One

His grandfather had been appalled to learn he had never considered giving it a try.

"Seventeen and not so much even ithought/i about it?" Absalom Grayson shook his head sadly. "Son, half-Vulcan or not, it's time and past. Fortunately, I happen to know just the place to get you set up right!"

.

Spock hid his disappointment as Grandfather conspired with the proprietress. She was an aesthetically pleasing woman — Risan if the insigne on her forehead was an accurate indicator — who looked over and smiled at him encouragingly. Certain he would not be interested in anything she had to offer, Spock turned away to observe his surroundings.

The place was probably considered gaudy even by many human standards.

Spotlessly clean clear glass bracketed between sweeping curves of gleaming chrome dominated the room. Customers sat on round chrome and red vinyl stools lining the three-meter long counter which separated the two cases displaying the establishments products.

In contrast to the flat pink and cream-colored vertical stripes of the wallpaper, the floor tiles — alternating squares in black and white laid out in a diamond pattern — shone dully. White-painted booths with red imitation leather seats had been built into the outer wall, offering patrons seated there unobstructed views through the high broad plate windows.

The center of the shop was littered with smaller tables — their chrome-lined tops made from some sort of laminate a shade or two off from the that of the banquet seats (not that humans would readily perceive the difference) — surrounded by fancifully-shaped, but otherwise apparently functional chairs constructed of red plastic and more chrome.

Spock turned back to the second of the two large L-shaped display cases holding several rows of large sunken pots teeming with colorful contents. The pots were surprisingly tempting.

"Those are more agreeable than these." The words were spoken in badly accented and overly inflected, but grammatically flawless Vulcan. They were accompanied by a small brown hand gesturing to the short end of the L. The hand, and the skinny arm to which it was attached, belonged to a young human(?) child — most likely female, if Spock were to judge by the clothing, hairstyle and face structure — who was staring up at him through large, dark eyes.

The girl — closer perusal left him certain the child was both human and female — was not smiling, encouragingly or otherwise.

"Because of the cream," she said gravely, now using equally accented Standard. "It can give you a stomach ache if you're not used to dairy. The ones on the end are dairy free."

He half raised a brow at her presumption, but then, having considered the logic of her assumption (that is, if she had sufficient knowledge of Vulcan dietary habits to reach her conclusion based on evidence rather than conjecture), he nodded and moved closer to the shorter arm of the L he'd been studying.

A pot, this one much smaller than the others, filled with a deep red concoction captured his attention. As he leaned over the glass to look more closely, light footsteps approached from behind.

"That one is flavored with ihirat/i," the young girl informed him once he glanced down and over to his right. "Many humans do not find it palatable, but it's one of my favorites."

Hirat was, in fact, one of Spock's most favored foods, but he doubted a shop selling frozen confections on Earth could possibly procure decent specimens of the fruit. "Indeed," was all he said, however.

"They only use Earth hirat," said the little girl, wrinkling her nose and indicating the small pot, "so it's not as good as what you'd get at home, but it's not that bad either. And on Vulcan you probably can't get anything like this at all."

She tilted her head as if Spock had been an equal. Apart from "indeed," Spock found he wasn't sure iwhat/i he might say to her. Before he came to a decision, however, the matter was taken out of his hands.

"Nyota Wangari Uhura!" The little girl flinched and both she and he turned to find a harried-looking woman staring at them. "Come here and stop bothering that young man."

Spock watched the girl hurry away before going to rejoin his grandfather.

"I will have two scoops of the hirat sorbet," he told the Risan woman.

Disclaimer: I own no Star Trek concepts or characters and I don't make money from writing about them.