by Non Pratt
“Who’s scared of bunnies?” Daisy whispered to Esther, who shrugged.
“Takes all sorts, Daisy. Let’s not judge.”
Before they even had the chance to knock, the door swung open, and they were greeted by American Chad, huge and hulking and wearing nothing but an artfully arranged American flag and a monocle. Arms spread as wide as his grin, he ushered them into a crammed little hallway and squeezed out to get more plastic cups from the corner shop.
“Why is it that all the girls’ outfits are sexy?” Susan muttered, side-eyeing a Puss in Boots whose rakish hat and rapier were teamed with a single-button waistcoat, spray-on hot pants, and patent thigh-high boots.
“Some of us can’t help it.” Esther’s reflexive hair toss whipped Daisy in the face.
“You’re missing the point. Sexy’s fine, but it should be a choice, not a rule. I mean look . . .” Susan pointed through the door to the front room. “Sexy witch, sexy car mechanic, sexy sentient tree, sexy crayon, sexy mobile phone . . . sexy tin of beans. But the boys . . . gross zombie, gross swamp monster, gross monk, gross rugby player . . .”
“Hey!” The boy whom Susan had none-too-subtly pointed out last took offense. “I’ve just come from the rugby social. I’m not in costume.”
“Even more horrific.” Susan shooed him off.
“What about that hunk over there? Looks like a pretty sexy nurse to me . . .”
“That’s just someone in scrubs. All the nurses look like that.”
“I’m clearly doing the wrong course,” Esther said, fanning herself and giving the male nurse a little more attention.
“My point is: Why are the men fully clothed and the women in their underwear?” When Susan failed to get any response from Esther, she turned to Daisy. “You’re with me on this, right?”
“Umm . . .” Daisy’s attention was bouncing around the room like a pinball. “Many bras. So objectionable. Much patriarchy.”
“Daisy!”
“Sorry, Susan. Maybe it’s just that men aren’t as nice to look at, whatever they’re wearing?”
The smile Susan bestowed upon her was both indulgent and knowing, and Daisy blushed beneath her face paint.
As Esther made a beeline for the press of rhythmically flailing bodies in the front room, where the music was loudest, Susan gave Daisy a subtle nod toward the back of the house.
“Everyone knows the cool kids hang out in the kitchen.”
“Cool kids?”
“Us, Daisy.” She gave Daisy a gentle pat on the arm and steered her farther down the hall.
The dance floor was crammed with chisel-chested boys and loose-limbed girls writhing and whooping to the music.
“ESTHER!” someone screamed, and she found herself facing a big grin beneath a black headscarf, eye mask, and penciled-on mustache.
“NOOR!”
The two embraced like long-lost sisters rather than two casual acquaintances who had spent no more time together than the length of an ill-fated Harry Potter quiz. Within seconds, they were joined by Grace—dressed as a ghost in a faded old T-shirt and bleached-out jeans—and there ensued a flurry of compliments as each commented on the others’ outfits.
“Less talking, more dancing!” Grace yelled at the two of them, and Noor bowed. “As you wish . . .”
Halfway through the song, Grace waved them closer, pulling them in for a series of selfies.
“Which one shall I post?” She scrolled through them, Noor and Esther looking on, pointing out minor flaws in their own pictures and telling one another how amazing they looked.
“Stop, wait, go back . . .” Esther grabbed Grace’s phone and peered at the screen. In the last picture, just over Noor’s shoulder, she could see a familiar black bob streaked with white, the owner casting a disinterested look across the people on the dance floor from under her bangs as she sipped some punch.
“It’s her!” Esther whispered reverently, whipping to look over her shoulder in case Goth Girl was still there.
“Who?” Noor asked.
Esther zoomed in as best she could.
“Oh. Her.” Noor’s expression soured a touch. “Yeah . . . she does English, too.”
“She does?” Esther seized her by the shoulders. “Why did I not know this?”
“Well, it’s not like I’ve seen you at that many lectures . . .”
“What’s her name?”
“I don’t know! She doesn’t really talk to anyone.”
“Grace!” Esther turned to show her the screen, but Grace wasn’t paying any attention.
The big hit of the summer was playing, poppy and peppy, something Esther could dance to at a nightclub but only permit herself to enjoy ironically. A few girls leaped onto the sofa in a coordinated move, and people surged into the middle of the room, arms aloft and voices loud, reliving a younger, simpler life that they’d had only months before.
But not Grace. The verve with which she’d hauled them onto the dance floor had faded away, replaced by an appropriately ghostlike melancholy as she stared into some distant memory, eyes misting over.
Esther touched her friend’s arm. “Grace? Are you OK?”
“This song reminds me of Tony.” Grace didn’t seem to be talking to Esther at all until she said, “Actually, I need the loo. See you in a bit.”
As Grace slipped through the crowd, Esther and Noor exchanged a glance.
“What was all that about?” Esther asked.
“Tony, I guess.” Noor reached into a nearby bowl and picked up a supply of strawberry laces; then with a sigh, she said, “Same old. They’re long distance, and yours truly is long-suffering.” She gave Esther a rueful smile and nodded after Grace. “I’d better go make sure she’s OK. You all right on your own?”
Esther nodded fervently. She wouldn’t be on her own for long. Noor had said that Mystery Goth didn’t talk to anyone, but that was only because she’d yet to meet Esther de Groot, mistress of the eldritch and yet-to-be bestie.
Contrary to all expectations, Daisy was having an excellent time. Everywhere she looked, she came face-to-familiar-face with someone she knew. After waving hello to a couple of people she’d met yesterday at the Origami Soc, she’d bumped into one of the more affable Ladies Who Brunch, been briefly swallowed up by some pool players who wanted to know her “secret,” and when she’d passed the Doritos to a sexy ghoul, the ghoul nodded at Daisy from under her hood and said, “Zoise thanks you, Sister.”
Finally settling in a far corner of the kitchen with a couple of people from her course—Reggie with the cool T-shirts and Nikki, whose Boudicca costume had started an excellent conversation about the Celts, druids, and ritual sacrifice—Daisy felt as if she’d finally blossomed. Her jokes were funnier, her conversation wittier, and even though she had long since lost sight of Susan, she felt that maybe she wasn’t just Halloween party material on the outside but on the inside, too.
Out in the relative safety of the stairwell, Susan could see through to the front room, where Esther was tossing her hair at a group of generic boys, and out to the kitchen, where Daisy was perched on the counter with a couple of people who’d come out for her birthday the other week. She’d shoved a set of fangs under her top lip to do impressions of someone, and the three of them were in hysterics.
Her two charges making their merry way in the world, forging new friendships all on their own.
Leaning back against the wall, Susan lifted her freshly cracked can of dark ale to her lips. A taste of home, memories of sitting in the pub after a shift.
It didn’t taste great.
Yet again, her attention wandered back to Daisy, to Esther.
So much for a J-block night out.
Before Susan could take another sip of tepid misery, someone crashed into her from the side, sending the can flying. Whipping around, ready to unleash her ever-present anger, Susan came face-to-face with the sexy sentient tree, whose branch had thwapped her in the back. For several seconds, there was a standoff, and then . . .
“Oh, my god, I’m so sorry—”
“No, totally not your fault. Your branch—”
“Here, look, have my rum and Coke.”
“No, no, that’s fine . . .”
“I insist!” Then came the comment, “I’m so sorry about this stupid outfit. I mean, who the hell thinks trees are sexy?”
Susan’s pupils turned into little hearts. “I KNOW!”
Eventually, Daisy had to make a break for the loo. Small talk seemed to require a lot of sipping of one’s drink, and Daisy had drained four cups of lemonade already. Following the makeshift sign that said BOGS THIS WAY, Daisy slipped out through the back of the kitchen, past a washing machine, and ducked down under the fake cobwebs someone had strewn across the light fixtures to a door marked THE BOGS, whose handle didn’t turn when she tried.
Dancing a little dance of desperation, Daisy counted to fifty before reaching out to knock.
“Um . . . hi, sorry, I just want to check if you’re going to be long? Which would be fine! But I’ll go and find—”
The lock clicked, and the door opened.
“Free now,” murmured the girl who emerged. Her eyes were down, but Daisy instantly recognized Grace. Everything about her was drained and drooping, and for a moment, Daisy fancied that she really was looking at a ghost.
“Grace? Susan introduced us at breakfast the other week . . . Is everything all right?”
“Uh-huh. Yup. Fine.” But her phone was clutched tightly in her hand, and she sounded as if she’d been crying. No matter how desperate Daisy was for the loo, the thought of leaving Grace feeling that her misery had gone unnoticed was too much.
“I know we’re not friends—”
“None of us are.” Her words weren’t spoken sharply but murmured fast and low. She looked up at Daisy then, her smile sad and crooked. “I don’t mean to be snappy. I’m just not in a party mood tonight.”
“That’s OK. You don’t have to be.”
“It’s the only way I know how to get through.” Grace’s ghostly visage ducked and bobbed in Daisy’s vision as Daisy danced the Dance of the Desperate Bladder. “Toilet’s free. Go pee.”
It didn’t matter how quick she was. When Daisy emerged once more, Grace had disappeared.
Susan and the sentient tree had been joined by a Hobbit. Apparently there’d been a whole fellowship thing going on, but they’d lost the others. Susan, the tree, and the Hobbit found this hilarious and had been giggling about the Mines of Moria and how treacherous Boromir was.
“I mean, he’s gone off with someone dressed as Aslan, and, y’know?” The Hobbit was aggrieved. “That’s just not on—mixing the magic like that. Something bad will happen.”
“Tolkien and Lewis were friends, though . . .” Susan was losing the thread of her thoughts—she’d had a lot of rum and Coke. “So that makes it all OK. I’m sure. Boromir can get it on with Aslan, and everyone’s happy.”
“What is it you’re dressed as, anyway?” the tree asked. “Davy Croquet?”
“That’s not right.” The Hobbit wagged a finger. “It’s Davy Croquette. Like the little potatoes.”
“I’ll give you a clue . . .” Susan set her trapper hat straight and reached out to pluck a weapon from the hands of an axe-wielding murderer, which she then swung about, miming chopping wood.
“A LUMBERJACK!” Susan’s companions bellowed in unison.
“A sexy lumberjack!” Susan corrected, unbuttoning her shirt to an almost indecent level, the other two girls cheering and smashing their plastic cups together to shower themselves in a fountain of Coke.
“No, no, no, no, no . . .” The Hobbit slung an arm around Susan, eyes a little fuzzy, speech a little slurred. “Now, that’s a sexy lumberjack.”
Susan followed her finger and tried to focus on the person at whom the Hobbit was pointing. Big workmanlike boots. Pale blue jeans, scuffed, and a fitted checked shirt, the sleeves rolled up to expose a pair of strong forearms. A woolen hat, the rim turned up.
It was the beard. That’s what tricked Susan into what she said next.
“Yup. That’s a sexy lumberjack, all right.”
And then, with the kind of horror that washes in a second after one has done something unimaginably regrettable, Susan realized who it was.
On any other night, Esther could have asked a group of students if they’d seen someone who looked like a fairy in mourning, and they’d have known exactly who she meant.
Tonight, however, that description was getting her exactly nowhere.
Esther stopped by the drinks table just as “Like a Prayer” came on, and a murmur of nuns got overexcited, forming a circle around someone who’d come dressed as Madonna. There was no way of crossing the dance floor now—she’d just have to wait.
“Lads, lads, lads!” A giant in a rugby shirt and token devil horns standing next to Esther slapped a nearby boy on the back with a hand the size of a Frisbee. “I know who she is!”
Esther wasn’t sure how he knew whom she was looking for, given that she’d not actually asked him . . . until she realized he wasn’t talking about Goth Girl. He was pointing a giant sausage finger right at Esther.
“It’s you! Off that website! Shaggable number 3—quick!” He reached into the crowd of dancing nuns and pulled out a set of rosaries, beads bouncing across the floor from where the string had snapped. “I’ve got a crucifix—let’s tame the beast . . .”
He lunged forward, aiming the cross at Esther’s left breast as if to brand her.
But weeks of an afternoon Boxercise class hadn’t left her defenseless. A step to the side, and he missed, the momentum sending him crashing face-first into the drinks table. Cries of outrage and groans of disappointment erupted from the dancing nuns and nearby drinkers.
Almost immediately, his friends—a groom whose heart had been ripped from his chest and a barista with a coffee cup that read [You’re name hear]—closed ranks.
“I’m so sorry about him,” the barista said.
“Keeps his brain cells in his bollocks, that one,” the groom added.
“What, all two of them?” Esther said, turning her back on where their friend was floundering in a puddle of punch.
The boys turned with her, arms crossed, heads shaking, identical frowns of disapproval.
“Sexist brute.”
“Toxic masculinity.”
“Product of an institutionally sexist society.”
“Dismantle the patriarchy.”
“Down with men.”
“Oh, I don’t know . . .” Esther fanned her face with one hand, flustered by all the feminism and appraising her companions. Uninspired outfits, tidy haircuts. Exactly to her taste. “Some men are all right.”
“We’re all dogs, love.” The barista reached out to rest a hand on her shoulder, stopping an inch short. “Sorry, is it OK if I touch your shoulder?”
Too used to having to swat off unwanted paws, her deeply ingrained Britishness had her rewarding such good manners with an automatic nod of consent.
On her other side, the groom cleared his throat and handed Esther a fresh drink. “Amends?”
“Thanks, but I’m actually looking for someone.” Esther waved the drink away. “Short girl, black hair, really cool . . .”
It was a frustratingly vague description, but the barista was nodding along, eyes flickering between Esther and the groom next to her. “Yeah. I think I know who you mean—saw her go upstairs a few minutes ago.”
“Oh. Yes.” The groom joined in. “Why don’t we help you look for her?” He pushed the drink into Esther’s hand once more. “You can bring your drink.”
Daisy had been scanning the crowd for Grace when she saw Esther emerge from the front room and head upstairs with a couple of boys.
Which seemed odd. Boys often flocked like moths to Esther’s beautiful moon-face, but Daisy had never seen her do anything more than make suggestive eye contact and shimmy provocatively in their direction. She never actually engaged w
ith any of them.
(Except that one time—which all of them, Esther included, had put down to an extreme lapse of judgment due to emotional trauma.)
What if Esther was emotionally traumatized now?
As Daisy fretted, she saw the two boys high-five each other behind Esther’s bodiced back.
That didn’t seem right, but Daisy felt woefully out of her depth. There should be something on the national curriculum that dealt with these situations, with convenient multiple-choice options. Socializing had rules, but they weren’t ones Daisy understood.
A fleeting glimpse of a checked shirt through the crowd presented Daisy with the solution: Ask Susan. She knew everything.
It was even harder to move through the house than it had been earlier, but eventually Daisy reached the point where Susan had been. Only she wasn’t there. Glancing up the stairs, toward where Esther had disappeared, Daisy caught sight of the familiar red check halfway up in the shadows.
“Excuse me . . . sorry . . . oof . . . my face got in the way of your elbow there . . . please could I . . . ?”
But by the time Daisy had squashed past all the people sitting on the steps, she discovered this wasn’t the lumberjack she was looking for.
“Daisy!” McGraw looked pleased to see her. “You’re here. I just saw—”
“No, not you!” Daisy cut him off.
McGraw’s face fell, but it was herself that Daisy was cross with—of course this wasn’t Susan! His height had been obscured by the branches of a sexy sentient tree.
“Sorry, McGraw, you’re a perfectly lovely lumberjack, but I was looking for Susan . . .”
“You mean the awesome little feminist with the ridiculous hat?” asked the tree. An unlikely but accurate description. “She kind of bolted that way . . .” The tree extended a branch down the stairs toward the front door, the opposite direction to Esther.
They’d made their way upstairs, and although Esther had registered some vaguely familiar faces (had that been McGraw behind that beard?), none of them had been the one she sought. It wasn’t a big house, or a long climb, but for some reason, Esther’s limbs felt loose and rubbery, and she kept stumbling into her companions.