Chapter 1
Three days before Cuba. We start our prep.
“You got the shirt?” Fiona holds up the plain white AA V-neck we’re about to transform. Well I’m about to transform. I lift my finger.
“This scissor finger needs precision
Like that of the best esthetician.”
Then I lift my finger and trace it along the neck of the shirt from side to side. It splits apart where my finger touched. Cheap, I know. Why use magic when you could just use scissors? Except that Fiona and I are the world’s least equal/precise cutters. And since this is a shirt, no mistakes are permitted.
By the way, magic? YUp. That’s righteo; I’m a witch. A new and outstandingly excited one too. And I just told Fiona. Last week.
So now we are prepared to use my powers for our good and pleasure. See, our school had this awesome idea last year that the students should have a prolonged half-school, half-vacation. In Cuba. In case you didn’t hear that, I said freaking CUBA!
This basically means that our last two weeks of summer vac and our first two weeks of educational abuse (school) are meshed together in a resort place for a month where we still have school half the time. The other half we have the beach. Which is basically just plain decked-out sweet.
But here’s something you people will never experience… Cubacation (education in Cuba), wizard-style. Not only that, but I’m also a member of the Condordian wizarding family, the only surviving wizard family of the four original ones. This basically makes us wizard royalty. And gives me the inside to exotic power powders, that can do things wizards can’t do if not.
“Okay Lau, what next?”
“This could be considered an abuse of ancestry, but it’s for your health. We’re going to Magic headquarters to cure you before anorexia gets to you.”
“Um, no. What? Actually don’t even explain, cuz we’re not doing it.”
“Hahah! I love how you act like you have some say in this. Sorry, and you should thank me. You will later, anyway!”
***
“Who knew Magic HQ would be right beside Max’s! How lucky are we to have the headquarters right in our city!?”
“Yeah, that’s one blessed coffee house. But actually it’s just an entrance. There are billions, all around the world.”
“Whatev. I’m still confused about your plan. Did you mention anorexia?”
Deep breath. She hasn’t actually acknowledged her anorexia, but it’s there. And it could, and will get worse, especially at the rate that she’s going. Technically, she not living up to the real description of anorexia, like always thinking she’s fat even when she becomes unhealthily thin, but she’s still really starting to annoy me with her ‘diets’ (kept until a chocolate bar is in sight), and her starvations (that one ended when Frite, Alors! had their annual International Potato Day free cup-a-fries).
“Okay Fiona. As your best friend, I find myself worthy of telling you that you are on the path to anorexia. You may have detoured from it for a bit a few weeks ago, but that scary-skinny Girl Guider we saw brought you back onto the route. So now ――”
“Technically, she was a Pathfinder.”
The irony is just too much for me to take. I’m sorry, but I had to burst out laughing. She joined, and that derouted us for a few minutes. Oh no, derouted. There I go again.
“C’mon. Let’s just go inside.”
I bend my arm and rest my elbow on her shoulder, leaning. This is my signature (I like to think it’s known) slouch-on-friend. I steer her in through the doors to the small squished building between Max’s Coffee Shop and a row of duplexes. It’s actually called Magic HQ (even for non-witches to see), but it has that spell like in Harry Potter, the one that makes them change their mind and go somewhere else completely.
“Welcome! Please state your name, parents name and wizarding family.” The over-friendly, veering on scary, fairy secretarian calls out to us as soon as the doors close behind us.
“Laura Lalonde, daughter of Paul Lalonde and Isabella Layne, of the Concordian wizards.”
The woman/fairy seemed impressed beyond her talents to hide that. Haha :D. Glory.
“How may I be of service, miss Lalonde?”
“I need something from the power powders room, if that’s possible.”
“Oh, it is for a Concordian! Right this way. Oh, and the mortal too.”
Fiona mouthed a ‘how can she tell?’ at me but I just shrugged my shoulders. Was it really important how?
“Here we are! Take as long as you like.”
“Baller, thanks.”
You know how sometimes when your friends are impressed by something you show them its fun to watch, and sometimes you’re kinda just like get over it? Yeah. Right now, I’m ready to just skip over the amazement of the power powders room and get to it, but Fiona just has to go all fishy-faced and jawless. Whatev.
“Oh, found it! Stretcheralium corporalis. It can make you taller, shorter, wider or thinner.”
“Sweet, gimme some!”
“Ah-ah-ah, Fiona. We must be very careful with this, or with anything in here. Since the Concordians are the only remaining original wizarding family, only us Corcs have access to these powerful potions. That just shows how rare and dangerous and powerful they can be, and are. Now let’s get shaping!”
“Ok, so on you we are going to do a sort of tummy tuck. It will hurt and you will feel a little squished in there because it basically just compresses it really tight. But don’t worry, you’ll get used to it in about 5 hours. Less if you take a nap. Just drink this and I will start pulling at you. And rest assured; I’ve been trained. Sort of.”
Fiona took the small vial and chugged it bravely. I put on the ‘magic shaping gloves’ by the door, really just a pair of dishwashing gloves since the potion did all the magic. “Ready?” I asked. She nodded and gulped a small little gulp.
She raised her shirt to expose her belly and I took what little I could find (she really didn’t have much fat) and rolled it upwards until there was no more. Then I pressed it in, compressing it hard-packed and thin. I did a bit of that on her thighs and she was good to go.
“My turn!” I announced. I took another vial and drank it. Then I just shmooshed my belly in a tad, slimmed my sides, pulled my body a bit taller and stretched out my chest a bit more, for it to be more ‘up and out’. Then as an after thought, I shaped my butt into a perkier self.
“Hah! I’m still taller!” Fiona teased.
“Damn straight you were, but no more!” I pulled myself just a tad taller until I passed Fiona by an inch and felt satisfied that her constant teasing about her being taller would finally be over. Ha yourself, Fiona.
“Done. Let’s bounce.”
We walked out and let the secretarian stare at us in shock as we left Magic HQ.
Chapter 2
“Flight 3098 to Cayo Coco is now boarding at gate 12.”
Yesssss!! Cubacation time! Ouuh ouhh! Doing a dance now… in my head now… Ouh ouh!
“All you have is that little carry-on and one suitcase? Wow.”
HAHAHAHAAHHAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Like that’s really all I brought! So naïve. Well I guess little Jess doesn’t know of any other way…
“Jessica, Jess, Little J? Good. Lil’ J, just a carry-on and suitcase? Yes, but a very hard-packed, over-stuffed carry-on and suitcase! Elementary, my dear Watson!”
She looked a bit frightened and ‘sorry I asked’-ish because of my sudden over-energy, that began this morning when I woke up at 5 am and bounced around the house shooting sparkles out of my finger all over in my excitement.
“Damn girl! You jumpy! And smokin’ hot too, babe. Are they real?”
Jorge Deluise was pointing at my chest. He was one of those wannabe Hispanic ‘ghetto dregs’. I smirked and looked all high and mighty, though his unembarrassed intimacy with my chest bothered me just a tad. “Of course. I would never do fake!”
I said that extra loud because I saw that Angela Weintraub was listening, the same Angela who got a boob job last summer. Ha. Of course, no one needed to know that they in fact weren’t real.
How was nobody figuring out my growth over four days since we saw each other last at the last-minute planning conference? I was banking on the fact that I was wearing the AA v-neck I had transformed earlier with Fiona, which was a little showier than the rest of my shirts.
“Hey Laura.” I turned around and had to mentally stop my heart from thumping so hard. It was Scott Laliberté, the boy who had sat beside me in most of my classes since pre-K because of our last names. The boy I had always been forced-friends (ish forced) with, and who I had always kinda found hot, even though not many other girls felt the same (they just thought he was okay). The boy that lately I had started to like. I covered my chest a little, since I didn’t want to be that girl to him. I smiled at him in our friends-since-always way that was special to just us.
“So I hear we’re chair buds on the plane. That’s cool, eh? ‘Guess they’re sticking to the norm for the seating…” He finished and gave me his adorable uncertain half-smile. Uncertain or amused, depending on the circumstance, since it was almost the same smile.
“Yeah, that’s great! But that’s probably not the only thing we’ll be stuck with each other for.”
“Stuck? Well sorry to disturb,” he teased, amused. I laughed and fake hit him. He gave me his ‘get over it’ smile that made his eyes twinkle and opened his arms for a truce hug, which I gladly accepted, hiding the giddy tingles I felt.
“Move along, students! The plane is waiting!” Our history teacher Miss Briggs summoned. I waved bye to Scott and Jorge and went to find Fiona and my carry-on.
***
“Hi again, Lalonde.”
“Ohmigod! Did I fall asleep!?” On Scott’s shoulder!?!
“Um yeah, kinda. I guess I’m not as interesting as I thought.”
“No! I fell asleep on you while you were talking to me? Shit, I’m so rude, sorry! Why didn’t you wake me?”
“Well you seemed tired. Plus, intense conversations make me sleepy too. Actually not really. I’m just trying to be nice.”
I laughed. That’s one thing I loved about Scott; his total honesty, no regrets. Wait, hold up!
“Intense conversations? We were talking intense? But I don’t remember anything!”
“Well that’s okay, it was kinda personal anyway. I don’t really know why I was telling you all that.”
Holy shit. WHY DID I FALL ASLEEP!!!!!! Personal!?! I wanna know!!!
“Tell me again, and I promise not to fall asleep.”
“No, I should have just kept my feelings to myself. It’s ‘ight. You can sleep again, if you want.”
He took my head and gently rested it back on his shoulder. Fall asleep? Was he crazy? I could never at a time like this!
“Wow. Are you okay? Why is your heart beating so intensely?”
Gulp. “Personal reasons.” Because I’m leaning on you and it seems like we’re crushing all our weight into each other and we’ve never been so close before.
End of Chapter 2
