Misplaced Trust

Chapter Eight: Pizza?

Freddy and Gregory left. Gregory got out to walk on his own, but they both made their way to the atrium through a winding path in Rockstar Row filled with cardboard cutouts of the glamrocks in different outfits and poses. A very cartoonish brown bear with a black bowtie, top hat, and mic and a blue rabbit with a red guitar stood in some grass in a cardboard cutout, singing and staring in the direction of people who would be looking at them.

They emerged from the garage shutters to find another pair of shutters on the wall to their left, and the back of a jungle-themed giant platform-slash-board. "Come Back SOON!" scrawled in gold lettering on a white panel faced them.

Gregory should go to Fazerblast. However, the endoskeleton maze still bugged him. If anyone would know about a place covered in kiddie stuff, it was Sun, right? After all, the place was covered in the stuff and had a whole bunch of Moon stuff. Considering Gregory was not about to get any actual answers from Moon, Sun would have to do.

The elevators on the balcony above took them straight to the entrance of the mall. All it took was a turn and a walk through a star-encrusted, dark hall to get to the entrance of the Daycare Drop-off. Gregory could go through the front gate. However, the slide would be faster, and there was no way Sun might not see him if he was inside of the Daycare.

"I'll be back!" Gregory reassured Freddy. "I want to talk to Sun!"

"Okay!" Freddy answered. "Er, just be safe, okay? Be careful. If you need my help, just call me. I'll find my way in."

Gregory scoffed. "It'll be fine., I'll be careful. See ya!" With that, he hopped into the slide. He expected to land in the ball pit, hop up, and then either struggle his way to the rainbow bridge or get picked up. Sun picked up a lot of the children who fell into the ball pit, Gregory included earlier that night. What he didn't expect would be to land into a mostly empty, fairly gross pit. His socks surprisingly didn't slide on the empty ground.

The boy stumbled upon landing and waved his arms to keep himself stable.

"Gregory!" Sun gasped and darted across the empty pit, leaving a few cleaning supplies abandoned. He plucked the boy off the ground. "What are you doing in here? You could get hurt! I was just cleaning out the ball pit. Why didn't you warn me? It's safer to go through the front doors."

The Daycare Attendant stopped at the rainbow bridge. A huge mound of plastic balls filled the area before the ball pit, making any traveling between the pit and the rest of the Daycare impossible. "I mean, you caught yourself, so that's okay. Just make sure to tell me next time, okay?"

Sun summoned a cable from the ceiling, attached it to his back, and hopped over the entire pile so he landed between the play structures and next to the stack of colorful cans.

He set Gregory down out of reach of the plastic balls.

Gregory said, "I didn't know you cleaned out the ball pit."

"Well, I do!" Sun answered. "I keep this whole place clean so that no kids get sick."

Gregory cocked his head. "Every night? The entire ball pit?"

"Yep!"

"Huh." He looked over the colorful mound and then back at Sun.

Sun went on quickly, "Oh, but it's nice to meet you again, Friend! I'm sorry, was I being rude? I didn't mean to be rude. You must be hungry. How about we get some snacks?"

"Okay!"

Gregory was distracted yet again. Although he planned to talk to Sun over some yogurt or whatever, Sun quickly left to continue scrubbing out the ball pit.