"No you don't." The words were spoken but the unspokenness of the words dampened their effect. Affected everyone:
"What?" "What?" "What?"
All three of us—me, Macie, and the Ambassador—this most un-likely trio, looked in unison in three directions, unsure of who had said what was said and what was to be said for the who that said it.
"No," Chevron—Chevron of all people, Chevron, the taste-tester who tests only the limits of spice, spoke. Spoke at the limits of speech; Repeated! "No, Ambassador, I don't believe you do like pepper."
And at once, every gaze shifted from Chevron to the Ambassador. To those ridiculous painted Easter-egg purple eyes.
The Ambassador pipped! "Ha!" He popped! "Ho!"
And then, all of a sudden, he snapped his fingers and Chevron was levitating—lifted clear off the floor and lying, uncomfortably, on his side on the popcorn ceiling. We all craned to see what would happen next. And the next thing we knew—he wasn't anymore. He was back on the ground, with us—safe as a baby landing in a bed of feathers.
"You're right," the Ambassador squealed. "I love pepper!" He clapped his delighted hands. "Fetch me some!"
"But—" Chevron started.
"There isn't—" Macie began.
"I require pepper!"
I shook my head. "There isn't any, your honor—err, your honorable—"
"Call me Reece Revevevicez," he corrected.
"Ree—" I tried. "Ambassador. There isn't any for five hundred—"
"Nay, five-thousand—" Chevron said.
"Five thousand miles," Macie confirmed.
"Then..." The Ambassador hung there on that word, we all hung on it, as we might all hang by morning. Until: "Then we better get moving. Before this egg gets cold!"