Jon trucked his already tired legs over to his locker, sorting through his notes and textbooks, grateful he was there early enough to put his lunch away before Biff inevitably table-topped him or did something else to his backpack that would make his sandwich into a flatbread. Overly absorbed in his own organization, he didn't notice Karyn hiding behind his locker until he slammed it shut.
“Ah! The hell, Karyn, do you really need to sneak up like that every day? Can't you at least wait until after home room when I'm a bit more awake?”
“And miss making you jump? Not a chance! So any big ideas on how to undo the fairy wish and maybe solve mine and now Zoe's bust problem? I'm wearing two sports bras and I still can't seem to keep the new girls contained.” It took every ounce of Jon's strength not to look down as Karyn pressed her chest together. “We have to figure out something, I can't stand all this attention from the guys, and even worse, Sarah. You should've seen the daggers she's been shooting at me since I've been on campus.”
“Can you keep it down about Zoe? I don't want to find out what she'll do to me if she even thinks I leaked the truth about her little visit. But no, I'm stumped. Was hoping you had some big idea we could try. I guess the best we can do right now is just research as much as we can about these fairies. Maybe there's some loophole to their magic or maybe there's a small boob fairy out there we can draw out. I just don't want to race into making another wish until we're absolutely sure about what we're doing.”
“Agreed. Ah, that's the bell. I'll get to googling during comp-sci and see what I figure out. Catch you at lunch?”
“You know it. See ya Karyn.”
The school day went by rather fast without much happening, a first draft of an essay due in English by Friday, a pop quiz in Honors French he received a B in despite getting all the answers right, but somehow absentmindedly decided to use the feminine form for all his adjectives, and a completely dull Calculus class where Mrs. Gutierrez pulled him aside and in a somewhat threatening tone expressed that she expected Zoe to be present tomorrow, having heard about her condition and not finding it to be a satisfying excuse. Her lack of sympathy scaling inversely with her own cup size, having seemingly had at least two of her own encounters with the boob fairy in the past.
Still, all day, his attention was just scattered. Like in French, he couldn't focus completely on the task at hand. There was a constant feeling of discomfort, an itchiness that affected him all over; on his scalp, on his arms, even his lips, but primarily around his chest which felt oddly rubbed raw. He likened the feeling to his pine nut allergy, but had only eaten a banana in the morning, which must have done something since his stomach hadn't felt right since. Not nauseous or rumbling with hunger, but this sort of twisting, cramping feeling that made him want to keel over and absolutely killed his appetite and made it hard to pay attention to anything, let alone Karyn's presentation.
“-So there's been over 50 different types of fairies recorded, with differing degrees of rarity and occurrence all over the world, with the boob fairy being one of the more active sprites. No one really knows their motivations or has done much research on them, surprisingly, and there isn't any documented occurrences before the 1800s. There's no real scientific consensus on them other than 'they exist' and most of the community that researches them are a bit eccentric, to say the least. But there's also some sources that say meeting and talking with a fairy will drive you mad, so it's a bit of a chicken-egg thing on that front whether or not they were always a bit loopy... Hey Jon... you even listening? You alright? You look a little pale.”
“I don't know, been feeling weird all day. Do you think it has anything to do with me being so close to Zoe? Is there anything about a fairy splash zone?”
“Why, do you think you're growing boobs now too?” Karyn chortled.
“No! I'm just feeling a bit off and I can't put my finger on it... Aw great, just what I needed. Look who's coming over.”
Karyn turned to pick get a full view of what had Jon recoiling, Biff strutting over menacingly, hands behind his back, obviously hiding something, while Sarah, Moose, and Tiffany giggled and watched form a few tables over, no doubt having put Biff up to some childish prank.
Jon stood up to leave but was stopped in his tracks by Biff hollering out his name. “Madison! Where do you think you're going? Don't think I haven't forgotten about what you pulled in History with that 'presentation' of yours.”
Jon could feel the sweat drip down his brow as Biff inched closer, still keeping whatever object he had concealed, as Jon closed his eyes in anticipation of whatever, partially-deserved humiliation was in store for him.
And as he kept his eyes closed and waited. And waited. Knowing Biff was mere inches from him, standing seemingly taller than ever, but still waiting, he opened an eye. Biff was sniffling, taking a big inhale and then acting like he had a tickle in his nose. Even stranger his pupils were completely dilated, drowning out his eye color. “Hey... uh... Madison. Umm... I was gonna ask... You want to go out... for the baseball team? We're down a pitcher with Zach moving and you used to have such a great arm in little league.”
Dumbfounded, Jon answered, “Uh... sure.”
“Great!” His eyes lit up and almost looked to jump for joy. “I mean, cool. Cool cool cool. So we'll see you Thursday at tryouts!” giving Jon a playful slug on the arm with his offhand, still hiding his other, before retreating back to a confused popular table full of puzzled, angry faces that didn't take a lip reader to see the bevy of 'what the hell's being lobbed at Biff.
“So that was... weird. I don't know what you did, but I love it. Sarah's pissed. Looks like its your turn for her death stare.”
“I don't even know what to make of that. My sister magically grew two cup sizes and that's easily the second strangest thing to happen to me today.”
“You know, you're a real piece of work Jon. Hottest guy at school is hitting on you and all you can think about is your sister's boobs.”
“Karyn, c'mon! He wasn't... that wasn't... ugh!”
It was his final and favorite class of the day, Video Production, that finally gave Jon time to launch into his own research on fairies. There were no documented cases of any spill over effects from contact with fairies, in fact, most of the people they interacted with was on a very personal level, trading messages and taking an active interest in their life, but never meeting face to face.
That was a huge relief and he was feeling miles better than earlier, either getting over some small bit of school flu, nerves or having more time to digest causing the improvement. But as he scrolled, he stumbled onto one fact that had him rapidly opening another tab to verify his suspicion, and then scrambling out a message on his phone to Karyn. “Meet me at the park by my house after school! Big plans!”
With the final bell, a promise to help Leonard film a skit tomorrow, and mustached Mr. Dervin reminding the fleeing teenagers to have their documentary project proposal in writing for tomorrow, Jon sped home as fast as his legs would carry him to get the stone.
Mr. Dervin would get his documentary, one that would see every film school in the world open its doors for Jon. But before he could make any of that happen, he would need a car.
