A Trick Before Treats: Tutu

After what he had named the Halloween incident, Alex was careful to make sure he never kept his back to Laurie for too long, just in case she try to pop the bonnet on his head again. She kept insisting that she had gotten rid of it, even offering to let him search her room to prove it. He knew better than to fall for that obvious trick, but he still wondered if there was a chance that she was telling the truth.

One day, while Laurie was at the mall with her friends, Alex snuck into her room, determined to find out the truth for himself. He dug to the back of her closet, finding nothing more than old shoes amongst the dresses she had not worn in years. Withdrawing from the closet, he looked around the room. There was no sign of it. Where else could she hide an enormous bonnet? She must have, true to her word, gotten rid of it.

As he walked past her vanity, his fingers happened to brush a piece of ribbon sitting there, knocking it to the floor. He bent over to pick it up, but stopped as he looked at it, running it through his fingers. It was soft, very soft. What was it for? Laurie must use it to tie back her hair or something. He kept running it through his fingers, wondering what it would feel like in his hair.

“What a dumb idea.” He muttered, putting the ribbon back down. As he crossed to the door, he ran his fingers through his hair, gasping as he felt his hair grow longer as he pulled on it. “Oh, no! Oh, no!” He knew it was already too late, his hair pulling itself into a tight bun on the back of his head. Had the ribbon been cursed? What was going on?

Alex looked down at his clothes, dreading what he was about to see. Sure enough, his shorts had delicate fabric growing out of them, forming tights that covered his legs down to his feet, which were quickly wrapped in ballet shoes. His t-shirt almost immediately became a leotard as his shorts moved up his body and out to form a tulle tutu. Lipstick covered his lips and he knew his transformation was nearly complete. Try as he might, he could not stop himself from rising up onto the points of his shoes, his hands placed delicately on the tutu. He could not bring himself to move a muscle, stuck there in the middle of Laurie’s room, an eleven year old boy dressed like a prissy little ballerina.

There was no way to know how long it took for Laurie to come home, but she smiled as if she had expected to find him there. Without a word, she started recording on her phone as a piece of classical music began to play. Alex, despite his efforts to fight it, began to twirl around on his toes, nothing more than Laurie’s elegant little ballerina for as long as she wanted.