A Hallowe'en Tale
by Arty

We sat around the classroom waiting for our tutor group
teacher to turn up. I liked this aspect of 6th form life,
along with the awe-struck looks of the younger kids, being
able to lounge around in the warm, while the rest of the
school shivered in this year's unseasonably early October
frosts was cool. Of course it would have been better if we
could have stayed in the 6th form centre, but registration
was due to be called and so we had to hang around waiting
for Mrs. Wolf to deign to come to us and call register. It
wasn't so bad, conversations started earlier continued and
most of the members of 'my gang' were in this tutor group
with me.

"Hey, John, why so down?"

This was Julie; my best mate; well one of them; she was
cute. We had almost gone out together, but drawn back and
now we were just good mates. Not that I didn't lust after
her occasionally, you understand.

"I'm not. I was just wondering where our esteemed
tutor-group tutor had got to."

I checked my watch. There were 10 minutes of registration
period left, before lessons were supposed to start. Actually
I had none this morning and normally I only came in for the
afternoon - another 6th form perk - but today I felt like
some company and I needed to use the library anyway.

"Oh. I heard we had a new girl starting; she's probably
giving her the tour. I thought you knew, otherwise why are
you here?"

"I was pining for your luscious body."

"You weren't pining yesterday evening! That was you with
Mary trying to give her a hands free tonsillectomy wasn't
it?"

I grinned; Jules wasn't jealous, well, not much.

"So tell me about the new girl?"

But before she could tell me more, the door opened and the
aptly named Mrs. Wolf entered the room. She was followed by
the new girl. She seemed shy and looked pretty in an
unconventional way, it was hard to tell as she staring very
hard at her feet. Then she looked up and caught me looking
at her.

Our eyes locked. I'd never believed anyone when they said
that; but they did. I couldn't explain it; I couldn't stop
staring at her and she, apparently, was equally as unable to
do anything but return my stare. I became aware that some
one was punching my arm.

"Breathe! You idiot! Breathe or you'll faint." Suddenly I
noticed that my peripheral vision was going. With a great
effort I concentrated on returning my breathing to normal.

"Is everything all right, John?"

"Sorry Mrs. Wolf, I'm OK now."

"In that case, I'd like to introduce you all to Alice."

The new girl smiled shyly at us and I managed to look at her
without becoming entranced again.

"And the idiot sitting next to me is John, the 6th Form
Committee Chairman, who would normally say a few words -
it's hard to stop him - but it since he seems to have lost
the power of coherent speech, I'll say it. 'Welcome to the
6th form.' Oh yeah, I'm Julie, this idiot's treasurer and
right-hand woman."

"Th… thanks."

"Look, come and sit over here with us, before John's drool
floods the room."

I roused myself at this outrageous remark.

"Oi! I was not drooling." Mrs. Wolf interrupted any further
repartee by asking the tutor group if we knew where Tim was.
A chorus of half-hearted explanations along the lines of
'had too much too drink last night' was finally brought to a
halt by a knock on the door.

"Come in!" The knock was unusual, most people who went
visiting at this time of day, just opened the door with a
cursory knuckle rap, usually made by knocking on the door
frame as the door was half-open. A hesitant first-year was
revealed as the door opened.

"Please miss, I've got a note from Mum about Timothy."

"Oh I was just asking about him, is he alright?"

"The doctor says he has the 'flu, an' he won't be well
enough to come to school for ages." This was delivered in a
breathless rush by Tim's sister who was still a little
overawed by the presence of all these 6th formers, normally
1st years only got to see us in ones and twos. Since I was
nearest the door I jumped down from my seat on a desk and
took the letter from her. I glanced at Mrs. Wolf, who nodded
slightly.

"Thanks Andrea. Tell Tim when you get home that we're all
thinking of him and we hope he gets well soon."

"Tell him not to worry about his course work, I'll see that
we set up a home-study pack for when he's better." Mrs. Wolf
added.

Andrea nodded and ran off, grateful to have bearded the
lions in their den with so little harm to herself. I passed
the letter to Mrs. Wolf, who read it and tucked it into the
register and prepared to leave the room. The bell went for
the first period. Alice was looking lost and apprehensive.

"Do you know what you're supposed to be doing this period?"

She glanced at the timetable, "It says 'Free Study'". I
thanked whatever Gods were looking after me that morning.

"Look, I'll take you to the 6th form centre; we can't stay
here or Mr. Jarret will rope us into teaching the 2nd years
French. I don't know about you but my French will set the
'Entente Cordiale' back half a century."

She smiled and nodded, and we followed the rest of the tutor
group out of the room, by this time a gaggle of 2nd years
were hanging around the door waiting to go in. A few of the
girls started to giggle when they saw me, and half-whispered
comments about Alice and me followed us down the corridor.

"Sorry about that. They don't mean anything by it."

Alice smiled again, "It seems I'm in the clutches of the
School Casanova!"

"I'm no monk, but if you believe the gossip I've been out
with all of the 6th form and half the staff as well!"

"So. You and Julie are you…?"

"Oh no. We nearly did, but we decided not too. She said it
was like kissing her brother." I tried to smile at the
memory. "So we decided to be mates; anyway she's been
attached to Martin for nearly two years now - it looks like
true love - I've learned to live with it."

We had reached the door to the 6th form centre - our little
haven of peace and… The sounds of some raucous thrash metal
assaulted our ears.

"SORRY ABOUT THIS." I shouted as I raced to switch off the
second-hand sound system that some generous parent had
endowed us with. "OK which dickhead left it on this time?" I
asked the room. "Didn't you hear the bells?" No one answered
and half of them looked quite sheepish. "I wouldn't care one
way or the other, but you've missed registration and now
I'll get in the neck at the next liaison meeting. If they
decide to take this thing away I'm not fighting it this
time!"

The silence stretched and became uncomfortable, they were in
the wrong and they knew it. I sighed with exasperation. "You
know the rules we agreed to: 'Not in lesson time.' Which one
of those four words do you not understand?" No one met my
eye.

I turned to Alice, "They're OK really, it's just they have
to be slapped down once a week or so." I turned back to
them. "This is Alice, take it easy on her for a week or two
OK?" They nodded, relieved that I wasn't playing the heavy
chairman any longer. "I won't introduce them all
individually but collectively this lot are the 'Monday
Morning Mafia' or the 'Three Ems' and I get more grief about
them, than about everything else put together - why I agreed
to stand for the committee I'll never know and why I let
them vote me in as chairman is beyond me…"

"You love it and you know it!" Said a familiar voice from
the doorway.

"Take no notice of Jules; she's just jealous."

"Yeah, I still have to go to all the meetings, but I don't
get followed around by a gang of adoring 2nd years!"

"Well if you'd just ditch Martin and go out with me we'd
kill two birds with one stone."

"In your dreams! However, much as I'm enjoying this, some of
us have work to do. Nice to see you again Alice; just
remember that every second thing he tells you is a lie and
you won't go far wrong." And with a wave she left the room
letting the door bang shut behind her.

I steered Alice over to a couple of chairs in the corner and
we subsided into them. "So, Alice, where're you from?"

"We've been living abroad mostly, my dad's job means that we
move around a lot. We've just got back from Romania."

"Oh the land of Vampires and Werewolves."

She jerked her head up.

"Sorry I shouldn't have interrupted - it was a stupid line
anyway."

"'S Okay, I'm just a bit jittery; this is all so different
from where I've been for the last year or so."

"What subjects are you doing?"

"Well I did Maths in a year last year so I'm doing Further
Maths, Physics and Chemistry."

The Gods were having a field day with me - my subjects too -
I was in for some serious bad luck to offset all this good
luck.

"Those are my subjects too! So just 'stick with me kid' and
I'll see that you don't get lost."

We chatted some more; she was easy to talk to and she seemed
to open up with me after a while too. I still had difficult
looking into her eyes, it was all too easy to forget to
breathe; I was going to have to do something about that; I'd
lost one girl already by not being clear about how I'd felt
about her and I was not going to make the same mistake
twice. So I gathered all my courage and started to speak.

"Look, this is going to sound really strange - but I
promised myself that the next time I felt anything like this
I'd say something - do you believe in love at first sight?"

"Oh thank God! I thought it was just me; when I saw you for
the first time I just…"

By this time she'd grabbed my hand; the electric feel of her
skin against mine was like nothing I'd ever felt before.

"How do you feel about going to see a film with me tonight?"

"I think I'd love it. We don't have to go out though, my
parents aren't at home this evening."

"We don't have to…"

"Oh yes we do, if I didn't think we'd be together tonight,
I'd just drag you off behind the bike sheds now. And that
would give everyone entirely the wrong first impression of
me. I've never felt anything like this before."

And that was it; as simply as that Alice and I became a
couple. Apparently the collective groan from the 2nd year
girls was heard the other side of town. The local gossips
had a field day complaining about the 'foreign jezebel'.
Well at least that's what Jules told us - though she is
prone to exaggerate these things. Of all my friends she
seemed the happiest for me and she and Alice were soon great
friends also.

Being October the Hallowe'en dance was the next function on
the 6th form agenda. Generally Jules and I organised these
things and this year was no exception but Alice was also
keen to help. The school was enlightened about drinking and
one of the school governors was a police inspector so we had
this rule that since beer was available from the bar, no
booze was allowed to be brought in. Of course we had to jump
through procedural hoops - we didn't sell drinks, we sold
raffle tickets. All of the tickets were 'winning' tickets
and the prize was a drink. So I got the drinks from the
local wholesaler; though we needed a teacher to collect it -
I wasn't eighteen yet. Then there was the hire of glasses,
not to mention the food. And the 'raffle' tickets had to be
designed and printed - obviously they had to be different
from last year's. And finally the invitations themselves
needed designing and printing. This had been set in motion
before Alice had arrived at school, so the first time she
saw the invites was also the time that she learned when it
was scheduled for.

"I'm sorry John, I can't come to the party, not on that
date; it's a family thing."

"Can't you ask if you can skip it this year?"

"No, I'm sorry; if it had been any other date, I'd have
loved to come."

"Oh well I suppose…"

Jules broke in, "Oh come on Ally." She wheedled, "Last year
he danced with me the whole night. My feet were black and
blue. Martin thought I'd been caught by a herd of cows on
the way home it was so bad."

I treated that with the disdain it deserved.

Alice's resolve wavered. "Perhaps I can come for the first
couple of hours…" she thought for a bit. "I can't promise
anything but I'll ask my parents."

So we left it at that and our lives jogged along until the
night of the party.

"ALICE! I ABSOLUTELY FORBID IT!" I could hear the roar of
her father from halfway to her front door. Suddenly the path
was flooded with light as the door opened and a figure ran
toward me.

"Come on! Lets go before he catches us." Not knowing what
else to do I ran after her. Catching her up I pulled her
into an alleyway.

"In here. It's quicker, if you don't mind the dark."

We ran along the path, it was really dark away from the
streetlights and the moon wasn't due to rise for another
couple of hours or so. Which was a pity as it was supposed
to be a full moon tonight. But Alice didn't seem to have any
trouble seeing where she was going so I just held her hand
and followed her. Suddenly she stopped.

"What's the …"

She turned and kissed me. "Shhh. He'll hear us." Further
discussion was halted as she continued kissing me; the kiss
heated up and after a while I forgot about everything else,
except the way our tongues seemed to spark each time they
touched and about the fire she was lighting in my body.
After an eternity, she stopped.

"Good he's gone; lets go."

"Who's gone?"

"My Dad of course; you didn't think he'd let me just run
away in direct defiance of his wishes without, at least,
trying to stop me, did you?"

"No but, I thought you'd cleared it with your parents?"

"They'd never have agreed. But - this is important - I've
got to be back home before nine 'K? I'm risking a lot for
you tonight so don't let me down."

"Of course, I'd do anything for you."

Being a teenager this sort of promise was easy to make, but
since the consequences didn't directly affect me, it wasn't
as easy to keep.

The party was great; being the chairman did mean that I had
to help out here and there and Alice had a great time
hanging out behind the bar; we still managed the occasional
dance and the DJ was good about mixing slow and fast dances.
All too soon though, my happiness was shattered as someone
shouted,

"Come and look the moon's about to rise!"

Alice looked at me and hissed. "You promised!"

I looked at my watch, it was still showing 8:42pm I showed
it to Alice, then I realised I'd been babysitting the night
before and the kids had been playing with my watch, they
must have changed the time and I hadn't realised.

"Come on we can still make it."

Alice moaned, "It's too late! I'll never make it back in
time."

"We might as well try." I grabbed her hand and dragged her
out the back entrance, shouting to Jules that she was to
hold the fort until I got back. We ran across the playing
fields as if the very hounds of hell were on our tails.
Behind us the sky was getting brighter as the first sliver
of the moon began to rise above the horizon. Alice was
groaning.

"We'll never make it."

"Come on! We definitely won't if you keep stopping."

"You don't understand. I can't help it."

Even with Alice's slow progress, the shortcut across the
fields and cutting through the hedge had put us within yards
of her house. We were just approaching her front door when
Alice uttered an unearthly wail and collapsed to the floor.
The moon had, by now, risen fully and I could clearly see
what was happening to her in the moonlight. And what was
happening was the strangest thing I had ever seen. I could
swear that she growing larger and her shape was changing,
even as I looked her dress split and fell away from her. I
looked not a little lustfully at her exposed body, and then
I realised that her fur was growing shorter before my eyes!
All too quickly the transformation was complete and my
lovely Alice was transformed into this tall pink … monster …
where was her fur? What were those two 'things' attached to
her chest? She started to speak, but the words sounded
strange, as they would, since her face was much flatter and
her muzzle had disappeared.

"Shhh! It's all right Johnny, I'm sorry you had to find out
this way, but we werehumans don't eat people and tomorrow
I'll be the same old Alice that loves you. Come on in you
might as well meet the rest of us now that you know."

I sighed and followed her to her front door; she had to
stoop to get in. I wondered if our children would have this
problem too and how much it would cost to have the ceilings
raised.

-Fin-

-- 
http://www.asstr.org/~arty