Which Witch is Which
By Jesse Rabbit

Fate likes to laugh at us. Simple fact of life. It likes to put us through our paces, put snakes in our beds just to see us jump and bananas on the sidewalk just to see us fall down. Fate is laughing pretty hard at me right now.

My name is Andrew Steven Parker. I’m sixteen. I’ve got two, count ‘em, two little sisters; Gracie who’s fourteen and Megan who’s six. Gracie used to look up to me, while Megan used to think I was pretty much useless. It wasn’t that long ago… last week to be specific.

My life was pretty good back then. I did okay in school, hung out with my friends, even had a girlfriend who laughed at my jokes. Yeah, life was pretty good in New Salem. That’s the town I live in, New Salem. Quiet. Peaceful. Far enough away from all the big cities to be considered not quite a suburb, but small enough not to have any sky scrapers.

Yup. Life was pretty darn okay… Then the invasion started. I’m sure you know all about it, unless you’ve been living in a cave for the last month or so. Stupid Demons. I mean seriously, have you seen these guys. They pop out of nowhere, cause some havoc, and then get beaten up by some group of middle-school girls in silly outfits or color coded ninjas or superpets or whathaveyou. It’s pretty hard to take them serious, but they do cause a lot of property damage and people do get hurt.

First it was places like Tokyo and New York and Townsville. Places that already had their own Magical Girls or Superheroes or Ninjas or Pirates. So the Demons got, ahem, “smart” and started attacking smaller towns… like Miami and Mumbai and… I can’t think of another M-city. Anyway… so, as I was saying, those places got their own teams of do-gooders to defend the city limits. And some of these teams were getting pretty silly.

That’s when our Mayor decided to ruin my life. I’m sure that wasn’t his intent, but it sure worked out that way. See, we’re New Salem… like old Salem, but bigger… and proud of our witches… which were two old ladies who made potions and ran a hotel for pets. Don’t get on the bad side of a witch… especially when one of them is your great aunt. But I digress.

So, last Sunday, Mayor Applewick announces that New Salem’s very own witches are brewin up some special magic and that pretty soon we’re gonna have our very own magical girls, cause, you know, girls look cute dressed as witches or something… never mind that none of the Demons have attacked anywhere as small and unimportant as New Salem. Still, that’s how the fun began.

Bright and early Monday morning, some 15 year old girl named Francine Fair found a magical hat in a bush outside her house. Tuesday morning, this 13 year old Latina named Lupe Guzman finds an amulet under her pillow. Wednesday, like clockwork, Miriam Ramses, 12 year old daughter of the senior partner of my dad’s law firm, finds a necklace hanging from a streetsign. Thursday, Demi Wiesse, 14 and queen bee of the freshman class, finds a magic potion in a beauty magazine sample shampoo packet. And Friday… ah, Friday… Friday, Gracie ate all my captain crunch, so I had to eat her, shudder, count chocula… ugh. I couldn’t stand chocolate then, can’t stand it even more now.

See, this is where Fate is laughing at me. If Gracie had just eaten the damned cereal she’d begged mom to get her, everything would have worked out fine. I’d have eaten breakfast, gone to school… and she’d have found the stupid magic ring instead of me.

It’s a funny thing about magic. It’s very… possessive. Doesn’t like to let you go once it’s got you. It’s also very good at getting it’s own way. Picture it. I’m tired, bed head, grabbing some grub before I head on out to track practice, grumbling over the lack of selection, when I hear this clink as something metal hits the bowl. Now, what would you have done?

Yeah, I fished around in the bowl for a second or two until I felt that metal thing against my finger… and then the magic hit me. The ring, shaped like a bat, crawled up my finger and stuck there, a small, goth piece of fairly girly magical jewelry on my hand.

I struggled with it for a minute or so, then figured I go see great-aunt Milly after school and get her to unhex it or whatever. I figured, what harm could a little batring do?

Stupid question.

Okay. Let me take this opportunity to say this: “Demons Suck.” Lunchtime was like five minutes away and I was starving. I’d gotten a few looks and a few comments about my new fashion choice, most of them pretty snide, but it hadn’t really been that big a problem. It certainly fit well, and luckily enough I’d just happened to be wearing black jeans and a black T, so it didn’t, you know, clash or anything.

You know, Tornado Sirens are loud. Very loud. And they can frighten the heck out of you if you aren’t completely awake. I was contemplating lunch, kinda half-dozing in Algebra, when the sirens went off all over town. For a second I couldn’t figure out why everyone was suddenly jabbering excitedly instead of looking for shelter, until I realized that the Sirens were playing the new pattern… the one that signaled an attack.

Pretty much en masse, people were whipping out cell phones and cameras and laptops, trying to figure out where and how many and who the Demons were attacking. I, fool that I am, ran for the roof, figuring that, since my school, which is three stories high, is on a hilltop, I might be able to catch a glimpse of new magical girls in action.

What I didn’t count on was just how fast I made it to the roof. Look, I’m fast. I can run… could run… the hundred meter dash in about 11 seconds flat. But that Friday… I made it out of the room, down the hall, and up three flights of stairs… all in less time than it took for me to type this sentence. I hit the roof going so fast that I practically flew out the door and actually did fly off the edge of the roof… Then the whammy hit me.

It was like… well… I don’t think I can explain it. It was, painfully, like a full body stubbed toe, and a little nauseating, and very, very windy, with dark swirling colors and tiny bat shadows. And then I was wearing a white blouse, black-tartan vest and matching mini-skirt, witches hat, bat-patterned tights, and a pair of high-heeled boots. And I had boobs.

Fate was la-ha-fing!

Okay. I was also flying. And I could see the Demon, only two blocks away. And I was angry, hungry, and, okay, maybe I went a little overboard. I still maintain that hitting the Demon with that UPS truck was a valid combat move… I blame the big floppy hat for my poor aim. Still, I had that one, somekind of Monkey with Anacondas for arms on the ropes when the Clam-Centaur and the Russ Troll on Steroids showed up. Things kinda got violent after that.

I was, to my relief and chigrin, saved, by the arrival of the four girls I mentioned earlier… or at least their ridiculously attired counterparts. Over the course of the next minute or so, a wolf-girl in a green witch’s outfit showed up, followed by a Cleopatra-clone in white witch’s gear that looked like bandages, followed by what can only be described as a devil-girl (tail, horns, cloven hooves, you get the picture) in firey-red leather, and finally a purple and green skinned franken-girl, complete with neck bolts and about a million stitches. We pretty much trashed Mainstreet.

It was, in the midst of this mess, as the Demons faded back into whatever or wherever they came from, that the Newsvan showed up, cameras already rolling. We, the valiant defenders of New Salem looked at each other… and then the magic wore off and we were 4 girls… and a guy… me, again… on the news.

The Media named us within minutes: Frankenwitch, Mummywitch, Wolfwitch, Devilwitch… although it turns out sometimes Devilwitch turns into Angelwitch instead. She’s a little bipolar. Gracie still won’t talk to me. Claims I stole her chance to be a Magical Girl. Megan now thinks I’m the coolest girl ever. Anna, my girlfriend, dumped me for being, as she put it, “a she-male”. I have a fan club... headed by my best friend. And my, umm, teammates think its hilarious. So, I’m sure, does Fate. I am a magical girl… and I really, really don’t want to suck your blood… and stop sending me chocolates.

Fin.

Frankie Fair — Frankenwitch
Lupe Guzman — Wolfwitch
Miriam Ramses — Mummywitch
Demi Wiesse — Angelwitch / Devilwitch
And me…
Andrew Parker — Vampwitch

A special thanks to the Universal Monsters… Sorry Invisiwitch, didn’t see you there.