Story: Northridge High School Feud (part 5)

Northridge High School Feud (part 5)
By Tcheser

Amber couldn't take any more. She had lost her beautiful tan, her precious breasts, her lovely blonde hair, gained at least thirty pounds and seemed to be becoming a tongue tied spaz. Then her boyfriend Brad, who should have been infatuated with her, questioned her actions, and when she couldn’t adequately explain what was going on he dumped her. Her! Amber Lane! This all had to stop and it had to stop immediately. She had to see Jane and end this before her reputation was irreparably damaged.

Somehow that little bitch Jane was responsible for all of this happening. As absurd as that sounded it was the only explanation Amber could come up with. As her doctor had said, a woman doesn’t suddenly lose her breasts overnight, and yet that was what had happened. It was like magic or something and that brought her back to Jane. She had been making threats and she was a witch or something, Amber was certain of it, you could tell by the way she dressed.

Not wishing to linger in the hallways a second longer than she had to, Amber ran into a storage closet and locked herself inside. When she finally stopped crying and her hands stopped shaking she called information on her cell phone and got Jane’s number. She then took a long breath, composed herself and called Jane. After what seemed like a million rings, but was only actually six, Jane answered and in a very bored fashion asked how Amber was doing.

"You know how I'm doing you bitch!" Amber snapped "I'm in fucking hell! Now cut the crap and meet me in the old theater, y’know the one downstairs in the basement, this needs to end like right now!"

"Alright, I know where the theater is and I’ll meet you there, but you had better bring something that will clear Carol. I don't need to see you if all you're going to do is push me around and dunk my head in the toilet."

"Okay, fine!" Amber agreed. She was at her wits end and would agree to just about anything at this point. "I have something I can bring you. It’ll clear your friend for sure."

"Ok, great, see you in say... 25 minutes?"

"Make it 15"

"Okay, 15 minutes it is, bye" Jane hung up sounding far too happy and cheerful for Amber's taste. She would pay for that Amber vowed, but first she had to end her own torment. To do this however she needed first to get something.


Jane wanted her to bring something that would clear her stupid little friend Carol of the crimes that were keeping her out of school and ultimately would keep her out of college. Amber had such a thing. She even had it at the school. She didn’t want to take it home for fear that her parents would find it and didn’t want to throw it away for fear that someone else might find it. So she kept it in her locker. She knew that wasn’t particularly smart, but with everyone blaming Carol for the vandalism and loving her, she had felt no reason to hurry and destroy the damning evidence. Who after all would go through the Snow Princess’ locker without her permission?

So with the evidence so readily at hand it was relatively simple for Amber to get it and meet up with Jane. It was only relatively simple because in her current bloated, awkwardly nervous state, she didn’t want anyone to see her. She therefore snuck around the school like a wanted fugitive. Eventually she did make it to her locker though and was only spotted once or twice by people on a hall pass and then only from a distance. The evidence then in hand she snuck back through the labyrinth of hallways that was Northridge High and down into the basement where she would meet up with Jane.

Jane meanwhile had to excuse herself from biology citing “women’s problems” in order to meet with Amber. She was greatly embarrassed by this. She hardly ever spoke in class when she wasn’t forced to and to have to almost announce it to the class that she was on the rag was a humiliation she could have lived without. Unfortunately it was just about the only way for her to get out of class short of pulling the fire alarm.

She was of course happy that it seemed Amber was finally breaking down and giving in, but annoyed that she couldn’t at least wait until school was out. Of course maybe Amber was smarter than she had realized and had deduced that the longer she waited to give in, the worse her changes would get, Jane first mused and then disregarded. No, that probably wasn’t the case. It was more likely that Amber was finally at her wits end and wanted it all over immediately. Being as inconsiderate and spoiled as she was, Amber naturally demanded things happen when she wanted them too, regardless of other people’s schedules. Jane inwardly kicked herself that she hadn’t told Amber to wait and meet her when it was convenient for her to do so.

Jane also wasn’t thrilled with Amber’s choice of meeting places. The basement where the old theater was located wasn’t one of the newer parts of the school and looked it. There were old desks and tables from the forties piled in the hallways and the lights flickered on and off eerily. The theater itself was even worse. It had been closed down when they built the new theater on the other side of the school and later vandalized by punks who broke in and hung out there. Between the disrepair, trash and graffiti it was an uninviting place to be and explained why it was totally empty in the middle of a school day.

She walked down the aisle and climbed up onto the stage and waited for Amber to show up. She turned on the stage overheads. Only a couple of them worked leaving most of the stage and theater still darkened. She hoped against hope that Amber was going to bring something to clear Carol. Somehow she felt that she would. How could she not after everything Jane had done to her? But of course this was Amber Lane and therefore Jane knew that despite the fact that giving in would seem to be the only logical course of action for her to take, that it was still possible that she might show up just to give her another swirly or to kick her ass.

Jane was however prepared to take an ass kicking or swirly. She was Carol’s only hope and she knew it. She had decided before she even began her campaign against Amber that she would simply have to endure whatever Amber did to her. She and Carol had been friends since kindergarten and often had been one another’s only friends. If she didn’t do everything she could to help her she would never be able to live with herself again.

“There you are you little bitch.” Amber called from the darkness bringing Jane back to the present. She walked down the aisle and soon joined Jane up on the stage. Jane couldn’t help but take a step back as Amber approached. “We need to talk.” She said.

“Maybe, we do and maybe we don’t” Jane answered as nonchalantly as she could “It all depends on whether or not you brought what I told you to bring.”

“I might have.” Amber fired back “First I want to know how you did it? What did you do to me?” She wasn’t yet prepared to just throw herself at Jane’s feet. She was she decided going to learn as much as she could about what was going on as she could first. It was totally possible after all that Jane had done something just as bad as she had and could be counter blackmailed into ending this whole charade. How had she made all these changes to her body after all? Poison? Drugs? Hypnosis?

“Alright, I guess we can play this little game.” Jane replied as she kneeled down and began going through her backpack. “You don’t really deserve an explanation, but maybe it will hurry this whole thing along.”

“Deserve!” Amber sneered at the word. Of course she deserved and explanation. Who did this twerp think she was?

“Okay, here we go.” Jane then said as she stood up holding the ancient looking spell book she had removed from her bag. “It’s a powerful and rare Grimoire. It’s magic. I used the spells inside it to change you.”

“Magic? Really, that’s retarded even for you.” Amber scoffed. “Magic isn’t real. It’s a bunch of superstition and hocus pocus dreamed up by magicians.”

“No, it’s quite real, Amber. After what happened to you this week I would think you of all people would believe in magic.” Jane couldn’t understand how Amber could be so dense. It was astounding.

“Fine, whatever.” Amber replied dismissively “So you cast a spell on me then?”

“No, actually I cast five spells on you.” Jane explained “Each time I used a personal item of yours as the focus. When I cast the first spell on Monday, I used your hair band. That spell made your tan fade away and leave you all pale and freckled. Remember that?”

“Maybe” Amber said trying hard to control her temper.

“Well then perhaps what I did on Tuesday was more impactful.” Jane continued with her explanation with a little smile. She had actually gotten to Amber! “On Tuesday I took away that lovely golden blonde hair of yours. For that I used one of your hairbrushes. It was fun watching you run around wearing hats and berets and whatever else you could find to cover it up while you changed from a stunning blonde to a dishwater brunette.”

“And on Wednesday I suppose you’re going to tell me you used my locket to take away my boobs?” Amber asked with a forced laugh.

Jane just smiled and said “No, actually on Wednesday I used your keychain to take away your boobs”

Amber stiffened. She really didn’t know what to say at this point. She had hoped she could get Jane to implicate herself in some kind of crime and force a sort of stalemate between them in which she could eventually finagle out of Jane the cure for whatever she had done to her. Unfortunately Jane refused to reveal anything and just continued to claim that she had magically transformed her with spells from a moldy old book.

“This is stupid” Amber finally said “I don’t care what you say. You didn’t magically transform me and I’m not giving you shit until you tell me how you really did it? How do I know this isn’t all a coincidence or something? Maybe you didn’t have anything to do with all these…” she looked down at her chubby, pale, freckled body “…changes.”

“You’re really grasping at straws, Amber” Jane sighed in exasperation “But if you need proof, I can give it to you.” She said as she reached into her pocket and produced an earring. “Remember this? You wore this and its twin to school four years ago. When the clasp broke you threw it at me as I walked down the hall. It’s hard to believe you were a bitch to me even then.”

“So?” Amber shrugged clearly unimpressed.

“So, here is the proof you need so badly” Jane replied as she threw open the spell book and as she held the earring in her left hand she began reciting magic words which to Amber’s ears sounded like so much gibberish. This went on for about a minute and when she was done she slammed the book shut with the earring inside it.

“Wow, that was really really boring” Amber said shaking her head in frustration “And now I don’t see how I have any other choice but to beat the crap out of you.” she said as she started to close the distance between Jane and herself. About halfway though she began to encounter trouble however and staggered to a stop. Something was wrong. She was having a hard time focusing on Jane. Was it the lighting in the theater she wondered for a moment, but was soon certain that it was not the lights. It was just as bright as it was before. Something was wrong with her eyes. Everything was becoming soft and blurry. What was once clear was soon an indistinct blob.

Staggering around the stage uncertainly she called out to Jane “What happened? I can’t see!”

Not wanting the nearly blind Amber to stumble off the stage and break something … like a valuable chair, Jane grabbed her by the arm and steadied her. “So do you believe me now, Amber? I just took away your perfect vision. You now have something like 20/200 vision I imagine, which is nearly blind.”

“You fucking bitch! I’ll kill you!” Amber cried angrily and swung her fists at where she thought Jane was. Naturally being nearly blind she missed by a mile, but she did make Jane release her and back up.

“Stop it already; you’re going to hurt yourself.” Jane told the irate legally blind young woman trying still to pummel her to death.

“Fine!” Amber said throwing down her hands in a huff.

“Do you believe me now?”

“Yeah… whatever, I believe you.” Amber reluctantly replied.

“Okay, good.” Jane said as she slowly approached Amber, still wary of an attack, and pressed something into her hands “Put these on”

They were glasses. Amber put them on and the world slowly became more clear. Her vision still wasn’t as good as it had been before, but it still was much better than it was without them. They were quite thick though and set in some rather ugly tortoise shell frames making her look like even more of a dork.

“Those are an old pair of Carol’s. I brought them just in case you needed more convincing. You’ll probably need to get a stronger prescription.”

“Carol’s glasses?” Amber spat with disgust. She didn’t like that one bit. As devastating as having to wear Carol’s dorky glasses was however, it was even more devastating for her to admit that Jane really had magic powers. It wasn’t some kind of trickery or poison or anything. She could change Amber however she wanted whenever she wanted. Amber didn’t like that one bit.

“So, have you had enough?” Jane then asked.

“Yeah, I totally have. Here take this.” Amber replied handing Jane the evidence she had taken from her locker.

Jane was very pleased. There were pictures of Amber’s damaged car before it was repaired and a receipt from the body shop that showed when the work had been performed. Between this and her clear motive for vandalizing the teacher’s car it would be enough to create doubt that Carol had been the guilty party. She would be cleared and able to return to school and then maybe get that scholarship to pay for college.

“Now change me back, Jane” Amber then demanded.

“Change you back?” Jane looked at her blankly.

“Yeah, I gave you the evidence and now you have to change me back to the way I was.”Amber screamed. Now that she had given in and now faced possible criminal charges Amber couldn’t stand to be trapped in the flabby freckled body one moment longer. If she was to avoid being expelled from school like carol she would have to look her best. “Please, look into your heart, I’ve suffered enough.”

Jane seemed to need to think this over. She stood there pondering it for a while torturing Amber who waited impatiently and begged for her to change her back. Finally she came to a decision and flipped her spell book open once again. Amber was infinitely relieved. Jane was going to change her back it seemed.

“Do you need something of mine to make it work?” Amber asked becoming suddenly very helpful.

“No, I only need your personal things for the spell I cast before. This one is different in a few subtle but important ways.” Jane answered as she located the spell she needed and prepared to cast it. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah, I’m totally ready. Do it.” Amber replied.

“And you’re done bothering me and Carol? You aren’t going to do something horrible to us out of spite?”

“Of course not. I’m sorry for everything I did and promise I’ll be so nice to you in the future.” Amber lied and mentally crossed her fingers. She was going to make their lives so miserable when this was over they were going to wish they had never been born. No one crossed Amber Lane and got away with it.

“Very well” Jane smiled and went ahead with the spell. There was more magical gibberish and then a bright glow that settled on Amber for a few seconds before fading away. “It is done.” Jane then pronounced.

Thrilled Amber ran over to an old floor length mirror, pulled off the cloth that covered it, and gazed hopefully at her reflection. To her great dismay however nothing had changed as far as she could tell. She still had frizzy lifeless brown hair, pale skin and humiliating freckles, was chubby verging on fat and had on nerdy looking glasses. “What the hell?” she asked whirling around to look at Jane who looked like the car that ate the canary.

“I’m sorry Amber, but it doesn’t look like you’ll be Winter Princess this year” Jane told her with an apologetic shrug.

“But what’s going on? Why didn’t I change back? You did the spell and everything.” Amber whined as she turned back to her awful reflection. Was she getting worse? Her clothes looked like they were about to burst they were so tight.

“Yeah, I cast a spell alright” Jane explained “But as I said it was a different spell than I cast before. Built into this spell were certain conditions. One of these was that you would not seek revenge against Carol or myself. Clearly you failed to meet this condition and that is why you didn’t change back. ”

“But that wasn’t our deal…” Amber whined “If I gave you what you wanted you were supposed to change me back.”

“Amber” Jane nearly shook with Laughter “We never had a deal. I never agreed to do any such thing. I told you that I would make you miserable until you gave me evidence to clear Jane. That’s all I ever agreed to do, but being the nice person I am I gave you one more chance, and still you failed..”

“But…” Amber cried.

“No buts, Amber. You have no one to blame but yourself for this” Jane cut her off harshly as she slammed her spell book closed and gathered her things to leave. “Enjoy being one of the unpopular kids” she then added as she disappeared into the darkness.

Left alone in the dimly lit old theater Amber could do nothing but stare at her reflection. She had lost everything because of her arrogance and vanity. Now she had nothing. As if the mirror were also magic she could plainly see her future. After this day Amber would be on lowest rung of the social ladder at Northridge High. Reality had been turned on its head. The hopelessly pathetic nerds, Carol and Jane, had brought down the beautiful self appointed queen of the school, Amber Lane.

Amber would be punished first by the school and possibly the police and then horror of horrors her own father would have no choice but to punish her to save face. He would make her pay for the damages to the teacher’s car and make her get a part time job to do it. She would have to work at some entry level service job while everyone she knew was out enjoying themselves. Depressed, her weight would continue to increase until she would no longer be able to wear any of her fancy designer clothes. Cut off by her father she would have to wear cheap discount store or second hand clothes that didn’t flatter her ever expanding body. She would be kept on a short leash by her parents and on probation with at best a suspended sentence for her crimes. She would end up a sad pathetic friendless fat dork with no breasts and terrible hair.

For the first time ever Amber Lane wished she was anyone but who she actually was.


THE END