“Uh, we’ll take two borschts on rye, please!” he stammered.

Quirrp?

Tails produced another of his gizmos; this one had a little spinning speaker at its center. “Two beef stews, please,” the little fox said into the device, and in short order, a flat voice translated the order into Russian. The waitress seemed satisfied at least and went off toward the kitchen.

“Man, where’d you get all these cool gadgets?” Sonic asked.

“I invented them.” Tails shrugged sheepishly. “It’s kind of my thing.”

“Pretty impressive.”

With a cold clatter, two bowls of gray slop landed on the table before them. The waitress stood with hands on hips, staring the two down with disgust. Tails picked up a bare set of fish bones from within his soup. “I’m sorry, but I asked for the beef stew.”

Quirrp! Queep!

His little device ran the comment through and spat out some more Russian. This time, it did not seem to do the trick. In fact, the waitress was highly offended by whatever the machine translated. Sonic couldn’t tell what she was talking about, but his best guess was, “How dare you insult my beloved grandmother!”

“There must be some confusion. I just mean that this isn’t what I ordered!” Tails said in a nervous hurry. With another Quoorp! the machine recited more Russian, and now half the bar was looking at them with angry eyes.

-Chapter 9