Operation Midnight Tissue

The Golden Child. The Joker. The Wild Card. The Twisted One.

Or, as our parents would have it: Sina. Rhea. Drake. Lav.

I’m Sina. I’m not a fan of the codename that Lav gave me for lots of reasons. I used to not a huge fans of codenames, but Lav assured us that it would help on our “missions.” Over the years, I’ve grown to annoyingly accept our codenames.

Out of spite, I was the one that gave Lav his nickname.

He hated it. His familiar - a black ferret named Romulus - hissed whenever I called him that. Romulus wasn’t here - he was scoping out the various places we were going to visit on our last night in Normalton.

The Portals was playing on the spintable next to us. I was moving my wand around the air in spirals that gently oozed out of the tip in a golden goo.

“Do we have to do this?” I asked the group. Rhea scoffed.

“Golden Child wants to pull out,” she said dryly. “Thinks it’ll hurt her reputation on the last weekend in Normalton. Thinks that Varunkirk will withdraw her application.”

My cockatrice Immanuel was next to me on his perch, cleaning his feet with his big beak. He was blonde like me, but even the teachers at school called him “Goldie”. At “Golden Child” he looked up, gave a quizzical look, and then went back to preening.

Rhea was wearing a torn jean jacket and torn jeans modified around her goat legs, the cuffs frayed above dark hooves polished with black lacquer. One horn was wrapped in copper wire and cheap charms from the Night Market. The other had a crack near the tip from some incident she refused to explain.

She was popping bubble-gum bubbles and reading Wizard Weekly while reclined impossibly far back in a big cushy bean bag chair, one hoof hanging over the armrest. She toyed absently with the shaggy brown curls that tangled around her short horns and didn’t even bother to look at me as she casually used my codename.

Her brown rat Pickles was perched between the horns like it was a throne. She’d given him tiny sunglasses months ago.

Pickles was great. I gave him a scratch and he gave me a squeak in return.

“Tomorrow is the last day of finals,” I said, pushing my long, somewhat annoying, hair behind my ear. “Shouldn’t we be studying?”

“Chill, Golden,” Lav said, the ever-present bit of mischief in his voice. He was still wearing his black robe from Enchantments class.

“Okay, Twisted,” I replied with a smirk. Lav’s own smirk flattened like a squished fae on a garden path, but then rebounded - like a previously flattened fae on a garden path. “...Have you studied for Miss Umbrah’s final? I heard it’s gonna be rough.”

Lav took out his wand and pointed at one of my wilted plants.

“WAIT!” I said, but before I could do anything, he spun his own wand - a bent bit of ironoak - and said the words of the Energetic spell towards my poor little plant. Black, sparkling magic floated around it and found a way in through a leaf. Slowly, the plant stood up straight and began to vibrate.

“Oh Twisted, what the Hells did you do now?”

“Ha ha!” Drake cackled. He was on my bed, pretending to study. “See, Golden? He’s got Necromancy all in hand.”

“So, what, is my plant a zombie now?”

“Why do you worry so much?” Drake said, leaning back until a MREOW emanated from behind him. “Oops!

Sorry Eunice,” he said to his familiar: a gray tabby with a broken tail.

“She’s the Golden Child,” Lav said. “She has to worry. About scholarships, the future... all that boring stuff.”

“Easy for you to say, Twisty,” Rhea said in her casual, bored voice. “You’re getting all A’s too, aren’t you?”

“Ssshhhhhhhh!” Lav hissed. “Jeez, you wanna ruin my reputation?”

Just then, a skittering across the wooden floorboards could be heard.

“Ferret!” Immanuel squawked. I gave him a cracker, which he proceeded to delicately eat without spilling a crumb.

“Hey hey, Romulus! Whatcha got for me?” Lav said, bending down. When he came back up, he was holding a piece of paper. “Ah!”

The ferret flicked its tail excitedly and as I reached for him he skittered away making those little ferret noises. Every time I tried he would skitter away.

“Lav, can you control your familiar here?” I asked, knowing it was futile.

Lav shook his head.

“You got to play with him for a bit before he’ll stop.”

For the next fifteen minutes we ended up playing the ferret familiar’s little game of ‘keep away’ until Romulus grew bored or tired and finally spat out the now crumpled, and damp paper.

I unfolded it and my nose crinkled in disgust. The smeared ink had a message for us.

Hey, it’s Sidewinder: pretty cool codename right? You guys like codenames so thought I’d give myself that one. Oh, it’s me Tavi, you know the naga girl in biology class. The mayor is going to be fast asleep all ‘night’ get it? He’s got a lot of campaigning to do. So now’s the perfect time to strike. Anyways, can I join your gang now?

“Nope,” I replied, tossing the paper away and watching Romulus pounce on it.

“So our dear vampire mayor is out cold, eh?” Rhea asked.

“It’s the perfect time to strike, Joker,” I smirked. “But it’s broad daylight, which means we can be easily spotted.”

“Let’s do it anyway!” Wild declared.

Wild and Twisted brought out packs of toilet paper.

“This’ll be enough to cover his whole, gaudy, not-quite-a-mansion-but-too-big-to-be-normal house,” Joker said.

“Where did you even get all this?” I asked.

“The supply closet outside the alchemy wing,” Twisted replied.

“…You stole school toilet paper?” I asked with a raised brow. Immanuel bobbed his head making his clucking cockatrice sounds.

“Well, now it's a civic protest paper,” Wild snorted.

“Did anybody, like... notice?” I asked.

“Gawd you worry about everything,” Wild said.

“Yeah like that Yvette girl a few grades down. You know the ‘witch detective’ ‘snitch witch’.”

“Why would she care? She can’t be that bored.” Twisted asked.

“Besides, we’re noble rebels.” Wild declared.

“Wait, what are we rebelling against, again?” Joker asked.

I smiled, putting my hand on Twisted before he could respond and answered with the coolest answer I could think of.

“Whaddya got?”

“OooOOOooh, we have a badass over here,” Twisted said, even more coolly.

I coolly laughed as coolly as I could, hiding how jealous I was of his cool response.

The mayor’s house sat on a hill at the edge of Normalton, behind black iron fencing twisted into decorative bats. Even in daylight the place looked gloomy, all dark stone and tall narrow windows with velvet curtains drawn shut against the sun. A campaign sign near the gate read:

MAYOR GRAVEWHISPER: STABILITY. SECURITY. A STRONGER NORMALTON.

Someone had drawn fangs on his smiling portrait.

Rhea snorted. “I voted for the other guy.”

“You weren’t old enough to vote,” I whispered.

“Exactly,” Rhea snorted, blowing some hair out of her face. “Oppressive system.”

Pickles adjusted his tiny sunglasses.

“Operation Midnight Tissue commences,” Lav announced quietly, pointing his wand forward like some military commander in a cheap adventure serial. Romulus perched on his shoulder, tail whipping.

“That is a terrible name,” I muttered.

“Got something better?”

“Afternoon, rolls!” I replied.

“That’s worse.”

“At least it’s accurate to the time of day.”

“I think it’s a little on the nose,” said a fifth voice.

I turned in shock as did everyone else, except Twisted, looking guilty as sin... wait that never made sense to say. Ah well whatever. Anyway, there she was. Yvette, the skinny brunette witch with the annoyingly cute freckles. Her raven familiar perched on her shoulder.

“How, and why are you here?” I asked.

“I’m so glad you asked!” Yvette chirped.

“Why’d you ask that, Sina?” Rhea sighed.

“...It all started with Janitor Wilkins - he was quite perturbed that so much toilet paper had gone missing at once. I knew someone had to have taken it, but I thought nothing of it. Maybe bills are tight back home and someone stole it… but that was a lot of toilet paper - enough for three households.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Then I heard two of you were spotted near the hall from a sparrow familiar, birds like me.”

“Damnit.” Lav cursed.

“So, I knew you four being the troublemakers you are, would be behind it. Except you, Sina,” she said, her voice a little sad. “I’m surprised you’d still be hanging around these guys.”

“That’s all very interesting, Yvette,” Twisted said, “However it’s four of us, and one of you.”

“Yeah, where’s your werewolf boyfriend for backup?” I added.

“You misunderstand the situation,” Yvette replied.

“Yeah?” I asked folding my arms.

“I want to join in.”

The reply floored me.

“Wait, what? Why? I thought you were all goody two shoes.”

Yvette giggled.

“I got a bit of fae in me, I’m not above a bit of mischief. But also I’m mad at the mayor, he’s been giving my dad a hard time these past few months and I want to be petty for once: I’m tired of taking the high road. Besides, I can make sure you don’t get caught.”

“Maybe you’re not as much a square as I thought.”

“Thank you, Lav,” Yvette said, smiling.

“So we should trust you, I guess?” Wild asked.

I nodded. “I got a good feeling about it. I mean her police chief dad probably would believe whatever she told him.”

Yvette nodded. “Yeah, a bunch of students in Brumbridge High Letterman’s did this.”

Brumbridge was our chief rival. Perfect. Even Lav raised an impressed eyebrow.

I handed Yvette a roll of toilet paper. “You get the opening volley. Let the first shot of our rebellion be fired.”

We ran around like hellions, throwing toilet paper into the highest balconies and branches before running off into the day.

“Where are we going?” Yvette asked, huffing.

“What do you mean ‘we’?” Lav asked, also huffing.

“Aw, c’mon Twisted,” Rhea said.

“No codenames!” Lav retorted.

Yvette giggled and Lav smirked. “Okay, let’s get back to Sina’s.”

The rest of the night unfolded like it usually did, except there was an extra face there. The next day was the last day of school. The last day of High School for us. After an hour or so, Yvette left and we all said our goodbye’s and see ya’s and tootle-oo’s and looked at each other and what we built.

I could think of no better end than this. No matter what the future brought, or where we all ended up I would cherish this memory.