Thursday, September 8, 2011

Reflection: Chapter 3


Chapter Three
            Well it took about 3 days before it seemed like Johnny was back to normal.  Oh, he forgave me as soon as I got a hold of him and apologized, but those were just words. Even though he said he was fine, he didn’t act like he was comfortable around me; especially when he was with both me AND Jessica. “So this is the famous Johnny,” she said the night she first met him when I missed dinner with him, “I’ve heard so much about you. I almost feel like I kind of know you already.”
            Johnny just gave her a half smile and said, “Well if you did actually know me then you’d know that my name is ‘John,’ not ‘Johnny.’ Anna is the only one who has ever called me ‘Johnny.’”
            Jessica looked astonished. Embarrassment doesn’t even begin to describe the way I felt at that moment. It reminded me so much of my first meeting with Mandi and I wanted to vomit. But instead of laughing it off with a nervous giggle like Liz did, I flat out punched him in the shoulder.
            “Ouch!” Johnny exclaimed and he started rubbing his injured shoulder. What a baby.
            “Quit acting like an immature child. Apologize…now.” I stared daggers into his face. I was NOT playing. Johnny just looked at me for a moment, sighed, then faced Jessica and said, “I’m sorry Jessica. That was very rude of me and I apologize. I guess I’m just jealous that Anna already found someone more interesting than me….Which I should have realized was inevitable. I’m not a very witty guy.”
            And, once again, I saw Johnny charm yet another female. I felt proud of him, that apology was way better than the one I got from Mandi…which was none. I honestly had no idea why she hated me so much. I have been nothing but nice to her. It didn’t take me long to realize that she was in Cadenza’s class with Johnny and me. She and Liz sat higher up in the back. After meeting a girl like her, it was kind of hard to miss her. Especially since she soon became the center of attention in that class.
            About 3 weeks after I had met her, Professor Cadenza was discussing urban legends. One of my favorites has always been the story of the known murderer on the loose with a hook for a hand. The story goes like this: two teenagers decide to go parking on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere. In the middle of some highly steamy, passionate kissing, the radio announcer interrupts the current rap song that’s playing for an emergency broadcast. Apparently a psychopathic serial killer with a hook for a hand had escaped from a nearby prison. This worries the girl, but the guy just wants to keep fooling around. However, the girl was too distracted to get back into it.
            So, with a heavy weight in his pants that wasn’t going away anytime soon, the boy walked out of the car to scope out the area. A very stupid idea in my opinion. Not that deciding to make out on a hill in the middle of the night near a local prison was a stroke of genius, but whatever. After a few minutes of being alone in the car, the girl started to hear scratching on the roof of the car. She was curious about what it was, but was too nervous to investigate. After about 5 more minutes of waiting on her boyfriend, she made up her mind and opened her car door. As soon as she did, the scraping sound got louder. What she saw when she looked on top of the car made her run screaming into the driver’s seat. Hanging above the car was her boyfriend, with a rope connected from a tree branch to his neck.  What she didn’t see, however, was that the other end of the rope was tied to the bumper of their car. Long story short, he died a painful death because his girlfriend flipped shit. When she got home to the safety of her neighborhood, there was a hook wedged into the car door on the passenger’s side. This story, and many others, was shared in Cadenza’s class that day.
            I don’t know what that particular story had to do with paranormal studies, but I wasn’t willing to argue the issue. However, before the class dismissed for the day, Mandi had a question to ask.
            “Professor Cadenza,” she started, “what about the legend of Bloody Mary?” Everyone stopped moving around as the familiar name registered in their minds. Cadenza looked around and didn’t seem surprised when he realized the question came from Mandi. “Well Amanda, what do you want to know about it?” I watched as everyone’s heads switched from the professor to Mandi. “Was she real?”
            Cadenza just shook his head. “There is no proof that such a person existed. There are legends based off quite a few Marys who lived in the past, but that’s all they are. Legends.” I thought that the issue had been dropped based on Cadenza’s last statement, but Mandi just couldn’t seem to let it go.
            “But sir, wasn’t Mary Worth a real person? Her body is buried in Jackson, Michigan.” The Cadenza just sighed and said, “If this is leading up to that ludicrous game of hers, then we had better end this conversation here and now.” I expected Mandi to give a polite, but clever comeback. Instead, with just the faintest trace of a smile on her face, she said, “Yes professor.” And with that, the conversation ended and class was dismissed.
For the rest of that day I was rather curious about Mandi’s odd inquiry about Bloody Mary. I myself had only heard about the legend a few years ago. All I knew about it was that if you say her name enough times while spinning in front of a bathroom mirror then her ghost haunts you, and, eventually, you die. I couldn’t understand Mandi’s interest in it. Personally, the thought of the ghost of a creepy little girl coming out of my bathroom mirror while I’m on the toilet or something, would scare the living shit out of me. So, you can imagine the utter joy I felt when Liz invited Jessica and me to her room for a “Bloody Mary ritual,” as she called it.
“Count me out.” My response came automatically, it required no thinking beforehand. Jessica glanced at me, then looked at Liz and said, “Just give us two seconds Lizzie.” Then Liz smiled and walked back to her room. After Jessica shut the door, she sent a glare my way. It wasn’t as extreme as the one she always gave to Mandi, but it still hurt. “Fine,” I sighed, “Whatever. Let’s pack.”
That night my stomach was in a bundle of knots. Jessica, on the other hand, was ecstatic. All she could talk about from the moment I said yes, until right when we got up to Liz’s door, was the slumber party. “We’ll stay up all night, we’ll talk about boys, we’ll stuff our faces, we’ll make prank phone calls, we’ll do each other’s hair and makeup…” and all that jazz. The only image that I had in my head about tonight, however, was a little girl floating out of the medicine cabinet and strangling me. I also wasn’t too keen on the fact that I would be spending the night in the same room as Mandi. I had a hard time trying to decide who frightened me more; Mary or Mandi. However, there was no going back now.
 Liz answered the door as soon as Jessica put her fist up against it. I thought that our rooms were kind of big, but with six girls in one room, I felt eerily claustrophobic. Aside from Jessica, Liz, Mandi, and myself, I was introduced to two of Mandi’s friends. Katie and Becca were both gorgeous brunettes who were on the volleyball team as well. Too bad they were as dumb as a post. One post, mind you, not two.
I found this out after talking with them about their travels around the world. You know how most people know that First Class is first, and then there’s business, then coach? Yeah…well...they didn’t. “So, I went to Italy this past summer with Becca,” Katie started, “and I have to say that First Class is starting to get shabby.”
“You normally ride first class?” I asked. “Well of course,” Becca answered, “we’re not gonna cough up all that extra money for Coach. We’re college students after all.” At first I laughed, but quickly shut myself up when I saw Liz roll her eyes at her friends and Jessica cover her smile with her hand and turn away. That’s when I realized they were serious, and they were such sweet girls that I didn’t have the heart to tell them they had it backwards. And then, to change the subject I suppose, Mandi turned out the lights, lit her face up with a flashlight, and said, “Let the games begin.”
Then we all huddled together while Mandi informed us of the story of Bloody Mary. “The legend of Mary Worth in Jackson, Michigan goes like this: Once upon a time there was a little girl named Mary. She was about 11 years old when she became deathly ill with scarlet fever. One night, her mother tried to rouse her, but she wouldn’t wake up. Everyone believed her to be dead. So, they buried her with a piece of string tied to her wrist that was connected to a bell right above her grave. It had been rumored around town that victims of scarlet fever had been buried alive because they gave off the impression of being dead. The night they buried Mary, everything was quiet and still. Around 3:00 in the morning, Mary’s parents fell into a fitful sleep. When her father awoke, he realized he overslept, and ran out of the cottage to his daughter’s fresh grave. What he found there made his heart stop. The bell post had fallen over. With no shovel nearby, Mary’s father frantically started digging away the dirt with his bare hands. When he finally got down to her coffin he pulled open the wooden latch, and dropped to his knees from the horror in front of him. He had found Mary with her hands in front of her, a frozen look of panic on her pale face, nails peeled off and bloody from scratching the top of her coffin. The legend is that if you say “Bloody Mary” in front of a bathroom mirror, with no light but candles, three times and spin each time, Mary appears to you when you make the final spin…and kills you. And she doesn’t just kill you, she butchers you.” During the course of this story, I had somehow managed to crush Jessica’s hand in my sweaty one. “So,” said Mandi in a terrifying voice, pointing the flashlight towards the bathroom, “who’s first?”

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