Away From it All
By: Stitch
Part 4 - 'Chipmunk devil pizza.'
After everything had more or less calmed down, we got our campfire going (Monty provided us with some imprecise but quite flammable firewood) and set about fixing dinner. The sun had gone down by the time we'd set the table, leaving behind a sunset that was every bit the equal of that magnificent sunrise I'd enjoyed this morning.
"Wow, look at that," Dale said in wonderment as he stared up overhead.
"Yeah, I wish we got sunsets like this back home," I agreed as I leaned back and took in the view. Through the branches overhead, the sky looked as though it had been washed in pink lemonade and speckled with wisps of orange cotton candy.
"Hmm? Oh, no, I meant that," replied Dale as he pointed into the branches. I moved to stand behind him and peered over his shoulder. Far overhead, maybe 30 feet up, I caught sight of a dull metallic gleam on the underside of a thick redwood branch. I squinted into the fading light and realized that it was the steel 3-pronged hook from Gadget's defunct machine, embedded halfway into the wood.
"Whoa," I whispered. Dale and I looked at each other with what were probably identical little frowns on our faces. "Let's not show that to Monty, okay?"
Dale nodded in agreement.
Fortunately Monty was too busy helping Gadget lug the last remnants of the 'bisector' back into her tent to notice what Dale and I were looking at.
"You're not gonna rebuild this thing, are you?" Monty asked her as he pulled a large scorched piece of metal through her tent flap.
"No," I heard her say from inside. "But maybe I can salvage some of the parts to make something else."
"How about a machine that makes mathematically perfect donuts?"
"Now, Monty..."
Dale and I giggled to ourselves, then turned our attentions to the camp stove. It didn't take long to get out a bunch of pots, pans, and that old skillet we've had forever that's made from a large bottle cap. Once the pan was heated up, Dale started frying up some pieces of tortilla. I stood beside him, peeling cherry tomatoes.
"Tell me again what you're fixing?" I asked him.
"Pizza de diable faite par des chipmunks," he replied.
"I - " It took a second for his words to sink in. When they did I blinked and stared at him. "Dale, you can speak French?"
"Nope," he said with a grin as he held up a pair of tongs and snapped them in the air. "I speak food. 'Chipmunk devil pizza.' It's my own recipe." He puffed his chest out proudly and flipped a tortilla. "Now, we'll need some cayenne pepper, some cumin, a sprig of basil, oregano, and that can of tomato paste from the supply bag. Oh yeah, and the caramel sauce."
We don't often let Dale cook back at Ranger Headquarters. It's not that he can't cook, it's just that he's got a propensity for breaking dishes and knocking stuff over that is unparalleled even by professional demolitions experts. But tonight he'd insisted, practically pleading with me to let him fix something special for everybody. "Pleeeease?" he'd asked, throwing in those sad puppy eyes for good measure. I couldn't refuse, since it was clear he really had his heart set on it... besides, I'd thought, it wasn't like turning him loose in the kitchen back home. Even Dale couldn't make too much of a mess with just our little camp stove, right?
I should know better than to underestimate him like that. Within the space of ten minutes he'd managed to bend the tongs, crack a glass measuring cup, drop not one but three peeled tomatoes, catch the edge of a plastic plate on fire, and cover himself in salt.
"Dale," I said, struggling to keep my voice even while he shook the salt out of his arm fur. "Are you sure you don't want me to - "
"No no no, it's all under control," he assured me as he reached for a wooden spoon. A sauce pan was bubbling away on the camp stove, its contents red and gooey and spattering little crimson gobs onto his shirt. He stirred, then lifted the steaming spoon to his lips, flicked his tongue out and tasted it. "Hmm, more vinegar, I think."
He poured a dash of garlic vinegar into the sauce pan, then leaned to one side and started rifling through the collection of spice bottles he'd set up on the cutting board.
"Dale...?"
"Parsley, where's the parsley?"
"Dale!"
"What?" He glanced over at me, a pinch of green powder between his fingers.
"Are you done with the spoon?"
He arched his eyewhiskers, puzzled. "Uh, no. Why?"
"It's burning."
Somehow he'd managed to touch the end of the spoon to the heating element on the stove, where it had ignited. He stared down for a moment, dumbfounded, while a flickering orange flame danced on the end of it. "Yeek!" he cried at last, then flung it into the sauce pan. There was a soft hiss as the flame was extinguished, followed by a little wisp of smoke. He turned back to me and grinned sheepishly, the tips of his ears going pink as he blushed. "Um, gives it a nice smoky flavor...?"
"How's supper coming along, then?" asked Monty as he walked up behind us.
I was just getting ready to let loose with a wisecrack about Dale's ability to fire up the stove when Dale leaned around me and thrust the spoon toward my face.
"It's fine, it's coming along just fine, isn't it, Chip?"
Not wanting to be drenched in sauce, I simply feigned a smile and nodded at Monty.
"Bonzer, 'cause Zipper and me are starvin'."
"It's almost ready, so why doesn't everybody sit down and I'll bring dinner out in a minute?"
Monty saluted Dale, then spun on his heels and walked back to the table. Gadget was already sitting down and chatting with Zipper about some odd gizmo she was holding that looked like a spring with a little green light stuck to the end.
As soon as Monty was out of earshot, I turned back to Dale and asked, "Are you sure you don't want any help?"
He just gave me one of his quirky little smiles and twirled the spoon in his fingers. "Trust me," he said. Then he went back to stirring the sauce.
I went back to the table and joined the others.
"So what are we having?" asked Gadget as she tied a napkin around her neck. "It smells great."
"It's pizza de... del... uh, evil chipmunk pizza," I replied, silently chastising myself for not sticking with that 'learn French by mail' course I started last year.
Monty, Zipper and Gadget all exchanged worried glances. Monty leaned close to me and whispered, "Does that mean the pizza is evil, or the chipmunk who's cookin' it is?"
"I guess we'll know in a second," I whispered back.
A moment later Dale approached us with a large plastic plate held high over his head. I could see wisps of steam drifting up from it. "Ta dah!" he cried happily as he set it down in the middle of the table. We all stared down at what appeared to be an elaborate combination of tortilla, sauce, melted cheese, mushrooms, onions, lots of weird little red bits, chunky green bits, chopped nuts, and more tortilla on top. The cheese was leaking out of the sides, still bubbling, and there was some kind of crumbly brown powder sprinkled over everything. It was probably the weirdest looking thing I'd seen all day, except maybe for Gadget's firewood machine. But as the steam wafted up past my nose, I had to admit that it did smell good.
"Hang on, let me cut this," said Dale as he hoisted up a plastic knife and began slicing the 'pizza' into large wedges.
"Wow..." Gadget said as Dale slid a slice onto her plate. "It's... uh... wow."
"Just wait until you taste it," he replied, beaming. Soon we all had matching slices in front of us - mine was trailing a big gob of cheese, which Monty kept eyeballing covetously even though he had plenty of his own right under his nose.
"Well, dig in, everybody." Dale had already picked up his slice. He took a large bite and chewed with a blissful look on his face, as though he'd just sunk his teeth into the most delicious thing in the world.
The rest of us were, perhaps, a bit more hesitant as we all picked up our food in unison and gave each other worried little glances, like we were preparing to head into battle. Then we all nibbled down on the corners of our pizza wedges.
I'm not sure if I can accurately describe the intense explosion of mingled flavors that suddenly coated my tongue. For a moment all I could do was hold still and try to process the signals my mouth was sending to my brain... what in the world was I eating? It seemed to be salty, sweet, tangy, crispy, gooey, and peppery hot all at once. I even thought I could taste a hint of peanut butter in there somewhere. Little crumbs of that brown powdery stuff dribbled from my whiskers - was it toasted parmesean cheese? Garlic? Both? Blinking, I looked around to see what everybody else's reactions were.
Monty, Zipper and Gadget's eyes were wide, their pizza slices motionless in their fingers. For a long moment nobody spoke. Finally Dale stopped chewing and looked around at us. "Um... how is it?" he asked hesitantly.
"It's..." said Gadget.
"It's so..." buzzed Zipper.
"Dale, this is completely bonzer!" cried Monty, so loudly that Dale actually flinched as though he thought Monty was about to throw something at him. "I've never tasted anything like it! Crikey, it's incredible," he mumbled through a huge mouthful.
Monty's praise finally sunk into Dale's head. He broke into a proud grin and said, "It's my own recipe."
"It's absolutely delicious," agreed Gadget as she took another bite. "It's like everything I like to eat all mashed together in one big glob!"
"Yeah!" nodded Zipper. He began attacking his pizza vigorously.
I was still trying to decide if I was enjoying my dinner or not when my belly answered for me with a loud, hungry gurgle. I took another bite, still trying to untangle the various flavors from one another, but I gave up after a few moments. It was like alchemy or something. Dale had created a meal that defied reason, using ingredients that shouldn't have gone together but did somehow. And the others were right - it was delicious. I ate my whole slice in a couple of minutes, then joined the others for a second helping.
It wasn't long before the serving plate was empty, except for a few dribbles of cheese and sauce that Zipper hovered over while he dipped his fingers into them. Everybody else leaned back in their chairs and sighed contentedly.
"Right dinkum tucker, pally," said Monty.
"Thanks," replied Dale as he scrubbed the corners of his mouth with his napkin. A moment later he kind of half-stifled a belch, then blushed at his eartips again. "'Scuse."
I tried not to, but somewhere at the back of my mind I couldn't help but compare the glowing reception Dale's dinner had gotten from everybody to the sorry response my own attempt at cooking had received earlier. As much as everyone had enjoyed the pizza, my vegetable mix sandwiches had earned just the opposite reaction... heck, even I hadn't really liked them, when you got down to it.
It wasn't so much that I felt like I was competing with Dale; it was just that nothing I had tried so far seemed to get the results I wanted.
I mean, I can out-think criminal masterminds, I've solved mysteries all over the world, I can handle myself in just about any fight... why is it that something as simple as going on vacation and relaxing with my friends has me so flummoxed?
Dale snapped me out of my introspective thoughts by waving his paw in front of my face.
"Uh?"
"Earth to Chip... you still with us, buddy-ol'-pal?"
"What? Er, yeah, I'm fine."
Dale smiled and handed me a stack of dirty plates. "Good, 'cause you're on dishwashing duty tonight."
If I needed any reminders of why we don't often let Dale into the kitchen, the giant pile of dirty pots, pans, plates, cups, and utensils stacked up in our portable sink was more than enough. I swear, he'd managed to use virtually every cooking implement we'd brought. At least we'd thought to bring plastic plates, which even Dale couldn't break no matter how many times he dropped them.
Once I'd removed my jacket, I stood at the sink, dipped my paws down into a pool of hot, sudsy water, and scrubbed at the caked-on remnants of dinner.
"Aw, don't look so glum," said Dale as he wiped a dry rag around inside a clean cup. "I thought you'd be happy that we're all cleaning up after ourselves."
"How on Earth did you manage to get butter in the tea strainer?" I asked.
"I dunno... it just sort of ended up that way." He glanced at me. "You did like it, didn't you? Dinner, I mean."
"Sure I did," I replied. "It really hit the spot. Actually, it hit some spots I didn't even know I had."
He giggled, then reached for a pot and began to dry it. "I'm glad, then... I guess I wasn't really sure. You seemed kinda quiet."
I scrubbed the sponge around the edges of a dirty pan. "I suppose I've just had a few things on my mind today, is all."
He paused his pot drying and looked over at me. "Anything you want to talk about?"
"It's nothing important." I kept scrubbing, then stopped and looked back at him. "I just... you don't really think I'm a stick in the mud, do you?"
He tilted his head to one side and regarded me thoughtfully. "Well, sometimes, maybe." Then he gave me one of his quirky little smiles and said, "But you're my favorite stick in the mud," as he reached his paw out to gently beep me on the nose.
I smiled back at him, then returned my attention to the dirty dishes. Dale
kept looking at me for a few moments, then started drying again.