Chapter 1: Chapter 1: A Birthday to Remember

Preface: This story is written in PurpleCatGirl's Witches of Welland Universe (post-release of Cindy's spell by a few months, for those familiar with it). Their work has been a huge light in my life for the past few years, so this is a tribute to the good I've been done by their writing. Please go read their work on their ScribbleHub profile:  

John’s alarm rang in his ear, causing him to groan as he flipped over and snuggled back into his pillow. Sixteen was pretty old to be skipping an alarm, especially as someone who had to be at practice early, but he’d been fighting alarms since a few years ago, much to his parents’ chagrin.

He ruffled his rat's nest of a mullet, trying to get the knots out at least a little so his mom wouldn’t nag him with one of her chidings, like “if you wanted it long, you should take care of it.” He wrestled his legs into a pair of baggy jeans, reminding himself that he was off today from practice–a birthday ‘gift’ of sorts, courtesy of his coach getting terrible food poisoning.

It had hardly occurred to him that it was his birthday, but that mattered little in the scheme of AP classes, SAT prep, and the snow that needed to be shoveled out of the driveway, if last night’s flurries were any indication of the snowfall. He grimaced as he took his shirt off and managed to look elsewhere as he pulled on a shirt with a nondescript logo his mother had bought for him.

Sports had kept his body lean, but he just didn’t like the way it looked. For years his coach had yelled at him for coming to practice in jeans, him being too embarrassed to change in the locker room with the others. He’d finally gotten over that phase, only by making sure he was the very first one in the locker room. That often meant waking up early, and that was that.

Today, that meant he had an extra half hour to browse his phone without doing anything else. After a few minutes of that, he got bored and decided to browse one of his social media sites, noticing a new trend on the front page–all about that spell that’d been causing havoc for the past year.

Ever since it had been widely agreed upon that there were no immediate adverse effects to the transformations, the daredevils among his peers on social media had been engineering dares, pranks, etc. revolving around the transformation. Of course, you couldn’t cast the spell unless you consented to it and knew what you were doing in the first place, the mysterious ‘Cindy’ had ensured that, but peer pressure was its own kind of magic.

He scoffed at one video of a beast of a man, rippling with muscles, becoming a skinny little fox person after being dared into trying it after losing a bet. Who would be that stupid, to just allow some random person change your body like that? Of course Cindy said it was safe, but from the few times he’d watched the news with his father, she’d gotten quite a lot of dirt on her. Canadians were commies anyways, but she’d been involved with gay groups, something his father had warned him against ever going near.

So he made an effort to not even talk about the spell, opting to engage himself on his phone instead. Someone at his school had transformed themselves from a girl into a guy, and for some reason couldn’t change back, for all the good it would do them. He’d tried to join the basketball team John was on, but Coach being how he was, that wasn’t going to happen. With the recent bill signed by the Governor, even less so.

John scrolled a little more, feeling a twinge of something in his stomach as he saw a man turning into a very endowed woman. He flipped off the app, blushing, glancing behind him just to make extra sure a parent hadn’t popped up behind him unexpectedly. He knew how they felt about him being near any sort of adult content, especially one that they considered an affront to God’s will.

He walked upstairs, greeting his father gruffly as both tried to muster up the energy to have some kind of conversation, his father’s mustache twitching as he sniffed, his sinus issues bugging him with the dry air and all. Looking out the window and squinting to make out how much snow was on the ground, he was pleasantly surprised to see only a light dusting that needed to be brushed off on his father’s car. He quickly ran out to brush, hoping that it wasn’t too cold.

Stepping back inside, he coughed from the cold in his lungs. He noticed his old man grinning, and nearly flinched as his father tossed him the keys to the car. “You’re sixteen now, son, you get to drive the truck.”

“Feels like less of a reward when there’s snow on the road,” John muttered.

His father laughed heartily, eliciting a weak chuckle from John himself, not liking the sound of his natural laugh, cringing at how soundly it resembled his father’s deep rumble. As they piled in the car and John started it, he nervously gripped the steering wheel, still nervous about driving. He knew his old man just wanted to not have to fight to stay awake, noticing that indeed his father was dozing off in the passenger seat.

The sun hadn’t begun to rise yet, making driving a little more stressful. He pulled into the parking lot, nudging his father awake and thanking him. His father sleepily got up and out of the seat, gave him a pat on the back, and yelled after him, “Don’t forget, your mother had that party organized with your friends tonight.”

John nodded as he headed off to class. His mother always was sure to organize things for him, even now. He knew he was something special to her, being her only child, so he tried not to be upset about it with her. A few times, it felt restricting, but his friends didn’t seem to mind–her provision of lots of amazing snacks and her laissez-faire attitude towards scary movies made any party at John’s house a good one, at least by Christian School standards.

As he walked into the school, as always at peace in its mostly-empty early morning hallways, he didn’t even hear someone creeping up behind him. He yelped as his friend Luther tackled him from behind. He turned around and frowned down at Luther, who was laughing hysterically.

“Aw man, you should’ve seen your face,” Luther said.

“You know, that stopped being an original prank like, three years ago, right dude?” John exasperatedly asked in reply.

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“Gotta keep you on your toes so you can play with those balls, man,” Luther said.

“Don’t say it like that, dude,” John said, almost hissing.

“Just joshing,” Luther said, “or really, we should call it Luther-ing by now. C’mooon, that’s gotta make you laugh, birthday boy.”

“Fine, if it’ll make you stop, dude,” John said, finally giving in.

They mutually complained about classes for a while, eventually coming around to the absolutely boring-to-death bible class, taught by that old dude, Mr. Roberts.

“I heard he got caught staring at Alyssa and that’s why she transferred after Christmas,” Luther said.

“Really dude? That’s fucked.”

“Yeah but he’s like a gazillion years old, what are they gonna do, fire him? He’d probably die from a heart attack if they canned him.”

“Fair enough, man,” John replied, looking at his phone absentmindedly and noticing that not only was it much closer to class time, he’d have to run to his next class to make it. He said a quick ‘opegottagobye’ to Luther and raced off.

After a few hours of boring classes, he finally came to the end of the day. While practice was officially canceled, he knew his dad wouldn’t be back until five, and there’d be plenty of teammates in the weight room.

He wasn’t super keen on lifting, especially with how he felt seeing his body get more muscular during whatever limited times he was forced to see it, but he’d been chubby as a kid and wasn’t too happy with the idea of going back to that either. So to the weightroom it was.

The other guys on the team waved at him as he walked in, and he offered a half-hearted wave back. He wasn’t particularly muscular, but he had one advantage, despite being a rather lanky sophomore: his height. His father had always said they had some Dutch in their blood, and he fully believed his old man, especially seeing as he was 6’4” with a few inches to go, if his doctor was to be believed. He’d stopped measuring long ago, every inch above 6’ feeling like another stab in the gut, for reasons he hadn’t quite figured out.

As he ran on a treadmill, he quickly lost track of time, eventually startled by his alarm going off, telling him to pack up and look for his dad’s car. His father arrived just a little late, his face weary from a full day of work, presumably doing whatever it was a consultant did.

His father asked him about his day, and he just recounted what he’d learned in history class, hoping it’d make his old man happy. He knew his dad was pretty into war documentaries, so he figured that history was the best subject to gloss over his day with as a general tactic.

He arrived home, flopping on the bed and taking a quick nap until he heard his father rapping on his door, signaling that dinner was ready. His mother had made Shepherd’s Pie, a favorite of his, and he thanked her, to which she smiled gratefully. His father said grace over the meal, and they began to dig in.

While cleaning the plates after the meal, he saw a car pull into the driveway. He took off the apron, and ran out to meet Alexis, his best friend-who-was-a-girl. She had made it very clear that girlfriend was off the table, which was fine by him, as for some reason, he found himself not too interested in it either. He was surprised by her willingness to hang around him, being kind of a weird jock and all, but she always insisted that he just had a reassuring presence, and he eventually accepted that as that.

Luther arrived a few minutes later, and the party was all there. He didn’t need a lot of friends to have a good birthday, he’d be having enough of seeing people that weekend when he celebrated it with his extended family up north. His mother let the three know where the snacks were, and gave a stern reminder that they were to sleep in different bedrooms.

And with that, the most peculiar birthday party of his life began.

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