Charlie of the Cul De Sac

CHAPTER 1 : A WITCH IN PALMS CREEK

Charlie was a victim of the law of averages. She lived in an average house in an average town. Her parents worked average jobs. Their temperaments were none too sweet and none too mean. A middle child, four years younger and four years older than her two siblings respectively. She had a perfectly average life, which was a match set for her perfectly average face. There were 25 students in her class and Charlie routinely scored 13th in most subjects. She was conveniently 13 years old as of July 13th of this year. And just as it is that no person can be in all ways perfectly average, or at least only astronomically few people can, which in these cases their averageness is quite unique making them one in ten million, all of Charlie's averageness meant that there must be something that was quite unusual about her. Something that was far beyond usual unusualness. It was that ‘something’ that Charlie was now mulling over in her mind.

While sitting atop a large stone on the corner of 113th pl; the cul de sac her house was on, Charlie was trying to decide whether or not she had supernatural powers. Before you laugh and write her off as a silly girl, let us observe the facts that surround the fearsome debate now raging in her mind. I’m sure many people feel they are invisible, One part of her brain told her But that can’t possibly explain all the strangeness the other part argued back. Let's go over it again. I was standing directly in front of the television for ten whole minutes and they both just stared as if looking right through me, they never once asked me to move. Her experiments have been getting bolder along with her suspicions that she was randomly turning invisible. But I could still see my hands and feet. I even remembered the mirror this time and could still see my reflection. That wouldn’t be possible if I was truly invisible. You see, she was not wholly given to fanciful delusion, the facts of the case could have convinced anyone. In fact you might now be wondering why she wasn’t already convinced.

This was the difficulty. Along with being perfectly average Charlie had discovered two other things about herself. The first, that she was remarkably unlucky; an unfortunate byproduct of others being incredibly lucky. There was a thirteen year old boy who won the biggest prize at the town fair raffle five years in a row. He had obviously sucked up much of the luck from her age group. The only time she had won a prize it had been mrs. Macabee’s meat pie, which had spoiled in the hot sun. Her mother, in a none too sweet moment, made Charle eat a piece, for Mrs. Macabee was watching and her husband was the town's postman; everyone knows it best not to upset your postman and Mrs. Macabee would have been greatly offended if her generous contribution to the town fair raffle was scorned by its winner. Charlie choked the piece down and an hour later felt sick to her stomach. And while all the other kids enjoyed the fireworks; which was her favorite part of the fair each year, Charlie spent that evening with her head in a toilet bowl. If you still don’t don’t believe her to be unlucky, look just now, as Charlie was debating with herself, a garden hose from a few houses up sprung a leak and the water has been rushing down the gutter of the sidewalk to make a large puddle right at the corner where she is still sitting. And just as Charlie noticed this peculiar sight; a puddle in the middle of a sweltering august day, a car coming down the street took the sublime pleasure to run right through a street puddle and made a huge splash that soaked Charlie completely.

This brings me nicely to the second thing that Charlie had discovered about herself. She often went remarkably unnoticed. It goes this way for middle children all over the world and Charlie was no exception. She got hammy downs from her sister and so her style was always four years out of fashion. But those clothes were too worn out by the time her younger sister could fit them and so little Caitln always dressed new and fresh. The novelty of regular accomplishments such as walking and talking, drawing pictures, becoming potty trained, being on a sports teams and all such normal firsts parents are so keen on embellishing and praising had been worn off by her older sister and since Charlie could not produce irregular accomplishments on account of her averageness, her doings often received little spectacle. Now you might be seeing the problem that is perplexing the newly wetted Charlie. She has grown so accustomed to being unnoticed and unlucky, she could not decipher whether her tests simply demonstrated an extension of her normal ability to be ignored or if she was truly turning invisible at random! Did that car not notice me? Or was I invisible? Unable to make any headway, she closed the debate and decided to go for a walk in the sun to dry her clothes.

Charlie enjoyed walking around town, especially in the summertime. She used to ride a bike, but her bikes tended to get run over by a car along with herself when she would cross a street, the drivers always said they never saw her until she was sent sprawling, or they would drive on without so much as glancing at her. Even when she avoided the streets, her bikes would go missing when she would leave them to go into a shop even if she locked them up. She suspected the Murton boys and their little band of cronies had something to do with it. Her parents grew weary of buying her bikes or getting them repaired and she had grown weary of being run over, so she kept to walking and avoided the streets, mostly, when she could. So it was today as she strolled down a brown grass trail atop the Kuplen lake sewer and water pipeline. Between houses whose fences lined the trail looking into yards that had trampolines or inflatable pools and envying the other children, especially those with pools.

After a half hour the trail led to a small hillside that descended sharply and was covered in power lines and thorny blackberry bushes in full season. The fences fell away and she meandered down the hill to snack on some ripe berries. She plucked them from the bush and plopped them in her mouth one after the other, until she was satisfied. Then she filled the pockets of her dress; she was thankful for her older sister's consideration of function over fashion, and feeling quite dry, found a shady tree to sit under and take back up the consideration of her perplexing dilemma. Though, before she had much time to do little more than to re-establish the facts in her mind, she heard the nauseous sound of prepubescent boys chitting and stomping in her direction.

“When I find a witch I'll poke her eyes out with a sharp stick” the unmistakable voice of William Murton proclaimed with all the bravado he could muster.

“My da says there ain’t no more Witches” Timothy Bobbin said

“He can’t know that for certain” Will quipped back “That's what most Witches want parents to think, so they’ll let them play outdoors at night and be easier to catch and eat”

“Witches don’t eat you!” Samuel Murton butted in “they trick you into a deal and make you bring them your baby sisters so they could eat them!” Sam's remarks were understandably hopeful, the Murton family had only boys until the recent arrival of their younger sister at the start of the summer. She had ruined a six boy streak, a streak most of the Murton children, unlike their parents, were quite proud of.

“Oh they’ll eat you alright, after they get the babies they will try for the little children next” Will amended

“I ain’t a little children! Not any more!” Sam protested, taking the remark to mean that the witches would eat him after the babies and feeling upset by the implication.

“Then we better find some good sticks to sharpen and make spears. It's the only way to kill witches proper” Will informed the others and whether they felt his zeal for witch hunting as ardently or not, they liked the notion of making spears and set to searching for long straight sticks they could whittle with their pocket knives.

Listening to the buffoonery, so she considered their talk, Charlie thought to play a trick on those prattling fools who likely stole a bike or two from her. So she hid herself behind a sticker bush and waited for them to draw closer. Soon the boys came to the tree she had been shading under and stared up at the branches looking for ones to hack or snap to make their spears. Charlie sucked in a breath and let out a screeching cackle.

“Get out of my wood!” she shouted in her witchest voice, which inevitably was average. But average was good enough for unarmed boys with witches on their mind. With shrieks of terror at a pitch that betrayed their gender. The three boys went running from the trees up the hill and disappeared from sight. Feeling quite pleased with herself she trotted out from behind the bush and took up her old post under the shade tree. Popping berries into her mouth and chuckling at the speed those Murton boys and their friend fled the area. She laughed and popped barriers for quite awhile. So headless she was and having only sisters, she was unaware of how quickly even young boys can overcome a freight and turn terror into bold resolve.

“I think we're far enough away” Will Murton panted

“There really is a witch here” the other boys kept repeating. They had stopped when they reached the comfortable safety of houses on either side of the pipeline trail. Will searched around and quickly snatched a bendy branch from the ground and began whittling the end to a point. The other boys saw the sense in what he was doing and quickly did likewise. After only five minutes of silent determined work the three boys were armed with, not perfect, but serviceable wooden spears whose points really could poke out an eye.

“We should build a fort at Tim's place to hold up, incase the witch comes looking for us” Sam said and Timothy nodded vigorously, but they both looked to William who seemed deep in thought, and for some reason, without having any conversation on the matter or knowing the reason themselves both Sam and Tim considered William the leader. Finally after a moments thinking William spoke.

“The witch won’t look for us, it's day time and there's grownups around” Tim and Sam both seemed rather relieved at that observation. “So we will have to go back and kill her now” William said with steely resolve.

“I don’t want to fight a witch, she could curse us, or eat us or…” Sam objected, voicing Tims thoughts as well.

“If we don’t kill her now in the day, she might come to our house in the night”

“That's why we should build a fort, we can get bill and paul to come over and help and they could make spears and paul can bring his da’s gun” Tim suggested. Will nodded at this.

“But the witch won’t come for us first, it will eat our little sister first” Will said, exposing what he had been considering.

The boys looked horrified. It was alright thinking about getting rid of a sister when there was no chance of it actually happening, but they now believed in witches; Tim and Sam perhaps more zealously than William. The prospect of a witch eating their little sister was too real for Sam and something stirred inside him. He didn’t know what it was. It felt like when he was blamed for something he didn’t do, or got in trouble when his brother who did the same thing he did got away scott free. He hated that feeling, it twisted a knot in his belly and made his fists clench. And all he could think to say was

“That's not fair!”

“No it isn’t” William replied “we can stop it right now and if I have to do it alone I will” then quickly added “but I really don’t want to” Sam and Tim found themselves nodding not so much that they liked the plan of going to kill a witch any better then they did before, but for some reason Williams words sounded like the correct things to say and they liked hearing it. Once again without a discussion they had both resolved to follow him back up the hill if he decided to go. The fear of a witch be damned.

They crept as silently as they could, which is a skill boys learn early, especially mischievous boys; as this lot could be described. When they nearly reached the top of the hill that looked down upon the spot where the witch had frightened them, they crawled on their bellies like soldiers in the movies until their heads poked ever so slightly over the crest.

Charlie for her part was still laughing and finishing the last of her berries. The boys heard the soft laughter and were puzzled. It was more fair and youthful than they expected to hear from a witch. Looking down at the tree they saw Charleen Helmsberry whom everybody called Charlie. Charlie stood, thinking it was about time to start heading home and looked far out past the powerlines and the highway that stretched a little ways below toward a beautiful mountain range. Sam was about to call out to her and warn her of the witch. But William spoke first.

“I think we've been had, that rotten girl must’ve played us a nasty trick” relief, then indignation, and a little embarrassment collided with all three of their brave hearts. Tim started looking for a rock to throw at her. But just then while Charlie stood admiring the mountains, she vanished. This is not to say that she walked behind a tree or moved in a way out of their sight. She was simply there and then she wasn’t. The boys immediately popped their heads back down below the crest of the hill. Charlie turned to walk up the hill and head home. The boys, hearing her coming, ran as fast as they could to Tim's house.

The afternoon did nothing to resolve Charlies perplexing dilemma, she came home and announced she was back, to which her mother replied,

“We didn’t know you were out hun”

She slunk about her chores, unnoticed, and put off any further deliberation until supper had been eaten. But for three little boys in the town of Palms Creek there was no dilemma at all, or at least none of the sort that Charlie wondered at. There was a witch in town and it was one from among their own citizens, a practitioner of the dark arts who must be stopped. No adult would believe that Charleen Helmsberry was actually an evil witch. So the boys took it upon themselves and those of their friends they could recruit, to swear oaths and join a brotherhood of witch hunters whose primary mission was to expose and kill Charleen Helmsberry… so help them God.

CHAPTER 2 : SWIMMING WITH THE SHARKS

Late the next morning, sunlight beat down on the plastic fan blowing warm air into the average, sleeping, sweaty face of charlie. She had been awake for at least an hour, roused by the heat and unable to escape its clutches. So she lay uncomfortably fantasizing of cooler weather, until the idea came to her, to visit Julia Garden. Julia was amid the more affluent members of Palm Creek. Her father worked in the city for some such firm or co. or corp. And they might be the only family in 25 miles, who has an in-ground pool. The thought of plunging into cold water was almost pleasant enough to lull her back to sleep. But alas, she rolled out of bed, slipped on her flip flops, grabbed a bathing suit and a towel and started walking to Julia Garden’s; avoiding as many roads as possible.

Charlie walked along grassy trails, behind houses, taking a rather circuitous route to Julia’s, when a tingly sensation crept up the back of her neck. You see, Charlie wasn’t used to drawing attention, you and I may immediately recognize the instinctual warning of someone watching you, but for Charlie it was a rather foreign sensation. She itched her neck and began walking faster, suddenly feeling an urge to be not alone. Had she looked behind her, she might have caught the glimpse of four boys armed with spears cutting across the trail into the woods on one side.

The Gardens house was atop a small hill on the outskirts of Palm Creek. A windy drive circled up to the three story home. There was a rather large impeccably green front lawn. Trees surrounded three sides of the house, providing privacy, the fourth side opened up to a view of the mountain range. Charlie rang the doorbell and wiped sweat from her brow with her towel. The door opened.

“Charlie! So good to see you” Mrs. Garden said, smiling.

“Hello Mrs. Garden, is Julia here?”

“She is, come in. You’ve grown so much!” Charlie was never sure how to respond to that comment. She suspected that parents sign some sort of contract obligating them to mention a child's growth whenever an indeterminable span has passed between seeing them last. So she just said

“Thank you” and walked in the house

“You brought your swimsuit, that's a good idea, it is a hot day” Mrs. Garden said in a very motherly voice. You see, Mrs. Garden was one of those adults that struggled with relating to teenagers and treated every child at the age she last understood them. This is a quality that upsetted most teenagers, but Charlie loved things that were familiar and comfortable, and she quite liked Mrs. Garden’s cheery disposition, so she forgave her any condescension.

“Yes, I was hoping Julia would like to go for a swim,” Charlie said, falling into the expected role of a girl about three years younger than she was. Unaware, as most children are, that behaving like a mature child is much more comely than most teenage notions of behaving “grown up like”.

“That's a great idea Charlie! Come on, the girls are in the living room” Charlie was just processing the word “girls” when she stepped into the living room where Julia Garden, Urma Madweather, and Pauleen Hops sat in deep conversation.

“Juliana, girls, Charlie Helmsberry came over to play” Shocked and a little embarrassed, Charlie watched as the three most popular girls in her class turned to look at her. Then something quite peculiar happened, all three at the same time, grew wicked grins on their faces.

To understand why such a strange event occurred, we must go back to about five minutes before Charlie rang the doorbell. That morning, Juliana Garden had hosted a meeting of the minds. This is not so different from what you may know about powerful people. Sometimes they get together with other powerful people to secure for themselves advantageous connections that could help them shape a future to their liking. In days of old this happened among tribal chieftains, a little later it happened in the courts of kings among lords and ladies of promdominate bloodlines. Today it happens with politicians and people of business and in Palm Creek that Saturday morning in august it was happening with three prospective highschool freshman.

Urma Madweather was the smartest kid in Charlie's class. She had won first prize at the science fair four times. The first time she took second place was six months after David Wong and his family moved to Palms Creek, that was three years ago. They bought a house in the same Cul De Sac as the Helmsberrys’. David was her most capable rival and she hated him personally, philosophically and unequivocally. She had her sights on becoming editor of the school newspaper, Chairmen of the debate team and Project Manager of the High Schools robotics team.

Pauleen Hops, who everyone called Pauly, was the fastest girl in Charlie's class. She wanted to be a three time hall of fame captain in her high school sports trophy and achievement display in the areas of soccer, volleyball and track and field. Julia Garden was the most popular girl in Charlie's class. She wanted to be class President. The three girls had decided to pool their influence and verified skilled sets to make sure they all achieved their separate ambitions. This was the topic of that morning's secret council. The three girls represented the top of the heap in the areas of academics, social notoriety, and athletic ability for their sex and class.

Julia thought her little conspiracy was developing nicely. They had moved onto the topic of boys. Urma had prepared a school year book from their middle school and had gotten a hold of a high school annual. Throughout the books, different boys were circled who were potential candidates and X’s were marked over other boys who should not be given any consideration. Little annotations were given.

Brad Cole GPA: 3.4, Fashion: needs work, Parents: PTA die-hards, Interests: Band, tennis and environmental club.

Brandon Patterson GPA: 2.8, Fashion: exquisite, Father: football coach + health teacher, Interests: Varsity football

Daniel Murton (X) DO NOT DATE A MURTON

The image of David Wong holding first prize at the science fair had been removed with a razor. Urma used his ‘stupid smug smile’ as a bookmark in her textbooks. Whenever she was getting fatigued from too much studying, she looked at it and found new depths of loathing to energize her. Julia and Pualy were perusing the annuals like a shopping catalog trying to decide who they should ask to accompany them to the end of summer festival next week. Urma, however, was deep in thought.

The more they discussed, the more they felt secure that if they bound together, they could achieve all of their goals and perhaps get anything else they wanted. That was, they were feeling this way, until Urma said this.

“There is one potential problem with our plan ladies,” Julia scowled.

“What do you mean?” Pualy asked

“For many of our stated goals, talent or simply good breeding” she shot a glance at Julia, “is only one component of two that we will need to succeed. Most of the positions we aspire to are elected positions, our talents and achievements simply give us the permission to put ourselves forward as candidates, but it is the consent of our peers that we will have to secure to make them realities” Julia rolled her eyes.

“You're forgetting Urma, that's where I come in. You both have followers in your more niche categories of success, but I know everybody, go everywhere.”

“That's not a problem for me” Pauly said “Popularity doesn’t win competitions. Plus being captain is mostly decided by the coach, the team votes, but the coaches mostly decide, and they will want the best” Urma let out a long sigh, that same same sigh you hear from people who feel that you should already agree with them, but they are mustering the energy to explain things to you once again.

“There is a problem here, that neither of you are seeing”

“Get on with it then” Julia snapped

“The problem is jealousy” The other girls waited for her to go on, so Urma milked the opportunity. “Do I have to spell it out? Ok fine. We each represent the three areas most students in the school aspire to obtain achievement in, we plan on spending our social time showing up to each other's competitions and eating lunch at the same table, displaying our wonderful friendship for the school to see. If our little brain trust begins to rise in all the areas other kids wish to be good in, it will invite our classmates to become jealous of us.

“Who cares?” Pauly snorted, but Julia was nodding. Social dynamics were her speciality and though she was not able to foresee this issue, now that it was stated plainly, she immediately saw the sense in it.

“Urmas right” Julia said to Pauly “jealousy can topple kingdoms” she glanced at Urma as if to say, see, I read too. Urmas cheek cracked a derisive twitch as if to reply mostly novels.

“I still don’t see how this affects me,” Pauly said stubbornly, holding her ground.

“You think the coaches will pick a captain that causes disunity in the team?” Julia replied “Perhaps you’ll be captain of the track team, but no one wins volleyball or soccer games on their own, coaches know that, and if you're disliked by the team, they’ll consider that a detriment to the overall success.” Pauly grunted, not wanting to admit she finally saw the sense.

“Here's what I propose, it's a photography trick I use in group pictures. Place yourself with the ugly girls and you’ll look prettier. All we need to do is to pick up some welp as a fourth member and we will be--”

“That won’t work” Urma cut in “we can’t scrape off the bottom, it looks too much like a ploy or a charity case and that person will become a spectacle. ‘Look at big nose Nelly hanging out with the cool kids’. It’ll pull attention away from what's important. We need the girl who best represents the average Jane. Someone who can practically disappear beside us. People will know we hang out with her, but it won’t register until they start getting jealous thinking about our group, then remember who all is in it and realize that we are ‘relatable’, that we don’t ‘stand apart’, they'll think we could be friends with them because we are friends with her.” The girls grew silent, trying to think.

You probably already can guess the difficulty of trying to think of people who are forgettable. But the girls gave it their best shot. Every person they thought of, they remembered for a reason, and for that reason, they decided it wouldn’t work. They were so engrossed with their task they didn’t hear the doorbell. They were so engrossed with their task they didn’t hear Julia’s mom embarrassingly use Julia’s full name, or describe teenagers hanging out as ‘playing’. So imagen their luck when they looked up and saw Charleen Helmsberry with a stupid nervous grin on her face. She’s perfect. They all thought in unison and smiled their warmest smiles.

“Hello Charlie” Julia said

“Hi Julia” Charlie said

“Hey Charlie” Pualy said

“H-hi Pauly” Charlie studered

“Salutations Charlie” Urma said

“Hi Urma” Charlie wimperd

“Thanks, mom” Julian said without taking her eyes off Charlie

“Have fun girls, play nicely, I’ll have lunch out in about an hour” Mrs. Garden disappeared down the hall. Don’t leave me, Charlie thought. Urma noticed they had been staring quite sharply for too long and elbowed Paully who was tense, like a crouching house cat stalking a mouse, she relaxed and Urma tried to break the ice.

“Long time Char--” She started, but Julia cut in

“Sit with us Charlie, we were just talking about you”. No words could have been more alarming to Charlie.

“All good things I hope” sounding desperately hopeful

“All good things” Julia affirmed. Red alert, Red alert. Evacuate the premises.

“Well I didn’t know you were busy Julia, I can come back another time--”

“Nonsense” Pauly jumped in “you should stay”. She tried her best to make it not sound like an order.

“We really don’t mind Charlie, in fact we prefer it” Urma helped. Urma was adept at being sweet. She overheard her mother referring to her as ‘the robot child’ to someone on the phone once. She then spent the next four months studying how to display a more personable attitude. She thought she was getting better, and she was.

“Well I just stopped by to see what you were up to Julia” Charlie lied “glad I did, looks like fun… would you look at the time, I better head back home for lunch.”

“You can have lunch with us,” Julia offered, taking in Charlie. Nervous, towel, bathing-suit, sweating (gross), uncomfortable, out-numbered? Julia wasn’t all looks and fashion, social credibility came from giving people what they want and of course the unspoken threat of being able to destroy their reputation, friendships, ect. Reward and punishment. Right now, Julia was intent on pouring on the reward.

“We were just about to go for a swim, you should join us”.Julia put out the carrot. The two girls nodded vigorously; Charlie was uneasy. “Why don’t you girls go get your suits on, I’ll be right up” Pauly and Urma took their ques and trotted up the stairs. Charlie let her shoulders drop, feeling much more at ease. Perfect.” So do you want to join us? You don’t have to stay for lunch if you don’t want to. But you should cool off before you walk home, it's awfully hot out”. Nothing that happened in the last few minutes made any sense to Charlie. She looked out the window. The pool looked inviting. What could be the harm, there being nice, they offered me food, I really should cool off shouldn't I.

“Oh-alright, that sounds like fun”

“Wonderful,” Julia said with a sharkish grin.

Charlie floated on her back. The sun felt good now that she was half sunk in cold water. She peeked a glance at the three girls standing in the shallow end staring at her. They immediately struck none assuming poses. Something was up. You see, just because Charlie was average didn’t mean she was stupid. She was caught off guard when she walked in. But now that she was relaxed she set her mind to wondering what in the heck was going on with those three. Attention made her suspicious. Now they were whispering to each other. Nervous energy flowed into annoyance. They could at least swim around. I feel stupid splashing about while they just stare. Charlie had just made up her mind to leave when Mrs. Garden came out.

“Girls! I made sandwiches, I’ll set them here and go make some sweet tea while you towel off”. Charlie's stomach growled. First I’ll eat, then I'll leave. The girls wrapped themselves in floral beach towels and sat around the glass table with the sandwiches. Charlie threw her faded pink bath towel with fraying edges around her shoulders and joined them.

“Hey Charlie, we were thinking of getting a group together for the end of summer festival next week. My mom bought eight tickets to the concert, but my cousin and her boyfriend backed out. We have two extra tickets, you should join us.” Julia said

“It's gonna be lots of fun Mrs. Garden rented a gazebo for us” Urma said

“We really want you to come and if you want to bring a date we still have an extra ticket,” Pualy said. Was this what they were whispering about instead of swimming? The wrong people have pools. Charlie thought. Before Charlie could answer Mrs. Garden came out with four glasses and an ice cold pitcher of sweet tea.

“Charlie’s coming with us to the concert Mrs. Garden” Urma said, taking her glass of sweet tea.

“That's wonderful” Mrs. Garden said “the more the merrier” How dare she. Charlie seethed. First they ruin swimming, I'll be a Murton boys hamster before I let them ruin fireworks.

“I’m picking all the girls up so we can ride down together, should I ask your parents if I could pick you up from your place?”. A sudden spirit of vengeance came upon Charlie.

Sudden short sighted acts of meanness generally get attributed to young boys not young girls. But this is only because it is more obvious when young boys do it. Something ends up broken or someone gets a sudden wack over the head with a stick and a frustrated shocked adult questions them on the spot, demanding to know why they did what they just did, to which the young boy generally responds with an equally shocked expression “I don’t know”. Girls are more subtle in their meanness, so it flies quietly under the radar of most parents. But if you were to ask Charlie why she said what she is about to say, I suspect you’d get the same silly face with the same silly answer as any young boy.

“Actually Mrs. Garden, you can pick me up from the Wongs house, David and I are going together.” Charlie watched as her words collided with Urmas face like a tornado; spinning it from shock, to rage, to fear and back again till it settled on dazed confusion.

“Sounds good Charlie, it's gonna be a fun night!” Mrs. Garden left the four girls to eat their tea and sandwiches. They ate silently for a while. If they had the ability to read minds the girls might’ve shared a hardy laugh, but since reading minds is silly superstitious nonsense, they sat quietly completely unaware they all just had the same thought, one after the other.

What did we just do?

What did we just do?

What did we just do?

What did I just do?

CHAPTER 3 : LEPRECHAUNS ARE NOT SILLY SUPERSTITIOUS NONSENSE

Charlie walked home with a mess of thoughts. That was a perfectly stupid thing to say; she’d bring David Wong to the festival? She had never brought a boy anywhere. Well, that wasn’t exactly true, she brought her grandpa to show-and-tell once in the third grade. It was veterans day and he came in to talk about his experience in the military. He was only about half way through with recounting a story of how he covered himself in pig guts to escape capture when the teacher quickly thanked him for his service and excused the class for recess. That was the last time she remembered having any popularity among the boys her age, unfortunately David Wong hadn’t yet moved to Palms creek at that point. Charlie plodded along, avoiding busy roads when it was possible and sulking to herself. She had just gotten to the bottom of a long hill when that tingly feeling returned to the back of her neck.

This time Charlie followed standard protocol and turned to look behind her. In a day full of oddities, what happened next almost took the cake. It was difficult to see exactly, the sun was rising high over the crest of the hill she had just walked down, making Charlie squint. What looked like five boys mounting bikes stood atop the crest holding spears vertically. Then they started holding them horizontally. Five bikes sped down the hill, five prepubescent boys wore the grim expression of steppe lancers charging into battle, one William Murton shouted from the center of the pack “DEATH TO CHARLEEN! DEATH TO WITCHES!” Charlie ran for her life.

Charlie was no Pauleen Hopps. She wasn’t duck footed Susan Tipper either. Susan's last name was not Tipper, it was Mckinly. Mean monikers aside, Charlie probably would have stood a fair chance in a foot race with hairless boys a couple years her junior. But fair chances were being passed out elsewhere at the moment. Downhill advantage with bikes were the cards she was dealt. Only one thing ticked in her favor. Young girls her age had a double dose of sensibility while half the boys usually ran on fumes and the other half got a sound whooping with the stupid stick. This meant that Charlie had ample motivation; five pointed sticks accelerating down hill, each carrying about seventy to a hundred pounds of raw dummy behind them meant serious, perhaps fatal injury. You’ve never seen a person move, until you’ve seen them move like their life depended on it. Unfortunately for Charlie, the deck was still stacked, the boys gained on her, hooping and hollering. The Murton squad were all the sort whooped by the stupid stick. They rode for all they were worth. Seeing the terrified look as Charlie sprinted away triggered an animal instinct. One that might have made their parents proud had they actually been steppe nomads charging a prey animal to feed the tribe. I would bet my last dollar that they didn’t actually want to shishkebab the girl who lived in the cul de sac, had they a moment to consider it. Unfortunately for all parties involved that kind of thinking only moved at about 25 miles per hour and these boys were pushing 30.

Charlie let out a blood curdling scream as they drew closer. It didn’t help that the scream was rather witchish. Fences were on either side of her. There was nothing to jump behind or doge into. The boys had picked their ambush point with surprising success. Charlie knew this trail let out to the main road. There was a drain ditch on the other side of it. If she could just get over that ditch. The boys were closing on her fast, she wasn’t going to make it. The boys screamed, Charlie screamed, the mailman screamed right as he hit Charlie with the mail truck and five bikes hit him. Charlie went sprawling, the boys went sprawling, the mailman took a spear right into his mail pouch that hung from his shoulder.

Mr. Macabee quickly regained his senses and leaped out of the mail truck to check on the boys. Three of them had managed to fling themselves to the side in a last second effort to dodge the mail truck. Bill Gordon, Paul Sanders and Samuel Murton took a harsh fall across asphalt and gravel earning themselves some bloody arms and legs with little bits of rock in them. William and his best friend Douglus Hoppes, had been a length and half ahead of the other three and had no such last second. It was Will's spear that almost skewered the mailman and Will layed cradling the arm he used to break his collision. Break it did. Doug had the reflexes of a cat (it ran in the family) he was headed for the flat of the truck and instead of putting out his arms he flattened himself and leaped off one pedal so that he didn’t flip over his handlebars. The effect wasn’t perfect, his legs didn’t clear the bars so he lurched forward slapping the side of the truck at full speed more with his shoulder. He was curled up on the ground too, crying. Mr. Macabee had emergency on the way. Though none of the boys would need it. Will's parents would drive him to the hospital to have a cast put on. The Murton boys were in and out of St. Mary’s so often they were on a first name basis with most of the nursing staff. The fire ambulance picked rocks out of the three boys and wrapped their arms and legs. They threw a blanket around Doug who was still shaking from the freight.

Oh yes! I almost forgot, there was one fatality in this whole mess. Charlie? No not Charlie, I’ll get to her later. A package sent from Mrs. Mckinley to Mrs. Oneal that contained one of Mrs. Mckinley’s strawberry shortcakes had been speared through and a good thing too for it probably saved Mr. Maccabees ribs. When Mr. Macabee discovered the demise of the shortcake he regretfully informed Mrs. Mckinley that the package had to be disposed of. Mr. Macabee conveniently left out the means by which he chose to dispose of the cake. He was afterall a practical fellow who didn’t like seeing things go to waste. On the whole, things shook out alright. No one was seriously injured, except the broken arm and considering the circumstance, Will Murton could consider himself lucky. The boys had it coming after all, trying to kill a girl even one suspected of meddling with witchcraft was rather rotten of them. Speaking of Charlie, she had vanished from sight the moment Mr. Maccabees mail truck had clipped her. Now I don’t mean ran off vanished, which she did do as well. I mean vanished vanished. Mr. Macabee looked to check on her first after coming to his senses but not seeing her had figured she or whatever he had hit ran off. It all happened in a flash you see and Mr. Macabee hadn’t seen more than a figure darting in front of him when he slammed his brakes and felt a thud and after almost getting shanked and tending the other five, he completely forgot about it.

Adrenaline raced through Charlie and she acted more on instinct after she was sent spinning to the ground. She bounced right back up and kept running. The last sensible thought she had was to escape into the trees on the other side of that ditch and with her heart pounding in her ears she kept on with that plan crossing the ditch and dodging through trees until she had to catch her breath.

Oh what the mind misses when you are in a panic. Tunnel vision, blinders, the man in a gorilla costume dancing while you count passes, in Charlie's case it was a 3 foot nothing dude with a long red beard and a green top hat who was standing right next to her, hands on his knees, panting. Charlie screamed and fell backwards. The little dude chuckled “Stupid girl. Stupid little boys and their bikes, *panting* like ol’ St. Patty’s lackeys in thee old days, never given ol Tom Bardy some peace, *more panting* I’ll snatch some-tin der sure to miss, make em cry I will and serve them right given ol Tom the scare like that.” Said Tom Bardy with a snicker and more panting. Charlie was shocked. The little gentleman wore a green suit with lots of pockets and had pointy ears. He looked exactly like a leprechaun. Talked like one too, with a thick irish accent. She gawked at him, mouth open staring rudely. He noticed her, then cocked his head and stared right back. “This igiot is lookin right at me or I’m an oyster”. He said.

“I’m sorry sir” Charlie replied, remembering her manners, “you surprised me is all and well, if it isn’t too rude to ask, what… I mean, where are you from?” She was going to ask “what are you”, but that did seem a little too rude to ask so she softened it at the last moment.

“You be talking to me lassy?” It was now his turn to wear a shocked expression. He took a couple of apprehensive steps back from her. Charlie nodded. “Not possible, you should have gone dumb already”. Charlie had no idea what to make of that comment.

“What?”

“You’ve gotten past ye prime”

“What?

“Your supposed to be dumb as an oinker”

“What?”

“Stop saying that!”

“... what?”

“You gone daft in the head lass? That postman knocked the brains straight out of ya!” Charlie stood up, wiping the dirt from her torn jeans. This wasn’t the first time they ripped from getting hit by a motor vehicle. The bearded half man shot off, quick as bobcat.

“Mr. Bardy, wait! I didn’t mean any offense.” Tom Bardy winced at the sound of his name. stupid son of a blind mut! He cursed himself what in the devil of all tings de ye go and give her your own feckin name! He slumped back to her.

“Oh aren't you a clever lass” he said through gritted teeth

“Top 13 in my class” Charlie said, as a matter of fact. “Though there's only 25 five students so it's not that impressive…”. Caught up like the queen's nose by this absolute feather head, Tom thought angrily to himself and he went on thinking as Charlie babbled.

“I’m faster than most too, well, by half if I’m being honest. Am I talking too much? Do Leprechauns really have a pot of gold?” The problem here is that Charlie was too old to actually see a leprechaun. It didn’t settle in her mind the way it was supposed to. Younger kids see things like leprechauns all the time. It's no problem for them. Younger kids know that leprechauns exist. So seeing one is no great shock. Adults can’t see leprechauns, which is no great shock to them because adults know leprechauns don’t exist. Not even thirteen year old boys can see leprechauns. Girls lose their ability much earlier. The more grown up parts of Charlie's brain exhausted itself trying to accept and reject the leprechaun, so it decided to take a midday nap. That's why she’s bumbling along with useless slightly braggadocious facts about herself. The part of her brain that remembered that nobody was interested or cared about hearing such things was sawing logs.

“I’m five foot one and three quarters, that’s taller than half my class… but I suppose if I’m being honest I’m shorter than the other half… Say, Mr. Bardy sir, do you think you have enough gold, that I could have a pool put in my backyard. I’d love to have a pool. Come to think of it, having a pool could have saved me a lot of trouble…” Tom saw his opening.

“Trouble? You got yourself in a fix did ya?” He eyed her bathing suit and worn-out bath towel.

“Oh, no, not anything- I mean I wouldn’t want to bother you with my… it's no trouble really, I mean I wouldn’t call it trouble so much as a predicament” luckily she had known the word predicament since the 3rd grade so it wasn’t asleep with that part of the brain. What she should have known by the 3rd grade was that fey creatures such as leprechauns have a sort of hypnotic effect on persons in our world, they lull you into conversation. It's not so much what they say to us, it's something about the way they are. Had Charlie been a little girl even a hundred or so years ago, she likely wouldn’t have acquired useless words like ‘predicament’ in the 3rd grade, but instead she would have received a heavy dose of the adolescent oral tradition. Now don’t tell me you’ve never heard of the adolescent oral tradition!? Well, I suppose it can’t be helped. Parents have had the unfortunate trend to over meddle in the affairs of children these days. Their constant oversight has produced some perks, such as stopping kids from doing stupid nonsense that gets them killed. But it also has reduced the noble transmission of the adolescent oral tradition or AOT. The AOT is chalk full of useful information for kids. Among which is the do’s and don’ts of talking to leprechauns. So Charlie blundered into telling Tom Bardy the whole affair at Julia’s without giving it a second thought and when Tom said this.

“How about I do you a favor, I’ll come along all sneaky to this festival and if it looks like you're in trouble, I’ll bail you out. Nothing like a leprechaun in a pinch.” Charlie should have said this

“No way, I got your name which means your gold is as good as mine, favors don’t exist for leprechauns so pay up! Unless you want me spreading the name of Tom Bardy to every stinking boy and girl who hasn't gone dumb, straight down to the toddlers”. But instead, poor Charlie said this “that's mighty kind of you Tom, I feel better already”. Lets not think too poorly of Charlie, after all without the AOT she was practically defenseless and she could thank her lucky stars she didn’t formally invite him, then there really wouldn’t be a way out, name or not. “Mr. Tom Bardy, I formally invite you to accompany me to the end of summer festival next week!” … Oh charlie *author shakes his head*. Toms smiled broadened

“I formally accept lass”

They shook hands and parted ways. Charlie started walking back home, But Tom got right down to thinking just how he might fix her up, pay her back, that is, for learning his name from his own lips. Oh, he owed her a great deal of mischief for getting one over him, it was the leprechaun's code. If it could be said that such rotten scoundrels as leprechauns had anything like a code. That's not to say leprechauns don’t have rules, but that's entirely different from codes. You see, codes are the ethics of scoundrels, used to expunge a guilty conscience or justify yourself for doing things you’d probably do anyway, except now there is a code. That’s not to say codes aren't important. Scoundrels, sneaks and cons all over the world find the cold hard truth anyone finds when they violate those invisible walls everyone calls moral boundaries. Those darn things seem to be exits’ only. They seem so silly and permeable from the inside. However, once you venture beyond them they turn on you. The breezy open gates slam shut and laugh at you. Just like they were waiting for some sorry sucker to come along and carlessley venture through. Well, go through enough of those and you find yourself too far to have a cup of tea with anyone on the inside. I don’t mean you can’t literally sip tea in someone's presence, but you can’t sit down and have a real cup of tea. So you need some codes. Codes are a pretend gate where a handful of like minded fools get to sit inside of and have something approximating a cup of tea. Leprechauns are no different. So not only did Tom Bardy feel all the desire to twist this little girl up in a nasty web of tricks, he felt completely justified in everything he was gonna do to her… by the codes.