How I spent my Summer Vacation: I became a Girl!
By
Rebecca Coleman

Note to the readers: The “How I spent my Summer Vacation: I became a Girl!” is an ongoing in-universe serial that appears each Saturday Evening in the “Benton Evening Post” the story focuses on the ongoing struggle of Emil “Emily” Anderson as she strides to adopted to her new life life in a small southern town that straddles the hills and the delta.  The story chronicles her life as she tries to figure out what direction she wants to take her life.

-1-
How it all Began

My aunt Flora is many things, a Tolkien scholar, a fancier of Charles Dickens, quick witted, funny and brutal. But she is the woman who decided to take it upon herself to raise me when my mother, her younger sister passed away after a lengthy battle with cancer. And for the last year or so she has been both friend, mentor, mother, nurse and comforter. Like I said she is many things, many of them are wonderful, but a wonderful cook she is not.

Thus, I often find myself cooking around the house, not that I mind. I quite enjoy cooking, my aunt is a nurse so her hours are a bit off. She normally works four ten hour days straight and is off for three in a row. She also normally works the graveyard shift. So I try to have her ready when she comes in from work. She normally comes in around four or five in the morning. Which is perfect since I'm normally awake anyway because I've stayed up for most the night watching anime on Adult Swim on Cartoon Network. 

We kind of use that time to visit and chat and plot our day. Aunt Flora is full of life and is always recharged after her midday nap. We either end up going out to get something to eat, if she is off for the next few days or going into Jackson or Ridgeland to do a little shopping. Aunt Flora loves a good bookstore, her all time favorite being Barnes and Noble, the only Barnes and Noble in our region though is located in Ridgeland in the Renaissance Shopping Center.

The Renaissance Shopping center is kind of this really upscale outdoor mall type thing. Like the streets are paved with flat paving stones, and the interconnecting plaza's are all lined with upmarket boutiques and cafes. It totally makes North Park, our regional mall, look shaggy. But aunt Flora still loves to go to the mall every now and again if just to look around. I think for her there is a certain feeling of nostalgia  about that mall. After all, she and my mom pretty much grew up going there.

Anyway it was another Saturday Morning, and the switchover from Adult Swim with its heavy Anime/Teenager to Young Adult anime content to its more kid friendly cartoon content was mere minutes away. It had been a wonderful night. One that had left me feeling wishful, and a bit melancholy. 

I guess because things seemed so glamorous in any anime, be it slice of life, adventure, science fiction, post apocalyptic, horror, supernatural, romance or anything in between those or a blend of those, you always found adventure, you always found a cast of characters that loved and supported each other.

Taking a deep breath I sighed and decided to cut the television off. One quick glance at the clock that hung on the wall told me it was close to three in the morning. Most people were either getting up or going to bed. I guess I'll be heading to bed in a few hours. First though, breakfast needed to be cooked. I knew Aunt Flora would be coming home soon and while she never expected for me to cook breakfast for her, she always enjoyed it and it made her happy and I enjoyed making her happy.

And so I left the small little guest room that had become my room. The room was furnished as one expects of any teenager whose whole life seems to only revolve around four things. And those four things were Anime, Manga, Cosplay and lastly Tabletop Roleplaying Games.

As I moved from in front of the television to the doorway, I made a mental note to pick up the floor of my room at least, I'd gotten into the habit of just throwing my clothes to the four winds the minute I got home. And as I passed the overflowing bookshelf, I made a note to straighten up my manga collection. I was a pretty big fan at the time of Pretty Celestial Soldier an anime that focused on adventures of a group of average high school girls who learned one day that each of them had been brought together because they were the reincarnation of once powerful band of warrior princesses that had once saved all of Japan from the legions of Hell. Or something like that.

“Man I wish I could save a stray cat from a truck and get rewarded with a wand that transforms me into warrior princess!” I mused loudly as I fondly recalled the very first episode of Pretty Celestial Soldier I'd ever watched. It was just before mom had gotten sick, back when aunt Flora and I thought she could still beat it. Even the doctors were hopeful.

I felt my eyes starting to moist a little as I opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. I felt I was forgetting something as I passed the many childhood pictures of Aunt Flora, my mom, her mother, my grandmother and her grandmother, my great grandmother, and of course my uncle who was still very much alive but who spent most of his time at sea. And of course the collection of photos of me, my older sister Helen and my older brother Albert. Helen was just starting her sophomore year college, at Tulane Law School. A School for future lawyers located in the culturally rich and vibrant city of New Orleans. My older brother Albert was away in scenic Sewanee. I think I was courting the priesthood. I only knew of Sewanee from our brief conversations together, but from what I could gather it was a world class liberal arts college and also a leading seminary of the Episcopal Church. 

All of this musing carried me down the hallway and into the kitchen. As I flipped on the kitchen light I looked around. I could not help but feel I was missing something. That I was forgetting something. After a few seconds I gave up and decided whatever it was, it did not matter. And so with that I strolled into the kitchen, I had breakfast to make after all. Looking back, I had forgotten something, I'd forgotten to take the pigtails out of my hair.. See I'd been growing my hair our for the better part of a year now, when mom got sick.

Cause you know between my plundering grades, and none of my siblings being around to help, both too wrapped up in their own life, both two focused on their own problems, both trying to get established in the real world. Neither could spare a weekend to come down and help me. Well getting a haircut had been pushed out the window, not thrown out the window. My hair had been long before, kind of shaggy, just starting to brush my shoulders. Now it reached down to my shoulders. Anyway just for fun I decided to see how I would look with my hair in pigtails. And at that moment I still had my hair in pigtails. Not that concerned me, I was more concerned about getting breakfast on the table! Little did I know that fate was about to throw me a curve ball.