Pineapple on Canvas: The Odd Adventures of a Toy in the City

The one where it comes Full Circle in the most Revengeful sort of Way.

     Papple, sensing that this was indeed something serious enough to interrupt his rendition of the Pineapple Shuffle (being the Second Part of the Pineapple Shake), pressed the button to change the video angle and pointed it to the screen.

     “Does that say what I think that says?” Kitty practically screeched.

     The rest of the kids gathered around and began to read the most hate filled, misogynistic text they had ever seen in their lives. It was a detailed diary of all the times that evil Dick Shermane had used his position of power to terrorize junior associates. Dates, times, even excerpts from emails were all documented in an over two hundred page manifesto of hate.

     A brief pow wow occurred and the conversation was fast and furious. After a few minutes, Kitty instructed Papple to hang up and put back in his ear buds.

     “Okay, let’s do this quickly,” she said.

      “Okay, Papple is ready.” Papple had little idea exactly what was going on, but he knew it was big, and that it would help Ella.

     “See the big black object beside the computer?” asked S.K.

     “Yes.”

     “That is a mouse, it controls the arrow on the screen.”

     “You no can touch screen like iPad?”

     “Not with some of the older stuff,” said S.K. “Anyhow, click down and drag it to the file button and press “Save and Send”.”

     “Okay, Papple done.”

     “Hey, Papple, this is Sir’Duke now.”

     “Click on the “To” button and a box of contacts should appear. I’ve just looked up the managing partner of the firm. His name is Alistair Jenkins. Do you see him? Add him in there.”

     “Done.”

     “Ok, in the search field type in the word “Partners.” What do you see?”

    “Papple see “All Women Partners Mailing List” and “All Partners Mailing List.” This okay?” Papple puffed out his chest proudly--the apps were really making a huge difference in his reading skills!

    After a brief pause and some hurried whispering in the background, S.K. said, “Add just the “All Partners Mailing List.” Don't press “send” yet, okay?”

     “This is Kitty now,” Kitty said, after taking the phone from S.K. “Write in the body of the email “Dearest persons of esteemed worth and part of the benevolent society of higher worth individuals, I grace your existence with a document worthy of Shakespeare's praise and awe. Please see attached. You may thank me later.””

     Papple grimaced in shame. Though his grammar and spelling had improved drastically thanks to the apps, the words Kitty had just dictated were making his head spin and he was getting flustered.

     Sensing Papple’s agony, Sir’Duke jumped in. “Let’s keep it simple,” he said, giving Papple a wink through the screen. “Just write “Screw you all.””

     Papple smiled and gave his equivalent of a thumbs up, one yellow hand pumping in the air and a happy bristling of his green leaves, and carefully typed in the words, almost running across the keyboard to tap in each letter since his short and stubby arms weren’t meant for regular sized keyboards. When he finished, he looked up and saw the screen was full of squiggly red lines and frowned in dismay.

     “Don’t worry,” said Sir’Duke. “You did a good job. See that abc symbol? Press that button and accept all the spelling changes. But let’s hurry before he gets back!”

     It was the smell that first hit him, like rancid sewer water, and then the thumping of evil Dick's heavy steps. Evil man must have poo-pooed in pants, Papple thought, wrinkling his nose in disgust. Then, right before Dick entered the room, Papple hit the “send button” and jumped from the desk and scurried to the corner of the room. He did it just in the nick of time. The email was on its way to let everyone know exactly the sort of person Dick Shermane was!

     Before he ran out of the office, to rub salt in the wound, Papple pulled out his very special surprise. From his little knapsack, he took out a folded brown paper. It was the cruelest thing that Papple could have thought of with his fuzzy little brain. He unfolded it. It was an impressive sized brown paper bag.

     On the bag, Papple had scrawled what he thought was the most incredible insult in the world. It read “Put Your Self In Bag. Bye.” Papple couldn’t imagine wishing someone to be stuck in a bad bag more than the horrible Dick Shermane!

     Ironically, the next day, when Dick was fired, he found the bag with its childish and hard to read writing and thought it read, “Put your Stuff In Bag. Bye.” This was actually just as fitting as Dick did indeed use that bag to move out his personal belongings from the firm.

     On his way home in the subway, an exhausted Papple snuck underneath a bench seat to avoid the many sets of rush hour feet. He fell asleep, and awoke, to his shock, to a pair of hands grabbing his two little feet and pulling him out from beneath the bench. He was being toynapped!

     “Don’t worry,” said the soft voice, which smelled like vanilla cream. “I just don’t want you to get stepped on.”

     Papple looked up to see the face of a small child, with long, thick, dark lashes and what looked to be a beautiful silk scarf tied around her head. She was smiling down on him. He was very grateful to be out of all those stinky feet and he felt instantly at ease in her presence.

     “Me like this,” Papple said, as he reached up and touched her light purple hajib.

     The girl blushed. “Thank you. Most people don’t like seeing me wear this.”

     The pineapple furrowed his brows. “Me no understand, it is very purdy. It look good on you. Maybe me can get some too! Me give as gifts to my sisters. So purdy.”

     The girl beamed with pride, and the little pineapple, exhausted from his day, slumbered off momentarily on her lap before being gently shaken awake when the girl told him that she heard the subway sound system had announced his destination.

      She was indeed correct and Papple stood on his little tippy toes and gave the girl a kiss on the cheek and a quick wave goodbye before he disappeared into the crowd to head back home to celebrate by video with the rest of the kids.

     Oddly, throughout the rest of the day, Papple couldn’t stop thinking about the vanilla cream smelling girl and how she made his heart tingle too.