Parking Lot Pop

As twilight fell, Aethra waited next to the light post in the parking lot, tossing her strawberry blonde hair impatiently.

“U coming?” she texted Zahra.

“... yeah just a sec”

A few minutes later, just as the electric light clicked on for the night, Zahra walked up to the meeting spot.  The streak of lavender in her coily black hair was hard to miss, but her dark brown skin almost blended in with the growing shadows.

“Do you have the stealth spell ready?” Zahra asked.

“Of course,” Aethra said.  She clicked her fingers, and a wide circle briefly flared up around part of the parking lot.

“Great! I brought the gum – everyone was saying this was the best type, no matter where I asked,” Zahra said.  Her wings flicked out from under her dress.

Aethra shed her glamor, revealing shiny pink hair, dragonfly wings, and clusters of jewels on her pale cheeks.  She stretched her wings, flapping them experimentally.

“I’m so sore,” she complained. “Why do we have to stay hidden again?”

“We don’t have to while you’ve got the stealth spell up,” Zahra said. “Anyway, I have the gum.  Want some?”

Aethra took a few pieces, unwrapped them, and popped them into her mouth.

Humans may be weird, she thought. But they sure know how to make sweets. She chewed up the gum, watching as Zahra did the same.

Soon the flavor had faded, and Aethra started to smooth the gum out behind her teeth.  The rubbery substance, thick and hard to mold, stuck to the top of her mouth and stretched with her tongue, tearing away from her teeth before she could form it.  She tried again, but the gum stubbornly refused to stay in the correct place.

Zahra snapped her gum, startling Aethra into paying attention, then blew into it with a long, soft hiss that created a head-sized bubble.  Each breath fed more air into the bubble, making it stretch and grow into a pearly sphere over a yard in diameter.

Aethra spread the gum in the correct position behind her teeth and stretched it with her tongue.  Her first breath was less experienced than Zahra’s, producing only an apple-sized bubble, but she followed it up with a few more that puffed it out to a more respectable basketball-sized sphere.

Zahra winked and took a deep breath through her nose, blowing it out and making her bubble surge to twice its previous size. The shiny, translucent skin of the bubble glittered with the remnants of a spell.

“Hey,” Aethra mumbled through her gum. “No fair.”

She blew hard into her bubble, but it burst with a loud pop, and the gum stuck to her face.  Aethra did her best to gather the gum back into her mouth and started chewing again.  After that false start, the gum was more pliable and cooperative, and she began blowing another bubble with a soft puff.

Zahra’s using magic to hold hers together, so I might as well do it too, Aethra thought.

She concentrated on the gum, sending a dizzying rush of sealing magic into it.  Now that her magic had strengthened her gum, each breath fueled the bubble’s growth more evenly, making it grow to exercise ball size within seconds.  Its surface glimmered in the dim amber light of the parking lot.

The side of Zahra’s bubble was nearly touching the metal pole supporting the light, so she took a few steps backward to give it more room to grow.

Aethra followed her lead and blew steadily into her bubble.  It swelled out to match Zahra’s, the iridescent whorls of her sealing spell becoming more visible as its rubbery surface grew more transparent.

It’s not hard when we use magic to hold the bubble together, Aethra thought. I thought she wanted a challenge.

She pursed her lips around the opening of the bubble to seal it closed, then took it out for a moment.

The lightness of the magic-imbued bubble surprised her as she held it safely away from the ground and anything nearby.

“Why don’t we try some tricks?” Aethra asked. “I bet you I can make more double bubbles than you can – no more magic besides what we’ve already done.”

Zahra nodded, bouncing the bubble in her mouth, and gave it one more breath to prepare herself.

Aethra returned the bubble to her mouth and turned over the remaining gum attached to it.  Her bubble was still somewhat smaller than Zahra’s, but the point was the nested bubbles - not the size. She blew into the new pocket of gum she’d created, and the double bubble blossomed within her outer bubble.  This time, Aethra attempted a steady, long breath like she’d seen Zahra use – and it paid off, making her inner bubble grow to head size within two breaths.

Zahra had started her second bubble as well.  She took another deep breath and fed it into the inner bubble until it encompassed almost three-quarters the size of the bubble around it.  Once her inner bubble’s surface was close enough to the outer bubble, she turned her gum again and started on a third bubble.

Aethra’s second bubble was only half the size of her outer bubble, but she couldn’t take the time to blow it up further.  She started her third bubble, blowing quickly again until it threatened to break through the surface of the second bubble.  Her whole group of bubbles was now almost as large as she was.

Aethra took flight, hovering a few feet above the concrete to keep her bubbles intact.

Zahra did the same, sealing her third bubble as it approached the size of the middle bubble around it.  She started another bubble.  By now, Zahra seemed to be working by habit – each bubble fit neatly within the previous one, providing just enough room for the next nested bubble inside.

Aethra, however, was having more difficulty.  She kept her fourth bubble underinflated to avoid breaking through her third bubble, but there was little room for a fifth bubble within it.  She carefully blew up her fifth and final bubble.

Zahra looked through her nested bubbles.  Her outer, pearly pink bubble held six other bubbles within it, each one roughly three-quarters the size of the one it was within.  As Aethra watched, she blew a tiny, perfectly round seventh bubble inside of it.

Aethra checked Zahra’s bubbles as she sealed up her innermost bubble.  Once she sealed hers, she took the whole piece out of her mouth.

“I think you won this one, too,” she admitted.

Zahra held her bubble aloft in victory.  “Eight bubbles!!”

Aethra shrugged. “I could have done it too if I had as much practice as you did.”

“Well, you’ll have to prove it another time.  Why don’t we finish this off with a bang?” Zahra asked.

“It’ll probably take out the stealth spell,” Aethra warned. “Breaking through a sealing spell will be loud.”

“Sure, but we’ve finished, haven’t we?” Zahra said. She fluttered carefully down to the ground, still holding her bubble safely out of reach of the ground.

Aethra landed as well.  “If you say so.”

“Let’s do it,” Zahra urged. She put the remaining gum attached to her bubble back into her mouth, and Aethra reluctantly did the same.

Zahra reopened the innermost bubble with her tongue and began to blow again.  This time, she didn’t hold back as its surface reached the surface of the second-smallest bubble.  It pressed against the bubble around it, forcing it to balloon larger.

Aethra watched warily, starting a sixth bubble inside of her smallest bubble.

Zahra’s outermost bubble grew slowly as the innermost bubble filled the third inner bubble.  The surface of the outer bubble glittered even brighter as the sealing spell strained, but Zahra took in yet another breath and blew harder.

Aethra’s inner bubbles had merged, becoming a triple bubble instead of six bubbles in one.  She paced herself alongside Zahra.

This stealth spell can probably only hold for one bubble explosion, Aethra thought.

The steady hiss of Zahra’s breath continued as her innermost bubble reached the skin of the second-outermost bubble.  At this point, she tilted her head back until the bubbles faced the sky, blocking it out and glittering brighter than the stars.

Aethra and Zahra blew simultaneously, merging the surfaces of their remaining bubbles until their outer bubbles strained.  Pressure built in the narrow space between the bubble layers, making both fairies’ sealing spells glow brightly with the effort of containing it.

Aethra plugged her ears.

Both fairies forced a final breath into their bubbles, and as the spheres grew a final inch, the tops almost three yards higher than the top of the lamp posts, the sealing spells gave way.

BANG!

The bubbles exploded, sending out a shockwave of magic, and the stealth spell crumbled.  Strings of gum whipped out and stuck to every available surface, including in the fairies’ hair and wings.

Zahra’s eyes widened.  “That didn’t just break the stealth spell - it couldn’t contain the noise. Someone could have heard it.”

A tense silence filled the empty parking lot as Aethra and Zahra pulled the strands of gum off themselves and restored their glamor spells. Luckily, the parking lot was all but abandoned.  No one had been there to hear the explosion.

“That was close!” Aethra said. “Next time, I think I’ll stick to soap bubbles.”

“To each her own, I guess.”

The two fairies walked out of the parking lot to head back to their apartments, leaving the only evidence of their nighttime visit: a suspiciously large splatter of used pink bubblegum scattered across the pavement.