POO MONSTERS by bj44

Alison Dawkins stared out of the car window at the passing beech hedge, trying to make out the identity of the birds on the lake beyond. It was hard to tell at this distance, particularly since she could only see them for a fraction of a second at a time. She had just about decided that they were mallards when a sharp instruction from her brother Michael jolted her from her reverie.”Quick,” he said, “grab the forty miles per hour sign.”

She bent down and felt around under her seat for the A3-sized placards that he had made up. She pulled them out and flipped through them, looking for the one he wanted.

“Good grief, would you look at this idiot?” growled Michael. “Doesn’t he know what a de-restricted sign means, for heaven’s sake?” He changed down into third gear and cruised up to a few yards behind the bumper of the car in front, edging out towards the middle of the road in the hope that a break in the oncoming traffic would coincide with a long straight stretch. To his delight, after the next corner the road was clear for a couple of hundred yards.

“Okay, here we go,” he said. “Hold up the sign!”

As the car swung out to overtake, Alison pressed her sign against the window, while her brother hooted to get the attention of the other car’s driver. Peeping around the edge of the placard, she saw the elderly gentleman in question start in surprise as he read the message: “THIS IS NOT A 40 LIMIT, YOU IDIOT!”

Leaving the old man spluttering indignantly in his wake, Michael grinned as he quickly roared up to fifty miles per hour then changed up into fourth, still accelerating. “Finally!” he exclaimed. “Thanks Ali.”

Alison replaced the signs under her seat and returned to staring out of the window. Her brother glanced across at her. “You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, fine,” she replied a little dolefully. A moment later, she added, “I was kind of hoping we could have another look at your spell book this weekend.”

“Now, Ali, you know my feelings on that,” her brother reproached her gently. “I didn’t intend for you to see that at all, and what I told you was meant to put you off, not encourage you.”

“But it’s magic, Mike. How could I not be incredibly curious about it?”

Michael sighed. “I know, I know. But trust me – I’ve had some very major problems with spells I’ve cast in the past. Some of those that I cast on other people had horrible consequences.”

“But didn’t you say that the nasty consequences could be avoided if you were careful?”

“Sometimes. Usually,” he admitted. “But there was always the potential for accidents, and I experienced a few too many of those, which is why I gave it up. I haven’t practised magic in almost three months now – since just before you came to stay.”

“But haven’t you been tempted?” inquired Alison.

“Occasionally, perhaps. But not enough to want to risk it.”

Alison pouted. It was just too awful to discover that actual magic really did exist, only to be told she was never to experience it. She tried again. “But think of all the good you could do!” she pressed him.

He shook his head. “I once felt the same way,” he said. “But painful experience made me a sadder and a wiser man.”

Alison looked at him querulously, trying to place the reference. Then she smiled and said, “Well, Mister Ancient Mariner, perhaps you just lost confidence in your abilities. But you know what they say: if at first you don’t succeed?”

“?Give up,” her brother finished. “And it wasn’t the mariner, it was the wedding guest. But it’s not a case of trying again if you fail – the consequences of failure are sometimes impossible to rectify. Invariably you end up making things worse.”

Alison turned back to the window. “Whatever,” she said in disappointment. “Why do you keep the book, then?”

Michael shrugged uncomfortably. “Well I wouldn’t want it falling into the wrong hands,” he said.

“So why not destroy it?”

“Oh I couldn’t do that – it’s far too old, valuable and unique. It would be like ? I don’t know ? dismantling Stonehenge or something.”

“What are you going to do with it, then?”

“Just keep it, I suppose. Pass it on to my kids eventually, assuming I have any. Or to you, if I don’t – if you promise not to try using it.”

Alison said nothing. She knew perfectly well that she would not promise any such thing. If she ever got hold of that book, nothing would prevent her from experimenting with it. She changed the subject. “So you’ll be back next Saturday, then?” she asked.

“Yes, sometime in the afternoon,” he confirmed. “It’s a long drive down from Newcastle – I’ll probably leave early in the morning and stop for lunch somewhere on the way. You going to be studying hard while I’m gone?”

Alison shrugged. “Sure,” she said. “Mr Allen’s set some pretty tough assignments.” Then she frowned in annoyance. “You know, that arsehole actually said to me it was weird that I was living with my brother!”

Michael pursed his lips. “Well what did he think you should do after Mum ? you know??”

“I know! I said that to him. He said I should be living with my grandparents or something.”

“What an idiot. As if you’d move out of the city away from all your friends? What a prat.”

“Yeah. Anyway he lightened up a bit when I told him how old you were. But even so.”

She lapsed into silence and neither of them said much for the rest of the journey home. Michael backed into the driveway and Alison got out. She walked around to the driver’s side, where Michael was winding down his window.

“You got everything you need?” he asked her. “House keys?”

Alison patted her pocket. It clinked. “And sixty pounds in cash,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

“Well there’s plenty of food in both the fridge and the freezer,” said Michael. “My mobile phone’s playing up at the moment, so you won’t be able to call me, but I’ll call you every evening to make sure you’re doing okay.”

“That’s not necessary,” Alison assured him. “I’ll be fine. Now go on, and don’t worry about me.”

“It’s my job to worry about you,” he responded. “I’ll call you tonight at least, just in case you think of anything you need to tell me or ask me.”

“Okay. Bye then.”

“Cheerio.”

She waved to him as he drove out of the driveway and headed off down the road. Then she turned, pulled out her keys, and entered the house. Hesitating only for a moment, she ran upstairs and pulled down the loft ladder. She knew where Michael kept his spell book, and she was determined to have another look at it, at the very least.

Ten minutes later she was sitting in front of Michael’s computer with the book, reading through both the spells and their translations that Michael had painstakingly typed up in several Word documents. It made fascinating reading, but she soon found that Michael’s work was unfinished – some of the spells were only partially translated, and some had not been translated at all.

One particular spell caught her eye. It was a cure for constipation. Michael had only translated the first couple of lines, but it was obvious what the spell was designed to do. Although she would never have admitted it to Michael, Alison often suffered from this complaint, and she always hated asking for appropriate medicine over the counter at the chemist. It was too embarrassing for words.

She stared thoughtfully at the spell, saying the strange Old English words to herself in her head. It did not seem very hard, and it was surely a harmless enough spell to begin with. Michael had written “Spell 331: Relief of Constipation. Provides immediate relief, softening stools and causing their rapid, easy expulsion from the bowels.” There was plenty more writing in Old English, but Michael had not seen fit to translate it. Perhaps that was because it was not important enough to warrant translation.

Further reading unearthed some other spells she was keen to try, but the constipation one sounded the simplest and most straightforward. She took the book downstairs and turned the kettle on to boil some water. Michael’s notes at the front of the book explained how spells were to be cast, and she knew that she needed a weak sugar solution in order to cast the spell. She drew a circle on the floor with a felt-tip pen, and waited impatiently for the water to boil. Eventually it did so, and she poured it into a cup and stirred a spoonful of sugar into it. When it had dissolved, she poured it on to the floor in the middle of the circle, and spread the liquid around until it completely covered the circular area. Then she stepped into the circle, and cast the spell?

That evening, while she was watching television, the urge came upon her to go to the loo. Remembering the spell, she excitedly ran up to the bathroom, took off her skirt and panties, and sat down on the toilet. No sooner had she done so than her anus opened up and a long, soft poo slid out of her rectum and splashed into the water. After a series of difficult and painful evacuations over the past month or so, this was a blessed relief. Beaming with pleasure and pride in her successful casting of the spell, Alison wiped herself, flushed, and washed her hands. Returning to Michael’s computer, she continued reading the translations, wondering what other spells she could cast.

Spell 102 caught her eye. According to her brother’s notes, it gave non-living objects limited power of movement, so that they would act in a desired fashion. If the spell was cast on a bowling ball (as Michael’s example described) it would always make a strike, no matter how badly it was thrown. If cast on a pendulum clock, it would never run down or lose time. Apparently the spell had trouble with electrical appliances, but otherwise it was quite powerful, and Alison decided to try it right away.

She returned to the kitchen and made up some more sugar solution. Spreading it around inside the circle, she stepped on to the wet patch of linoleum and recited the spell, concentrating on her wristwatch as she did so. The watch was a gift from her late mother, a beautiful old analogue watch with a tiny knob on the side for winding it up. Alison, used to battery-operated watches from an early age, frequently forgot to wind it up and often had to spend long frustrating minutes winding the hands around to their correct positions once the mechanism had wound down. Perhaps, she thought to herself, this spell would enable the watch to take care of its own maintenance.