The next morning, the new alarm clock rang with a party song "2012" by Jay Sean ft. Nicky Manaj, and showed the date "Dec 27".
This time, instead of throwing stuff at the alarm clock, the Grinch got up, and switched the alarm off himself. He pulled the string to rang the bell to the kitchen to call Max for coffee.
The dog heard the bell. He remembered that his master made breakfast for both of them yesterday. Now, it's his turn to make coffee for his master. Like his morning routine, Max used the coffee machine, and poured creamer on the coffee. This time, he made a smiley face since his master was no longer 'a mean one' anymore. When he wore the helmet tray with coffee on it, Max walked into the 'elevator', and pulled a lever to sent himself up to his master's bedroom.
When he reached up the bedroom and showed the mug of coffee, Grinch slowly grabbed the handle, and took a sip from the coffee.
"Mmm, good coffee, Max. Thank you," He complimented, making Max barked in delight.
Like they always do every morning, the Grinch took a bath with Max holding the towel, dried and comb his fur, used fresh hairspray instead of mold spicy, brushed his teeth, and wore proper green fur clothes. He removed the miserable names of his clothes to make more changes.
Instead of taking the elevator chair, the Grinch and Max took the stairs instead. While they were in the middle of the stairway, they heard Aggie talking inside her room. They leaned their ears against the door to hear her conversation.
"Are you sure you're alright there?" a male voice was heard.
"Yes, I'm fine. Don't worry. He's not gonna hurt me. He promised he'll help me find a friendship problem today," Aggie replied.
"But Mom, we missed you. We want you to go home," A teenage girl cried.
"I know, honey, but this is important. If I don't solve the problem, I won't be home for New Year!"
"Okay, but you promise you'll be home soon?" A teenage boy asked.
"I promise," Aggie replied.
The Grinch didn't know who Aggie was talking with, but he felt that they were someone important to her.
"Come on, Max, let's leave her be," He said to his dog as they proceeded walking down the stairs.
When they went to the kitchen, Grinch opened the refrigerator, and took out frozen waffles on a plate. His dog tilted his head curiously.
"What? I can't eat all of the waffles Cindy Lou brought for me yesterday, so I kept them," the green fellow explained as he placed one waffle on his plate, another waffle on his dog's bowl, and another waffle on Aggie's plate, which he prepared just for her.
The two can't wait for their visitor a little longer as they ate their food on a long dining table. Just then, just a minute after they start eating, Aggie flew in the dining room with her wet hair.
"Good morning, you guys," she wiped her hair with a towel before sitting on a chair with a plate of waffle in front of her.
"Good morning, Aggie," the Grinch greeted. "I prepared you waffles. Cindy Lou brought some for me and Max yesterday, and there are different kinds of syrup at the table, so if you want some, help yourself."
"Thanks! Geez, I've never been eating waffles for a long time now," Aggie poured chocolate syrup on her waffle, and ate it with ecstasy.
"You never eat waffles before?" the Grinch took a slice of the waffle.
"Not exactly. I ate waffles before. It's just that, my mom doesn't want me to eat too much sweets. They made me fatter," the winged human explained.
"By the way, Max and I heard you talking to someone. Is someone else there in your room?"
"No, I was called on a video call. That's my husband and the kids."
"You have a family."
While explaining, Aggie used her wand staff to show Grinch and Max hologram pictures above the table. "I do, indeed. Two amazing and wonderful parents, a loyal and handsome husband, two daughters, and one son."
The Grinch chuckled, "Ho ho ho ho, busy guy, huh?"
"Yeah, he's a racer. My oldest daughter is a fighter, and the youngest is a party planner, and wants to make everybody smile."
"What about your husband? What does he do?"
"He's a clown, but his major job is the leader of the flock."
The Grinch and Max were stunned when Aggie mentioned the word 'flock', which is used for group of birds.
"Flock?" Grinch raised his eyebrow.
"Oh, did I ever mention to you that my husband is a bird?" Aggie swallowed her food. "His name is Red. He lived in another world, and in an island called Bird Island, where birds there never fly. He was the island's hermit because he was bullied because of his ginormous eyebrows, and he has anger issues."
"How did you know so much about him when you two lived in different worlds?"
"When I was 13, I travelled into his world where I can meet new friends there, and transformed myself into a bird like that, but my transformation made me grow thick and bold visible feathers, making me quite different than the other birds. I kept my true identity a secret so things won't get any worse than I have in my home world. Because of that, I became a hermitess myself, but I never met Red until I was sent to Anger Management Class. That's where I met him."
"You… in Anger Management Class?" The Grinch, almost choked his food while snickering.
Aggie glared at him and crossed her arms, "I have anger issues, okay?! Somebody says I'm angrier than Red."
"Okay, I see your point there. It's written all over your face. Go on," Grinch kept eating his waffles while listening.
"Well, Red and I were just friends when we met, but he started helping me when I fell down," Aggie continued. "I didn't see him as a bad bird even if he's always angry. He seems like a nice bird. I told him my secret, and he's the only one who understands me and promised to keep my secret, besides my cousin, Bomb. He's a bird too."
"How are you related to a bird?"
"We both have black head feathers. My hair has a feather when I turned into a bird. Then, these green pigs came and acted so nice. Red is the only who was suspicious about them, but no one listened, except me, Bomb, and our other friend, Chuck. We just found out the pigs came to Bird Island to steal the birds' eggs to eat them. Red became the leader, and used a giant slingshot to launch ourselves to rescue the eggs from the pigs in their home, Pig City."
"Isn't that really hurt when you launched yourselves with a giant slingshot and made massive destruction in a city or town?"
"You can say that, but not when you have your own power. Red has no power, but he's very useful. Chuck has super speed. Bomb can explode, and so do I since we're cousins. Matilda dropped egg bombs, Jay, Jake and Jim, the Blue triplets, can launched together. Hal is like a boomerang. Bubbles is like a balloon. Stella has pink flash and making bubbles that are strong enough to carry objects. Terehde has no powers too, but he's stronger and bigger than the rest of us birds. Mighty Eagle was the island's protector. And I can shoot my sharp feathers."
"Oh really? You can do that?" the Grinch didn't believe what Aggie said about her bird power.
To demonstrate, Aggie threw sharp white feathers at the Grinch as he closed his eyes, preparing for the worst. But none of the feathers hit his face, and one of them lied down on the table.
"Now you believe me?!" Aggie yelled angrily.
"Alright, alright, I believe you! Just please, don't hurt me!" The Grinch cried, then took a feather on a table, slowly pointing his finger on the sharp tip of the feather. "Girl, your feathers are so sharp, and you're even angrier than I am."
"I know, right? So, anyway, after rescuing the eggs, Red became a hero and the leader of the flock if the pigs attack again. And then next, it happened again. Pigs stole the eggs again, and, that time, I'm the leader since I'm the only bird who was concerned that the pigs might come back. So, I saved the eggs, including Red's."
"You mean, yours and his?"
"Nope, his and his ex-fiancée's eggs."
"Say what?!"
"It's true. Red and his girlfriend, Ruby, have a night of passion, and getting married. That was until they noticed I was so sad and miserable, and I'm always absent, which I kinda locked myself in my house in sadness. I never told my feelings for Red, until he noticed the signs when we're still friends, and he likes me too. So, Ruby declined Red's engagement so that he and I won't be sad anymore. Red regretted his actions, and wanted to be with me instead. I saved their two eggs from the pigs, and named them. Roy and Rebecca are so cute!"
"But, you're okay with that?"
"Of course, I do! Why would I save them from getting eaten?"
"I can't believe you took it so well, even though they were not yours."
"There are no hard feelings between me and Ruby. We're quite good friends, and I became the twins' godmother. And now, step-mother."
"Why do you have to be so… nice?"
"Just lucky to have friends and family to have my back, I guess. I already treated Roy and Rebecca as my children even befe Red and I got married. They even treated me like their second mother." Aggie then noticed the Grinch's expression when he stared blankly in the air. It's like there's something he was wondering and thinking. "Why do you ask something like that?"
The Grinch then snapped in reality, "Oh! Uh, no reason. I just don't get why you want to hide your identity from the birds. I mean, when we first met you, you just revealed yourself, still in your true form."
"Oh, that, you see, Mr. Grinch…" Aggie sighed as she let her past memories flowed inside her head. "When I was little, before I became a dimension traveler, I was bullied in school, and I have no friends because I'm so different than the other kids. Maybe because of my wings."
"What makes you say that? Your wings are amazing," Grinch complimented.
Aggie's cheeks started to turn red when she received a good comment about her wings, "Thanks. Maybe because they're just jealous that I have wings and I can fly, and they cannot. So that's why my dad built me an interdimensional remote control so I can make friends somewhere else, out of my world. Then, here I am now. Quite happy with my life."
"You're… very lucky… that even though you're so miserable in your home world, you never gave up of finding new friends… who accepted you just the way you are."
"It's true," Aggie twirled few strands of her hair, thinking the happy times when she met her friends and started a new family together. "How about you? Did you have friends when you were kid, and then became miserable because you were teased? You said yesterday that you are going to tell me a story of your life before… you know."
The Grinch doesn't want to discuss about his past. He wanted to forget it, but, sometimes, he realized that sharing the story of his past to others helped him move on, "If I tell you, you won't judge or make fun of me?"
"I won't. I promise." Aggie raised her hand as a sign of promise.
Grinch sighed as he started his story, "You see, I was just an orphan at the orphanage. When my fellow orphans got adopted and the caretakers left, I'm the only one who was left behind, and I got no one to celebrate Christmas with. That's the start when I hate Christmas."
"Wait?! You hate Christmas? Why?!"
"Honestly, I was just jealous at the Whos in town because they celebrate Christmas together, and no one invited me for a Christmas dinner. 53 years of my life. Just this Christmas, I planned to steal their Christmas."
"Steal Christmas? I don't get it. And why did you do that?"
"I stole all their presents and Christmas decorations so it'll fix the sadness that I had these past years, but it didn't. I was wrong. Until Cindy Lou thought me the meaning of Christmas, invited me for dinner, and changed my life. I now realized it wasn't Christmas I hate, it was being alone."
"That's right. It was all a misunderstanding. Everybody hates being alone, like me. But you're not alone anymore since Cindy Lou invited you to their Christmas dinner. You have her. You also have Max… and me."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, if you want another friend by your side, I'm always here if you need me."
"I, uh… thanks. That's… very nice of you to say that to me."
"No sweat. I always do that to all of my friends. It's kinda nice we share stories together. It's like we have something in common."
"Like having miserable lives, and ended up having a happy future?"
"Something like that. Yeah." When Aggie almost finished her food, she still can't get over her head about the Grinch's question about her relationship with Roy and Rebecca. "But why you were so curious about my life with my step-kids? Are you afraid that if you marry Ms. Who, her children won't accept you as their new dad?"
The Grinch almost spat his coffee when he drank it, and noticed Max snickering at the other side of the table. He rolled his eyes, and groaned, "Ugh, here we go again! I told you since yesterday, WE'RE… JUST… FRIENDS!"
"Dude, I'm just kidding!" Aggie laughed, until she spoke seriously. "Unless it'll happen. So, are we going to Ms. Who and find a friendship problem or what?"
Seeing her plate is empty, the Grinch noticed his plate still has food, "Oh, right!" He ate the last bite before picking his, Aggie's and Max's plate to the kitchen. "Well, we're ready to go! I'll just go to pick up my scarf."
"And I'll go to get my jacket." Aggie rushed half-way up the stairs to her room to get her jacket.
I got the reference of the scene where Aggie told the Grinch that she have two parents, a husband, two daughters and one son from Horton hears a Who.