Featherscape Tickle Story Collection

A Ticklish Sleepover - Part 3

“Yes, my proud beauty,” Demi murmured beneath her breath as she trotted through the bustling halls of her school. The diminutive girl carried with her a bag slung over one shoulder and a paper clipped stack of pages in her hand. Her dark autumn hair bounced in her ponytail with every step she took. “You think you can always do just as you like. You think you can deprive me forever of the beauty of the sky, that you can choose your perfumes and powders, your nail polish and silk and velvet and lace, and deprive me of them?” Her tone as she spoke was dry and full of concentration. Demi looked down to the floor beneath her as the lines ran through her memory. The bell had previously dismissed the school of their second period. A third of the school’s students rushed to the lunchroom while others were off to their next class. Regardless of destination, the students stormed the halls, leaving Demi to fight against the much stronger currents around her. The papers of the script she held onto were tightly clenched in her folded arms. “That you can steal the milkman from me? Admit it. Admit about the milkman.” The way she spoke was more akin to reading off a grocery list than any passionate statement. “His…. his… radiance?” Demi gazed down at the page she folded to to find the line she had forgotten. She scorned herself quietly once she found it. “His youth! His youth and… vigor excite you, don’t they? Admit about the milkman. Ha!” Demi smiled and sighed once she finished the marginally memorized line.

Demi turned the corner to the hall where she would typically meet up with Sara after second period. She glanced up and saw no sign of her friend. Demi peered back down to the script to pick up with her next line when she heard a large crowd laughing at the end of the hallway. She looked up to see several students gathered together throwing what appeared as a book back and forth amongst themselves. Demi nervously approached from down the hall.

“Give it back!” Sara desperately pleaded. The group of students, all larger than her, circled around her, laughing as she reached for her stolen diary. The students teased and taunted the girl, throwing the book up over her head to the other side of the group. Their cheers echoed through the halls, as did the feeble cries of their collective victim. “I'm not joking! Give it!” The book was tossed to another girl in the group. She was tall with fiery red hair, a torch to warn all those who dared stand in her way.

“You want it so bad, then take it!” Taylor said, throwing the book to another student that towered over Sara. Taylor laughed at Sara's futile attempts to retrieve her pink bound diary. The girl stood amongst her friends with confidence in numbers. The fur lining her cheetah print leather jacket brushed up against her symmetrical, heavily made up face. Sara's face grew deeper and deeper red with every unsuccessful reach for her journal, each coupled with more taunting laughter from the crowd around her.

“Taylor, I mean it!” shouted Sara. “Give it back!” Taylor laughed a much more teasing chuckle than her own amusement called for.

“Oh, you mean it, huh?” asked Taylor. The girl reached up her hand as the book was tossed back to her. She flipped open to a random page with her long, finely sharpened nails and started quickly skimming. “Here we go. ‘She means more to me than I ever thought anyone could.’ Aww, how sweet.” The crowd burst in mad laughter once again.

“Shut up!” Sara screamed, charging toward Taylor, only for Taylor to throw the book to another member of her group. Demi, noticing the nature of the commotion, ran up toward the crowd. Upon reaching the perimeter, Demi tripped and fell into the center of the cluster, dropping all of her loose script pages. Sara ran over to her friend as soon as she noticed the girl hit the ground. “Oh my god, Demi, are you okay?” Sara knelt down to the ground next to her, quickly examining to see if her friend was injured by the fall. The gang surrounding them was already abuzz with more laughter and teasing phrases.