So, like, I guess I've become paranoid.
I've been avoiding Herb as much as I can, since every time I see him he's leering and wearing gloves. Whenever I see Xema her eyes narrow and her nostrils dilate and her teeth grind. The teachers seem like their in a better mood, but I can't shake the feeling that they are plotting behind my...whatever.
Today it seemed like things kicked into high gear when I was slithering from one class to another and a grand piano crashed into the quad a few feet from where I was. I know I'm a student and therefore supposed to be stupid but even I know that if you try to drop a piano on somebody, you don't attach a card to it saying "Hey! I just tried to kill you!"
Besides, Xema wouldn't drop a piano on somebody, she'd just scream and attack with her sword.
Cuz she, like, did that before.
Anyways, later on the remaining students were unusually quiet around me. Then Xema comes stomping up and asks me to explain a picture. A frikkin picture for crying out loud! I mean this is a new low for her.
So I take a look at it and there's this pic of me and Herb doing something that's highly unlikely from a health and anatomical standpoint. I look at her like "duh!" and her face is turning red, her nostrils are dilating and I can tell she's upset.
Then it dawns on me that she might not know about the "facts of life" or whatever you manners or mammers or whatever call them. So I settle in to explain things.
"You see, sometimes there's a male bee and a female bee and they like each other a lot and..."
"You're trying to steal my man!"
"Don't be, like, stupid. I'd never try to take Herb from you."
"Then how do you explain this picture? I've even seen the preliminary drawings!"
"What, do you think we posed for it or something?"
That seemed to give her pause, but she came back with her ultimatum. I guess she had been practicing it and didn't want some detail like the facts getting in the way.
"Alright, that's it! Tonight at midnight, we duel! NO MORE LIES!"
And she stomped off.
So I figure that someone is trying to set me up. Or her up. Or us up. Or just up in general.
I looked around at the kids who had been just hanging out.
"Any of you guys know what's going on?"
Some twerp with the tattoo of lightning bolt on his forehead raised his hand. I nodded at him. Or I would have, if I had a head.
"I think Xema wants to kill you."
"You know, maybe Heartworms has the right idea."
I oozed off to my room to get ready for the duel.
Later that night, I was in this weird area that Xema wanted to duel. It was this rocky path behind the main campus with, like, this sheer drop-off on one side. The trail wound its way down to a valley.
I stood on the end of the path that was more towards the valley while Xema, as I should have known, stood on the part that was higher up.
"It's not too late to talk this out."
"Dieeeee!"
Xema came at me swinging. I wondered whether I should just stand there and take the sword hit, seeing as it wouldn't do squat. Instead, I oozed out of the way at the last moment, and she slipped on the slime trail.
"Argh!"
"Oooh now, this is a disappointment like."
The last bit of dialog had been uttered by none other than Herbert who had just come out from behind a rock. Xema brightened a bit.
"At last! You have come to save me in the nick of time and swear true luuuuuv to me!"
Herbert held up a scrap of paper.
"Actually now, I got this note from Yog"
"Aaaah! I will kill you both!"
"That says we were gonna ave us a bit of fun in the moonlight-like."
I noticed the gloves he wore. For the first time that night I was really afraid.
"But I didn't write you any note."
A blast of flame came between us. I scurried back a bit.
"HA! I have discovered your weakness!"
Xema's thumb was smoking a bit. Unfortunately, it looked like she had been practicing her fire spells.
"Well, are you going to help me defeat Xema then?"
"Nah, given the situation, ah thought ah'd see who wins and then root for er."
Herb may be a total twit, but he's not stupid.
Xema tried to blast me again but I like, jumped away, turning into a ball instead of my usual, spread out self. I hate doing this because it totally looks like I'm a snot-ball, but drastic measures for drastic times.
"Ere now! You look like a snot-ball!"
He should talk, I mean with like, a finger totally up his nose.
I signed, resigning myself to the fact that I was going to have to take Xema out. I won't go all emo, but I don't normally like to do that sort of thing. What's worse, I'd still have to deal with Herb. Maybe I could claim that he got in the field of fire, ya know?
I landed and Xema totally gasped. For a second I thought she was, like, showing proper acknowledgment to my gymnastic skills, but she pointed too, so I guess she saw something else. Since that's like, the oldest trick in the book, I created a quick eye-stalk to check it out while still checking her out, course I don't mean it that way, I mean I guess she's OK for a hu-nan or hemon or whatever you guys call yourselves, but now I've lost my train of thought.
Oh yeah! Xema was trying to kill me! Anyhow, I see like this big, nasty dragon with my other eye-stalk so I figure this one is probably not one of Xema's. I was closest to it and it was doing one of those deep breathing kind of things, so I figured I should get moving. I jumped again and still got a little singed by the flames from the nasty reptile. Well not singed so much as a bit of the slime evaporated, cuz there's like, nothing to really burn on me unless...well that's another story.
I landed near Xema and Herb who was like, clutching Xema with that look of terror that I had come to know and like...know?
"I guess the teachers wanted extra insurance in case we didn't kill each other..."
Xema and Herb looked at me.
"Why would they want any of us dead?"
"Well, I guess there's a real shortage of graduation gowns or something."
The dragon was getting ready to do the flame thing again and the situation was not looking good. The dragon, however, looked pretty happy and was even like, wagging his tail. That gave me an idea and I started doing the mumbo-jumbo thing.
"I hope that's a fire shield!"
Xema yelled as the spell reached its climax. With a hollow "poof" a giant bone appeared before the dragon and started swaying in the air. The dragon immediately lost interest in us and started flapping around, trying to snap up the bone.
"Ere now! He looks loik a big dawg the way ee's playing around."
I looked smug, though I guess you hurm-ans aren't good at reading body-language, when it applies to a slime.
"I figured they had to have given him some training in order to keep him in line."
To the dragon I yelled "Fetch!"
And then I threw the bone off into the distance. The dragon, tail wagging furiously, flew after the thing.
"You saved me!"
"Ere now, she saved me!"
I was now ground zero for the attentions of both Xema and Herb. Unfortunately, both wore gloves so they were able to pick up a bit of me in what I guess is an er...affectionate manner.
"Actually I was trying to save me."
"My-noir point."
"Yeah, you obviously luuuuv me!"
"She luuuuvs me more!"
Now both Xema and Herb were tugging on the bits of slime that they both held. I guess this was better than having Xema try to kill me, but not by much.
"Hey guys, leggo! Don't muss the slime!"
But the two of them kept, like, shouting about how I loved one or the other of them more and stuff. As they shouted at each other they pulled harder until finally I split in two.
"What's all this then?"
Herb held half of me. I was feeling really disoriented what with the whole being in two places at once thing.
"Huh?"
The bit that Xema held was staring at her. I tell you, having two eye-stalks and you'd think that the view from one of them would be OK, but instead I get Xema in one and Herb in the other. Maybe I should switch to echo-location and ditch the eye-stalks entirely.
Xema and Herb looked at each other, then stared at the slimelings they each held.
"Works for me."
"Ah theeenk is fine too."
So that's how I started in with the whole "open relationship" sort of situation. I've that these things don't always work out with you who-nurns, but most of the time there's only one person to share. So I figure there's a better than even chance it'll work out.
As it turned out, I had tossed the bone towards one of the dorms and the dragon was rather upset about the illusion disappearing. Hence the student population was decreased by rather a lot, so the teachers were mollified even if the three of us were in the graduating class.
If this is any indication of what things are like at Heartworms, I can't wait for next year.
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