What do you get for Christmas for the little girl who's still a little boy?

{ This story is out of sequence in two ways. The frame is several months ahead of the current continuity and it's a flashback. Sort of a flashback inside of a flashforward. {{{;> }

Andie considered again her Christmas shopping list. She had a fair-sized budget but not an extravagant one; her brother Harry might be a rich, Newport Beach plastic surgeon but she had a much more limited income despite frequent gifts like cars and rent from her generous sib. She couldn't afford to give anyone a car.

Too bad. Pete with his new license would sure have liked to have one but Harry had some deal going with the boys about cars. So Pete would get the fancy sunglasses, the ski-lift tickets and the Sports Illustrated subscription. She knew he'd love all of it.

Richard was harder to buy for. He didn't love sports the way his brother did, though he could probably have been just as good at them if he wanted. But tickets to a hot concert, a gift card to the computer store, and a boxed set of Stephen King novels would do for him. She'd discovered the kid had somehow missed reading any Stephen King.

For Harry, she usually got a joke gift and some article of clothing. This year she planned to get him a Barbie doll set and some fancy running shoes. She giggled a little, thinking the doll set was especially funny. "Sherves him right," she snorted.

For Barbie, Andie planned on arranging free dance lessons with a choreographer she knew in Vegas. Barbie still had a jones for show business and enough natural grace and talent that she had had some success. A bit of professional training might be just what she needed. That and a professional-quality set of cosmetic brushes and tools. Plus a cute set of boots she knew Barbie would like.

But Kelly. What should she get Kelly?

Kelly had been the one who told her Richard had never read Stephen King. Another compulsive reader. Okay, a gift certificate to a bookstore, that would work. But something more personal.

The problem being that Kelly still hadn't settled firmly on a gender. Andie knew what sort of stuff she'd like to get for the darling little twelve-year-old, but Kelly might resent anything too pushy. Still, when Kelly came to Newport to visit, she always came as a girl. And yet, according to Barbie, Kelly had been attending school in Vegas as a boy. Not very successfully, Andie suspected; even with his hair cut short, Kelly made a too-pretty boy whose mannerisms were much to0 femme for the environment of a typical junior high school, even the private one that Harry had arranged.

Andie had trouble imagining how Kelly would fit in at all as a boy. According to Barbie, he'd acquired something of a protector at school. That must be interesting. Andie imagined some bigger, older girl taking cute, little Kelly under her wing but it might be a male protector; Barbie had avoided saying which and that intrigued the hell out of Andie. But it didn't help her choose a Christmas gift.

She sighed. She frowned. Kelly liked to cook, so some gourmet kitchen tools would work; not too suggestive. But not enough. She grunted. She ran fingers through her carefully dissheveled locks. She played with the piecings in her face without realizing she was doing it. Damnit! she thought. What would make a perfect gift for a stubborn little boy who ought to be a little girl but who was just too stubborn to admit it?

What she needed were some suggestions; maybe Melissa would have some ideas. She reached for the phone.

How about it? Got any suggestions for Andie so I can finish this piece?

{{{;>