Post by kingfaraday on Aug 26, 2017 9:45:55 GMT -6
easter and gertrude by chronoeclipse
I stared at the various cards around the starch white room, "Happy 80th Birthday." Oh yeah a real happy birthday. I was in a place where I truly didn’t belong with kids who didn’t visit, and grandkids who didn’t visit. I’ve only seen my great granddaughter twice. I needed to get out. I thought anything would be better than that hellhole I was living in.
Not even to mention the people work there. Yes, I’m sure they are all qualified, well, maybe not that sure. Half of them can barely speak English and the rest talk to the patients as if they, the patients, can’t speak English. The only person who truly got what I meant lived down the hall. She was the only person really worth having a conversation. My roommate had some sort of sleeping disorder, and have you ever tried to have a conversation with someone who falls asleep every ten minutes? So, most of my time there was spent in silent contemplation.
"Mrs. Smith, It’s time for your bath." My thoughts were interrupted by the slow pronounced syllables being yelled into my ear. When I turned my head two beautiful young girls were standing over me. I sighed heavily and accepted them wouldn’t make any difference. "Mrs. Smith." The blonde one yelled in my ear again. God, I might have been slightly hard of hearing, but I most certainly wasn’t deaf.
"Yes dear?" Was all I said in response.
"It’s time for your bath." In the same slow pronounced way.
"All right dear." At this point I gave my best attempt at feigning a smile and they started working. It was very humiliating having your bath that way.
"So, what are you doing tonight?" The brunette said over me as if I was totally oblivious to their presence.
"I have a date with Mike." A broad smile appeared across the blonde’s face as she made this comment.
"Are you serious?" The blonde nodded in response. "Wow, but doesn’t he like have a girlfriend or something?"
"No, well, he did, but he dumped her."
"I’m so happy for you. I certainly wouldn’t mind going out with him."
Oh to be young. I remember my husband was quite the lady-killer himself in his time. I got him though. He died a few years ago of lung cancer. Right before they had stuck me in there, actually.
The girls finished up and lifted me into a wheelchair. They made me go around in a wheelchair despite the fact I had no problem working. As I was being wheeled to the elevator to go outside by the fountain, I spotted Esther, you know, the only one worth having a conversation with. After the nurse pushing her left to talk to some other nurse a male orderly took over and we finally made it outside.
"Hello there ladies." Oliver, a man in his early eighties greets us.
"Hello Oliver." Esther and I respond in unison. The man that pushed Esther out who was supposed to be ‘keeping an eye’ on us began flirting with one of the younger girls.
"I wish I were still young." I said wistfully.
"Well, you know, there is a way you can."
"Don’t talk nonsense, Oliver."
"Listen, Esther, I’m serious."
"Yeah, sure you are." Esther snapped back at him.
"Well, I am, and if you don’t want to hear about it, then fine. I won’t say another word." Oliver started to roll himself away.
"No, I want to know." I was very intrigued in spite of myself.
Oliver slowly turned and smiled devilishly. "Well, since you really want to know, it may not be true, but this here fountain is the fountain of youth." Esther raised her eyebrows questioningly. "I’m serious. If you drink this water you’ll be young again."
"And how do you know this?" Esther was skeptical of everything Oliver said, and with good reason.
"Well, I hear things." With this rather ominous statement he started coughing, actually, it was more of a hacking.
"All right, Mr. Black, I think that’s enough for you." The young female nurse rushed towards him.
"But I," more coughing " just" cough "got out here."
"And now it’s time for you to go in!" She responded sternly. Oliver, being the stubborn old man he is, put up a good fight. The male orderly jumped up to help the nurse. Together they managed to gain enough control of Oliver to get him inside. Which left us, Esther and myself, alone.
"Well, do you want to try it?" I asked her rather nervously after making sure the nurse was gone.
"Try what?" Esther was utterly confused
"The fountain of course."
"You believe Oliver?" It was rather incredulous, I admit, but hey, if it didn’t work, it didn’t work and we’d have a good laugh over how silly it was for us to try in the first place.
"Well, it couldn’t hurt to try." I reasoned with her.
"I suppose it couldn’t." Esther gave in. "You go first." After I gave her a "why me?" look. She defensively shot at me. "It is, after all, your idea." How could I argue with that?
I took a deep breath before cupping my hands to take a sip of the water. Nothing happened. I took another sip and after a minute a strange feeling went through my body. I looked at Esther whose eyes were wide in amazement. It couldn’t actually being working, could it?
My eyes lowered and I could see the age spots on my hands slowly disappearing. The wrinkles smoothed out and my nails lost their yellowish color. I brought my hand to my head to discover thick, long, smooth hair, rather than the short, thinning, hair I had had just moments before. My house coat, that I was forced to wear, began to feel tighter around the chest while it got looser in the waist. My slippers also began to feel loose. Looking down I saw my legs were now firm and smooth. Any and all protruding veins were no longer visible. Bringing my hand to face, I felt that my skin there is also smooth. I had no more wrinkles. I was young again.
"Gertie? You’re young, you’re actually young!" Esther was purely astonished.
"I am. I really am. Now it’s your turn." Esther eagerly took a sip and went through the same transformation I had. As she went through hers I noticed my vision as well as my hearing were now sharper. It was strange watching her slowly slip back into her fifties and then her forties. Her hair slowly losing the gray it had developed over the years. She was now in her thirties, where her figure came back, her waist going in and chest and hips filling out. Her eyes and her chestnut brown hair regained their shine. She went back through her twenties and her face looked younger. When she stopped she was about seventeen.
After rejoicing for a few minutes in our newfound youth we suddenly realized our predicament. Or, rather Esther realized it. "Uh, Gertie?"
"Yeah?" I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t celebrating anymore.
"What are we gonna do now?" She sounded more worried with each word she spoke.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, we can’t exactly go walking around, like this."
"Like what?" I was genuinely confused. In regaining my youth I seemed to have lost all common sense.
"Gertie, we’re wearing housecoats, with big flowers on them, that quite obviously do not fit us."
"Oh, yeah. I guess I didn’t think of that."
"Not even to mention our names." Her voice trailed off as though the statement was self-explanatory.
"What about our names?" Again, I was completely confused, and I certainly didn’t think there was anything wrong with my name.
"How many seventeen-year-olds do you know named Esther and Gertrude?"
"So, um, we, uh, tell people our names, are um, something else. First we should work on clothes."
"Right. Don’t they have extra uniforms somewhere?"
"Yeah, they do. You know what we should do?"
"What?"
"Talk to Oliver. What I thought this would accomplish I have no idea. But he would be able to tell us something. I hoped anyway.
"Um, Oliver, wake up." Esther shook him gently.
"Wha?" He slowly came out of his sleep. "Who are you?" Oliver didn’t even try to be tactful, but I guess I wouldn’t either if I was woken up in the middle of the night.
"It’s us." I responded like he would know who "us" was.
"Huh?"
"What Gertrude means is it’s Esther and Gertie. It’s us, only now we’re young."
"You’re kidding me." Oliver chuckled to himself, he was becoming quite amused.
"We drank from the fountain, Oliver and look at us. We’re young. Look I can walk and jump." I demonstrated as I did things. I was a little bit too excited.
"Gertrude!" Esther hissed through her teeth. I knew she was annoyed with me, that was the only reason she ever called me Gertrude.
"What?"
"Be quiet. Do you want the nurses to hear you?"
"Oh, yeah. Right. I forgot about that." I sat awkwardly in the closest chair to keep myself calm.
"This is amusing ladies, but why are you here? Talking to me?"
"Well, we were wondering what else you knew about the ‘Fountain of Youth’." Esther said, taking charge, as was the norm.
"According to what I have heard, the effects only last for a certain amount of time. I have not heard, however, how long this period is. It could be a couple hours, or it could be a couple of weeks. I really can’t say. But I would be careful if I was you."
"We’ll be extremely careful," Esther shot me a look as she said this, "Now we need your help on one more thing."
"Tell me what is and I’ll tell you if I can help."
"Do you have any ideas on how we could get to the extra uniforms without anyone seeing us?" Oliver sat for a minute, thinking.
"Tonight, the nurses will go around at 12:00. That will leave one nurse down at the nurses’ station to keep track of things. I’ll ring my light, so she’ll come down here leaving the coast clear. I’ll hold her off as long as I can, but I can’t promise you’ll have too much time. Go as quick as you can, and hopefully you won’t get caught."
"We can do that, right Esther?"
"Of course we can."
Oliver’s plan worked like a charm, it went off with out a hitch. At seven o’clock the next morning we were walking out in our new, better fitting apparel and our new found youth.
"All right Gertie, now we have half way decent clothes, so, what are we gonna do?"
"What do you mean what are we gonna do? We can do anything we want! We’re free!" A man turned his head to watch us as we passed.
"Keep it down." Esther could really be a worrywart "What I mean is what are we going to do about our names? Money, clothes, we can’t wear these uniforms everywhere."
"You know what? I just had an idea."
"Oh really? This should be interesting."
"Come on, Esther, stop being so skeptical. We pulled off everything so far, now didn’t we?"
"Yeah I suppose so." She grudgingly agreed. "Well, what’s your big idea?"
"Oh, yeah." I had forgotten what we were talking about. "I was thinking, and I realized we look an awful lot like two of the girls who work at the nursing home."
"We do?"
"Yeah, you know there’s one with blonde hair, her name is, um, something that begins with ‘J’ and then there’s a girl who looks just like you."
"Yeah and...?" She didn’t quite get what I was trying to say.
"Well, they’ve never been very polite or considerate to me, and I bet they treat you the same way, and I would like to give them a taste of their own medicine."
"What’s your point Gertrude?" She was quite aggravated at this point.
"Do I have to spell it out for you?" I was becoming impatient myself and didn’t wait for her to answer. "If the fountain water can make people young there must be some way to make people old. So, what we do is, find out as much as possible about them in as short a time as possible and then switch lives." I was very proud of my plan.
"That would also clear up the issue of our not being there. Plus it would give us something to do with ourselves." Esther was getting into it, finally.
"Exactly. I know where they put their stuff and everything while they’re working. If I can quietly get it, we carefully go through it, reading anything and everything we find. Then we have Oliver ask them a bunch of questions and just listen in on their conversation. It should be easy."
"Now the only problem is finding out how to make them old."
"We’ll talk to Oliver."
"I suppose that’s all we can do." Esther sighed heavily."
"Esther come here, I hit the jackpot."
"What did you find?"
"I found her journal. It has everything in it. Names, inside jokes, likes, dislikes, arguments, and well, lets just say everything."
"Wow, that’s great."
"What did you find?" I was very eager to get things going.
"Pictures, a day planner, a book with notes in the margins, and then I found these." She held up a couple of triangular pieces of folded paper with the girl’s name on them.
"What could these be?" I took them from her. "Do you think we should unfold them?"
"I don’t see what could be in the, but there’s no harm in looking."
Couldn’t argue with that logic. I began unfolding one of them. It ended up being a lot more useful than either one of us expected.
"Esther, this is almost as good as the journal."
"Why? What is it?" She was in near disbelief that it was anything of great use.
"It’s a letter or something." I was kind of confused actually. There were a lot of random letters that didn’t from words.
"When I was young we didn’t fold letters up into triangles."
"Well times have changed Esther. It’s just good we discovered this now."
Later we snuck up to Oliver’s room and he handed us the tape he had made of his conversation with the girls. How and why he had a tape recorder to make the tape, I have no idea, but it sure helped a lot. We learned how they talked, laughed, and then more about their everyday lives. We were pretty confident we knew enough about them to pass as them. Now all that was left was to find the right pills to make them old.
"Hey, Gertie," Esther whispered "aren’t these the pills Oliver was talking about?"
I quickly read the label, "Yep that’s them. Now for the test. Do they dissolve in water?" Sure enough, they did. Right before the girls’ break we slipped two pills each and some fountain water in their diet Cokes.
"Let’s hope this works." I crossed my fingers like the old superstition says to as the girls walked up to their bags. I closed my eyes as they took a sip, luckily there wasn’t anyone else around to witness what happened next.
"Gertie, it’s working." Esther squealed with excitement. We watched in sick pleasure as the two young girls slowly transformed into old women.
They blossomed in their twenties, as most women do, their eyes and hair brightened, their figures reached their best. As they entered their thirties their waists began to fill out and their hair began to dull. The forties brought gray hairs and by the time they were sixty, their hair was completely gray. Their waists had filled out more and everything was sagging. The uniforms they were wearing fell limp on their bodies. The girls had a bewildered look on their faces. Age spots appeared on their skin and their backs hunched over a little. Their hair thinned and became shorter. When the transformation was complete they were classic little old ladies.
Their voices quavered as we went over to take them upstairs. We treated them with the same disrespect they had used with us as we put them in the awful housecoats we were forced to wear. Then we left them in our old rooms. After we quickly said goodbye to Oliver we were off to be teenagers.
"Gertie, that was great! We did it!"
"Ok, Esther, we need to start using our ‘teenage’ names. All right?"
"Fine, Julia." She annunciated the name.
"Great, Natalie." I copied her annunciation. We stopped in a rest room to change on our way downtown, where all the kids ‘hang out’.
"Uh, Julia?" Esther called fairly hesitant.
"Yeah? What’s wrong?"
"Aren’t these shorts kind of well, short?" She asked as she came out of the stall looking down at her legs.
"Well, my shorts are short too, so it must be what they wear now." As I looked at her I noticed that something was wrong with her outfit, and it wasn’t the shorts. "Uh, Natalie, why do you still have the uniform top on?"
"I couldn’t figure this thing out." She tossed me a blue piece of fabric that was supposed to be a shirt.
"Oh," I said after looking at it for a few minutes, "This is one of those, um, what’s the name for it again, oh yeah. It’s a tube top."
"It doesn’t matter what it’s called. I need to know how to put it on."
"Just pull it over your head." I told her tossing it back at her.
"Ok, I’ll be right back." She sighed.
By the time she got back I could feel something weird happening. "Oh damn." I muttered. "Natalie, I, uh left something at the nursing home. Hurry up." I grabbed her by the wrist as soon as she appeared and pulled her along with me.
"What’s wrong?" Esther was justifiably confused.
"I’m starting to change back. Now hurry up."
We were at least in our sixties by the time we made it back to the nursing home. We must have been a sight running down the street in short shorts and tank tops as old women. We had a chance to catch our breath before the transformation was complete.
"Do you think that if we drink more this time it will last longer?" I wondered aloud.
"I suppose it couldn’t hurt." Esther answered. So this time we both took a couple sips and we went back to being teenagers in the same way as before. Now that we didn’t have technical things to work out, clothes, names, etc., I couldn’t wait to get going.
"So, where are we going to go?" Esther asked while adjusting her top. I could tell she wasn’t very comfortable. I didn’t understand how they could wear stuff like this everyday. I know I never would have let my kids out of the house dressed like this.
That day we met all of, most of rather, the girls’ friends. They didn’t seem to notice any difference. We just went along with what they did and hoped we fit in. We even got invited to a party for that Friday night, which was the next day. Neither of their parents seemed to notice either. It was nice to sleep in a real bed, with real sheets, wearing a real nightgown. That was something I hadn’t been able to do in a while.
I woke up early the next morning nice and refreshed. I took a shower and washed my own hair, my own face, and my own body. After I was finished getting ready I met Esther to go to work. Luckily we had both been nurses and knew the ropes.
"Do you think their water pill mixture has worn off?" I questioned Esther.
"I don’t know. I think we should mix some more up just in case."
"Good idea."
It was a good thing we did. They were turning back as we entered the room, they now shared, on our rounds. I don’t know how anyone could sleep through that transformation, but they did. As we walked into the room they were slipping from their forties back into their thirties. The twenties went by quickly and before we knew it they were seventeen again.
"Mrs. Green," I yelled in the real Natalie’s ear. "It’s time for your pills." I spoke in the same slow annunciated way they always spoke to me in. Esther followed my lead with the real Julia. We had strategically placed ourselves so the girls wouldn’t be able to realize what was going on. Their hearing was as sharp as a 17 year olds so, our yelling harsher than it did for us.
Natalie slowly took the small cup of fountain water I produced along with the pills. I smiled as she transformed again, wrinkles appeared one by one on her face. Her hair slowly turning gray and age spots showing on her hands. Everything began to sag and her back hunched again as she hit eighty. When Esther gave the ok we quietly left the to let them wonder what had happened to them.
"Can you believe we’re actually going to a party Natalie? A party, a real party. With the type of stuff we haven’t been able to do in years." I exclaimed
"I know Julia, isn’t it great!" Esther squealed back.
"All right, now we need to collect ourselves, Natalie. These girls go to parties every weekend I doubt they’d be this excited." I took a deep breath to calm myself.
"Right Julia. So, do we want to stay together or split up when we get there?"
"I think we should play it by ear. Ya know, stay together until we’re comfortable and feel like we fit in, then split up." I figured it was a logical plan. We were overdoing the name thing so we wouldn’t slipup at the party.
You could hear the music from almost a block away. I’d certainly never been to a party like this before, not in a person’s house anyway. Cars lined both sides of the street and there were groups of people walking up to the door. "Well, here goes." I thought as I started up the walkway. Glancing at ‘Natalie’ I could tell she was thinking the same thing. She was actually the one who ended up ringing the bell.
"Hey ladies." The young man Mike answered the door. "Now the party can really begin." He put an arm around each of us and led us into the crowded house. I smiled at his comment. He really was cute. ‘Natalie’ just rolled her eyes at me and squirmed from his arm. Mike gave me a questioning look, all I could do was shrug. "Do you want a beer?" He offered.
"Huh?" I wasn’t sure I had heard him right. I mean I knew kids drank it was just weird.
"Do you want a beer?" Mike raised his voice over the music.
"Um," I was kind of hesitant to accept, but then I thought, what could a beer do? "Sure, thanks. How about you Natalie?"
"No thanks, not right now." She answered.
"Why didn’t you accept?" Once Mike was out of hearing range.
"We don’t know what alcohol will do to us in our, uh, state." She said referring to a chemical reaction with the fountain water.
"Just relax."
"I’ll try." At this point she glanced around the room. Her face brightened and her mouth relaxed into a smile when she saw what, or who, she was looking for. I turned to see what she was looking at. There sitting on the couch was a boy named Cory, who we had met that afternoon. He was fairly shy, but seemed really sweet. Esther really liked him and hadn’t been able to stop talking about him all day.
"Go talk to him." I whispered in her ear.
"I don’t want to leave you alone." Her eyes never left him.
"I’ll be fine." I encouraged her. "Besides, I have some conquesting of my own to do."
"All right, I’ll see you later. Don’t get in too far over your head." She walked away with a huge smile to go talk to him.
I watched her walk away. Being so caught up in the moment, one can imagine how startled I was when I felt a tap on my butt. "Hey, don’t get so worked up." Mike said handing me a drink.
"Sorry, but you scared me."
The party was really fun and I picked up the dancing fairly quickly. It was definitely easier than the jitterbug and all those dances. I could tell Esther was appalled, but I was determined to have a good time. I was totally in control of what I was doing too. Ok, so I was a little drunk, but that’s beside the point.
As we were dancing Mike whispered compliments, "you look great tonight" etc., into my ear. All I could do was smile at the various compliments he made. It had been a long time since I had heard them. Then he began kissing my neck, I closed my eyes. "I know someplace we can go to be alone, come on." He gently pulled away from me took a hold of my wrist to lead me through the throng of people. I didn’t quite get what was going on until he started up the stairs. I hesitated.
"Mike I don’t think we should..."
"You’ve never had a problem with it before Julia." He quickly cut me off.
I sighed heavily and gave in. I didn’t want to give myself away by acting abnormally. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen? If she acts this way all the time she has already tarnished her reputation, and it’s not really me who is doing it. Granted it is my body and my mind, but it’s not my identity. I rationalized the situation.
After what seemed like an eternity we made it up to the bedroom. I casually sat down on the bed. My stomach was doing flip-flops. I had never done anything like that before, well, I obviously wasn’t a virgin, bit what I had done was with my husband. It had been just about twenty years since I had done anything, though.
Well I digress. Mike put a c.d. in the stereo and soft music drowned out the loud harsh music downstairs. He sat down beside me and I felt more nervous than I had on my wedding night. He tucked some of my hair behind my ear and kissed me softly. Before I knew it I was lying on the bed with mike on top of me. We slowly undressed each other. As he took my panties off I felt a chill run down my spine. I foolishly mistook it for a sign of ecstasy and encouraged Mike to continue. At this point I heard a knock at the door.
"Mike maybe we..." he brought his lips to mine to silence me.
"Just ignore it, they’ll go away." He whispered right in my ear, he was eager to get on with it, just like a man.
Again the knock came. This time Natalie’s voice accompanied it, "Julia, I know you’re in there! Come on, we need to go!" Her voice had an urgent tone to it.
"Why do we need to go?" I yelled as Mike continued.
"You know why. Now, if you don’t come right now, I’m leaving without you."
"Fine then leave without me. I’ll be fine."
"Ok," anyone could hear the disappointment in her voice, "Good luck."
Mike gave me a funny look at this remark. "Don’t ask." Was the only response I could think of.
Then I realized how stupid my choice was. Everything became firmer. I suppose it could be passed off as excitement, but then things went down hill. I could feel the wrinkles developing on my face and my waist filling out. Mike didn’t seem to notice. I could also tell I was beginning to sag. My hair thinned and I didn’t have as many teeth as I had had before. I prayed Mike was too drunk to notice. How was I going to explain going from a seventeen-year-old girl to an eighty-year-old woman in a matter of minutes? I had really done it this time.
"Julia?! What happened to you?" Mike stopped what he was doing astonished.
"What do you mean?" My voice quavered.
"I hate to break it to you, but you’re, you’re" he searched for the word in his amazement, "you’re old."
"No..." I said slowly and shook my head, I hoped I could convince him he was just really drunk.
"No? But I can see you with my own eyes, you’re old Julia."
"You must have had too much to drink. You’re just seeing things weird." It was hard to keep my voice steady and even doing that it didn’t sound youthful at all. "Just close your eyes and I’ll see you tomorrow." I coaxed. He closed his eyes and very quickly drifted into a deep sleep. "That’s it sleep it off." I carefully got off the bed. I pulled on the skirt that didn’t fit right at all, and brought his shirt over my head. It looked a bit more normal than a tiny tank top. I grabbed the rest of my clothes and quietly left. Luckily no one at the party noticed me.
Esther in her teenage form of Natalie was waiting for me at the fountain when I got there. "I take it you didn’t get out in time?" She shot at me when I walked up to her.
"Um, no, but it was pretty easy to convince him he had just had too much to drink though." She rolled her eyes. "But listen, I had an idea."
"I don’t think I want to know anymore of your ideas."
"Come on, just listen."
"I’m listening."
"You know how the girls carry around bottles of water?" She nodded, having no clue where I was going with this "Well, why don’t we fill a couple with fountain water? That way we feel it happening and we excuse ourselves to let it take place, take a sip, then we’re teenagers again and we don’t have to run back here all the time." I took a sip from the fountain when I was finished. Esther contemplated the idea while I changed back.
"It couldn’t hurt." She finally said, I could tell she really approved of the idea though.
"Great!"
"Shh! You’re going to wake someone up. Do you have a water bottle?"
"Yep, right here." I produced the bottle from my bag. She filled it up as well as one for herself. I thought for once I had had an idea that would work, I had no idea how wrong I was.
Mike was truly convinced it was just the alcohol when he saw me young again. Well, not convinced, more confused than anything else, but it worked just as well. We were all just sitting around when Cory showed up. We all greeted him.
"Hey." He stood there awkwardly in the silence after. Esther got really shy and couldn’t say anything.
"Um, I think I’m gonna go get some aspirin." Mike stated breaking the silence.
"Do you have any water? My throat’s kinda dry." Cory sat down next to ‘Natalie’ in the grass while he said this.
"Yeah hold on a sec." She reached into her bag pulling out the bottle of water. "Here you go." I didn’t think anything of it at first, and then I remembered what water was in the bottle.
"Natalie, you didn’t." I screamed, but it was too late, Cory had already taken a sip. We watched in horror as he went back through all the changes he had made in his eighteen years of life. His clothes became visibly looser and he developed a more boyish look. Any muscles he had slowly disappeared. He also became noticeably shorter and before we knew it he was an infant. Natalie scooped him up before he toppled onto the concrete right behind him. "Now what are we going to do? How can we explain Cory disappearing and a random baby showing up?"
She thought a moment, "I don’t know."
"Well we have to do something before Mike gets back." I was getting frantic.
"Ok, how about I just leave and I’ll catch up with you at work?"
"All right, just make sure you remember what you tell people so our stories will match up."
"Yep." She got up carrying a baby Cory wrapped in his clothes with her. Hopefully he didn’t drink enough for it to last too long.
"Hey, where’d Natalie and Cory go?" Mike came back more confused than before.
"They, uh just realized that they, uh, had to do, um something." It was a really lame excuse I know, but I couldn’t think of anything to say.
"Um, ok." He still didn’t get where they went, as I didn’t answer his question. "So, do you want to come back to my house? My parents aren’t home." It was incredibly obvious what he was hinting at. I thought about it before giving him an answer.
"Well I have to work today, but as long as I leave before two..." my voice trailed off.
"Great, let’s go." Mike pulled me up off the ground and we were off. I find it amazing how promiscuous teenagers are today. Oh well, at least I was having fun. On my way back I over heard a girl complaining about how she had a crush on a high school boy but he wouldn’t give her the time of day because she was too young. She looked to be around eleven “I can change that.” I thought to myself while palming a pill in my purse. She was sitting on a park bench talking on a portable phone. I couldn’t believe a girl so young would have her own cellular phone but as I’ve learned times have changed. She hung up the phone and I walked over. I had broken the pill in half hoping to lessen the dose. If she has a crush on a high school boy it won’t help to much if she’s old enough to be his grand mother. I sat down on the bench and began to chat with her.
She was a very talkative girl and didn’t notice at all when I dropped the half tablet into her Pepsi a lot with a little of the water from my water bottle. She took a sip and I excused myself to leave. I figured it would be better if I wasn’t around when she started to change. I walked across the street and watched from a near by café. She began to age quickly and by the time I began to watch she was on a face track through puberty. Her breasts appears and began to push outward stretching her shirt. Her face matured and Her arms and legs were less scrawny. Her hip were those of a girl in her teens. She was a few inches taller. ‘There now she should be able to get that boy she wants’ I thought. But I noticed she hadn’t stopped aging. Her face matured even more she looked like a young collage aged woman now her breasts grew even bigger ripping her shirt and exposing themselves.
She screamed and covered herself not knowing what was going on. She passed through her twenties quickly. In her thirties she had feint lines and her body was shifting to look more mature. She wasn’t moving off the bench but was very upset over what was going on. She was now in her forties. Weight was forming around her hips causing them to push her shorts to the limit. Her breast were sagging bit by bit. A few gray hairs popped up in her hair and her belly was less flat and toned. She looked like a topless matron. Her cheeks sagged ever so slightly as she staired at her middle aged body. I shrugged, it didn’t work. But it would wear off and I’m sure once she found a shirt that fit her she wouldn’t mind being an adult for a while.
At about quarter past two I arrived at the nursing home. I was in a lighter mood and had totally forgotten what had taken place earlier. Esther was quite obviously stressed out. I really couldn’t blame her. She ran up to me when I entered her line of vision. "Where have you been?" She hissed at me through her teeth once she reached me.
"What do you mean?" I was playing dumb, not wanting to tell her too much.
"What do you mean what do I mean? You shove a baby off on me to take care of and explain to people, and then you disappear for two hours! Where were you?"
"Oh," I responded just remembering what had happened, "I was, uh, with, um, Mike." I winced knowing what was coming. She just shot me a dirty look and stalked off. I was glad I didn’t mention the eleven year old girl.
"Hurry up, we need to start rounds." I could tell she was upset, she didn’t even talk to me during the first half of our rounds. Then things went from bad to worse. We got to the room that ‘we’ were sharing just in time to see the girls slipping back into their twenties. Their housecoats were tight around their chests and they were staring down at themselves totally confused.
"Fuck." Esther mumbled. It was a word we hadn’t really used before, but we had picked up the language from the people we had met. "Julia, go get the pills, quickly." She ordered. I ran from the room and grabbed the first pills I saw that looked right.
"Here you go." I handed Esther the pills. She gave them the pills not even thinking to double-check the label.
We then were ready to shoot ourselves at the sight of them becoming younger rather than older. Their chests slowly became smaller as they went back through adolescence. Their womanly figures diminished. The housecoats became looser and they looked more and more like children by the second. Their loss of height was more obvious than would be expected in such short time. Their eyes widened and their cheeks filled out as they regained their baby fat. Before we knew it two infants were in the bed, instead of two old ladies.
"Dammit! What are we gonna do now?! One baby was hard enough to explain, how the Hell are we going to explain three?!" Esther totally flipped.
"I don’t know. But yelling and swearing isn’t going to help any." I snapped back at her.
"Well going off and screwing some random guy didn’t help much either." My mouth dropped open, I couldn’t even think of a response. "And you know what else? This is all your fault!"
"My fault? How is it my fault?" I put my defenses up?
"Everything that happened was because of your brilliant idea."
"My brilliant idea that you went along with. I didn’t force you into anything!" Then the babies who had just been staring at us in wonder began to wail.
"Damn, now you’ve really done it. " Esther lowered her voice, so no one would come in and maybe the babies would quiet down. She bent over and scooped baby Natalie up in her arms.
I, in turn, picked up baby Julia. "What do you mean now I’ve done it?" I whispered in a firm tone to show that I was still upset.
"You were the one yelling." Esther answered in a matter of fact voice.
"And so were you."
"Yes, well, I was mad." She made it sound like a logical answer.
"And I wasn’t." I returned sarcastically.
"You were the one being irresponsible, Gertrude, not me. I was taking care of Cory, and being careful about what I did. You on the other hand, were being completely reckless."
"I became a teenager to be young again, to have fun and not worry about every little thing."
"Well, maybe we’ve had enough. I think we should change back."
"But we’ve just started. You can change back if you want, but I’m staying young."
"I just think that we’ve done enough damage to the girls already." Esther tried to explain her reasoning.
"They never cared about us, why should we care about them?"
Esther was silent for a moment, then let out a heavy sigh. "Fine do what you want." Highly satisfied with myself that I’d won the argument, I left the room, leaving Esther to watch and explain three babies.
Later that night I walked into a party that was supposed to be the biggest party of the year. I scanned the room with my eyes to see if I could find Mike. I knew nothing would happen this time, as I had just had some water a couple hours before. I smiled when my eyes finally fell on him. I sauntered over to wear he sat, only to see him kissing some other girl.
"Let’s go upstairs." He whispered into her ear while she giggled. He stood and came face to face with me. I glared at him and walked away, not giving him a moment to make excuses. "Damn," he said to himself, "Julia, c’mon. Wait up." He yelled after me.
I stopped and pivoted on my heel giving him one of those ‘if looks could kill’ looks. "What?" I snapped at him angrily.
"It’s not what it looks like." One of the lamest excuses I had ever heard.
"Oh, really?" I threw at him sarcastically, "Well then, let me tell you what it ‘look like’. It looks to me like you don’t think I’m going to be here so, you take the opportunity of my absence to get with another girl. Now, you explain what it really is."
"Well, um," he desperately searched for a lie an excuse, something that would make everything better.
"That’s what I thought." I turned and left the party. I needed to get revenge. No one treats me like that and gets away with it. I fumbled through my purse looking for a mirror when I stumbled upon a bottle of pills. Wondering what it was I took it out. They weren’t just any pills, they were the pills. The pills that when mixed with fountain water people became old. I now knew exactly what I would do.
A couple days later at the nursing home I took some time to get some water from the fountain. Mike was still groveling at my feet in a sad attempt for me to take him back. Needless to say it wasn’t working. There was a huge party that night, and I knew he’d be there. All I had to do now was find a date to make him jealous. Amazingly right when I was finished getting he water a mysterious young man whom I had never seen before appeared in the courtyard.
He was one of those tall, dark, and handsome types. He had to be about six foot one, with jet-black hair and deep blue eyes. I was a sucker for blue eyes and dark hair, it made for a striking combination. I tried to go about what I was doing, but I had the strangest feeling that he was staring at me. Well, my instinct ran true, for when I looked over at him he was staring at me with intense interest. Then, suddenly I had an idea, why not invite him to the party. A mysterious stranger was sure to draw attention and make Mike jealous.
"Excuse me, do you work here?" He questioned of me in a low voice."
"Me?"
"Do you see anyone else around?" He asked rhetorically.
"Well, um no. Well, I work here, but no I don’t see anyone else around." Boy, I was making an idiot out of myself. "What are you here for?"
"I’m just visiting."
"Do you have anything to do tonight?" I asked thinking he would surely have something better to do.
"Actually, I’m free." He seemed to think for a minute. "What time should I pick you up at?"
"Um probably around 8:30."
"All right, I’ll be at your house then." How he knew where I lived, or where we were going I had no idea. But I didn’t care much either. Now I had a date, the water, and the pills. My plan was going to work perfectly, or so I thought.
I walked into the party with Sean, the mysterious man from the nursing home. I was pleased with myself. I had quite possibly the hottest guy there as an escort, I was dressed to kill, and I had a plan for revenge that could go down in the history books. The music was pounding and the house was packed. Mike’s height, or lack there of, made it difficult to find him through the throng of people. Finally I spotted him ‘grinding’ with the same girl he had been with the other night.
I pushed my way through the crowd with a confident air and Sean’s arm around me. I casually smiled at Mike when we got over to him. It was an opportune time as just then a slow song started. I pulled Sean up close to me. He got the hint at what I was doing and leaned over to kiss my neck. His hands moved slowly from my lower back to my butt where they rested comfortably. I smiled devilishly when I saw how jealous Mike was watching us. Sean stopped kissing my neck and brought his lips to mine for a long passionate kiss.
"Let’s go get a drink." I whispered into his ear when the song was over.
"All right, I’ll go get them, you wait over there." I walked to where he had motioned. Sitting on the table were the drinks that Mike and his girl had just put down. I fumbled through my bag to find the bottle of pills. Once I found them I saw that there were now four cups on the table. I panicked, not knowing which ones were theirs. I quickly decided to just put some in each of them. After Mike and his girl took theirs I’d throw the other two out. I dropped two pills, which quickly dissolved, in each cup along with some fountain water.
Right after Sean got back, Mike sauntered over. Both him and his girl took small sips of their drinks and put them down. I anxiously watched them, waiting for the transformation. I first noticed changes in the girl who progressed quicker and more noticeably than did Mike.
She grew about another inch or so and her figure became even more perfect than it was before. Then her looks began to go down hill. Bags developed under her eyes and small gray hairs appeared in her hair. Slowly, wrinkles appeared on her face. Her eye color dulled and her hair was soon completely gray, limp, and thin. Her figure then began to lose its firmness. Her legs lost their muscle and her breasts sagged. Her waist filled out so that she had no shape. She lost her height and veins protruded in her legs. Her bony feet became more gnarled. Her toenails and fingernails turned a yellowish color while age spots appeared on her hands. She was quite a spectacle in her halter-top and short shorts.
Mike didn’t seem to notice as he was going through the same changes himself. His muscles lost their firmness and turned into fat. He very quickly had a beer gut. His hair slowly turned gray as wrinkles began to appear on his face. His bright blue eyes dulled and his hair started to fall out. His back was hunched over and his skin paler. Age spots appeared on his nearly baldhead and his hands. His already loose T-shirt hung on him and the only thing keeping his pants up was his belt.
The girl began freaking out. She couldn’t figure out what had happened. Mike stared at her long and hard before speaking. "Wow, you’re old." He then got a look of surprise at his own voice that quavered as he spoke.
"What happened? What did you do?" Her voice quavered as well.
"Me? I didn’t do anything." He was greatly confused.
While I found the whole scene amusing I wanted to do other things. Sean captivated me. I could only imagine what he’d be like in bed. We quietly slipped up the stairs and found an empty bedroom. This time was much better. There were no interruptions, and well, he was obviously more experienced than Mike. It was, well, we won’t get into that.
The next morning I woke up next to him, he was still asleep. I didn’t have the heart to wake up so I slipped out from under his arm. I threw my clothes on and drowsily went downstairs. Jut as I reached the bottom a baby crawled in front of me. At first I thought it might have been something else or maybe I was drunk or my mind was just playing tricks on me. Then I had an idea, maybe Esther had come over. I wanted to apologize to her anyway. I scooped up the baby in the oversized T-shirt it had around it and proceeded to the living room.
When I walked into the room I could hardly believe my eyes. I nearly dropped the baby on the ground. Old men and women all hunched over were aimlessly hobbling around the room. If I wasn’t so distraught I would have laughed at the sight of old ladies dressed in poorly fitting teenage clothes. They were sleeping on chairs and on couches. The old men had on oversized T-shirts and jeans. Clothes from the numerous babies too small to wear them lay all over the floor. The infants were everywhere, crawling, crying, sleeping.
I sat down on the nearest empty chair and carefully placed the baby on the ground. I cradled my head in my hands and closed my eyes. "It’s all just a dream, a terrible, terrible dream. I’ll open my eyes and everything will be fine and back to normal." I tried to convince myself. I opened my eyes to the harsh reality that it had really happened. I glanced around the room for some indication of how it had happened. Then my eyes fell on my open bag. Not far from it was the now empty bottle of pills and across the room was a lone emptied bottle of water.
At this moment of absolute panic I heard a deep voice from behind me, "Wow, Gertrude, you really did it this time."
I spun around at the mention of my real name. Sean was leaning casually against the door-jam. "What?" I was confused to say the least.
"I said, you really did it this time Gertrude." This time he emphasized my name and walked over to sit next to me.
I looked at him closer and suddenly it hit me, "Oliver?" I said in complete disbelief. "How did you...?" My voice trailed off.
"What? Did you really think I was going to stay in that Hellhole knowing what the fountain did? C’mon Gertie, you know me better that that."
"Well, why haven’t you done it before?"
"How do you think I knew what it did in the first place?" He smiled devilishly. I was at a complete loss of words. How could I have done what I did with, Oliver?
I winced when I heard Esther’s voice behind me, "Gertrude! What the Hell did you do?"
"I um, uh, well, it was, uh..." I couldn’t think of an excuse.
"Save it," she cut me off, "now I suppose you want me to fix it? Make everything better again?" She questioned sarcastically.
"Well, if you could..." I began to grovel for her help.
"You know what? Figure it out for yourself. I’m not going to save your butt anymore." She looked around and shook her head disappointedly before leaving.
"Great, now what am I going to do?" It was a rhetorical question, although I kind of hoped that by asking it the answer would present itself to me.
"Do you want me to talk to Esther for you?" Oliver offered.
"You would seriously do that? Do you think it will help?"
"Well it couldn’t hurt, and it’s really no problem for me to do it."
"Thank you so much!" I jumped up and threw my arms around him.
"Ok, well you try to keep things calm here, and I’ll be back as soon as I can."
"Great." He left and I stood there looking around the room, surveying the damage. "Great." I mumbled to myself. I really had done it this time.
How was I going to get myself out of this one? Esther was the one who had all the truly good ideas and as convincing as Oliver could be, Esther hardly ever listened to him, she was too stubborn. I couldn’t do anything but stare at the mess I had created. I retreated deep into my thoughts thinking of how I could fix it, how to explain it, and a continuous series of "if only..." I was quickly brought back to reality by the sound of the front door slamming shut.
Automatically assuming it was Oliver I ran to the front door. I stopped short when I saw a dumbfounded Nathan instead. He was one of Julia and Natalie’s closer guy friends. I had never met him, but recognized him from pictures.
"Julia?" He looked at me skeptically.
"What?" My eyes shifted nervously towards an infant crawling behind him.
"There’s well, something different about you."
"Me? Nope, same as always."
He raised an eyebrow, "Where’s Natalie?"
"She didn’t feel well and went home." It was the best excuse I could think of at the time. I could tell he didn’t believe me though.
"Well, I just came by to pick up Jane." I looked at him questioningly. "My girlfriend." He added to clarify who he was looking for.
"Oh yeah, Jane, well, um," I was having trouble formulating an excuse. "I assumed she would have called you, but she left with Natalie. Jane figured it was best if Nat didn’t drive." I realized how lame of an excuse it was as soon as I said it. I was also a terrible liar and Nathan very quickly caught on.
"Come on Julia, you’re better at coming up with excuses than that. In fact you’re the queen of excuses. And why won’t you look at me?" I suddenly realized I had been staring at my feet the whole time I was talking to him. "So, now do you want to tell me what is really going on?" He fixed his gaze on mine. I opened my mouth to say something, anything. But no words could get by the lump that had formed in my throat.
"Well," my eyes shifted towards the door. Just then the doorknob turned and the door slowly swung open.
"Hey Gertie." I cringed at Oliver’s carelessness. He did have Esther with him, but it didn’t really matter now.
"Gertie? I didn’t think you were Julia, she’s a much better liar than that. So, why don’t you explain to me who you are and what’s going on?"
"It’s a long story." I was desperately hoping I could get out of telling him.
"I have time."
"Great." Defeated I sat down on the stairs and began to tell him the whole thing. Oliver and Esther quietly came into the house and shut the door. They stood uncomfortably and silently as I told our story. Nathan just looked at me in disbelief.
"You can’t be serious. I’m sorry I ever doubted your lying abilities."
"Go into the living room if you don’t believe her, Nathan." Oliver emphasized the name just as he had mine earlier.
Nathan stared at him, then his jaw dropped. "Grampa?" Oliver nodded with a slight smile. "Wow, well, it’s great that you’re young, but I kinda want my friends to be young too."
"It will wear off soon, none of them could have gotten too big of a dose. We just need to make sure the kids that turned into infants get all their clothes back." Oliver gave the all too obvious solution to the problem.
"We also need to pay attention to them and make sure we get people out of the room as they start to change back. Then we just tell them that everyone was really drunk or somebody had been putting stuff in people’s drinks or something to that effect." Esther had everything planned out, I knew she wouldn’t leave me to solve things for myself.
Well, everyone eventually turned back, just as Oliver had said. Some were skeptical of our excuses and explanations, but accepted them without many questions. Finally the last person left. We straightened up and got out of the house.
"So, now what?" Nathan asked us.
I truthfully hadn’t really thought about it. Being a teenager turned out to be a lot tougher than I thought. Besides it wasn’t really fair to rob Natalie and Julia of their lives. On the other hand, I certainly wasn’t going back to the nursing home. "Well, I’ve always wondered what my twenties and thirties would have been like without a husband and kids. You know? Have a job, live in an apartment all that stuff." I looked at Esther and Oliver who seemed to be considering the idea. "Of course, I’d need a couple of roommates."
"Well, I don’t want to go back to the nursing home either, but there’s one condition. We can’t go messing with other people, like we did Julia and Natalie. We’ll have to find some other way to go about it." Esther responded after a minute.
"How will we do that?"
"We’ll figure something out. Besides, we can’t get into that much trouble at that age." Oliver answered. Esther and I figuring he was right started to make plans of what we could do to become that age without taking someone else’s life. We figured things would be great at that age. We wouldn’t have anybody to answer to, we could make our own friends, and make lives for ourselves. As usual we were wrong, but I won’t get into that now.
I stared at the various cards around the starch white room, "Happy 80th Birthday." Oh yeah a real happy birthday. I was in a place where I truly didn’t belong with kids who didn’t visit, and grandkids who didn’t visit. I’ve only seen my great granddaughter twice. I needed to get out. I thought anything would be better than that hellhole I was living in.
Not even to mention the people work there. Yes, I’m sure they are all qualified, well, maybe not that sure. Half of them can barely speak English and the rest talk to the patients as if they, the patients, can’t speak English. The only person who truly got what I meant lived down the hall. She was the only person really worth having a conversation. My roommate had some sort of sleeping disorder, and have you ever tried to have a conversation with someone who falls asleep every ten minutes? So, most of my time there was spent in silent contemplation.
"Mrs. Smith, It’s time for your bath." My thoughts were interrupted by the slow pronounced syllables being yelled into my ear. When I turned my head two beautiful young girls were standing over me. I sighed heavily and accepted them wouldn’t make any difference. "Mrs. Smith." The blonde one yelled in my ear again. God, I might have been slightly hard of hearing, but I most certainly wasn’t deaf.
"Yes dear?" Was all I said in response.
"It’s time for your bath." In the same slow pronounced way.
"All right dear." At this point I gave my best attempt at feigning a smile and they started working. It was very humiliating having your bath that way.
"So, what are you doing tonight?" The brunette said over me as if I was totally oblivious to their presence.
"I have a date with Mike." A broad smile appeared across the blonde’s face as she made this comment.
"Are you serious?" The blonde nodded in response. "Wow, but doesn’t he like have a girlfriend or something?"
"No, well, he did, but he dumped her."
"I’m so happy for you. I certainly wouldn’t mind going out with him."
Oh to be young. I remember my husband was quite the lady-killer himself in his time. I got him though. He died a few years ago of lung cancer. Right before they had stuck me in there, actually.
The girls finished up and lifted me into a wheelchair. They made me go around in a wheelchair despite the fact I had no problem working. As I was being wheeled to the elevator to go outside by the fountain, I spotted Esther, you know, the only one worth having a conversation with. After the nurse pushing her left to talk to some other nurse a male orderly took over and we finally made it outside.
"Hello there ladies." Oliver, a man in his early eighties greets us.
"Hello Oliver." Esther and I respond in unison. The man that pushed Esther out who was supposed to be ‘keeping an eye’ on us began flirting with one of the younger girls.
"I wish I were still young." I said wistfully.
"Well, you know, there is a way you can."
"Don’t talk nonsense, Oliver."
"Listen, Esther, I’m serious."
"Yeah, sure you are." Esther snapped back at him.
"Well, I am, and if you don’t want to hear about it, then fine. I won’t say another word." Oliver started to roll himself away.
"No, I want to know." I was very intrigued in spite of myself.
Oliver slowly turned and smiled devilishly. "Well, since you really want to know, it may not be true, but this here fountain is the fountain of youth." Esther raised her eyebrows questioningly. "I’m serious. If you drink this water you’ll be young again."
"And how do you know this?" Esther was skeptical of everything Oliver said, and with good reason.
"Well, I hear things." With this rather ominous statement he started coughing, actually, it was more of a hacking.
"All right, Mr. Black, I think that’s enough for you." The young female nurse rushed towards him.
"But I," more coughing " just" cough "got out here."
"And now it’s time for you to go in!" She responded sternly. Oliver, being the stubborn old man he is, put up a good fight. The male orderly jumped up to help the nurse. Together they managed to gain enough control of Oliver to get him inside. Which left us, Esther and myself, alone.
"Well, do you want to try it?" I asked her rather nervously after making sure the nurse was gone.
"Try what?" Esther was utterly confused
"The fountain of course."
"You believe Oliver?" It was rather incredulous, I admit, but hey, if it didn’t work, it didn’t work and we’d have a good laugh over how silly it was for us to try in the first place.
"Well, it couldn’t hurt to try." I reasoned with her.
"I suppose it couldn’t." Esther gave in. "You go first." After I gave her a "why me?" look. She defensively shot at me. "It is, after all, your idea." How could I argue with that?
I took a deep breath before cupping my hands to take a sip of the water. Nothing happened. I took another sip and after a minute a strange feeling went through my body. I looked at Esther whose eyes were wide in amazement. It couldn’t actually being working, could it?
My eyes lowered and I could see the age spots on my hands slowly disappearing. The wrinkles smoothed out and my nails lost their yellowish color. I brought my hand to my head to discover thick, long, smooth hair, rather than the short, thinning, hair I had had just moments before. My house coat, that I was forced to wear, began to feel tighter around the chest while it got looser in the waist. My slippers also began to feel loose. Looking down I saw my legs were now firm and smooth. Any and all protruding veins were no longer visible. Bringing my hand to face, I felt that my skin there is also smooth. I had no more wrinkles. I was young again.
"Gertie? You’re young, you’re actually young!" Esther was purely astonished.
"I am. I really am. Now it’s your turn." Esther eagerly took a sip and went through the same transformation I had. As she went through hers I noticed my vision as well as my hearing were now sharper. It was strange watching her slowly slip back into her fifties and then her forties. Her hair slowly losing the gray it had developed over the years. She was now in her thirties, where her figure came back, her waist going in and chest and hips filling out. Her eyes and her chestnut brown hair regained their shine. She went back through her twenties and her face looked younger. When she stopped she was about seventeen.
After rejoicing for a few minutes in our newfound youth we suddenly realized our predicament. Or, rather Esther realized it. "Uh, Gertie?"
"Yeah?" I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t celebrating anymore.
"What are we gonna do now?" She sounded more worried with each word she spoke.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, we can’t exactly go walking around, like this."
"Like what?" I was genuinely confused. In regaining my youth I seemed to have lost all common sense.
"Gertie, we’re wearing housecoats, with big flowers on them, that quite obviously do not fit us."
"Oh, yeah. I guess I didn’t think of that."
"Not even to mention our names." Her voice trailed off as though the statement was self-explanatory.
"What about our names?" Again, I was completely confused, and I certainly didn’t think there was anything wrong with my name.
"How many seventeen-year-olds do you know named Esther and Gertrude?"
"So, um, we, uh, tell people our names, are um, something else. First we should work on clothes."
"Right. Don’t they have extra uniforms somewhere?"
"Yeah, they do. You know what we should do?"
"What?"
"Talk to Oliver. What I thought this would accomplish I have no idea. But he would be able to tell us something. I hoped anyway.
"Um, Oliver, wake up." Esther shook him gently.
"Wha?" He slowly came out of his sleep. "Who are you?" Oliver didn’t even try to be tactful, but I guess I wouldn’t either if I was woken up in the middle of the night.
"It’s us." I responded like he would know who "us" was.
"Huh?"
"What Gertrude means is it’s Esther and Gertie. It’s us, only now we’re young."
"You’re kidding me." Oliver chuckled to himself, he was becoming quite amused.
"We drank from the fountain, Oliver and look at us. We’re young. Look I can walk and jump." I demonstrated as I did things. I was a little bit too excited.
"Gertrude!" Esther hissed through her teeth. I knew she was annoyed with me, that was the only reason she ever called me Gertrude.
"What?"
"Be quiet. Do you want the nurses to hear you?"
"Oh, yeah. Right. I forgot about that." I sat awkwardly in the closest chair to keep myself calm.
"This is amusing ladies, but why are you here? Talking to me?"
"Well, we were wondering what else you knew about the ‘Fountain of Youth’." Esther said, taking charge, as was the norm.
"According to what I have heard, the effects only last for a certain amount of time. I have not heard, however, how long this period is. It could be a couple hours, or it could be a couple of weeks. I really can’t say. But I would be careful if I was you."
"We’ll be extremely careful," Esther shot me a look as she said this, "Now we need your help on one more thing."
"Tell me what is and I’ll tell you if I can help."
"Do you have any ideas on how we could get to the extra uniforms without anyone seeing us?" Oliver sat for a minute, thinking.
"Tonight, the nurses will go around at 12:00. That will leave one nurse down at the nurses’ station to keep track of things. I’ll ring my light, so she’ll come down here leaving the coast clear. I’ll hold her off as long as I can, but I can’t promise you’ll have too much time. Go as quick as you can, and hopefully you won’t get caught."
"We can do that, right Esther?"
"Of course we can."
Oliver’s plan worked like a charm, it went off with out a hitch. At seven o’clock the next morning we were walking out in our new, better fitting apparel and our new found youth.
"All right Gertie, now we have half way decent clothes, so, what are we gonna do?"
"What do you mean what are we gonna do? We can do anything we want! We’re free!" A man turned his head to watch us as we passed.
"Keep it down." Esther could really be a worrywart "What I mean is what are we going to do about our names? Money, clothes, we can’t wear these uniforms everywhere."
"You know what? I just had an idea."
"Oh really? This should be interesting."
"Come on, Esther, stop being so skeptical. We pulled off everything so far, now didn’t we?"
"Yeah I suppose so." She grudgingly agreed. "Well, what’s your big idea?"
"Oh, yeah." I had forgotten what we were talking about. "I was thinking, and I realized we look an awful lot like two of the girls who work at the nursing home."
"We do?"
"Yeah, you know there’s one with blonde hair, her name is, um, something that begins with ‘J’ and then there’s a girl who looks just like you."
"Yeah and...?" She didn’t quite get what I was trying to say.
"Well, they’ve never been very polite or considerate to me, and I bet they treat you the same way, and I would like to give them a taste of their own medicine."
"What’s your point Gertrude?" She was quite aggravated at this point.
"Do I have to spell it out for you?" I was becoming impatient myself and didn’t wait for her to answer. "If the fountain water can make people young there must be some way to make people old. So, what we do is, find out as much as possible about them in as short a time as possible and then switch lives." I was very proud of my plan.
"That would also clear up the issue of our not being there. Plus it would give us something to do with ourselves." Esther was getting into it, finally.
"Exactly. I know where they put their stuff and everything while they’re working. If I can quietly get it, we carefully go through it, reading anything and everything we find. Then we have Oliver ask them a bunch of questions and just listen in on their conversation. It should be easy."
"Now the only problem is finding out how to make them old."
"We’ll talk to Oliver."
"I suppose that’s all we can do." Esther sighed heavily."
"Esther come here, I hit the jackpot."
"What did you find?"
"I found her journal. It has everything in it. Names, inside jokes, likes, dislikes, arguments, and well, lets just say everything."
"Wow, that’s great."
"What did you find?" I was very eager to get things going.
"Pictures, a day planner, a book with notes in the margins, and then I found these." She held up a couple of triangular pieces of folded paper with the girl’s name on them.
"What could these be?" I took them from her. "Do you think we should unfold them?"
"I don’t see what could be in the, but there’s no harm in looking."
Couldn’t argue with that logic. I began unfolding one of them. It ended up being a lot more useful than either one of us expected.
"Esther, this is almost as good as the journal."
"Why? What is it?" She was in near disbelief that it was anything of great use.
"It’s a letter or something." I was kind of confused actually. There were a lot of random letters that didn’t from words.
"When I was young we didn’t fold letters up into triangles."
"Well times have changed Esther. It’s just good we discovered this now."
Later we snuck up to Oliver’s room and he handed us the tape he had made of his conversation with the girls. How and why he had a tape recorder to make the tape, I have no idea, but it sure helped a lot. We learned how they talked, laughed, and then more about their everyday lives. We were pretty confident we knew enough about them to pass as them. Now all that was left was to find the right pills to make them old.
"Hey, Gertie," Esther whispered "aren’t these the pills Oliver was talking about?"
I quickly read the label, "Yep that’s them. Now for the test. Do they dissolve in water?" Sure enough, they did. Right before the girls’ break we slipped two pills each and some fountain water in their diet Cokes.
"Let’s hope this works." I crossed my fingers like the old superstition says to as the girls walked up to their bags. I closed my eyes as they took a sip, luckily there wasn’t anyone else around to witness what happened next.
"Gertie, it’s working." Esther squealed with excitement. We watched in sick pleasure as the two young girls slowly transformed into old women.
They blossomed in their twenties, as most women do, their eyes and hair brightened, their figures reached their best. As they entered their thirties their waists began to fill out and their hair began to dull. The forties brought gray hairs and by the time they were sixty, their hair was completely gray. Their waists had filled out more and everything was sagging. The uniforms they were wearing fell limp on their bodies. The girls had a bewildered look on their faces. Age spots appeared on their skin and their backs hunched over a little. Their hair thinned and became shorter. When the transformation was complete they were classic little old ladies.
Their voices quavered as we went over to take them upstairs. We treated them with the same disrespect they had used with us as we put them in the awful housecoats we were forced to wear. Then we left them in our old rooms. After we quickly said goodbye to Oliver we were off to be teenagers.
"Gertie, that was great! We did it!"
"Ok, Esther, we need to start using our ‘teenage’ names. All right?"
"Fine, Julia." She annunciated the name.
"Great, Natalie." I copied her annunciation. We stopped in a rest room to change on our way downtown, where all the kids ‘hang out’.
"Uh, Julia?" Esther called fairly hesitant.
"Yeah? What’s wrong?"
"Aren’t these shorts kind of well, short?" She asked as she came out of the stall looking down at her legs.
"Well, my shorts are short too, so it must be what they wear now." As I looked at her I noticed that something was wrong with her outfit, and it wasn’t the shorts. "Uh, Natalie, why do you still have the uniform top on?"
"I couldn’t figure this thing out." She tossed me a blue piece of fabric that was supposed to be a shirt.
"Oh," I said after looking at it for a few minutes, "This is one of those, um, what’s the name for it again, oh yeah. It’s a tube top."
"It doesn’t matter what it’s called. I need to know how to put it on."
"Just pull it over your head." I told her tossing it back at her.
"Ok, I’ll be right back." She sighed.
By the time she got back I could feel something weird happening. "Oh damn." I muttered. "Natalie, I, uh left something at the nursing home. Hurry up." I grabbed her by the wrist as soon as she appeared and pulled her along with me.
"What’s wrong?" Esther was justifiably confused.
"I’m starting to change back. Now hurry up."
We were at least in our sixties by the time we made it back to the nursing home. We must have been a sight running down the street in short shorts and tank tops as old women. We had a chance to catch our breath before the transformation was complete.
"Do you think that if we drink more this time it will last longer?" I wondered aloud.
"I suppose it couldn’t hurt." Esther answered. So this time we both took a couple sips and we went back to being teenagers in the same way as before. Now that we didn’t have technical things to work out, clothes, names, etc., I couldn’t wait to get going.
"So, where are we going to go?" Esther asked while adjusting her top. I could tell she wasn’t very comfortable. I didn’t understand how they could wear stuff like this everyday. I know I never would have let my kids out of the house dressed like this.
That day we met all of, most of rather, the girls’ friends. They didn’t seem to notice any difference. We just went along with what they did and hoped we fit in. We even got invited to a party for that Friday night, which was the next day. Neither of their parents seemed to notice either. It was nice to sleep in a real bed, with real sheets, wearing a real nightgown. That was something I hadn’t been able to do in a while.
I woke up early the next morning nice and refreshed. I took a shower and washed my own hair, my own face, and my own body. After I was finished getting ready I met Esther to go to work. Luckily we had both been nurses and knew the ropes.
"Do you think their water pill mixture has worn off?" I questioned Esther.
"I don’t know. I think we should mix some more up just in case."
"Good idea."
It was a good thing we did. They were turning back as we entered the room, they now shared, on our rounds. I don’t know how anyone could sleep through that transformation, but they did. As we walked into the room they were slipping from their forties back into their thirties. The twenties went by quickly and before we knew it they were seventeen again.
"Mrs. Green," I yelled in the real Natalie’s ear. "It’s time for your pills." I spoke in the same slow annunciated way they always spoke to me in. Esther followed my lead with the real Julia. We had strategically placed ourselves so the girls wouldn’t be able to realize what was going on. Their hearing was as sharp as a 17 year olds so, our yelling harsher than it did for us.
Natalie slowly took the small cup of fountain water I produced along with the pills. I smiled as she transformed again, wrinkles appeared one by one on her face. Her hair slowly turning gray and age spots showing on her hands. Everything began to sag and her back hunched again as she hit eighty. When Esther gave the ok we quietly left the to let them wonder what had happened to them.
"Can you believe we’re actually going to a party Natalie? A party, a real party. With the type of stuff we haven’t been able to do in years." I exclaimed
"I know Julia, isn’t it great!" Esther squealed back.
"All right, now we need to collect ourselves, Natalie. These girls go to parties every weekend I doubt they’d be this excited." I took a deep breath to calm myself.
"Right Julia. So, do we want to stay together or split up when we get there?"
"I think we should play it by ear. Ya know, stay together until we’re comfortable and feel like we fit in, then split up." I figured it was a logical plan. We were overdoing the name thing so we wouldn’t slipup at the party.
You could hear the music from almost a block away. I’d certainly never been to a party like this before, not in a person’s house anyway. Cars lined both sides of the street and there were groups of people walking up to the door. "Well, here goes." I thought as I started up the walkway. Glancing at ‘Natalie’ I could tell she was thinking the same thing. She was actually the one who ended up ringing the bell.
"Hey ladies." The young man Mike answered the door. "Now the party can really begin." He put an arm around each of us and led us into the crowded house. I smiled at his comment. He really was cute. ‘Natalie’ just rolled her eyes at me and squirmed from his arm. Mike gave me a questioning look, all I could do was shrug. "Do you want a beer?" He offered.
"Huh?" I wasn’t sure I had heard him right. I mean I knew kids drank it was just weird.
"Do you want a beer?" Mike raised his voice over the music.
"Um," I was kind of hesitant to accept, but then I thought, what could a beer do? "Sure, thanks. How about you Natalie?"
"No thanks, not right now." She answered.
"Why didn’t you accept?" Once Mike was out of hearing range.
"We don’t know what alcohol will do to us in our, uh, state." She said referring to a chemical reaction with the fountain water.
"Just relax."
"I’ll try." At this point she glanced around the room. Her face brightened and her mouth relaxed into a smile when she saw what, or who, she was looking for. I turned to see what she was looking at. There sitting on the couch was a boy named Cory, who we had met that afternoon. He was fairly shy, but seemed really sweet. Esther really liked him and hadn’t been able to stop talking about him all day.
"Go talk to him." I whispered in her ear.
"I don’t want to leave you alone." Her eyes never left him.
"I’ll be fine." I encouraged her. "Besides, I have some conquesting of my own to do."
"All right, I’ll see you later. Don’t get in too far over your head." She walked away with a huge smile to go talk to him.
I watched her walk away. Being so caught up in the moment, one can imagine how startled I was when I felt a tap on my butt. "Hey, don’t get so worked up." Mike said handing me a drink.
"Sorry, but you scared me."
The party was really fun and I picked up the dancing fairly quickly. It was definitely easier than the jitterbug and all those dances. I could tell Esther was appalled, but I was determined to have a good time. I was totally in control of what I was doing too. Ok, so I was a little drunk, but that’s beside the point.
As we were dancing Mike whispered compliments, "you look great tonight" etc., into my ear. All I could do was smile at the various compliments he made. It had been a long time since I had heard them. Then he began kissing my neck, I closed my eyes. "I know someplace we can go to be alone, come on." He gently pulled away from me took a hold of my wrist to lead me through the throng of people. I didn’t quite get what was going on until he started up the stairs. I hesitated.
"Mike I don’t think we should..."
"You’ve never had a problem with it before Julia." He quickly cut me off.
I sighed heavily and gave in. I didn’t want to give myself away by acting abnormally. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen? If she acts this way all the time she has already tarnished her reputation, and it’s not really me who is doing it. Granted it is my body and my mind, but it’s not my identity. I rationalized the situation.
After what seemed like an eternity we made it up to the bedroom. I casually sat down on the bed. My stomach was doing flip-flops. I had never done anything like that before, well, I obviously wasn’t a virgin, bit what I had done was with my husband. It had been just about twenty years since I had done anything, though.
Well I digress. Mike put a c.d. in the stereo and soft music drowned out the loud harsh music downstairs. He sat down beside me and I felt more nervous than I had on my wedding night. He tucked some of my hair behind my ear and kissed me softly. Before I knew it I was lying on the bed with mike on top of me. We slowly undressed each other. As he took my panties off I felt a chill run down my spine. I foolishly mistook it for a sign of ecstasy and encouraged Mike to continue. At this point I heard a knock at the door.
"Mike maybe we..." he brought his lips to mine to silence me.
"Just ignore it, they’ll go away." He whispered right in my ear, he was eager to get on with it, just like a man.
Again the knock came. This time Natalie’s voice accompanied it, "Julia, I know you’re in there! Come on, we need to go!" Her voice had an urgent tone to it.
"Why do we need to go?" I yelled as Mike continued.
"You know why. Now, if you don’t come right now, I’m leaving without you."
"Fine then leave without me. I’ll be fine."
"Ok," anyone could hear the disappointment in her voice, "Good luck."
Mike gave me a funny look at this remark. "Don’t ask." Was the only response I could think of.
Then I realized how stupid my choice was. Everything became firmer. I suppose it could be passed off as excitement, but then things went down hill. I could feel the wrinkles developing on my face and my waist filling out. Mike didn’t seem to notice. I could also tell I was beginning to sag. My hair thinned and I didn’t have as many teeth as I had had before. I prayed Mike was too drunk to notice. How was I going to explain going from a seventeen-year-old girl to an eighty-year-old woman in a matter of minutes? I had really done it this time.
"Julia?! What happened to you?" Mike stopped what he was doing astonished.
"What do you mean?" My voice quavered.
"I hate to break it to you, but you’re, you’re" he searched for the word in his amazement, "you’re old."
"No..." I said slowly and shook my head, I hoped I could convince him he was just really drunk.
"No? But I can see you with my own eyes, you’re old Julia."
"You must have had too much to drink. You’re just seeing things weird." It was hard to keep my voice steady and even doing that it didn’t sound youthful at all. "Just close your eyes and I’ll see you tomorrow." I coaxed. He closed his eyes and very quickly drifted into a deep sleep. "That’s it sleep it off." I carefully got off the bed. I pulled on the skirt that didn’t fit right at all, and brought his shirt over my head. It looked a bit more normal than a tiny tank top. I grabbed the rest of my clothes and quietly left. Luckily no one at the party noticed me.
Esther in her teenage form of Natalie was waiting for me at the fountain when I got there. "I take it you didn’t get out in time?" She shot at me when I walked up to her.
"Um, no, but it was pretty easy to convince him he had just had too much to drink though." She rolled her eyes. "But listen, I had an idea."
"I don’t think I want to know anymore of your ideas."
"Come on, just listen."
"I’m listening."
"You know how the girls carry around bottles of water?" She nodded, having no clue where I was going with this "Well, why don’t we fill a couple with fountain water? That way we feel it happening and we excuse ourselves to let it take place, take a sip, then we’re teenagers again and we don’t have to run back here all the time." I took a sip from the fountain when I was finished. Esther contemplated the idea while I changed back.
"It couldn’t hurt." She finally said, I could tell she really approved of the idea though.
"Great!"
"Shh! You’re going to wake someone up. Do you have a water bottle?"
"Yep, right here." I produced the bottle from my bag. She filled it up as well as one for herself. I thought for once I had had an idea that would work, I had no idea how wrong I was.
Mike was truly convinced it was just the alcohol when he saw me young again. Well, not convinced, more confused than anything else, but it worked just as well. We were all just sitting around when Cory showed up. We all greeted him.
"Hey." He stood there awkwardly in the silence after. Esther got really shy and couldn’t say anything.
"Um, I think I’m gonna go get some aspirin." Mike stated breaking the silence.
"Do you have any water? My throat’s kinda dry." Cory sat down next to ‘Natalie’ in the grass while he said this.
"Yeah hold on a sec." She reached into her bag pulling out the bottle of water. "Here you go." I didn’t think anything of it at first, and then I remembered what water was in the bottle.
"Natalie, you didn’t." I screamed, but it was too late, Cory had already taken a sip. We watched in horror as he went back through all the changes he had made in his eighteen years of life. His clothes became visibly looser and he developed a more boyish look. Any muscles he had slowly disappeared. He also became noticeably shorter and before we knew it he was an infant. Natalie scooped him up before he toppled onto the concrete right behind him. "Now what are we going to do? How can we explain Cory disappearing and a random baby showing up?"
She thought a moment, "I don’t know."
"Well we have to do something before Mike gets back." I was getting frantic.
"Ok, how about I just leave and I’ll catch up with you at work?"
"All right, just make sure you remember what you tell people so our stories will match up."
"Yep." She got up carrying a baby Cory wrapped in his clothes with her. Hopefully he didn’t drink enough for it to last too long.
"Hey, where’d Natalie and Cory go?" Mike came back more confused than before.
"They, uh just realized that they, uh, had to do, um something." It was a really lame excuse I know, but I couldn’t think of anything to say.
"Um, ok." He still didn’t get where they went, as I didn’t answer his question. "So, do you want to come back to my house? My parents aren’t home." It was incredibly obvious what he was hinting at. I thought about it before giving him an answer.
"Well I have to work today, but as long as I leave before two..." my voice trailed off.
"Great, let’s go." Mike pulled me up off the ground and we were off. I find it amazing how promiscuous teenagers are today. Oh well, at least I was having fun. On my way back I over heard a girl complaining about how she had a crush on a high school boy but he wouldn’t give her the time of day because she was too young. She looked to be around eleven “I can change that.” I thought to myself while palming a pill in my purse. She was sitting on a park bench talking on a portable phone. I couldn’t believe a girl so young would have her own cellular phone but as I’ve learned times have changed. She hung up the phone and I walked over. I had broken the pill in half hoping to lessen the dose. If she has a crush on a high school boy it won’t help to much if she’s old enough to be his grand mother. I sat down on the bench and began to chat with her.
She was a very talkative girl and didn’t notice at all when I dropped the half tablet into her Pepsi a lot with a little of the water from my water bottle. She took a sip and I excused myself to leave. I figured it would be better if I wasn’t around when she started to change. I walked across the street and watched from a near by café. She began to age quickly and by the time I began to watch she was on a face track through puberty. Her breasts appears and began to push outward stretching her shirt. Her face matured and Her arms and legs were less scrawny. Her hip were those of a girl in her teens. She was a few inches taller. ‘There now she should be able to get that boy she wants’ I thought. But I noticed she hadn’t stopped aging. Her face matured even more she looked like a young collage aged woman now her breasts grew even bigger ripping her shirt and exposing themselves.
She screamed and covered herself not knowing what was going on. She passed through her twenties quickly. In her thirties she had feint lines and her body was shifting to look more mature. She wasn’t moving off the bench but was very upset over what was going on. She was now in her forties. Weight was forming around her hips causing them to push her shorts to the limit. Her breast were sagging bit by bit. A few gray hairs popped up in her hair and her belly was less flat and toned. She looked like a topless matron. Her cheeks sagged ever so slightly as she staired at her middle aged body. I shrugged, it didn’t work. But it would wear off and I’m sure once she found a shirt that fit her she wouldn’t mind being an adult for a while.
At about quarter past two I arrived at the nursing home. I was in a lighter mood and had totally forgotten what had taken place earlier. Esther was quite obviously stressed out. I really couldn’t blame her. She ran up to me when I entered her line of vision. "Where have you been?" She hissed at me through her teeth once she reached me.
"What do you mean?" I was playing dumb, not wanting to tell her too much.
"What do you mean what do I mean? You shove a baby off on me to take care of and explain to people, and then you disappear for two hours! Where were you?"
"Oh," I responded just remembering what had happened, "I was, uh, with, um, Mike." I winced knowing what was coming. She just shot me a dirty look and stalked off. I was glad I didn’t mention the eleven year old girl.
"Hurry up, we need to start rounds." I could tell she was upset, she didn’t even talk to me during the first half of our rounds. Then things went from bad to worse. We got to the room that ‘we’ were sharing just in time to see the girls slipping back into their twenties. Their housecoats were tight around their chests and they were staring down at themselves totally confused.
"Fuck." Esther mumbled. It was a word we hadn’t really used before, but we had picked up the language from the people we had met. "Julia, go get the pills, quickly." She ordered. I ran from the room and grabbed the first pills I saw that looked right.
"Here you go." I handed Esther the pills. She gave them the pills not even thinking to double-check the label.
We then were ready to shoot ourselves at the sight of them becoming younger rather than older. Their chests slowly became smaller as they went back through adolescence. Their womanly figures diminished. The housecoats became looser and they looked more and more like children by the second. Their loss of height was more obvious than would be expected in such short time. Their eyes widened and their cheeks filled out as they regained their baby fat. Before we knew it two infants were in the bed, instead of two old ladies.
"Dammit! What are we gonna do now?! One baby was hard enough to explain, how the Hell are we going to explain three?!" Esther totally flipped.
"I don’t know. But yelling and swearing isn’t going to help any." I snapped back at her.
"Well going off and screwing some random guy didn’t help much either." My mouth dropped open, I couldn’t even think of a response. "And you know what else? This is all your fault!"
"My fault? How is it my fault?" I put my defenses up?
"Everything that happened was because of your brilliant idea."
"My brilliant idea that you went along with. I didn’t force you into anything!" Then the babies who had just been staring at us in wonder began to wail.
"Damn, now you’ve really done it. " Esther lowered her voice, so no one would come in and maybe the babies would quiet down. She bent over and scooped baby Natalie up in her arms.
I, in turn, picked up baby Julia. "What do you mean now I’ve done it?" I whispered in a firm tone to show that I was still upset.
"You were the one yelling." Esther answered in a matter of fact voice.
"And so were you."
"Yes, well, I was mad." She made it sound like a logical answer.
"And I wasn’t." I returned sarcastically.
"You were the one being irresponsible, Gertrude, not me. I was taking care of Cory, and being careful about what I did. You on the other hand, were being completely reckless."
"I became a teenager to be young again, to have fun and not worry about every little thing."
"Well, maybe we’ve had enough. I think we should change back."
"But we’ve just started. You can change back if you want, but I’m staying young."
"I just think that we’ve done enough damage to the girls already." Esther tried to explain her reasoning.
"They never cared about us, why should we care about them?"
Esther was silent for a moment, then let out a heavy sigh. "Fine do what you want." Highly satisfied with myself that I’d won the argument, I left the room, leaving Esther to watch and explain three babies.
Later that night I walked into a party that was supposed to be the biggest party of the year. I scanned the room with my eyes to see if I could find Mike. I knew nothing would happen this time, as I had just had some water a couple hours before. I smiled when my eyes finally fell on him. I sauntered over to wear he sat, only to see him kissing some other girl.
"Let’s go upstairs." He whispered into her ear while she giggled. He stood and came face to face with me. I glared at him and walked away, not giving him a moment to make excuses. "Damn," he said to himself, "Julia, c’mon. Wait up." He yelled after me.
I stopped and pivoted on my heel giving him one of those ‘if looks could kill’ looks. "What?" I snapped at him angrily.
"It’s not what it looks like." One of the lamest excuses I had ever heard.
"Oh, really?" I threw at him sarcastically, "Well then, let me tell you what it ‘look like’. It looks to me like you don’t think I’m going to be here so, you take the opportunity of my absence to get with another girl. Now, you explain what it really is."
"Well, um," he desperately searched for a lie an excuse, something that would make everything better.
"That’s what I thought." I turned and left the party. I needed to get revenge. No one treats me like that and gets away with it. I fumbled through my purse looking for a mirror when I stumbled upon a bottle of pills. Wondering what it was I took it out. They weren’t just any pills, they were the pills. The pills that when mixed with fountain water people became old. I now knew exactly what I would do.
A couple days later at the nursing home I took some time to get some water from the fountain. Mike was still groveling at my feet in a sad attempt for me to take him back. Needless to say it wasn’t working. There was a huge party that night, and I knew he’d be there. All I had to do now was find a date to make him jealous. Amazingly right when I was finished getting he water a mysterious young man whom I had never seen before appeared in the courtyard.
He was one of those tall, dark, and handsome types. He had to be about six foot one, with jet-black hair and deep blue eyes. I was a sucker for blue eyes and dark hair, it made for a striking combination. I tried to go about what I was doing, but I had the strangest feeling that he was staring at me. Well, my instinct ran true, for when I looked over at him he was staring at me with intense interest. Then, suddenly I had an idea, why not invite him to the party. A mysterious stranger was sure to draw attention and make Mike jealous.
"Excuse me, do you work here?" He questioned of me in a low voice."
"Me?"
"Do you see anyone else around?" He asked rhetorically.
"Well, um no. Well, I work here, but no I don’t see anyone else around." Boy, I was making an idiot out of myself. "What are you here for?"
"I’m just visiting."
"Do you have anything to do tonight?" I asked thinking he would surely have something better to do.
"Actually, I’m free." He seemed to think for a minute. "What time should I pick you up at?"
"Um probably around 8:30."
"All right, I’ll be at your house then." How he knew where I lived, or where we were going I had no idea. But I didn’t care much either. Now I had a date, the water, and the pills. My plan was going to work perfectly, or so I thought.
I walked into the party with Sean, the mysterious man from the nursing home. I was pleased with myself. I had quite possibly the hottest guy there as an escort, I was dressed to kill, and I had a plan for revenge that could go down in the history books. The music was pounding and the house was packed. Mike’s height, or lack there of, made it difficult to find him through the throng of people. Finally I spotted him ‘grinding’ with the same girl he had been with the other night.
I pushed my way through the crowd with a confident air and Sean’s arm around me. I casually smiled at Mike when we got over to him. It was an opportune time as just then a slow song started. I pulled Sean up close to me. He got the hint at what I was doing and leaned over to kiss my neck. His hands moved slowly from my lower back to my butt where they rested comfortably. I smiled devilishly when I saw how jealous Mike was watching us. Sean stopped kissing my neck and brought his lips to mine for a long passionate kiss.
"Let’s go get a drink." I whispered into his ear when the song was over.
"All right, I’ll go get them, you wait over there." I walked to where he had motioned. Sitting on the table were the drinks that Mike and his girl had just put down. I fumbled through my bag to find the bottle of pills. Once I found them I saw that there were now four cups on the table. I panicked, not knowing which ones were theirs. I quickly decided to just put some in each of them. After Mike and his girl took theirs I’d throw the other two out. I dropped two pills, which quickly dissolved, in each cup along with some fountain water.
Right after Sean got back, Mike sauntered over. Both him and his girl took small sips of their drinks and put them down. I anxiously watched them, waiting for the transformation. I first noticed changes in the girl who progressed quicker and more noticeably than did Mike.
She grew about another inch or so and her figure became even more perfect than it was before. Then her looks began to go down hill. Bags developed under her eyes and small gray hairs appeared in her hair. Slowly, wrinkles appeared on her face. Her eye color dulled and her hair was soon completely gray, limp, and thin. Her figure then began to lose its firmness. Her legs lost their muscle and her breasts sagged. Her waist filled out so that she had no shape. She lost her height and veins protruded in her legs. Her bony feet became more gnarled. Her toenails and fingernails turned a yellowish color while age spots appeared on her hands. She was quite a spectacle in her halter-top and short shorts.
Mike didn’t seem to notice as he was going through the same changes himself. His muscles lost their firmness and turned into fat. He very quickly had a beer gut. His hair slowly turned gray as wrinkles began to appear on his face. His bright blue eyes dulled and his hair started to fall out. His back was hunched over and his skin paler. Age spots appeared on his nearly baldhead and his hands. His already loose T-shirt hung on him and the only thing keeping his pants up was his belt.
The girl began freaking out. She couldn’t figure out what had happened. Mike stared at her long and hard before speaking. "Wow, you’re old." He then got a look of surprise at his own voice that quavered as he spoke.
"What happened? What did you do?" Her voice quavered as well.
"Me? I didn’t do anything." He was greatly confused.
While I found the whole scene amusing I wanted to do other things. Sean captivated me. I could only imagine what he’d be like in bed. We quietly slipped up the stairs and found an empty bedroom. This time was much better. There were no interruptions, and well, he was obviously more experienced than Mike. It was, well, we won’t get into that.
The next morning I woke up next to him, he was still asleep. I didn’t have the heart to wake up so I slipped out from under his arm. I threw my clothes on and drowsily went downstairs. Jut as I reached the bottom a baby crawled in front of me. At first I thought it might have been something else or maybe I was drunk or my mind was just playing tricks on me. Then I had an idea, maybe Esther had come over. I wanted to apologize to her anyway. I scooped up the baby in the oversized T-shirt it had around it and proceeded to the living room.
When I walked into the room I could hardly believe my eyes. I nearly dropped the baby on the ground. Old men and women all hunched over were aimlessly hobbling around the room. If I wasn’t so distraught I would have laughed at the sight of old ladies dressed in poorly fitting teenage clothes. They were sleeping on chairs and on couches. The old men had on oversized T-shirts and jeans. Clothes from the numerous babies too small to wear them lay all over the floor. The infants were everywhere, crawling, crying, sleeping.
I sat down on the nearest empty chair and carefully placed the baby on the ground. I cradled my head in my hands and closed my eyes. "It’s all just a dream, a terrible, terrible dream. I’ll open my eyes and everything will be fine and back to normal." I tried to convince myself. I opened my eyes to the harsh reality that it had really happened. I glanced around the room for some indication of how it had happened. Then my eyes fell on my open bag. Not far from it was the now empty bottle of pills and across the room was a lone emptied bottle of water.
At this moment of absolute panic I heard a deep voice from behind me, "Wow, Gertrude, you really did it this time."
I spun around at the mention of my real name. Sean was leaning casually against the door-jam. "What?" I was confused to say the least.
"I said, you really did it this time Gertrude." This time he emphasized my name and walked over to sit next to me.
I looked at him closer and suddenly it hit me, "Oliver?" I said in complete disbelief. "How did you...?" My voice trailed off.
"What? Did you really think I was going to stay in that Hellhole knowing what the fountain did? C’mon Gertie, you know me better that that."
"Well, why haven’t you done it before?"
"How do you think I knew what it did in the first place?" He smiled devilishly. I was at a complete loss of words. How could I have done what I did with, Oliver?
I winced when I heard Esther’s voice behind me, "Gertrude! What the Hell did you do?"
"I um, uh, well, it was, uh..." I couldn’t think of an excuse.
"Save it," she cut me off, "now I suppose you want me to fix it? Make everything better again?" She questioned sarcastically.
"Well, if you could..." I began to grovel for her help.
"You know what? Figure it out for yourself. I’m not going to save your butt anymore." She looked around and shook her head disappointedly before leaving.
"Great, now what am I going to do?" It was a rhetorical question, although I kind of hoped that by asking it the answer would present itself to me.
"Do you want me to talk to Esther for you?" Oliver offered.
"You would seriously do that? Do you think it will help?"
"Well it couldn’t hurt, and it’s really no problem for me to do it."
"Thank you so much!" I jumped up and threw my arms around him.
"Ok, well you try to keep things calm here, and I’ll be back as soon as I can."
"Great." He left and I stood there looking around the room, surveying the damage. "Great." I mumbled to myself. I really had done it this time.
How was I going to get myself out of this one? Esther was the one who had all the truly good ideas and as convincing as Oliver could be, Esther hardly ever listened to him, she was too stubborn. I couldn’t do anything but stare at the mess I had created. I retreated deep into my thoughts thinking of how I could fix it, how to explain it, and a continuous series of "if only..." I was quickly brought back to reality by the sound of the front door slamming shut.
Automatically assuming it was Oliver I ran to the front door. I stopped short when I saw a dumbfounded Nathan instead. He was one of Julia and Natalie’s closer guy friends. I had never met him, but recognized him from pictures.
"Julia?" He looked at me skeptically.
"What?" My eyes shifted nervously towards an infant crawling behind him.
"There’s well, something different about you."
"Me? Nope, same as always."
He raised an eyebrow, "Where’s Natalie?"
"She didn’t feel well and went home." It was the best excuse I could think of at the time. I could tell he didn’t believe me though.
"Well, I just came by to pick up Jane." I looked at him questioningly. "My girlfriend." He added to clarify who he was looking for.
"Oh yeah, Jane, well, um," I was having trouble formulating an excuse. "I assumed she would have called you, but she left with Natalie. Jane figured it was best if Nat didn’t drive." I realized how lame of an excuse it was as soon as I said it. I was also a terrible liar and Nathan very quickly caught on.
"Come on Julia, you’re better at coming up with excuses than that. In fact you’re the queen of excuses. And why won’t you look at me?" I suddenly realized I had been staring at my feet the whole time I was talking to him. "So, now do you want to tell me what is really going on?" He fixed his gaze on mine. I opened my mouth to say something, anything. But no words could get by the lump that had formed in my throat.
"Well," my eyes shifted towards the door. Just then the doorknob turned and the door slowly swung open.
"Hey Gertie." I cringed at Oliver’s carelessness. He did have Esther with him, but it didn’t really matter now.
"Gertie? I didn’t think you were Julia, she’s a much better liar than that. So, why don’t you explain to me who you are and what’s going on?"
"It’s a long story." I was desperately hoping I could get out of telling him.
"I have time."
"Great." Defeated I sat down on the stairs and began to tell him the whole thing. Oliver and Esther quietly came into the house and shut the door. They stood uncomfortably and silently as I told our story. Nathan just looked at me in disbelief.
"You can’t be serious. I’m sorry I ever doubted your lying abilities."
"Go into the living room if you don’t believe her, Nathan." Oliver emphasized the name just as he had mine earlier.
Nathan stared at him, then his jaw dropped. "Grampa?" Oliver nodded with a slight smile. "Wow, well, it’s great that you’re young, but I kinda want my friends to be young too."
"It will wear off soon, none of them could have gotten too big of a dose. We just need to make sure the kids that turned into infants get all their clothes back." Oliver gave the all too obvious solution to the problem.
"We also need to pay attention to them and make sure we get people out of the room as they start to change back. Then we just tell them that everyone was really drunk or somebody had been putting stuff in people’s drinks or something to that effect." Esther had everything planned out, I knew she wouldn’t leave me to solve things for myself.
Well, everyone eventually turned back, just as Oliver had said. Some were skeptical of our excuses and explanations, but accepted them without many questions. Finally the last person left. We straightened up and got out of the house.
"So, now what?" Nathan asked us.
I truthfully hadn’t really thought about it. Being a teenager turned out to be a lot tougher than I thought. Besides it wasn’t really fair to rob Natalie and Julia of their lives. On the other hand, I certainly wasn’t going back to the nursing home. "Well, I’ve always wondered what my twenties and thirties would have been like without a husband and kids. You know? Have a job, live in an apartment all that stuff." I looked at Esther and Oliver who seemed to be considering the idea. "Of course, I’d need a couple of roommates."
"Well, I don’t want to go back to the nursing home either, but there’s one condition. We can’t go messing with other people, like we did Julia and Natalie. We’ll have to find some other way to go about it." Esther responded after a minute.
"How will we do that?"
"We’ll figure something out. Besides, we can’t get into that much trouble at that age." Oliver answered. Esther and I figuring he was right started to make plans of what we could do to become that age without taking someone else’s life. We figured things would be great at that age. We wouldn’t have anybody to answer to, we could make our own friends, and make lives for ourselves. As usual we were wrong, but I won’t get into that now.