The Magical costume Company- Diana

The Magical costume Company: Diana

Diana looked at the invitation again. She wondered why she had been sent it. She had never been invited to one of these grand weekend parties before.

Diana was a member of neither of the major cliques at her school: there were the Jocks and Cheerleaders on one side and the Nerds and Geeks on the other, leaving the dozen or so remaining students in the middle treated like dirt by both sides. Diana was concentrating on her languages and had no interest in science or sport. Of course, this meant she encountered the Jocks and Cheerleaders in her English and Spanish classes and the Nerds and Geeks in her German and Japanese classes. Diana's only respite from the sneering of other pupils was the French classes she took.

The invitation had arrived a week ago. At first she was delighted, then the paranoia of the outcast took hold and she tried to find ulterior motives for the apparent generosity. She had replied, saying that she would be there and mentally heard the laughter of the Jocks' and Cheerleaders' clique as they anticipated humiliating her. Diana wondered if she could get her parents to ground her if she decided she did not want to go after all; just chickening out was not an option (it was, she felt, but worse than going and being humiliated). On reflection she knew her parents would insist she 'go and make some friends'.

She re-read the invite noting the venue, the date and time and then discovering that she had missed some key items. The party was going to be fancy dress and there would be a talent contest. Diana's heart sank, she had no costume and no talent that the party-goers would be remotely interested in. The only thing she did that she thought of as a talent was writing and reciting poetry, which she felt would go down like a lead balloon.

After a moment's thought, Diana concluded, a costume need not be a problem. She picked up local phone directory and looked up the only local costume shop. When she had explained what she was looking for, they told that they had nothing in her size. She did not notice until she had hung up that she had not told them her size. She thought about this for a while and concluded that she was being set up, as the costume shop was owned by the football team's MVP's father.

'nil desperandum,' she thought, 'there's always the internet; there must be heaps of mail-order costume places on the world-wide-web.' Diana cranked up her old but still functional PC, and headed for her favourite search engine. Soon she was surfing through costume hire sites, and noting most of them wanted deposits and several weeks for delivery and made no guarantee of fit. Then she found a site looking much like many others, but she found what she supposed a hidden link that informed her of a toll-free number for a sister-company called 'The Magical Costume Company' which seemed to offer made to measure costumes for reasonable prices delivered on the day required. She decided that she had nothing to lose by giving them a call.

Diana called the number and was answered, after seven rings, by a harassed-sounding young lady.

"Magical Costume Company. How may we help you?" the voice asked.

"Umm," Diana started, "I need a costume for a party I'm going to next Saturday."

"OK, Can you tell me where you live? So I can put you through to your nearest franchise."

Diana told the voice where she lived.

"OK, that's fine, before I put you through would you mind telling me how you found this number?" enquired the voice.

"Of course, I found it on the internet, on a hidden link from another page. It wasn't all that obvious, I only found it by a fluke," responded Diana. "Perhaps, you're people ought to make it more obvious," she opined.

"Thank you, I'll pass that on. If you'll hang on for a moment I'll transfer you."

Diana had barely time to thank the telephonist, before some tinkly music indicated she was on hold. She waited for nearly five minutes and was just about to hang up, when another voice said, "Magical Costume Company. How may we help you?" This voice seemed to belong to an older and calmer woman, but with a voice that could have been a mature version of the younger telephonist.

"Umm, I need a costume for a party I'm going to next Saturday," repeated Diana.

"That's a good start dear. Do you have any idea what kind of costume you would like?" the kindly voice asked.

Diana errmed for a few moments, so the voice interrupted her, saying, "Why don't you tell me all about it and we can work it out together."

Surprising herself, Diana told the voice at the end of the line all about not being sure whether she wanted to go to the party and her suspicions of being set up for humiliation.

When she had unburdened herself Diana felt a lot better. The voice at the other end of the line began to ask details of her size and complexion. When Diana told the woman of the talent part of the invite, the woman said, "Why didn't you tell me about that earlier, dear. It puts a different complexion on the whole thing, I know what to do now. Don't worry about a thing dear. You just prepare a few poems for this party and everything will go totally smoothly; but make them short ones and maybe one in Japanese. Our delivery person will be there at five on Saturday afternoon to prepare you and I'll come along too; I wouldn't miss this for the world."

Having hung up, Diana realised that no money had been talked about. She picked up the 'phone and pressed the redial button only to hear the number unobtainable tone.

Not sure whether there was a proper arrangement, Diana continued to look for an appropriate costume, but with no luck or inspiration. Eventually she gave up and hoped that the magical costume company would deliver as they said they would.

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Saturday afternoon arrived and Diana was feeling more and more nervous. The week had been hell on her nerves as people kept asking her what costume she was going to wear to the party. She realised it was a conspiracy and they all knew that she had been told she could not have costume from Brad's dad's costume shop. She had tried to be enigmatic about her costume, but because what costume, if any, would arrive was a mystery to her, she could not even hint.

Throughout the afternoon she had been starting whenever she heard any type of vehicle drive past.

At four o'clock, the telephone rang. She had crossed the living room and picked up the handset, before the end of the second ring. The same motherly voice she had spoken to last Saturday said, "Diana?"

It was such a relief to have some contact from the costume people that she forgot herself and nodded.

"Good," the voice continued, "I just rang to tell you that, barring traffic problems, we are running to time and suggest you have a bath or shower, if you haven't already. You'll probably find a bath more relaxing. You seem to be wound up so tight, you need to relax. We'll be there in an hour. See you then."

Taking the advice, Diana run herself a warm bath with plenty of bubbles and relaxed into it. She was washing her dark blond hair, when her mother called up to her, "Your costume people have arrived."

"Send them up! I'll be right with them, I'm just rinsing my hair," Diana called back.

With a towel wrapped round her head and a larger one wrapped round her body Diana crossed the landing and saw a tall thin man and a short plump woman struggling a large trunk with wheels up the stairs.

"Can I help?" offered Diana.

"No, dear, we can manage," replied the woman, her voice recognisable as that of the woman on the phone. "You run along and dry your hair and we'll be there before you know it."

Diana sat at her dressing table and tried to ignore the occasional thumping noise she could hear over the whine of the hair-dryer. When it was mostly done, she turned round and asked if she should style it in any particular way.

"No, dear, do what you like with it, we've got that covered," replied the woman, as they opened the trunk, which had taken a while to fit through the bedroom door.

Diana finished drying her hair and noticed in the mirror that the man seemed be laying a lot of boxes on her bed, while the woman was unwrapping packages of tissue paper and hanging the garments on the front of her wardrobe.

When Diana switched off the hair-dryer, the woman handed her two pieces of clothing and said, "Take these to the bathroom and get into them, while we finish the preparations in here!"

Diana retreated to the bathroom, before inspecting the garments she had been handed. The first item was a pair underpants made of a light cotton fabric, like muslin, and the colour of unbleached linen. They had drawstrings at the waist and the ends of the legs. She drew this item up her legs and was surprised to find them quite comfortable, once she had drawn up the drawstring at her waist. The leg ends were just above her knees and flapped about until she pulled the drawstrings there and tied them off in neat bows. The other item was a short sleeved crop-top in the same material, with a drawstring to hold it closed against her lowest ribs. This garment also proved comfortable. Diana wiped the condensation from the mirror and looked at herself. What she saw, didn't do her confidence much good; at five foot one she was short for her age and had a little puppy fat which lessened the curve of her hips and concealed the development of her chest. When she returned to her bedroom, she was having second thoughts about going to the party.

The sight that greeted Diana when she re-entered her bedroom shook her confidence still more.

"Hello, dear," said the woman, over the sound of the man running a whetstone along the edges of some short metal blades, which he laid one by one next to the board on the bed. Seeing the expression of horror on Diana's face, the woman said, "I think before we go any further we had better introduce ourselves. I am Madam Chloe, we spoke on the phone last week. This gentleman is Lee Kwong." The man placed his hands palm to palm and bowed stiffly from the waist. "He is here to prepare you in case they try to humiliate you; and I'm here to get you dressed and made-up, so that you won't look out of place. So we had better let Mister Kwong work his magic."

The tall gentleman, who did not look particularly oriental, gestured that Diana should lie on the board. Diana turned to Madam Chloe and raised an eye-brow.

"Mister Kwong does not speak any English, but don't worry he's the best I've ever worked with, and at the Magical Costume Company we only employ top-notch talent." After a pause, she continued, "Go ahead, and lie on the board. The sooner Mr Kwong has done his bit, the sooner we can get on with dressing you up like a princess."

At a loss to work out what the tall man was going to do, Diana lay on the board. It took a little while to get Diana positioned on the board to the man's satisfaction.

"You know, dear," Madam Chloe said, "but you are far too tense to go to a party, you need to relax a bit, or you don't stand a chance of enjoying yourself tonight."

Without much pause, Mr Kwong leaned over Diana and began to massage her shoulders with firm movements of the thick fingers of his large hands. The massage started at her shoulders and moved up her neck then down her arms to her hands. Mr Kwong then started at her feet, which were usually very ticklish, and then up her legs to her hips. Diana felt a lot more relaxed than before; she could feel that she had relaxed into the board.

"How are you feeling now?" asked Madam Chloe.

"Lots better, thank you, but I still feel as if I've got tropical butterflies in my tummy," remarked Diana.

"Well we plan to do something about that immediately," stated Madam Chloe. "So, just lie there, and let it happen, because once that's done we have to start dressing you in your costume and doing your hair, make-up and accessories."

The woman consulted with the man and they jabbered back and forth in a language the Diana did not recognise, but she caught the odd word of Japanese, Korean and Urdu. This confused her more. She was about to ask what they were talking about, but Madam Chloe said "Right!" with such finality.

Turning to Diana, she said, "OK, we know what we're doing, so just try to relax and let it happen."

While Diana's confused mind was formulating the obvious question, "Let what happen?" Mister Kwong had picked an open-bottomed box from the floor and put it over her so that the only exposed parts were her head and her feet. Madam Chloe opened a door in the side of the box and moved Diana's arms so that they crossed her chest, while Mister Kwong rapidly attached the box to the board.

Diana was still dazed with the turn of events, when Mister Kwong draw a katana and made two swift chops through the box, which she felt and was convinced would be her last feelings ever, because she was sure that she felt the sword cut into her skin and through her body and out through her back, first at the base of her ribs and then moments later at her hips.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Mister Kwong is just doing something about your butterflies; you can't be at your best if you're nervous." During this explanation from Madam Chloe, the sword was returned to its sheath and some thin boards were inserted into the twin gaps in the box containing Diana and Diana herself.

The next thing that Diana noticed was Mister Kwong was lifting the middle section from the box, which left a gap that she could see in the wardrobe mirror, between the costume parts hung there. To Diana's surprise she felt relaxed, both about the gap between her head and her feet and the prospect of attending the party.

"Won't I need my middle to go to the party?" she asked.

"It's ok; we've got that covered," declared Madam Chloe. The tall man placed the section of box that he had extracted from Diana on her bedside cabinet and lifted another matching box from the floor and carefully slotted it into the gap he had made in Diana. Soon the boards were removed and the covering box. He offered her a hand to assist her sitting up. Initially she did not want to have anything to do with the man who had chopped into three pieces, but she soon discovered that something felt wrong and she was finding it difficult to sit up unaided. She accepted his offer of help and then looked down at her middle; it looked like her mid-section, between the two items of underwear that they had provided, had been wrapped tightly in pink bandages. Before Diana could ask the question on her mind, the woman said, "I know, it isn't our best job ever, but it will pass muster if anyone, besides you, needs to see; we really didn't have the time we would have liked to prepare something better."

"So, what happens now?"

"I help get you dressed in the costume we prepared for you, while Lee repacks his magical kit. What you do, besides following instructions as I dress you and do your make-up, is practice your poems, I hope they are good."

So Diana recited the poems she had written for the party, while Madam Chloe dressed in an authentic-looking kimono with a properly tied obi sash and several genuine-looking accessories that a high ranking lady of Japan might have worn in the mid eighteenth century.

Mister Kwong as well as tidying, made comments after each of Diana's poems, which Madam Chloe seemed to take note of, without passing on any clue to Diana, even if the comments were criticism or praise. The last poem she spoke was the one she had written in Japanese. At the end of that Mister Kwong sat on the end of her bed and wept. Madam Chloe continued applying make-up to Diana's face until she looked mostly oriental.

Mister Kwong jabbered something to Madam Chloe, who seemed to nod in agreement. "Mister Kwong suggests that you recite the haiku in English first and then see how the one in Japanese is received. He says if they do not appreciate a poem of such beauty, they will deserve what you do next."

"And what will I do next?" enquired Diana.

"You will know when the time comes. I would have said 'if', but I feel sure it will be a 'when'."

Despite the foreboding words, she felt reassured.

When she went downstairs, her mother inspected the costume and declared it to be 'gorgeous'. She offered to drive her daughter to the party. Madam Chloe made some noises about Diana having her style cramped, by being delivered by a parent, when most of the other attendees probably had their own car, and if the party went well she would easily find a friend to give her a lift home. It was soon settled that the costumiers would give Diana a lift to the end of the drive and she would walk from there.

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Just out of sight of the house, Madam Chloe and Mister Kwong dropped Diana off; wishing her a good time and repeating the suggestion of what poems to try first.

The walk up the drive seemed very long and she was surprised to be greeted at the door by the hostess, the queen cheerleader. She was gratified that the quality of her costume was acknowledged, even if the bitch queen seemed to think she had come as a Chinese courtesan.

As she joined the party-goers, they seemed to have nothing but praise for her costume until they recognised her, when the sarcastic remarks began to fly.

It took Diana a little time to find some food and drink; she steered clear of the punch that seemed to have been spiked with a variety of alcoholic supplements. She also found the only non-member of the sporting cliques; he was Raymond, who led the computer science club at school. "So, you're the sacrificial lamb this time. Don't worry we nerds have decided that this lot need taking down a few pegs, so if they try anything, it will be recorded, then we can trim some of the power they seem to wield at school."

This did little to boost Diana's flagging confidence; now it seemed that not only was she likely to be humiliated and ridiculed, but it would be on the record.

Soon the beginning of the talent contest was announced and kicked off by the football team's captain belching the national anthem.

It became Diana's task to follow that. She stepped up onto the table that was doing duty as a makeshift stage. She announce that she would be reciting a few poems she had written for the occasion, to near universal derision. They quietened down in the hope that Diana would be reciting a dirty limerick and booed at the end of her haiku. She recited her Japanese poem, which was barely listened to and got a similar response, except out of the corner of her eye she saw Raymond wipe a tear from the corner of his.

"If you don't like my poetry," Diana shouted, "maybe you'll like this."

She drew a sword from among the accessories that had been supplied with the costume and stabbed it into her belly, before pulling it out of one side and across her abdomen again in the opposite direction. From the opening in the costume and the fake middle spilled a heap of intestines and a large quantity of blood. Suddenly, Diana wanted to go home and ran through the house, out the front door and down the driveway, trailing blood and guts as she went.

At the end of the drive the costumer's van pulled up with engine revving and side door open allowing Diana to fall in and be whisked away.

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When the footage of Diana's apparent suicide was released, the atmosphere at school changed. The teaching and other staff seemed more aware of the bullying and abuses of power by the cliques. Diana was most impressed, when it became evident that the headmaster had even resisted attempts by the parents of clique members to influence the school to return to the old ways.