Post by mrculligan on Mar 18, 2018 9:24:12 GMT -6
Part 1
“Hamlet comes across as a complex character, but some have suggested that his flaws are really quite simple.” Michelle wasn’t listening. It was about ten minutes into her grade 12 Language Arts class, but she was thinking about the bet. Almost everyone in her class worked part-time, apart from the few who didn’t need to, but most wanted to make some easy money before the summer break. She couldn’t remember who had come up with the idea, but it had captured the majority of the class.
The concept was simple. You became involved in the dare with a $100 buy-in. The first person to place a recording device under the principal’s desk, record one full conversation in his office – and the more confidential the meeting, the better - and play the conversation for the group won the prize. Although a minority of students had smiled knowingly and shaken their heads, the twenty who remained interested had created a pot of $2,000. For that kind of money, people were willing to take a few chances.
The group, Michelle had quickly learned, were not lacking in enthusiasm: Nick was on a two-week suspension for letting the air out of all four tires on the principal’s Audi; his planning had taken him as far as creating a distraction to get Mr. Blakely out of his office, but it had let him down badly by failing to remind him about the two vigilant secretaries working right outside. Jared had planned a meeting with Blakely and had even gotten him to leave the office for a glass of water; his history of ailments in the High School had come in handy; his undoing was his indecision regarding where to put the device; Blakely had come back in to discover Jared grunting and muttering expletives under his desk. Worse still, the two incidents had alerted the administration that something was going on. Michelle shook her head slightly while Ms Matheson discussed the role of the soliloquy; whoever won that two grand would earn it.
She felt a gentle prod in the back. Her friend Samantha passed her a note, never taking her eyes off Ms Matheson for even a second. Michelle opened it. “Whatcha doin?” it said.
She smiled and scribed, “Thinking about you know what” underneath. Still holding the note, she let her left hand fall gently to her side. She felt Sam take the note from her. She heard the sound of pencil on paper and again felt a gentle poke in her back.
Covertly opening the note, she read, “Going in after class? Maybe you can borrow an invisibility cloak.”
Michelle smiled, only to hear Matheson remark, “Something amusing about Hamlet wrestling with a mortal dilemma, Michelle?”
Without missing a beat, Michelle answered, “I was just thinking about how great Shakespeare is at exploring the human condition, Ms M.”
Ms Matheson stared at her for a moment and then returned to Act 3 Scene 1.
“It’s getting harder and harder to stay awake in that class.” Michelle and Sam were making their way to the cafeteria for lunch.
“Yeah, well, we need the credits,” Michelle pointed out.
Sam shrugged. “I guess.”
They piled food on their trays in silence and went to an area of empty tables. “What are you going to do your LA essay on, Mich?”
Michelle was staring at her food, deep in thought. “Mmm?”
Samantha shook her head. “Your essay, Michelle.”
“What essay?”
Samantha put her fork down. “Are you still thinking about the bet?”
Michelle nodded.
Samantha exhaled heavily with exasperation. “Come on, the admin are onto it. The bet’s impossible. It should be called off. The next person caught won’t even be able to graduate.”
Michelle stared at her best friend and quietly said, “I think I know how I can do it.”
Sam folded her arms and cocked her head. “Oh, I see; you do have an invisibility cloak hidden at home. Well, why didn’t you say so?” Michelle was too deep in thought to register the sarcasm. “I just hope you share the winnings with me,” Sam commented as she dug her fork into the dry meatloaf.
“I will,” Michelle replied with complete sincerity.
Sam stopped in mid-chew and stared at her friend as if she had just noticed her waving a gun. “Mich,” she began slowly and deliberately, “What are you up to?”
Michelle glanced around her and said in a low voice, “You know how my Mom is a substitute teacher?” Samantha nodded. “I think that’s the answer,” Michelle continued.
Samantha raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to get your Mom to plant the bug? I know she’s cool, but are you friggin’ nuts?”
Michelle shook her head. “No. I will.”
Samantha stared in bafflement at her friend. “I’m not following you, honey.”
Michelle put down her fork and spread her hands in a gesture of revelation. “I’ll be the substitute teacher.”
“Ok, now I know you’re nuts.” Samantha placed an index finger on the small finger of her other hand. “First of all, you’re too well known here to pull that off, even with a wig and dark glasses. Second of all,” she continued, moving on to a new finger. “You’re way too young. The substitutes we get are cranky, retired teachers who think teaching us is still better than sitting at home - although your Mom is obviously a big exception,” she added quickly.
Michelle’s mother was content to work part-time and liked the flexibility that substitute teaching gave her.
Michelle leaned forward. “No, I’ve got this figured out. I know how the telephone system for substitute teachers works; I’ve seen my Mom use it often enough. She’s going out of town for a few days tomorrow and she usually forgets to phone her absence into the system. There’s bound to be a call for a sub for this school; I’ll pick it up. My Mom has never subbed here, but even if someone on staff knows her, I can always say that there was a mix-up in the system and I was sent here instead; there are fubars all the time. I’ll have to think of a name for myself, though.” Michelle lapsed into deep thought.
Samantha stared at her again, this time with a look of deep concern. “Are you completely mental?”
Michelle looked at her friend with bafflement. “What do you mean?”
“Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?”
Michelle was tall and curvy, with straight blond hair falling to narrow, rounded shoulders. Her breasts filled the red sweater she was wearing and the jeans accented other curves that had been studied carefully by more than a few of the guys in class. Her legs were long and shapely and her face was beautifully symmetrical. “What do you mean?”
“I mean to be a substitute you have to look older – a lot older.”
A smile parted Michelle’s full lips and her vivid blue eyes danced as she said, “Maybe I can. Meet me after school.”
At 4:30PM that day, the two girls walked into the thrift store that was about four blocks from Michelle’s house. Samantha looked uncomfortable and glanced around her nervously as they entered the store. “I hope to Buddha we don’t run into anyone we know,” she muttered. “I wear Lulu Lemon; I’d never live it down.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Michelle replied distractedly, fingering a row of sweaters. “If it happens, we’ll tell them we’re looking for a costume. Not too far off the truth either.” She looked at her friend, perfect eyebrows raised in amusement. “I am in the drama club, you know.” She turned her full attention back to the sweaters.
“Sweet,” Samantha replied sarcastically; “I’m placing all of my street creed in the hands of Juliet.” She glanced worriedly at the store entrance when she heard the door open and exhaled audibly with relief. “For a second there I thought it was Maria.”
Michelle took three steps further down the aisle and resumed her fingering. Never taking her eyes off the clothes, she remarked, “What are the chances that Maria would come in here? As part of her voluntary work?” Sam snickered.
“Good point. Still,” she continued, “I’ll feel better when we’re outta here.”
“Mmm,” Michelle responded, still fingering.
Samantha looked at her friend critically. “I’m dancing with death by humiliation here and that’s all you can...”
She was interrupted by a triumphant “Yes!” as Michelle yanked a grey cardigan off the rail.
Samantha looked at the garment. “Oookaayy,” she began, “It’s a little big for you, isn’t it; and a little...what’s the word…DOW-DY?!” almost screaming the last two syllables. Several people glanced over. “I mean,” Sam continued, more audibly than necessary, “It’s exactly the kind of dowdy that your part will require in the next school play.”
“Ok,” Michelle said, as if the last few seconds hadn’t happened, “I’ll need an old-fashioned dress, some brown stockings and a pair of leather shoes.”
“And don’t forget the grey wig and award-winning prosthetic make-up!” Samantha added sardonically, shaking her head with bafflement and frustration. She grabbed Michelle by the arm. “What – are – you – doing?” she asked in a fierce whisper. “I’m getting ready”, Michelle answered, her eyes locked on a large, brown paisley-print dress, with drab buttons from the waist up to the rounded collar. “Oh Sam, that’s perfect!” Sam just shook her head as Michelle darted forward to nab the garment.
*********
“Good! My mom’s out for the evening,” Michelle shouted to Samantha from the kitchen. “She left a note and some dinner in the oven.”
Sam walked in from the hallway, carrying two plastic bags of clothes. “Oh your mom’s not that bad,” she commented, placing the bags on the table with a rustle and moving to the fridge in search of diet pop.
“It means that I can test something out,” Michelle explained, looking like she was trying to recall something from long ago.
“Sweet!” Sam exclaimed with comic chirpiness, “We get to do drugs for the evening.”
Michelle’s beautiful face lit up as she grinned. “Oh, it will be an interesting evening – I hope! Wait here.” Before Sam could answer, Michelle grabbed the bags off the table and ran upstairs.
“Ok then,” Sam shouted after her; “I’ll just sit here and enjoy my pop. It’s not like I’ve anything better to do!”
Fifteen minutes later, Michelle returned. Samantha didn’t know whether to groan or laugh. She did both. “Well, if that’s your outfit for school tomorrow, you’ll certainly win the ludicrous prize - and that’s up against some pretty stiff competition,” she added knowingly with a nod.
Her tall, curvaceous friend was wearing the paisley dress she had just purchased and it looked like a tent on her, sagging off her body like a deflated hot-air balloon over a truck. She was also wearing the grey cardigan from the thrift store; it also seemed to be fighting a desperate battle against gravity and it looked to be losing despairingly. Her long blond hair flowed incongruously over the collar of the sweater. Michelle’s long legs were swathed in dowdy, wrinkled brown stockings and her feet balanced unsteadily in the black leather shoes, at least four sizes too large for her, she had spotted just before they left.
“So that’s how you’re going to plant the bug in Blakely’s office; you’re going to scare them out of the building; either that or make them laugh so hard they won’t be able to get up off the floor. Are you NUTS??”
Michelle smiled wickedly, “Oh, I won’t be going to school tomorrow. Ms Mabel Crutchley will.”
“Who?”
Michelle ignored the question. “I’ve already phoned it into the system and everything’s set; I even have the job number. Ms Crutchley will be taking Grade 12 Social tomorrow – our social class, as a matter of fact,” she added with a gleeful chuckle. She rummaged through a brown wooden box she had brought down with her. “I just hope my mom hasn’t thrown it away.”
Although beginning to feel that this rabbit hole was bottomless, Samantha’s curiosity kept her engaged with her friend’s bizarre behavior. “Thrown what away?”
“The amulet. Shit, she must have,” Michelle cursed as she continued her search, throwing some of the contents of the box on the table as he rearranged others in the box.
After twenty seconds of a silence broken only by the sound of objects being dragged on wood, Michelle gave a cry of triumph, lifting what looked like an Olympic bronze medal out of the box. It was attached to a black chain that seemed intricately woven in an almost Celtic design.
“Wow!” Samantha remarked. “Why would your mom have thrown away something like that? It’s beautiful.” She drew nearer her friend to examine it more closely. “What’s the writing? It looks like Gaelic…Persian?”
Michelle shook her head. “Those are runes and they are…” She paused, looking for a roundabout way to explain it. There wasn’t one. “...Magic.”
A smile of revelation began to form on Samantha’s face. “Oh, I get it. This is a set up. You have no intention of getting into the principal’s office. You just wanted to play a prank. Well, you certainly went to a lot of trouble,” she said, eying the frumpy, oversized clothes and what looked like a medallion. She raised her hands, as if in surrender. “Well, you got me. Congratulations.”
Michelle shook her head. “Sam, I’m serious. This belongs to my grandmother. She died when I was young and my mother hid her amulet, but I found it last month.” She paused, as if recalling something very important. “I remember her teaching me rhymes, verses...I thought they were like Nursery Rhymes, but the harder I tried to remember, the more I actually did remember. Do you understand?” She looked at her friend pleadingly; Sam stared back, looking as if Michelle had just started to speak fluent Greek.
Michelle sighed. “My grandmother was involved in Wicca and my mom disapproved strongly. She made her stop practicing in front of me, but I’m pretty sure she kept on working magic right up to the time she died.” Sam just continued to stare at her best friend. “Look, I’ll prove it to you.” Michelle took the amulet in her left hand, closed her eyes and began to chant.
Samantha was just about to tell Michelle that she was going home when the changes began.
All the changes seem to happen at once. Even if she had been prepared for it, Samantha wouldn’t have been able to separate the strands of the transformation. Michelle shrank in height and widened, her expanding figure beginning to fill out the frumpy dress. Her hair shortened and dulled, turning from a lustrous blond to an ashen grey; it then curled into a loose perm, her hairline now slightly higher than before. Creases crumpled her forehead as it became sallow. Her eyebrows turned a similar shade of grey, growing thick and bushy. Eye bags appeared under the still-closed eyes and darkened, as if being filling with a black poison. Deep wrinkles radiated from the corners of both eyes. Folds of skin appeared over her thinning eyelashes, forming little hoods of age. Her entire face at first appeared to grow fleshier as her entire complexion became pallid and then it started to sag, making large jowls and a very noticeable double chin that drowned the fastened top button of the dress. Wrinkles, creases and folds appeared and deepened all over her face. Her nose, once pert and slightly up-turned, grew larger and bulbous, drooping slightly over thinning, puckering lips. Her upper front teeth, barely visible as she chanted, became yellow and more pronounced, pushing against her upper lip. The overbite revealed lower teeth that were beginning to look like a decaying, uneven picket fence.
Samantha glanced down from Michelle’s face to look at her body. Her breasts had swollen and fallen on a growing potbelly, creating a matronly bosom that pushed against the buttons of the dress until they began to show signs of strain. Flab began to show as tires both above and below the belt of the dress that was now showing visible signs of stretching. Her shoulders slumped, making them even more rounded. Her ass, once perfectly formed, seemed to grow and lose shape, merging with the fat around her thickening middle. Her legs grew chunkier and slightly misshapen feet now fit perfectly into the severe leather shoes. A tide of fat seemed to avalanche from her shoulders to her wrists, making them look beefier. Michelle’s hands were now bigger but also more gnarled; the knuckles looked a little red and swollen and the fingernails showed cracks running perpendicular to ragged edges. The old-fashioned watch that she had worn loosely on her left wrist now made a circular indentation on her pudgy arm. It was only then that Samantha noticed how much Michelle’s voice had changed during the chanting; it was now much lower, hoarse and raspy, almost gravelly. There was stillness when Michelle stopped chanting.
She opened her eyes and looked at Samantha who flinched involuntarily. Gone were the warm, happy, vivid blue eyes; these slate-grey eyes seemed filled with cynicism and scorn. The aged Michelle then looked down at her body, registering the matronly bosom, potbelly and somewhat arthritic hands. She looked at Samantha and cackled in triumph. “I remembered it! I remembered the chant! Grandmother would be so proud of me.”
Samantha looked at the stout, stern-looking old lady with awe and disbelief. “M…Michelle?”
Her friend had moved to stand in front of the full-length mirror in the hallway and was twisting stiffly left and right to examine her new appearance. She put aged hands to her face and gently kneaded the waxy, mottled skin, pushing up the double chin so that the fat poured up on either side of her now ill-defined jaw-line. “I wonder what the opposite of ‘face lift’ is?” she said hoarsely to herself. She turned heavily to face her friend. “Well, do I look like a substitute teacher who belongs at our school now?”
Samantha put both hands up to her face, her eyes widening. “Oh my Gaawwd, Mich. That’s so totally awesome! You look like, seventy!”
“Well, I was aiming for sixty-seven, but thank you,” Michelle answered deadpan.
“But how...?”
“I told you,” Michelle answered impatiently, “Its magic; my grandmother taught me a few spells for the amulet.”
“Wow!” Samantha repeated, pausing, wide-eyed, trying to take it all in. “What else can you do?”
Michelle smiled, the expression looking bitter on her aged face. “You mean can I make money appear out of thin air?” She shook her gray head. “No, this is the only spell I remember; grandmother thought she’d take dress-up to a whole new level one day when my mom was out. I was four and it seemed perfectly natural. I’m still amazed that I remembered it well enough for the spell to work. I think grandmother kept a notebook of spells hidden somewhere; I’m hoping to find them some day; not even my mom knows about that.”
Samantha nodded intently. A worried look then came over her. “Are you...”
“Still me? Yeah, don’t worry. Although I do feel quite different,” Michelle observed while cupping her fallen breasts and patting her swollen midriff. “Still, maybe Adam will like a more mature lady with big tits,” Michelle commented in an incongruously steely voice.
Samantha laughed, thinking about the expression on the class stud’s face if he saw Michelle now; he had been pestering her for a date for over a month. “With a belly like that, I wouldn’t bet on it,” Samantha remarked, still laughing. “I think you’ve finally found a way to get rid of that creep.”
“Aw, I bet he’d just love to kiss me,” Michelle said mockingly, pursing thin, wrinkled lips over her now-prominent front teeth. “Besides,” she went on, still crowing with delight and putting a hand on her corpulent rear, “What jock wouldn’t want to grab an ass like this?”
She folded the cardigan over her rotund bust tightly, emphasizing her matronly bosom and then ran her gnarled hands down over her body. “Is this a bod for sin or what?” Samantha was almost crying with laughter.
“Yeah; the guys will be too distracted by their woodies to pay attention in class tomorrow.”
Michelle turned back to look at her reflection for a second time. “I’m going to have to disguise the amulet,” she decided.
“Why not just take it off?” suggested Samantha.
“That would break the spell,” Michelle explained. “Wait a sec.” Again, she closed her eyes and chanted; the amulet shimmered and became a pearl necklace.
Michelle opened her eyes and looked at the alteration critically. She compressed her mouth into a thin line of disapproval. “Nope. Too cliché.”
She took the necklace in the crooked fingers of her left hand and closed her eyes again. This time it became a pair of horn-rimmed reading glasses on a gold chain; the glasses rested on her plump bosom. Her grey curls bobbed slightly as she nodded in approval. “Well, young lady,” she said imperiously, turning to face her best friend again, “Are we ready to do some work today, or is this lazy generation simply not up to it?”
Samantha clapped her hands with glee, still in some disbelief at what she had just witnessed. “This is totally awesome, Mich…”
Michelle interrupted her. “You’d better call me Ms Crutchley, just to get used to it. You have to be as convincing as me tomorrow if this is going to work.”
Samantha nodded, still a little in awe of what she had just witnessed.
“Also, you’re going to have to drive me to school tomorrow; you can drop me a few blocks away; I’ll walk the rest.”
Samantha frowned. “Why don’t you just take your car?”
The old lady put her hands on her fat hips, causing the dowdy cardigan to flare at the sides. “So I can tell the nice young police officer that the photo on my driver’s license is just a very old one?”
“Oh,” Samantha conceded the penny dropping.
“Just remember what we’re going to do with $2,000!” Michelle pointed out, again inspecting her disguise, still a little in awe herself that the spell she had learned from her grandmother so many years ago had worked first time. Grandmother had said she was a natural.
“Can you teach a class?” Samantha asked doubtfully.
“Sure I can,” Michelle replied in her gravelly voice, placing old-fashioned earrings next to elongated ears to see how they looked; “I’ve been as bored as you, but I have been paying attention. Any moron can read the book and put it in their own words. Besides,” she went on, pulling the dress down and rearranging the cardigan over her buxom frame, “No one expects very much from a sub; do they?”
Samantha nodded, but still had doubts. “And how are you going to get into Blakely’s office with the bug?”
“Oh, I daresay Ms Crutchley will have a complaint or two to make about some young whippersnappers and will demand that the principal be responsible for summoning them to his office personally – we old teachers like making examples of you ruffians, you know,” she confided, as if to a peer.
“But the secretaries...”
“...will not be paying attention to an old lady, will they?”
Samantha smiled broadly. “Wow! This just might work!”
Michelle cackled, “You’d better believe it’s going to work, dearie.”
They both sat the table, Samantha’s pop drink long forgotten. “Are you going to…you know...change back?”
Michelle looked pensive. “I think it might be a good idea to stay old for tonight – to get into character.”
Samantha rolled her eyes. She knew about method acting, but this was ridiculous. “But we were going to a movie tonight, Mich...I mean Ms Crutchley!”
Michelle straightened her fallen shoulders as much as she could. “There’s nothing to say you can’t take your old grandmother to the movies, now is there, young lady. Besides, I will get the senior’s discount.” She displayed her transformed, crooked, yellowed teeth as she grinned, her thin lips almost disappearing in the grimace. “We might even pick up a couple of guys!”
“Hamlet comes across as a complex character, but some have suggested that his flaws are really quite simple.” Michelle wasn’t listening. It was about ten minutes into her grade 12 Language Arts class, but she was thinking about the bet. Almost everyone in her class worked part-time, apart from the few who didn’t need to, but most wanted to make some easy money before the summer break. She couldn’t remember who had come up with the idea, but it had captured the majority of the class.
The concept was simple. You became involved in the dare with a $100 buy-in. The first person to place a recording device under the principal’s desk, record one full conversation in his office – and the more confidential the meeting, the better - and play the conversation for the group won the prize. Although a minority of students had smiled knowingly and shaken their heads, the twenty who remained interested had created a pot of $2,000. For that kind of money, people were willing to take a few chances.
The group, Michelle had quickly learned, were not lacking in enthusiasm: Nick was on a two-week suspension for letting the air out of all four tires on the principal’s Audi; his planning had taken him as far as creating a distraction to get Mr. Blakely out of his office, but it had let him down badly by failing to remind him about the two vigilant secretaries working right outside. Jared had planned a meeting with Blakely and had even gotten him to leave the office for a glass of water; his history of ailments in the High School had come in handy; his undoing was his indecision regarding where to put the device; Blakely had come back in to discover Jared grunting and muttering expletives under his desk. Worse still, the two incidents had alerted the administration that something was going on. Michelle shook her head slightly while Ms Matheson discussed the role of the soliloquy; whoever won that two grand would earn it.
She felt a gentle prod in the back. Her friend Samantha passed her a note, never taking her eyes off Ms Matheson for even a second. Michelle opened it. “Whatcha doin?” it said.
She smiled and scribed, “Thinking about you know what” underneath. Still holding the note, she let her left hand fall gently to her side. She felt Sam take the note from her. She heard the sound of pencil on paper and again felt a gentle poke in her back.
Covertly opening the note, she read, “Going in after class? Maybe you can borrow an invisibility cloak.”
Michelle smiled, only to hear Matheson remark, “Something amusing about Hamlet wrestling with a mortal dilemma, Michelle?”
Without missing a beat, Michelle answered, “I was just thinking about how great Shakespeare is at exploring the human condition, Ms M.”
Ms Matheson stared at her for a moment and then returned to Act 3 Scene 1.
“It’s getting harder and harder to stay awake in that class.” Michelle and Sam were making their way to the cafeteria for lunch.
“Yeah, well, we need the credits,” Michelle pointed out.
Sam shrugged. “I guess.”
They piled food on their trays in silence and went to an area of empty tables. “What are you going to do your LA essay on, Mich?”
Michelle was staring at her food, deep in thought. “Mmm?”
Samantha shook her head. “Your essay, Michelle.”
“What essay?”
Samantha put her fork down. “Are you still thinking about the bet?”
Michelle nodded.
Samantha exhaled heavily with exasperation. “Come on, the admin are onto it. The bet’s impossible. It should be called off. The next person caught won’t even be able to graduate.”
Michelle stared at her best friend and quietly said, “I think I know how I can do it.”
Sam folded her arms and cocked her head. “Oh, I see; you do have an invisibility cloak hidden at home. Well, why didn’t you say so?” Michelle was too deep in thought to register the sarcasm. “I just hope you share the winnings with me,” Sam commented as she dug her fork into the dry meatloaf.
“I will,” Michelle replied with complete sincerity.
Sam stopped in mid-chew and stared at her friend as if she had just noticed her waving a gun. “Mich,” she began slowly and deliberately, “What are you up to?”
Michelle glanced around her and said in a low voice, “You know how my Mom is a substitute teacher?” Samantha nodded. “I think that’s the answer,” Michelle continued.
Samantha raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to get your Mom to plant the bug? I know she’s cool, but are you friggin’ nuts?”
Michelle shook her head. “No. I will.”
Samantha stared in bafflement at her friend. “I’m not following you, honey.”
Michelle put down her fork and spread her hands in a gesture of revelation. “I’ll be the substitute teacher.”
“Ok, now I know you’re nuts.” Samantha placed an index finger on the small finger of her other hand. “First of all, you’re too well known here to pull that off, even with a wig and dark glasses. Second of all,” she continued, moving on to a new finger. “You’re way too young. The substitutes we get are cranky, retired teachers who think teaching us is still better than sitting at home - although your Mom is obviously a big exception,” she added quickly.
Michelle’s mother was content to work part-time and liked the flexibility that substitute teaching gave her.
Michelle leaned forward. “No, I’ve got this figured out. I know how the telephone system for substitute teachers works; I’ve seen my Mom use it often enough. She’s going out of town for a few days tomorrow and she usually forgets to phone her absence into the system. There’s bound to be a call for a sub for this school; I’ll pick it up. My Mom has never subbed here, but even if someone on staff knows her, I can always say that there was a mix-up in the system and I was sent here instead; there are fubars all the time. I’ll have to think of a name for myself, though.” Michelle lapsed into deep thought.
Samantha stared at her again, this time with a look of deep concern. “Are you completely mental?”
Michelle looked at her friend with bafflement. “What do you mean?”
“Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?”
Michelle was tall and curvy, with straight blond hair falling to narrow, rounded shoulders. Her breasts filled the red sweater she was wearing and the jeans accented other curves that had been studied carefully by more than a few of the guys in class. Her legs were long and shapely and her face was beautifully symmetrical. “What do you mean?”
“I mean to be a substitute you have to look older – a lot older.”
A smile parted Michelle’s full lips and her vivid blue eyes danced as she said, “Maybe I can. Meet me after school.”
At 4:30PM that day, the two girls walked into the thrift store that was about four blocks from Michelle’s house. Samantha looked uncomfortable and glanced around her nervously as they entered the store. “I hope to Buddha we don’t run into anyone we know,” she muttered. “I wear Lulu Lemon; I’d never live it down.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Michelle replied distractedly, fingering a row of sweaters. “If it happens, we’ll tell them we’re looking for a costume. Not too far off the truth either.” She looked at her friend, perfect eyebrows raised in amusement. “I am in the drama club, you know.” She turned her full attention back to the sweaters.
“Sweet,” Samantha replied sarcastically; “I’m placing all of my street creed in the hands of Juliet.” She glanced worriedly at the store entrance when she heard the door open and exhaled audibly with relief. “For a second there I thought it was Maria.”
Michelle took three steps further down the aisle and resumed her fingering. Never taking her eyes off the clothes, she remarked, “What are the chances that Maria would come in here? As part of her voluntary work?” Sam snickered.
“Good point. Still,” she continued, “I’ll feel better when we’re outta here.”
“Mmm,” Michelle responded, still fingering.
Samantha looked at her friend critically. “I’m dancing with death by humiliation here and that’s all you can...”
She was interrupted by a triumphant “Yes!” as Michelle yanked a grey cardigan off the rail.
Samantha looked at the garment. “Oookaayy,” she began, “It’s a little big for you, isn’t it; and a little...what’s the word…DOW-DY?!” almost screaming the last two syllables. Several people glanced over. “I mean,” Sam continued, more audibly than necessary, “It’s exactly the kind of dowdy that your part will require in the next school play.”
“Ok,” Michelle said, as if the last few seconds hadn’t happened, “I’ll need an old-fashioned dress, some brown stockings and a pair of leather shoes.”
“And don’t forget the grey wig and award-winning prosthetic make-up!” Samantha added sardonically, shaking her head with bafflement and frustration. She grabbed Michelle by the arm. “What – are – you – doing?” she asked in a fierce whisper. “I’m getting ready”, Michelle answered, her eyes locked on a large, brown paisley-print dress, with drab buttons from the waist up to the rounded collar. “Oh Sam, that’s perfect!” Sam just shook her head as Michelle darted forward to nab the garment.
*********
“Good! My mom’s out for the evening,” Michelle shouted to Samantha from the kitchen. “She left a note and some dinner in the oven.”
Sam walked in from the hallway, carrying two plastic bags of clothes. “Oh your mom’s not that bad,” she commented, placing the bags on the table with a rustle and moving to the fridge in search of diet pop.
“It means that I can test something out,” Michelle explained, looking like she was trying to recall something from long ago.
“Sweet!” Sam exclaimed with comic chirpiness, “We get to do drugs for the evening.”
Michelle’s beautiful face lit up as she grinned. “Oh, it will be an interesting evening – I hope! Wait here.” Before Sam could answer, Michelle grabbed the bags off the table and ran upstairs.
“Ok then,” Sam shouted after her; “I’ll just sit here and enjoy my pop. It’s not like I’ve anything better to do!”
Fifteen minutes later, Michelle returned. Samantha didn’t know whether to groan or laugh. She did both. “Well, if that’s your outfit for school tomorrow, you’ll certainly win the ludicrous prize - and that’s up against some pretty stiff competition,” she added knowingly with a nod.
Her tall, curvaceous friend was wearing the paisley dress she had just purchased and it looked like a tent on her, sagging off her body like a deflated hot-air balloon over a truck. She was also wearing the grey cardigan from the thrift store; it also seemed to be fighting a desperate battle against gravity and it looked to be losing despairingly. Her long blond hair flowed incongruously over the collar of the sweater. Michelle’s long legs were swathed in dowdy, wrinkled brown stockings and her feet balanced unsteadily in the black leather shoes, at least four sizes too large for her, she had spotted just before they left.
“So that’s how you’re going to plant the bug in Blakely’s office; you’re going to scare them out of the building; either that or make them laugh so hard they won’t be able to get up off the floor. Are you NUTS??”
Michelle smiled wickedly, “Oh, I won’t be going to school tomorrow. Ms Mabel Crutchley will.”
“Who?”
Michelle ignored the question. “I’ve already phoned it into the system and everything’s set; I even have the job number. Ms Crutchley will be taking Grade 12 Social tomorrow – our social class, as a matter of fact,” she added with a gleeful chuckle. She rummaged through a brown wooden box she had brought down with her. “I just hope my mom hasn’t thrown it away.”
Although beginning to feel that this rabbit hole was bottomless, Samantha’s curiosity kept her engaged with her friend’s bizarre behavior. “Thrown what away?”
“The amulet. Shit, she must have,” Michelle cursed as she continued her search, throwing some of the contents of the box on the table as he rearranged others in the box.
After twenty seconds of a silence broken only by the sound of objects being dragged on wood, Michelle gave a cry of triumph, lifting what looked like an Olympic bronze medal out of the box. It was attached to a black chain that seemed intricately woven in an almost Celtic design.
“Wow!” Samantha remarked. “Why would your mom have thrown away something like that? It’s beautiful.” She drew nearer her friend to examine it more closely. “What’s the writing? It looks like Gaelic…Persian?”
Michelle shook her head. “Those are runes and they are…” She paused, looking for a roundabout way to explain it. There wasn’t one. “...Magic.”
A smile of revelation began to form on Samantha’s face. “Oh, I get it. This is a set up. You have no intention of getting into the principal’s office. You just wanted to play a prank. Well, you certainly went to a lot of trouble,” she said, eying the frumpy, oversized clothes and what looked like a medallion. She raised her hands, as if in surrender. “Well, you got me. Congratulations.”
Michelle shook her head. “Sam, I’m serious. This belongs to my grandmother. She died when I was young and my mother hid her amulet, but I found it last month.” She paused, as if recalling something very important. “I remember her teaching me rhymes, verses...I thought they were like Nursery Rhymes, but the harder I tried to remember, the more I actually did remember. Do you understand?” She looked at her friend pleadingly; Sam stared back, looking as if Michelle had just started to speak fluent Greek.
Michelle sighed. “My grandmother was involved in Wicca and my mom disapproved strongly. She made her stop practicing in front of me, but I’m pretty sure she kept on working magic right up to the time she died.” Sam just continued to stare at her best friend. “Look, I’ll prove it to you.” Michelle took the amulet in her left hand, closed her eyes and began to chant.
Samantha was just about to tell Michelle that she was going home when the changes began.
All the changes seem to happen at once. Even if she had been prepared for it, Samantha wouldn’t have been able to separate the strands of the transformation. Michelle shrank in height and widened, her expanding figure beginning to fill out the frumpy dress. Her hair shortened and dulled, turning from a lustrous blond to an ashen grey; it then curled into a loose perm, her hairline now slightly higher than before. Creases crumpled her forehead as it became sallow. Her eyebrows turned a similar shade of grey, growing thick and bushy. Eye bags appeared under the still-closed eyes and darkened, as if being filling with a black poison. Deep wrinkles radiated from the corners of both eyes. Folds of skin appeared over her thinning eyelashes, forming little hoods of age. Her entire face at first appeared to grow fleshier as her entire complexion became pallid and then it started to sag, making large jowls and a very noticeable double chin that drowned the fastened top button of the dress. Wrinkles, creases and folds appeared and deepened all over her face. Her nose, once pert and slightly up-turned, grew larger and bulbous, drooping slightly over thinning, puckering lips. Her upper front teeth, barely visible as she chanted, became yellow and more pronounced, pushing against her upper lip. The overbite revealed lower teeth that were beginning to look like a decaying, uneven picket fence.
Samantha glanced down from Michelle’s face to look at her body. Her breasts had swollen and fallen on a growing potbelly, creating a matronly bosom that pushed against the buttons of the dress until they began to show signs of strain. Flab began to show as tires both above and below the belt of the dress that was now showing visible signs of stretching. Her shoulders slumped, making them even more rounded. Her ass, once perfectly formed, seemed to grow and lose shape, merging with the fat around her thickening middle. Her legs grew chunkier and slightly misshapen feet now fit perfectly into the severe leather shoes. A tide of fat seemed to avalanche from her shoulders to her wrists, making them look beefier. Michelle’s hands were now bigger but also more gnarled; the knuckles looked a little red and swollen and the fingernails showed cracks running perpendicular to ragged edges. The old-fashioned watch that she had worn loosely on her left wrist now made a circular indentation on her pudgy arm. It was only then that Samantha noticed how much Michelle’s voice had changed during the chanting; it was now much lower, hoarse and raspy, almost gravelly. There was stillness when Michelle stopped chanting.
She opened her eyes and looked at Samantha who flinched involuntarily. Gone were the warm, happy, vivid blue eyes; these slate-grey eyes seemed filled with cynicism and scorn. The aged Michelle then looked down at her body, registering the matronly bosom, potbelly and somewhat arthritic hands. She looked at Samantha and cackled in triumph. “I remembered it! I remembered the chant! Grandmother would be so proud of me.”
Samantha looked at the stout, stern-looking old lady with awe and disbelief. “M…Michelle?”
Her friend had moved to stand in front of the full-length mirror in the hallway and was twisting stiffly left and right to examine her new appearance. She put aged hands to her face and gently kneaded the waxy, mottled skin, pushing up the double chin so that the fat poured up on either side of her now ill-defined jaw-line. “I wonder what the opposite of ‘face lift’ is?” she said hoarsely to herself. She turned heavily to face her friend. “Well, do I look like a substitute teacher who belongs at our school now?”
Samantha put both hands up to her face, her eyes widening. “Oh my Gaawwd, Mich. That’s so totally awesome! You look like, seventy!”
“Well, I was aiming for sixty-seven, but thank you,” Michelle answered deadpan.
“But how...?”
“I told you,” Michelle answered impatiently, “Its magic; my grandmother taught me a few spells for the amulet.”
“Wow!” Samantha repeated, pausing, wide-eyed, trying to take it all in. “What else can you do?”
Michelle smiled, the expression looking bitter on her aged face. “You mean can I make money appear out of thin air?” She shook her gray head. “No, this is the only spell I remember; grandmother thought she’d take dress-up to a whole new level one day when my mom was out. I was four and it seemed perfectly natural. I’m still amazed that I remembered it well enough for the spell to work. I think grandmother kept a notebook of spells hidden somewhere; I’m hoping to find them some day; not even my mom knows about that.”
Samantha nodded intently. A worried look then came over her. “Are you...”
“Still me? Yeah, don’t worry. Although I do feel quite different,” Michelle observed while cupping her fallen breasts and patting her swollen midriff. “Still, maybe Adam will like a more mature lady with big tits,” Michelle commented in an incongruously steely voice.
Samantha laughed, thinking about the expression on the class stud’s face if he saw Michelle now; he had been pestering her for a date for over a month. “With a belly like that, I wouldn’t bet on it,” Samantha remarked, still laughing. “I think you’ve finally found a way to get rid of that creep.”
“Aw, I bet he’d just love to kiss me,” Michelle said mockingly, pursing thin, wrinkled lips over her now-prominent front teeth. “Besides,” she went on, still crowing with delight and putting a hand on her corpulent rear, “What jock wouldn’t want to grab an ass like this?”
She folded the cardigan over her rotund bust tightly, emphasizing her matronly bosom and then ran her gnarled hands down over her body. “Is this a bod for sin or what?” Samantha was almost crying with laughter.
“Yeah; the guys will be too distracted by their woodies to pay attention in class tomorrow.”
Michelle turned back to look at her reflection for a second time. “I’m going to have to disguise the amulet,” she decided.
“Why not just take it off?” suggested Samantha.
“That would break the spell,” Michelle explained. “Wait a sec.” Again, she closed her eyes and chanted; the amulet shimmered and became a pearl necklace.
Michelle opened her eyes and looked at the alteration critically. She compressed her mouth into a thin line of disapproval. “Nope. Too cliché.”
She took the necklace in the crooked fingers of her left hand and closed her eyes again. This time it became a pair of horn-rimmed reading glasses on a gold chain; the glasses rested on her plump bosom. Her grey curls bobbed slightly as she nodded in approval. “Well, young lady,” she said imperiously, turning to face her best friend again, “Are we ready to do some work today, or is this lazy generation simply not up to it?”
Samantha clapped her hands with glee, still in some disbelief at what she had just witnessed. “This is totally awesome, Mich…”
Michelle interrupted her. “You’d better call me Ms Crutchley, just to get used to it. You have to be as convincing as me tomorrow if this is going to work.”
Samantha nodded, still a little in awe of what she had just witnessed.
“Also, you’re going to have to drive me to school tomorrow; you can drop me a few blocks away; I’ll walk the rest.”
Samantha frowned. “Why don’t you just take your car?”
The old lady put her hands on her fat hips, causing the dowdy cardigan to flare at the sides. “So I can tell the nice young police officer that the photo on my driver’s license is just a very old one?”
“Oh,” Samantha conceded the penny dropping.
“Just remember what we’re going to do with $2,000!” Michelle pointed out, again inspecting her disguise, still a little in awe herself that the spell she had learned from her grandmother so many years ago had worked first time. Grandmother had said she was a natural.
“Can you teach a class?” Samantha asked doubtfully.
“Sure I can,” Michelle replied in her gravelly voice, placing old-fashioned earrings next to elongated ears to see how they looked; “I’ve been as bored as you, but I have been paying attention. Any moron can read the book and put it in their own words. Besides,” she went on, pulling the dress down and rearranging the cardigan over her buxom frame, “No one expects very much from a sub; do they?”
Samantha nodded, but still had doubts. “And how are you going to get into Blakely’s office with the bug?”
“Oh, I daresay Ms Crutchley will have a complaint or two to make about some young whippersnappers and will demand that the principal be responsible for summoning them to his office personally – we old teachers like making examples of you ruffians, you know,” she confided, as if to a peer.
“But the secretaries...”
“...will not be paying attention to an old lady, will they?”
Samantha smiled broadly. “Wow! This just might work!”
Michelle cackled, “You’d better believe it’s going to work, dearie.”
They both sat the table, Samantha’s pop drink long forgotten. “Are you going to…you know...change back?”
Michelle looked pensive. “I think it might be a good idea to stay old for tonight – to get into character.”
Samantha rolled her eyes. She knew about method acting, but this was ridiculous. “But we were going to a movie tonight, Mich...I mean Ms Crutchley!”
Michelle straightened her fallen shoulders as much as she could. “There’s nothing to say you can’t take your old grandmother to the movies, now is there, young lady. Besides, I will get the senior’s discount.” She displayed her transformed, crooked, yellowed teeth as she grinned, her thin lips almost disappearing in the grimace. “We might even pick up a couple of guys!”