One Condition

After a good long cuddle you turn the topic to something you knew your sister would balk at.

“Come on. If you hurry you can still get to school on time.”

“Ohhh, noooo! Jake.” She balls up tighter in your lap and nuzzles into you as if she were trying to find a place to hide. “I’m not going today.”

“Yes you are. Your grades are terrible. You can’t afford to miss any more school.”

“Mmmmm, I don’t wanna!” She grows three more arms and latches onto you. “I wanna stay home with you!”

“Quit being childish.” You say as you pry her five arms off of you. “You don’t want to fail another grade, do you? You don’t want Julian graduating before you, do you?” Trixie had never done well academically, thanks to a failed grade 9 year she and her little brother had gone through the rest of their schooling in the same cohort. This year they would both be graduating if Beatrix could just keep her marks up.

“I don’t care. I hate school so much.” She whines. “And Daddy’s loaded! It’s not like I need to get a job or anything.”

“Come on, why do you hate school? You love people.”

“The people are nice but the classes are soooo booooring!” She moans. “The teachers don’t have a clue about the real world and they talk like they got allllll the answers. Plus it’s just…just…booooring!”

You chuckle. “They’re doing their best. We normies only know what we know.”

Her flesh hardens and she POPS into the shape of a perfect cube, her angry pouty face on one side of it. “I’m not goin!”

“Trix. Don’t be like that.” You pull her warm body close, her cube shape immediately begins to soften at the edges. “It’s important and it’s not too much longer now. Do it for me?”

“Awww.” She sighs and grudgingly returns to her human shape. “Fine, on one condition.”

“Name it.”

She points to her gift, the magenta hammer still held in your hand. “Use it today.”

“Use it?”

“You know what I mean.” She waggles her eyebrows suggestively. “Please Jake. Be a little naughty with it. It’s your toy, play with it.”

“Trixie!”

“Pleeease! I promise, I’ll go to school and go to every single class.” She then slumps her head down on your shoulder. “And you have to drive me.”

“That’s two conditions.”

“Pleeease!”

After that gift how could you refuse? “Okay, get ready and I’ll drive you in. You’ll have to get a lift home from Lucian.”

"Hee hee!"

You notice her body shimmer then the next thing you know you have the Trixie you’d grown up with on your lap. She looked as human as you. Bright hazel eyes, short hair died purple, a tight petite body, and a freckled face as cute as a button. She already had on the white blouse, dark blazer, tartan pattern skirt and high socks of her school uniform.

“I’ll meet you at the car.” She peeps and goes to leave.

You hold her a second for one last hug. “Hey, thanks again.” You turn her gift over in your hand. “This really means the world to me Trix.”

She grins. “You’re welcome. Glad ya like it.” She then smacks your butt. “Come on slow poke, you’re going to make me late for school!”

“Yeah, yeah.” You gripe as you usher her out of your room and close the door. “Gimme a sec.”

You look once more at the hammer and shake your head at it. You tuck it away in your underwear drawer for now but you knew you’d have to find somewhere special to keep it in the future.

With the time ticking, filthy feet and all, you hurriedly throw on some clothes, a baggy pair of sweats and a t shirt, then grab your keys and phone and head to the garage. At the far end, hidden behind your brother’s hulking black Ford Raptor, is your Tesla 3. Trixie is already there leaning against it with her backpack on and her eyes glued to her phone as her thumbs flew across the screen at a blur. You notice that she’d already unplugged it for you. Entranced by the conversation on her phone she gets in and buckles up without even a pause to her texting.

Yep, Trixie was still Trixie.

Opening the garage door you wake your car and are soon zipping up the long twisting driveway toward the road. You hadn’t wanted an EV but Grace won you over with passion and persistence. Grace, bless her heart, wanted to save the world. Plus her family had built their wealth in tech and Tesla was a major partner of theirs. Dad wouldn’t spring for the S so you had settled for a 3. Now that you had it though you kinda loved it. That instant power and quiet ride were easy to get used to.

You drive in silence along the long winding driveway, through the great iron front gates and out onto the main road to town. Normally you might have put on some music but today you just wanted to think about things. After last night you had a lot to think about. Trixie was so engrossed on her phone she didn’t even notice your introspection. Briefly you consider telling her about Ves but in the end you decide to wait, at least until after school. Going twenty over the limit, as you often did down this quiet road, you speed toward town to get your sister to school on time. As you had before them both Lucian and Beatrix went to Grimbley Academy, a posh private school with very high standards and exacting expectations. Your father’s wealth was the only thing keeping Trixie in there. The last thing you wanted was to have to listen to yet another harsh lecture to your little sister from Dad about the importance of showing up on time.

“Oh my God!” Trixie gasps. “Devin told Brittany that Keshawn likes Fatima but Tima is already with Dylan, and you know how Dylan and Keshawn already hate each other right? Anyway, Brittany said that…”

“Trix.” You reach over lower her phone to her lap.

Snapped out of her digital stupor she looks up to see you’d already reached the outskirts of town. She giggles. “Sorry.”

“Talk to me Trix.” You say. “This might be just another day to you but it’s like a whole new world to me. Tell me about…magic, monsters, slimes, anything.” You glide through quiet streets of the sleepy little town. “Are you there more slimes? Are you the only one? And how can you look human like that?”

She shows you her phone before putting it away. “I have a magic sigil on the inside of my phone case. Most of us monsters that have close contact with humans have one, usually on something we carry all the time. We can’t get too…intimate or anything. There are limits to the illusion. For everything else there are general magics at work that sorta make human eyes just kinda…slide off, like water off a selkie’s back.” She sighs. “And no, I’m not the only slime. Remember that trip I took last year to learn about culture and stuff?”

“The one to Japan? Yeah, of course.”

“That was actually a trip to go see others of… my kind. It was so boring. They live in these dank caves and…” She makes a loud raspberry. “Pppbbbbttt! Jake! I was in Japan! I coulda went to Tokyo or Osaka or a million amazing places but Mom and Dad made me go connect with my ancestors or some crap out in the middle of nowhere. I never want to do that again. They mostly just sit around in big puddles all day long. Except for the airport I hated every minute of it.”

“Huh.” You ponder. “I guess you’re pretty unique, being a slime not from a slime family.”

“We’re all oddballs that way. An oddball family.” She then sits up tall just as you are coming to a stop at the first red light. “Hey! Check it out.” She points over into a nearby alleyway. “By the dumpster there. Goblins.”

“Goblins!?” You look over to see nothing but an wide empty alley, a few scattered bits of trash blowing about in the wind, and a row of dumpsters used by the businesses they abutted. “I don’t see anything.”

She titters and leans over toward you. “There, just between.”

You look. “No, nothing.”

“That’s the magic I was telling you about.” She takes your chin and points it in the direction she wanted you to look. “Just keep looking.”

“Trix, I’m telling you. I can’t see anything. I guess my normie eyes…”

“Don’t say that.” She bristles. “Jake…can you see anything green over there?”

“Green?” You stare intensely and make out a flash of muddy green. “Yeah, of course. I see green.” What a weird question. “It’s right there.”

“Really?” She giggles. “What’s green over there? The bins aren’t green. The plastic bags and papers aren’t green. The buildings aren’t green. What could possibly be green? Hmmmm.”

“Uhh…” Son of a bitch! She was right. As you start to focus on the details you realize there wasn’t a green thing to be seen down that alley. Focusing in on just that color you lean in and really look. It takes a second but you catch movement between the bins then, clear as day, you see a short hunched grotesquely green creature scurry out and begin digging into a discarded fast food bag that lay there. It wore a tattered plastic shopping bag, it’s brown stained teeth looked too big for it’s wide mouth and its joints were thick and knobby. As you gawk it pauses…before it’s gaze snaps up to stare right back at you. It twists its head curiously, it’s piss yellow eyes narrowing as it studied you back.

HONK!

You startle as the car behind you lays on the horn. Looking up you realize the light had changed. Still distracted you drive on, the goblin watching closely as you pass by.

“You saw them, didn’t you?” Trixie says excitedly.

“Uh…yeah, I saw one. Wow. That was…a real goblin?”

“Yep. Towns and cities have tons of ‘em. Nasty little buggers.” She makes a yucky face. “You're lucky the magic works on smell too.”

“Tons of them? How…”

“I told you, the magic.” She settles back into her seat. “Grandma said it’s actually not that difficult. People like to see what they want to see. People like to believe what they want to believe. Grandma says that you just make the supernatural slippery to look at and the vast majority of people won’t notice a thing. Once you can see clearly you’ll see the sigils and runes all over the place. There’s one up there.” She points at a billboard you are passing by, you look but notice nothing but an ad for a local restaurant. “It’s not foolproof by any stretch but it does the trick, and there are other measures in place of course. Our estate doesn’t have them obviously. We can just be ourselves there.”

“This is incredible.” You marvel. As you drove you tried to focus extra intently everywhere you looked yet all you could see was the normal world.

“We monsters can make ourselves known if we want to and we can be discovered if we aren’t careful. We can’t be too obvious with our abilities or anything. But most of us just want to be left alone. We don’t want any more witch hunts or crusades or anything. We mostly leave the humans to do their thing while we do ours.” She then huffs. “Except the vampires of course. That’s a whole thing of it’s own but, ugh, I don’t follow politics.”

You pull up in front of the old brick turn of the century high school just as the bell to come inside is ringing. You’d made it in the knick of time. Turning to your sister you say. “I have so much to learn.”

“Luckily you got a whole family of teachers.” She says. Leaning over she gives you a smooch to the cheek then unbuckles and opens the door. She pauses and points back at you. “Remember, use it!”

You chuckle as you knew she was referring to her lewd suggestion and her gift. “You said one condition. I drove you to school. Our deal is done.”

“What!? JAKE!”

“Go! You’re going to be late.” You wave her away.

“Jake, that’s not fair!” She stamps her foot and gives you a huge power pout. “If you don’t use it by lunch time I swear I’m coming home.”

“Good luck with that.” You quip. “You didn’t drive and it’s a long walk back. Now GET!”

“Jake!” She protests. “Come on, it’s me but it’s not actually me. It’s your toy. Jake…!” She mewls pathetically. “Well…do something with it at least. Even if it isn’t naughty. Don’t just leave it in a sock drawer to sit there.”

“Underwear drawer actually.”

This elicits a little giggle from her before she remembers that she was still mad at you.

Just then two of her friends spot her and rush over toward the car. “Trixie! Did you hear about Fatima?”

She gives you a hard glare…which quickly brightens into a beautiful smile. She couldn’t stay mad at you and you knew it. “I hate you.”

“Love you too Trix.” You grin. “Have a good day.”

“You too!”

With her friends outside the car in a tizzy to share gossip Trixie steps out to join them, her voice joining the indecipherable teen girl nattering. You are amazed any of them understood a thing the others were saying. You watch her go and join the throng of other students filing into the main doors. Just like you when you attended Grimbley’s, all those humans carried on without a clue that two monsters, quite possibly more, shared the halls and classrooms with them.

“Unbelievable.” You mutter.

Still tired from your busy night you make a sharp U-turn and head back for your warm comfy bed. It is a drive you’d done hundreds of times, a route you knew by heart, but this time you remain extra attentive. Your eyes now on the lookout for any unexplained little details.