The Final Trick

Elppans got that look in her eye, the look that she only got when she was getting a really good idea. No one at school knew her well enough to be afraid of her. After all she had only been there for one month. She looked up at the school that had no doubt been abandoned years ago and she laughed this was going to be so easy and it was going to be fun. It must have been the school before it caught on fire as its blackened sides were stained from flames that slowly coaxed the color and brightness out of the brick, blackening them or in some cases turning them to ash. The vines covering every possible inch of unburned brick and burned gave you the eerie feeling of someone watching you from behind them. She laughed “This town is always too cheerful, too happy and to sunny. They need a clue,” she thought. She closed her eyes and thought back to her previous tricks.
She shook her long jet black hair behind her back and thought about school. She didn’t really fit in there but she didn’t really want to fit in with a bunch of freaks anyway. There were also the three kids that kept trying to talk to her, they were SO annoying they followed her around and acted like they were her friends. Elppans HATED them they were the mega freaks of the whole school. There was Julie, who was a year younger then the rest of the class because she skipped 1st grade but was just as tall as any of them. The most annoying thing about her was that she never had much to say, but when she spoke she had the most obnoxious sounding voice Elppans had ever heard. Then there was Rebecca who was short and almost always rude. The final of the three was Lucy who always had something to say and acted like she was the queen of the world. The most annoying fact about the three of them was that they were overly nice to her. Her mom, as always asked her how school was and she rolled her hazel eyes and ignored her mother. Her mother frowned at her but said nothing else.
Besides from her name Elppans was different in many ways like how she spoke. She was quiet and could say just about three or four words, that coming from someone else’s mouth were perfectly ordinary, but coming from her mouth would terrify whoever she spoke them to and set them wondering what she really meant. She seemed to whisper and at the same time seemed to be yelling. She was very tall and she was extremely thin for her age, which was 17.
She shut her eyes and thought, “I suppose that some tricks are tricks and some are more than tricks. Some tricks are on purpose and some just came to me. There were so many different ways to trick someone. I just hope no one gets killed this time,” she thought back to the tricks that had been fatal such as…”the girl, the principle… and Jessie, Jessie had been different because instead of screaming like the others all she said was “You will be sorry,” Elppans shivered at the thought, and thought to her self, “for some reason that still sends chills down my spine.
The next day she waited until the first bell rang and everyone went to class before she left. She hid her backpack in the bushes and ran off in the direction of the old school so she could get to work. As she ran she kept her head down in case somebody recognized her. She knew she was there when a large shadow fell across her view of the ground. She looked around cautiously to see if she saw any pairs of shoes on the sidewalk but it appeared to be empty so she lifted her head. She studied the schools crumbling sides and blackened walls and she smiled, it was perfect. Out of the small bag that hung on her shoulder she pulled a rope, matches and some very sticky clay. She took the rope and stuck the clay to the ends of it then she reached up to the beams on the low ceiling of the dark room and stretched the rope across it hanging an end on each side it hung somewhat low in the middle but still it kept itself well away from the floor. Then she hid the matches in a corner of the room. She shut her eyes as she lay on the warm sweet smelling grass that was in the front of the school and relaxed.
BONG, BONG, BONG, Elppans awoke with a start and was shocked as she realized that that was the final bell of the day and she wouldn’t be there when her mother pulled up. She leapt up and raced as fast as she could down to the school where she snatched her backpack out of the bushes, and stood up just before her mother arrived. She lay at home that night thinking about who would be best to trick but she could think of no one.
She was walking through the corridor the next day when it came to her, the perfect people to trick. Julie, Lucy and Rebecca they were stupid enough to fall for it and they lived on the opposite side of town so they would not know where the old school was. She went up to they and she was very kind and polite she explained that she had just moved here and that she was wondering if they would like to come over to her house some time. They smiled at her and nodded. Lucy said, “That sounds fun.” “Ok then,” she said “how about tomorrow?” they nodded again and Elppans smiled as she walked away. “That was just way too easy,” she thought. Then the thought struck Elppans again “why were they so nice to her/” She went through the day a lot happier knowing that soon she would have someone good to trick. When she got home that night she told her mother that she was going to a friend’s house the next day so not to pick her up after school. Her mother smiled at her and said, “I’m glad that you’re making friends here.” Elppans smiled because it was too easy to fool everyone they just fell right for it. Elppans mother had never once figured out that Elppans was the cause of deaths or tricks in a neighborhood.
After the final bell rang at school she walked up to them and said, as she pointed in the direction of the old school, “This way to my house, but if you don’t mind it would be better if we took a shortcut through.” Without giving them time to answer she set off in the direction of the old school. When they got there she turned up the large sloping lawn that led to the school and she looked up.
“My house is on the road above the school but we have to go all the way over there if we want to get there by road its way easier this way she said.” They smiled at her and started up the hill. When they got inside Elppans pretended to be lost and lead them in circles thought the old school until she said, “I’m tired, why don’t we rest for a while.” They sat down on the floor of the room that she had set up for the prank and as they talked she casually got up and walked to the spot where the matches were. Bending down swiftly and gracefully, as if she were dusting off her shoe she clasped the box of matches tightly in her hand and she walked slowly around until she was behind the three kids. She glanced around the room and she noticed for the first time that this was not a janitor’s closet as she had first assumed but it was actually an ancient and apparently very small classroom. She shrugged and struck the match against the side of the box so that it would light. She reached up and slowly lit the top of the rope. It began to, at a snail's pace, smolder then grew to a small flickering flame.
She leaned back and thought about the purpose of this trick, she knew that it would be not one of her best, but not one of her worst either. All she wanted to do was frighten the kids a little, watch them tremble and shake as they felt real fear for the first time. The treacherous fear that made you feel cold and hot at the same time the kind that captured you and made everything seem dreamlike and wrong. She knew what real fear felt like, knew the pain the agony the confusion and that you felt as your entire world came crashing down around you. Real fear, the feeling of falling and falling with no sense of when it would be safe or where you could go or even when you would land. She had felt that the day that she stood in the airport watching the plane her father was on try to take off and then as it reached the height of all the tall buildings around it suddenly began to turn around she had felt it as she watched it turn its nose toward the ground, felt the pain swallow her up as it gained speed and slammed it to the ground, felt someone shake her away from the window, telling her to stay put and stay away from the windows, felt sick as the ambulances arrived. And at last when they announced that there were no survivors felt something freeze inside her, felt it drift slowly to the bottoms of her feet. She felt nothing anymore, her father was gone and she would never see him again, never hear his voice calling her. She abruptly realized that there was no point to her tricks. They were not funny they were not interesting and all she was doing was hurting people, killing them even. “I should stop now! But I will have to explain everything, I don’t know if I can it might be worse than tricking them anyway.”
She heard a shout and opened her eyes. She realized with a jolt where she was. She had been daydreaming for longer than she thought and the fire was suddenly coming from the sides of the room. “But that was not possible,” she thought she looked above her the ropes flame had grown to a bright luminescent light that was eerie to look at but there was no way that it could have spread that far and lit up the sides of the room like that. Thoughts raced through her mind as she could feel the heat of the fire creeping up on her warming her skin slowly. She shut her eyes wishing it away. But she knew that it wasn’t worth it. She could feel the fire as it grew surrounding her and torturing her.
Then shouts filled the air. “We made it!” “We’re alive!” “I can’t believe it caught on fire!” Then came the shout that she had been waiting for, “Elppans is still in there!” Then there was silence. She knew that they wouldn’t come back in for her, it was too dangerous and there were no phones around so there was no one to call for help. She knew that she would have to try and get out all on her own. She turned to try and run out of the building through the door they had come in but as she raced toward it it exploded into flames the size 10ft tall. She heard a laugh behind her. It was as quiet as anything yet somehow she heard it over the roaring fire. She turned looking wildly around the room trying to find the source of the sound. Then she saw her, she was standing by the chalk board with her hands on her hips her bright red hair mixing with the flames.
For a moment Elppans just stared then she whispered “Jessie.” It was the girl that she played her first prank on one week after her father’s death. The girl had died. Although Elppans knew she had to be a ghost it was still a jolt when she realized that she could see through her. Written on the chalkboard behind Jessie it said “Today’s Lesson Tricks Aren’t Always Funny” She just stared at Jessie for a moment but when her mouth tried to form the words “I’m sorry” they wouldn’t come out. Her mouth was too dry and it was way too hot in the room, she couldn’t breathe. She could feel the flames now, licking her arms, turning her shoes to ashes. She looked at Jessie one last time and when Jessie waved to her Elppans saw something flicker in her hand, it was a lighter, and that was how the fire must have gotten started in the corners. Some part of her brain thought faintly, “This is the final trick that I’ll ever play.” Then the blackness came.1