Meanwhile in another place
Abigail sat on the Bleachers beside the football field, taking a much needed breather. Being in public as a chick was getting annoying even faster than he’d feared. He was used to getting attention, but now it was all upside down. Most guys looked at him the way the girls used to do. And when girls looked at him it was because they wanted to BE him not be WITH him. Because even with a t-shirt and jeans combo that he’d describe as ‘grunge’-ish there was no hiding the fact that this body was a 10 out of 10 in the T&A department.
Which stood to reason because Abigail was made to be a wet dream. And of Jon Gibbson no less. And just as he had the last dozen times the thought had come up, Steve shuddered inwardly and pushed it hastily aside because he just wasn’t ready to deal with the baggage that came with it.
Jon didn’t really matter after all. At least the letter from whoever had drawn Steves name said so. As he had done half a dozen times already, Steve pulled the letter from his pocket, to go over it once again, in the vain hope that he had overlooked something in the three crumpled pages that would make him feel better about this mess.
It read:
“
Hello Abigail.
As you probably gathered I don't like you very much. If a dozen potential suspects who fit that description just popped into your head... well that's kinda the point I am trying to make: Congratulation you climbed to the top of the little hill called high-school and didn't care on whose fingers you had to step to get there.
And then, I imagine, you had to constantly scramble stepping on even more fingers to actually stay on top.
So when I drew your name I decided a little vacation from, well, you might do us both good. I imagine you would disagree, and are already hard at work trying to reclaim your old life. And you are probably smart enough to eventually work around the rudimentary mental block I installed to avoid you spilling the beans by accident.
So here is the stick: I still have 18 wishes left. You might wake up as a Susan tomorrow.
The carrot is that, quite honestly, I have bigger fish to fry and ideally without exposing myself to return fire. If you cooperate I’ll use any wishes remaining after my scheme to send something nice your way.
Which of course begs the question: What do I want?
I want you to be Abigail.
Or more precisely: All you have to do, is keep people from finding out that Abigail never existed, and is just a mole I planted so the attacks against my real target come from an oblique angle.
Which should be a rather reasonable task.
Because as far as anyone else is concerned she has only been in town for a week. Aside from the few people she might have interacted with during spring-break, nobody at school knows what to expect of her.
And just because she is rooming with the Gibbsons, doesn’t mean you have to hang out with Zoe and her brother. If you prefer to join another clique and grumble about your temporary host-family being lame, it’s no skin of my nose.
Abigails fashion sense shouldn't be too much of a departure from your own, so I am confident you’ll be able to scrounge up at least a few outfits you are comfortable wearing to your first day of school. In fact her being a tomboy should make walking a mile in her shoes less embarrassing for you in general.
Now just in case you are wondering about the other particulars of Abigails life:
She is an exchange student because that means she wasn’t around when names were thrown in the hat. And since everybody thinks the old you is still around that hopefully throws of suspicion.
She is rooming with the Gibbsons because they aren’t associated closely with me or my target, and what little I know of them suggested it wouldn’t be very out of character for them to take in an exchange student and are reasonably pleasant people to share a house with.
She is Jons age because it means she’ll share classes with my target.
And you look like you do because magic is often lazy and I wanted to make sure you look completely different from your old self. So giving you a body (and body only!) that is taken from a wet dream of Jons, was the one jab I allowed myself. I doubt Jon is any fonder of the old you than I am. He also is not the sort of person to just let an exchange student fend for her own. So I felt it only fair that, if I saddle him with a social obligation to offer to hang out with you, he at least gets to look at a face (and chest) that is far more pleasant than your personality.
Now the reason you are still entirely you inside your head, is because I may not like you but I don’t hate you to the point that I want you to disappear completely from the face of the earth. Dumping you in a decent but unfamiliar life and body for a week is pettiness enough for me. If I wanted you to suffer I would have wished for you to suffer, no detours over hot pokers or public shaming needed, just days of my preferred flavour of suffering poured straight into your mind.
That isn’t a threat. It is the exact opposite. It is an assurance that as long as Abigail stays just a regular exchange-student I have no inclination to waste precious wishes just to torment you.
Another reason I left your mind and personality intact, is that I figured you’d prefer it that way. Even if it meant dealing with fulfilling my wishes by proxy. Because I might not be able to wish to be rich, but I can probably wish for you to have a million dollars on the bank and wire them to me in the next hour. So if you ever find yourself unable to remember what you did the past hour, assume you wired me more money and then forgot about it.
The last reason you remember your old life is, because there is a chance I will not remember any of this or able to restore your life, because whoever drew my name might turn me into a cat. For that reason I set it up a way out for you, that will allow you to reclaim your old live in about a year or so at the latest. The first clues to that scavenger hunt will appear near the end of the week. Meanwhile everyone will think the old you is still around just …never there when you look for him. But there will be a papertrail that proves he is alive and well and even improving academically.
Of course all bets are off if I hear anything about Abigail not being who she appears to be. If I feel I need to waste a wish to re-establish your cover-identity, everyone will remember Susan as the adopted daughter of your original parents – including you to avoid any more slip-ups.
But that does not mean you have to deal with this all on your own. I don’t mind you telling Abigails secret to a trusted friend or two – at least as much as you can. But if any suspicious rumors about Abigail reach me, I will assume they reached my targets as well. So make sure your confidantes know to be discreet.
Sincerely yours
Wouldn’t you like to know
“
<So to summarize:> Steve thought glumly <Whoever drew my name is a paranoid fuck.>
And like a proper conspiracy nut they liked to go on about how clever they were. Sure… there were a few valid points in there, but this hat thing was supposed to be just a bit of harmless fun, yet this asshole apparently was under the impression that it was a wargame. They were probably the kind of way-to-intense guy who’d ruin friendships over a game of monopoly.
Part of Steves anger, he knew was because it somehow felt worse knowing that all the shit he was going through was just as an after-thought to whoever had his name. And how the hell were you supposed to be defiant if the one you wanted to stick it to, didn’t care what you did?
Aside from that , Steve decided, he should probably come up with a plan of action by the end of the break. No point in wasting any more time with throwing himself a pity party.
Which was of course, why Kyla was rather proud of the letter. Most of it was hogwash of course. Her plans revolved entirely around Steve after all. But if the Stud knew that, his pride alone would demand that he fight her every step of the way.
Her own pride however demanded that she could nudge him towards falling for Jon, but the most important milestones on the road to become Jons loving girlfriend Steve had to cross of his own free will. Otherwise this wouldn’t be a proper seduction, but ..something else. And as angry as she was with Steve for deliberatly pushing Yukis buttons and exploiting her friends insecurities, he’d never forced Yuki to go along with this stupid pickup game. Hadn’t threatened or intimidated, even when things went pearshaped at the end. And Kyla would rather eat a live slug than know she stooped lower than the guy who broke her friends heart.
Then again, Kyla had serious doubt that the biggest womanizer in school had any experience with saying ‘No’ to his libido. And she had specified Abigails body would have a very healthy libido, so sharing a house with a guy who hit all the checkboxes in the ‘fuck’-category of “fight/flee/fuck”as far as Steves new hind brain was concerned, might already be enough.
If Kyla threw in a few subtle wishes to help set Jon up as not just very handsome but also very charming in Abigails eyes, the two would probably be locking lips by Thursday. she had already filled an entire pages in her notebook with ideas and as she sat in class, Kyla occasionally added another one with a silent smirk.
<Yuki is right.> she mused scribbling down another idea in the margins of her English assignment <I do enjoy coming up with these complicated mindgames waaaay too much. If subtle and convoluted doesn't seem to work out by Wednesday I should probably go with the boring practical stuff. Maybe.>
