This story, while using bits and pieces of my life as usual, started as a dream and is 98% Fiction. Some names are real, some have been altered, and others have been switched between 2 characters.
If you like this story and want more, please leave comments. There are already 2 more chapters in the works… The more comments I get… The faster they get done.
Prom Queen(s)
by: Kirstyn Amanda Fox
*** Prologue ***
In the 6th grade, I was one of the more popular kids. I had many friends (boys and girls alike), and all was going well. Until -- something weird happened.
See, my best friend was Colleen Moore. She and I used to do almost everything together. Many of you may find it weird that I had a girl as my best friend, but we just seemed to click. We used to go to the mall, the movies, to friends houses, all together. People used to think that we were going to get married or something, and I kind of thought we might two. But then, all of a sudden she started fading away from being my friend.
This devastated me. I didn’t know what I was going to do without my best friend. I think that’s about when I started to pull away from everything. I felt that if Colleen wasn’t there to cheer me on, then why should I continue to play sports and such? I mean she’s the one that made them fun. I always had a fan when Colleen and I were still friends. She would religiously show up to all my games and be my biggest fan.
Without Colleen around, my life seemed void. Around then is when I noticed that while I played all those sports and was one of the best, things just didn’t seem to feel right any longer.
The best I have been able to come up with is the fact that while I was with Colleen, sports weren’t the only things we did. I used to go to her house and we’d chat, and even at times play with her dolls and games and other toys and such. The funny thing is that we NEVER did any of those things except chat at my house. I even remember playing dress-up more than once at Colleen’s.
*** Chapter One: In the beginning… ***
Maybe I should go back and start over. How about we start back when Colleen and I first met?
It was back in the 3rd grade when Colleen and her family moved into town. It was just before Christmas time as I remember. No, wait! It was before that.
That’s it… It was just a few days before Halloween!
I remember now. That was the year Mom wanted me to go as a Clown. I wanted to go as a cowboy or a vampire but my mom spent a lot of time making me a clown costume and I didn’t want to upset her.
Anyways, back to the subject at hand. I remember Colleen moving in just before Halloween and wondering what she was going to go as. I was always fascinated with what other people did, even if I didn’t really know them. In hindsight, I guess that I was trying to figure out where I fit in.
I don’t know about other schools, but at my school when you were new… You were about as popular as the bubonic plague. But this didn’t bother me. I liked whom I liked and I had a feeling that I was going to like this new girl. So I decided that I would go talk to her, and what could be better than asking her about what she was going as for Halloween.
"Hello, My Name’s Keith" I said.
"Hi, I’m Colleen" she replied.
"So what are you going to go as for Halloween" was my next question.
"Umm… I’m not quite sure. My mom wants me to go as some kind of fairy or something, but I want to go as a cowboy" was her reply.
"Uh, don’t you men a cowgirl?" I questioned.
She seemed to get angry and then said, "Tell me. Why do I have to go as a cowgirl? What if I want to dress as a cowboy? I want to look like someone famous, like Jesse James, or Billy the Kid. Name just one famous cowgirl!"
"Annie Oakley" was my reply. I was expecting some sort of mean reply, but I did not expect what actually happened. All she did was kick me and then scuttle off to behind the big oak tree.
Of course I did the only thing I could do. I ran over to the oak tree and kicked her back. "Why did you do that?" she asked with a very mean face.
"Well, you kicked me, so I kicked you back!"
"So," she said, "I’m a girl!"
"Well you want to dress as a cowboy, and I have no problem kicking a cowboy!"
She seemed to lighten up a little, but only replied with a half-giggle/half-snort that made me giggle back.
As we were just standing there, I was trying to think up something to say to break the silence, and the best thing I could come up with was "Anyways, it’s not like I kicked you HARD!"
This made her giggle wholeheartedly with a look on her face that would make you wonder what she was scheming. Over the coming years, I would come to know that look well.
Next thing I know the bell was ringing that meant that lunch was over. And we both reluctantly went back to class.
In the classroom the teacher had given her the empty seat on the other side of the classroom. So it didn’t look like we were going to get a chance to talk again until the last recess of the day.
Once recess came I looked around outside for Colleen and noticed that she was inside with the teacher. Later I found out that the teacher was trying to figure out how far ahead or behind us she was in some of the subjects.
After school, I headed to the public bus stop just off the school grounds. My parents were bus drivers, and I knew most the other bus drivers in the city, so they felt safe with me taking the public bus home. Plus, of course, it was cheaper for them since I got a free pass for the city busses. But anyways, I was just about to the bus stop when I saw Colleen about to pull out of the parking lot with someone I assumed to be her mother. Colleen waved me to come closer.
"Hey Colleen, what’s up?" I asked.
"My mom wants to know if you need a ride home."
"I usually take the bus home after school, but it would be cool if I could get a ride!"
"Sure, hop on in," replied Mrs. Moore.
After instructing Mrs. Moore on where I lived, and exactly how to get there, I started telling Colleen about some of the good houses to hit for candy as we passed them.
They dropped me off at my front door, and I waved my goodbye and thanked both of them, went in and started making my map for tomorrow.
The next day when I got to school, I spotted Colleen on the playground and she seemed a bit down. I asked her what was wrong, and she said that her parents were having some sort of party, and they weren’t going to be able to take her out trick-or-treating. So she had to stay for the stupid party.
"Well, why don’t you come with me? Your mom knows where I live, and I’m sure my parents wouldn’t mind," I said.
"Really, do you think I could?"
"Sure, why not?"
That seemed to make her day a little bit brighter. For the rest of the day she was smiling and hoping that both her and my parents would say yes.
After school, Colleen and I met her mom out in the parking lot. Just was we got in the car, and before we started moving, Colleen tapped her mom on the shoulder and said "Mom, do you think it would be ok if I went trick-or-treating with Keith and his parents?"
"Well," said Colleen’s mom as she paused for a moment "as long as it’s ok with Keith’s parents and you are home before 10:00pm, I’m ok with it."
"But MOM!!!!!" Colleen whined… "That will only give us time to go out and come back. I want to go through my candy with Keith and trade my bad stuff for good stuff!"
"Hey!" I protested. Colleen giggled.
"Well, why don’t we ask if Keith can go stay the night at our house?" Mrs. Moore suggested.
"Really, Mom?"
"I don’t see why not." Mrs. Moore said. And with that we headed to Colleen’s house first. I called my mom from Colleen’s and asked her two things. 1st I asked if I could have a friend over to go trick-or-treating with us, and second I asked if I could spend the night at Colleen’s afterwards. My mom asked to talk to Colleen’s and they worked things out.
I was so happy to be able to spend the night with my friend, and since tomorrow was Saturday we’d probably get to play together most of the day too!
In order to save time, Colleen’s mom suggested that Colleen just grab her costume and she could change at my house.
Colleen stood there for a second with that look on her face, the one that lets you know she’s planning something, but before her mom could interject she had grabbed me by the arm and started running to her room to get her costume.
With the pace Colleen was taking, it was only a few seconds till we were in her room. Many of you are going to think I’m exaggerating and whining when I complain that it was on the other side of the house, but it was. Even worse it was on the second floor!
Once we were in her room, I noticed there was a fairy costume laid out for her on the bed. I giggled thinking that that was what she was going to wear. She looked at me, picked it up, handed it to me and said "You crazy? You’ll wear this before I do!"
That left me a little flustered and she sat there giggling, looked around the room, and proceeded to pull a paper bag out from under the bed. She opened up the bag to give me a sneak peek and I looked in. It looked to be a pale tan, with what looked like some sort of leather. There was also something else, something shiny. It was then that I put two and two together and figured it to be a cowboy costume.
She grabbed the fairy costume back out of my hands, and put it in the bag saying "We’ll get rid of it at your house." With that we were off. Back across the house, back to the first floor.
Once we got to my home, my mom hurried me into the bathroom. As I mentioned before she made my clown costume. She usually did little parts of my costume by hand and bought the rest, but this time she wanted to my entire costume by hand. This included NOT using a wig.
Once in the bathroom, she put a cape around my neck that sue used once in a while when she felt that my dad or I needed a little trim. Once that was on, she had me kneel next to the tub, and turned on the water.
Now, I’m not exactly sure how she did it, but I know it involved several different colored/flavored Kool-Aid packets, and the sprayer wand that normally hung up for showers.
After mom was done with that, we went into her room, where she set me down at her vanity and started putting a whole bunch of little curlers in my hair. She said this would make it look more like a clown wig.
After about 15 minutes of sitting there while she did that (and I complained about how tight she was rolling them), she had Colleen turn on the hairdryer and move it over so that I was now sitting under a hairdryer at the vanity.
Mom said that she had to go help Colleen get ready, and she’d be back for me in about 20 minutes.
After about 25 minutes (I spent the time watching the clock), mom walked in the room, along with Colleen dressed in her cowboy costume. As I looked at here I remembered our conversation the other day, and how we met and started to giggle.
Colleen looked at me and said "Well howdy, Pilgrim" with a deep voice which made me giggle even more.
Mom then turned off the dryer and started taking out all the curlers. Colleen collected them all from my mom and put them in a bowl that was on the vanity.
Mom then went into her drawer, pulled out this thing that looked like a weird, stubby little comb that had long teeth that were spread far apart. She poked it in my hair and pulled up a few times. She said she was "teasing" it to make the curls stand up.
When she was done with that, she grabbed some white makeup off the vanity, and then asked Colleen to get my clown costume off the bed in my room.
Colleen scuttled off to get my costume but came back with a puzzling look on her face. She whispered something into my mom’s ear and they both went into my room.
I followed shortly behind them, to find my mom holding up my costume and there was a big wet spot in the middle of it.
Apparently my dog Curly (he was a golden colored cocker spaniel that I had just gotten a little over a week ago for my birthday) had peed all over the costume. My mom looked distressed. There was NO way that we’d have time to wash and dry the costume in time.
Colleen giggled and suggested to my mom that she had a spare costume in her bag. My mom looked at her and they went to the other room and retrieved the bag.
My mom looked at me and laughed. "Well, it’s a costume" she said.
"No WAY!" I said while waving my arms around to simulate pushing the costume away from me.
"Come on! I’m going as a cowboy, why can’t you go as a fairy?" Colleen said.
"I don’t want to go as a fairy. Can’t we just put it in the dryer and then wash it later?" I asked very emphatically.
"Nope, it would stink WAY to much. Either you go as a fairy, or you don’t get to go trick-or-treating." Mom said.
"Nuh-Uh! That is NAWT an option!" Colleen exclaimed with determination in her voice.
With that she took me by the arm and walked me to the corner.
"Please" she asked. "I really want to go trick-or-treating tonight. I promise nothing will happen to you. PLEASE!"
I don’t know exactly how long it was till I gave in… I’m sure it was only a few minutes but Colleen acted like it had taken hours to talk me into it.
After agreeing, my mom helped me into what was now MY fairy costume.
In the bag was a complete costume. Luckily Colleen was roughly my size. Actually I think she was a slight bit taller than me at that point.
The costume consisted of what was effectively a bathing suit covered with silver sequins, a pair of wings covered in an iridescent cloth, a pair of white tights, a little top that Colleen explained was a bra for young girls that don’t need bras, and a pair of shiny white shoes.
I was NOT as enthused as I should have been, But then again, I wasn’t nearly as reluctant as most boys would have been.
So here I was, a multi-colored curly haired fairy. Sure it was the 80’s… But I don’t think this was normal. Even Then!
Ok, so I was all dressed. My mom had taken me into her room to do my makeup (and not like clown makeup, but REAL makeup, lipstick and all), and it was about 6:00pm. The sun had set about 5:00pm and it was just dark enough to start out to have some REAL fun.
As we headed outside, I showed Colleen my map, and pointed out in the direction we should start. But mom apparently had a different plan. "OK you two" Mom yelled. "Get in the car."
"But mom, I have my map all made. Plus, we always make fun of those parents that drive their kids from house to house. It’s so DORKY!" I protested.
"Don’t worry. I figured we’d go out and do the trick-or-treating out at Gold Run."
"Wow, really mom? That’s so cool. But what about Colleen’s mom, shouldn’t you tell her?" I asked
"Don’t worry honey, I already talked it out with Colleen’s mom."
"Kewl!" I exclaimed. Now all I had to do was tell Colleen about Gold Run.
"It’s this subdivision up in the foothills," I explained. "Lots of rich people live there in BIG houses. But they are close together like in a normal subdivision, so you can generally fill an entire bag in about an hour and a half."
"Only problem is that it takes 30 minutes to get there, so get in the car already.," said mom.
Once in the car, we noticed that mom had brought extra bags for us, so that we could make multiple rounds.
Trick-or-treating was always fun. But this year there was a sense of excitement and trepidation involved, as I was a FAIRY!
As we made it to the first house, we rang the doorbell and a nice elderly woman answered the door. Colleen and I said, "Trick-Or-Treat" and she starred straight at me and said
"What a beautiful young girl. I love your costume sweetie".
I said thank you and blushed. This caused Colleen to giggle and the woman gave her a queer look. She then gave us our candy and we started walking to the street. Once we reached my mom Colleen made sure to tell my mom everything that happened and they decided that I should curtsey like a proper young girl every time someone says that to me and then showed me how.
During the first round of houses, I did a lot of curtsying. And I mean A LOT! I’d say that I had to hear at least 50 different variations of that line, like "What a pretty costume", or "You look like an angel from heaven", and my most favorite "Hi darling, you look like such a proper young lady", which I didn’t quite understand since I was in a VERY skimpy costume, and had multi-colored hair. But no matter what the comment, Colleen always made sure that I ALWAYS remembered to curtsey by poking me in the ribs with her elbow or her gun depending on what was easier.
The first round it was still weird and new, but by the second round I started to have a LOT of fun. I don’t remember this, but my mom claims that between houses I could be found dancing and twirling around like I was really getting into the part. But like I said. I don’t remember that.
Once we were done trick or treating (after somehow managing 3 trips back to the car), we started on our way home. But instead of taking me home so that I could wash out my hair, and get changed, mom seemed to be heading straight for Colleen’s.
"Mom, aren’t we going to go home first?"
"Well, we could but because you two wanted to do the third run of the neighborhood, it’s getting pretty close to Colleen’s curfew and if we went by home it would make her late." explained mom.
"I can’t be late, at least if you want me to ever be able to leave the house again," said Colleen.
That’s when I started to get nervous and flushed. Colleen was in the back with me, and she scooted a little closer and put her arm around me to make me feel better.
As we drove down Colleen’s street, I noticed that there were a lot of cars parked down the side of the street and was hopping that someone else was having a party too, but I didn’t have that good of luck. Not only had Colleen’s parents invited all the neighbors (kind of like introducing themselves to the neighborhood), but there were also a lot of business associates, and friends.
After I got out of the car, ran over to the side and hugged and kissed my mom through the window, Colleen started walking towards the house, and I found a bush near the door to hide behind.
Colleen knocked on her door (not being able to reach her keys that were at the bottom of the bag that held all her clothes). Her mom answered and looked around, looked at Colleen and said "I KNEW you were going to do that" referring to her costume, and then questioned, "Where’s Keith?"
"Well, there was an accident with his clown costume, and he’s kind of embarrassed about the costume he ended up wearing."
"Oh, c’mon Keith" Mrs. Moore said with a giggle, "It can’t be all that bad."
I took that as my queue to come in, as I came round the bush, with my 3 large bags full of bounty, I could see Mrs. Moore’s eyes widen in shock and then shrink slightly as she started to giggle.
I tried to run back to the safety of my bush, but Colleen had dropped her bags inside the door, and managed to grab me and drag me inside.
I was petrified, and boy did I get attention. With around 70 people at the party, there was plenty of "You’re so adorable", and "Honey, look at her CUTE costume" and such. The worst part was when someone asked, "What’s your name darling?" and I paused.
Well, what could I say? I couldn’t tell them my name was Keith could I?
Luckily Colleen noticed my pause and replied with "Her name’s Amanda", then whispered "She’s shy, especially in her costume" and the lady nodded and gave me a smile.
I thought I was going to die.
If Colleen hadn’t managed to catch my folly, I would have been dead in the water. I was sure that everyone would have started making fun of me and called me things like "freak" and then throw me out of the house or something like that.
But luckily Colleen was there. And from that moment on, we had a bond that would always make sure that she had my back, and I hers.
When it came time for bed (about an hour after we arrived at 11:00pm, Colleen’s mom looked at me and asked if I had brought a change of clothes. I explained to her that we didn’t have time to run back home without being late and she looked at me trying to figure out what I was going to wear to bed knowing that the costume would NOT be comfortable at all.
Then it came to her.
"I know, since you are already dressed like a little angel" Mrs. More started to say, but Colleen interrupted with
"FAIRY" and then giggled.
"Well, as I was going to say," she continued, "Why don’t you just wear one of Colleen’s nightgowns and so that you’ll feel safe, you can sleep in here on Colleen’s trundle."
"Uh… Uh… Uh…" I stuttered. "I"
Colleen then interrupted me by saying "C’mon, it’s only for the night and we can talk and stuff."
"No talking, no horseplay. You ‘girls’ need to get to sleep; you had a long night." Colleen’s mom said.
Colleen giggled and then looked at me. Again after what Colleen swears was hours of persuasion, but realistically couldn’t have been more than 30 seconds or so, I gave in and followed Colleen to a dresser where I was handed some things to put on.
I started heading for the bathroom, and Colleen followed me saying hat she would help me take my makeup off. After washing my face, and her washing hers. She left the bathroom to change out of her costume, and left me in there to change myself.
While the pure fact of no longer wearing that skimpy costume was great, the feeling of the gown was wonderful as I draped it over my body. While it seemed to cover my entire body, it was light and airy and made me feel a sense of freedom I have never felt before. It wasn’t nearly as warm and stuff as it had looked. The only problem that I really had with it was that it had lace, and flowered bows all over it that made me feel awkward.
I was kind of timid coming out of the bathroom, but knowing that Colleen was there somehow made things feel better. I looked over at Colleen’s bed and saw the trundle poking out from under it.
The little bed was all made, and turned down on one corner and Colleen was already in her bed. Mrs. Moore came over and kissed both of us on the cheek and then walked out turning off the lights on her way out.
While we had basically decided to try and stay up all night talking, we were both dead tired, and I was especially happy to have all the attention gone.
When I woke up, I found a small paper bag next to where I lay with my name on it, I later found out that my mom had stopped by after we had gone to bed, but before the party had broken up and brought me a change of clothes for the morning.
I laid in bed for a while, and waited for Colleen to wake up before doing anything.
Colleen woke up about 20 minutes later, and I told her about the bag with my clothes in it. We did a little bit of talking and giggling about the night before, and decided not to change for a lil bit.
As we were lying there talking Mrs. Moore announced from the bottom of the stairs that breakfast was ready and Colleen and had a race to see who could get there first. Can you believe that Colleen won?
At breakfast I met Colleen’s dad, and also Colleen’s 6-year-old sister Kirstyn who had apparently stayed the night at a friends house last night, and attended a different elementary school than us.
After breakfast we headed upstairs. I showered first and then got dressed, and then while she showered I wandered around her room looking at things with amazement. She has so much stuff, dolls, stuffed animals; she even had her own computer and a small TV in her room.
After she finished showering, and was dressed and out of the bathroom, we both went outside to play in the back yard. Out there were a girl’s type playhouse, and a small jungle gym that would later provide us many hours of fun.
That day we spent most the time in the playhouse with our bounty from the night before trading for our favorites from each other and planning how much we were going to eat each day.
We had awoken at about 10:00am, and I had to go home about 4:00pm because my mom, dad, and I had to go out to dinner with my aunt and uncle that evening.
From then on, Colleen and I were BEST friends, while Colleen and Amanda were just as close. And later Heather would be brought into the picture, and become both Colleen’s and my best friends, but Amanda was still a secret.
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