Brown Slime Stories

Botez Gambit

The new girl in our class looked just like Anya Taylor-Joy. That's what I thought to myself as I watched her take her seat right next to me.

Her pale skin, short bobbed auburn hair, and big, innocent blue eyes made her look like she had walked right off the set of The Queen's Gambit or something, I swear.

"Hey... it's Kevin, right?"

"Yeah," I replied, hoping that she hadn't noticed me staring. "How are you getting used to things so far?"

"It's all still pretty new," she answered. "I mean, you guys have the weirdest discipline system I've ever heard of..."

She wasn't wrong about that.

This year, the school had started using something they call 'brown slime' to punish us—and for basically anything.

Forget your homework? Brown slime.

Phone goes off during class? Brown slime.

Even saying the words 'I don't know' was grounds for... you guessed it: brown slime.

"I wouldn't worry too much," I told her. "It's mostly just a scare tactic. Hardly anyone ever gets punished with it anymore."

"Why is it called 'brown slime' though?" the girl asked, biting her lower lip nervously. "Is it like those Youtube slime channels?"

"Not really. I mean, it is brown. And it's slimy too," I said as I shrugged. "I don't think they were very creative when they picked the name."

"You're right," the girl giggled musically. "It's not very creative."

I glanced up at the clock, noticing that we had a few minutes before class was set to start.

"So, what's your name again?" I asked the girl. "I feel bad that I've already forgotten it."

"Don't worry, everyone does," she said. "I'm Elaine."

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Elaine," I said as I shook her hand.

As I was sweating over thoughts of what to ask to learn more about her, a different sort of thought came to me...

"Say, I'm trying to finish my homework," I started as I tried to suppress a smirk, "do you know what the largest lake in North America is?"

"Uhhh," she replied. "Is it... Lake Superior?"

"Oh, that's right!" I said as I glanced over at the clock to keep my face from betraying the trap I was laying. "And, how many fish are in it?"

"Oh, that I definitely don't know..."

The way the redness started to fill her cheeks as she said this was so cute...

"Wait—"

I couldn't believe that her timing had been so perfect.

The brown slime splatted atop her head right as she said, 'wait!'

It never smelled any less disgusting, either. I mean, you never really get used to the smell of crap—because, yeah, that's literally what it's made of.

The classroom erupted into laughter so loud that I almost had to cover my ears.

Elaine's face immediately turned beet red, and her jaw went slack as her eyes bugged out.

"Oh my god," she whimpered. "No—"

She tilted her head downward to keep from making more of a mess of her face, but the brown slime was already going over her shoulders.