GRAVEYARD TALES -S1/E7 - THE PRANK

The doorbell rang. I was in the kitchen, preparing the popcorn for tonight's Horror Movie Marathon.
"Can one of you get that?" I shouted out to the twins. No answer. I sighed and ran out to the door as the doorbell rang again.
It was Frankie, holding a case of beers and a couple of DVD's in one arm.
"Hi, Frankie," I said, letting my mate in. "The twins are in the living-room, doing God knows what. Go and join them. I'll be right out with the popcorn."
"Thanks, Chaz," beamed Frankie.
I went back into the kitchen, just as the microwave finished cooking the popcorn. I took the bag out and sorted it into four bowls.
"What are we watching tonight, Frankie?" I asked, as I joined the lads in the living-room.
"Well, I went down the rental shop, and the horror movies they had that weren't loaned were "Carrie" and "The Shining.”
“Aren’t they both Stephen King?” asked Sean.
“Yes,” replied Frankie. “’The Shining’ is the one where they stay in the hotel and there’s all sorts of ghosts, and Jack Nicholson goes crazy and tries to kill his family. And ‘Carrie’ is the one where she’s a loner and nobody likes her and they play a mean prank on her at the prom, but she has a special power, that they didn’t know about.”
“Oh yeah, they’re both classics,” said Dean. “Come on, let’s watch ‘Carrie’ first.”
I sat there, listening to Frankie describing “Carrie”. And I couldn’t help remembering that something similar had happened to me when I was still art school. I was invited to a sleepover where horrible things happened to me.

It started when I was fourteen and in Year Nine at school. My dad had changed his job, which meant we had to move from New York to Chicago.
I started at my new school in the middle of Year Nine, where everyone stared at me because I was New. At lunchtime, I had nobody to sit with and already I had the little cliques sorted out. There were the Geek Clique, the ones who had top grades in everything, and did their homework every lunchtime. And the there was the group of girls who weren’t geeks, but they weren’t cool either. They were a nice, comfortable middle. And then there was the Royalty of Year Nine. The Queen bees. The girls nobody liked very much, but every boy wanted them, and every girl wanted to be them. They were the Popular Girls who ran everything. From what people wore to what music people liked. Everything.
I didn’t fit in any of these cliques. I wasn’t a geek. I wasn’t a Popular Girl. I wasn’t even in the middle. I was a loner, wandering around by myself, doing my own thing. Always had done, always would.
So, at lunchtime, I paid for my cheese sandwiches and was about to sit by myself, when three girls waylaid me.
“Hey, you’re the new kid, Charlotte Mason. Wanna sit with us?”
I staggered back, startled. The girls who were talking to me were the Popular, Queen Bees. Maria Cornculus, who as the leader of the three. The other two were her hangers-on, Stacey Dore and Kate Agulman. These were the ones who told everyone what to wear, what to like, what to do. They were Perfect as well. All of them had long, flowing blonde hair which were sleek and neat. They even had skin a skin cream commercial would die for. From a distance, they looked like triplets. What were they doing, talking to me? A total greasy-haired grunge fest?
“Go on,” said Maria. “We would love you too.”
I shrugged my shoulders and followed them to the table which seemed to be reserved only for those three.
“As I was saying, Stace, can you come to my sleepover on Friday?” Asked Maria.
“Oh, yes, of course I can,” answered Stacey. “I’ll get Daddy to drive me downtown to buy a new outfit.”
Maria turned to me. “I’m having a sleepover round mine on Friday,” she smiled, showing perfectly glossed teeth. “Wanna come?”
My heart started thudding. “These wore the Popular kids who normally wouldn’t look twice at me. Something was wrong about this. Very wrong. But then, I’ve never been invited to a sleepover before. This might be my last chance for ages.
I battled my conscience, and said: “Yes, I’d love too.”
Of course, I would soon begin wishing I hadn’t.

On Friday, I headed out for Maria’s house. I found it in twenty minutes.
“Oh, my God, you came!” She squealed as she answered the door. “I love what you are wearing! You look so cool!”
I looked down at my clothes. I was wearing a grubby t-shirt and mud stained tracksuit bottoms. I hadn’t had time to change. What was she on about?
She showed me up to her bedroom. It was very large and had posters of pop stars all over the walls. Stacey and Kate were already there, and Maria insisted we had a fashion parade, and dress up in each other’s clothes, to see whether it suited us. I couldn’t remember having more fun. But still, something inside me niggled. There was something bad about all of this. Something terrible was going to happen. Maybe it was like that “Carrie” movie, and they invited me here to play a prank on me. I pushed all the thoughts away and carried on having fun.
At midnight, we were all dressed in our pyjamas, and had been in bed for an hour, but now Maria switched on her torch, and insisted it was time for the midnight feast.
I wasn’t feeling that hungry, but I soon was when I saw the bowls of sweets Maria handed out. My bowl was full of Mars Bars and Snickers. But there were also Fruit Pastilles and Jelly Babies.
We all began tucking into our banquet and pretty soon, we held a contest to see which one of us would be sick first.
At last, I’d polished off my sweets and had reached the bottom of my bowl. That was it. The Terrible Something was about to happen. I reached into my bowl, totally oblivious that it was empty, looking at Kate, who was telling us about some boy in our Science class who keeps staring at her, and so she thinks he fancies her. When all of a sudden, I felt something hairy in my sweet bowl. I screamed and dived for Maria’s overhead light.
I looked in my bowl, sitting there were tow large and extremely hairy Tarantula spiders. Now, normally, I can abide little harmless spiders, but I am absolutely petrified of Tarantulas. I have that Arachnophobia thing towards Tarantulas.
I stood there, rigid, barely able to move. Maria and her disgusting hangers-on were cackling like a coven of witches. How could they have known? Then I remembered. In my first tutor period on my first day at school, I had to tell everyone a bit about myself, and I’d mentioned that I was terrified of hairy spiders.
“How could you do this?” I shrieked. “How could you?”
Maria stopped laughing. She looked serious. “Relax, Charlotte,” she said. “Can’t you take a joke?”
“Huh? A joke? A joke!” I screamed. “You know I’m scared of hairy spiders, and you stick two of them in my bowl of sweets, and I’m supposed to think it’s funny!”
“Gawd, lighten up, sweetheart,” said Kate.
“Yeah, we should’ve known you didn’t have a sense of humour,” Stacey said.
Of course, I had to spend the rest of the night with the three disgusting creeps but I got up early in the morning, and headed back home. I was home by nine in the morning.
On Monday, at school, I tried to avoid, but they kept coming up to me and letting their hands wander on my desk, and erupting into disgusting giggles all over again. I later found out they did that to all the new girls in our year. They find out what they are scared of, and then pretend to be friendly with them and invite them to a sleepover, to play a prank on them. Of course, I got my revenge. But I bided my time. I waited until Year Eleven, when we were at our Leaving Prom. Maria, Stacey and Kate all turned up looking perfect, in Barbie pink wedding dresses. What did I do? tip a bucket of pigs’ blood over their heads? No, that would’ve meant I was stooping down to their level. No, I went to a joke shop and brought fake acid green blood, like the aliens’ blood in the movie “Alien”.
They were standing at a table, drinking punch, and talking about boys, and I crept up behind them, and dropped the fake acid blood on their dresses. The blood burnt a hole in each of their dresses, and they didn’t notice what was going on, until everyone saw what had happened and started laughing at them. I could hear their shrill screams as I left the Prom, a smirk forming on the corners of my mouth...

“Chaz? Chaz?” I was brought out of my flashback by Frankie nudging me. “Come on, Chaz, the movie started five minutes ago, and we’re still waiting for our popcorn. What was you thinking about, eh?”
I looked at him and the twins.
“Okay,” I said. “It started when I was fourteen and in Year Nine at school...”

Look out for Episode Seven, “Full Moon” in the near future...