MY PLACE s02:e46 - Deadliest Catch

Simon and I were unstoppable.
This egg hunting lark was a lot more fun than I had expected it to be, and the two of us laid waste to the competition with ease. Zipper was most impressed with our findings (I think?) and took the time to perform a song and dance with every egg we showed him. Every. Single. Time. Some eggs contained a lucky ticket which, when presented to Zipper, rewarded us with a piece of his own egg-themed furniture, which was the tackiest set I have ever seen, so I graciously allowed Simon to claim ownership of it all. He’s really into all of this Bunny Day stuff for some reason. Me? I’m just here for the sport.

Catching every type of egg would apparently land us a special prize, and we were only one short: the deep-sea egg, which could only be found on the ocean floor. Only one problem: I didn’t have a wetsuit. I saw Simon’s face drop when I told him this, he was really hoping to catch 'em all. Not one to upset a good buddy, I looked around in search of a quick and convenient answer, as is my specialty. One look at a nearby Jitters was all that I needed.

“Jitters,” I said, approaching the bug-eyed bird “how long can you hold your breath for?”

“Yar, am I not mistaken when I recall ye living at Tortimer Island for nearly three months? And ye never purchased one of them diving suits we be selling thar?”

“The way I see it,” I explained to Kapp’n as he fired up his boat “If I see a couple sharks circling an island, I’m not gonna jump into it’s surrounding water, no matter how good it looks.”

Kapp’n steered the three of us a considerable distance away from the shore, stopping before the waves got too rough.

“Besides,” I explained, tying a rope around Jitters’ waist “who needs a wet suit when you can exploit the lungs of a good friend?”

“Are you sure this is a good idea, cool guy?” Simon asked. “I mean, there could be anything down there…”

“Simon, buddy, Jitters is a trained athlete, he knows what he’s doing. Right?”

“I can’t swim” said Jitters, but we’ll ignore that he did so.

“And besides, don’t you wanna complete our egg hunt?” I was sorta pushing my luck here, especially with how I was treating Simon, but the competition was getting to me. Charlise was planning on diving without any precaution should push come to shove, and I will still sore about Alice shooting down that sky egg earlier with my own slingshot. Simon conceded, much to his apprehension.

“You boys be careful now, ye here?” Kapp’n barked as he sat back to soak in the sun. He was definitely the responsible adult of this little party, in more ways than one.

With a deep breath, Jitters plunged beneath the water and sank to the bottom. After a moment or two, he tugged on the rope, so we pulled him back up.

“No eggs here” he reported, prompting a sigh from Simon and a groan from me. “I found seaweed though. Do you want me to get that instead?”

Kapp’n drove us to another spot, where we threw Jitters down into the blue again, into the silent water. This time, he emerged with what we were looking for – a shining, deep blue chocolate egg.

“Oo! Oo! Oo!” Simon exclaimed “A deep sea egg! Nice one Jitters!”

“Let’s see if we can find a few others before heading back to shore” I suggested. Simon enthusiastically agreed, obviously fired up by the discovery. It was like hunting for treasure.

We managed to scoop up two more eggs as our feathered friend combed the ocean floor. At our fifth pitstop, I decided to quiz Simon a little as Jitters went back to his hunt.

“How come you’ve been so hyped up today?” I asked. “Not even Christma—I mean, not even Toy Day got you this excited.”

“Eh,” he shrugged. “Toy Day’s kinda boring. You just wait to have presents given to ya. I love Bunny Day because it gets us exploring the whole village. Everybody’s fishing, hitting rocks, digging holes… I back when Place was more populated. The atmosphere was amazing!”

“We never did much for Bunny Day back home” I told him. “It was pretty much just an excuse to eat more chocolate than we could handle.”

“It was always a big deal with my family” he said with a warm smile. “Me and my siblings used to spend a lot of our free time outside anyway but searching for eggs every April was sooo much fun. I’m the youngest of six, so it always felt like an accomplishment when I beat the others, you know?”

“I don’t have any siblings” I itted. Simon looked at me, almost with pity, as if I had just told him about losing a loved one.

“Aw, that’s too bad. What about friends? I bet you had plenty back home, right?”

“Umm… l-like I said, we didn’t do much for Bunny Day.”

“I-I hate to barge in, lads…” Kapp’n said - I’ve never been happier to be interrupted. “…but ye pal down bellow has been tuggin’ on that there rope for some time now!”

“Oh snap!” I gasped and hauled Jitters back up. He entered the boat butt first, his arms stretched before him as if he was carrying something plentiful.

“Whatcha got there, Jitters my boy?” I asked.

“More eggs, right!?” Simon almost squealed at the possibility.

“Actually,” he began, his voice noticeably more nasally than usual “all I found was this, and it won’t let go of my beak.” As he swerved his head towards the inside of the boat, a MONSTOROUS crab swung from the end of his bill, gipping for dear life with its claw.

“YIKES!!” Simon yelped and jumped backwards, knocking his precious deep-sea eggs overboard. “No, no, no!” He desperately leaned over the side of the boat to save them, tipping it to one side.

“Yaarrrgh!” Kapp’n wailed “Mind what ye doin’!”

The swaying of the vessel caused the crab to release it’s grasp of Jitters’ beak. It landed right in front of me and was either just as scared as we were, or hell bent on tearing me to ribbons. I went for the latter. “AAAAHHHH!!! GET RID OF IT!! KILL IT!! JITTEEERRRRRS!”

Jitters was too busy falling back into the water to help me. With Simon and I forcing the boat into two different directions, Kapp’n eventually lost his own balance and ed him into sea.

“Kappa overboard!” he cried.

He needn’t wait long for us to , as the poor ship capsized soon after, the crab flying through the air before returning to the ocean with a mighty splash, the eggs floating away, forever out of reach. I surfaced as soon as I could – the water was absolutely freezing.

“Simon!?” I called “Is everyone alright!?”

“I’m fine!” the ape replied, spitting out water.

“We lost the eggs” a very damp Jitters decided to comment.

“And if we lose me boat…” a very angry Kapp’n growled in my direction “…you’ll have more than a Japanese spider crab to worry about, ya here!?”

I gulped.
I also heard a girlish voice snickering from nearby, which turned out to belong to a certain Charlise. Having finally mustered the courage to dive for the eggs we were all desperate to get a hold of, she saw the whole debacle play out.

"You boys need a hand?" she asked, unable to keep a straight face.

Some Bunny Day this turned out to be...

~Author’s Notes~
I’ve been looking forward to this episode!
Very pleased with the art and the story. I really wanted something both hilarious and chaotic in equal measure at some point in the series, and I wanted it to feel kinda like the Animal Crossing anime movie from years ago, where the characters go off to do something foolish and end up messing things up. I should re-watch that someday.