Chapter 6

I was unsurprised that there was a substitute teacher for Gym class, but it was surprising that it was the yoga teacher from the college! She was a hot fit 24 year old, lean and limber, and she tied us up in knots. Not quite that bad, but it was painful and uncomfortable, and only her lovely form performing the same contortions kept us from rebelling. She was very nice to look at, and worth the pain, it seemed.

She seemed disappointed that I had a note excusing me from showering, although why she would want to perv on my stocky brown form I have no idea. Perhaps she just wanted the full collection. I took off to sort my pack into my locker, and then went to homeEc. After making my tall starched master chef hat, I put a warding over the room.

I didn't want any witches brewing anything in here, wrecking the nice clean pure homey atmosphere. Only nice or neutral people would feel welcome here, any evil intentioned folk would find an excuse to leave fast, and reasons not to come back.

The students seemed a bit lost, as if they had just woken from some evil spell. They looked at each other and really saw, seeing too much mascara and unsuitable colors of lipstick and liner. I decided to start a movement. My bandana was green, but any color would have done, and I folded it up and tied it around the upper sleeve of my black shirt, well, I hadn't had time to do laundry for the past few days, so that is what I was wearing.

I didn't say anything to anyone, but led by example, and by lunchtime about twenty percent of the students had red, yellow, orange, blue, purple, turquoise, and other cheerful colored ribbons, shoelaces, rubber bands, arm bands, ties, paper pirate hats, watch fobs, key carabineers, and temporary tattoos as color accents. One clever little Sophomore girl had switched out all her braces tension bands with a full rainbow of color, it was very well done.

No one knew how it started, but it had become an instant meme, and the camaraderie and unity and school spirit had actually never been better. A few clueless bullies tried to pick on some students, but whoever was nearby stood beside the victim, in an actual line of linked arms, just staring at the ass hole without saying a word until he got chills down his back and dropped his eyes and wandered off. If I happened to be in the first linkup, that is probably just because I had happened to be there when it occurred.

Somehow, it became the style to not wear makeup, for boys and girls. Freshly scrubbed faces and damp collars spread through the school like the first cold of the season, as people just spontaneously decided to go wash it off. I didn't do anything, I swear! It was just the Universe rebalancing. Really.

People were just throwing off an artificial and imposed culture. The only encouragement I gave the whole bellweather sea change was putting on that first arm band, and linking arms with a passing pal and a would-be victim of verbal abuse. The people who linked the victim's other arm did so on their own, inspired by that small example, and it spread from there like cheese wiz in a vacuum.

By the time school let out, even the footballers and cronies had succumbed to peer pressure, and were wearing the only color they could defend to each other, orange. After all, it was one of the school colors, and, well, you know. I couldn't help but feel proud of my fellow students. Let freedom reign!

I made macaroni and cheese for the girls when they got home, and set them to their homework, worked out for an hour and a half, took my shower and made a crazy dinner for once, baked beans and hot dogs. I know a steady diet of hot dogs for kids will cause leukemia due to the nitrites used in processing, but I figured once a month or so wouldn't kill them, especially since I 'did' over them.

Even prayer can 'Cause', there was a study, a double blind study which had amazing results, where patients who were prayed over by prayer groups in another part of the country, using only a photo and not having the petitioners know the name of the person they were interceding for, showed a measurable statistical improved recovery over their un prayed over counterparts in the control group.

You can even set up your own experiment if you want, and pour two glasses of soda or wine, with identical circles of cardboard taped to the bottom with a unique number, and concentrate hard on thinking good thoughts about one for five minutes if your attention span can focus for that long, and then mentally dismiss the other with a tossed off "Oh well", and then send someone else into the kitchen to bring them both back on a tray for the others in the gathering to taste test.

Even though it is the same soda, you should notice a statistical deviation as to which one is preferred, even if you don't yourself know which glass was thought well of back in the kitchen until after all the results are recorded and the glasses are turned over to check the label.

This is the cornerstone of being an hechicero, a quantum effect regarding the observer. Perception is reality, really.

That is why you should be very careful about what you say, because you can generate self-fulfilling prophecies which haunt you for the rest of your life. If you say, for instance, "I am so forgetful, I am always losing my keys." You may cause a feedback loop which results in you always losing your keys.

I remember a friends older brother, who would always say that he didn't want to live to be over thirty, and he expected he would die before he was ever that old. He was twenty-one, and I was only seven, but I knew it was a very bad thing to think and say, and tried to get him to recant, but he was insistent. My friend had to attend his brother's funeral last year, he had died in a motorcycle accident, having ridden while drunk once too often.

The words you speak out loud, or hear others speak, can have an effect. That is the basis for a curse. Or a blessing.