The Witch Hunter's Gauntlet (21 page)

Twelve minutes later they were in Sam’s room with Zoey’s closet doors thrown wide open. They had explained the situation to her
, and Zoey had already pulled out three blouses for Sam to try on.

“
Oooh, how about this one.” Zoey held up a black cutoff with a pink skull on the chest. “You could be a punk rocker.”

“Hmm, we’ll put that in the maybe pile
.” Sam tossed the shirt on Zoey’s bed.

“How about a ballerina?”
Zoey asked, holding up a pair of slippers.

“It’s too cold out for that.”

Zoey looked a little crushed. “Okay, you throw out an idea then.”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on,” Tasha prodded. “What do you want to be?”

Zoey
held up a short red dress. “This’ll get you some attention.”

“I don’t think
I-“

“Hold that thought,” Zoey said
, carefully laying the dress down on her bed before rummaging through her closet some more. She pulled out a pair of red high heels and a silver purse too small to hold anything larger than a cell phone.

“We could bleach your hair, get some gaudy fake jewelry, and you could go as Tiffany. It would be hilarious.”

“That’s perfect,” Tasha said.

“No,” Sam said as forcefully as she could.
“Absolutely not.”

If Sam was going to dress up like someone famous she was going to dress up as someone respectable, like Sara Berlin. Besides
, she sort of wanted something that people, namely Tiffany and her gang, couldn’t make fun of. She needed a costume that wouldn’t stand out too much.

“Okay,”
Zoey said a little disappointed. “Let’s see, I have these big clunky boots and a ruffled shirt, if you want to be pirate.”

Sam picked up one of the tall black boots.

“That’s it!” She rushed over to her computer.

“Really?”
Zoey asked, looking at the ruffled shirt with glee.

“Yes,” Sam said
, wiggling her mouse to wake up her computer. She went to her Witch Hunter’s Gauntlet file and pulled up a newspaper article with a photograph. “Check it out.”

Tasha and
Zoey crowded in around her.

The photo was of several college students, including two girls in pirate costumes, being arrested by campus police.

“That’s your godmother, isn’t it?” Zoey asked pointing at one of the girls.

“Yep, that’s Helen.” Sam pointed at the other girl. “And that’s my mom.”

“She’s gorgeous,” Tasha said.

“I know.” Sam zoomed out from the photo. “According to this ‘Chicago Maroon Assistant Editor Joanne McQueen and Student Body Treasurer Helen Wilson, seen here dressed as Anne Bonny and Mary Read, were among the two dozen students arrested at last night’s Halloween Ball after the celebration degenerated into a shameful barroom brawl.’”

“See, ball, not dance,” Tasha said. “And wow, your mom started a fight.”

“No,” Sam said with a laugh. “My dad did. He was fighting with Zack’s dad about something. This is the night my parents met.”

“He got her arrested and she still went out with him?” Zoey asked.

“Apparently.”

“So, you want to be a pirate, huh?” Zoey said stroking her chin. “Let’s see what I can do.”

After thirty minutes of digging through the closet and trying on clothes
, Sam had a pretty descent pirate costume going. She had a white ruffled pirate shirt and a long blue coat with red trim and big gold buttons. The pants were ugly, baggy, and brown, but Sam had to admit that they did look pretty piratey, and she topped off the look with the tall black boots.

“You need a hat. And a sword,” Zoey said
, surveying her creation.

“Don’t forget the eye
patch and parrot,” Tasha said making her best angry pirate face. “Aarrr.”

“No parrot, no eye
patch,” Sam said. “No peg leg either.”

“You’re no fun.”

Zoey checked her watch. “We’ve got an hour before the mall closes. And ten minutes before the city bus gets here.”

“You memorized the bus schedule?” Tasha asked
, impressed.

“Just to the mall.
You’ve got five minutes to change, Sam.”

Sam started to change when Tasha made big eyes at her. It took Sam a second to remember that she wasn’t supposed to leave campus.

“I probably shouldn’t go right now. If I’m going to go to the dance now then I have to get the first draft of my
The Grapes of Wrath
paper started,” Sam said. Sadly it was true. She had actually put it off to give herself something to do during the dance.

“Okay, we’ll go shop for you,” Tasha said playfully.
“If we have to.”

“Thanks a bunch.”

During the hour they were gone, Sam managed to write exactly three whole lines of what was supposed to be a seven-to-ten page paper on Steinbeck’s crazy overuse of symbolism.

“Success!”

Zoey
held up a cheap black tri-cornered hat with the skull and crossbones symbol on the side and a belt with a plastic sword and pistol.

Despite her better judgment
, Sam was actually starting to look forward to this dance. For the third time.

Sam stood alone in her room
, checking herself in the mirror for the umpteenth time. She readjusted her hat, trying to figure out just how far to push it back to show off her hair without looking like she was trying to show off her hair. It was a delicate balance.

She checked the time.

Tasha and Zoey had left for the ball twenty minutes ago. They had agreed that Sam would make a more dramatic appearance if she arrived stylishly late, but Tasha had restricted her to twenty-five minutes. After that she was coming to get her.

Sam wasn’t sure if that was part of Tasha trying to protect her, or if Tasha knew that without a deadline Sam would pace around the dorm room nervously for hours and eventually chicken out. Either way, she was grateful. 

She wondered what was going on right now. Had Lucas and Tiffany arrived by horse-drawn carriage to the fanfare of a dozen minstrels? Was Tiffany simply the most gorgeous person on the planet at this very moment? If so, would anyone even notice if Sam arrived at all?

There were so many questions, so few answers, but no shortage of worrying.

The only thing that made Sam feel even the slightest bit better was that Tasha had assured her that MTV was not allowed onto school grounds to film the dance. Dean Futuro, being the eccentric weirdo that he was, wouldn’t allow camera crews to wander around his campus. Apparently the only reason Sick and Wrong got away with it was that they were idiots and Dean Futuro could have them expelled and discredited in minutes.

She
had less than five minutes before Tasha was going to come looking for her. Sam plucked up her courage and reached for the doorknob.

Just then someone knocked
on the door.

Sam
took a step back.

Tasha wouldn’t knock. Zoey wouldn’t knock.

Who did she know that would knock?

“Who’s there?” she asked.

“Bond, James Bond,” a muffled male voice said through the door.

At that exact moment Sam realized her door seriously needed a peephole.

She had no idea who was out there, but considering all of the other weird stuff that she had seen lately, she figured there was at least a ten percent chance that James Bond was, in fact, standing outside her door.

Sam opened the door.

It was official: the world had stopped making sense.

That was the only possible explanation Sam’s brain could come up with for the information it was getting from her eyeballs.

Natch was standing in her doorway in a tuxedo with a single rose in his hand.

It was a really nice tux too. It looked too nice to be a rental. And he looked really great in it. His hair was slicked back
, and he had a small red carnation pinned to his lapel.

“Miss Hathaway, I respectfully ask if you would do me the great honor of attending the Masquerade Ball with me?” he said in a slow
, deliberate manner. He was really pouring on the charm.

“Uh.
Huh?” Was all the response Sam could muster.

“Would you like to go to the dance with me?” he asked with a mixture of annoyance and what Sam thought might be fear.

“I thought you weren’t going to go to the dance?” Her brain was rebooting.

He slouched a bit and let the rose dangle in his hand.

“Yeah well, about that.” He ran his free hand over his hair. “When I take over the world, people are going to write a lot of books about me. I figure it won’t look good if I missed my first dance. So I thought I might as well go with one of the prettiest girls in school.”

That was easily the weirdest compliment Sam had ever received.

“You want me to go to the dance with you?”

“Yes.”

“And why should I believe you?” Sam asked, with the memory of Mountain Dew dripping down the side of her head fresh in her mind.

“
Because it will really tick Tiffany off.”

“Okay.”

“Really?” he asked gratefully.

“Sure, anything to make her mad. Should be fun.”

In all honesty she knew there was a good chance he was planning to do something mean to her, but her whole plan to make Lucas think she didn’t care that he was with Tiffany was going to work a lot better if she showed up with a date.

“But if this is a trick and you dump a bucket of pig’s blood on me or something then I am going to have Tasha beat you up,” she added. “I’ll even get Sick and Wrong to film it.”

H
e laughed and nodded. “Sounds fair.” 

He thrust the flower at her. It was very beautiful, but it didn’t really go with her costume.

“Do you mind if I leave this here?” she asked as she looked around for a vase, even though she knew she didn’t have one.

“That’s fine.”

In the end she had to set the rose in a tall plastic cup. It looked strangely festive that way.

“Have you seen anyone else?” she asked as she stepped out into the hall.

“Nope.”

She was a bit disappointed. Surely he would have seen Lucas in his costume. Maybe he just didn’t want to bring up the subject.

“So who are you supposed to be?” he asked. His eyes scanned her from top to bottom.

“My mom,” she said proudly.

“Oh, see, that’s not fair, I never would have guessed that,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

She explained the whole Anne Bonny thing to him as they walked across campus. He actually listened. Before she knew it
, they had reached the dance.

The dance committee had really gone all out with the decorations. Sam figured they must have paid professional decorators to come in and set up everything. It was f
reakishly similar to those over-the-top high school dances in the movies, except with far better special effects.

Holographic ghosts wailed and moaned as they drifted back and forth across the dance floor
, and life-size plastic skeletons hung from the ballroom ceiling, sporadically dancing in midair. Sam swore one of them was doing the robot. A hundred or more jack-o-lanterns lined the edges of the dance floor. Black and orange draperies hung on the walls, and somewhere a fog machine was maintaining a constant six inches of mist on the floor.

Suddenly Sam felt Natch’s hand on hers as he led her down the grand staircase.

Two anime schoolgirls (she didn’t know exactly which show they were supposed to be from, but they were wearing school uniforms and those contacts that gave people big anime pupils) sneered when they saw her. One whispered something to the other that must have been hilarious, because she couldn’t stop laughing.

“Want me to break their knees?”
Natch asked quietly.

Sam had to
laugh at that.

“No, it’s fine. Thanks for offering
, though,” she said. Sam didn’t care what they said.

She didn’t.

Really.

The DJ switched over to a slow song
, and nearly everyone paired off and started dancing. She was relieved that Natch didn’t seem to want to join them.

“Ah, food,” he said happily as he let go of her hand and made a beeline for the long tables of snacks by the back wall.

Sam scanned the dancers for anyone familiar. Sabrina and Derek, dressed as Batgirl and Robin, passed by. Sabrina caught her eye and pointed through the crowd to the spot where Zoey, dressed as Albert Einstein, was dancing with Justin Timberlake. Not some guy in a Justin Timberlake costume,
the
Justin Timberlake.

Sam picked her way through the crowd.

“Zoey! Who’s your friend?” she called.

“Hey,”
Zoey waved her over. “You came after all. I owe Tasha a dollar. And you look awesome.”

“Thanks,” Sam said with a curtsy. “I don’t believe I’ve met your date.”

“That’s okay, neither have I,” Zoey said. She waved her hand through Justin’s head.

“A hologram?”

“Hello, Sam,” the Justin Timberlake hologram said.

“How-“

“Esteban,” Zoey said cheerfully. “He’s a genius.”

Zoey
pointed at the floor where a small robot was projecting the image of Justin Timberlake into the air. It was a vastly more detailed image than that of Sam’s father. He had been transparent, green, and a bit flickery, but Justin appeared solid and completely real, unless you noticed that he was hovering a foot off the ground. Aside from that it easily rivaled the magical glamour she had seen earlier.

“Hi, Esteban.”
Sam waved at the hologram, not sure if Esteban could see her.

“Nice party
, huh?” the hologram asked.

“Sure,” she said. “But don’t let Tasha hear you calling this a party. She’ll hunt you down and delete you.”

“You know, I haven’t seen her yet,” Zoey said, scanning the room on tiptoes.

“Seen who yet?”
Natch asked. He had snuck up behind Sam with two drinks in his hands. He handed one to Sam.

Zoey’s
jaw fell open. She just stood there staring for a moment.

“Wow,” she said finally.

“You like the tux?” Natch asked playfully.

“Yeah
, actually.”

“Ah hmmm,” the hologram said
, drawing attention back to itself.

“Looking good
, Esteban,” Natch said.

“Thanks man,” the fake Justin said.

“So how do you, you know, dance?” Sam asked.

Zoey
held her hand up to Justin/Esteban’s hand. “Very carefully for the slow dances.” She pushed her hand into the hologram, which rippled a bit. “But we’re set for the fast dances.”

The holographic Justin busted out a very complicated dance routine. “I programmed over two thousand different dance patterns into this thing. I can even vary the speed.”

Suddenly the hologram was popping and locking at superhuman speed.

“Very nifty,” Sam said. She couldn’t help but wonder what Esteban was actually doing in his room. It seemed kind of sad that he was just in there pushing buttons. Hopefully he at least had some food in there.

She took a sip from her cup. It was remarkably good, not that watery Kool-Aid they had at her old school.

Sam looked around the room. There was an impressively wide range of costumes
, from classic ghosts and witches to Ben10s and Lady Gagas. A pack of well-dressed sparkly vampires stood clustered around a classic big-collared Dracula. Still she couldn’t find Lucas anywhere. She didn’t see Tiffany either, for that matter, although there was a group of about twenty girls dressed as Egyptians huddled together, looking around expectantly. Still, there was no way Tiffany was going to just blend into the crowd, so she must not be here yet.

“Boo.”

Tasha popped up in front of Sam. She was dressed completely in green, with a bow and arrow slung on her back and a pointy hat with a long red feather stuck in the side. She looked completely ridiculous. Sam pretended to jump in terror anyway.

“
Ahh.”

“Nice outfit,” Tasha said back. “You make for quite the pirate hottie.”

Sam was so embarrassed she could feel her ears burning.

“Did you see the vampires?” Sam asked
, pointing.

Tasha rolled her eyes.
“Idiots. You know, books like that are the reason teenage girls are the number one victims of vampire attacks. There is nothing romantic about evil bloodsucking monsters.”

Sam nodded
in agreement, although secretly she had quite the stash of vampire books and movies back home.

“Speaking of which
, I have to say I’m a little disappointed in your choice of company,” Tasha said eying Natch. “What are you up to, Mr. Bond?”

“Just being a supportive friend,” Natch said. “So who are you supposed to be?”

Tasha mocked indignation. “Hello, green tights, green tunic, bow and arrows.”

“Don’t forget the stupid hat,” Natch said.

“Yes, thank you,” she said scrunching up her nose. “I’m Robin Hood.”

“I was totally unaware that Robin Hood was a girl
. Or black,” he said playfully.

Tasha stroked the feather in her cap. “Well, records from that period are sketchy at best.”

“Fair enough.” He raised his cup in salute.

“Where’s Dave?” Sam asked.

“I told you I’d be back.” Dave’s Arnold Schwarzenegger impression was truly horrible. But his leather jacket and fake robot eye added up to a pretty impressive Terminator costume. He had a cup of punch in each hand.

“Isn’t that sweet,” Tasha said
, taking one of the cups from Dave.

“I brought punch,” Natch said quietly.

For some strange reason, Sam felt the urge to step closer to him. He was trying, in his weird sort of way.