Were teeth bones? If so, ‘Captain Bone Crusher’ had done its job well. I thought the cereal had fossilized or something, but according to Violetta, it was supposed to be like that. 0/5. Would not eat again.

What I would eat again were these ballpark concession stand hot dogs. They were delicious, and spider belly free. Well, they probably were. I didn’t actually ask.

“Come on! Get ‘em Janitors!” Violetta shouted. Apparently, she really liked sports. Just like when she performed, she took on an intensity that made her almost seem like a different person.

She was out of her leather and into a t-shirt with the team logo plastered on it, a horned man mopping up what looked to be a pile of vomit. I guess you could say they… clean up the competition.

I decided to keep that one to myself.

“Get into it, Ryley!” Violetta almost looked furious, clenching her teeth. “We’re not going to lose to the Store Clerks, you hear?”

“Yeah…” I narrowed my eyes. Store clerks. I guess you could say they… rang up the competition.

Anyway.

“Violetta,” I continued. “When I heard you say ‘World Series’, I kind of pictured… something else.”

“Something else?”

“Well… I just didn’t think you meant the ‘World Series of Bocce Ball’…”

That’s right, bocce ball. The backyard game enjoyed by middleclass old men everywhere. Except this was a professional game, and the stadium was pretty packed. Yep, demon bocce ball was a thing.

“What a throw by McGee!” the announcer’s voice echoed over the speaker system. “He’s managed to hit the jack close enough to his teammate’s balls. It’s going to take a miracle for the Store Clerks to come back this round. This might be it, the Janitors could end it right here!”

“McGee! Great throw, bro!” The voice of my favorite eye covered slime ball caught my ear. I turned around in my seat. Brad was sitting a few rows up with three other blobs, all different shades of blue.

“Mr. Brad!” Violetta waved. “I didn’t know you were a fan.”

“Oh yeah, totally man.” Either Brad was the type of blob that called everyone ‘man’, or words like ‘bro’ and ‘dude’ had been so ingrained into his language that they had lost all meaning. Was I thinking too much into this? No. No I wasn’t.

“Dude! You know Violetta?” one of the other blobs gasped. I couldn’t tell which. No mouths and all that.

“You never even told us, bro!”

“Bro!”

“Oh, hey Ryley.” Brad waved a tentacle. “These are my friends Bret, Chad, and Chet.” Brad, Bret, Chad, and Chet. Of course.

I did a head nod in the other blobs direction. I wasn’t going to talk to them. Brad, I liked. More Brads? Not so much.

“I bet you’re here to see McGee, huh?” Violetta said before I could lose any more brain cells. “He’s doing amazing today!”

“For sure,” Brad responded. “Prowteg isn’t playing today, so it’s even better. McGee can really shine.”

“Which one’s McGee, exactly?” I asked.

“Right over there, silly.” Violetta put her hand on my shoulder and pointed. “The one with the long blonde hair.”

I squinted my eyes. The field was covered with rock formations, grass, and it even had a pond. Near the center, there was a horned man with a bocce ball in his hand, getting ready to make a throw. Near him, I finally spotted the long blonde hair Violetta was talking about.

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“That’s literally just Brad with a wig on,” I said. Oops. Brad was sitting right behind me.

Brad looked at me in disbelief. “Dude…”

“Oh, uh, that’s not what I meant.” I scrambled to correct myself. “I meant that he’s a blob…”

“Grand Slime,” Violetta whispered.

“Right. He’s a grand slime… with a wig on.”

“Bro, that is not a wig,” one of Brad’s friend said.

“It’s all natural, bruh.”

“Bruh, dude.”

Clearly, the words had lost all meaning. A sad day for the bros and dudes of the world.

“You think… I look like McGee?” Brad asked.

I felt a bead of sweat fall down my face. “Come on, that’s not exactly…”

“Do I?”

“I mean… kind of?” Of god. Now I had done it.

All of Brad’s eyes went wide, and his body undulated. “Thanks, bro!” he said. “McGee is totally awesome.” He tentacle fist bumped with all of his friends.

Okay. That… didn’t go where I thought it was going.

“So… grand slimes can grow hair?” I asked, looking back over at the field. How did that even make sense? Wouldn’t it constantly be getting in his eyes? His body was mostly eyes, after all.

“Grand Slimes can do a lot of things,” Violetta said. “There are even stories that say that if they live long enough, they’ll turn into Grand Dragons! I’ve never seen it happen though…”

Before I could say anything, I heard the crowd gasp and the announcer yelling. “What a play by the Store Clerks! With that last throw, they’re kissing the ball! How will the Janitors respond?”

“Oh no!” Violetta cried.

I tapped her on the shoulder. “Uhh… what was that about dragons?”

“Hmm? Dragons?” She repeated much louder than I had wanted her to.

“Don’t underestimate us, bro,” Brad said. “We all used to be regular Slimes when we were kids, you know. It’s evolution and stuff.”

I could understand a blob turning into a different blob, but they could turn into dragons? Were they blob dragons? And while I was on the topic, what was the difference between a slime and a ‘grand’ slime anyway? If it was just a size difference, wasn’t that just called ‘growing up’? Did I evolve from little Ryley to big Ryley?

The announcer started up again. “This is it! If McGee can make this last shot, then the Janitors win the World Series. If not, the Store Clerks will force game seven!”

The stadium went almost silent as McGee slurped his way across the field, his blonde locks flowing behind him. A tentacle formed out of his body, picking up one of the bocce balls.

Wait a minute. If Brad was any indication of how grand slime’s bodies worked, then didn’t his tentacles give him an insanely unfair advantage?

“Hey…” I turned to Violetta. “Can’t he just stretch his tentacle to where he wants to drop the ball?”

Violetta kept her eyes on the field. “Quiet, Ryley!”

The audience exploded into a shower of groans. “No, so close, bro!” Brad shouted.

“And there it is! The Store Clerks have managed to hold on to the dream by forcing game seven tomorrow!”

“I can’t believe it…”All Violetta’s energy poured out of her like air out of a balloon.

I looked back to the game. The other team’s players were going nuts, jumping around on the field. Serious bocce ball stuff, I guess.

“I’m gonna get another hot dog,” I said. I got up from my seat and turned toward the concession stand. It looked like the demon behind the counter was yelling too. Was this really that big of a deal?

Then I saw the green coat take off.

“Fucking barbeque thief!” I yelled, taking off up the stairs between the isles. The figure in green glanced back at me, and then started sprinting, hot dog filled sack in tow.

Damn, he was fast. It didn’t help that he was so short either. He kept weaving behind people. I was going to lose him… again.

Suddenly, a tentacle slammed into the thief, wrapping itself around his waist and binding his arms. “Nice going, Brad!” I yelled. Everyone in the stadium was staring now. It was only then that I noticed that the tentacle was coming all the way from the field. It was the blonde blob.

“Let me go!” the thief’s voice was high pitched. He squirmed around, but I knew firsthand how difficult it was to escape tentacles. Ugh.

I walked up to the thief. He had short green hair and horns. His face was covered with a green masquerade mask, but I could see the anger in his eyes all the same. “Thought you could steal in front of me and get away with it, huh?” I hadn’t actually done anything to stop him.

“Get your freakin’ hands offa me!” he cried.

I pulled his mask off to reveal freckles and squiggly eyebrows. He looked like he couldn’t be older than 12. Before he could yell at me again, the tentacles tightened around him. Oh god, I had sympathy pains.

“Ryley!” Violetta came up behind me. “You caught him. Wait, the dine-and-dasher is a kid?”

Once again, I hadn’t done anything, but I wasn’t going to stop her from saying I had.

“Dude!” It was Brad this time. “I can’t believe I get to see McGee’s tentacles so close. This is a religious experience for me, bro.”

“Uh, cool for you, I guess,” I said. “Shouldn’t you call the king or something? This is a crime, after all.”

“Oh, yeah, I totally should, shouldn’t I?” Brad turned to slink away.

“And make sure he knows we can’t have the trial tonight, okay?” I called after him.

“I’ll let him know, bro.”

Good. At least this wouldn’t be as ridiculous as last time.