Violet's childhood with this curse was no picnic. She had to adapt herself in many strange ways through the years. Some adjustments were manageable, while others were less so.
As is typical, she began rolling over within six months of age, beginning to master crawling soon afterwards. When she became a blueberry each sunset, however, crawling was out of the question. Eventually, to her parents' relief, she maneuvered herself during these times by sticking one hand straight out and pushing. She did a complete, 360-degree roll, and it worked almost as well as crawling.
After Violet learned how to walk, moving herself after sundown was a bit trickier. She was fortunate enough to have her feet still touching the ground while in her blueberry form, so she eventually figured out that she could move if she waddled. It wasn't very efficient, but at least this was only during the time of day when she was less likely to be active anyway, and since the family lived in a one-story house, there were no stairs to bounce down by accident. Unfortunately, once she became too heavy for her parents to lift into bed as a blueberry (that is, at the tail end of toddlerhood), this waddling about in the evening had to come to an end.
Oddly, every time Violet turned into a blueberry or back to normal, whatever she was wearing also changed shape to fit her. It didn't matter what material each article was—leather, denim, cotton, polyester—it all formed around her body and continued to fit perfectly, without a hint of outgrowing. (Granted, she was usually in her pajamas, but there were a few instances where she had to go to bed in her regular clothes, due to time being of the essence to get under the covers.) Her parents figured that this was probably just part of the curse's magic. After all, this whole situation would have been impossible without some kind of magic in the first place.
Early accommodations included a household rule that bedtime was strictly eight o'clock unless the hitting of dusk at certain times of the year demanded otherwise. Violet had to get her teeth brushed immediately after dinner, while she still had her arms to do so. To prevent accidentally rolling out of the bed while tossing and turning, a bed rail had to be installed on both sides, and when company or one of Violet's friends was over, the rails were taken down temporarily and hidden in storage. Then there was the whole issue of occasionally having to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, the improvised solution to which would probably be better not to describe at all. While not a rule, her bed had two pillows stacked on top of each other so that her head could reach them.
Sam and Scarlett were still fairly young, but they decided that they were done having kids. They were worried about the unlikely circumstance that another child of theirs would be cursed, yes, but more importantly, another child could serve as a vector for word of mouth. They did not want the world to know that they had a blueberry for a daughter, and there was no need for the world to know. It could only stir up trouble. True, they had told a few trusting relatives, but that was it.
...
Starting around when Violet got old enough to start kindergarten, some odd household rules had to be set over time. Sam and Scarlett made each one as an awkward experience happened. In one case, during the early winter, Scarlett was giving Violet, now age five, a bath. It was about six o'clock in the evening, and the family had just finished an early dinner. Violet was enjoying herself with her favorite toy tugboat while her mother was rubbing some shampoo in Violet's hair. All of a sudden, Violet's skin started to turn blue. Panicking, Scarlett rushed to the window in her bedroom across the hall and peeped out of a blind. Sure enough, the sun was going down, with a few stars visible. She had failed to realize that this time of year was when nighttime began earlier.
"Mommy! I'm blowing up again!" Violet shrieked from the bathtub. Scarlett rushed back into the bathroom as quickly as possible to see Violet's torso, arms, and legs filling up with spontaneously-generating blueberry juice, as usual. To Scarlett's horror, the extra mass being added to the tub was causing the bathwater to become displaced and rise slowly. Quickly, she scooped up some of the water in a large cup to pour over Violet's hair (to rinse out as much of the shampoo as possible) and pushed down the shower lever to unplug the drain.
"Can you get out, honey?!" Scarlett held out her hand in a somewhat beckoning position, hoping that Violet would take it immediately.
Violet just shook her head, with an "Un-un." Unfortunately, her arms were filling up past the point of being able to bend them. She was almost outgrowing the tub's width, too.
Thinking fast, Scarlett grabbed Violet by the torso, pulled her out, and got a towel out of the vanity. Violet tried to put the towel over herself, but her arms and legs were sinking into her oval of a body, and she couldn't maneuver them. Scarlett just wrapped the towel instead and took a washcloth to blot Violet's hair.
"Sam, I have a situation over here!" Scarlett called into the hallway. Sam was in the living room, well within earshot of that part of the house.
He walked into the bathroom. Seeing Violet as a blueberry was no surprise to him anymore—after all, he had had over five years to get used to the sight—so he didn't become shocked in the slightest. Still, this was a bit of a problem. How would she get ready for bed?
"At least you finished washing her hair, I hope."
"I got as much as I could done. She almost displaced the water right out of the tub!"
Sam's heart skipped a beat at hearing this. "Well, at least we dodged THAT bullet!"
Violet spoke up. "Mommy, could you adjust this towel? I can feel water dripping off of it!"
Scarlett did so, tucking a bit of the towel around Violet's neck. "Is that better?"
"Uh-huh."
Sam pondered for a moment, his face scrunched up in thought. "I suppose we'll have to make some rather…odd adjustments, just for tonight. There's no way she'll be able to get into bed."
Scarlett looked down at Violet. "Honey, you can waddle to your room, can't you?"
Violet made a tighter grip on the towel. "I'll try."
It took about four minutes for Violet to waddle out of the bathroom and into her bedroom, but she managed. Once there, she tipped face-first onto the floor, exhausted.
Sam and Scarlett had to let Violet sleep in that towel that night. There was just no way she could fit into any of her pajamas. Additionally, since she couldn't get into bed, the blanket and pillows had to be taken off of the bed and adjusted accordingly on the floor. Thankfully, she was comforted when Sam gave her her favorite teddy bear. Although Violet had never been able to cuddle it in bed, it still brought her some peace of mind the way any favorite stuffed animal would.
The Beauregardes had to make a new rule after that night: from that point on, bathing (and later showering) was to be strictly a morning activity.
...
Another big incident happened the summer when Violet was eight years old. Sam was going to be late coming home from the car lot where he worked, so Scarlett and Violet were all by themselves for the afternoon. Scarlett had to run a few errands, so naturally, due to Violet's age, she had to tag along.
It started to cut into dinnertime, which didn't bother Scarlett so much since she knew that Sam wasn't going to be home. As a reward for being so patient with all of the things Scarlett had to do, she treated Violet to dinner at a local hamburger joint. Dinner went off without a hitch, and they were soon back in the car, on their way home.
Scarlett had not counted on traffic being so bad.
At first, it was manageable; there was nothing short of what one would expect to see at rush hour. Soon, however, Scarlett encountered major freeway congestion. There had been a car crash about a mile up the road, and it was blocking the lanes leading up to it.
Without turning around, Scarlett made a comment to Violet while focusing on the freeway. "I am so sorry, Violet. Thank you for being so patient on such short notice."
Violet groaned mentally, but she resorted to sighing and merely gave a faint smile.
Nearly half an hour passed. Scarlett stopped and started, stopped and started, hoping all the while that the car would pass the crash site soon. She wished she had brought at least one of her The Crystals 8-track tapes to listen to to alleviate the boredom, but this would be over eventually.
Out of the corner of her eye, Violet saw what appeared to be the start of the sun going down. Startled, she turned to look again. The evening's sunset was indeed happening.
She knew what that meant. Her heart going a mile a minute, Violet looked down at her right arm to check if it was turning blue. Sure enough, it was.
"Um, Mother…" Violet could feel her stomach starting to expand.
"What is it?"
"The sun's going down! I'm becoming a blueberry!"
Scarlett's eyes widened. Although she didn't need to see what was going on, she knew it anyway and knew that their being on the freeway was going to be a disaster. Luckily, she happened to have the windshield reflector handy, so she tossed it to the back seat. "Here! Put this over you!"
Violet managed to undo the strap, and the whole thing snapped into its rectangular shape. By now, her arms were stuck by her sides, and the billowing out of her back caused her to start sliding down from her seat. This was the first time she had ever been stuck in the car at night, and it was a completely unaccommodating environment. Before she knew it, she had slid to the floor and gotten jammed between the floor and the sofa-like seat extending behind her.
"EEK!" she squealed as she slipped. The windshield reflector landed on top of her, covering her face just barely. The form change being complete, there was nothing she could do to pull the sheet away. At least the reflector was hiding just a little bit of her form.
"I'll pull over as soon as I can, okay? This traffic is still congested!" Scarlett assured Violet. Scarlett had seen the reflector cover in the rearview mirror, but there wasn't a stopping point. There wouldn't be one for a few more minutes, at least.
Finally, they passed the plug and were back in familiar territory. When Scarlett got into their neighborhood, after making sure that nobody else was around to see the predicament, she pulled over and got out of the car to check on Violet, removing the reflector in the process. The early night sky made Violet somewhat harder to see, but the streetlights in the neighborhood more than made up for that by at least shining some light by the curb.
Violet was practically wedged between the front and back rows of the vehicle, with just barely enough space left. "Are you okay?"
Violet nodded slightly. "It doesn't hurt, but I'm totally stuck! I've tried tipping, too!"
"Well, we'll be home in just a few blocks. Hang in there."
Scarlett got back into the car and started it back up. She knew that Sam was probably home by now, and boy, was he going to be in for a surprise. As a side note, Scarlett had heard talk lately about the state of Montana possibly mandating the addition of seat belts in cars within the next few years. She couldn't help but wonder if this could have been prevented had their car had some of those brand-new things? Probably not, as Violet's shape would still have caused her to slide from the angle of her seat, getting wedged by the seat belt instead. Oh, well; that struggle would be a ways off as long as the family was allowed to keep their Ford the way it was currently.
When Scarlett pulled into the driveway, she immediately came into the house to alert Sam to the situation. The two of them tried pulling Violet out sideways, pushing her, and trying to get her to grab onto different objects that they would then pull in the opposite direction, before Sam finally resorted to grabbing a spatula from the kitchen and wedging said spatula in front of Violet's midsection. She dislodged, at which point they finally pulled her out by her sides.
It was after ten o'clock by the time she finally got out; Violet was much too exhausted from the ordeal even to try to waddle. She tipped backwards (the blueberry equivalent of fainting), but luckily landed on her round back, without her head even being close to hitting the ground.
Her parents improvised a bit, leading to the discovery of the only positive thing that had arisen from this ordeal. They tried rolling her very slowly towards the front door, just like she had tried to do herself when she was a baby. They had to turn her 90 degrees for each doorway (and Sam kept the spatula ready in case Violet got lodged in any of them). I call this "positive" because they made a mental note that rolling their daughter was much more efficient than waddling and might work out in some cases in the long run. Finally, they got to her room, and, as you might have guessed, this turned out to be another night of sleeping on the floor. It was a street clothes night, too.
The Beauregardes came up with yet another rule following this incident: from now on, dinners that won't be home-cooked will be takeout. Violet was already restricted in terms of nighttime activities, but this became the latest one to add to the evening list.
...
Violet could not avoid this curse impacting her social life, either. Obviously, she could not join any social groups that involved dusk activities, but she was more limited than one might expect in that regard. When she was twelve years old, a new girl moved into Miles City just before the school year began and just so happened to be enrolled in Violet's school. Her name was Cornelia Prinzmetel, and she quickly became what was known by the junior high students as "the cool kid". While she didn't have much going for her in the way of good grades (she was a slacker, in fact), nearly all of the girls wanted to be her friend because of her looks and fashion sense. Violet eventually found herself jumping on the friendship bandwagon, hoping that Cornelia would want to hang out with her.
Cornelia was a little older than Violet. Just a few months into term, Cornelia's thirteenth birthday approached. She decided to invite as many of the girls she had attracted as possible, Violet included, to the party. Cornelia did so by gathering the little group together at a table in the courtyard during lunch a week in advance and handing out invitations.
"So, what is this going to involve?" one of the other girls asked.
"Oh, it'll be just your typical slumber party. We'll have pillow fights, gossip, tell ghost stories, and eat all of the candy we want 'til we're sick!"
Violet felt like she had just been hit by a truck. "S-slumber party?!"
Cornelia turned to Violet. "Oh, yes! We'll all be staying the night, so be sure to come in your pajamas and bring your sleeping bag!"
Violet immediately lapsed into a horrible thought. She imagined herself all tucked in, the other girls in the living room with her, when she suddenly turned blue and began to inflate in front of them during a ghost story. All of a sudden, there would be wild screaming, the operator would probably be dialed, the curse would have to be explained to emergency services as a counterindication of an emergency, and then Violet's big secret would be out. She would never hear the end of it.
"Hello? Is something wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost!" another girl called out, waving the palm of her hand in front of Violet's face.
"Oh, sorry!" Violet snapped back to reality. Sighing, she looked at the invitation sadly. She turned to Cornelia. "I can't go."
Cornelia cringed. "Really? Why not?"
"I, um…well, I…" How could Violet possibly have explained this? "…have personal issues."
"Oh, really? Are you scared of the dark?" Cornelia said this in a mocking tone, surprising Violet. She had never heard Cornelia speak quite like that before.
In answer, Violet held up one hand, positioned so that there was a tiny bit of space between the index finger and thumb, as if to say, "A little."
"Why is that?" another girl at the lunch table demanded.
"I'd rather not say," Violet replied, squirming nervously.
Cornelia paused in thought. "Wait, I know…you're a bed-wetter, aren't you!"
"WHAT?! No! It's just that—"
"I bet you are! Why else would you be oh-so-scared to sleep over at a friend's house? Huh? Huh? Admit it!" At "oh-so-scared", Cornelia pursed her lips to look like a fish's and pronounced the words as such, leaning inwards for emphasis.
"I am NOT a bed-wetter! I just have problems with the dark, okay?!"
"Oh, yeah? Then say what!"
"No!" At this point, Violet looked ready to cry.
Another girl gave a suspicious nod. Giggling, she leaned into the ear of the girl sitting next to her, whispering, "Yeah. Bed-wetter." The other girl giggled in reply.
Violet couldn't take it anymore. She got up from the table and moved as far away in the courtyard as possible. She wasn't sure that she could even finish eating her lunch.
When she came home from school, Violet slapped her invitation onto the kitchen counter, grousing to Scarlett that attendance to this slumber party was going to be out of the question.
"Oh, I know, Violet," Scarlett responded, upset. "I wish that wasn't the case."
"Cornelia was just so nice, though. Now she's a bully!" Violet pouted.
"I'm sorry to hear that, sweetie. Some people just switch at the drop of a hat. It gets annoying, but there are plenty of traits that balance people out." Scarlett gave Violet a smooth stroke on the head.
Violet took this remark to heart, but that didn't stop her from thinking of all of the fun that she was missing the day that the sleepover rolled along. As compensation, her parents allowed her to have her own make-up party immediately after dinner. She got into her favorite pajamas (which, painfully coincidentally, happened to be royal purple) early and brought over her teddy bear, Sam made popcorn on the stove, and the three of them all sat around the living room, taking turns with telling impromptu campfire tales while gorging themselves on the popcorn until it was all gone.
Violet got her teeth brushed and into bed immediately afterwards. A while later, as she felt her pajama top stretching over her slowly-inflating gut in the darkness, a bunch of thoughts about the false accusation of being a bed-wetter crossed her mind. Those girls are probably all gossiping about my being absent right now, she thought. Oh, well. It's not like they actually were cordial enough for me to care about them anyway. Besides, I'll never know if they ARE talking about that.
This was the last thought Violet had before giving a big yawn. Now fully a blueberry, she pressed her left hand against her mattress to tip herself on her side. Within moments, she was asleep.
Despite this incident, while most people would have ended the friendship in a heartbeat, Violet decided to forgive Cornelia a short time after this. They had spent too much valuable time together, after all, and both of them had common interests at hand. Mainly, Violet loved to one-up Cornelia at their favorite activities, the newest of which will be explained in a short time, and they found it fun to show their superiority to others besides.
...
Violet being under a spell aside, her childhood was pretty normal. She had a few (but only a few) friends besides Cornelia and did all of the daytime activities that one would expect from a child. Still, no one outside of the family was to know about the spell. Violet had asked plenty of times over the years why this kept happening to her, but her parents always kept it vague. "A witch cursed you moments before you were born," they would say. "It won't stop until you're older, but we'll explain those details when the time comes."
Junior high was when Violet started to have peer pressure cave in big time. Cornelia, who had been a huge fan of chewing gum and chewed it copiously, introduced Violet to the habit as a means of physical and mental relaxation. She loved it instantly, and by the end of seventh grade (the year of the sleepover incident), it was rare to see her without a piece. No matter what, however, she always, ALWAYS shied away from blueberry-flavored gum. Scarlett wasn't too fond of this, but Sam was happy with it as long as Violet was.
The fuel to the fire with the gum-chewing was that the two girls found a way to make it ridiculously competitive before too long. When both Cornelia and Violet had a piece with them almost nonstop, Cornelia got the idea to try to chew a single piece for a world record length. She broke the two-month barrier late in the summer after eighth grade and let Violet know constantly, and dang it, Violet was going to top that. She aimed for three months, just to get Cornelia back for it.
It was at about this two-year timeframe that Violet started to become rather snobbish, too. Sam and Scarlett had neglected to teach their daughter to retain proper etiquette, what with the role modeling that they lacked themselves when family wasn't involved, and pretty soon, bragging and losing patience became synonymous with her personality. True, it's nothing new with any preadolescent, but when school staff and other adults started to take note of this, her parents always dismissed it, as well as the gum-chewing, as just a phase that she would outgrow.
Adolescence really worried Sam and Scarlett. After all, the only way to abolish this curse was to have Violet's ideal soulmate give her her first kiss, but even that would have to wait until she had known this person long enough. Dating definitely would be an issue here, what with the very real risk of someone finding out what happened to her at night. It didn't help that Violet was now instinctively starting to take note of every cute boy around school and in the neighborhood whom she could find. The Beauregardes eventually began to wonder at this point whether they would need some extra help in raising and counseling. Unfortunately, no one around seemed qualified…or were they?
A/N: For those who need another period clarification, The Crystals were a soul-singing girl group who were hugely popular in the 1960s. They were the ones who originally sang the hit song "Da Doo Ron Ron". In this case, Mrs. Beauregarde owned several 8-track copies of their albums.
