ASHES - A Cinderella Story
Chapter Fifteen - As Your Last Chance Slips Away
The pattern's all, I'm telling you
Doesn't matter if you're blue
Your heart sashays in between
We'll cut a rug with old Fifteen.
I CAN'T GET NEXT TO YOU:
In a tiny garden in Nerima, which was a tiny part of Tokyo, which was a tiny part of Japan, which was a tiny part of the Earth, which was a tiny part of the Solar System, which was a tiny part of...you get the picture...a tiny portal appeared. Out of the portal struggled a very peeved demoness.
"I can't believe how much trouble it was to get back to this place! You'd think those jokers in their pearl palaces upstairs had the place guarded! I swear I wasn't this weak as a youngster!"
Mara dumped an armload of her beloved gimmicks onto the garden path and selected a Sniffer from the mound. She switched it on and remarked with satisfaction, "Ah! There he is, broadcasting loud and clear, very excited. If he keeps that up, I'll find him again, easily!"
She was not so successful with another device, a compact formation of cloud molecules which skittered away from her when she tried to board it. "Curse my youthful condition!" she railed. "I no longer have the concentrated will to control this blasted thing!"
An inventory of her remaining tools improved her outlook. "This holding tank is for my prize," she crooned, cuddling a blank wad of dark stone. "Power-ups, in case of emergencies; snoops, to watch out for those meddling goddesses; and best of all, my secret weapon!" She lifted a radio permanently tuned to a 24-hour polka station.
"Am I ready! Of course I'm ready!"
Her demonic laugh was interrupted by the sniffer.
"Eh? He's disappeared again! Wait! This time he's left a single spark of activity, which I can trace!"
The trace signature on the screen caught her eye and she looked at it sharply. "Odd," she said. "That spark reminds me of something I seen before...I can't believe it! He's created a magic wand! What kind of a pig IS this?"
YOUNG GIRL (Get Out of My Mind):
At the school ground, Nabiki was bargaining with Hiroshi and Daisuke when they heard music blaring from a loudspeaker. A group of students charged by, wearing sideburns, scarves and sequined uniforms. Across the school ground rolled a clangorous refrain from the speakers:
"You've asked me what I want to do, you've wondered from the start..."
"Now, that's new," mused Nabiki.
"Ahh, that's heavenly music!" exulted Daisuke. Nabiki merely raised an eyebrow at him, indicating her opinion of his taste.
"Yeah, the competition," growled Hiroshi, too immersed in his own woes to offer more, as the loudspeaker began again.
"I'll tell you what I know is true, I have to win your heart!"
"Who are those students?" Nabiki wondered.
"Members of the Furinkan Rock'n Roll Club," Daisuke supplied. "They gather at break times to admire rock and roll songs."
"Oh, I want to be a rock star! That's all I've got to say..."
Hiroshi jerked about, wiping his sleeves and shirt front in near panic. Seeing Nabiki and Daisuke staring at him, he stopped and gave them a rueful grin.
"What's gotten into you?" Daisuke asked. "They're just playing Rock Cliff's new song! I have it on tape here, if you want to listen. It's the one he put out trying regain his lead from you and Primrose."
"Your lead is safe." Nabiki shuddered.
"Sorry," Hiroshi said, straightening his belt and regaining his composure. "That what I used to say whenever I wanted to turn into Cinderella, 'I want to be a rock star.'"
Daisuke chewed his lip and said, "You're taking a chance, telling me that, old pal. Aren't you afraid I'll use it on you?"
"Doesn't work anymore," Hiroshi said glumly. "Thanks to Basho."
"Cause if I was a rock star, we could Rock and Roll, all day!"
Nabiki eyed him as the loudspeaker sputtered into silence. She said, "So, this Basho is solving your problems, too? What do you use to turn into Cinderella, now?"
"I'm not saying," Hiroshi said, while turning a pale magenta.
"Man! Who's the little cutie?" Daisuke pointed over Nabiki's shoulder.
A chill fled down Nabiki's spine when she saw a young blond girl picking her way across the school-yard, using an enigmatic, dead-black device to plot her course. It was leading the girl directly to them.
"I'm not sure," Nabiki said, stirring uneasily. "She looks familiar, yet..."
Hiroshi was also watching the girl and he, too, had seen something about her to make him uneasy. He slapped Daisuke on the back and joshed, "She's too young for you, Dummy!"
"Hey, you gotta plan ahead! She's going to remember the guys who make a good impression on her. Let me tell you,in a few years that is going to be one very hot chick!"
Recognition had flared in Nabiki's eyes and she began to breath faster, an ancient reaction developed by humans to deal with danger - fight or flight.
"Underclassman, you have no idea how hot," she said.
The girl kept coming, head down, until she bumped into Nabiki. Jumping back, she shouted angrily, "It's you! Curse you and your sea-water, anyway!"
"This ought to be good," Nabiki drawled. "Haven't I seen you before, say, in a black cloud? What's your name?"
"My name is Mara, and you've interfered for the last time! Now, I'll..." the underaged demoness stopped to stare at the lump of metal in her hand, which had begun whistling. She blinked and took a good look at Nabiki.
"You!...you've had the wand!" she shrieked. She dropped the lump of metal to the grass and reached toward Nabiki. "Give it to me! That thing is mine, I tell you! Mine, mine, mine! I have to have it! It's the only thing that'll shorten my durance vile!"
"'Durance Vile'?" asked Daisuke. "Is that a new group?"
"It means...," Mara blinked at him. "Say, you look kinda cute."
Daisuke, taken aback, looked to Hiroshi for support. "I look cute?" he asked.
"No comment," Hiroshi said, backing warily away.
"But I don't have time for that!" Mara dismissed Daisuke and focussed her attention on Nabiki. "Where is it? Where IS it?"
Nabiki folded her arms and replied stonily, "I certainly don't have anything magical."
"That wand is mine! I deserve it for what he did to me! This is all his fault! It is because of him I am so limited, so confined, so...so..."
"So immature?" Nabiki suggested.
"Yes, I am so y...WHAT DID YOU SAY?" Mara bounced up and down in anger. "I want it! Why don't you have it?"
"Do I really look cute?" Daisuke called.
Mara stopped her tirade long enough to wrinkle her pert nose at him and snort, "Well, sort of. Average cute."
"Ouch," said Hiroshi.
Mara shrugged and turned away. Suddenly, she pointed and shouted, "Now, there is CUTE!"
"Uh-oh," Nabiki said. While Mara's attention was elsewhere, she scooped up the Sniffer, wound up and threw it as hard as she could, like a shot put. The dead-black device arced over onto the concrete sidewalk where it bounced, shattered into smaller lumps and melted into the ground.
Akane brushed past Mara, calling back over her shoulder, "Fine! Just see if I care!"
"Problems?" Daisuke asked Ranma, who was following.
"stupid tobboy coog," whispered Ranma in a tiny voice.
Akane raised her own voice to a yell, "I even followed the recipe! You see how much good it did? You still won't eat anything I make!"
"I can't believe it," gasped Daisuke. "Ranma, sampling the goods?"
Ranma replied heatedly, although in a very small voice, "id said coog in aluminum! not alum!"
"Oooo! Muscles! You're cute!" Ranma's outburst was choked off by a squealing young girl who was clinging to his neck. He froze in panic as Akane drew near.
"Isn't he a little old for you?" Akane frostily demanded.
"You should be back in your middle school, Honey," Ukyo said. She had been on her way to class when she stopped to lend a hand.
With Akane's help, Ukyo pulled Mara gently loose from Ranma and deposited her a safe distance away. They guided Ranma toward a drinking fountain where they could try to wash off the alum pucker without triggering his curse.
Nabiki dashed away, searching for the place where Akane had dragooned Ranma into tasting her cooking. Daisuke and Hiroshi continued on toward their first classes, leaving a blond waif standing lonesome and unfulfilled in the middle of the school grounds.
"I'll get you both for this!" shrilled Mara. "You haven't heard the end of me! I'll..." She sputtered to silence as she spotted a far-off wandering samurai sauntering along the path, his trusty kendo blade ready should a heroic rescue become necessary. The threat in her voice evaporated into a thrilled, "...Ooooooo! Tall! Dark! Handsome!"
"It is beneath a samurai's dignity to consort with juveniles," spake Tatewaki Kuno as he beheld her adolescent face shining with puppy love. "Still, I am touched by your devotion. For your memoirs, I shall deign to part with this monogrammed kerchief. You may crush it against your scant bosom, cherishing it until that far day when your winsome gawkiness might somehow blossom into a radiant beauty!"
Mara melted, sighing, "Oh, Studly Sir! I shall adore this cloth as if it were a lump of flesh ripped from your heart!"
"Er...right," Kuno blinked. He recovered to murmur, "Truly, t'is but a gesture of noblese oblige." As he paced away, he kept a wary eye on her lest she follow, but she was too smitten to move. Mara only stared after him with hearts in her eyes. Eventually, she turned to look for her Sniffer, but it could not be found.
The travelling samurai wandered on until he happened upon a deserted picnic site. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "A sublime feast and, by the duck painted on the side of the bento, prepared by the beauteous Akane! Surely she has been practicing her culinary arts in anticipation of the day she can present me with her greatest achievements!
"Dare I take a peremptory taste, with the chance that I might lessen the wondrous surprise she has planned for me?" The noble samurai debated, then decided, "Yes, I should prepare my palate for the future ecstacy which shall be mine!"
"id is eggslent," he shortly continued, in a whisper. "although pr'haps in need of a smidgeon of seasoning. (coff) but hold? what is this? a tender note, a blushing poem which she were too shy to deliver personally? (hackhack)"
Holding up the plastic wafer and observing its fanciful designs, he continued, "but no! 'tis merely a child's playing card, a commercial buffoonery to gull wayward youths into squandering their coin! rubbish! my darling akane would not be attracted by such frivolity! (wheeze) this came from that wretch saotome, who was hovering about my princess!"
And, so saying, he flung the card to the winds.
Caught by a thermal, tossed by the breeze, the colorful rectangle fluttered along, leaving in its wake an echo of birdsong and bellchime, until it settled at last onto the branches of a tree.
A hand reached up to lift it from the palm branches, and a voice spoke, "Wot's dis? I do believe my old peepers gotta be deceivin' me if dis ain't a gen-you-wine tradin' card fo de Magical Slipper game! Why, dis t'ing is valuable! It be de perfect prize fo de talent contest dat I'm about to announce!"
HIROSHI (Do you Believe in Magic?):
Daisuke poked me in the ribs and said, "Hey, Hiroshi! How's your girl friend?"
"I saw her again, last night, but it was only a dream. We were at the airport and she kept crying and saying goodbye."
"Dream lover, eh? Woowoo!"
"It's not like that! I lo...like her, that's all!"
"All right, underclassmen! Be quiet and pay attention!" Nabiki said from behind us.
"What for? Old Hawaiian Breath just has another scheme to embarrass Ranma," I said, looking about the gym floor. The gym was in 'auditorium' mode with seats pulled out and lined up in front of the stage. Students were sitting in those seats and, supposedly, paying attention.
I looked again. They were staring at the stage. In shock. I glanced back over my shoulder at Nabiki.
"A talent contest? To see who gets to sing the new school song?" Nabiki asked as if unsure what she had heard.
"That's what the principal said," Daisuke replied.
She shuddered. "I've heard his song. Believe me, you don't want to be so lucky."
"Bad?"
"Awful. 'I worship each grain of sand upon which you stand. My precious school, how wonderful your buildings shine with the unrepressed adoration of us, your students, as we project our faithful hearts toward your noble, sun-struck goal, the pinnacle of our hearts yearning.'"
"Man!" Daisuke blinked.
"Yup." She nodded.
"You said it. Bad song."
"You don't know the half of it. That was only the first line."
"Aloha, Kiekes and Wahines! We gonna do a good job on de wunnerful new school song! We gonna have us a bodashus contest, and it be fo' de wahines, only!" There was a general round of applause from the male students. "And da wahine wot sings de greates' gets de gran' prize!"
"And what is that?" Ranma called from nearby.
"Dis 'yere bona fido 'Magical Slipper' game playing card! It say it good for t'ree wishes!"
"That's mine! Gimmegimmegimme!" cried the young girl named Mara.
Principal Kuno looked down toward the source of the outburst and said, "Well, lookie here who we got! You be de kieke, and I be the big kahuna, here! Dis here be a prize fo' de talent contest. De student wat win the contest gets dis playin' card, but you ain't no student!"
"That is no ordinary game card, you fool! It's magic, and it's MINE!" Mara made a gesture and pointed toward the stage, as if throwing something. There was a tiny puff and a whiff of sulfur. "Blast it!" she growled to herself, "My powers are weakened!"
"Who's the chick?" inquired an observing student.
"Somebody's little sister. Sure has a temper," replied another student.
"Yeah, but she's cute!"
"Every girl's cute to you, Loser-kun!"
"Dis little gal say de card be magic!" announced Kuno. "How we find out it if dis be true?"
"I'll prove it!" cried Mara, jumping up and down. "I'll show you! I know just the thing to wish for!"
"A magic card?" Akane wondered out loud.
"It's gotta be a phoney," said Ranma.
"But still - imagine what you could do if it were real! You could get rid of your curse!"
"First, look who has it," Ranma pointed out. "Anything that chump has his hands on is rigged. Second, nothing says it's really magic."
"Dat right!" Principal Kuno called and again asked, "How we gonna prove dis card be magic?"
"Make a wish, you idiot! That'll prove it!" cried Mara, bouncing up and down in the aisle.
"Wot I wish for?" mused the principal, "I t'ink I wish dat..."
"No!" cried the audience, frantically.
"Wot?"
The audience roared, "No! Don't wish for that!"
"But - why can't the big kahuna get to wish for wot he want?"
"It makes it too easy, ya big lunkhead!" shouted Ranma. "Admit it. Ya wanta chop off everybody's hair. But, if everyone gave in without a fight, where would be the challenge?"
"Hmmm. Dat's so," admitted the principal, fingering the card. "But first, we gonna prove dis card be magic or not! I wish we was on da beach!"
Immediately the floor became white sand with waves curling upon the shore. Palm trees waved gently in the breeze. Ukelele music played softly over tables groaning with platters of fresh fruit, nuts, poi and roast fish.
"What th -" Ranma stood, transfixed. "We're actually on a beach! Could he be telling the truth?"
Nabiki, tasting the lemonade from a cocoanut cup, said, "What's the matter, Akane? You're practically foaming at the mouth."
"What's the matter? He has a real magic card! He could do anything! He could stop crime or end poverty! Why didn't he even do something useful, like repairing the school buildings? Oh, no, not our principal! He has to have a luau!"
"The only thing I see wrong with the arrangement is, he has it and I don't," Nabiki replied with furrowed brow. She took a sip of the lemonade and made a face. "He fulfils the requirements, too."
"If it's really magic, I can be cured!" Ranma said. The wheels were going around in his head, in typical Ranma fashion, doing martial arts spins and whirls, as he speculated aloud, "If I could get that card, I could free myself of the curse!"
"Oh, it's real enough, Ranma," Nabiki grumbled. "I know that for a fact. What I don't understand is how he found it."
"You knew about it?" Ranma turned on her. "You had a way to cure me and you didn't tell me? How'd you get it?"
"Hey, easy!" Nabiki fended him off, "It's not that simple! To tell you about it, I would have had to reveal who gave it to me. What kind of a girl do you think I am?"
"A money grabber!" Ranma retorted instantly.
"Well, I value my sources." Nabiki held out a hand. "Fifty thousand yen, please."
Ranma raged, even as he went through his pockets, "Whaddya mean? Why should I pay you fifty thousand yen?"
"For the name of the person who gave me the wish card, of course."
"You know I don't have that much!"
"Oh. Well. Guess you'll never know, then. Wouldn't do much good, anyway. He's no longer in the business."
It was my turn to accost her. "Is this true?" I demanded, shoving aside the empty palm she displayed. "What do you mean, 'no longer in the business?'"
"Hey, Hiroshi!" Ranma called, "Don't worry about it! This ain't yer concern. Nice to see ya show some spine, though."
"Do you mind, Ranma?" Nabiki turned a disdainful eye toward him. "This is a private conversation!" To me, she said, "Standard rates?"
I turned my pockets inside out, thinking fast. The plan I had counted on, such as it was, had been to find a way to free Kidori using Ryoga's aid. After that, I expected to be able to have my 'wish' revoked.
However, If Ryoga was no longer able to grant wishes, then Kidori might be forever lost to the ghost in the mask, I might be stuck as Cinderella, and I would lose all chance of having a girlfriend. I was selfish enough to wonder which disaster loomed largest in my mind. "I'm broke!" I said, at last remembering our contract, "But I am still your client!"
"Seeing as how this is pertinent to our contract...Rats. There went my profit. I was hoping you'd forget that," she said. "Okay, here's the skinny. Basho switched him off."
"Basho." My heart was in quicksand. Sinking. If Basho had actually cured' Ryoga of the ability to grant wishes, then there was no way I could get free of my curse. "That's it," I said as I slumped to the ground. "I'm doomed. I can't save Kidori. I'm stuck as a transvestite!"
"We gonna have a luau later!" called Principal Kuno. "I wish us back to Furinkan!" The walls of the gymnasium thumped into being, leaving after-images of sparkling waves and clouds in the dim flourescent light.
"Is that thunder I hear?" asked a student. "Where's Little Kuno?"
HIROSHI (Kind of a Drag):
Nabiki placed a hand in front of my face to stop me, forcing me to realize that I had been going in circles - first toward the boy's lockers, then the girl's lockers, then back toward the stage.
"Do you have a problem?" she asked, "You're making me dizzy."
"I have to turn into Cinderella!" I said.
"Thank you for that staggering revelation," Nabiki replied. "Why does this make you spin around?"
"I can't simply walk into the girl's locker room! I can go to the boy's locker room, but I can't be there after I change! I can't change out in the open because I only know one phrase that works and it...well, my costume is indecent."
Her grin was wide. "You mean, you appear in your underwear?"
"I thought you weren't paying attention!"
"No prob. Ten thousand yen, since this is not covered," she said, holding out a girl's gym suit and pointing toward a nearby shelter. "You can owe me."
"I can do this," I told myself, slipping behind the curtain at the end of the stage. "After all, nothing is gained without sacrifice. If I can get the wish card, Kidori can be saved!"
I slipped behind the curtain and said the necessary words, 'legal briefs'. The curtain billowed out with a gust of air. This was the first time I had actually changed clothes at less than supersonic speeds while transformed. When I emerged, I wore a blue girl's gym outfit and a blazing scarlet face because I had made the mistake of looking down at the wrong time.
At least the curtain didn't disappear when I poofed.
As Cinderella, my awareness increased tenfold. I saw someone familiar entering the gym. It was Mom and Pops, trailed by Hainoko, heading straight for the stage. I was trapped. I hurried to Nabiki and blurted, "I have to slip away! Do something to attract their attention until I can reach an exit!"
"Moi? And why should I do that?"
"I'm trying to convince them I am an ordinary girl! They think that I'm haunting myself!"
"Given the circumstances," mused Nabiki, "that almost makes sense."
"Help me, willya?" I snapped. "Quit stalling!"
"I reiterate - why should I do that?"
I sighed. "More money?"
"That might lend some inspiration to my creativity."
"Okay! I'll owe you another ten thousand yen! Go distract them!"
"My brain is working already," she said, with a smile that set off a warning claxon in the back of my mind. "I have the perfect wardoff."
I called her back. "I just got a very bad feeling," I said. "What were you going to tell him?"
"Oh, only that you are ovulating right now and didn't want to be disturbed." Nabiki stopped in thoughtful silence and added, "That's a very interesting shade of deep red. I don't think I've ever seen anyone's face turn that color."
"You're crazy! Never mind! I'll escape without your help!"
"Does that mean you won't pay me my ten thou?"
"When hell freezes over!" I felt a finger prodding my shoulder and turned to find Pops staring at me. He looked at his fingertip and pushed my shoulder again.
"Hey, this gal's real!" Pops said.
"Don't prod her, Dear," Mom said.
"She ain't a ghost! We were wrong all along! You realize what this means?"
"Yes, Dear."
"It means my boy's a real stud! Lookit that chick! Ain't she a beaut?"
"She is lovely, Father. What is your name, child?"
"Cinderella." I simpered and struck a kawaii pose, trying to be sweet, charming and inoffensive. I even giggled. There is no bottom when you set out to deceive the ones you love.
HIROSHI (Too Late to Turn Back Now, Mama Told Me Not to Come):
I raised my voice to announce, "I am entering the contest!" Suddenly I was noticed and eager students pushed me onto the stage.
"Wait!" cried Ranma, "I still don't trust th'old bastard! I ain't decided, yet!" Akane unceremoniously poured a glass of cold water over him and Ranma-chan grumbled, "I guess I decided."
"Den come on up!" Principal Kuno called.
"Just a minute!"
"Who dat say, 'just a minit'?" called the principal.
Akane struggled through the crowd surrounding the stage. "I'm entering, too!" she cried.
"Why are you doing this?" Ranma-chan gruffed as Akane stood between us.
Akane gave him a sweet smile. "Because I've heard you sing."
"I don't sound that bad!"
"No, you sound very good...as long as you have someone to back you up."
"Hmmph! I suppose you think you can do better?" Ranma-chan crossed her arms and looked away, "Besides, y'ain't got the chest for it."
"I do too!" Akane glared, then restrained herself. "This is important, Ranma! No matter which one of us wins, we'll both make the same wish! And after all...it is singing, and I've had more training in singing than you have."
"Don't mean you'll win! I'm gonna be goin' all out!"
"Good! Maybe this time you'll take me seriously!"
"Kanes! Wahines! Dis does my old heart good..." The principal's announcement broke into their rapport.
"He has a heart?" Ranma-chan muttered under her breath.
"...cause I got anuddah prize fo' the winnah! An' dats the reason de contest is fo' de wahines, only!"
A curtain slid aside. Basking in the glare of the spotlight was the tall, handsome scion of a long list of glorious ancestors, the epitome of perfection in kendo skills, resplendant in his nobility.
"I refuse to be slopped off like a mere token in a bagetelle!" snarled Takewaki.
"An' de winnah gets to date my bodashus son!"
"Never!" cried Takewaki, "Again, I refuse! I will not be...my fair Akane? My precious Pig-tailed girl? The mysterious but alluring Blue Venus?"
"Argggh!" cried three female voices as one.
"My Akane!" cried Tatewaki. As he rushed to grab her, Akane responded with a dropkick. To our surprise, Kuno landed on his feet, still on the stage.
Tatewaki turned his attention to the next selection on his menu. "Pig-tailed Girl!"
Ranma-chan leaped to meet him, feet-first. Tatewaki's backward somersault dropped him upright and ready to lavish his noble affection upon his third choice.
"How'd he do that?" Ranma wondered.
"With my protective auto-stabilization guard!" announced the youthful blond girl we had seen earlier. She swung onto the stage beside Kuno and indicated a device attached to Tatewaki's belt. "No one shall harm a hair on my..."
She stopped to stare at me. She screeched, "I've seen you before! You're responsible for my condition! You will pay for that!"
"Mara?" I asked, "Do I know you?" I looked closer and felt my warning senses going ballistic. Oh, yes. Add a gray mop of hair, a sagging monstrosity of a face, and a couple of hundred years, and you had her. A demoness. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled in alarm.
Tatewaki had his own agenda. He shrugged her off and came toward me, calling, "My Mystery Girl!"
"Harlot!" shrilled the demoness as she tried to hold him back, "How dare you trifle with the affections of my darling Tatewaki-chan? I shall never forgive you!"
"Darling..." Ranma-chan halted, stunned.
"...Tatewaki-chan?" Akane finished her exclamation.
"I thought she had the hots for Saotome," Nabiki added.
"My adorable Blue Venus! Know this, that I, Tatewaki Kuno, the peril of Furinkan High Kendo and also of an azure disposition, the Blue Thunder, adore thee. I love you, my mysterious darling!"
"Try and dodge this spell, you sweetheart stealing bimbo!" the demoness shouted. She threw something at me which looked like smoke and smelled like burnt insulation.
"Ack!" Now I knew what it was like to be zapped by Miss Hinako. My arms were leaden. I could hardly stand. I was in trouble. There was no way I could enter the competition in my weakened state.
As I drooped there, a strange, dumpy little lady pushed past me onto the stage. "I warned you!" She yelled at Nabiki, and began throwing white rectangles out over the audience. "These were 'borrowed' from your purse, last night, while you were feeding your face! Now, you'll both pay!" The dumpy woman laughed as she pointed at me.
Yup. I was in trouble, big time. As puny as she was, she could whip me with one finger. But, surely she didn't expect me to fight her!
She didn't. My problems doubled as two mounds of lard and muscle bounded onto the stage and uttered their war cry.
"Aha! And now we have you!"
"I'm toast," I whimpered.
It was a good thing that my superbly conditioned body could absorb an enormous amount of pain, because my superbly conditioned body was absorbing an enormous amount of pain.
The sumo brothers slung me from one end of the stage to the other. They swatted me back and forth like a badminton shuttlecock. They shot hoops with me. Then they flipped me disdainfully off to the side, gave each other high-fives, and swaggered off the stage in triumph.
I wound up lying on my back, my head hanging over the edge of the stage, wondering why no one was watching the massacre.
They were all looking at photographs, while Nabiki was yowling under her breath about 'revenge'.
Daisuke pounced on one photo and exclaimed, "There's a cute redhead - I thought so! Ranma-chan! What a figure! She looks great!"
Another student cried, "Shampoo, by the beach! What a doll, VavaVoom!"
Third student: "Do people actually say 'Vavavoom' any more?"
Yet another: "Of course not, you idiot! This is hyperbole!"
Third student, looking around: "But, I don't see her anywhere in the gym!"
Another student: "Even Nabiki looks good! And Akane-chan, sunbathing - hubbahubba!"
Yet another: "See? I rest my case."
Daisuke: "Who's the blonde? Nice bod, the face is hidden, but that's about all. Man, she's underdressed!"
Another student: "That's the skimpiest bikini I've EVER seen! She's nearly naked!"
I sneezed, feeling a chill which did not come from air conditioning.
"Yo!" came an upside down voice, and an upside-down Ranma-chan leaned up at me. "Did'ya want me to lend a hand?"
"Naw," I wheezed. "I had everything under control."
"Why didn'cha just blast'em?"
"Too weak. I got zapped by a spell."
"Oh. Funny, y'got chi rollin' offa ya. You could'a 'matabashiki-ed' them! All ya needed was the confidence."
I groaned and tried to lift my hand. My fist fell to the stage floor with a thump. "I'm a little low on that, right now," I said.
An upside down Basho appeared and glowered happily at me. "Master Hiroshi!" he exclaimed, "I have succeeded! You need never have to worry about inadvertent changeover again!"
"I don't have to - what?"
"Watch!"
-poof-
I lost no time in getting upright and checking myself out. I was male, in a boy's uniform underneath the gym shorts which I hastily removed. Full strength, which was not much, but it was all mine.
"What have you done?" I wailed.
"Oh, there is no need to thank me," Basho said as he preened himself. "I merely used a proscribed method to protect you from loose words, but it was for a good cause!"
"You've got to change me back! I have to save Kidori!"
He gave me a scandalized look. "But that's impossible!" he said, "I never learned that portion. Besides, why would you want something that is obviously not good?"
"Hiroshi-chan!"
"Mom?"
"Darling, what is this? I never realized that you were interested in this kind of a girl!" Mom was holding up one of the pictures of me in a bikini.
"Heh. What kind of a girl, Mom?"
"Why, a career girl, Hiroshi-chan! This changes everything! Of course you have my permission to date her!"
"You'll never see her again," I said, with such a stricken look on my face that Hainoko guessed the awful truth. "Basho took her away," I elaborated.
"That girl was Hiroshi," said Hainoko. I didn't object. No point in hiding the truth, now that it was all over.
"Why, dear!" Mom said to her, "I didn't realize you wanted to go into acting! You have such an imagination! But you must emphasize the right word when you want to make the audience believe a line like that. You should say, 'That girl WAS Hiroshi.' See?"
"But it's true!" Hainoko said, looking to me for support. I nodded at her, feeling miserable. "Hiroshi changed into her! It was a wish!"
Mom hugged her. "My dear Hainoko! You'll become an actress yet!"
"I don't wanna be an actress," Hainoko grumbled as she struggled to get free. "I want to be an accountant."
HIROSHI (Gimme That Ol' Time Rockn'Roll):
On the stage, life went on. Principal Kuno was saying, "And de theme o' de contest be 'South Sea Serenade'!"
"We are the Furinkan Rock and Roll Club!" A small but strident group of students pushed forward to announce, "We demand equal time!"
The spokesperson was dressed in a sequined shirt, tight pants, and a scarf. He struck a pose with an exaggerated hip projection and pointed at the ceiling as he said, "Too long has our glorious artform been ignored! It is time for beautiful music to flood once more upon the land! The theme of the show should be Rockn'roll, and we believe that's true!"
"Hokay, den! De theme of the show be Rockn'Roll! Along wid a Hawaiian Luau, wid the girls in grass skirts! It gonna be a martial arts rock'nroll luau!"
"All RIGHT!" crowed Ranma-chan. "Martial arts! I'm sure to win, now!"
"But that's absurd!" ranted the purist spokes-Elvis, "You can't mix ukeleles with steel guitars! It simply isn't done!"
"Er...there was Blue Hawaii," mentioned one of the lesser Elvi.
"The King never wore a grass skirt!" frothed the leader, "It's an abomination of the beauty and purity of our art!"
"Is he talking about Rock and Roll?" someone else asked.
"Yes," cried the head of the Elvi. "I mean the sacred R&R! Not the sweaty, physically brutal act of mayhem these martial artists perform!"
The first student scratched his head. "There's a difference?"
The head Elvis screamed, "You will not find another girl who would stoop to defile our glorious artform! No one will agree!"
A purple-haired beauty puffed into the auditorium, dropped her bike at the door and collapsed into a seat. She roused enough to shout, "Shampoo agree! Shampoo beat anyone, anytime! Will help Airen, no matter what!" Aside, she asked, "What Shampoo just agree to do?" There was a hushed murmur as Rock and Roll was explained, then she continued in a smaller voice, "Oh. That anything like log fighting?"
"Count me in, too, Sugar!" called Ukyo.
"Hokay! I got one more wish comin'!" Principal Kuno cried.
"He'll ruin everything!" cried Mara. "I'll have to throw everything I can into this spell!" She reached deep within her teenaged being to find the rigid discipline to project a final link to the card, as the principal spoke one more time.
"An' now, my kiekes and kanes - th' moment we bin waitin' for! Da Big Kahuna say, 'I wish we have some bodashus music fo' de big contest!' Th' contest..." Principal Kuno stopped, cleared his throat, and tried again, "...gonna be danced and pranced by de...de... de Primrose Path! Come on down!"
Mara closed her eyes and shuddered. "So close!" she whispered.
The center of the stage was obscured by a thick, soft explosion of white smoke. Out of the clouds came the wail of a tortured guitar, the glissando shimmer of an inspired synthesizer and the staccato tromp of snare and kettle drums.
Through the billows, Guapo looked out over the audience. She called, "Hey, man. Like, where are we?"
"Furinkan High," Jupooku replied, not unsettled at all.
"Bitchin'!" decided Guapo. She ran the rims on her drums and the group swung into a rousing rendition of 'Peppermint Twist'.
Mara stared at her bouncing feet in horror. "Not again!" she wailed, "I'm immune to disco, now!"
"This ain't disco!" called Guapo, "It's..."
"...it's Rockn'Roll!" A team of scarved, sideburned, and sequined dancers leaped onstage to finish her statement,
"Arrrgghhhh!" cried Mara as she Twisted across the stage.
"Who appointed her to the entertainment committee?" wondered the first student.
Among the remainder of the students, the reaction was not nearly so laid back. Pandemonium reigned as students pressed toward the stage to enter the contest.
"Dis' card too dangerous to leave lying around," Principal Kuno was heard to say. "I gotta find some place to lock it away, some place REAL safe!"
Jupooku hit a bass chord, the drums thumped, cymbals whispered and then the music stopped.
All conversations ceased and a deathly quiet fell upon the audience, as a lone figure mounted the stage platform and addressed the principal.
"I would enter the contest!"
I stood in numbed shock, weak and useless, unable to help, unable to do anything but choke back a sob and a silent question -
"Kidori?"
End: Chapter Fifteen
Partial list of name-droppings:
I Can't Get Next to You, sung by The Temptations
Young Girl, sung by The Union Gap, featuring Gary Puckett
Do You Believe in Magic, sung by The Lovin' Spoonful
Kind of a Drag, sung by The Buckinghams
Too Late to Turn Back Now, by Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose
Mama Told Me Not to Come, sung by Three Dog Night