Hearing footsteps coming down the stairs we looked up and saw Bryony coming down; she was wearing a swirley, knee-length, light green tiered skirt and a yellow strappy top, which seemed to accentuate her boobs, with white ankle socks and sandals.

‘I was only a boy on the outside, I’ve always been a girl on the inside.’ Bryony replied, as she reached the bottom of the stairs and did a twirl for us, making her skirt flare out prettily.

At Aunt Greta’s–
Freya and the Doodlebugs

by Gabi
Chapter 16 of a Continuing Saga…

Recognising the now-familiar wailing of the air-raid siren, I was awake in an instant. ‘It’s an air-raid, I can’t explain now but we have slipped back in time to the second world war and you must call me Greta. This has happened to me before; we have to get up and go to the air-raid shelter.’

At this moment the door opened, the light was switched on and Mummy was there. ‘Greta, Freya, get up quickly, girls. Put on your underthings, socks, shoes and dressing gowns, bring a blanket and come with me to the shelter immediately. And don’t forget your gas masks.’ She hurried away towards her own room leaving us alone.

We waved them goodbye as Mrs Rose drove off and then returned to the house where Farah and I went back up to my room. Everything had been left neat and tidy.

‘I hope everything goes okay for Bryony at the doctor’s,’ I said. ‘It’s not going to be easy for her having to pretend to be a boy at school and only being a girl at home and the weekends.’

‘So, Bryan, what’s the problem?’ I asked gently.

‘Yeah. You see I gotta pretend to be a boy too, coz I’ve always known I’m a girl trapped in a boy’s body!’

‘Right, ladies,’ said a new voice behind us. ‘Why don’t you sit down and I’ll take your orders.’

‘While you’re deciding, perhaps you’d like to tell me what you’d like to drink,’ said our waitress who’s name badge said she was Cleo Waters.

‘There’s a surprise for you tomorrow,’ Auntie Greta told me as soon as I was in the house. ‘Miss Morgan phoned and she wants you to be a friend to a new girl who’s starting school the day after tomorrow. She’s the same age as you, an American and she’s over here for a few years because her parents are working here now. She sounds really nice.’

‘Yes. She’s called Farah Way and she’s from Boston.’

I was grabbed from behind, a hand being clapped over my mouth before I could even scream. I struggled to get free but it was no use.

‘Well, Chambers, I see it’s true that you’ve gone all potty. Hey, that’s funny–potty Chambers, or p’raps it should be Chamber potty!’ He gave out a guffaw of mocking laughter. I recognised the voice instantly as belonging to the bullying oaf, Quinn, and I burst into tears. ‘My mate, Kev Ball, ’phoned and told me you were pretending to be a girlie an’ ’ad got him grounded f’ra month, an’ ’e also said you were gonna to meet his stoopid sister at Angela Williamson’s house s’afternoon.’ Suddenly I became very aware that some other person–I presumed a boy–had put a hand up my skirt and his fingers were exploring my body through the thin cotton material of my knickers. Thank goodness I was wearing a sanitary pad––!

I went into the last vacant cubicle, closed the door, but discovered that the bolt was missing. ‘Bum!’ I thought, ‘Oh well, we’re all girls here,’ and with my thumbs hooked in the waistband, eased my knickers down to my knees before sitting “on the throne”.

I looked down at myself and discovered to my horror that, once again, I had a PENIS!

FOLLOWING THE SOMEWHAT shattering discovery that after my latest sojourn back to 1944 I had returned with a girl’s body, Mummy and Auntie Greta had taken me shopping for girl clothes, and Mummy used her mobile to ’phone Dr MacNeish who said that luckily she had had a cancellation and could see me at five o’clock that afternoon.

I closed the door after waving goodbye to Sue and Judy and returned to the dining room where I had been doing my prep. Mummy had laid a cheerful checked cloth on the table so all I had to do was put out place mats and lay out the cutlery. Auntie G kept the "dining-room cutlery"–as she called it–in one of the drawers of the Welsh dresser, so I went straight to it and opened the drawer, and sure enough, there were knives, forks and spoons for all occasions–many of them strange to me–but I was able to select what I thought was needed and laid up two places.