Here comes "Opposite Day," which is based on the third Grim Adventures clip (and the first one of the second episode), and where things continue weirder (albeit without any supernatural stuff happening just yet, like in the previous episode). This marks the first appearance of Mandy's (or Manny's) dog Saliva, whom Grim is assigned to cheer up (or "not cheer up," in opposite day terms). This is definitely going to be zany to some of you, so please sit back and enjoy this chapter! I apologize for this coming out several days later than I originally planned!
[Manny appears]
Manny: It is useless to resist. [Disappears]
It was another exciting day in Endsville today. The sun was shining brightly in the sky (giving the area around it an almost yellowish hue); birds were chattering as they flew around and perched in trees; the sweet smells of flowers, soil, and leaves fluttered around in the gentle breeze; the air's freshness banished sour tastes in people's mouths; rays of sunlight illuminated the houses inside and out, penetrated their windows, and smoothed out the jagged chiaroscuros inside the rooms; and flowers stretched their pistils and stamens up toward the sky to receive the pollinators' tribute.
The people living in the neighborhood were excitedly going about their days, happily conversing about whatever was on their minds, laughing about what the day had in store for them, and bonding with each other over their shared experiences through their chats. They completed their chores inside and around their houses, elatedly exercising their green thumbs with the plants on their properties, absentmindedly feeling around for anything interesting, silently singing to themselves in synchronization with the squeaking of their sponges and rags, and exuberantly running up and down the stairs for more supplies. They also went out to do various errands, looking forward to making new friends, anticipating the fun conversations they would have with the employees of the shops, eagerly awaiting anything that would pique their curiosity, and generally enjoying the fun breeze floating around the space surrounding them. But, for a few people, it wasn't an ordinary day—it was opposite day.
Billie ran downstairs from her room and jumped toward the door, generating a powerful spring from her feet that propelled her forward as if she were a powerful missile launching from a tank on the battlefield. She flew across the living room and kitchen toward the front door; bounding across the tile, carpeting, wood, and other materials like a sheep prancing around in the fields; and ricocheting off the walls like a ball of Jell-O off a barrier of rubber bands ready to repel any invaders from their land. She landed at her destination like a ton of feathers blown by a giant fan, gracefully leaping up like a ballet dancer with electric shocks in their feet, and briefly struggling to regain her balance as if her shoes' soles were covered in elastic coating. When she finally composed herself, she skipped a few steps to the door and prepared to take in the exhilarating day that awaited her presence.
"Playtime!" she yelled, excitedly jumping up as she opened the door. "Time to play! Playtime!" She bounded across the cobblestones in front of her house, happily doing front flips like a gymnast on the floor. "Now is playtime. Playtime is now. Playtime!" she elatedly continued, keeping her energy up with her enthusiasm and applying her feet to the ground to launch herself several yards into the air. "Play! Time!" she finished as she reached her trajectory's zenith, diving headfirst as if she were an eagle swooping downward against the air resistance to grab its prey, and creating a huge shock like a miniature earthquake as she landed on the ground. She didn't care about whatever pain that may have caused her—Billie's brain was too occupied with all her fun plans to tend to its carrier's body, and she wasn't going to let anything stop her from achieving her goals.
However, the space around her felt the wind escape from its sails, hoping to get some rest from all the chaos its inhabitants were engaging in, and trying to get its message to the big-nosed girl's skull. "What's the matter?" she asked, confusedly looking around her for answers as she got up. "You don't want to go over to Manny's and play?" she continued, hoping for one person in particular to take her up on her offer to have fun as she indicated the direction of her snarky friend's house.
"Not really," a deep Jamaican-accented voice emerged from inside the house, cueing the entrance of its skeletal owner who peered out the doorway and menacingly walked toward her striped shirt-wearing "best friend." "To be honest, I hate playing with the two of you. You and that wretched boyfriend of yours are bad enough separately, but together..." she continued, remembering the chaos the two kids had put her through with their game of hide-and-seek on top of the unpleasant surprises Glenn had inadvertently sprung upon her with his "big spooky skeleton" sightings, "you're insufferable." She wiped her brow with her literally bony hands, exasperated at the cyclone of thoughts swirling around in her mind.
"Insufferable?" Billie asked, confused, as she began to walk toward her friend's house. "I don't even know what that means." She stopped and turned back toward the Reaper, the poison of the latter's words starting to penetrate the former's brain. "Hey, wait a minute!" she retorted, positioning her hands on her hips as if she were calling an important business meeting. "He's not my boyfriend!" They continued walking toward the house, the tension between them blowing in the breeze and bringing out a less-than-pleasant odor. "He's just a friend, who happens to be a boy, just like I happen to be a girl, and you happen to be a skeleton," Billie continued, stopping again to more effectively explain her point to the skeleton following her. "It's the differences that make our world so rich, diverse, and wonderful!" she finished, breaking out into a smile and performing a happy dance in hopes that it would get the dour personification of death to see things her way.
"I still hate you, though," said Grim, dumbfoundedly trying to keep up with her elated "best friend."
"Don't worry, pal," Billie happily reassured her, her voice flowing softly and firmly as if it were a masseuse ready to manipulate her conversation partner's noncorporeal muscles into a comfortable orientation. "Today won't be like all those other days. Today's a special day." She jumped up a little as if in shock, turning back toward the Reaper. "Oh, wait! I mean, it's not special. It's ordinary."
"Girl, you are making no sense," a frustrated Grim responded as they reached Manny's house, secretly hoping she wasn't being led into a trap. "Are you that dumb?!"
"Yes. Yes, sir, I am." Billie responded, elatedly doing a little dance that ended in a spectacular regal bow. "Thank you."
"OK, then," Grim replied, resignedly walking toward the front door of her blond-haired "best friend's" house. "As long as you know."
Billie bounded up to Manny's door, hoping to get him to join in their fun and remember their plans. "Knock, knock," she said, rapping on the door with her fist. "Is anybody home?"
"No, nobody's home," Manny said, opening the door right on cue, staring at the two mischievous beings on his porch. "Get out of my sight, both of you."
But Billie, still in her "opposite day" mindset, zipped in like a cheetah after its prey, her taste buds overflowing their banks. "Yippee!" she screamed, ready to take in all the fun they would have (or not) at her best friend's house.
Manny turned his eyes back at her, apathetically rolling them and then turning back to the Reaper on the porch. "What are you waiting for?" he asked, motioning Grim inside. "Get out."
Grim grumbled at her snarky "best friend's" words and then turned to leave, already having had enough of her two "best friends" harassing her and cutting into her free time. She began walking down the porch, a storm of fury raging in her immaterial veins, her nonphysical skin vibrating more violently than a dishwasher with a malfunctioning circulation pump, her scythe's blade conducting electricity at a greater level than the key in the story of Benjamin Franklin's kite, and her fingers crushing its snath with greater force than a crocodile closing its jaws on a tree trunk. She didn't get very far, though, as Manny stopped her with a few carefully chosen words to pierce her armor. "Hold on," he said, aiming straight for the Reaper's noncorporeal heart. "Billie didn't tell you, did she?"
"Tell me what?!" Grim shot back at him, staring through her shadowy eye sockets as if she were a harbinger of darkness ready to consume the world starting with her pink-shirt wearing "best friend."
"Today is opposite day," Manny said, motioning the dark being to follow him inside the house.
The three companions walked through the hallways, observing all their surroundings with boredom and indignation (or unrelenting cheer in Billie's case). The walls were lined with various portraits from different areas, showing the various early 1900s movements from cubism to minimalism to surrealism. The air flowed silently within the space, delivering inaudible soothing classical music to their ears, which helped lighten the occupants' mood somewhat despite the tension surrounding them. The smell was also lacking in several areas, carrying with it a trace of the mustiness of Limbo and the weakened scents of the flowerless plants sitting in some of the rooms. The air's long fingers also sent hushed but intense shivers down their spines, causing them to shake slightly as they continued to walk to their destination, and planted the bland taste of overly starched cheese in their mouths, further incentivizing them to reach their planned hideout as quickly as they could go to escape this atmosphere.
Manny looked back at Grim as they continued their way toward the end of the hall, his eyes meeting her sockets as they exchanged invisible dark laser beams back and forth. "On opposite day," the pink T-shirt-wearing boy explained in a tone reminiscent of the intensity of a jalapeño pepper, "whatever you say means the opposite." Grim put her fingers on the bottom of her mandible, trying to navigate her way though the storm in her mind. "So when I said 'get out,' I meant 'come in.' Like this."
They stopped at the doorway of the living room, which housed a huge TV with a nearly equally huge black screen that stood proudly along the center of the wall, hoping to tempt unsuspecting visitors into losing themselves to hours and hours of entertainment in inescapable universes. It silently whispered promises of endless fun to these visitors, reminding them of the freshness they would experience after long hard days of work, offering them each unlimited wishes through the tingling sensations it pinged at them through its long pointed fingers, and repeating these promises through the huge tiki head to the right of the doorway. Manny was the first to be captivated by this alluring gaze, ready to test his luck at the video game console sitting in front, and as mentally prepared as ever to demonstrate his skills on one of the three huge chicken-foot-shaped controllers plugged into the machine. "Billie," he commanded, motioning her gaze toward the system. "don't play video games."
"Oooh, oooh, ooh, YAAAAY!" the red-haired girl screamed, running toward the system and grabbing the leftmost controller.
Observing this, Manny turned back to Grim, hoping she would understand his point. "Get it?" he asked, motioning her gaze toward the totally (un)exciting sight inside the room.
"Hmmmm…" the Reaper thought, putting her finger on her teeth and moving it up and down as she started to come to a realization. "I think so."
"We'll see," Manny replied, walking over to the machine and motioning Grim to follow. "As for now," he continued, picking up the controller furthest to the right as the TV turned on and the word START appeared on the screen in huge green letters, "let the games…end." A split screen came on with three cars on a racetrack/city street, each driver driving a different colored car than the others (the cars were red, yellow, and blue from left to right). Billie's and Manny's cars were speeding down a street, each trying to outpace the other, while Grim's was positioned near a set of staircases, struggling to navigate through all the obstacles placed in its path. "Here's your controller, Grim," Manny said authoritatively, handing Grim the one between him and Billie.
The Reaper reluctantly picked it up and inspected the controller in her hands, scanning all the buttons and sticks convoluting the machine. "I hate this stupid contraption," she grumbled, inspecting the controller in her hands. She had played a multitude of video games in the underworld ranging from first-person shooters and high-speed car racers to action platformers and plane-flying strategy simulators, and she'd grabbed controllers of all shapes and sizes, but she hadn't seen or heard of anything like this specific system, and she wasn't sure what all the various buttons and sticks convoluting the controller even did to people or games. "I can't even figure out how to hold this thing," she complained, tilting it left and right as if trying to find any errors.
But Billie and Manny continued playing, respectively cheerfully oblivious to and apathetically ignoring their skeletal "best friend's" technical troubles. "I wasn't ready," Grim said, hoping to get an answer out of either of them, but to avail. "No fair! Cheater!" she continued, furiously turning to Manny. "I thought we were all a team."
"Nope," Billie said, beckoning the Reaper to show her "best friend-ness" to them by joining in.
"Something's wrong with my controller," Grim rebuked, trying to keep her car from repeatedly crashing into the obstacles (both technical and physical) in the game.
"Mine's fine," Manny shot her down, stonily turning her eyes to the game.
"Mine, too," Billie agreed, speeding up toward Manny's car.
After several seconds of woefully failing to keep her car on course and making dozens upon dozens of wrong moves to do so, the Reaper had had it with the video game in front of her. She stood up, ready to unleash her fury upon the game, wishing she could physically jump in and ruin her two "best friends'" competitive fun. "This game is dumb," she said furiously, throwing her controller at the TV and then being whacked in the head by its rebound off the screen. "I'm not going to play."
"You don't have to play video games," Manny reassured her in his usual deadpan manner, a river of mischievous thoughts crossing his mind as he turned to face the skull staring at him from behind. "You could…do all my chores if you want."
"I don't," Grim said irritatedly, leaning toward her blond-haired "best friend." "I don't want to do all your chores."
"You don't?" Manny responded, still playing the game and getting a slight speed boost ahead of Billie's car.
"No, I don't!" the Reaper continued defiantly as she shook her fists at the two kids. "I don't want to do your stinking chores!"
"Good," Manny replied, catching an occasional glance at Grim as he continued his sentence. "'Cause since today's opposite day...that means you do want to do all my chores."
"No." Grim replied, still frustrated but with her energy nearly depleted in her brain. "I meant I don't."
"So you do," Manny answered, still refusing to take Grim's concerns to heart as he continued his endeavors on the track on TV.
"No, no, I…I don't. I…I…" Grim pleaded, waving her hands in an effort to get the kids to listen to her, but they still refused. She jumped up and down to add some desperate flair to her performance, throwing her scythe in the air at random objects to break their cheerful stubbornness, but their concentration's indestructible metal hull wouldn't bend or crack. Running out of options, the skeletal Reaper looked down at the floor, slumping her shoulders and holding the scythe with a halfhearted grip. "I give up," she said, walking out to get started on some chores.
Grim entered the kitchen a few minutes later, looking for something to do to satisfy her "best friends'" "opposite" request to "not do chores." She gazed upon the piles of dirty dishes and grimy linoleum, scanning every inch of dirt with her eye sockets, catching glimpses of sunlight in various dull nooks and crannies, and reluctantly formed a plan in her noncorporeal brain for how all this could be managed. She walked over to the sink, her sockets sunken, and turned her attention toward the yellow rubber gloves sitting on a stack of messy plates to the right of the sink. She put these gloves on carefully, painedly recounting all the "fun" she'd had with her "best friends" over the past days, and turned on the hot water to prepare the right side of the sink for the dishes it was soon to receive, a glimmer of reassurance flowing through her literal skull that this torment would possibly be over once the chores were all done.
Meanwhile; Billie and Manny were still playing video games in the living room; Manny having taken over Grim's car, gotten it back on the track, and dropped player 3 out of the game while the Reaper did their chores. They tore across paved and unpaved roads, grabbed upgrades to one-up the other player, narrowly avoided obstacles to gain additional points, and burned the rubber of their wheels faster than hot knives melting softened butter. Billie thought about what Grim had said about not wanting (or, in opposite day language, wanting) to do their chores, racking her brain for a way to properly respond, preparing to address this with Manny, and getting ready to have some real fun that she thought would make the skeletal being happy. "Do you think that was too mean?" Billie asked his friend, hoping he would loosen up on his torture of the Reaper.
"She said she didn't want to," the pink shirt-wearing boy responded, a stony gaze painted across his eyes as he sharpened his words at her. "You know what that means."
"You're right," Billie responded, turning her focus back to the race at hand on the screen.
While the two kids were still playing their video game, Grim was in the kitchen cleaning the dishes. She'd taken care of those in the sink, putting them away in all their proper spaces (some of which were hard to find), and she had started attacking the counter. She grabbed a dish with her left hand, scrubbing away every last bit of grime and food with the sponge in her right until it squeaked louder than a dog barking at a dangerous threat in the night, and put it in the dish drainer to experience the gentle warmth of the sun's rays dry the soap and tears from external sources. She began working on another dish, doing the same thing until the light shined brightly enough to blind even the most acute-eyed eagle from many miles away. When she picked up a third dish, she began working more slowly, grumbling about all the hard times that awaited her in the coming days, both supernatural and mundane, as she tried to take her mind off of all the trouble Billie and Manny were causing her with their "opposite day" schemes. "This bites!" she yelled, moving her sponge across the surface as if it were an eraser tearing through paper. "Those kids don't deserve a friend like me." She heard the distinct beeping of the video game in the other room, which briefly expanded her eye sockets to the size of inflated balloons to remind her of the torture she would continue facing every day until she was freed from their "best friendship" contract. "Every day I play with them until my eyes bleed." Her sockets began filling with nonphysical tears, overflowing to the point of breaking the dams of the river they contained.
However, Billie and Manny didn't seem to care, as they were too stuck in the wondrous video game world (or rather the opposite day/having twisted fun world) to acknowledge their skeletal "best friend's" comments. They continued trying to one-up each other with their cars, steering past obstacles, taking shortcuts, collecting more power-ups, and picking up gear parts to upgrade their cars to something even more powerful. However, Manny's eyes started darting around the place, scanning everywhere like a radar gone haywire, and drooping down on the floor, hoping for something more out of life than the purpose they were given. "OK, this is getting boring," he said to his friend, pausing the game. "Let's go torture the Grim Reaper."
Billie jumped up toward the screen, her nose sliding down the screen and squeaking as if it were a rag sliding down a window, and then landing down on the ground like a cat exercising its reflexes to recover from a fight. "OK," she said in agreement, cheerfully walking backwards as she followed Manny (who stonily walked forwards) out of the room.
Back in the kitchen, Grim had finished the stack of plates she was working on, and she'd rearranged the pots and pans in the cupboard back in their proper places (except the ones that were still dirty), but there was still a lot of work to be done. She flew around the kitchen and dining room, scanning for anything she might have missed, and swiftly picked up these things to gather on the counter to the right of the sink. She placed several plates in the sink, scrubbing them as vigorously as she had done the last group, and then distributed them in the dish drainer (drying and replacing the ones she'd already cleaned). She began working on another group as soon as that was done, oblivious to her two "best friends" sneaking up on her to put her through more of this opposite day torture, but she was ready to get them back the first chance she got.
"Grim, we're sorry we tricked you," Manny said with false sincerity in her eyes. Grim looked at them stonily, expecting them to laugh at her, but what she heard next surprised her and yanked the tops of her sockets upward. "You mean a lot to us…as a friend," he continued, bringing a confused smile to the Reaper's skull as she looked away from them. "You don't have to do my chores."
"I don't?" she asked them, happy to get away from their "best friendship" contract for once.
But Billie jumped up and laughed in her face, knowing their trap had worked. "It's opposite day," she said, shattering the Reaper's joy, "so you do have to do 'em."
"Shall we escort you to the lawn mower?" Manny followed up as Grim took off the gloves, dropping them on the sink and floor, and bowed resignedly to her two "best friends." "Very well," the blond boy replied to the skeleton's silent words, placing his hands on his hips, "this way." The three of them walked toward the shed, each in their usual manner, and got ready to have some more "fun" outside.
Grim found the lawn mower just outside the shed, waiting to be turned on and looking for some fresh grass to eat. It locked eyes with the Reaper, ready to take her on in an endurance contest, and motioned her over to grab its handle, beckoning her to turn it on.
After she'd successfully started the mower, Grim started walking across the lawn, ready to finish some more of her two "best friends'" chores so she could bring this torturous "opposite day" to an end. She walked in a straight line, clearing a path for the lawn to grow at its normal rate, and then went back to work on another path. She did this several times, intersecting the cobblestones each time, pressing on with her work until she started sweating (which was very enigmatic since she didn't have physical sweat glands) and got tired, stopping the lawn mower when the pressure became too much for her to handle.
The Reaper looked down at the controls and spied something strange she hadn't seen before (she had seen it on other lawn mowers, but not on this particular one). It was a tortoise walking ahead of a hare trying to catch up to it like in Aesop's fable, attempting to get to the prized grass-cutting device at the end of the race. She moved her literally bony fingers onto the switch, too desperate to follow the moral at the end of the said fable, and lit the flame inside the motor to resume its merciless carnage across the communities of Poaceae plants laying around in the yard surrounding them.
The mechanical beast roared loudly in its rampage, speedily running across the yard to catch any prey darting away from its metallic jaws. It zipped across the lines Grim had created, creating a new parallel every few seconds, and regurgitating a huge amount of flora that constantly passed through its digestive system as if it were water from a firehose. It began moving in the perpendicular directions as well, creating the bottom of an inverted lattice pie in the process to serve hundreds of people. The Reaper hung on for her life, trying to gain control of her bronco to no avail, and fearing for her skull and topmost vertebrae. Her eye sockets were burning with the flames of fatigue, trying to keep themselves intact as the frontal bone tried to strip itself away from the nasal bone, and creating a throbbing pain akin to a headache at the top of her noncorporeal brain. Before she could do something about it, however, she saw a huge tree up ahead, which literally triggered a tingling sensation in her bones. Knowing she was out of options, she panicked, screaming at the top of her nonphysical lungs, before she crashed into the huge plant like an out-of-control semi truck carrying several tons of explosives in its trailer.
After the lawn was finished, the mower was blown to smithereens, unable to endure another round around the yard. It burned up toward the sky, its smoke drifting upwards toward the clouds, and signaled Grim to emerge from the wreckage surrounding the felled tree. The Reaper did as she was beckoned; walking toward where her two "best friends" were lounging on chairs with lemonade; and looked around her for a way out of this painful opposite day with her cracked skull, torn robes, various bones twisted a little out of place, scythe with a deeply cracked snath, and band-aids in various places on her skeletal body. "The lawn's done," she said to them, ready to show them the proof they needed for her to be allowed out of this torturous "fun" they were having with her.
"Well, that's it for my chores," Manny replied in his usual snarky manner, looking at his dog Saliva (who was white with brown ears and some brown and gray spots sprinkled sporadically around her body, and who had come to join them on this beautiful—or was it "gloomy?"—opposite day) and then turning back to his baseball cap-wearing friend.
"Now what?" Billie asked in reply, a huge grin spreading across her face.
"Hmmm…" Manny said, thinking about ways to have some more fun with the Grim Reaper who had spent the last hour or so enduring all kinds of insanity from their minds. "Oh, Grim!" he called to this Reaper, who was crying and sweating in a spot several yards away from them.
"Yes..." the "big spooky skeleton" replied, her mind on high alert for any danger that might arise from her "best friends'" imaginations.
"My little dog Saliva's feeling oh so sad and lonely," Manny replied with a wave of sadness overcoming her voice, pointing at the panting dog begging on the left side of his chair. "Could you cheer her up?"
"Cheer her up yourself!" the Reaper yelled back, turning away to tend to some pressing mental matters in her damaged skull.
"Oh, Grim!" Manny pleaded before she had a chance to assess the damage, pointing again at his dog whose interest had been piqued at his owner's words. "Won't you please cheer her up one little kiss ought to do it. You know, you want to."
"Ugh!" Grim yelled back, having had absolutely enough of her two "best friends" dragging her around in the mud that she still felt on her insubstantial skin. "I am NOT going to kiss your stinky, smelly, drooling mutt!" she screamed in protest, waving her arms around and tightening her grip on her scythe to really illustrate her point.
"You aren't?" Manny burst out quietly, surprised by the Reaper's reluctance to do as he bade her. "'Cause that means you are," she followed up, her surprise quickly replaced by apathy as he motioned Grim over to where they were sitting.
"He's right," Billie added as Grim jumped back in shock, also ready to play along with Manny's insults. "You said it. Now you gotta do it."
Grim furiously stood at them in response, imagining how she could get rid of them as quickly as possible. She fantasized them standing nonchalantly in front of her, internally excited to get her to play with them as they dodged her scythe. They ran away, motioning her to come along with them, but she was too wrapped up in her own game to follow along. She continued swinging her scythe, trying to cut their heads off to use in her own kickball game, and laughed evilly while she did so, excited about the high score she would receive at the end of her fun.
This joy was short-lived, however, as she returned to the real world, resigned to the duties the pink T-shirt-wearing boy had assigned her to do. The incident had charged her up slightly, regardless, as she perked her head up a little in hopes that this opposite day would soon end as soon as she did what she was told. "I'll do it," she replied, walking up toward the drooling dog with shiny white teeth flashing for her presence.
The Reaper looked at the excited canine in front of her, picturing what the saliva would look like once it found its way onto her bones. She examined the latter's tongue, looking at all of its taste buds for any that could potentially break down her bones, or worse, trigger a reaction that could lead to the dog's death and burden the Reaper with one more soul to take to the underworld (just like she'd failed to do with Ms. Snuggles') to make her day harder. She had a lot of experience with dogs—taking their souls, interacting with them in both the mortal and spirit realms, seeing them on all her travels, and even playing Go Fish with a few on occasion—but she hadn't been commanded to give one a kiss since the French Revolution when a soldier told her to give her starving dog a kiss in addition to her treat. Billie noticed the skeleton's hesitation, ready to give her "the time of [her] life" (or not, in opposite day terms), and motioned her toward the dog's waiting mouth. "Go on," she said excitedly, hoping Grim would respond, "do it."
Grim reluctantly did as she was told, leaning down toward the dog and staring at the flies buzzing around her jaws. She formed her lips into a painful kiss formation, preparing to kiss her in the loving fashion the two kids desired, but before she could do that, the dog stuck her tongue out and dragged it up the Reaper's soul, pulling the thin topmost film of its periosteum upward as if she were being waxed without preparation. The skeleton stared stonily at the dog as this happened, finding it hard to keep a straight face, as the saliva found its way into her eye sockets (and a little bit into her auditory meatuses) and Billie cheered them on. When that was done, the Reaper was frustrated at Saliva's treatment of her bones, ready to stamp her out of her mind. "I am so humiliated," she said, standing back up with a splatter of saliva dripping from her face onto the ground, hoping nothing like this would happen again today.
However, the kids had something else in store for their "best friend," and they weren't ready to give up their "fun" just yet. "All this fun is making me hungry," Manny said, looking up at Grim's dripping skull for one more request to finish their opposite day. "Let's eat."
The three companions arrived in the kitchen moments later, ready to fill their bellies with some actual food (both literal and for thought) from the exhilarating (or, in Grim's case, exasperating) opposite day that had occurred over the last few hours. They sat at the dining room table, talking about their plans for the coming days (Billie and Manny laughing multiple times at Grim's sincere comments to make it seem like she meant the opposite), looking at all the interesting things happening outside their windows, and occasionally laughing with each other about the aspects of their "best friendship" they found absurd. They decided to celebrate this everlasting "best friendship" (and also, in Grim's case, the insanity seemingly starting to peter out a little) with some turkey sandwiches (which had lettuce and mayonnaise also spread between the bread as well), the exact type of bread being decided by a combination of everyone's votes, and to have any ketchup on hand that people wanted. Grim conjured this food with her scythe, dropping these three sandwiches on everyone's plates and the ketchup bottle at the corner bordering both her and Billie's places, and also filling three glasses with water from the metal blade (which was magically sanitized to avoid any illnesses and save her the burden of taking any more souls to the underworld).
"Hey, Grim," Billie said, grabbing the ketchup bottle as the Reaper took a huge bite out of her sandwich. "Want some ketchup?"
"No," the Reaper replied, hoping to disarm her "best friend's" desire for more "opposite day" fun.
"OK!" Billie replied, sending a huge squirt of ketchup Grim's plate's way.
"Stop!" Grim shouted, anxious to avoid having to clean up another mess of plates and condiments.
"OK!" Billie replied, lobbing another huge squirt on top of the dish.
"No more!" Grim yelled in desperation.
"OK, OK!" Billie said in response, shaking the red condiment bottle a few more times and expelling about half the remaining contents onto the tainted plate, giggling in her mind all the while.
"Isn't opposite day awful?" Manny commented, smirking at Grim's misfortune hiding within her eye sockets.
"Oh, it's dreadful," Billie replied, placing the ketchup bottle back in its original spot "What do you think, Grim?" she followed up, also turning to see the spark of distress in the Reaper's eye sockets. "Isn't it dreadful?"
Grim just sobbed at this comment while Billie blissfully took a bite out of her sandwich, banging her elbows on the table to punctuate her point. "I hate you so much!" she wailed, briefly staring up at the ceiling and looking in front of her. "I'm so miserable!" She lightly banged her mandible on the wood, turning her eye sockets upward at the light fixtures above them.
"That's good," Billie replied, still not convinced of Grim's desires, "'cause misery goes so great with PIE!" She pulled a pie out from under the table, showing it to the skeleton and motioning her to cut it for her and Manny.
"That's it." Grim fumed, raising her fists above the table in an effort to add a lot more bite to her bark so she could get her message through to the two kids. "I've HAD IT!" she screamed, raising her scythe in the air to cut their heads off. Billie swished some of her saliva in her mouth; expecting to finally say goodbye to her brain, face, nose, hat, and what she considered good looks; but what she saw next surprised both her and Manny.
A huge smile stretched itself across Grim's skull, pushing her maxilla and mandible to their limits (and a little beyond), and tempted its owner with the delicious taste of whatever Billie had silently said was contained within there. The Reaper's mind was primed to obtain that taste at any cost, even if it meant making some heads roll on the floor, her taste buds overflowing with nonmatter saliva surrounding her rotten green tongue. She made two powerful swings, slicing the pie into half and then each half into half as well, punctuating her intention with a loud maniacal laugh before swiveling the noncorporeal eyes in her sockets downward at the result.
"Hey," said Manny, a dash of sincerity flowing through his voice and his usual stony face, "thank you slicing the pie, Grim."
"Yeah!" Billie added, eager to try the delicious filling inside the crust. "We REALLY deserve a nice treat about NOW!"
"Um!" Grim replied, leaning toward her two "best friends" and pointing a finger at them, ready to turn their tactics on them and make her day all the more enjoyable. "You said you deserve pie. That means you don't deserve pie." She took the pie for herself, intending to get to that tasty filling at any cost. "No pie for you!" she teased, doing a little dance with her hands before blowing a raspberry at the two kids.
"Hold on," Manny replied, holding his hands out to demonstrate a new tool in his arsenal. "Remember when I said it was opposite day?"
Grim's smug expression turned to one of confusion as she put her right index phalange just above the bottom of her mandible.
"That meant it wasn't opposite day," Billie replied, smiling again as she took the pie for herself and Manny. "So you did all those chores for nothing."
Grim just sat there, dumbfounded at her two "best friends'" words as Billie giggled and the latter and Manny each took a pie slice. She watched them dig into their dessert, one sweet bite after another, pondering over the "fun" they all had that day. She took out a wooden mallet and began pounding it on her skull with her left hand, moving her right index finger up and down where her lips would be if she had skin, and dancing around like a maniac trying to find their way out of the cubic prison they'd been thrown into in their mind. She hadn't really enjoyed the opposite day the way her "best friends" had with their torture and all, but at least she was having a little actual fun with her silly antics, and that fun was an important thing that mattered—maybe opposite day wasn't so bad after all, and maybe she was starting to like her "best friends'" antics a little. But would that hold up? Only time would tell.
The next chapter, "Emotional Skarr" (the next Evil Con Carne one) will be up within the next 4-8 weeks (for real this time), so be on the lookout for when it comes! This will be the last time I procrastinate on this series (I promise)!