Tickle Sorcery

         “You first, Laura!”, I declare, smiling as I watch Laura trying to maintain her footing while sticky strands of stringy stuff affixed to her ankles by the bugbears keep pulling her legs apart, widening her stance.

         “Fine!” Says Laura, “We’ll save it for the tournament, then.”, she seems to agree with me as she then starts to mumble a spell. I assumed it was one merely to reverse the effects of my current state, but instead, I suddenly feel the back of my shorts being hoisted up! I’m being wedgied by invisible hands that have grasped the back of my underwear!

         “Yee-ouch! Oh, very funny, Laura!”, I snarl, “Only YOU would go looking for a spell to give someone a wedgie! Oww! Whoa! Ease-up a tad!”

         Laura is laughing at me, and I am furious at her, causing all this right in my dorm room! She has me pretty badly, I’m afraid, and she can sense it, when suddenly - the bugbears inadvertently come to my rescue, scampering up her legs, and ruining her concentration on the three separate spells she’s woven.

         Laura screams and kicks first one and then the other leg, trying to remove my furry little pals who cling like happy little garters round her smooth thighs. She turns and dances away, still trying to free the grip of the fuzzy bugbears.

         Laura does manage to remove the bugbears, and they come rolling like little furry balls back into my room and under the bed, while she is still hurling insults outside my door, and telling me she’s going to mop the floor with me at the spell tournament.

         Yeesh.

         I sigh, and do secretly worry that I’ll be made a total laughing-stock in front of the half the student body at the tournament. If not by Laura (who I equal in spells memorized on a good day), then by some other rival who’ll reduce me to nervous jelly with tickling spells at my weakest spots! I know that, deep down, almost any enchantress using the right combination of spells, could easily gain the upper hand on me. So, rather than concentrate on offensive spells to bother opponent spell-casters, I’ve had to bone up on defensive spells to bend back feathers and zap magic tickling fingers.

         I study some more, eat a late dinner, and turn in for the night, filled with dread and uncertainty at my ability to master tickle-magic when I am so horribly susceptible to it!

         When I awaken later, it feels like next morning, but it also has a strangely surreal, dreamy sense to the day, and I wonder if I am not still under a magic spell or still asleep as I lay against my pillow.