Peppa Pig: Escapee

Chapter 5

The prospect of running away made Peppa both dread and look forward to Wednesday, so, naturally, it came by fast. The weekend went without anything horrible happening - Mommy Pig actually got home at 11 pm on Saturday and Sunday's filming went by better than usual. 

Peppa went grocery shopping on Monday, which was incidentally the same day Daddy Pig ran out of beer Tuesday passed by quickly, and before she knew it, Peppa was sitting in Suzy's purple car on Wednesday morning in her red gown and a new pair of black heels.

"Ready for another episode?" Suzy said. She still looked flawless, but her hands were trembling a little and her face was slightly more pale. 

Peppa noticed. "Are you okay?"

"I'm good," Suzy said. "Just a little jittery from my latte."

"You drink, like, 24 lattes every day and you never act jittery," Peppa said, not believing Suzy's alibi. "What's actually bothering you?"

"Fine. It's not the coffee. I'm afraid to steal my check."

"Yeah, I figured that much," Peppa blabbered. "It's not that hard, like, Madame Gazelle will give you the check at the end of today. Just don't give it to your mom."

"Mm," Suzy said, starting the car. "But what if my mom remembers that my payday is today?"

"She's probably going to have passed out from loading her veins with heroin," Peppa mumbled, and Suzy half-grimaced, half-smiled. "We can run away before then." 

"Jesus, that's mean, Peppa," Suzy said, and she was so nervous that she actually did run into Peppa's mailbox this time. "Sorry."

"My mailbox was going to break anyways," said Peppa. "Who cares." 

Suzy gave her a grin and drove down the hill Peppa's house was perched on, and soon they got to the warehouse, because Peppa's town was small as hell.

Madame Gazelle still stood at the front of the warehouse, and she looked slightly high - either from excessive amounts of iced coffee or from happy hour last night. 

"Hello, girls!" she said, her voice shrill and slurred, waving at them like she always did, while they got out of the car, Suzy eating a stale madeleine from the grocery store. "Glad you could make it. Curl your eyelashes and use lengthening mascara, just to fix your eyes."

They nodded at Madame Gazelle, who had a full face of makeup and even taller heels. 

"Fix?" Suzy whispered, once they were seated in the warehouse. "I'm fine with my face. It's not fixing it."

"She holds us up to high standards of beauty," Peppa said. "We have to look perfect on television."

"Yeah, but her standards are so high they almost become ugly," Suzy countered. "We look like Barbie dolls." 

"And we also have to look like toddlers," Peppa said, sipping from a water bottle full of store-brand Kool-Aid that was artificial green and had the aftertaste of vomit. "Not exactly high standards. We just have to look like what we used to, with clear skin, plump, rejuvenated cheeks, frolicky energy, and big eyes."

"Okay, okay, but you can't call it 'fixing'," said Suzy. "There's nothing inherently wrong with our faces."

"Ah, but to the rest of the world, yes there is," Peppa argued. "We should look like toddlers. We should look like small little carefree children placed in happy families. So if we start looking like teenagers and adults, our audience won't be happy. And we won't make money. And we'll have to fix it. Therefore, in a way, yes, we are fixing our faces."

"That makes no sense. Our faces are fine to ourselves, and we're okay with how we look, so how are we fixing our faces?"

"But we've got to look more appealing to people," Peppa protested.

"Appealing to who?"

"Whom, Suzy. Not who."

"Whom- Peppa, I don't give a shit. Answer my question. You're not Grammarly."

She rolled her eyes. "To our audience, Suzy."

"And our audience is not us - at the end of the day, it's our faces, isn't it?" 

"Fine," Peppa said, admitting defeat. "We're not exactly fixing ourselves. We're making ourselves look like toddlers, which isn't fixing."

"Mhm," Suzy said, taking a bite from her madeleine. "For stale grocery store food, this madeleine isn't that bad. Especially compared to their tuna sandwiches."

Peppa snorted. "This Kool-Aid tastes worse than the sandwiches."

"They've probably had the same food in there since World War 2," Suzy speculated, getting up. "Time to do our makeup, I guess." 

Peppa stood up. "Yeah." 

Madame Gazelle then walked in, herding in Pedro and Danny.

"Put. Down. The. Carrot. Salad," she said, glaring at Rebecca. "Peppa and Suzy, you better hurry up and get your makeup done before I take your checks away and use them for a vacation to Malibu. Gerald, tell your father to stop smoking in the warehouse. Mr. Pony, with all due respect, we don't need you in these episodes. You can go." 

Mr. Giraffe put down his cigar, Mr. Pony drunkenly walked out of the warehouse, squinting at the light outside, Rebecca frowned at Madame and put her salad on the shelf of makeup palettes, which Peppa accidentally dropped when she reached for her brushes. 

"Sorry!" Peppa said. Rebecca glared at her and picked up her now two-thirds emptied salad, and put it back on the makeup shelf. 

"That was my breakfast," she snarled. "Fuck you, Peppa." 

"I'm sorry!" Peppa said. "I didn't see your salad." 

"Blind bitch," Rebecca cursed, under her breath, which, fortunately, Peppa didn't hear. Suzy and Peppa sat down at a table with mirrors and started on their makeup, while Madame Gazelle glared at everyone. 

"Can you all hurry up?" Madame Gazelle sniffed. "Act like you want your paycheck!" 

Suzy rolled her eyes, which Madame saw. "I will buy liquor and get drunk with your paycheck. Get your makeup done and ready for double episodes, Suzanna Sheep."

Suzy rolled her eyes again, this time out of Madame Gazelle's view. "Can't wait to run away with our paychecks," she muttered. 

Peppa stared into her mirror. She was halfway done, and she looked younger, which was good. "Yeah." 

"We'll be escapees."

"You switched up fast," Peppa snorted, dabbing at her eyes. "You were incredibly against running away last Friday - and what do you mean escapees?"

Suzy was silent for a moment. 

"I used to think this was our home," she said. 

"It is," Peppa said, more focused on her makeup than her conversation with Suzy.

"It's not our home, Peppa. It's our prison."