1 – Brunch at Muffin’s place

It is always difficult to start a story, especially when the only brain you have is muddled. My friend Gerald, who is an octopus and has 8 of them – brains, I mean – would certainly know better than to start the tale of Muffin’s Muffins, the Big Bad Gym, the wicked weasels and the bad wolf by telling you random trivia about someone who’s not even in the story – Gerald, you know. 

Very well then, let me set the stage for the introductory scene: it was in the cold midst of January, that wonderful time after Christmas where the dust settles and you realize a new year has definitely started, and that maybe you should stop eating your own weight every meal, but it’s cold outside and you crave fries. The sky was a bright blue, the snow blindly white, the temperature, biting. Inside Muffin’s apartment, once you had spent 5 minutes removing your coats, scarves, gloves and supplementary layers, it was warm and smelled of homemade baking and hot chocolate. Conversations were loud and passionate, children were running around and screaming. The brunch was at this stage were everybody has eaten enough but is still able to eat one last item.

“Captain America is definitely a shower man, said Maurice decisively. So, in team bath, we have Thor, the Hulk, Black Widow…

-Do you base your assumption of Thor being a bath-taker on this time where he had a vision in a cave? interrupted Charles. It seems rather…

-Come on, Thor is definitely a bath guy!

-The Hulk is the best!! I love him! gurgled the Tyrex while eating a hot waffle with pâté and capers.

-Would it be because he’s big and green? sighed Charles.

-Spiderman is definitely a shower guy, continued Maurice.”

At this moment, Muffin came in with a big plate of her famous muffins: “Just out of the oven! Who wants one?”

We all rushed at her with squeals of delight. Muffin’s Muffins were plump and moist marvels of perfection, pure works of art, miracles of goodness. They tasted like that sweet song your beloved grandma used to hum while baking, with a hint of a kitten’s purr. At that time, they were very big: bigger than Jimmy’s head (which, to be fair, also happened to be smaller), and, if you started one with a solid appetite, you would certainly finish it with that mix of blissful happiness and regret that you get when eating too much of a good thing.

A reverential silence fell on the company for a few minutes, then the Avengers bath vs shower debate started again. I was about to make a very smart statement on the shower cap of Loki when Muffin attracted my attention.

“Say, Blue, can I talk to you for a minute?”

She looked serious. I acquiesced, still holding my muffin, and followed her as she took me aside.

“You’re doing a lot of exercise, aren’t you? You’re like, doing sport almost everyday or something?”

I nodded, my mouth being full.

“How do you do it?”

And, without waiting for my reply, she added:

“See, Blue, I’d like to exercise… hem… more.”

I stopped chewing from sheer amazement and looked at her, aghast. What had happened? Muffin usually looked on exercise as something you do when you want that box on your top shelf and the Tyrex is not here. 

Once, she had sore muscles for a week because she ran to catch a bus. Only last month, she was comparing the love of exercise to a brain fever and telling me to see a doctor.

“See, Blue, the fact is, I put on a little weight at Christmas, and well, the past few years, you know, and weight pills don’t work except they do weird things, and I thought maybe there was something in this exercise idea.”

I gulped.

“Also, she added as an afterthought, my doctor told me to. He was quite insistent about it. Anyway, can you like, help me with that?”

I said I would be very happy to. In truth, I was so overjoyed at the fact that she had asked me, that I somewhat overlooked the warning signs of what was obviously going to happen. I ignored all my previous knowledge of Muffin’s intensely passionate character, and just bathed in the glow of the vain pride I was feeling. I thought I would metaphorically take her hand and walk with her on the path to health and fitness and that we would skip euphorically into the sunset.

“It’s going to be awesome, said I, you’ll see! And the first thing I’ll do is to take you with me to the Care Bear Studio!”