The Slumber Party Incident

This happened a long time ago in my teen years. You know. The years when you're daring and reckless! However, I was the one who 'knew' better during this particular incident.

My two best friends-call them Dee and Val-wanted to have a slumber party. We had a previous one at Dee's house and had a lot of fun. This time it was to be at Val's house. We invited some of our other friends. Eight of us in total. We arrived at Val's house around six in the evening. Her mother ordered some pizzas and pop for all of us. We really enjoyed that. From there we went down to the basement where Val's parents fixed up the rec-room to accommodate all of us with mats and sleeping bags. While down there one of the girls told us about a trick of sorts that we could experiment with. One of you lies on the floor and the others gather around with one person at the head and feet. The person at the head leads it off with this is so and so. She is dead and everyone around them says the same thing. Then the lead person says she is light as a feather and stiff as a board and around to each person again. The last thing the lead says is she will rise and float like a feather. At that point we all have two fingers of both our hands under the person and we begin to lift in unison. Guess what? It 'worked'.

Val was the one on a sleeping bag that we lifted. The floor was too dirty, so she laid on a sleeping bag. She actually 'did' float beyond our grasp and rise to the ceiling until her nose touched it. We were freaking and she opened her eyes and screamed. We all panicked and withdrew our hands shouting, "catch her, catch her." However, nobody was holding her, and she fell from ceiling height. Wham! Fortunately, she landed on the sleeping bag with no injuries other than just being shook up.

We were very intrigued by this. Actually, we were mystified. About then Val and Dee-they are the main protagonists here-got the bright idea to have a Ouija board session. Val asked the girl that lived right next door to her to go home and fetch her board. Apparently, this girl had one. About this time, I gave them all a great, big "Nope. Not me." I told my friend, Dee about the session my sister and cousins had a couple years before and she was extremely intrigued by my account of what happened. I told her that I think they are dangerous and not a toy to be played with. They called me chicken. I told them "That's right, I'm a chicken that knows 'better'". I'm going home, but I 'am' warning you that you'll regret messing with that thing, and I bid them a good night. I gave my mom a lame duck excuse for coming home from the party. I told her that the pizza gave me an upset stomach. Unfortunately, I had to endure a spoonful of Pepto-Bismal. Yuck! I went to bed.

The next day there was a knock on our side door. It was Dee looking very ashen and wide-eyed. She asked me to step outside so we could talk.

While outside she looked at me serious as a heart attack and told me what happened after I left. She apologized for calling me 'chicken' and told me that "I" was absolutely 'right' about warning them not to mess with that thing. They were asking it stupid questions like who was going to marry whom and that kind of girl stuff, but then they asked questions they shouldn't have. They began receiving knocks in response to their questions. Right away Val thought it was her older brother, but he was in the living room with the rest of the family watching T.V. When she went upstairs to query him. They continued, even more intrigued than ever. However, they started getting unnerving answers and hearing strange noises. I am only going by what Dee told me. They got scared and quit the session.

They all climbed into their sacks/mats. That is when things started that 'they' couldn't explain. Dee told me that it got incredibly cold down there and they heard more knocking. They, then, began to hear something shuffling around them in a steady gait, but they didn't 'see' anything. A couple of the girls yelped after being poked by unseen fingers. They were so scared that they began making a commotion that alarmed her mother to the point of running down to the basement to find out what was going on. When they told her mom what they did, she really read Val and the others the riot act. She told them that those things are not toys and she confirmed that they are dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. She told the girl that brought it to get it out of her house or she'd take a sledgehammer to it. The girl ran home and disposed of it. She was truly frightened. They didn't get much sleep that night.

Dee told me that Val would be coming by, also, to apologize to me because I was right to caution them. Matter of fact, they 'all' apologized to me. Quite humbly I might add. I didn't hold it against them. It's a shame that they had to get so terrified to realize "I" was merely giving them good advice. I told them I was 'trying' to give 'them' the benefit of my experience and how it scared the crap out of me, my sister and cousins also. They listened to me a wee bit more after that. I became the knowledgeable sage to them where the paranormal was concerned. However, I am 'still' learning things to this day. I think we 'all' are. I never was tacky enough to say "I told you so" because I figured that they felt bad enough. Not to mention scared enough. Sometimes teenage girls can be as bad as teenage boys when it comes to doing things without considering the consequences. This occurrence could have been a lot worse, but I'm very glad that it wasn't for my friends' sake. All comments are welcome!