The Odd Family's Book of Bedtime Stories

The Prom Dress

Jessica wanted her prom to be perfect. The problem with that was that her mother didn't want to spend the money on the dress her daughter wanted. She would only wear it once, afterall. She wouldn't even take Jessica to a good thrift store to look for a dress, choosing the nearest and cheapest option. It was the sort of place that people donated their dead grandparents clothes to. There wasn't much for teens to choose from, everything was outdated by at least thirty years and smelled vaguely of moth balls.

They searched forever through the racks of dresses. Most were cotton dresses with strange prints or flowers. There were a few old wedding dresses as well though Jessica definitely didn't want any of those. Even her mother was beginning to reconsider other shops when they finally found a dress. It was still a little old fashioned and had a strange smell to it but it would certainly work. They both laughed at the tag that read 'only worn once'. Jessica and her mother quickly bought the dress and took it home.

Jessica was used to her mother's ways and had become very creative because of it. She took the dress to her room and immediately got to work. It didn't seem that she could get the sickly sweet smell out of the fabric but she was able to update the dress a bit. Over the next week, Jessica did nothing but work on the fabric, transforming it into the perfect dress.

As she worked, the teen began to notice that she wasn't feeling well. The closer she got to prom, the worse it got. She developed a cough and a sore throat. Sometimes she felt very weak but Jessica was determined to have the perfect dress and to make it to prom. She didn't mention it to her mother and made excuses for her cough whenever she couldn't hide it.

When the night finally came, Jessica put on the dress early and examined herself carefully in the mirror. She couldn't wait to wear it that night. The dress was perfect- even better than anything her mother could have possibly bought, they both agreed. It was as if she had a designer gown. No one would believe that she had made it into what it was. The only thing that remained from the original thrift store dress was the sickly sweet smell.

It didn't take long for exhaustion to set in. Throat throbbing, Jessica excused herself to lay down for a while. She was so tired that even her coordination was off and she stumbled up the stairs and into bed.

She had no way to know that she would not get back up. Jessica had no way to know that the smell she couldn't get rid of was embalming fluid from the last owner of the dress or that the one time it had been worn was to their own funeral. The chemical had been slowly poisoning her and now it was too late.

Jessica's mother had no way of knowing where the embalming fluid had come from when she donated the beautiful dress. She only hoped that some lucky girl would find it like her daughter had and get to wear it on her special night.