Hazel Goes to Prom

Hazel Plopper leaving the Train Station on Route to the Swan Hotel

Hazel Plopper lives in a three bedroom town house at 2 Glenn Close in Cloverdale with her mother, father and 12 year old sister Snip. She is a senior at the Comprehensive School and vice president of the school’s Goth Awareness Society.

It’s prom season throughout the Shire, a fact that was always on Hazel’s mind. She desperately wanted to go to prom, but being a goth, and having sworn away all ties to normality she was obliged to display a face of disdain whenever the subject was brought.

Deep down inside, Hazel was like any other 17 year old girl. She wanted to be asked to the ball by her very own version of Prince Charming - black hair, black eyeliner, piercings and chains. As the Prom loomed ever closer, Hazel nearly gave up hope of being asked and planned on joining the other members of the club in a Prom boycott and barbecue at the park.

A week before the prom a note was shoved into her locker through the air slits on top. It was a piece of white ruled paper with the word PROM written in black marker followed by a question mark and phone number. Hazel’s heart jumped. She shoved the note into her notebook, quickly changed her expression of joy into one of disgust (required when walking through the school’s hallways), shut her locker and went to her third period. Her mind reviewed every Gothic boy wondering who sent the note. She ignored the teacher. He was teaching prime numbers, something she had absolutely no interest in, along with all the other seniors in the remedial pre algebra class.

The bell rang for lunch. She texted the number and left a short message which read, “Ya, whatever. Who?” She went into a stall in the second floor restroom and waited an answer. Her phone peeped. The message said “Garth, ya whatever.” She screamed, bringing two girls to the stall door to see if she was alright. They backed away the moment they realized it was Hazel Plopper. She was too weird for their taste.

Hazel was overjoyed, in a very Gothic sense. Garth was had more tattoos than anyone else in the school except the boys PE teacher. It would be a perfect night.

Garth arranged for tickets to the ball, held in the Swan Hotel in Capital City. He would already be in Capital City getting a special tattoo for the event. Hazel arranged to travel by train and meet him at the hotel for dinner before the prom.

Together they had an great time looking like they hated every minute of the prom while loving it more than anyone else in the room. That night, for a few hours, they teetered into the normal world, or as close as they felt they could enter without loosing their core of anarchy.

It was Hazel’s Night to Remember.