Mouse.

A couple days had passed since the incident and we had all moved on with our lives. Bee had been expecting the owner to be livid with us and to be honest I was thinking the same thing. Had Pencil gone too far? Was smacking a drink off the counter and asking a customer to never come back forgivable? The answer was yes. It was forgivable. Ezmeralda told Bee that she had done nothing wrong and gave her a bone crushing hug. Pencil on the other hand did get punished. She was forced to watch telenovelas with her abuela. Harsh stuff.

Even with the knowledge that we weren't going to lose our jobs we were on high alert. We were extra polite to customers, never once back talked them, and went out of our way to make sure there wouldn't be any problems. It was exhausting. When our shared day off rolled along we spent it holed up at my place.

My apartment was full of smoke. Not the bad your-house-is-on-fire kind but the good kind. The really good kind. I cracked a window and lit some incense but the smell was sticking like gum to a shoe. It wasn't like my landlord gave a shit. If he did then he would have installed the smoke alarm two years ago when I first moved in.

Bee, Pencil, and myself were huddled together on my couch in our matching onesies and were in the process of passing a joint between us. Our bloodshot eyes were glued to the episode of Jerry Springer playing on the TV. My hand was held out towards Bee, waiting for her to pass the joint back to me but she was distracted. I tore my eyes away from the TV to look at her.

She was staring down at her phone with a frown which was weird. When Bee was high she was the happiest girl around. Happier than a kid at Disneyland. She wasn't looking too happy. This was my time to shine. If there was one thing I was good at it was comforting my friends.

"Hey," I mumbled, "Why sad?"

Nailed it.

Bee took a long hit from the joint and exhaled slowly.

"You guys remember that bitch from Monday?"

"Which one?" Pencil asked from her cocoon of blankets. "The racist or the one with the shitty highlights?"

"The racist. She wrote a review on the cafe's Facebook page."

Our gazes immediately snapped to Bee. Well, Pencil's did, my eyes wandered to the joint in held in her hand. Did she plan on passing that anytime soon?

"What did she say?"

Bee passed the joint to me and shook her head, "It's bad, dude. You won't like it," she warned.

Pencil got up and threw the blanket off her shoulders in a beautiful display of dramatics. I blamed the telenovas. She snatched the phone out of Bee's hands to read for herself.

The brightness from the screen cast a pale glow over Pencil's freckled face. It only emphasized how angry she was becoming. It seemed with each passing word she read her jaw clenched tighter. That couldn't be good. My hopes of having a quiet night in were going to be crushed.

She handed the phone to me and balled her hands into fists at her side.

"Read it, Mouse," she ordered quietly.

i will never be going to esmererldas cafe ever again! the workers are incredibley rude and have no idea what customer service or proffessionalism means. the owners should be ashamed they ever hired them! one of them threw a drink at me! they are luckky i dont press charges! dont come here! it is a terrible establishent with terible people!

Yikes.

Pencil was stood in place with her arms crossed over her chest. She hadn't said a word since she handed the phone over. Her mother's business was her number one priority and had been ever since high school. She did whatever she could to help out and that included spending her free time working, painting the signs and posters by hand, and changing her art major to business. There was no way she was going to handle this review well. And since my earlier attempt at being comforting had bombed I decided to try a different tactic. A joke.

"Do you think she spelled your mom's name wrong on purpose? Or would you blame that on illiteracy?"

Pause for laughter.

Except there was no laughter. Pencil didn't look amused in the slightest.

"You think this is funny? Do you know what a bad review can do to a business?"

Abort mission! Abort mission!

"No! Of course not! I-I just, you know, I was trying to lighten the mood."

"Well don't," Pencil snapped harshly.

She was glaring hard and it was meant solely for me. God that glare was terrifying. I'd rather have my mom tell me I was adopted than be on the end of Pencil's glare. Even better, I'd rather have a SWAT team break into my apartment and fill me with bullets. Or set a grenade off and then steal my most prized possessions. Literally anything would be better than trying to battle off Pencil's rage. I needed a peace offering.

I took a quick hit from the joint and held it out to her, "Take this and be my friend again," I pleaded.

She squinted at me then took the offering, "Fine. Just know that you're still an insensitive asshole."

Crisis averted.

Bee was fidgeting uncomfortably in her spot on the couch. She toyed with the blanket in her lap and looked between the two of us.

"I don't want to make a bad situation worse," she started nervously, "But is it possible that she reviewed the cafe on other sites? You know, like Yelp or something?"

Pencil, who had started slowly pacing back and forth, stopped dead in her tracks.

"No... She wouldn't."

Her face betrayed her statement. She looked unsure, her mouth turned down in a frown, then rushed to find her own phone to see for herself.

The next few minutes were filled with deafening silence. Bee had turned the TV off and now the two of us were watching our friend with baited breath. Her eyes were locked on her phone screen and scanning over whatever was written there. It had been too quiet for too long.

Pencil lowered the phone and stared at us blankly.

"You were right."

She spoke quietly, but as she continued her voice got louder with each word, "It's on Facebook, Yelp, Zomato, any fucking site she could find!"

She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at us with steel in her gaze. It had me pinned to the spot.

"If that bitch thinks she can say that shit and get away with it then she's got another thing coming."

I watched Pencil closely. Her knuckles were starting to turn white from how hard she was clenching her fists. She wasn't just angry, she was furious. When she was angry she would yell and rant in Spanish but it took a lot to make her so mad she didn't have words. I was worried for her. Not just her, but her mother too. The cafe wasn't just a fun little shop to them, it was their livelihood. It's how they paid the bills and kept food on the table. This one measly review could be detrimental to the business.

There had to be something I could do to help. Being the 'shoulder to cry on friend' wasn't going to help and jokes weren't wanted either. We needed action.

I got off the couch and stood to my full height.

"Pencil-"

"Don't call me that."

"Call your mom and tell her what's going on. Bee, I need you to start writing a rebuttal. Keep it light, don't mention any names, but I want you to make it clear that we don't tolerate harassment. Got it?"

Bee looked surprised by my commanding tone. She blinked once and nodded.

"Um.. Okay." She answered slowly. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to gather intel," I replied confidently.

Pencil broke her silence to snort.

"You mean stalk her Facebook?"

I looked down at my friend and grinned wickedly.

"They don't call me the great mouse detective for nothing."

"By 'they' do you mean yourself?" Questioned Bee. "Because we have never called you that."

They never let me have any fun.