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“What do you mean you’ve never gotten your wisdom teeth removed?! Chip, you’re 27!”
“27 and 1/3, Bill.”
“That doesn’t matter!”
“I thought you had the best dentist in the world. Why didn’t he take them out?” Gloria chimed in, looking away from her painting with Gramma.
“W-Well, I—“
“Chip’s chicken!!” Cricket yelled from the kitchen.
“I am not, Grasshopper!— Ow!” Chip groaned as he held his aching cheek. He really should’ve gotten them removed years ago.
“Ughhh.. I’ll make you an appointment.”
“Uh, no no no no, no way Bill. I’m fine.”
“You spent the last 10 minutes monotonously saying ‘ow’ while arguing with Tilly over a game of Scribble.”
“He resorted to putting down made-up words, Papa. Sorry Chip, but next time I’ll have to play with Gloria.”
“Yes!” Gloria muttered triumphantly under her breath with a fist pump.
“Whatever! It doesn’t matter, because I’m not getting them removed. Try as hard as you want Bill, but it’s not happening.”
“Fine then. I’m taking you to urgent dental care.”
Not even 5 minutes later, Bill was pulling a screaming and yelling Chip out of the door, while the spoiled brat held onto the door frame.
~~~~~~~~~~
Chip was relatively quiet for the ride back home, and “relatively” is important, because about 5 minutes into the ride he broke:
“They stole my tongue.”
“No, they didn’t, son.”
“They stole my tongue! I can’t feel it!“ Chip sobbed.
‘Oh boy,’ Bill thought with a groan, ‘This is gonna be a long day.’
~~~~~~~~~~
“Cricket, look at me,” Bill said sternly. They’d just walked in the door and he knew the look Cricket had. Cricket pinned himself to the back of the couch with his hands over his mouth, on the verge of busting out laughing. “Do not, and I mean do NOT mess with Chip. Leave him alone. He’s hurtin’ and sore and a little… loopy.”
“Oh, c’mon dad! Just let me make fun of him once!”
“No! If you talk to him I will never hear the end of it.”
“How can I not make fun of him when he walks in talking about chickens running the government? That’s priceless!”
“It doesn’t matter! You’ll set him off if you say anything, so say nothing at all,” Bill leaned in with his certified ‘dad look’, “and I mean it. Got me, boy?”
“Mhm, Mhm, Mhm.”
“Good.”
Ohoho... Good ol’ dad trusted him too much. Far too much.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Chip! Chip!”
Chip had been sitting at the dining room table in silence for who knows how long. His sore cheek pressed against the cold wooden surface probably felt amazing. He had spaced out sometime after arguing with Bill that, no, he definitely didn’t buy the pizza Friday night with Bill’s money. Even if he did, it was only 7 dollars, and they all ate it, so who really was guilty?
Chip’s eyes slipped open as he faced Cricket, and Bill’s head whipped around from his spot in the kitchen. That smug look Cricket gave him pre-told the disaster about to strike.
“The zombie apocalypse started! They’ve already killed mom and dad come on we gotta go!”
“What?!” Chip jolted up in pure panic.
“Dang it, Cricket!” Bill shouted as he slammed the dish rag down in the sink, stomping into the dining area, “Chip the zombie apocalypse is not happening, we’re fine!”
“That’s exactly what a zombie would say, isn’t it?!”
“Chip most zombies can’t even ta— Cricket Ernest Green! Don’t you walk out!” Bill said as he snatched Cricket by his overalls and hauled him to his line of sight. The boy erupted with howls of laughter.
“I-I’m sorry— haha! It was just the perfect moment!”
“Ohhh, the grounding you’re going to get after this..” Bill growled before sighing, rubbing the space between his brows, “Chip, I—“
He was gone. Oh.. oh no.
~~~~~~~~~~
After a good couple minutes of searching (which shouldn’t have taken long, honestly. The house wasn’t big), Bill eventually found him. Surprisingly, he wasn’t visible from the living room window, as he was laying on Nancy’s lap on the porch swing.
“What.. what happened?” Bill muttered as he slowly closed the front door.
Nancy glanced up at him with a Splish in hand, “No clue. He just came up all panicked and started boohooing,” she said, moving a piece of Chip’s hair behind his ear. It was darker than it used to be, he hadn’t dyed it in a while.
“He kept saying ‘I thought you were dead’ or something. He tuckered himself out I guess. Do you know what happened?” Nancy chuckled under her breath.
“Ugh,” Bill groaned as he took a seat on the porch step, “Cricket got him.”
“Yeesh. You should’ve known he’d do something that.”
“Yeah, yeah I knew, but I didn’t think he’d psychologically torture the poor guy,” Bill sighed as he looked at Chip. He’d been highly emotional all day. ‘Maybe the anesthesia will wear off soon.’
~~~~~~~~~~
It did not wear off soon.
Around the 3-hour mark, with no sign of the anesthesia wearing off, Bill had decided to text Mr. Whistler (since he still had his number). Turns out, it usually doesn’t wear off for Chip for about half a day. ‘Wonderful,’ Bill thought, ‘Just wonderful’. That meant he had to keep a watchful eye on Cricket for at least 12 hours. 12. Whole. Hours.
Cricket had already pulled the fake snake trick, the hand buzzer (where’d he even get that from), and even pulled a, ‘You know, bees sleep in flowers, and sometimes hold each other's feet when they sleep’, which left Gloria and Tilly to deal with a sobbing, blubbering Chip at their so far uneventful game of Go-Fish.
Cricket had even asked him, “If you were to eat yourself, would you get twice as big, or just disappear?”, which led to Chip writing at least 29 sticky notes full of possible answers. About 15 sticky notes in he started sobbing, and around note number 23 he got into an argument with Cricket, cause even he didn’t know the answer.
~~~~~~~~~~
Hour 5 was its own thing. No one messed with Chip that whole hour, because he wouldn’t talk to anybody. All he did was lay his face on Phoenix’s head with tearful eyes and brush her fur. He was content, albeit a little emotional, but the calmest he had been in a while.
Hour 6 was around dinner, and bless Chip’s soul, he didn’t eat a single thing. But he did start an argument with Cricket about whether or not fish deserved rights, and no one was even sure if Chip agreed with his own claims either. It was a pure mess.
At some point, maybe 7-9, they all decided to watch a movie. Nancy proposed the offer, assuming it would get Cricket and Chip to just leave each other alone, and it did.
“I have to admit, Nanc’. This has got to be the best and most coherent plan I’ve heard of all night. Thanks.”
“Sure thing. Honestly, I think we all needed a break,” she chuckled with a hushed tone as both parents had their arms laid around a surprisingly quiet Cricket.
Finally, some quiet for the night. No sobbing, no arguing, no laughing. Just serenity.
~~~~~~~~~~
10-12 were the night hours, and the night hours included the night owls. Usually, that would’ve been Bill and Gloria, but tonight it was Chip and, who would’ve guessed, Tilly herself. It wasn’t surprising that Chip was still awake since it had worn off mostly, but not entirely.
After sitting at the dining room table staring off into space for a good 30 minutes, Tilly had wandered in and sat with him. Chip had no clue when she’d gotten there, but she was stuffed up under his right arm talking to Saxon. They both sat in peaceful silence until she had fallen asleep, and he had carried her to bed in his haze.
~~~~~~~~~~
Chip yawned as he stretched his arms above his head, walking into the kitchen. “Morning. Hopefully, I didn’t act too weird yesterday.”
The entire room, except an embarrassed and red-faced Chip, burst into a lovely familial laughter.