Harper and I both ended up sort of staring at each other in an awkward silence, as both him and me slowly began to accept the possibility that I might actually be into him after all. Then before either of us could react to that revetion, the door swung open and Ellie came back in.

  She had a small bundle of clothes in her arms, with a couple cans of soda banced on top. Then she nudged the door closed again behind her as she apologized, "There wasn't as much down there as I thought, but I grabbed everything that looked like it should fit. Plus I brought us all something to drink."

  Harper got to his feet to help. He took the cans and set them on the desk, then Ellie dumped the clothes on the bed before sitting down next to me.

  "You can help yourself," she said as she gestured to the little pile. "Take any or all of that if you like. It's all too small for me, or it's stuff I'll never wear."

  "Like there's a dress in there mom got me," she added as she rolled her eyes. "If you're into that kind of thing."

  My eyes widened as I started looking through the pile of clothes, "Thanks Ellie! This is great!"

  She and Harper both helped themselves to the drinks while I went through and organized everything she'd brought. I found one pair of bck jeans, a pair of bck stretchy pants that turned out to be leggings, and four t-shirts. Three were bck, one was dark grey, and two of them had stuff screened on the front. One was another inscrutable metal band logo, the other was a few lines of what appeared to be Japanese text. And finally at the bottom was a bck dress.

  I had butterflies in my tummy again as I unfolded that to get a better look at it. It was a simple garment, short sleeves and a scoop neck almost like a big t-shirt. Then it narrowed at the waist before expanding out and down into a skirt that would reach my knees. I pulled it on over my head then let it slip down into pce. It was probably a little rge for me, but it fit well enough.

  There was another wide smile on my face as I looked down at myself, then swished my hips left and right so I could feel the skirt bushing against my legs. A moment ter I did a twirl and the whole skirt went spinny around my legs, which left me feeling almost giddy.

  "I figured you'd like that," Ellie smiled. "Even if it's a bit long, compared to that mini-skirt you were wearing before."

  That got me blushing again, but my happy grin remained. "Thanks Ellie! I don't know if I'm ready to wear this out yet, but I love it."

  "It looks good on you Bke," Harper commented. Then he blushed again too, like he wasn't sure if it was ok to compliment me or maybe that'd come across too much like flirting or something.

  I didn't mind though, I just kept on smiling as I finally pulled the dress off and grabbed the jeans. They turned out to be tight, although I was able to squeeze into them. They were a bit long on me but I figured it wouldn't be hard to trim the cuffs. Then I added the dark grey t-shirt with the Japanese writing, and finally looked down at myself again as I twisted and turned.

  This time Ellie was the one I caught staring, especially at my butt and hips. Then our eyes met and she blushed, "Sorry Bke. I can't help it though, you're hot."

  "She really is," Harper agreed quietly.

  That got me blushing again too, and may have even helped me decide to stop trying things on and just stick with that outfit. I folded everything else back up and tucked it all away in my backpack, along with my guy clothes. The only things I left out were my hoodie and those sandals I picked up at the store. Then I grabbed the st soda and sat back down on the bed next to my best friend.

  "Thanks again Ellie," I told her. "I really appreciate all this."

  "And Harper too, thank you so much for everything today!" I added as I gave both of them a warm happy smile.

  After another couple seconds Ellie asked, "So what do you two want to do now?"

  "How about our English homework?" I suggested in a teasing voice, and that got both of them ughing.

  Then in a more serious tone I asked, "I was wondering if you could show us that conspiracy stuff you found, Ellie? I mean about the magical girls, back in the nineteen fifties?"

  Sure enough that got her excited.

  "Yeah!" she excimed as her eyes lit up. She jumped off the bed and pushed past Harper to get to her computer, then woke up the screen and opened her browser. As she paged through dozens of open tabs she added, "Sorry I never got back to you about that st night Bke. I saw your text but I was in the middle of something else, then forgot to do it when I was free."

  "Don't worry about it," I told her.

  A moment ter she found the tab she was looking for then gestured at the screen, "So here it is! I know it looks kind of outdated, but don't worry about the style. Check out what it says!"

  She wasn't kidding about being outdated, the page design looked older than all three of us. It was basically bck text set in Times over a grey background, with plenty of bold and italic parts. Big chunks of it were centred, and few 'important' headings were blinking and scrolling back and forth. There were lots of pictures too, although they were all fairly low-resolution. And several were just slightly crooked, that made it obvious they'd been scanned from prints.

  In all, it was the sort of thing that'd either give my web-design teacher a fit or a fshback to the nineteen nineties.

  Unfortunately the content wasn't much better. The text was very sensationalized, with liberal use of excmation points throughout. Honestly I had a hard time understanding how someone as smart as Ellie could believe anything presented like that.

  On the other hand, the photos themselves were actually kind of compelling.

  They all had that faded or washed-out look that made them seem like old colour prints, while the clothes and hairstyles people were wearing in them looked authentic for the nineteen fifties. Although there wasn't a lot of fashion on dispy, considering most of the people in those pictures appeared to be soldiers. And the setting seemed right, there were palm trees, sandy beaches, and ocean. Some of the pictures had military ships in the background too.

  In fact it wouldn't be hard to imagine the pictures really were taken near some American military base in the pacific ocean back in the fifties. Either that or they were taken on the set of some movie from that location and era.

  Apart from American servicemen there were a few guys with b coats and gsses, or tweed jackets and gsses. Basically the sort of stereotypical scientist or engineer you'd expect to see in media from back then.

  And finally there were the magical girls. I recognized the photo with the pink-haired girl, the one on the website wasn't the crop Ellie showed me and Harper. It was a wider shot depicting her with her magical halberd standing on some tropical isnd beach, with ocean on one side and palm trees on the other. And she wasn't alone.

  There were four other magical girls, although there weren't any shots of all five of them together. The girls weren't always alone, but if there was anyone else around it was either army guys or science guys. And the shots weren't always of the girls posed like they were ready for action. Some shots were more candid, like a magical girl standing around chatting with a handful of servicemen or whatever.

  The odd thing was, I couldn't really tell if there really were five magical girls or if it was just one girl in different costumes. The faces were all kind of generically attractive but simir, so were their body shapes. What differed were their colours, hairstyles, and weapons.

  The bubblegum-pink girl had long wavy hair and carried a pink crystal halberd. The purple girl had short messy hair and wielded a two-headed purple crystalline axe. The lime-green girl had short straight hair and carried a green crystal bow. The light-blue girl had shoulder-length curly hair and carried a blue crystal war-hammer. And the final magical girl had long straight pure white hair and held a sword that looked like it was made out of diamond.

  Overall the website basically just told the same story our friend told us the other night. There was some sort of rift, possibly caused by demonic energies or something, that allowed monsters to enter our world. The Americans tried using nukes to stop the monsters and close the rift, but in the end it was the magical girls who saved the day.

  It was vague on details like where the magical girls came from, didn't mention any names, and didn't eborate on how they fought the monsters or sealed the rift.

  Also noticeably absent was any pictures of actual monsters, or the magical girls doing any fighting. It didn't even show them training. There were just some 'action poses' and a lot of standing around.

  Once again it left me thinking of something like a movie set, where everyone was in costume but the pictures only depicted them standing around chatting in between filming. And the magical girls in the 'action poses' could almost pass as publicity shots, the sort of thing they'd use for movie posters or online ad banners.

  "So what do you think?" Ellie finally asked. "Pretty wild, right?"

  I tried not to sound too skeptical as I replied, "Yeah, it's definitely out there. Can you send me the link please? I'm going to need to re-read this a couple times to really get my head around it."

  She nodded, "Sure! There's also some MyTube videos where another guy goes through all this stuff, he does a detailed breakdown and analyzes the photos and everything. I'll send those links as well, to both of you."

  Me and Harper both thanked her as she copied the links into an email for the two of us. I gnced at him while she did that, to try and gauge what he thought of the whole thing. Unfortunately I couldn't tell if he believed it or not, all I got from him was 'vaguely curious'.

  After sending us those links Ellie asked, "Is there anything either of you wanted to do? I guess as far as your situation Bke, all we can do now is wait and see how long it takes for this form to wear off. Except that won't help much with the theory, since we don't have an accurate time for how long you were in the magical girl form."

  "Yeah," I grimaced. "I guess I'll make note of the time when it happens, but I don't really want to think too much about that right now. Sorry Ellie."

  She moved closer and pulled me into a hug as she apologized, "I'm sorry Bke, I didn't mean to upset you."

  I shook my head as I hugged her back, "It's fine."

  "Actually it's been kind of a long day," I added. "Or at least, the st few hours have been a lot. Thanks for the clothes and everything, but I think maybe I'm just going to head home if that's ok?"

  After she and I finally let go I put on my new sandals and my big hoodie, then picked up my backpack.

  As I did that Harper decided to do the same thing, "It's about time I headed home too. Hey Bke, how about I give you a lift?"

  "It's not that far," I shrugged. "Less than two minutes to walk."

  He sort of hesitated before pointing out, "You already got jumped once today. I think I'd feel a lot better driving you home, instead of letting you head off by yourself."

  "He's right," Ellie nodded. "This isn't your magical body, remember? You're a normal girl, not invulnerable."

  I'd almost managed to put all that stuff out of my head. But hearing them say it made me realize just how right they both were.

  "Yeah ok," I grimaced. "Sorry, I wasn't even thinking about that stuff. You're right though. Thanks Harper, a ride would be great."

  All three of us headed out of Ellie's room and down the stairs, then my best friend and I exchanged a hug at the door. She and Harper hugged too, then she bid us both a good night. "You two be careful. I'll see you ter."

  "Have a good night Ellie," I told her. "I'll text or something tomorrow."

  Harper and I got into his pick-up, and for once I got to ride in the passenger seat instead of being stuck in the middle. It was a very short drive though, only about a minute from start to finish.

  "There you go," Harper said as we pulled to stop in front of my house. "Have a good night Bke."

  I undid my seatbelt, then instead of opening the door I slid across closer to him and wrapped my arms around him as best I could. Then as I hugged him tightly I said, "Thanks again for saving me today Harper. I can't say that enough. You're my saviour."

  One of his strong arms moved around my shoulders as he returned the hug. He gave me a gentle squeeze as he replied, "You're welcome Bke. I'm just gd I got there in time, that I was able to help."

  We held each other for another ten or fifteen seconds before letting go. Then I slid back over to the passenger door and opened it up. I climbed out, then picked up my backpack. Before I closed the door I said, "Have a good night. I'll text or something tomorrow, but odds are I'm not going to make it into school."

  "Yeah I figured," he smiled. "Bye for now."

  I smiled back, then finally closed the door. He didn't pull away though, he stayed there watching and waiting, to make sure I got into the house ok.

  So I walked up the driveway past my mom's car, then opened the door and stepped inside. I paused there to wave at him, and he waved back. Then he finally put the truck in gear and set off for home, while I continued inside and closed the door.

  PurpleCatGirl