Magic Midterms

Penny waved to the tennis team on her way into the school. One of them, the statuesque Alex, waved back, and she wanted nothing more than to run into his arms and run her fingers through the curly brown forest of his hair. He stood almost a foot taller than her, and that made her all the more excited. Penny smiled brightly to him, and decided then and there that today would be a great day.

But she regretfully turned back to the school entryway and walked on to where her fellow cheerleaders would start to gather, and also made sure to bounce her short blonde hair as she walked away. Penny had come in the side entrance between the cafeteria and auditorium. It was a wide entryway, but already filling with arriving students half an hour before classes began. Newly built and still fresh with splendor, the floors were shiny and tan walls clean. She passed the double doors to the cafeteria itself, and ignored them, walking instead to the area around the vending machines where the cheerleading team traditionally held court.

Along the way, Penny walked by a pair of girls, one of whom she had seen since grade school, but never really paid attention to. The other seemed familiar, but Penny had no recollection of her. They stood next to a side door that led to the backstage areas of the auditorium, where the band and theater practiced and prepared. Unlike most students at the High School, this pair was unafraid of looking at Penny straight in the eyes. One of them made a little wave. She was about Penny's height with long black hair, and the cheerleader realized she had not seen this girl before.

Still, Penny smiled back, a part of her relieved someone looked beyond her letterman jacket and at her. After five years of being in the cool girls clique, Penny had grown tired of keeping up a mean facade to everyone Not Cool. She was almost out of her Junior class, and could feel her body growing out of high school.

The second girl of the pair, a pixie with short brunette hair colored with blue and violet highlights, motioned for Penny to come over. A year ago, the cheerleader wouldn't have noticed, but today she didn't much care for appearances and walked to the girls.

The pixie smiled, "Hey, you're in my world history class, aren't you?" Penny had to think about it a moment, but then replied,

"Oh, yeah. You did that presentation on the Parthenon, right? That was actually really cool."

The pixie paused her eyebrows raised in surprise. "You. . . remember that?"

"Of course," Penny said, "the model you made was amazing." She hoped to get by the fact that she didn't know the pixie's name.

The other girl, the one with the long witchy hair, stepped between the pixie and Penny, "Could you help us? We just need a little help moving things around for an assignment." She pointed to the doors to the backstage classrooms.

The cheerleader nodded, "I've got nothing else to do." The pixie and the witch smiled and opened the doors that led to the backstage areas of the auditorium. Peenny felt the cellphone in her back pocket buzz, and she looked at it to see that Marissa, a fellow cheerleader, and one who was already at school, had texted her: "what r u doing?" It was a good question, but Penny ignored it.

She followed the pair down a bright hallway and into a classroom split in two: one side filled by ordinary school desks and a blackboard, and the other half an open area for actors to perform and rehearse. Cubby holes filled with props and clothes lined an entire wall, while a pair or clothes racks sat along the opposite wall. Penny paused, and wondered exactly what the girls needed help moving around as the trio walked to the middle of the rehearsal area. The pixie looked a little blanche, despite encouraging motions by the witch.

"Wink, just do it!" The witch said.  The shorter girl sighed and turned to Penny. Then she stamped her foot and her entire body sparkled. Her face and her clothes just evaporated into light and then into nothing. When Penny looked again, she saw a real honest to goodness pixie. The girl wasn't any shorter, but her purple eyes were brighter, her nose a little more pointed, and pointed ears poked out from behind violet hair. The pixie wore a flighty sky blue dress and a worn brown pouch with hand sketched designs on her hip.

"Sorry about this." Wink said, and threw a pinch of what could only be pixie dust at Penny. The cheerleader coughed and blew the sparkling dust away.

"What the hell?" Penny said, feeling very strange very suddenly. Her movements seemed more loose, as if her limbs were lighter or not so well under her control. She shook her head quickly, but that only made her dizzy. "Was that some kind of drug?" The cheerleader fell into a desk, feeling as though her body could no longer hold her up.

"Look, it's just a project. I thought you were like the rest of the cheer team." The pixie's face was worried, Penny saw, but Penny was still unhappy about the situation.

"Get on with it, Wink." The witch said, now sitting down to face Penny, a pen an pad in her hand. The cheerleader looked and saw an entirely different person. She was older, well into her forties, but well taken care of. She had strong cheeks but soft brown eyes.

"Sorry, Morrigan." The pixie turned back to Penny, "Don't worry." She said with a hopeful smile. Penny didn't respond. Wink made a gesture with her hands, and the cheerleader was suddenly lifted out of the desk and left to hang on imaginary hooks in the air, and no part of her body could touch the ground. Penny could move her body, but her arms and legs were surprisingly taught, with her arms spread out and a little above her head, and legs spread out in front of her body. It was like she has hanging by strings like any old marionette.

"Interesting." The witch commented, scribbling a note down in her pad. Wink sighed with relief and put her full focus on Penny. She moved both hands and released sparkling dust into the air around her. It didn't fall to the ground, but instead moved around, and through, Penny as a cloud of glinting dust.

"Teaghráin a bhogadh; teaghráin le rince; teaghráin go beo." The dust snapped taught and formed four cords flowing from Penny's feet and hands, and ran up out of her vision to what could only be a wooden handle above her.

"Wink, I don't get it." Penny said, trying to keep her head up right. "What are you doing to me?"

"I'm changing you. Into something fun!" She said, eyes too large and too wild. "Just, trust me, OK?"

"Why?" Penny asked, finally giving in to gravity and letting her head loll onto her shoulder. The pixie responded with a magical motion that pulled Penny's head upright.

"I'll . . ." she looked at her instructor, ". . . I'll arrange a date between you and Alex."

"Alex? How do --" Wink gestured and Penny's mouth closed up. Wink began to move in that slow motion way she had earlier, releasing a small stream of pixie dust all around her.

"Láidir i gcuimhne, bog i gcroí, láidir i m'anam, bog i bhfoirm."

Penny suddenly exhaled, pushing every ounce of air from her body, and seeming more. She thought her skin started to squeeze in on her bones. And then, she inhaled more fully than she ever had. Her entire body filled with little pockets of air. Penny looked at herself and thought every part of herself seemed a little more soft and a little more round. Wink took a glance at the witch Morrigan, who nodded in approval. She turned back to her project and shook out her hands.

Wink brought her hands and pixie dust to work again, her eyes closed in concentration.

"Craiceann i éadach. fola i . . ."

Penny heard the squeaky opening of the classroom door, and tried to see who had just opened it, but her head no longer obeyed her.

"What the hell?!" She heard the high pitched cry that recognized as Marissa's. The witch didn't waste time and a wand materialized into existence in her hand. She didn't speak a word, but Penny felt the electricity of magic flash by her. The cheerleader didn't see what happened, despite her head and body turned as much as they could. Marissa didn't even have time to yell. Morrigan waved her wand and human sized toy flew out from where Marissa would have been, landing sloppily between the witch and the pixie.

Marissa was a doll. There was something in pitch of the dolls cheeks and color in her stitched eyes that made that clear. And she wasn't just a doll; she was a cat who had just walked off a Broadway stage. Almost pure white with a mane of puffy hair, she had hand drawn fur on her thighs and belly, and a long kitty tail laying behind her. Soft looking arm and leg warmers made the plush doll even more inviting. She sat upright for just a moment before flopping to the side.

Wink looked at the doll with her jaw hanging open. "That was amazing." She said. Penny agreed, but amazing was not the word she would have used. Morrigan looked at the cat toy and shrugged her shoulders. The awe of the moment started to wear off, and something rippled through the cheerleader's strange new body. It took her a moment, but her brain soon understood the sensations as pain. Something was wrong, and she felt a tear down her body, jagged and uneven. She started to scream.

Penny's mouth opened as she started to feel sweat bead down the right half of her body. She started to yell, but the quick eye and the quick wand of Morrigan brought the pain to an end.

The witch motioned to Penny "Worry about your toy." She said. The pixie nodded and ran up to the cheerleader her forehead creasing in worry. She bit her lip.

"No, no, no." She started shaking her head, "The spell was only half done." Wink whispered. Her eyes and hands were frantic, "I don't know how to fix this."

Penny straightened herself and looked at Wink with widened eyes. She was half toy and half human, and the pixie changing her suddenly loosing faith. Her deadened pain began to turn to dreaded fear.

"You can fix me, Wink." A soft voice said. "I believe in you." The pixie's head snapped up and looked up to Penny.

"You do? Even after I . . ." she let her sentence hang in the air.

"You already made me half a toy. You can fix me."

A light suddenly sparked in the pixie's eyes. "I know what to do." She turned and ran back to the costume racks, and for the first time Penny saw Wink had wings almost like a butterfly's and the same violets and blues she wore.

Wink leafed through the clothes like book pages, without ever touching them, and two costumes caught her eye. She picked them off the hangers with her own hands and walked them to Penny. The first was a nude catsuit with think fabric. Wink used a pinch of dust and woodgrain snaked across the suit.

"Comhlacht agus éadach a bheith mar cheann." There were no fancy gestures or sparkly lights this time. The catsuit just disappeared from Wink's hand and reappeared around Penny's body, beneath all her clothes. Penny looked out to her fingers, which grew into the soft patterned fabric. The dull pain faded into memory and Penny felt complete once again. From cloth to string to wood, she was a doll. Penny blinked. She was a toy.

"You turned me into a marionette!"

Wink slowly nodded her head, "Um, you told me to fix you."

"I thought you were going to make me human again."

Wink barked a laugh, "You're more adorable this way!" When Penny grumbled, the pixie added, "Do you believe me when I say I mean you no harm?"

Penny fitzed a little, wobbling her wooden limbs as best she could manage. "Yes." She finally admitted. Once again, the pixie's eyes lit up.

"OK. This is almost over, I promise." Wink stamped her foot, just as she had in the distant past when Penny was still human.  Except, where Wink revealed that she was a fairy, Penny revealed that she was a doll. She didn't have toes anymore, her fingers seemed to have only half as many joints at they should, and her skin was covered in a wood-patterned fabric. She was soft, but with wooden bones inside, and four pure white strings now controlled her life.

The pixie stepped forward and stood on her tip toes to kiss Penny on each cheek, each time leaving a spray of pixie dust and a tingling warmth. She didn't know what that meant, but Penny felt new thoughts and new emotions bubble up from her memory. She wanted to jump and dance and flip. She didn't care so much about what other people thought of her, or what she need to do to get that new doohickey. And most of all, she wanted someone with her who would wrap her up and be with her all the time. If that was what being a doll was about, she may not mind it so much.

Wink pulled back and admired Penny for a moment. She picked up the second costume, a dirndl with a yellow skirt and top, laced in green thread. The the blouse had puffy sleeves, and a neat apron to match. The costume came with green tights and black peasant shoes. The pixie took one last wave of her hand and the dress melted onto Penny's body. There was nothing left to mark her old human self, apart from maybe her bouncy blonde hair that was probably thread or yarn now, Penny couldn't tell.

The pixie turned to Morrigan and put Penny on full display. "This is Penny-ochio," she said proudly. The marionette turned to the witch who was finishing her note taking.

"Well done, Wink. This is some of the best transformation work I've seen from a student in a long time. A+." The pixie whooped into the air and twirled around on her butterfly wings. When she came back down, she wrapped her arms around Penny and squeezed her stuffed body down to her wooden bones.

"Thanks for believing in me." She said with a voice only the toy could hear. A real sense of pride flowed through Penny, even though she had done little in the process.

"As for you, kitty." Morrigan said. Once again, her face and clothes were those of a student and not a teacher. Her voice drew all thee sets of eyes to Marissa the Cat. The witch waved her wand and the frizzy brunette was human again, dressed in her cheer uniform, sneakers, and a tight white kitty collar. "What did you see here when you walked through that door?"

Marissa looked from Penny to Wink to the witch. "I saw, um, my friend turned into a toy." She said timidly. All at once, her plush cat body returned. She looked at her paws and tail in amazement, and then up to the witch. "I didn't see anything. Just an empty room." The human reappeared just as quickly as the toy had.

"Good girl." Morrigan motioned for her to get up, and they left the room, leaving Wink and her new toy alone.

Penny looked at Wink expectantly, and after a few seconds, finally coughed. "Aren't you going to turn me back."

"Weeeell, because of the way I fixed you, it's going to take a little while before I can."

"How long?"

Wink shrugged, "Just a day," she said, holding up a set of fingers, "or three."

Penny sighed, and the pixie turned to her with a sly smile, "Didn't I promise you a date with Alex?"

---

Penny watched, giddy and terrified and angry and hopeful, after the bell rang and students began to file into the theater room. A few kids noticed her, but most poured over papers or talked amongst themselves. The class was pretty informal, and they mostly chose to sit on the ground in a large circle rather than the desks. Penny stood on a marionette stand just outside the circle. And then her plush heart leaped when a tall brown haired tennis player walked into the room.

Alex took a curious glance to the doll; more curious than anyone else so far. He would know. Her hair was the same. Her face would the same. Surely he, of all the people, would recognize her. He would see that she was just a doll. And he would laugh and never go out with her. And it was all Wink's fault. Penny turned her gaze elsewhere, until he walked up to her and ran his curious fingers through her hair. Penny dared not move, for fear he would see even the small movements she had left to her own power.

Something moved behind Alex. Something that was almost invisible but for a small shimmer of blue and violet. He suddenly fell forward into her. His warm lips locked onto her soft mouth. And he lingered for a moment longer than she thought he would. And when he pulled away she couldn't help but stare. Her mouth hung open, as did his. While the rest of the room laughed and clapped, Alex and Penny stared at each other.

"Penny?" He whispered, believing and not believing at the same time. And he didn't laugh. He knew and he didn't laugh. The doll smiled and gave him a little wink. She knew just then that today would be a great day.

Epilogue

Marissa breathed in deeply and then exhaled in the same way. Her room was dark, her bed was comfy, and her eyes were closed. But she could not get to sleep. Her transformation earlier in the day kept floating back into her mind, keeping her awake. Her hand idly reached up and played with her cat collar she was still wearing. It had a little ID tag with her name on it. The collar should have been humiliating, but Marissa didn't know what would happen to her if she took it off, and was not prepared to find out at school. Even at home, she was wary of her collar.

But it wasn't the collar that kept Marissa awake. She snapped her eyes open and turned her lamp on with a sigh. She looked across the room to the mirror hanging on her closet, and walked to it. She was wearing her customary big t-shirt and short shorts in addition to her collar, and they just weren't cutting it tonight. Marissa wanted to be even more comfortable. She looked at herself, now with wild bed head and once again idly played with her collar.

"This is crazy." She told her reflection, "You know this is crazy, right?" Her reflection nodded. Marissa sighed and opened her closet door and dug into the depths of her clothes to find a giant black trash bag, filled to the brim with a lifetime collection of stuffed animals and rag dolls. She heaved it out of her closed, surprised by its weight, and dumped her assorted toys out onto her bed. Teddy bears, cartoon characters, and dolls named after desserts smiled up at her. Marissa smiled back, "Why does crazy seem so fun?"

The cheerleader stripped out of her minimal clothes and looked at herself once again in the mirror. "Today," she started, "I saw my friend get turned into a marionette, and . . ." the changes swept across her body before Marissa could react, and she watched intently in the mirror as they came. She had never seen any of this before. She had never seen the white catsuit grow around her body and become her skin. She had never seen her body soften from packed stuffing. She had never seen thin whiskers grow out from her cheeks, nor her hair stick out into a mane. And she had never seen her tail swish into existence.

Marissa brought her paws up and ran them over her plush body, thrilled by the sensation of cloth and stuffing in a wholly unnatural way. She spun around and stalked to her bed, amazed at how light and airy she felt; at how graceful she could be. She clicked off her light and sank into a pile of her fellow toys; her best friends. She soon slept and dreamed of a place with place where there were other living toys like her.