Mimi's Demons

Chapter 67: The Masked Gaming Buddy

Mimi looked at the little card with the a list of letters and numbers, then the boxed up Nintendo Switch. Then back again.

"Juli, what is this?"

Juli, who was already eyes deep on a quest in Skyrim, shrugged.

"Kiddie games. I mean, Nintendo has some fun stuff and all, but their graphics are bottom of a the totem pole and—"

"Why's it here?"

"Dad stuffed it in my hands and told me to bring it here. Oh, the card's a friend code. Someone wants to play with you, and no, I don't know who. Oh! I should give you mine too—shit! Why the hell do these guys got a troll in here?"

Some ugly three eyed yeti was making swipes at Juli on the screen. It looked freaky enough that Mimi decided perhaps a drop of profanity was appropriate for the situation, especially when Juli died three seconds later.

He sighed loudly, flinging his head back on his bean bag.

"Effing troll," he turned his head around to her. "I wouldn't worry 'bout who the code's for. Dad wouldn't have given you anyone creepy. It's probably him. He likes to play Animal Crossing when he thinks no one is looking. Dork."

Getting the Switch out was a lot easier than getting the Xbox out had been. It was already to go. She didn't even need to hook it to the TV if she didn't want to, and she liked that. Some of the kids at school had Nintendo DSs and this reminder her of them. And the games were already loaded into it too. She made a happy squeak at finding the latest Legend of Zelda game first on the list along with several others.

"Tell your dad thanks for me?"

"Tell him yourself. You have his number on your phone, don't you?"

"Oh yeah." Sometimes she forgot she had a phone. It didn't do what most smart phones did. It was heavily limited to a censored music app, email (which she only used when she wanted to feel 'bossy'), basic tools like notes and a calculator, and the usual call and text. Oh, it could take pictures too, which is what she mainly used her phone for, so it was basically a glorified camera to her. But as she flipped open her contact book, sure enough, Travis Cromwell was listed. It was weird to think of Juli's dad having a name outside 'Juli's Dad' or 'Cromwell.'

Juli crawled over the beanbag to point Mimi where to put in the friend code and how to set up her own account. He took out his own phone to rattle of his Switch's friend code, which made Mimi think Juli played his own Switch a lot more than he led on. She watched in fascination as someone with a Pikachu avatar flicked to 'online' on her friend's page.

"Does your dad like Pikachu?"

"Nah, too mainstream." Juli was already back in his seat and traversing the cave where the troll lurked. "His favorite Poke'mon is something lame like Ditto or Doduo or something."

Mimi didn't know much about Poke'mon, but since there was a Poke'mon game on her Switch she was looking forward to finding out.

She spent a long time trying to figure out just what she could do with a friend on Switch. They made it hard to communicate on here, as in not at all. If she didn't have a way to send them a note of which game to try it was hard. Juli did his best inbetween grunts and curses as he thummed fire at the undeterred troll, but in the end he didn't have much to give her. And when she texted his dad she found out the user wasn't him after all, which made her more excited. There wasn't anything fun about playing videogames with someone's dad, especially one as dorky as Juli's.

Then the little Pikachu avatar blinked and a green Minecraft flickered underneath it.

"Juli!"

Juli sighed and paused, which offended her. What business did he have sighing at his boss? He was here to serve her, not get killed over and over by a troll.

He just saved himself from a good boss glare from her by coming over quick enough and helping her set up Minecraft with her fellow friend. He texted a good deal to his dad as well to get help whoever on the other end to hook up too, which irritated Mimi even further. If Travis Cromwell was in touch with her mystery friend and Juli knew, why hadn't they done this to start with? And when she asked for their number, Juli just told her 'no can do, I don't know why,' which made her want to throw her Switch at his face—which she didn't, because she's not stupid. The Switch was probably worth more than her entire bed, not to mention her possible new friend on the other side.

Minecraft was also familiar to her, but on the same level as Poke'mon. Everyone else got the chance to get into it and toys of it were plastered all over the stores, but Mimi had been too poor to get much farther than that.

The blocky world spread open before her was odd. After the high-def graphics of the Xbox and even the somewhat more basic graphics of the Nintendo 64 simulator, the straight up blocks just looked...weird.

But then a blocky, generic blue shirt player stepped in front of her, the name 'Pikachu' in skinny white type over its head.

Juli wearily led her through emoting, but Mimi really lost it when she realized she could type messages in Minecraft.

"That's not the point of the game," said Juli impatiently. "It's not a chat room, you're suppose to build stuff and kill monsters and stuff."

"Shove off, it's my game," Mimi growled. "Tell your dad to teach them how to talk."

Juli groaned. Mimi quite reasonably decided she'd given Juli enough leniency today and slapped his arm.

"Ow! Okay! Jeeze." He got his phone up, scowling. "Don't see what the point of not giving you their number if you can just use Minecraft as your own little chat room."

But even after teaching the other how to talk on Minecraft, they said little more than 'hi.'

"Ah," Juli nodded sagely. "Seems like it's them who don't want you to have their number. They're shy."

Mimi pouted. The Switch was already warm in her hands from revving at full capacity to render Minecraft online, which Mimi didn't get. It was just a bunch of blocks, what was so hard to render?

Kavya stepped in through the open bedroom door. "Miss, it's time for your Martial Arts Class."

Mimi groaned and flung herself back onto the rug.

"But I just got started!"

"The Switch will still be around afterwards."

"Yeah, but then it's dinner and movie night and blah blah blah." She stopped as a thought occurred to her and she sat up. "Wait, dad should know who they are, right?"

"Uh, if my dad's not telling you it's because the boss told him not to," said Juli.

But Mimi believed in her wily ways of persuasion.

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The hardest parenting lesson you'll ever have is not the Talk, obedience, or that eating too much sugar will make you barf. It's teaching your kids that they're little assholes and need to stop. Seriously.