All of the original situations in this story are mine, the rest is the intellectual property of Maddy. Cat is a fictional character, any similarities to anyone living or dead is purely my warped mind in action.
The week started off grey and yucky.
I tried to look forward to the con but it was hard, especially when I was taking the usual abuse from those around me. It wasn't really bullying just the usual string of wisecracks mostly at my expense. I didn't see the point in going to the head, it wasn't serious and it would only draw more attention to me when I was doing my best to blend into the background.
As the week went on it got progressively worse, I forgot my games kit once, was late for guides and as for my time trial.... I suppose I might as well complete my humiliation for the week and tell you.
I thought I better make sure that I wasn't late for something else so I gave myself an extra 15 minutes. I was there in plenty of time, in fact I was so early that no one else was around yet.
I hung about and nobody came which was unusual, so I considered the possibility that the start time was later this week. It didn't take me too much longer to realise that no one was coming so I decided to time my own ride.
Within a couple of miles I realised it had been a dumb move, the day had been overcast and I'd hung about too long. I had my lights so I was okay riding but in the fading light I needed to concentrate on riding safely rather than riding fast in the dusk lights.
I could have taken a shortcut home but the draw of Berko Chippy was too much tonight. I thought it would be comfort food, instead it reminded me how much better chips were when you could chat with friends as you ate them. Suddenly I didn't feel so hungry so I took them home where they were still warm enough for Mum and Dad to have a chip butty each.
My week did improve at the end, and based on the last few days I definitely count not getting worse as an improvement. I was on time for everything and even managed to get most of my homework done before switching on the TV.
When Saturday came I was up with the lark again, I thought about getting a ride in before I got ready but I decided against that.
I had been ready a little while when I heard a knock at the door. It was Eve and as I looked at her I wondered if anyone else knew that she was ninja-ed up under her 3/4 lenghth coat.
I said goodbye to Mum and Dad and joined Eve and her parents in their Volvo.
The hotel was only a short drive away, Eve's dad found a safe place to drop us off and gave us strict instructions of where we had to be and when before he drove away.
We walked into the main entrance, my heart sank when I saw the queue for day registration until Eve reminded me that our tickets bypassed that, phew!
Our first stop was the toilets to finish preparations of costume no.1, for Eve that meant putting her ninja hood on over the hair she already had tied back, for me it meant donning my red wig and getting it to look as good as it did when Joyce had done it back at the shop. When we were both satisfied we dumped the rest of our stuff in the cloakroom and as we went through the door I breathed in.
Nothing that I had been told could have prepared me for what I saw the other side. Yes there were people in regular clothes but I wasn't ready for the diversity of costumes most of which I didn't have a clue about.
Eve must have got fed up of me asking, "What's that costume from?" and, "Who is she supposed to be?"
Having seen the schedule beforehand we had a good idea what we wanted to do this morning. All the stuff we were interested in was this afternoon so we planned to hit the stalls.
Eve was getting people complementing her on her costume, she really did look the business. A few people even asked her for photos so she struck fighting poses. My brief was to act shifty like I was on a mission, I was still feeling nervous which must have given it some realism.
"Hey Kim," I heard, then before I realised that they were talking to me I got a tap on the shoulder.
"Cool costume Kim," said a girl about 18 with white hair in full length flowing robes.
Wow, my first complement. "Thank you," I replied while blushing.
"Tell me that's not your real hair it looks so authentic."
"Nah, just a wig. What about you, white can't be your natural colour," I replied.
"Well it's light but it's not that light, I could get used to it though."
I turned away to see where Eve was and when I turned back the girl had disappeared into the crowd.
A few minutes later someone else called out, "Hey Kim." It was a Harry Potter lookalike.
"Hi Harry, hows the wizard training going?"
"Pretty good, where's Ron?"
"Oh he's on surveillance duty today," I said using one of my prepared lines. Harry grinned.
"Are you here all weekend?" he asked.
"No, just for the day," I replied.
"Pity," he said. "Will you be performing later?"
"I guess you will have to wait and see," I said. I wanted to keep something for later.
I browsed a couple of comic and book stands and was checking out the work of a custom wand maker when I looked up and made eye contact with myself or to be precise another Kim Possible.
"Which one of us is the evil twin?" she said.
"I think it must be you because I'm rubbish at being bad," I replied. She giggled.
"Great effort by the way."
"Thanks, you look pretty good yourself."
"Anyway before the mutual admiration stuff gets out of hand you may want to speak to the costume guys over there. They've got Kim's cheer outfit but it's a little too small for me, it might just fit you though."
"Kewl, thanks Kim, see you later."
At this point Eve found me or to be accurate found the other Kim, did a doubletake then saw me.
Once she had got over her embarrassment I filled her in on my new quest and we tried to find the stall in question.
"This must be it," said Eve.
I didn't even get a chance to ask about the costume.
"No prizes for guessing why you're here," said a friendly voice who then pointed to the side of the stall.
There it was, Kim's purple cheer outfit in all it's glory and it looked like a proper cheerleader uniform too.
"That's real ponte poly too," he said as I felt the fabric. I didn't know what that meant but I guessed it had to be the right stuff.
I held the skirt up against my waist, that was big enough so I got Eve to hold the shell top across my shoulders. She said it was big enough so I checked the price tag and it was just in my budget.
I got my purse out to pay.
"Don't you want to try it on first?"
"I know I should but I'm convinced that it's going to fit," I replied.
"You can use that corner to change in."
I looked over and saw one of those dodgy old curtain screens like the ones that you see when the school nurse visits. Was I going to trust my modesty to that in a room full of people? I think not.
"No that's ok, I'll take my chances," I said and paid.
"Don't forget these," a different voice behind the stall said and handed me a small plastic bag. I frowned.
"Matching cheerleader bloomers," she said, causing me to blush.
"I'll just be a couple of minutes changing," I told Eve as I disappeared off. Now I had managed to get my first choice Kim Possible costume I wasn't going to waste any time getting into it.
I rushed into the toilets to find all the cubicles engaged and a short queue had formed too! This wasn't part of the plan.
I thought for a second then realised that I could save a bit of time. I got my new skirt out and pulled it on over my trousers thereby preserving my dignity when I removed the trousers in the middle of the lavs. I got the cheer bloomers on without giving everybody an eyeful either. That just left the shell top and after five minutes waiting in line I thought 'what the heck'. I mean I had a black crop top on under my sweater so I did an express changeover, stuffed my secret mission clothes into a bag and went back out to find Eve.
The first thing I noticed was the air hitting my bare midriff, I wasn't used to that. In fact the more I thought about how much of my flesh was exposed (and looking back it wasn't much) the more self conscious I became.
By the time I found Eve I was almost ready to change back.
"I can't stay dressed like this," I whined.
"But this is the costume you had originally planned."
"I know but..."
"The one you were going to make for yourself."
"Yes but..."
"The one you dragged me over there to buy."
"That's right but..."
"Get a grip on yourself, it's not that big a deal."
"That's easy for you to say, all you're showing is your eyeballs and ankles," I replied.
She laughed and said, "Ok, I can't argue with that. There's no point being neurotic about it though, If it bothers you that much we can do something about it."
There was no mirror around but I could see my reflection in the full length window that Eve had dragged me to.
"Is it really that bad?" she asked.
"I suppose not, I'm just not used to having my tummy on show."
"Not even on the beach?"
"Well yeah but were not on the beach are we?"
"Doesn't really matter anyway, there are always ways around it, for example if you pulled the skirt up 2 or 3 cm your tummy is almost hidden," she said.
"But what about the hem?"
"It'll be an inch higher above your knees and will look fine, try it."
So I pulled the waistband up an inch and checked my reflection. She was right, so long as I didn't stretch there was just a thin strip of my tummy on show and the hem was only about 6cm above my knees.
Feeling less nervous I continued to scout around the stalls with Eve, I didn't really buy anything else but I got plenty of inspiration for future events.
We both got compliments as we walked around, and we saw plenty of people with even better outfits than ours so we let them know too.
When we checked the time we couldn't believe how quickly the morning had passed. If we didn't change now then we would miss one of the forum thingies. We got our bags from the cloakroom and tried to enter the toilets but it was already full of people. We didn't need to say anything to each other, we just exchanged worried looks.
"What do we do now?" I said.
"We could ask for a room," Eve replied.
"I doubt we could afford it for the day and I can't see them renting rooms by the hour," I stated.
"What about the lifts?"
"That would work if we could guarantee the doors won't open in mid-change."
"We could use the alarm to stop it," Eve said as a question as well as a statement.
"Yeah so lonq as we don't get caught."
"Or stuck."
So we ruled that plan out too.
We also ruled out going round the back of the place to change, finding someone who would let us use their room (stranger danger) and staying in the same costumes all day.
In the end we decided to find a cleaner or someone with keys to a cupboard that would be big enough to change in. The first person we nabbed was a waiter and he couldn't help but he did suggest someone who might and where we could find her.
We ventured onto the first floor and at the second attempt found Sarah and explained our predicament.
"So Joe sent you up to see me did he? Good for him. No that's no problem, I've just finished in this room and it's empty so you change in there and let me know when you're done."
"Thanks Sarah," we said in unison.
We didn't waste any time, not only because we were running late but also because we didn't want to get Sarah into any trouble on our account.
Eve ventured out of the room first, the coast was clear so I followed. We found Sarah and thanked her again.
"Don't you two look great," she said. "You're bound to win a prize like that."
I know that I blushed at that and I'm guessing Eve did too.
As we returned to the con I took another deep breath. I noticed a few heads turned and wondered who had come in behind us and looked myself.
"I think it's us they're looking at," Eve muttered.
"I don't know whether to be flattered or to run away screaming," I replied.
"Me too," my friend admitted.
In the end we decided to smile and carry on walking. We split up to go to our forum things, I wanted to find out what influenced Miyazake but she'd been to similar things elsewhere and was more interested in one about the portrayal of western values in anime. A bit too obscure for me.
The Miyazake thing was well worth it, there was so much stuff I didn't have a clue about. I mean who would have guessed that the industrial landscapes in Castle in the sky was influenced by news coverage of the 1984 miners strike that happened here?
When it was all over Eve found me and lead me straight into another room where something was about to start. I tried to get into what was going on but I couldn't. I hung on in their for about 20 minutes but there were a lot of people in here and not much air so I told Eve where I'd be then fought my way out.
Someone must have worked out how I was feeling because a chair miraculously appeared in the corridor for me.
I had no idea how long I was sat there for but it was long enough for that room to finish whatever they had been discussing and come pouring out past me. Eve stood beside me and asked if I was ok so I explained that the room had started closing in on me. She said she had wondered if I had been caught out, luckily I worked out what she meant before I made a bigger fool of myself.
"You are going to be ok to do this?" Eve asked yet again.
"Yes," I stated. "With the amount of work we put into the costumes and stuff there is no way I'm not doing it."
"Okay, I was only asking," Eve said.
I thought 'for the fifth time' but bit my tongue.
I know what we're doing is hardly original, I know Drew and Maddy did a skit when they went to their con. Actually they are the inspiration behind this, if I hadn't seen the pictures and how matter-of-fact they were about it there's no way I would have attempted it.
We waited patiently, I felt the knot in my stomach getting bigger each minute until we were finally called up. I took a big breath and joined Eve.
Everything went just as we had scripted, I gave a reprise of Sakura's trial to get the thunderstone while Eve did Tomoyo's role, videoing the action as if she had been there and adding her own viewpoint. The Reduced Shakespeare Company would have been proud (If you don't know who they are then look them up, they are worth it).
As we left the 'stage' Eve and I high fived then sat down to relax and watch everyone else do their bit.
"Great job girls," said a voice behind us. I tried to see who it was but all I saw now was a sea of faces. I must have been so into my performance that I didn't notice how many people were watching.
I could feel the colour draining from my face.
"You feeling rough again?" Eve asked.
"Only when I realised the size of the audience," I replied.
"Good job that didn't happen in mid-performance," Eve added.
I felt the remaining colour drain from my face when I played that out in my head. It ranked right up with dreams where you turn up at school then realise you are naked.
I had managed to calm down by the time they got to the prize giving. Eve wondered if I thought we'd win a prize, I couldn't say because I hadn't been paying much attention to the competition. She thought we would get a minor prize.
I was surprised at the number of prizes for the size of the event, I suppose they want to keep everybody interested.
So did we win anything? Well we got the minor prize that Eve had predicted - best group performance in the youth category. To my surprise we were also in the top three and had to go back up for the final verdict. I know what you're thinking, they didn't win did they? that's right, we didn't. We came 2nd to an Ian McKellen soundalike who did a most impressive Gandalf. Still the £25 voucher would come in useful and the specially comissioned comic strip would be a great way to remember the day.
That was virtually the last thing that we did there, we had a rendezvous to make. We thought we were bang on time but the car was sat there waiting for us.
"So how was your day?" Mr Sansom asked.
We gave him a full rundown of the day's events and it lasted all the way to my house where I thanked Eve for a great day, Mrs Sansom for the loan of the petticoat and Mr Sansom for the lift. I skipped inside to retell the whole tale to my own parents.
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