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Some kids at Charlie’s school had organised a dare, a rather exciting one. During the witching hour on certain nights they would take turns to “haunt” the graveyard that everyone knew was full of ghosts. Costumes that ranged from zombies to ghosts to banshees served as a “disguise” and helped them scare the living crap out of people.
It was absolutely mega fun.

Classmates came to school the morning after their “graveyard shift” boasting to the frights they gave and the hazards they escaped. Everyone listening of course said that they didn't believe them but secretly they all really hoped that the stories were true. How great would it be to scare the living daylights out of college kids?

Tonight was Charlie’s turn

For her “disguise” she was wearing a costume that Kyle had brought her for Halloween. A knee length puff-sleeved dress with an old fashioned pinafore over the top. With her hair in pigtails she looked just like a 19th century doll. Why a doll? There were dozens of horror movies out there that featured haunted dolls. Charlie reckoned in this getup she could scare a few people. The chalk white face make-up and the fake blood on the front of her pinafore helped.

She had been tiptoeing around the graveyard, not seeing anyone and wondering whether her classmates’ tales actually were lies when she spotted a figure up ahead sitting on the ground. They hadn't spotted here yet. Perfect.

The figure started to turn his head and Charlie quickly ducked behind a large tombstone out of sight. "Did you see that?" said a voice. Everything was dead silent as the man listened. This was Charlie’s moment. Picking up a twig she snapped it, the sound was frightfully loud in the nigh-time silence. "I really don't like this. ...." The voice was really started to sound unnerved.

Charlie waited a few more moments (the other said this helped raise the tension) then began to sing in her best little girl voice.

"Goosey goosey gander, where shall I wander?
Upstairs and downstairs and in my lady’s chamber.
There I met an old man who wouldn't say his prayers,
I took him by his left leg and threw him down the stairs."

It was a nursery rhyme she had learned before she knew that she was learning it. When Charlie finished she knelt down and waited, wondering what rhyme she should try next. Three blind mice maybe? 

After handing in their assignment and the subsequent detention that resulted, Charlie and Astrit had become sort of friends. By some form of silent agreement they carefully ignored each other for most of the day. This suited them both as neither wanted to be teased by their classmates, Charlie for regarding the class loner as a fellow human, and Astrit for daring to even look at the cute Aussie girl as if he had the right. However after school had ended they would meet in the library and find a table to sit at. With their schoolbooks and pencil cases they looked like any other children working on their homework.

Sometimes they actually even did their homework. Other times Charlie would draw cartoons to amuse themselves with. She was especially proud of the one of Astrit dressed in medieval knight’s armour wielding a sword against a giant that may or may not have strongly resembled Logan Ryder. For that one she’d made Astrit pose with a ruler for ten minutes in order to get the look right. Other times Astrit would quietly tell her stories, mostly ones that he’d read but occasionally ones that his sister had told him. Stories that were familiar because they were fairy tales and all fairy tales are similar; but were also strange because they were from a land that was worlds away.

On this particular day Charlie arrived at the library first and had spent the last fifteen minutes chewing the end of her pen as she looked at the blank piece of paper before her. It should have been easy, all the writing assignment wanted was for her to write a page about her mother and how they celebrated mothers’ day. Her mother? Mothers’ day? Charlie bit her lip and frowned at the paper. She absolutely could not write about her mother, not in the way the assignment wanted. At the same time she could not talk to the teacher about an alternative because then they would know. Charlie was very proud in her own way, and the last thing she wanted was for people to feel sorry for her.

357 words for Astrit Zupan

Once they were sitting inside Astrit explained how after the war things in his ancestral homeland became confused and messy as newly formed countries fought places to settle down in. Charlie never knew that drawing up borders could be such a messy business. She could understand why his sister would want to skip over the unpleasant parts of the story. What she didn’t understand was why Astrit’s parentage would be considered unpleasant. She picked up on his implication that his sister was more of a half-sister, but surely it was more than that. Lots of families nowadays had half siblings and step siblings and they were not considered especially taboo. Her own family included both for instance.

She did not feel comfortable asking Astrit for further for elaboration so instead she said “I see. Thanks for telling me all that. Your sister would be a very good history teacher.” That much was true. The content that they had memorised in history class now seemed dry and faded in comparison to the colourful relevance of Astrit’s story. Absentmindedly she opened up her sketchbook once more. With a few quick lines she had a recognisable sketch of the Union Jack and began filling it in with green, orange and black, the complimentary colours of red, blue and white. The result was uncomfortable to look at, but then again so was truth. “We were talking about what our textbook says about WWI” she replied to Astrit’s question. "But I don’t feel much like using it to do our project with. Not when it’s telling us things that are wrong.”

A prickling of an idea was beginning to take shape in the back of her mind. It was not a bad idea but it was so very bad in that it was not what they were meant to be doing as unquestioning students. It would be frowned on, it would be more work than the actual project, but it would be so worth it. She looked at her drawing, then she looked at Astrit sitting across from her and showed him the paper. An invitation. Would he recognise it as such? And if he did would he be willing to go along with such a bad idea?

Astrit Zupan

For the first few seconds Charlie wasn’t able to hear and feel anything. It was like she was underwater and watching the rest of the world through a looking glass. Then as the paralysis is her chest wore off a solid lump of ouchthatfrickenhurts! Made itself known and everything became real again. After a few moments of painfully drawing air into her lungs she realised that the policeman’s attention was no longer focused on her and managed to roll onto her knees to see what was going on.

A woman was standing between her and the cop is a stance that was ridiculously threatening. Her voice was cool yet the undertone of anger could clearly be heard as she informed him "I saw everything that just happened, mister, and unless you leave us alone right now, I want to see your badge and you can bet your ass I will get parents involved.” Charlie opened her mouth to say that her parents were out of the country, but then realised that the woman was bluffing (extremely convincingly) and closed it again quickly.

There was a long drawn out silence as they watched the cop consider his options. Charlie knew that policeman could get into heaps of trouble if they used what was called ‘excessive force’ on people. But she had very little idea as to what counted as excessive. Voices from around the corner reminded them that a person could come across the scene at any moment. Charlie’s ribs continued to throb.

At long last the policeman seemed to decide that it wasn’t worth pushing matter and sullenly retreated to his car. With what seemed like deliberate slowness he started the engine and drove away. Once the car was safely out of sight Charlie looked warily back at the lady who’d saved her. Why the heck had she done that?

“Who are you?” asked Charlie. Just because this stranger had driven off a cop it didn’t mean she was automatically going to trust them.

334 words for Lucille Nibourette

Surprisingly Astrit seemed to understand what she was getting at when she explained the differences between her old lessons and the new. It was difficult to explain, especially if the listener had only received lessons from one source all their lives. Because it make it hard for them to imagine that there could be an alternative version of events. It made her wonder whether Astrit might have come from an overseas education system as well.

Astrit obliged Charlie’s request first by puffing himself up like a miniature professor and then launched into his tale with the words “There were empires, in those days”. Charlie was swept away into a world where greatness was measured by amount of land you amassed. Where leadership was judged by the number of loyal subjects you possessed. Where strength was displayed on battlefields… It was a world that Charlie half recognised, she was after all from a country that was once part of an empire. But for the most part it was totally unfamiliar to anything she knew or understood.

“Yeah, I’m with you” She replied when Astrit glanced her way to see if she was still following. They were inside the library now and Charlie sat herself down at a convenient table. “So what happened when your ancestors were no longer an empire? The Ottomans left soon after the war didn’t they?” This stuff was much more fascinating than the contents of their lesson books. The reasoning behind why a bunch of countries would want to pick a fight with each other was beginning to make a lot more sense.

If my feet could reach the pedals, and I could see over the dashboard, and if Kyle would teach me. I'd be a great driver!