Super Meanie! 💖

“So Snowball was a robot all along. Who would’ve thunk? Certainly not me. I never would’ve guessed. Not in a million years. Not even if I had unlimited guesses.”

“Actually, dude, I’ve known for a while now,” Fence said nonchalantly, complete with a damn shrug, like it was no big deal.

“What?! How?”

“I accidentally walked in on her changing her oil one time and— OWWWWEEEEEE!”

Before any more of what was obviously going to be an extremely sordid story could get out, Snowball elbowed Fence in the ribcage. Hard, from the sound of his shriek.

“I told you never to tell anyone about that. Ever! Ugh, how embarrassing!” She buried her face in her hands.

“Ok, whatever. Moving past that,” I said, eager to skip all the BS and just get to the bottom of this. “You knew Snowball was a robot all along and never thought it would be a good idea to, you know, tell me? What gives, man!”

Fence just shrugged again. “You never asked.”

“Oh, for the love of…” Sigh. “Ok, anyway. What about you?” I eyed not-Snowball. The girl who was, apparently, the inventor of the Snowball I’d known this whole time. She glared at me back, suspiciously. “Where does this second Snowball — err, original Snowball, whatever — where do you come into this?”

“I’m not Snowball. She’s Snowball.”

“I thought you were both Snowball.”

Her brow furrowed, lips below pursed in a dissatisfied frown. “Don’t make me super slap you.”

“Ok, fine, sorry. Geez. Who are you then?”

“I’m Snowcube.”

“The inventor of Snowball?”

“Yes.”

Then Snowball chimed in. “I’ll tell you who she is, Comb!” She latched on to my arm. “She’s a super meanie, that’s who she is! At home she always gets mad at me for nothing, when all I’m doing is trying to get along!”

“You call practically replacing me ‘trying to get along?’” Snowcube lanced an accusatory finger at Snowball. “And don’t start that pathetic woe-is-me routine while clinging on to him! What are you, two?”

“Six and a half months, thank you very much. And I’m mature for my age.” Half hidden behind me now, Snowball poked her head around my shoulder for seemingly the sole and express purpose of sticking her tongue out at Snowcube. So much for maturity. “Hmph. My own mother forgetting how old I am. What did I ever do to deserve this?”

“How many times do I have to tell you? I am not your mother! Arrrghg, so annoying!” Snowcube rubbed at her temples. “As for what you did, you took my place. And you know it, so stop trying to play innocent!”

“What’s all this about replacing you?” I asked Snowcube. She had already made reference to that twice now. If I had to guess, I’d say that was the heart of this matter, alive and beating. None of this would be put to rest till we metaphorically ripped it out Mortal Kombat-style, impaled it with a stake, and then beat it to a bloody pulp with a hammer.

… Ok, gross image. But you get what I mean.

“Is anyone else confused? Cause I sure am,” I added.

“Not really any more than I usually am, admittedly,” Fence said.

“Let me clarify: is anyone in possession of at least average intelligence confused?” I raised my hand. “One? Good enough. What exactly is going on here? I want the full story, from the beginning.”

I pulled my arm out from Snowball’s grasp and gave her a look. She just nodded, and I guessed that meant she was willing to cooperate. Snowcube, in turn, nodded reluctantly too.

Then she began telling the story.

The story of how we all wound up here.

“It all started,” Snowcube began, “when I was bestowed with the honorable and glorious task of going to school.”

Snowball immediately interrupted. “Big talk coming from a clone! Bbbpgptpthtt!” She blew a raspberry at her.

“Why you! I should’ve never built you with a tongue! Or a brain for that matter! Bbpbbpptthth!” Snowcube blew one back.

“Wait, hang on.” I didn’t just interject because I could tell they would keep trying to out-raspberry each other till the end of time if left to their own devices. It was also cause I somehow even more confused than I was two seconds ago. “Snowcube, you’re a clone?”

“That’s right.” She nodded.

So that was what we were dealing with here. A clone who built a robot in her image, who then cloned herself to produce the original robot-building clone in question. Interesting. It was all becoming increasingly clear.

Clear as a goddam Myst puzzle, that is. I was already lost, and we had barely even started. How did any of this make any sense at all?

I was beginning to realize that maybe, like most individual elements of my life, it didn’t.

“Hard to believe that you’re the flesh-and-blood clone” — I nodded to Snowcube, remembering how her hands, like her personality and overall demeanor, were as cold as ice — “and Snowball’s the robot.”

Snowball snapped to attention, which she apparently hadn’t been paying for the past minute or so. She was over at one of the sinks playing with a plastic soap dispenser, a million ideas about how she could factor its form, function, and (frankly ironic) filthiness into one of her off-the-wall experiments likely bouncing around inside her head like a super ball in a room made entirely of rubber. “Huh? Did you say something?”

Would it have killed Snowcube to program Snowball with a little more brains? Maybe then things wouldn’t have gone so haywire.

Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part. Yeah, probably just wishful thinking. Cause unfortunately for me, things had a tendency to go pretty haywire regardless.

To be continued!