CRAZY KIDS PRANK  -  A HORROR STORY BY KV

"BLOODY MARY"

This is a game I most vividly remember from an afternoon in summer when I was still in elementary school.

The school yard was always open during the summer months as a place for somewhat supervised play, and my best friend and I would meet up there to hot-shot around the playground on our roller-skates, hone our jungle gym techniques, and engage ourselves in the on-going handball tournaments.

We were a gang of about maybe four girls, in the "inner circle", which included my sister and my "second" best friend, and we were as competitive with the boys as we were with the other girls. This rarely posed much of a problem however, because for the most part, no one challenged us. We generally got along well with the other kids, which is how we came to know about "Mary". To take the "Bloody Mary" challenge was to prove how tough you were without your friends there to back you up.

According to schoolyard lore, Mary was a grade-schooler who had died a brutal death from multiple stab wounds all over her face and chest. The instruments of her demise were never, and the case was never solved. As this event had also taken place on a sunny summer day, her mutilated -in fact, disemboweled, corpse was only discovered days later in the girl's lavatory at her school, the pungent, putrid stench of her rotting flesh having finally alerted the senses of their mongoloid janitor. Legend had it that the perpetrator of this awful deed could only be summoned by repeating what were apparently Mary's fatal last steps - the ultimate trial of bravado, or perhaps, Terror. The challenge was that, after hearing this set-up, the challenged would walk into the girl's restroom - alone, with the lights off. And, depending either on how fearless or dubious they were, carrying an assortment of kitchenware - preferably knives and forks, natch.

Once inside, and staring steadfastly into one's own reflection in the dark mirror, one would then chant "Bloody Mary, You're not Scary" over and over again, or at least thirteen times. The rumor was that, by the thirteenth time, Bloody Mary herself would appear in the mirror looking something like Medusa and attack you, scarring you with the very instruments you were holding, be they knives or pencils or whatever. Displaying remnants of what might actually pass as "battle scars" often lended heavily to your credibility.

Simply being forced to stay in the dark confines of the lavatory by yourself under pressure of one's own peers for a length of time was usually enough to freak out most youngsters. But, if you were stolid enough to stick it out, the sight of one's own face melting in the mirror - as happens when you stare at your reflection long enough - was sufficient to send even the most hardy of us screaming, running the hell out the bathroom, never to see it the same way again. I know, because I had hung it out that long myself, thanks entirely to my own pride. Call it a latter-day 'trial by ordeal', it was one which proved one's personal mettle beyond any doubt.