Julian Umland
July 17, 2015 10:58 AM
Book Club Halloween Party! by Julian Umland
Christmas and the end of the year were the traditional time for book club parties, but Julian had decided, as it was her last year and she really had very little to lose by doing so, to have a little fun with Halloween, too. Thematic sweets – a roulade of spiced pumpkin pastry with cream cheese filling supplemented by sugar cookies iced to look like bats and jak-o-lanterns and bubbling cauldrons, chocolates shaped like little broomsticks that were flying around the tops of deep bowls that chocolate frogs were trying, without success, to jump out of, and a bowl of plain candy corn – had been a given, but Julian had also suggested that anyone who wished to do so dress up for the occasion when she set a seasonal theme for the part actually involving books, too, asking everyone to bring a favorite story along.She hadn’t had much trouble finding one of those for herself, taking far more time with her costume. It had taken a few tries to get it right, but now, her blue dress had its full skirt held out as though she had a petticoat and she had managed to lower the neckline and shorten the sleeves. Her hair had been curled, pinned, and set until it was up to just above her collar and almost looked like a natural mid-length bob. All this was accessorized with a double strand of fake pearls, glitzy costume earrings, pumps, and, just for the fun of it, drawn-on stocking seams.
How accurate to the suggested time period the whole was, she had no idea. The library’s resources really weren’t intended for easily locating information about which fifties hairstyles went with which fifties dress styles or when stocking rationing had ended back home. The point, though, was that she’d made it obvious she wasn’t in everyday things without having to commit to a specific fictional character or more elaborate archetype, something which would have been much harder to pull off with the resources she had. It was just for fun. Mostly. Maybe it was also a little intended to defy whoever had written on the board by blatantly not being herself in the offending room – no matter how many times she told herself that it was stupid, she couldn’t stop regarding it all as taunts aimed at her – but mostly it was just for fun.
“Hello, everyone,” she said cheerily as people began to enter the Transfiguration classroom. Her feet were already beginning to hurt. She ignored them as she continued to push desks into a large circle, aided by John, who she had coaxed into a fedora and his rain jacket in a vague (very vague, possibly even vaguer than her own resemblance to a young Liz Taylor, but she’d take what she could get; if her own brother didn’t go to some efforts to back up her ideas, she’d look stupid, whereas if he did and nobody else went along, they’d at least look stupid together and as a bonus he’d probably look stupider than she did) tribute to Bogart. “Feel free to get some snacks and then we’ll get started.”
Said snacks obtained and everyone seated, Julian took her own place. “So. First thing, I thought anyone who wants to – “ she wasn’t going to force people to talk more than they wanted to; being in a book club implied most of them at least didn’t find talking about books onerous, but there were different levels of participation and interest in specific projects and they weren’t being graded on the quality of their discussions or even whether or not they read the material – “could tell us about your favorite stories where people are in disguise, like some of us are this evening. I’ll keep a list of titles and authors in case anyone wants to look something up later and start the telling now.”
She had picked Walking Shadows, one of the more notable achievements of a relatively obscure Canadian half-blood author. It consisted, mostly, of bits and pieces of plot from King Lear and Macbeth (the plot elements in question were, admittedly, nigh-universal, her brother Paul had written a rather funny thing once about a support group for the resentful and/or homicidal younger brothers of fiction, but the lead was named Edgar and one of the supporting characters during his travels was his godfather’s ghost which was having trouble adjusting to having been murdered by its son-in-law) transplanted into the seventies and Canadian geography. She privately thought it was a little heavy on the political commentary, especially near the end, and found Edgar’s whining about the relationship between what he did with his powers to conceal his true identity and who he was underneath some charms and potions a bit pretentious, but it met the criteria and hopefully sounded politically neutral enough the way she described it in two minutes. Anyone who actually sought it out and read it might have trouble missing even the discussion of the traditional roles of pureblood women, much less the implications in the hundred or so pages Edgar, a pureblood from Nova Scotia, spent pretending to be a Muggleborn from New Brunswick while hiding out in Quebec, but that was a good reason for picking a relatively obscure Canadian half-blood writing about other Canadian wizards.
After everyone who wanted to share had, to further the theme, she’d set up for charades, where everyone who wanted to drew a character from something the group had read so far this year and tried to do an impression of that character for everyone else to guess at, splitting into two groups if more than ten people came to the meeting. If that finished early, she was content to let the members mix and talk under her supervision until time to shoo them all out for curfew, if any stayed that long.
Subthreads: Not many complaints here. by Laila Kennedy
The past is your future! by Clark Dill
<i>Cavern of Children</i> by Barnaby Pye
Little Re(a)d by Ava Fletcher
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Julian Umland
Book Club Halloween Party!
254
Julian Umland
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Ava Fletcher
July 29, 2015 6:16 PM
Little Re(a)d by Ava Fletcher
Halloween, Ava had been told, had been one of her father’s favorite holidays. As such every year before she came to Sonora, in honor of that, she had stayed home with her grandfather instead of trick-or-treating, wrapped in one of his old shirts, watching his favorite Halloween-themed movies and eating caramel corn and hot sauce which was his favorite movie snack as weird as it was. She had done the same thing on his birthdays and anytime she missed him any more than the usual amount. However, since she had started at Sonora the tradition had become a little difficult since there were no televisions at school and so instead she had always celebrated a summer Halloween on July 31.Since televisions weren’t available, she had since switched to wearing his old clothes and reading his favorite books and had by now acquired a copy of all of them which she carried to and from school each year in her luggage. So, not wanting to part with tradition, Ava went to Julian’s book club dressed down in one of her favorites of her father’s shirts, a cozy over-sized flannel with which she wore leggings (because she could not abide overly large pants and some of his old, wool socks. In addition to this she charmed a false mustache out of some of the hair in her hairbrush and a fake ax out of the remaining hairbrush and went to the book club as a lumber jack.
She met her friends in the common room so that they could walk over to the transfiguration classroom together, asking them if they liked her mustache very much, she made it herself! When they arrive, Ava was excited to see all the treats Julian had laid out for them and helped herself to a few before thanking Julian and looking for a place to sit down. She really couldn’t wait to get started on the roulade that Julian had brought. The smell of the pumpkin always brought her back to her grandparents kitchen back when her grandmother was still alive and she still lived with both her parents. Before she died, Grandma had always made a really fantastic Halloween dinner complete with a pumpkin pie before Ava went trick-or-treating with her dad who would always dress up in a complementary costume to Ava. One year, that last year, Ava remembered dressing as a stereotypical Muggle witch against her mother’s wishes and her father had gone as her black cat familiar, complete with little whiskers painted onto his face.
Ava smiled wistfully and took a large bite, letting the pumpkin spice and the cream cheese take over her senses. It was always the strangest things that allowed her to time travel back to before things had gotten complicated. She supposed she understood it because memory was something that could be dictated by senses, but it was still confusing all the same. It was like how every time she heard Renaissance style music she thought about Demitri and what might have been. She still missed him frequently, wondering what he was up to and the like, and now that she was older and knew better she supposed she had had a tiny crush on him, but now she was older and knew better and didn’t believe in love really.
Bitterness does not suit you, Ava, she said to herself and put any thought of Dimitri or Demetre all the same out of her mind as it came to being her turn to share. “Well,” she said with a grin. “The story I have to tell you for today is this. Once upon a time there was a little girl who was beloved by everyone. She was known as Little Red Riding Hood because of the red riding hood that her grandmother had made for her. One day her mother said to her ‘Take this little pot of jam and this little loaf of bread to your grandmother who lives in the woods.’ Being the good, obedient little girl that she was, Little Red took a basket and the little pot of jam and the little loaf of bread and went on her way. As she stepped outside, her mother said to her; ‘And be careful to stay on the path and not to talk to strangers.’
“‘I promise,’ said Little Red, and went on her way. It was not long before she arrived in the woods and saw beautiful flowers. She stopped a moment to stare at them longingly, but she heeded her mothers warning and before long continued on her way. Little did Little Red know, but there was a wolf in those woods who made a habit of eating little girls right up and,” here Ava paused dramatically, licking her lips like the wolf. “Her red cape made her the perfect little target, the ultimate vision of innocence. The wolf saw how the little girl wanted the flowers and bent down to pick a bouquet. Because of his long legs, he quickly caught up to Little Red and handed her the bouquet.
“When Little Red looked up, she saw the large eyes of the wolf and she jumped back, frightened. ‘It’s okay little girl,’ he said with a toothy grin, ‘You can trust me, I’m a friend.’ Little Red hesitantly accepted the flowers and the wolf grinned even larger. ‘Where are you going today?’ Little Red bit her lip, unsure if she should answer his question, but the wolf looked so unexpectedly harmless that eventually she gave in and told him ‘to my grandmother’s to bring her this little pot of jam and this little loaf of bread.’ ‘What a good, dutiful granddaughter you are,’ the wolf said. ‘I’ll let you go on your way. Are you going to take the path of needles, or the path of pins?’
“Little Red hesitated before saying that she would take the path of needles and the wolf bowed low, waiting until she was well on her way before taking the path of pins and running as fast as he could towards the little old woman’s cottage. When he got there, he knocked on the door and imitated Little Red’s voice for the wolf was quite good at impersonations. The old woman allowed the wolf to come in and when he did, he slit her throat and gobbled her up, clothes and all save for her cap which had fallen off when she shrieked in fright. The wolf found another dressing gown and put it on before hopping into bed and curling up under the covers.
“Before too long, Little Red came knocking. ‘Come in,’ the wolf said, imitating the grandmother’s voice. Little Red came in. ‘I brought you a little pot of jam and a little loaf of bread, Grandmother,’ she said, setting the basket on the table. The wolf grinned, but Little Red couldn’t see that because his face was hidden by the curtains around the bed. ‘There is some wine on the table and some meat in a bowl,’ he said. ‘Have some.’ And Little Red obediently poured herself a glass and ate some of the meat wrinkling her nose at the strange taste. There was a little cat there that said to her ‘a slut is she who eats the flesh and drinks the blood of her grandmother!.’
“‘Undress and come into bed,’ the wolf said, beckoning her closer. Little Red approached. ‘Where should I put my cloak?’ she asked. ‘Throw it in the fire, you won’t be needing that any more.’ Little Red obeyed. ‘And what of my dress?’ she asked. ‘Throw it in the fire, you won’t be needing that anymore.’ Little Red obeyed. One after another she removed the rest of her clothes and threw them in the fire until all she had on were her stockings which she obligingly threw in the fire as well. Now, she climbed into bed and her eyes grew wide. ‘What big eyes you have, Grandmother,’ she said. ‘The better to see you with my dear,’ the wolf cackled.
“‘What big ears you have, Grandmother,’ she said. ‘The better to hear you with my dear,’ the wolf grinned. ‘Grandmother,’ she said as she looked at the wolf’s teeth thinking what big teeth he had. ‘I have to make caca.’ The wolf sighed but allowed her to go outside, tying a bit of rope around her leg so that she could not get away. Now, after awhile the wolf was getting rather worried, because Little Red had looked so very delicious and he desperately wanted to eat her up, so he pulled on the string and said, ‘are you, are you nearly done?’ But there was no response, so the wolf got out of bed and walked out to see that Little Red had tied the rope around the pear tree in the front yard and run clean away.”
OOC: As Ava’s grandfather is a fairy tale buff, her version of fairy tales are kind of messed up because she has heard so many different versions. This particular Little Red Riding Hood story is a mash-up from the Charles Perrault and the 1997 short film starring Cristina Ricci but is mainly a retelling of the short film.
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Ava Fletcher
Little Re(a)d
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Ava Fletcher
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