Super Well-Thought-Out Kidnapping Attempt! 💖

“That,” Snowcube continued, her voice cracking and her previously shy smile creeping outward till it was practically as wide as her whole face, “was when I knew I had to take matters into my own hands. At this point, my feelings were merely vicarious. I knew that if I didn’t act soon, they would probably stay that way forever. I hadn’t had even one chance to go to school like Snowball had, and I hadn’t even met you at all. All I had seen was the memories of you. Your greatest hits. I was so in l-l-l-l-l-l… you know, but I had no way of meeting you for myself.”

Huh, I thought to myself. Maybe Snowcube wasn’t so bad after all. If someone could basically watch a clip reel of my most epic fails — that was what I imagining this memory-viewing thing was essentially like — and come out the other end of it not wanting to chuck their lunch at the mere sight of me, well, hey, that was a pretty decent person in my book.

“That was when I came up with my plan to take revenge on Snowball and get her out of the picture for good! That’s right! My ingenious kidnapping plot! Hahaha! Hahahahaha! Hahaha! Hahahahaha!”

Never mind. I took it back. The only “decent” Snowcube was was “decently nuts,” just, coincidentally enough, like everyone else I had ever known in my entire life.

In any case, I already had my suspicions, but this just confirmed it: Snowcube was the writer of the kidnapper’s entries in the Super Secret Love Diary 💖. The ones written in that sharp, jagged hand. Her laugh was the same laugh written in the pages of the notebook. And it also had the exact same cadence, I realized now that I was hearing it out loud, as the laugh of that one evil genius. Y’know, the guy with the bowl cut. The rival of that world-famous scientist with a secret lab hidden in his bedroom. What was his name again? Eh, whatever. You know who I mean.

“Hahaha! Hahahahaha! Hahaha! Hahahahaha! So it was then that I began enacting my ingenious plot!” There was no use trying to stop her now. She was on a roll. In full-on villain monologue mode, basically. “It was also where things started to go horribly wrong, funnily enough.”

Funnily enough? Christ, Snowcube. She said it like she had nothing to do with any of this. Like she was an innocent bystander instead of the instigator of this strange odyssey in the first place. And that was really, really annoying. Ugh. I felt like I had been speedrunning the five stages of grief on loop for the past couple of hours, and she was the reason why.

“I decided,” she continued maniacally, “to write down the directions to the hideout I would use in my plan in the pages of my diary, where I knew nobody else would see it. Like those of any good plan, this one’s steps were simple, yet at the same time so brilliant and inspired that only a true super genius such as myself could have thought of them. Curious as to what they are, aren’t you? I bet you’re all dying for me to lay them out for you one by o—”

“Eh. Not really.” Fence was casually picking little balls of wax out of his ear and flicking them into — and, thanks to his poor aim, around — one of the sinks. “Couldn’t care less personally.”

“Seconded,” I added.

“I already know them.” Snowball shrugged.

If Snowcube was listening to a word we were saying, or even aware of our presence at all at this point, she sure wasn’t acting like it. She kept on monologuing. “Step one: hide in the girls’ bathroom after school! Step two: mysteriously and anonymously call Snowball to said bathroom! Step three: super slap her silly! Step four: swipe her glasses off her stupid, knocked-out face so that when she wakes up, she can’t see more than half a centimeter in front of her. Step five: hide her in the abandoned bathroom in the woods! That way, once she finally comes to, she’ll be completely lost, blinded, and unable to make her way back home to intrude on my time with my love, which I’ll be enjoying peacefully as she goes into standby. Step six: once I’ve had my fill of the life she and her selfish behavior deprived me of, go and pick her up in the bathroom, confirming that she learned her lesson and that she’s back on the path to becoming a moral, respectable robot with good values and a strong sense of right and wrong.”

Huh. For how evil this whole plan sounded in the beginning, it got strangely wholesome and diplomatic there at the end.

“Oh… oh…!” Snowball had big, goofy-looking teardrops dribbling down her face as a pendulum of green snot swung from her nose. “Oh, Mommy! I knew you cared about me!”

Snowball stomped her foot and swung her arms like a kid throwing a temper tantrum. “For the last time, I am not your mother!

“Ahem. Unfortunately,” Snowcube continued, her shoulders drooping, “it would appear that I may have maybe possibly perhaps overlooked the rather easily forgettable fact that Snowball and I share both a diary and a room. Meaning, of course, that she ended up seeing the directions to the hideout — this bathroom — in our diary, as well as the big sheet of paper I wrote down all the steps to my plan on and left on our desk.”

“So basically you forgot is what you’re saying.” I shook my head and shrugged. “And how is it easily forgettable that you two share a journal and a room? Some super genius you are.”

“I-I-I did not forget! I just, uh, neglected to remember! Plus, this is all Snowball’s fault for being smart enough to read, write, and get in the way of my mission and my l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l… err, you know. Get in my way to begin with. Curse my hubris for building a robot duplicate of myself with all my genius intact.”

“How rude!” Snowball said. “Are you saying you shouldn’t have made me a genius?”

“Anyway” — I was trying to get this conversation back on track before we could tailspin into another tangent — “this diary you’re talking about is the Super Secret Love Diary 💖, right?”

“Yes,” Snowcube confirmed. “That’s the one. That’s the diary Snowball and I share.”

“You’re not saying it right.”

“What?”

Seriously? I couldn’t help but think. I had to be the one to tell her this? About her own diary? Showed how much she knew. Her own diary and she didn't even know how to say its name properly.

Well, I’d just have to do her the good deed of informing her. I’d do it out of the kindness of my heart, and with no expectation of recompense. I definitely wasn’t telling her so that I could one-up her and lord it over her. That’s crazy talk. Why would you even suggest that?

“You have to say the full name every time. And the heart too. Super Secret Love Diary 💖 ← just like that.”

“Huh? No you don’t. That’s stupid. Who told you that?”

Wait. What?! Oh come on! Seriously? I was going to have some choice words with Principal Pid once we got back. Namely whether he really thought making his own students say a name as embarrassing as that one over and over again was worth a few cheap laughs. Sheesh. On top of everything else that had happened today, I just had to have been led — hook, line, the works — into believing I had to indulge Snowball’s godawful naming sense, emoji and all? I mean really?!?!

…

On second thought, maybe I wouldn’t even bring it up. Considering the stupid livestream stunt he pulled earlier, I was pretty sure Principal Pid’s answer to whether or not embarrassing his students for no reason was worth it would be a big, fat, unhesitating “yes.”

… Man, why me?!

To be continued!