?”
“Of course! What other thing would I be referencing?”
“I have a film project due in 3 weeks. I thought we were referring to that.”
“Well, I digress. Let’s go do that thing!”
-
The group was back in Cherry’s car, driving down to their university’s library. If there’s anywhere a weird book would be, they guessed it’d probably be in some old, dusty library.
“Again, how are we supposed to tell if we’ve found the book?”
“I guess we’ll find out, huh?”
“I guess so.”
They arrived at the library. Cherry parked her car right near the entrance. They hopped out of the car & headed inside.
The library was quite warm inside. Despite the winter season, there was only a mild chill outside, but from how warm it was inside the old library, going back outside would make the weather feel below freezing. Some people sat around studying, or reading, or hanging out with their friends at the library’s cafe.
“Alright!” Nora grinned. “Where do we start?”
“Uh.. I literally have no clue.”
“I assume they wouldn’t have a book like this out in the open, right? Must be in the library archives.”
“How do we know it’s an old book, though?”
“Archives aren’t necessarily for old stuff, you know.”
“Archives are typically associated with old things.”
“Whatever. Let’s just get to the archives.”
After a few minutes of looking around for the archives, the group realized they had absolutely no idea where the archives were, so they had to go ask a librarian.
“Oh, it’s just in the back over there.” The librarian gestured over to a door in the back labeled “THE ARCHIVES”, which kind of made the group feel stupid, but they thanked the librarian regardless & went over there.
“I still can’t believe it was that obvious.” Kalani sighed, opening the door to the archives.
“Sometimes the things that are most hidden are in plain sight!” Leslie mentioned.
“If that was true, I would have found my missing essay paper weeks ago.” Cherry chuckled.
The group entered the archives. Compared to the warm atmosphere of the library, the archives were like a haunted house. Everything was dusty, & the only light flickered every few minutes. It wasn’t even that bright.
“There’s a lotta shit here.”
“It’s an archive. Of course there’s a lot of shit here. C’mon, this book isn’t gonna find itself.”
There were 5 rows of folders & old books, which was perfect, so they could split the work evenly among themselves. They all split up & started looking for the book.
The archives were a lot bigger than any of them had expected. No wonder this place was so dusty.
A few minutes had passed.
“HEY, YOU GUYS FOUND ANYTHING YET?”
“NO.”
“I HAVEN’T EITHER.”
“DAMN.”
The fact that they have to yell across the archives to communicate just shows how big it is, if I haven’t made that clear yet.
However, something happened. Something.. unexpected.
“HEY!” Leslie yelled. “I THINK I FOUND IT!”
All at once, the other 4 ran over to where Leslie was standing. The sudden movement in the room made the single light fall down, but it was fine. As they approached Leslie’s location, the group noticed that their necklaces.. were glowing.
“What’s up, Les?”
“My necklace! Look!”
It pointed at its necklace. It was glowing, just like everyone else’s necklaces. They all looked down at their own necklaces as well, which were also glowing.
“That’s weird. Maybe the necklaces detect if it’s dark?”
“I don’t think that’s quite it,” Leslie said, pulling a book out of the row they were standing in. It was a leather book, colored in a dull red, yellow, gray, green, & blue, in vertical stripes. There was also a crystal on the cover of the book, shaped like a tie. It was glowing all sorts of colors.
“Holy shit.”
“That’s.. kinda cool, actually.”
“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s see what’s in it!”
“Don’t you think we should read it in a more lit-up space?”
“Oh, maybe you’re right.. Luckily, I know just where to go! We’re headed to-”
“Don’t say the abandoned Pizza Hut.”
“-The abandoned Pizza Hut!!”
Cherry sighed. “Fine. We can go to the abandoned Pizza Hut.”
“Yay!”
“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s hit it!”