The Shape Shifters of Virginia Dare

The Shape Shifters of Virginia Dare

Virginia Dare Academy is one of the most prestigious girls' prep schools in America. Founded in 1842, its alumnae include former First Ladies, state senators, scientists, scholars, debutantes, socialites, lobbyists, and progressive philanthropists. Once a bastion of white Southern girlhood, the school celebrated its first valedictorian of color, a Harvard-bound exchange student from Nigeria, in 1978. Since then, the school has been a magnet for the best and brightest, attracting girls from Mobile and Mumbai. Yearbook photos reveal the student body to be energetic, creative, entrepreneurial, and very entitled.

Over the years, as in any school, there have been secrets and scandals. Girls have formed illicit sororities, made illegal sorties into neighboring towns for cigarettes, brewed hooch during Prohibition, entertained servicemen in their dorm rooms after USO dances, smoked dope in the chapel, and been busted in a call girl sting at the Howard Johnson’s in Greensboro. Thankfully, that story broke the weekend of the Kennedy assassination and passed with little notice. The local paper printed a small item, and the editor’s wife, class of ’29, made sure the brief article only reported underage drinking. A single short sentence mentioning “disorderly conduct” was deleted in bold red strokes. In recent years there have been opioid overdoses, none fatal, and an honor student accused of using AI to pass geometry. Various deans have handled the common problems of plagiarism and pregnancy with wise discretion. A number of them have gone to their graves without revealing why certain wealthy families suddenly donated a building or paid to repave a parking lot.

But nothing prepared the administration, the faculty, or the student body for the appearance of the shape shifters.

On April 12th Dr. Jillian Steinmetz of the CDC presented her credentials to the school nurse in the infirmary building and announced she was conducting a contact tracing study. Six Virginia Dare students, she informed the part-time RN, had been exposed to active syphilis and would be required by court order to submit to an immediate blood draw and pelvic examination. The wide-eyed nurse put down her coffee and called the dean. Dr. Steinmetz answered her own phone and stepped outside to speak with her superiors in Atlanta.

At that same moment a heavyset man in his fifties from the National Trust was ushered into President’s spacious office without appointment. Forensic accountants, Wilson Godfield quietly explained to Dr. Eileen Feller, had discovered that 1.2 million dollars had been embezzled from the endowment fund and that several trustees were facing indictment. As the school had received a grant from the Department of Education, the news would likely trigger a federal investigation.

The drama class on the second floor of the Fine Arts Building was abuzz with the presence of Sonny Lister from Paramount. He told the cluster of eager girls that his production company was casting for a proposed reality show set in a Southern girls’ school. A few wary seniors Googled him and shared links with their friends. TMZ and Wikipedia pictures showed a younger, thinner Sonny Lister on the set of Big Brother and a very slim Sonny Lister in his twenties with the cast of Survivor. Lister passed out business cards featuring a QR code to his production company, urging girls to fill out applications and upload selfies. Excited students followed Lister to his limo, whisking off to his private jet.

Stories of the visitors were flying around campus when everyone got the text message. A link opened a video showing a matronly Dr. Steinmetz, a glum Wilson Godfield, and a smiling Sonny Lister standing side by side. With girlish waves and giggles, they revealed that they were actually three seniors who had crafted the art of shape shifting and were just having fun. “This week we promise to do some demonstrations,” Wilson Godfield announced, removing his steel-rimmed glasses. His pouchy middle-aged face lit up with glee. “This is going to be one fun week!”

No one slept that night. The dorm lights stayed lit, and students wandered from room to room sharing stories and theories. Administrators made calls to local and federal authorities unsure how to explain their situation. Sonny Lister was reached in Vail and swore he had been in Colorado all week vacationing with his family, was no longer producing reality shows, and had never heard of Virginia Day Academy.

Nothing happened on Tuesday.

But then, just as students left their eleven o’clock classes on Wednesday, they joined the growing mob assembling in the quadrangle. There on the small hill topped by a Civil War cannon donated by the North Carolina Chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy stood three identical Marilyn Monroes! Their white dresses billowing upward, the three Marilyns squealed and blew kisses. They hugged sophomores and did selfies with juniors, breathily announcing how happy they were. The students looked from Marilyn to Marilyn, trying to detect a single difference, but could find none. The Marilyns pouted and posed then wiggled off into the library and disappeared.

Saturday was Spring Fling, the school’s annual talent pageant and award program. The parade began as usual at noon before the volleyball tournament. Students, teachers, parents, and bored locals watched the procession of floats. There were paper mâché replicas of Virginia Dare and Harriet Denton, the school’s first president, followed by girls from the Honor Society tossing out paper flowers and glass beads. Members of the Future Physicians of America passed out first-aid booklets and took up collections for orphans in Africa. Dressed in the school colors of green and gold, the marching band played “Entry of the Gladiators” followed by “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” Then, an unregistered float appeared, pulled by a black SUV. The crowd went silent then erupted into screams and shouts. “It’s them. It’s them. It’s really them.” Everyone began taking videos. A flatbed decorated with red, white, and blue bunting rolled into view featuring Taylor Swift, Beyonce, and Kim Kardashian dressed as cheerleaders. When the float paused at the reviewing stand, the celebs shook their pom poms, jumped into the air, and vanished. In their place, three roaring Bengal tigers sprang from the float and charged into the screaming crowd. Knocking onlookers to the ground, they bounded across the campus and disappeared behind the gymnasium.

The dinner hall that evening was bedlam. The awards program was suspended as girls shared videos and told tiger stories. Then with over four hundred phones getting a simultaneous text, the room fell silent. Everyone opened the message and hit the link. For a moment the girls squinted, stunned and mystified. Their screens showed a grainy clip from a 1930s Three Stooges comedy. Moe, Larry, and Curly were wearing overalls in a machine shop, hitting each other with planks and hammers. Suddenly, the Stooges put down their props and turned to the camera. Moe announced, “Well, it’s been fun. We’ve had a blast putting you guys on. But now it’s spring break, and when we get back, it’s time to buckle down and study for finals before we move on to bigger and better things.” The Stooges joined hands and sang the opening lines of the Virginia Dare Academy anthem before resuming their pratfalls and eye pokes.

No one wanted to leave campus for spring break. Girls called their parents, cutting home visits to a single day. Others canceled ski trips and cruises. A few refused to leave school at all. The Dean reminded students that the academy was officially closed. There would be no meal service that week, and all dorms had to be vacated for annual deep cleaning and scheduled repair projects. Banned from campus, squads of girls took rooms at the nearby Hampton Inn, spending their days vainly searching the grounds for signs and clues. A new clique formed. Dubbed the Nancy Drews, investigative students speculated on the identity of the shape shifters, while others insisted the events were carefully-crafted hoaxes staged by a billionaire’s daughter. The visitors and celebrities were clearly actors and impersonators. The float was the work of a Vegas magician. The cheerleaders, one senior argued, jumped into trapdoors that released trained circus tigers that ran into a waiting truck hidden behind the gym. The Stooges video was a simple AI recreation. But even she could not explain the three identical Marilyns. Her father had FBI connections, and their facial recognition experts found no differences in the videos and selfies she submitted. Nancy Drews studied yearbook photos of the seniors, Googling each girl for evidence, tracing out timelines, looking for clues, connections, and alliances to no avail.

Classes resumed a week later, but there were no more demonstrations or messages from the shape shifters. Students got back to studying, working late in labs to complete chemistry projects, trolling databases for research papers, and voting for valedictorian. But in June as seniors crossed the stage in their caps and gowns, everyone wondered which ones were the shape shifters and where they were headed – the Ivy League, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, or the CIA?

The End