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Chapter 2: Eating Habits
The minute the family entered the Krusty Krab, the other patrons immediately got a small idea what Rusty Anchor was like on a daily basis.
Bryce and Franklin burst through the doors, rolling around in a ball of shouts and punches, arguing over who got to order first, nearly knocking over a random lady.
Peter and Mateo with Hailey ran in squealing, playing tag around the whole place, knocking over a pile of chairs.
Ruth and James were loudly arguing over whether baseball or basketball was better and they were also slinging around as much insults at each other as they could.
Reagan straight-up wandered off during the confusion through a door that probably led to somewhere customers weren’t allowed.
Maureen barged in shouting at everybody to shut up so she could call Noah and redo her makeup, with Sophia crying again behind her and Nicole trying to tattle on everybody to their parents.
In the midst of all the chaos, Mr. and Mrs. Slithers stood in the middle of the eating area, ignoring all the mayhem. Mr. Slithers stood looking at the menu, looking very judgmental of the food on there, whilst his wife checked her phone for anything to catch her eye.
The other customers were soon distracted by all the noise and looked over. Bikini Bottom was a small town with a lot of strange characters among all the usual fish residents, but these? Sea snakes were never known to live around here. At least blue ones like these. And everyone knew sea snakes were not the most trustworthy or harmless species under the sea. After all, they were venomous. If anything, seeing the way these parents let their kids run around like animals while deliberately ignoring the ones trying to talk to them seemed to prove that point. Soon among the surprise there were grumbling whispers and dark looks. Darn venom users.
A few customers even stood up and left with their food to-go. They weren’t going to risk getting bitten by one or getting run into by those feral kids.
Riley hung back at the entrance at the edge of the family group like they always did, taking in the sight of the inside. The floor was green, and a shade they liked at that. Rope in a diamond pattern lined the glass walls. Barrels were seen around the floor near the steering-wheel shaped tables.
The entire eatery felt pirate-themed, but instead of a pirate-themed place with the whole ‘parrot on shoulder, yo ho-ho’ deal, this felt…accurate. Like something you’d see if you went to the dining area of a Navy ship or a REAL pirate one.
Riley had to admit, this place wasn’t fancy like where they usually ate on vacation, but they were impressed. This place had a kind of…subtle charm you could feel around you. The customers definitely seemed—
…oh.
The customers all seemed to be giving either weird looks at Mom and Dad or the other kids. They looked…annoyed from what Riley could tell. Looking at the way their sisters and brothers were causing mayhem around the place with Mom and Dad letting them, they guess they understood it. Some of the patrons had their heads bowed, murmuring, shaking their heads, pointing.
Part of Riley’s face burned, glad that none of the points were particularly at them. They slunk over to the table where Mom and Dad were seated and they sat with them, looking out as the babies were buckled into high chairs. They caught sight of one of the employees’ faces— maybe a cashier?—and he already looked at the whole family with disbelief and dread.
Riley squirmed and put on their headphones, hoping they could ignore all the stares and whispers and general noise as their siblings made their way to the small table.
Almost all of them could barely fit and with the little kids, some of them were practically in stacks. Clearly this place wasn’t meant for huge families.
Riley groaned as they were squished in between Maureen and Sophia. Maureen was ranting about the crappy Wi-Fi service and soon Sophia was crying because she felt something gross on the tip of her tail. Riley turned up their volume so they didn’t hear the details.
“Kids, quiet, we’re going to order!” Mrs. Slithers chimed, and soon her husband stood up and got out his wallet.
“What do you all want?” He asked, and soon all of the children started yelling over each other.
“KIDS.” Mrs. Slithers snarled. “One at a time.”
Instant silence. She looked out among all of them and saw Riley buried in their music again.
“Ugh, Riley, take off your headphones this minute! You can go five minutes without blocking the world out!” She snapped, knocking their spot on the table to catch their attention.
Cold needles poked Riley’s scales and they paused their music. “Sorry.” They mumbled. They still felt really overwhelmed by everything but having Mom and Dad mad at them was worse. They could shove down the dark static in their mind long enough.
Maureen scoffed and rolled her eyes. Lynn muttered “Riley the Oddity.” and giggled.
Riley’s face burned and the needles turned to blades.
“We’re ordering now, kids.” Dad said. “Maureen, the menu’s up there, what do you want?”
“I’ll get their diet Dr. Kelp with a seaweed salad.” Maureen said, desperately trying to get the Wi-Fi working.
“Sophia?” “Same as Maury.”
“Riley.” Riley looked over. “Um…I’m not that hungry. I’ll just get a chocolate shake and some coral bits.”
Dad sighed and continued down the line.
Riley sunk into their chair and stared at the surface of the table while the twins and James ordered.
For a so-called ‘grubby’ place, the tables here were really clean. Riley could actually see their own reflection in it. Heh. If Sophia and Maureen saw that, no doubt they’d obsess over both their hair and lipstick and stuff…
Did Riley always have those bags under their eyes?
The fatigue from earlier began to sink in deeper. Woof. Riley didn’t look that great besides the bags too. Their glasses were crooked and their hair was a sea urchins’ nest.
Riley naturally looked like any other sea snake their age. Blue scales with a yellow-white underside, lined with black circular stripes. Their face was powder blue and faded with a pale burst of white the closer to their slits for a nose. Their eyes were bright yellow with two swiped lines of blacks for pupils, advertising their status as a predator. Although the distinct shade was closer to Dad’s golden-yellow than Mom’s daffodil-like coloring. Their hair was a dirty golden color like Dad’s too but it also transformed into a smoky black at the ends like Mom’s. The only other kids that had that hair feature were Ruth, Reagan, and Abel. Everyone else either had dirty gold, smoky black, or an in-between shade between the two that looked like brown from a distance but if you got closer you could see the real difference.
Other than the blue and black and yellow, the main color on Riley was green. Just green. Their beanies they wore all the time were green, their vest jacket they wore was olive, and their shirt right now was a specific shade of chartreuse they always enjoyed with a picture of several different fruits on it. Their vest had multiple different patches of cloth with ink marker doodles on it, along with soda bottle caps repurposed into pins, circular badges with colorful patterns Riley had made theirself, and other crafts.
Even their beanie had a stitched heart pattern on it, and on their wrist was a bead bracelet they made a few years ago that still fit.
They looked at their reflection still, and looked at their glasses for a while.
They wondered…was there a craft they could do with their glasses? What if they found a way to draw on them without there not being any room to see? Or attached bead ropes to the ends, like makeshift earrings…OOH! Or clay beads attached to the frames?? That would be so cool! Riley loved making miniature things anyway, and they might’ve snuck some clay into their backpack. Good thing they had their bag, even if it was a little heavy with their travel essentials and stuff-
“Riley.”
Riley jolted up from rummaging through their bag. Oh. The food was here.
Mom looked really annoyed with them. Bigger oh.
Dad set down the various trays and gave Riley a disciplinary look.
The dark redness surged again and Riley gulped down an acidic, salty feeling in their throat.
“Riley, you know better,” Mom started. “This art habit of yours has really gotten out of hand.”
“I know.” Riley mumbled out through the tightness.
“Riley the Oddity.” Lynn whispered, and most of the kids next to her giggled with her.
Riley glared at her and started munching their food. The coral bits were surprisingly delicious and suddenly their appetite skyrocketed. That or they were stressed enough to stress-eat.
“When’s the last time you did something that actually was productive?” Mom said slowly.
Riley’s throat tightened even more and now getting words out felt like an uphill battle.
“Iunno.”
Dad handed out the triplets’ food then sat down with a harsh expression.
“Riley, me and your mother only want what’s best for you, and this art thing isn’t what’s best.”
Maureen and Nicole were giggling nastily. Riley would’ve given anything to dissolve into a pile of dust on the spot. When would this be over, please let this be over soon…
“We’ve had this conversation before, when this hobby started disrupting your life.”
Mom added, then went in for the kill.
“There’s no future or true happiness in a career with art. Artists simply don’t accomplish anything besides making garbage and passing it off as ‘culture.’”
Riley slumped. “Yeah…I know.”
“Good. You had better start showing it, Riley. We don’t want to have to be harsh with you, sweetheart.” Mom stated. Dad nodded and with that, the lecture was finally over. The kids, now bored since there wasn’t a sibling to watch get humiliated, went back to eating their food, or continuing their brand of mayhem.
Riley sure felt like garbage now. They felt like they were swimming in a pool of battery acid lined with salt and nitrogen.
They looked over behind Mom and Dad to see the windows, or really anything else that could help take their mind off what just happened. They were always so easily distracted, why couldn’t that happen every time someone said something like that? Why’d it have to stick? Or hurt? It wasn’t the first time they’d said something like that, they should be impervious to it by now, right? Why did they have to be such a—
Whoa. The cashier Riley had glanced at earlier walked by, and he must’ve heard some of what their parents had said and NOT agreed. Riley wasn’t a professional with emotions and faces, but they had seen his expression well enough to see he looked directly over at the backs of Mom and Dads’ heads with the most violent stink-eye Riley had ever seen.
Riley blinked and looked down while drinking their shake. Not even Maureen in her foulest mood was able to glare like THAT. That cashier must’ve had some sort of-
Wait. Was he an octopus?
Riley tried peeking over again but he was gone. Huh. They went back to staring at the floor but they were sure he had been some kind of octopus. That or a REALLY skinny blobfish. Didn’t octopuses usually live in places like Tentacle Acres? True, Mom had talked about selling houses to octopuses in Rusty Anchor before, but normally Riley had really only seen fish and that was about it. Maybe an occasional eel or other sea snake.
That made them wonder. This town really seemed different from everywhere else Riley had been. What other kinds of sea animals lived here? It definitely seemed jellyfish did. Did only pink jellyfish live here? They tried to think about what their biology teacher said about jellyfish. Typically they lived in hives and there was a dominant color among each one, right? Yeah, that sounded correct. Different colors could mix, they remembered now. Pink was the most common color, then there was orange. Did jellyfish come in green? That’d be cool. Specifically jewel-toned green. Or teal. Ooh, that’d be pretty. Or bright purple, like a fuschia color. Wait. Blue jellyfish were a thing, right? Just super rare or something like that. Could a jellyfish come in multiple different colors? Like, green stingers with an orange body? Or bright blue pattern lines on pink? Heh. Imagine a rainbow jellyfish, or a black one…
“Ahem. This yer kid?”
Mom and Dad whirled around, stopping their meal. Several kids looked up, including Riley, and then they started whispering in surprise and pointing…except for Riley of course.
The first thing Riley noticed was red. Just bright red everywhere. It punched them in the eyes at first but then they saw the shirt and noticed it was a sea creature.
Wait. Not a typical sea creature. A crab.
He was much taller than what Riley pictured a crab being. They had never seen a crab before but they didn’t think they got that tall. Maybe it was because of his eyestalks though. They poked out of his head, a bright lime color to contrast with the red with his body. He also had a nose shaped like a crinkled pipe cleaner, somehow darker than the other red. The next thing that caught Riley’s eye was his claws- instead of hands, two huge, very sharp-looking claws that were almost as big as their head! They wondered how he would hold a pencil…
He was also probably older than Mom and Dad, and much more gruff. He looked more like a captain in some kind of military sense than a restaurant worker. He clearly caught everyone’s attention as the other patrons looked over too when they heard his voice. He was also CLEARLY not happy about something.
Riley followed one of his claws that was wrapped around something and soon they saw why. Little Reagan stood there, looking anxiously at Mom and Dad and also a little shaken about something.
“…Yes?” Mom said, confusedly looking at Reagan. “Why weren’t you with us, Reagan?”
Reagan’s lip trembled. “I dunno.” She whimpered.
“She was wanderin’ around in the kitchen an’ employee rooms, that’s why!”
The crab explained. “If me fry cook hadn’t been ‘n there with her, she probably woulda gotten ‘erself cover’d in hot fry oil!”
The first thing Riley heard when he talked was a pirate talking. At least, he sure sounded like a pirate. Or a retired one. His voice was rough and hoarse, but sharp and loud.
“About time Old Man Krabs got involved.” A customer murmured to another by them.
Old Man Krabs? Like Krusty Krab? Was he the owner? Riley had never heard of a restaurant owned by a crab. Usually crabs were the ones helping the business owners, not doing the business owning…or at least that’s what Dad always said from the work he usually saw when consulting.
Dad seemed to be thinking this as well, looking him up and down with a mixture of confusion and slight distaste. Mom too, albeit much more… neutral. When she heard about the thing with employee rooms and hot oil however her eyes widened and she scowled down at Reagan.
“Reagan Erika Slithers!” She hissed. “You what?? Why in Neptune’s blue ocean would you do that?!”
Reagan teared up and her lip trembled even more. “I dunno!! I’m sorry!! I’ll never do it again!” She burst out. Mom still was angry and grabbed her by the wrist. “You will be in even bigger trouble when we get to the lake house, young lady!”
Reagan sniffed and sat down with Lynn and Nicole, tears streaming down her face.
Mom glared at her while Dad turned to this…Krabs guy. Riley looked up at him again and saw with surprise he was looking at Reagan with…a little sympathy instead of frustration. Once he locked eyes with Dad though, that sprang up.
“We’ll make sure she keeps her word…” Dad said in the pleasant tone he usually took when talking to a client.
Old Man Krabs didn’t fall for the sugar-coated voice. “Ye better. Said fry cook I mentioned earli’r kept yer kid from gettin’ spray’d ‘cause HE took the blow an’ ran around screamin’ louder than all yer youngins here! Neptune knows th’ kid gets in enough accidents!” He snapped.
Dad and Mom stared in discomfort and they both threw another glare at Reagan.
Dad laughed a bit awkwardly. “I’m…sure we can work out some kind of a…resolution for this.”
“I can think a’ one.” Old Man Krabs grunted. “Ye pay th’ fee for yer kid wanderin’ off and ye not noticin’, AN’ also fer th’ damages with me fry cookers. 10 bucks fer the fee and-“
Without a word, Mom grabbed her purse and causally whipped out a stack of twenties.
“Would this cover it?” She said sweetly.
Instantly this Krabs guy’s whole expression changed. He stared at the stack of dollars, gawking, then swiped it out of Mom’s hand and ran his small claw over it, creating a similar noise to a flipbook. He blinked rapidly and grinned.
“Heh…well…this outta do jus’ nicely!” He said with an almost excited expression. Then he hardened again, but less than before.
“Alright, you two’re off me hook fer now, but keep yer kids under control, will ya?” He growled.
“Of course. We’re all civilized adults here.” Dad replied, gesturing to himself and Mom.
Old Man Krabs nodded stiffly then walked off, making a funny noise from the way his little legs skittered around.
Riley watched him go, then finished the rest of their coral bits and looked around. They were usually one of the first kids to finish their meals, and it seemed especially with how much the other kids were chatting and bickering, it would take a while for anyone to finish and them to leave. Normally this would bother Riley a little, but this time? They actually didn’t feel anxious about it. Mom and Dad didn’t even seem in a rush like they always were in on vacation day, instead choosing to look at their phones or attend to the triplets.
Riley blinked, then suddenly opened their mouth and another big yawn emerged. Gosh, they were more tired than they thought now that the cold from the shake wore off…or actually maybe the cold was why they were more sleepy.
They rubbed their eyes, feeling like they could barely open them. How late DID they stay up last night?? Till 11? 11:30? Somehow that still felt too early…Mateo woke them up around 6… so yeah, they hadn’t gotten much sleep… another yawn emerged that nearly made Riley unhinge their own jaw and they crossed their arms on the table, laying their head down. They should’ve taken a nap in the boat when they had the chance…but it wasn’t cold in the boat and in here the AC was blowing pretty well.
The more they thought about cold stuff, the more sluggish their thoughts got and the more heavy their eyes. The curse of being cold-blooded. They looked around their noisy family and thought about taking a nap. After all, Mom only said no headphones to block stuff, not naps…
James or one of the others would wake them up anyway…a few minutes of sleep wouldn’t hurt…they had their sleeping mask and sleep meds in their bag anyway, they could take it in the boat later…
Riley Slithers slowly blinked and took a big breath, their head in their arms, and as they exhaled, exhausted, they felt theirself start to slip away. Mmm…their sleeves were really soft…
Maureen lifted her phone to her earhole and started to rant. “UGH, Noah-pie, you WILL NOT believe what happened today!…”
Riley didn’t stay awake to hear the rest.