Just got back from Canada! It was pretty amazing. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!
OoO
It had seemed as though Indian summer would last forever, but due to the crisp chill outside and the orangey autumn light filtering through the art room windows, it was impossible to ignore the calender date: October 9th. Julian and Jenny sat side by side at the otherwise unoccupied end of a paint-splattered table. Art was the only real class they had together, so the pair always stayed close for the twice-a-week double period.
"Y'know, Halloween is on a full moon this year," Julian said to his hard-at-work friend, "kinda creepy, huh?"
"I guess…but it doesn't really mean anything, right?" Jenny frowned down at her project, then looked sharply over at Julian, "Wait, does it?"
The shadowling grinned, "It's just that crazy things can happen on a night like that."
Jenny was not content with the half-answer and prompted, "Like scary things?"
"Yeah…" Julian stretched his arms on the table like a cat, splaying his fingers out over the pocked wood, "or amazing things."
Jenny sighed; Julian and his mysteries. She decided to let the matter drop and focus on her art assignment. It was a good one today; with Halloween around the corner, the teacher had passed tiny pumpkins out for the students to carve with Exacto knives. Jenny was currently using the small blade to cut out her Jack-o-Lanterns triangular eyes and friendly mouth, while Julian watching beside her. The truth was, Julian just liked how adorable Jenny looked when she concentrated—emerald eyes alight with the internal flame of determination, pink tongue-tip poking ever-so-slightly from perfect, parted lips…
After the peaceful silence had extended several minutes, Julian began riffling through the pile of fat, tear-drop shaped seeds and pale orange innards that slopped over Jenny's newspaper base. In low, sepulchral tones, he sang, "Great green gobs of gooey, grimy, greasy gopher guts, mutilated monkey meat, tantalizing birdes feet—all in jars of putrid purple porpoise pus—"
"And I don't got no spoon," Jenny finished with the bare glimmer of a smile. It was the song she and Julian always sang when they carved their own, full-sized Jack-O-Lanterns together in the Thornton kitchen.
"Exactly," Juliam murmured, and Jenny felt the cold slime of pumpkin guts on the back of her neck.
"Gross," Jenny muttered aloud, but in her head she was remembering the slippery feel of pumpkin gut chunks in her own hand, then the pastel orange blob flying through the air at Julian; the plop of strange vegetable matter as it struck either of the children, leaving wet and sweetish-smelling stains on their clothes. Every year, Jenny and Julian somehow found themselves engaged in such a battle, laughing and ducking behind chairs and under the table as they hurled handfuls of squash innards at each other. This game would inevitably end with sticky orange gobs slopped about the kitchen like mutant spaghetti and a highly irritated-yet-amused Mrs. Thornton scolding them.
"Careful," Julian's voice in Jenny's ear and fingers around her wrist jolted the blonde from her happy memory. She looked to see that in her daze, Jenny had almost let the Exacto knife nick her finger. She glanced at Julian as he released her wrist. My Guardian Angel, she thought. Of course, it would only have been a very minor injury, but Julian had made it his job to protect Jenny from any danger, no matter how small. "Are we hanging out this weekend?" He asked casually, "Or…"
"Uh," Jenny shifted in her hard plastic seat; she felt bad for always blowing off her best friend. "Tom wanted me to go to a movie with him Saturday."
"I see," Julian said, laconic as ever.
"You know, the period's gonna end soon," Jenny changed the subject, "have you worked on your Jack-O-Lantern at all?"
"Ah..." Julian glanced down at his gourd, "not really."
What Jenny didn't know was that he had been carving idle strokes into his pumpkin the entire time, not with his Exacto knife, but with magic—a much more precise and versatile tool. Now Julian could see the detailed image he'd transmuted onto the orange flesh: a striking likeness of the oblivious blonde beside him. The boy started at the sight; that wasn't what I meant to do. Julian very nearly blushed, and this made him want to kick himself all the harder; Julian may very well have been a school boy with a crush, but that didn't mean he had to act like it.
As the bell rang, Julian squashed his hollowed orb cleanly between his hands and chucked the resulting mash in the garbage can, all the while ignoring Jenny's quizzical looks.