Chapter 0 - Unremarkable Events in Science Class

Hey all. This story takes place in the same world as my other story, Charms. That story will be updating a bit slower for a while; for the (developing) plot of the next few chapters there to make sense, I need to put in place some stuff in this story.
There are no additional content warnings for this chapter other than those in the story description (and even those will be very minor). This is an intro chapter; no sex, and barely any nudity or anything.

Jake leaned back in his uncomfortable chair, trying to catch a little of the breeze that was coming in through the open window of the classroom. It just figured that, three days into a heat wave, the air conditioning in half the school would stop working. He had dressed lightly, but after a full day — except for the science class that was about to start — he felt uncomfortable and sticky. At least he'd managed to snag a seat at the back of the room, by the window, but he was not entirely sure that having to run across half the school to get here first had been worth it, though he had managed to save the two seats at the bench next to himself, as well.

He craned his neck, trying to look over the rest of the students filtering into the classroom; he was hoping to have a quick word with Mary and Kailani before the lesson started. His birthday had been two days ago, but hewas hoping to arrange a get-together the next weekend. He was disappointed as Mr. Notts, as usual, came in exactly ten seconds before the bell rang, waiting by the door and pulling it shut just as the sound of the bell died away. Jake winced a little in anticipation. Mr. Notts was a good teacher, and pretty engaging even if Jake didn't like his subject much, but he was a stickler for punctuality.

Mr. Notts had just started the lesson when the door opened. Jake looked up from his notes and winced in anticipation. Mary and Kailani stepped into the classroom, muttering "Sorry" at Mr. Notts. He looked over at them with an annoyed expression, then waved them on into the room, barely pausing in his lecture. Jake saw the girls look relieved for a moment, then smile at each other and, spotting him, make their way over to his bench. They sat down at the bench, Kailani next to him and Mary at the other end. This was their usual seating order if it was just the three of them: since Kailani was on the short side and Mary was pretty tall — she was just about the same height as Jake — it meant that they could all look each other in the face without anyone being in the way.

"Hey Jake," they greeted him, not bothering to keep quiet. Jake automatically responded with a "Hey," of his own, then winced as Mr. Notts interrupted his lecture to shoot a glare and a "*mister* Young," in his direction. He bent back down over his notes as the girls began unpacking their bags and arranging their belongings on the bench, keeping up a running conversation in the meantime.

"It works!" Exclaimed Mary.

"I know, I still didn't really expected it to," giggled Kailani.

Mr. Notts raised his voice slightly so that he could still be heard over their converstation and turned to the board to sketch out a problem.

"I know we tried this out at the mall yesterday, but I thought that might just have been that people were busy with their own stuff, you know?"

"Right, but then we came in late and he didn't even say anything!"

Jake frowned. Kailani sounded as if they'd expected Mr. Notts to berate them or something. He wanted to ask what they were talking about, but he knew Mr. Notts would be on him before he got two words out. He didn't like being interrupted.

A few seconds later, Mr. Notts had completed his description and set them to working out the problem. Jake bent down over his paper. Mr. Notts liked to call on people he suspected weren't paying attention to explain their approach to problems.

Meanwhile, Kalilani and Mary, who had been quiet for a while, began talking again.

"It's boiling in here," said Mary. Jake saw that she'd put the light jacket she usually wore in the school building — when the air conditioning was set to its usual near-arctic temperature — into her bag, and was now wearing just a t-shirt and a calf-length skirt, but she still looked flushed.

"Well, we could try something more," said Kailani, mischieviously.

"You mean-"

"It really seems to work, so I'm guessing no-one will say anything."

Out of the corner of his eye, Jake saw Kailani look around the room. Then she shifted in her seat and, in one smooth movement, pulled her spaghetti top over her head and dropped it on the unused far end of the bench, leaving herself in only a simple white bra. Jake snuck a look; they'd been swimming together quite a few times, but somehow seeing her in a bra was different from seeing her in a two-piece swimsuit. Kailani had filled out pretty well the past few years. She hadn't gained much height since about her fourteenth birthday, so now, at eighteen, she'd ended up short but nicely curvy, with pretty big breasts for her size. She'd once said jokingly that the puberty fairy had been kind to her.

Before he turned back to his work, he caught a glimpse of the look on Mary's face. She looked surprised, as if Kailani was doing something weird. Oh well, he'd ask her about it after class.

"Why'd you do that?" She hissed at Kailani.

"Because it's hot in here and we need to figure out how this works. Here, let me try this," Kailani replied, sticking up a hand and continuing more loudly, "Mr. Notts! Will this be on the finals?"

Mr Notts looked at her, then scanned his eyes over the rest of the room. "Anything might be on the final, as I've said before. If any of you are still unsure at this point in the year, I suggest you look back to your notes for the first lesson, which should have a list of all the topics covered on each test during the year. Is there anything unclear?"

Kailani nodded and smiled at him, then lowered her hand.

"See? He didn't say anything. Anyway, with the breeze from the window, this is much better."

Mary looked uncertain for a moment, the wiped her forehead. With a quick glance around the room she, too, pulled her shirt over her head. She wasn't wearing a bra. After one look, Jake fixed his eyes back on the board. It wouldn't be polite to stare. Still, it had been the first time he'd seen any of his female friends topless. Mary had shot up the past couple of years and had only really slowed down after she reached seventeen. At her eighteenth birthday six months ago she'd measured herself and turned out to be exactly six foot eight. She still hadn't filled out much, and had a very modest set of breasts, but Jake had always thought she looked nice in an athletic kind of way.

Soon, Mr. Notts started questioning his students, and Jake's thought returned to the lesson.

***

At the end of the period, the bell rang and the class began packing their bags, happy to have survived another day as Mr. Notts raised his voice and announced the week's homework. As the students were leaving the room, Jake lingered a little, so that he, Kailani and Mary were the last to leave, giving them the opportunity to talk as they made their way to their lockers.

"So," Jake began, "You know saturday was my birthday-"

"Right, we still need to congratulate you," said Mary, as Kailaini nodded along behind her, then continued, "It's too bad we couldn't get together this weekend."

"Well, that's what I wanted to ask you," Jake began again, "Do you want to go do something this coming saturday? I've already asked Greg and Shayla, and they're available. I was thinking meet at my place, watch some movies?"

Kailani and Mary looked at each other, then nodded. "Sure. But you're sure you don't want to do something more this year. You only turn eighteen once, you know."

"Nah. I've already had the family party this weekend, and that was pretty busy. I'm looking forward to just getting together with my friends. And," he continued with a deliberately sly look, "my parents will be away, and Dad mentioned that if you guys wanted to come over he wouldn't mind if we had a beer or something. As long as, and I quote, 'You're not going to have a movie-style wild teenage party.' Which I wasn't planning on."

"We'll be there." He accepted a hug from each of them. Then, having reached their lockers, they made their way to the parking lot. On the way, Mary and Kailani had a whispered conversation, which he tried not to overhear.

As they reached his car, the girls stopped before continuing on to Mary's car, and turned to him.

"So, you have a minute before you go home?" Kailani asked, looking around at the rapidly emptying parking lot.

"Sure," he said, leaning against the hood of his car, careful to avoid the recently-patched rusty spot.

The girls exchanged another look, then Kailani began looking through her bag.

"You see," said Mary, "We both already got you a present, which we're going to give to you saturday, but this came up suddenly."

Kailani had finished looking and held up a necklace. It was a simple thin leather thong, on which hung a silvery, fractal-looking whorl about half an inch across. Both of them were wearin a similar necklace, themselves. "We wanted you to have this immediately. Here, put it on," she encouraged him.

Jake looked at it. He wasn't really a jewelry kind of guy, and they both knew it. Still, they were looking at him expectantly. He shrugged, and dropped the necklace over his head.

It seemed like the scene around him suddenly shifted, without actually changing in any way. He looked back at the girls, and-

"Holy shit, you're just wearing a bra! And you're completely topless!" he said loudly, pointing at them. "Why didn't I notice until now?"

Kailani tilted her head to the side and asked, curiously, "You really didn't notice?"

"No, I-" He thought back to the past class period. "Well, I did, I just didn't think it was unusual. And neither did anyone else! And Mr. Notts. didn't say anything even though you came in late and were interrupting him. What is going on?"

Mary patted him on the shoulder and leaned against the car next to him, while Kailani smiled widely and explained.

"You know how I go to a lot of garage sales and stuff, right?"

Jake did; at least once every other week or so she went round the neighbouring towns, returning with various pieces of still-good clothing, cheap-but-nice jewelry and the occasional small item of furniture. After she fixed it up, she used some of it for a while while the rest was sold off online. She didn't make that much of a profit, but it meant she had a varied wardrobe and a bit of money for when she went out.

At his nod, she continued, "So I was at this estate sale. Not really a lot of useful stuff, and most of it was going for more than what it was worth to me, but there was this cardboard package. It looked like some cheap Chinese thing, you know? But there was a bracelet inside with a bunch of these — she indicated the silver pendant — on it, and it looked like it might be real silver. It wasn't going for much, so I took a chance and bought it."

"OK, but what has that got to do with anything?" Jake was trying to look her in the eye, and not let his gaze get drawn away by the way her bra-clad breasts moved as she gestured during her explanation.

"Patience. Just let met tell my story, right? So I went home afterwards, and I wore the bracelet, 'cause it looked pretty nice on my, you know? I was planning to have it appraised after the weekend. And I ran into some roadworks on my way home, so I was pretty late. You know how my mom gets when I'm not back in time for dinner, right? But she didn't say anything just told me there was food in the microwave."

OK, that sounded slightly unusual, in light of the weird stuff that had happened during class.

Kailini continued, "So I went up to my room to check this thing, plus a couple of shirts I got. I pull out the package, and I really notice the writing on the back for the first time." She held out a mostly-yellow cardboard package. It looked pretty water-damaged and not very well printed.

Jake took it and looked at the writing. On the front, in garish green letters, were the words 'Inattentive Jewelry'. On the back, in various colors, were several more phrases, though the water damage made them difficult to read: "Wear amulets that give you all the normal behavior!" "Only use someone else's amulet will find anything!" "Share 9 friends!" "Sleep on the work!" "WARNING: Do not steal or violent work."

"Er..." Jake said, uncertainly. "You mean... If you wear one of these things everyone will think everything you do is perfectly normal?"

"Apparently! I mean, I didn't believe it at first, but my sister didn't even complain when I sat right in front of the TV, and no-one said anything when I drank milk straight from the carton. So yesterdy, I called Mary and we went to the mall to try it out. We tried on clothes right in the middle of the store, we talked out loud in the library... We even walked right into the manager's office in one store, and everyone acted as if everything we did was perfectly normal!"

Jake was skeptical, but right then, principal Matthews drove by. He didn't say anything even though Mary was still topless, and Jake was sure just a bra was not approved attire either. That was certainly not normal behavior for him...

"So... Magic?" He tried to sound skeptical, but he was pretty sure there was no kind of technology that could do anything like this.

He felt Mary shrug next to him. "No idea. You can look it over if you like, but don't damage it. Kailani and I have been trying stuff out all day. You wear that one tomorrow. We have most of our classes together, then. We'll see what we can get away with, but it looks like this last month of school is going to be pretty bearable."

Jake nodded. Then, as the girls walked off, he distractedly got in his car and drove home.

When he got home, at his mother's question about his day, he said, "Well, Mary and Kailani were topless in science class."

When she replied, "That's nice. Spaghetti for dinner, tonight," he was convinced that there was something about the amulet.
