The house was crowded, and the party spilled out and onto into the backyard. Someone had set up and lit a fire-pit, and possibly activated a propane grill. The smell of cooking meat had to be coming from somewhere. Short, mostly blond, boys and their cute girlfriends were everywhere, almost all in couples standing practically inside one another. Jim felt like a giant--- he was easily the tallest person there.
From what he could see, the house's decorations seemed to be a mix of the Earth's cultures-- tribal masks, nesting dolls, decorated egg things, some sort of South American sculpture where merely the contains on and above the fireplace's mantelpiece. And books. The walls were crowded bookcases with glass doors , the interiors crammed with books-- ancient looking books.
Young voices competed with a very top-of-the-line stereo system. Jim didn't recognize the band which was playing. The kids-- FELLOW STUDENTS, damn it!-- who were dancing seemed to have good senses of rhythm, and looked nearly professional, despite each pair being draped over each other. Maybe he was seeing the beginning of a new dance craze. Jim idly wondered if it had a name yet. The Valentine Dance?
Shaking his head, Jim told himself to get down to business. What was his first move? Probably find the weird girl: Maddy. He only vaguely remembered what she looked like. He scanned the room, and noticed something. The girls were dressed in a variety of fashions. Maybe not a wide variety, but a variety. The boys were nearly all dressed in a similar fashion. Tight pants, more loosely fitting shirts (but not too loose, they still emphasized how thin the boys were), and one brand or another of skateboarding shoes. The colors of the clothes varied, as did the design on the shirts. The few who weren't dressed in that "uniform" were boys wearing over-sized clothing from before they'd read the card. Maybe not everyone got to the mall, or maybe didn't have the money for new clothes. Both the boys and girls were, to a one, cute. No acne, no fat, nothing which could be called ugly or a blemish.
Jim felt a chill despite all the body heat radiating into the air.
He didn't see Maddy or the new Mr. Clarkson (assuming he'd recognize him), and realized that he'd made negative progress and had already lost Rick and Katie. Well, he'd really only needed them to find the party. Neither were likely to be much help.
A systematic approach seemed best, and Jim decided to explore the first floor. If he didn't find Maddy there, he'd move on to the second. After that he wasn't certain if the backyard or the basement would come next. Hopefully he wouldn't have to figure out how to get into the attic.
"You gave your card to the JANITOR? He's got to be like 80!" a girl's voice said from somewhere nearby.
"He's incredibly sweet, besides he had a hard life!" countered another girl's voice. "Besides, he's only fifty! Well, was only fifty. Look at him now. Does he look fifty?"
Despite himself, Jim looked in the direction of the conversation. If he had the right pair of boys and girls right, the janitor could have been either boys, and neither looked even fifteen.
"Besides, don't know a boy with experience! And my Arty has that. And a nice income, don't you?"
Jim had guessed the group right, and watched as the former school's janitor giggled a "yes", and the cute, blond haired girl and boy both started what would probably be a long, slow kiss. Apparently, that prompted the other couple to kiss. Jim didn't wait around to see if/when their kisses would end. Was he the only one not to have received a card by now?! THE JANITOR got a card?!?
In the house's kitchen and dining room food and beverages of all sorts were laid out. Well, all sorts of beverages except alcoholic ones. Plus, there didn't seem to be anyone sneaking a smoke of anything. Nor were any adults present. Going strictly by appearances, Jim was the oldest one present. Lack of parents and lack of even alcohol at a party? That was a first a in Jim's appearance. (Well, to be fair, he'd never been to any Mormon parties-- he wasn't sure if there even were any Mormons in town. And anyway, he doubted Maddy was one.)
Jim found multiple couples in the downstairs bedrooms. Not to mention the bathrooms, closets, and more or less anywhere else at least two kids could squeeze into. None of them were past third base, whatever that meant. Kissing, groping, dry humping, but no actual sex. Not even the defined by Clinton as not quite sex act of a blow-job. Not quite a first for non-supervised parties he'd been to (although those he'd always suspected that the couples slipped off to somewhere where they were less likely to be stumbled upon-- although he suspected that in this case sex simply wasn't happening).
He decided to leave the garage for when he explored the backyard, and headed up stairs, picking his way past couples lost in one another. Shaking his head, Jim entered the upstairs hallway. More (occupied) bedrooms and (occupied) bathrooms and other places.
The first door he opened proved to be a large, well stocked library/office. The place even had huge, ancient books on stands and in sealed cases. What was it with Maddy's parents and books, anyway? Did ANYONE read that much?
A boy with improbably red hair partially obscuring his face, and a girl with incredibly black hair looked up from under one of the sealed display cases and stared at him.
"Uh, have you seen Maddy?" Jim asked them-- and almost left when the couple started whispering to one another.
"Yeah," the boy finally answered, brushing his hair ineffectively away from his left eye. Jim noticed the kid had jet black streaks through his hair. "She's over in her room."
Unhelpfully, the boy didn't indicate what direction "Maddy's room" was in.
"Which room is that?" Jim asked, restraining himself from asking the kid how he was supposed to know which bedroom was Maddy's.
The two kids giggled.
"It's the one with her name on the door, silly!" replied the girl, pointing to Jim's left.
"Two doors down, on the le-FT," answered the male member of the pair, his voice cracking.
"Thanks," answered Jim, then hesitated. "Say, why isn't your hair blond like pretty much all of the other guys?"
"Why isn't yours?" asked the girl, laughing.
"We dyed each others hair this afternoon!" replied the boy, hugging his girl. "It was AWE-SOME!"
'I should have guessed,' thought Jim, turning away from the doorway. "NO ONE'S hair is that red!"
Maddy's room not only had her name on the door, it had it in the same pink glitter as the cards: Maddy's Room. The ' was a heart, and the sign was bordered by hearts as well. It also had a sign saying "the Goddess is: In". No self-esteem problems there. Jim briefly debated knocking, then decided that maybe the element of surprise would help, and instead turned the doorknob and walked in.
"YOU MADE IT!" shouted a boy's voice, from near the window. Honey blond, with brilliant streak of lighter blond running through it. Bright blue, sparkling eyes, and incredibly white teeth exposed in a wide smile. "I KNEW you'd come!"
The kid was maybe three inches shorter than the girl next to him. His arm was around her shoulders. A girl wearing a mash-up of fashions-- cheap plastic bracelets, dark red lipstick, some necklaces with what might have been silver skulls on it, topped by long, black hair with one streak of red in it. And she was holding a very fancy looking card-- a Valentine.
Jim quickly pulled out his sunglasses and put them on, and grabbed his mirror. It had worked against Medusa, hopefully it would work against Maddy. Turning around, he held up the mirror so he could see Maddy.
"Spoil sport," pouted the girl, moving away from the window. "Andy, could you wait here a minute."
As she moved away Mr. Clarkson, now "Andy", stared longingly after her. Maddy glanced behind her and sighed.
"Okay, you can come with me," she relented. Andy's reply was more of a musical note than a word, and he hurried over to her side.
"Jim, I was wrong to worry!" Andy enthused. "These girls, and their cards. are great! I've never been happier in my life. And to have a girl love you, RE-ALLY love y---!"
Andy stopped talking as his voice cracked and speaking became impossible. Instead he hugged Maddy tightly to him, planting a long kiss on her cheek.
Andy whispered something in the girl's ear. Jim could have sworn it was something like "I've just had an orgasm!"
Jim stepped to one side, trying to keep a distance between him and Maddy-- and stepped on something. Looking down he saw an entwined couple on the floor. It was one of the pair of kids who'd been holding up the line at the food court. Right next to them was the other couple. The boy mumbled something a moved his leg out of Jim's way.
"You don't have to be afraid or anything, you know?" Maddy informed him. Checking the mirror, Jim saw she was right behind him. He couldn't see the card. "I'm not going to bite you!"
"You've got one of those cards," Jim accused her. "I've seen what they do! They're all around me."
"Yes, but LOOK at them!" Maddy insisted, probably gesturing-- Jim couldn't tell from the mirror or through his sunglasses. "They're HAPPY! EVERYONE'S happy!"
"Its like they're drugged," Jim pointed out. He realized he had a death grip on the mirror, and forced his fingers to relax. He had no idea how long this stand off would last, and didn't want his fingers getting tired. He also wasn't certain what he was going to do-- this part of his plan was "wing it!" He also desperately wanted a cigarette; unfortunately, he'd have to set down the mirror and dig one and his lighter out....
"Well, duh!" Maddy answered, rolling her eyes. "Being in love is like being on a drug. A very good drug. Haven't you ever heard that old song 'Love is the Drug'? Or something like that. Its by Roxy Music-- my parents play it sometimes."
"Where are your parents?" Jim asked, suddenly worried what the answer might be.
"They're around here someplace," Maddy answered, confirming Jim's worst fears. "I think they're probably in the library, making out under some of their rarest books. They were the first ones to get a card. Back then it took people a whole week or so to make the change."
"You did this to your PARENTS?!" Jim asked/accused, looking every bit as shocked as he sounded. Sure, he had his problems with his parents-- after all, who didn't?-- but he couldn't imagine doing... whatever this was called... to them.
"What could I do?" demanded the girl, looking genuinely insulted. "They were going to get a divorce-- they were miserable, both of them. It was all that Gordon Lightfoot song, 'If You Could Read My Mind'! Now they're happy, back in love! What's wrong with playing matchmaker? I mean, if they really do fall in love?"
Jim didn't have an immediate answer for that. But...
"But, this is unnatural," he protested, gesturing around the room, the house. "They, well, they changed."
"Well, love does change you," Maddy replied.
"For the better," added Andy, from where he was kissing her neck.
"Not like this! Not to short, blond and, and all!"
"Well, excuse me if I gave them a bit of youth!" she shot back, defiantly. "Every adult I have EVER met pines for their youth. Well, I found a way to give it back to them, and permanently, too."
"They haven't even gone through puberty!" Jim objected. In the mirror Andy was busily losing himself in Maddy's hair, kissing her scalp.
"Well, that part of the spell did work a little too well," Maddy admitted. "But they're old enough to be feeling their hormones, and the world IS overpopulated. I think that's where most of our problems come from: running out of oil, pollution, global warming, over farming. And everything else."
Jim briefly considered that. Maybe she did have a point about overpopulation... He shook his head. She was distracting him.
"Plus, well, LOOK at them!" he continued. "All they can do is, is talk about their girl, think about their girl, etc. They can't do anything else."
"Well, it isn't like I am an expert at magic," she replied, shrugging. "And that's most just the male. Maybe women can be in charge for once. In any event, all of them are happier than before, and, I don't know, maybe the spell can be modified if things get too bad."
"Wait, what's all this about magic, anyway?" Jim felt he was falling behind. Too much information too fast. He needed to process what she was telling him. Earlier he would have laughed at someone claiming to do magic, but, with these cards, well...
"Magic. Its an old force, apparently," Maddy explained. "I really didn't know anything about it before I got Grandma's Spell-book."
"You're grandmother's spell book?"
"No, Grandma's Spell-book," corrected the girl. "Its a title. My parents bought a load of rare books from some guy in a store down at the mall. Oddly, when I was there this afternoon I couldn't find it..."
"Where is this book?" Jim interrupted. Maybe if he could get a hold of it....
"Probably in their safety deposit box down at the bank," she informed him. "With all the other ultra rare books they have for sale. Luckily I copied everything I wanted from it before then. Well, actually ALL of it, just in case."
Unnoticed by Jim, due to the mirror's small size, she clutched at a flash drive attached to one of her necklaces.
"Well, undo it now!" Jim stated, putting a bit of anger into his voice. He hoped no too much. "Or at least do the modification. This is all too much!"
"No," she simply stated. Apparently, she wasn't going to be afraid of him. "Besides, I only said I MIGHT be able to. I'm really not certain what would happen. I need to studied the book more. See if its safe. For all I know, if I do it wrong, they could end up puddles of goo or something. Really, really old. Or babies or younger."
"Younger?" Jim echoed, blinking. What was younger than a baby? Oh. "Well, you have to do something! They're all going to flunk out of school! Or lose their jobs, in Mr. Clarkson's case, and, and the janitor. Arty, I guess is his name."
"Oh! She really did do it, didn't she?!" Maddy replied joyfully. "I was so afraid she wouldn't get up the nerve! I knew an older man was for her."
"But--"
"Hey, Jim," Andy interrupted, looking up and into the mirror. "You should come with us!"
"With you?" Jim asked. "With you where?"
"I don't know," Andy replied happily. "Brandy told me that Tommy told him that they are taking off and hitting the road. We're all going to find some place we can fit in and make our own lives and rules. We're going to start over and get things RI-GHT this time!"
"Oh, that's going to work out SO well!" Jim stated, sarcastically. Talk about an empty headed---
"YEAH," agreed Andy, completely missing the sarcasm. "It's going to be so cool!"
Voices from the couples in front of Jim chimed in in agreement. Jim was starting to wish for some aspirin to accompany the cigarette he was missing.
"He's right, Jim!" insisted Maddy, staring straight into the mirror as well, maybe trying to meet his eyes. "We all care for each other! We'll have a mutually cooperative society, everyone helping each other, doing everything for the mutual good."
"That's--" Jim began. He'd been about to say "idiotic", but maybe that wouldn't be prudent. This conversation had started at surreal and had gone somewhere beyond. Magic? Starting a new, Utopian society? And what next?
"I gotta piss," Andy told Maddy, interrupting Jim's thoughts. "I'll miss you and be thinking of you while I'm gone."
Andy once again kissed the girl, then disappeared from Jim's limited view.
"Isn't he sweet?" asked Maddy. She momentarily looked away and Jim tensed. Maybe he could-- She turned back before he could complete the thought. "You and he can still be friends, you know?"
"What do you mean?" he asked. He and Mr. Clarkson weren't-- hadn't-- been friends. They'd been allies, and student and teacher. "I'm having trouble remaining friends with Rick, you know. He's completely different."
"Not completely," corrected the girl. "He's still Rick, only more romantic, better. He wasn't supposed to be Katie's, you know, but I think things worked out better this way."
"And why did you card Mr. Clarkson?" continued Jim. He figured he was stalling for time, hoping to come up with something, even if was a chance to tackle the girl and hold her down until she agreed to do something about these changes she'd caused.
"Card? I guess that's as good a term as any," she mused. "Anyway, I wasn't sure about Mr. Clarkson. He was one of the few students who really seemed to care about the students. He took time with kids who asked for help. He really tried to get people interested in learning. But there was someone else I was thinking about, too. Only another girl, one I like, that is, wanted him. Lucky for me, her card misfired, and she got someone else. Leaving the boy for me. I wound up having to hook up with Andy after all, since I found out from Johnny-- oh, I hope it works out between him and Laura!-- that Mr. Clarkson and, well, you, were asking too many questions. Lucky me! I get two boys!"
"Who is the other boy...?" asked Jim, slowly, dreading the answer.
"Why, you! A fellow misfit!" Maddy announced. She held up a card, even fancier than the others, to Jim's mirror. "I know its late, but will you be my Valentine?"
YIKES!