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Weekends were a time made for goofing off. And that was Ellie's plan for the day. She had plans on going to the mall to get some new punk clothing, maybe grabbing something from Taco Shack, then heading out to Hank's to hang out with Phil for a bit. However, on her way to the mall, something distracted her (as it usually did). The Taqueria.

Authentic Mexican food was hard to come by at times, but every time she walked to the mall, she was able to find one dependable location for spicy nourishment.

It was on the corner of Rosetta and Camino de los Reyes and usually had a small population of regulars lingering around at all open hours. It was a modest little taqueria that was reasonably priced, but most importantly, it was authentic. The owners of the taqueria had made their way to Destiny City from Mexico for a better life. And though their shop was small, they had found their lives were much richer than in their native lands.

Ellie stood there in front of the little shop. Will power, it ran off on her five minutes earlier. Now she was just trying to figure out what she wanted. There were only so many different types of tacos you could get.

Her intense thoughts over what tacos she wanted were interrupted by screech of someone's car horn. Wincing slightly at the obnoxious sound (seriously, why did they have to sound so god awful?), she immediately did what any other observers did and turned to take a look at what caused the noise.

"T-Toby?" Blinking a bit in surprise, she greeted him with an offered fist for bumping and a "Yoh, Toby, what's up?" Unfortunately for the boy, there'd be no free pantie shots. Ellie was dressed for the weekend, complete with a shirt with ripped sleeves, a jacket over that with patches all over it, and jeans with tears on the knees.

After Toby butchered the poor Spanish language, Ellie chuckled out "I take it you never took Spanish, mi amigo?" A few more hearty chuckles escaped her before she translated for her Spanish-impaired friend. "Dude, it's a 'taco stand.' Why wouldn't you expect to see me at one of those?"

It was good to see her first impressions weren't too far off. This guy was still a bit goofy. In an attempt to "correct" him without overstepping boundaries, she stated "I suppose I look cool today." Stupid gender differences making it hard to convey an idea properly.

Taking her fist back, she shook her head at the boy's comment. "Naaaah, you ain't keepin' me. And ain't waitin' fer someone. I was tryin' t'figure out which ones to get today. I love me some tacos!" She smacked her lips slightly after her comment before continuing on the conversation.

"Hey, I could use some company, if you'd be willin'! I ain't got too much planned fer t'day." She shrugged and began to walk inside the taqueria. If he wanted to join in, then he would. She didn't feel the need to pressure him.

By the time Toby had gotten inside, Ellie was already ordering, in Spanish as well for the heck of it. She wasn't fluent, but at least she had a decent enough accent and annunciation. She kept half an ear open for Toby, as well as letting him take a look at the menu. 3 tacos and all the chips she could want were shortly going to be hers. She couldn't wait to get the salt from the chips to tickle her lips.

Waving her hand politely at the receptionist, she once more gave her attention to her current companion. "I tend t'do a lot of walkin' durin' the day, so I found this one time when walkin' t'the mall. This place is so much better than the chain franchise 'Taco Shack.'"

She grinned widely. "It was an accident made in heaven!" She casually took a glance at the number on her receipt, then continued. "I've 'ad everything on th'menu. I actually love Mexican food, so I ain't picky with it." She nodded her head, as if agreeing with herself before asking "Ya into spicy?"

Grinning innocently, she offered her advise for food: "I'd suggest gettin' anythin' with the word 'habanero' in it. There are a few things on there like that." Spicy is what spicy does, so the saying went in Ellie's head.

She didn't wait for the boy to order before giving her say on the videogames. "Okay, that is a wicked game! Seriously, it's not bad fer just a game!" Hoping her companion had figured out what he wanted, she began to shuffle him towards the receptionist.

"I don't go t'dad's workplace usually. I tend to visit Hank. He's a family friend, and he really has the place set up fer auto repair."

Shortly after Toby got his food, Ellie's number was called out. She momentarily excused herself before coming back with three tacos. One with a normal colored shell, one with a red shell, and one with a black shell. The two colored ones didn't even look remotely "authentic" to the common viewer.

She sat down and took a bite from the normal colored taco. After she swallowed that mouthful, she continued with the conversation. "Ya know, maybe you shoulda got some Horchata t'drink?" She shrugged, figuring that maybe Toby had an iron stomach. "Anyways, Jared made me try that game a couple times. He's a videogame nerd. He's into all sorts of games though, but I only like the racing ones." She once more chomped onto her taco and swallowed before continuing.

"Hank technically ain't open t'day. He just goes in t'balance the books and stuff. Phil goes in on weekends t'work on his own projects though. I'm headin' there t'hang out with 'im." She paused, like she was forgetting something, then added on "Oh, but that's after th'mall."

Before the "disaster" had occurred, Ellie had managed to finish off her first taco and was able to give him a response. "Shoppin' fer some clothes. M'mom tossed some of my stuff in the trash, so I need some new stuff t'replace it." It wasn't quite the truth, but when worst came to worst, blame a parent.

And then Ellie watched as the boy who claimed he could handle spicy, did not handle spicy at all. She wanted to laugh, but she was polite enough to wait until he was in the bathroom tending to his mouth. As she laughed, she swapped out his peppers for the red taco she had. In comparison, her taco was not even remotely spicy.

When her friend got back, she muffled her laughter and pointed out "That, Toby, was a chili. Hope ya don't mind, but I took the rest of them. You can have that taco though, if yer still hungry."

With that, she stood up. She leaned over Toby and casually attempted to fluff up his wet hair, but found the effort was in vain. Shrugging it off, she went to the front to ask for Horchata. When she returned to her seat, she had a cup with a white-cream colored liquid in it. It wasn't quite like milk, since it was a bit more transparent than milk usually was.

Sounding unconcerned, she uttered a simple "Naaaaaahhhh..." as she popped one of the four chilis into her mouth. In comparison to Toby, her reaction was quite mild. She turned her face from right to left once, and her lips seemed to grit slightly. However, she didn't complain and instead just swallowed the food. Once the pepper was out of her mouth and in her stomach, she took a drink of her new beverage.

After such an experience, maybe Toby would have expected the girl to be upset or feeling bad (much like how he had felt after eating one pepper), but quite the opposite held true. She had a large grin on her face after the first pepper. "That's good sh*t!" She once more paid attention to what was going on with Toby and happened to catch his lamenting over her trashed clothing.

"She only does it when she thinks I've outgrown the clothing. No skin off my back I suppose. If she wants to waste money on new clothing for me, who am I to argue?" Here she popped another pepper in her mouth and repeated the same process as with the first pepper she ate. Once she had cooled off with another gulp of her drink, she added "Oh, and if I pulled it out again, she'd just throw it out again, and it'd be a long cycle of putting it in and out of the trash."