Into the World of Twisted Wonderland

Prologue Chapter 10

After acquiring cleaning supplies from one of the janitorial closets on campus, Grim and Angel started off their workday. The first thing that had to be cleaned was obviously the statue of the Queen of Hearts, which didn't take longer than expected to clean, thanks to the cleaner Angel found to be really effective in removing the chars off the statue. Then, the two went on to clean the rooms that Crowley said to clean. First, after encountering the schools janitorial staff, which was magic, sentient brooms much to Angel and Grim's surprise, the two of them decided to start sweeping up the main street, with Angel sweeping up the main walkway and Grim going around picking trash he found in the grass. Angel heard Grim mumbling something about students being lazy to put trash in the trash can, but since he was doing his job and not lazing around himself, Angel allowed him to have his frustrations out. After cleaning the walkway, the two went inside and cleaned the main corridor, which was bigger than Angel had expected. The two of them looked at each other in surprise then dejectedly started cleaning, knowing that the corridor alone will take a few hours to clean. With the brooms' help, Angel help swept the floors and wiped the windows, whereas Grim was about to go into tight corners and clean off some cobwebs here and there, and the brooms finishing by mopping the floor. Once the duo was finished with the main corridor, it was almost lunch time, with Angel thinking that it would be best to head to the cafeteria and eat before the other students come for lunch. They went to the cafeteria and ate lunch quickly and left right when the students came in, before Grim decided to yell at the students about their manners of littering and making their job worse than it is now. After repeating the sequence of cleaning for the next few hallways leading up to the library, by the time the duo finished, it was already time for classes to end. The duo head to the empty cafeteria, happy that they didn't have to clean the already cleaned cafeteria (maybe because the brooms took pity on the two) and sat down on a bench, waiting for Ace to show up.

"Ugh!" Grim exclaims angrily while sitting on the table and Angel petting him, silently listening to his woes. "I'm already exhausted from a full day of cleanin'. I can't believe we still gotta wash a hundred windows! What's buggin' me is, Ace ain't even here yet! To make us wait, after what he did...Grr..."

"Well..." Angel starts while petting Grim, "if someone calmed down without letting things get to him, we probably wouldn't have to do this," she calmly says while laying her head down on the table and staring at Grim.

Grim looks at Angel who staring at him, not rejecting the girl's hand from petting his fur. "Angel, I've noticed somethin' bout you. You rarely get angry. Doesn't it make you mad that you gettin' unfair treatment?" He asks.

Angel closes her eyes and thinks for a moment then calmly answers. "I mean, what am I supposed to do, Grim? Not everything requires me to be mad. Plus, I can't really say thing about the situation I'm in because I lost my memories, so it doesn't seem to be good to be mad at every little thing. Frustrated or annoyed yes, but it's best to be grateful what I do have right?" She says with a smile towards Grim. "Besides, I rather use my anger on better things, like bringing you down a notch," she chuckles.

Grim thinks about her answer and looks away. "Well, I guess I can't hold you against anythin' since you don't have ya memories and all...so how bout this!" Grim looks at her and she look at Grim in curiosity. "I'll be mad for ya! That way, you won't seem like a pushover to anyone! I'll make sure that when ya feel annoyed, I'll give them a piece of ya mind!"

Angel blinks then laughs at Grim. "Sure, Grim. I'll accept that offer," she says as she moves her hand to under Grim's head, scratching his chin.

"Alright!" Grim says happily, enjoying the scratches he's receiving. "Now, we just gotta wait for this Ace guy to show up, then we can get outta here! Where is he anyway?" He asks, glancing around him.

"Maybe he got held up," Angel guesses. "We should wait for him."

"Hmm...fine," Grim accepts, sulking.

The two wait for Ace to show, waiting for a few seconds, to minutes, and even half an hour. After about an hour of waiting, Grim stands up, impatiently, angry at the fact that Ace didn't show up after all this time.

"UGH! WHERE THE HELL IS HE?!" Grim yells out in anger, bringing Angel out of her reverie. "It's been an hour and he still ain't showin' up! I bet he bailed so he won't hafta clean!"

"I guess we should look for him. Something could have happened to him," Angel says getting up from her seat and picking Grim up.

"See, this is why you need to get angry, Angel," Grim says as he crawls on her shoulders. "People are just gonna take advantage of you at this point. Now, let go get him. I don't care if gotta drag him kickin' and screamin', he's washin' those windows."

"I'll keep that in mind, Grim," Angel says with a smile as both of them leave the cafeteria. They wondered down the hall, looking for the freshman classes, asking students as they pass by. One of the students tell the duo that Ace was in a specific classroom, which Angel thanked them and headed there. When they arrived at the empty classroom, they looked around, with Grim getting off her shoulder and standing on a desk, huffing in anger about the missing redhead.

"Hey! Ace! Get over here! Try to hide from me, will ya!" He looks around the classroom, not finding even a hair. "Hmph! He's not here! I told you I bet he ditched on us!" Grim says with his paws crossed across his chest.

"Are you looking for someone?" A voice asked, making both Angel and Grim jump at the sudden noise. The two of them looked around trying to identify the sound of the voice until the voice spoke up. "Over here."

They turned around only to be face to face with a portrait of a man with a long nose, a monocle, and top hat. The portrait was handing on the wall above the two of them about a foot higher than Angel. The portrait, or man as the two of them acknowledged, stares at the both of them.

"Gah! The portrait is talking?!" Grim yells in surprise while the portrait chuckles at the pairs of bewildered eyes looking at him.

"It's normal for portraits to talk, is it not?" The man responds to Grim with a question. "The lady in the portrait on that wall talks too. As does the gentleman in the portrait on this one. As long as a painting has a mouth, who wouldn't it be able to talk? Is that really so strange?"

"That ain't normal no matter how ya look at it!" Grim says.

"Anyway, you two are looking for someone, right?" The man asks.

"Ah right," Angel says. "We're looking for a freshman named Ace Trappola. He has messy red hair and a heart on his left eye."

"Oh, him," the man says. "I think he headed back to the dorm a while ago," he answers.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?!" Grim looked at the portrait in anger.

"Yeah, the dorms are headed east, so he headed that way," the portrait says to Grim.

"Grrr! He gets us all in trouble and wanted to leave us with all the cleanin'? Not on my watch! Let's get him Angel!" Grim jumps off the desk and runs out of the room.

"Ah, thank you very much sir!" Angel says to the portrait as she turns and run after Grim, hoping that he won't cause any more trouble than necessary.

"It's no problem," The portrait says as the two leaves. "That girl...is very familiar for some reason..." the portrait mumbles.