Intro by Carla Ann

“Tiffany, I’ve asked you how everything is going with people and the activities you’re involved in, but you haven’t mentioned how you are coping with everything.” She emphasized the ‘you,’ when she asked that.

“Well, better than I was last year,” I started. “Way better than last year… I have a lot of friends now, and I’m not getting picked on every day.” I saw her eyes boring into me looking for something else. “Alright, I don’t know how I’m doing right now.” I told her honestly.

“What do you mean?” She asked.

“Well for one I’m really tired of everyone guessing I’m five if I wear the wrong clothes.” I told her hesitantly. I was sure my parents had filled her in with everything anyway, “Tuesday was pajama day. Mom and I had found some cute pajamas with feet on them that would fit Amy and me, so we wore them for pajama day. We really did look cute dressed like that, and I was having a lot of fun with it. That was until the sub in English class thought that I was someone’s little sister that had come them to school that day.”

I was really surprised Dr. Reynolds didn’t laugh about it, but I continued, “Then the next day the whole squad was wearing shortalls and our hair done in pigtails and I looked to be about five again. One of my best friends even brought a doll to school to play a joke on the sub that we’d had. I don’t think she knew that it really upset me though. I’m not five, I’m twelve! Amy has grown about five inches here in the last couple months, but I’m still the same height I was last year. It’s good for cheerleading stuff because people can toss me so easily… but…” I was doing my best to not go into tears over all of this. “as long as we’ve got my puberty stopped then I won’t be doing much growing. That’s all on top of the fact that I’m never going to be able to have periods like my friends… and I’m stuck with this stupid thing between my legs,” I told her with a great deal of exasperation. “I’m so tired of having to look at it, or hide it, every time I turn around. I know you can’t do anything about it till I’m eighteen – but I wish it could be gone now!” I had gone to tears now.

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Viewing Note: This story should be viewed with the Edwardian Script ITC font installed on your Windows platform in the c:/Windows/Fonts directory. Microsoft Word installs this font automatically.

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The Legal Stuff: Dreaming of Cheers  © 2010 By Tiffany Shar
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright  © 2010 By Tiffany Shar. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.
 
 
Preface
 
 
It’s been a long road to publishing this third book in my Standing Up to Life Series. I began writing the first book over two years ago, putting the first two books out in a quick succession of six months work. The third book became more challenging to finish as I had set my sights on only writing a trilogy. I declared myself finished last August, but found myself unhappy with the ending. Well seven months later I feel this is ready to give to you, my readers, and I hope you will enjoy it. It has not gone on the track I had expected, and indeed there will probably be at least one more book following this in order to complete Tiffany’s story. I hope you will find that your wait has been worth it.

Like the first two books I posted here, I will be posting a full copy here on BigCloset. This time I am going to upload two chapters per week to the site. The full version should be completely posted by August. For those that cannot wait however, I have an e-book version of the full book available from Lulu.com as of today. You may find it at My Store. My assumption is that the majority of my readers would be more interested in this edition of the book rather than a hardback or paperback. If you enjoy this work perhaps you will consider supporting me by purchasing it ($5.95 for the eBook).

Thanks again, and I hope you enjoy reading Dreaming of Cheers!

 

Chapter 11:

 
MONDAY ARRIVED FASTER than I would have liked, and I found myself right back in school. I’d spent most of Sunday doing as little as possible, but I’d still had a lot of homework to finish before I was able to go to bed the night before. As classes went Monday there wasn’t anything particularly special. It was a normal day. Normal… except that every few minutes I was double checking that my backpack was in fact still where I’d set it next to my legs.

I was so nervous about the incident from Friday it was ridiculous. Half-way through lunch Amy leaned over to me and whispered, “Tiffany, it’s all right, we’re not going to let anything happen to you.”

I blushed. I didn’t know it was that obvious. The problem for me was that I’d had a sort of peace that had built up, and the Friday thing just shattered that. I was back to worrying just as much as I had a month before. It sucked. I kept trying to tell myself that things wouldn’t get that bad again, but I knew I was honestly constantly on a tightrope trying to keep myself in the air — one slip and I might fall to the abyss that lay below. Thankfully that day all of me worries seemed for not, as nothing bad happened that day.

After school I went to the girls’ locker room and changed in the coaches’ office into my clothes for dance practice. Today was going to be the beginning of only having dance practice, no cheerleading practice first! I was excited about that. I mean, I enjoyed the cheer stuff too, but I had definitely found I had a bigger passion for dance. Coach had us gather around on the floor of the small stage that we had in the Cafetorium to talk to us.

“Good afternoon ladies,” she said to us with a smile, “today we’re going to begin preparation for the competitions were doing in January!”

We all smiled a lot, and I think everyone was genuinely excited to be moving forward.

“Look, I know we had a scary performance last Thursday, but stuff happens sometimes ladies. As long as we keep moving on we’ll be able to look at it and laugh in a few months.”

I hoped she was right. I almost wanted to cry now that she’d brought it back up. Why wasn’t she chewing us out for it? We deserved it…

“Today I got the official word that we’ve been accepted into the Dance Nationals in Florida the last weekend of January!”

“Really? We got accepted?” Lindsey asked, kind of surprised.

“Of course! I sent them a copy of the video of our routine from the high school homecoming game. They were really impressed with it ladies. Like I said, I know we had a bad performance last Thursday, but as a whole I believe this squad has a lot of potential.” She said that with a smile on her face that I felt was genuine.

“Thanks,” I found myself and most of the other girls saying.

“Okay, we have a lot of hard work to do for this competition. I’m entering us into two categories at the junior level. We’re going to do jazz and poms.”

I nodded, those were my two favorite categories and I thought it was going to be a lot of fun. There are other categories like hip-hop that you could enter, but I really like the styles that she was having us do the best. They were the ones I enjoyed the most. “How many other squads are there?” I found myself asking unexpectedly.

“So far the lady I spoke to said that they’ve accepted about two-hundred junior high squads into this competition… Of course there are probably some others that they haven’t accepted. You have to be good enough to get in,” she added. All of our faces took on a scared look.

“Cool,” Kristina said next to me breaking it though.

“Okay, I’m going to put the music on for the two routines now so that you can all listen to it, then we’re going to go ahead and start going through the pom-pom routine today.” She started the music and I could already feel myself moving to the beats. I was sure that we were going to have two really cool routines when we were done with it all. Every girl on the squad nodded and smiled afterwards, we were sure we could have fun with this! Coach Holt calmed us down and then had us begin working count by count. Practice was supposed to end at five-thirty for the night, but she had us stop early at five. I was already exhausted both physically and mentally by that point though.

“Okay come have a seat here for a few minutes and I’ll let you all get out of here early,” she told us. We all gathered around her and she started handing out packets to us. “This is all of the information for the trip. We’re going to be getting in two more uniforms for this competition in the next month or so. We’ll also use them at the State competition the week before that,” she looked at us to see if we had any questions.

“Why don’t you all look at the itinerary with me for a few minutes,” she instructed. She went through each of the bits of information about when we were going to be flying out of Albuquerque, when we’d be performing in the preliminary round, and hopefully when we’d be performing in the finals. We were also going to have one day to roam in Disney World. Amy and I looked at each other excitedly, even though we’d been there the previous summer (actually about a third of the squad had been with us), we were still excited to go back.

When we left that night we had all sorts of wonderful forms to fill out, and dates of some fundraisers we were going to be doing to get ready for the trip. Our parents had already paid a big chunk of the fee for the trip, but there were still some additional costs involved that fundraising would help with. I skipped out to where my Mom was waiting outside to take me home real quick, before leaving right afterwards to go to gymnastics.

“Hey Tiffany, how are you doing?” Tara asked me as I walked into the reception area at the gymnastics gym.

“Alright I guess,” I told her as we walked back to the back. “You?”

“I’m doing well. Having a bit of a Monday, but doing well,” she said with a smile. “So Tiffany, are you still doing everything you were doing at the beginning of this fall?”

“Actually I just stopped doing some of the stuff a couple weeks ago… I’m not doing the dance classes or ballet for a bit.”

“Oh?”

“Well my parents decided I was bit overloaded… and they were right… so I’m just doing this on Mondays, Jazz on Tuesdays, and dance at school.”

“That’s probably a really good idea Tiffany,” she told me.

The two of us actually spent a lot of time talking that night while we stretched together. “Thanks for listening to me,” I told her as we stood up to go begin some new things.

“Anytime Tiffany,” she said. “Okay, so I was kind of thinking about trying some balance beam stuff with you tonight,” she said to me.

I had to remember to breathe there after a second. “Okay…” I said nervously looking at the balance beam at the far end of the gym suspended in the air.

“Don’t worry, nothing too hard Tiffany,” she said to me. “And we’ll start with a lower one.”

“Good,” I said, the relief plain on my face.

We actually worked on one that was only about half-a-foot off the ground… probably a good thing because even though it was simple stuff, I still fell off of it plenty of times! By the end of our lesson that night I was sure that I was going to have some bruises and be sore in the morning. I did have fun though, so it was worth it.

When I got home I began talking excitedly to Mom and Dad about all of the details we had gotten about the trip that day. “It’s going to be so cool competing with all of those schools!”

“I’m sure you all will do really well sweetie,” Dad told me.

“Thanks!” I told him and continued on and on for the rest of the night. I’m pretty sure my parents were absolutely thrilled when I went to bed that night.

 

TUESDAY MORNING CAME and I was freezing as I walked across the hall to the bathroom. I made the mistake of getting into the shower before letting the water run for a minute first, causing me to shiver. ‘Just how cold is it outside today?’ I asked myself. I vaguely remembered Mom saying something about it getting cold today… but I honestly hadn’t paid much attention. ‘Obviously it’s cold enough that the shower isn’t even really getting warm…’ I said to myself as I washed as quickly as I could.

I had the hot water on all of the way, and the cold only at a trickle and the water seemed lukewarm at best. I was not in a good mood by the time I finished. I toweled off quickly and threw on my clothes as quickly as I could. I’d only put a long sleeve tee in the bathroom the night before… I was going to have to put on a couple more layers this morning, I was sure of that.

Dad was still at the kitchen table when I came out — now wearing the long sleeve shirt, a sweater, and a hooded dance sweatshirt on top of that. “Just how cold is it outside?” I asked him.

He just pointed to the TV where the weather man had just come on and showed a state map. Our town was listed as a measly eight degrees!!! “It’s only November… it’s not supposed to be this cold yet.” I grumbled.

He just shrugged and said, “Don’t forget your coat today,” as he stood up and headed off back to the bathroom.

Before he had fully escaped the kitchen I asked, “Is there something wrong with the hot water heater? My shower was freezing today…”

“I’ll look at it when I get home tonight sweetie. It probably just needs turned up a bit.”

“Please!!!!” I said. I was really trying not to sound rude, but I was sure I hadn’t really succeeded. I’m not a morning person but he knew it at least.

I quickly ate breakfast before going back to my room and looking to see where we had stashed my new winter coat. ‘It’s a good thing we got this early…’ I thought as I heard Amy’s Mom pull up. I threw on the coat really quick and headed out to her car while grabbing my saxophone and backpack quickly.

It was so cold outside that my breath was taken away initially. The cold bit at my cheeks, and I almost forgot to lock the front door in my rush to get inside the warm car that was waiting for me.

“Brrr!!!” I said as I jumped into the back seat next to Amy.

“I agree!” Amy said.

“Why aren’t we going to Florida today?” I grumbled. Amy smiled at me a little before going back to her own shivering. The car wasn’t nearly as warm as I’d hoped. At school everyone rushed into their classrooms as quickly as they could — no one wanted to be outside or in the hallways any longer than they had to. All of the classrooms were cold that morning though — no one had thought to turn up the heaters in the school the day before when it had still been in the mid-sixties.

All morning long everyone grumbled, but not as much as when we realized that it meant we were going to be stuck inside classrooms immediately after we finished eating that day. Before long everyone seemed to be in about as bad of a mood as they could be. In home-ec Coach Holt decided to just have us watch a movie in class that day. She seemed pretty tired, not looking good at all. At the end of class she called Amy and I over to her desk.

“Hey ladies, I’m going to have to cancel practice after school today. I’m feeling pretty sick. Would you mind spreading the word around?” She asked.

“Sure, I hope you feel better,” I told her.

“Me too,” she told me. “Either way we will have practice tomorrow. Alright?”

Amy and I nodded and left as the bell rang. “No practice after school? What are we going to do with ourselves?” Amy asked with a smile on her face.

“Find somewhere warm to curl up with a blanket,” I answered. She nodded to that.

“Do you want to ride the bus home with me then?” She asked.

“Sure. We should probably get a hold of our parents though and let them know practice is cancelled.”

Just as she was about to respond we were sitting down in English and a secretary came over the intercom, “Excuse this interruption teachers, we have an announcement that dance practice is cancelled after school today. Also there will be no jazz practice today either. If there are any girls on the dance team that need to call home please send them to the office at this time, thanks.”

“Well that works,” I told Amy with a smile. The two of us, along with the other dance team members in our class all headed towards the office. Not all of the girls really needed to call home… but it was a really good excuse to get out of class!

When it was my turn to use the phone Amy held her hand on my arm for a second, “Tiff, you should come stay the night tonight!”

“That would be fun… We don’t even really have any homework tonight… I’ll ask.” I told her.

“Hi, Mom?” I asked as she answered the phone at home.

“Tiffany, what’s wrong?” she asked really worried. It caused me to have a start for a second while I tried to figure out why she sounded that way, and then I realized I never called her from school for a good thing…

“Nothing’s wrong Mom, I just called to let you know that dance practice is cancelled — and so is jazz band. Would it be possible for me to stay tonight at Amy’s?” I asked sweetly.

“I don’t know sweetie, it’s a school night.”

“I’ve stayed over before… and I don’t have any homework.” I told her.

“You are supposed to have a sax lesson tonight though, remember?”

“Oh…”

“How about this sweetie. Why don’t you both ride over to our house on the bus, hang out there for a bit until I come pick you up for your lesson and then I’ll take you both over to Amy’s house in time for dinner there?”

“Okay!”

I hung up the phone and told Amy what my Mom had said. “That sounds fine… what do you want me to do during your lesson though?” She asked.

“I don’t know… you can come in and watch I guess.” I told her.

“I guess that’s only fair, I made you come to one of my dance classes last year.” She told me with a smile. With that she called her mom and told her what was going on. Amy’s mom said that it was a great idea for me to come over. By the time everyone had made their phone calls and we made it back to class there wasn’t a lot of time left. Ms. Damien had pretty much given up on getting anything done since half of the class had left to go call home. She didn’t seem real pleased, but she looked like she’d get over it.

Band flew by quickly, and at the end of class Kyle asked Mrs. Remar why we weren’t having jazz. “Kyle, I had a pipe burst at home so we’re cleaning up the mess and dealing with the plumber and everything tonight,” she told him. We all told her we were sorry to hear that — it would definitely suck. ‘Yet another reason to not like the cold,’ I thought to myself.

“Sorry to hear that,” I told her as I walked by.

“Stuff happens,” she said with a grim face that was trying to make sure we weren’t too worried about her.

I grabbed my sax and went outside to meet Amy. The two of us went to get onto the bus to my house that we rarely ever rode. “Hi Tiffany,” the driver said as we got on. “Your Mom told me you two would be riding. Why don’t you ride in the seat behind me, it’s the only one that’s really empty at the moment,” she added somewhat apologetically.

“Thanks,” I told her.

“I can’t believe that you had jazz practice canceled in addition to the dance practice Tiff,” Amy said as the bus began moving.

“I’m really surprised too… it’ll be kind of like not doing anything tonight. Of course my sax lesson is keeping it from being all the way like that. Are you sure you don’t mind being forced to tag along to that? I can have my Mom drop you off at your house.”

“It’s okay Tiffany, I’ve never really heard you play before,” she told me. Of course that was intentional. I didn’t even like my parents to hear me practice. It’s not that I was bad — quite the opposite I was showing a lot of potential — I was just very self conscious.

“I’m okay,” I told her.

Soon we pulled up to the stop that was closest to my house and we began walking the block to get there. I was glad that Amy was with me, the idea of walking alone on this walk did not thrill me. On this very walk I had been attacked and stalked by tormentors way too often. Towards the end of the year last year, Amy’s Mom had been picking us up, but due to dance practice she had rearranged her schedule to where she was working a little bit later and couldn’t pick us up on a day like this.

I pulled my key out of my backpack and unlocked the front door, tossing my sax case and bag next to the door. “What do you want to do while we wait for your Mom to take us to your lesson?”

“Well I need to get clothes for tomorrow,” I told her. I didn’t really need pajamas since I had a set there already.

“Okay let’s get you packed!” she said excitedly.

The two of us walked to my bedroom and began rummaging through my closet to decide what I wanted to wear tomorrow. It was supposed to be just as cold, if not colder, so I grabbed a camisole, a tight short sleeve shirt, a long sleeve shirt, and a sweater to put on top of all of it. “Think you’ll have enough layers there Tiff?” Amy asked while rolling her eyes at me. I stuck my tongue out at her and moved to my underwear drawer to grab a pair of panties and socks. I paused for a second at the training bras that were in my drawer and decided to go ahead and grab one. I really thought I was beginning to need them, but I didn’t let Amy see what I was grabbing… I was embarrassed for some reason.

As I began to close that drawer I had to open another one that it got stuck on. “Tiffany you should so bring those pajamas tonight!” Amy said as I was just getting ready to close the problem drawer. I followed her gaze to the set of footed pajamas. I hadn’t told her I had wore them more than that one time… I didn’t want to feel stupid.

“Why?” I asked.

“It’s cold silly!”

“Oh.”

“Plus then we can match again!” she told me. “It is a sleepover after all!”

“Alright, I’ll bring them.” I paused to look around and see if there was anything else I would need. I had a stuffed animal, as well as a second set of bathroom stuff like brushes, toothbrushes, and toothpaste at her house in my room and bathroom. I decided to grab a pair of earrings real quick and then I would be done.

“You should wear those tomorrow!” Amy said pointing to a pair in the shape of purple flowers.

“Okay,” I smiled at her and said.

The two of us then sat around and talked for a few minutes before Amy asked, “Tiffany do you have your practice tapes here?”

“Yeah, they’re in my bag — I didn’t get around to taking any of that out last night. Why?”

“Well I was thinking we could start learning the routine until your Mom gets home. I mean Coach Holt gave us the written copy of everything too.”

I looked thoughtfully for a second and said, “Okay.” I grabbed the stuff out of my bag and we began working through the routine by counts. We managed to get through about three-quarters of the routine before we encountered a couple move names that neither of us knew. “I guess we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to ask her,” I told Amy.

“Yeah… I was kind of hoping we could finish learning it slowly today though.” She said as I heard my Mom pull up outside.

“Oh well, we’d better get ready to go.” I told her.

“How was your day, girls?” Mom asked as she came in.

“Pretty good I guess,” I told her.

“Really strange without dance practice,” Amy added.

“Well I’m going to run to the restroom real quick and then we need to go. Do you have everything you need for tonight and tomorrow?” Mom asked me.

“I think so.”

“Okay, just make sure you’re ready to go in a couple minutes — I don’t want you to be late for your lesson.”

“Yes Mom,” I told her trying not to roll my eyes. I was ready to go — she was the one that wasn’t. Thankfully Mom was in and out of the bathroom pretty quickly.

“Let’s go,” she told me as she came out rubbing lotion onto her hands.

I grabbed my bags and my saxophone, Amy grabbed her backpack, and we walked outside to the car while Mom locked up. She opened the trunk for us to put our bags in and then Amy and I got into the back seat of the car. Mom seemed tired that afternoon, I asked her about it, “Mom are you alright?”

“I think so sweetie, I just didn’t sleep well last night. I had heartburn all night.” She told me.

“Oh… I’m sorry.” I told her.

“It’s alright, maybe it’s a good thing you’re going over to Amy’s tonight though,” she said with a slight smile. I tried to smile back but I felt bad for her. She seemed to have heartburn almost constantly, though some nights were worse than others.

It didn’t take long to pull up to the music store where I took my sax lessons. Mom and Amy followed me into the store where I said “Hi,” to my teacher.

She said ‘Hi’ to my mom as well. “And this is Amy, one of Tiffany’s friends. Do you mind if she sits in during her lesson?”

She looked at her and said, “No that shouldn’t be a problem. Let’s get started though,” he said as she looked at her watch. My teacher led us into the practice studio they had setup in the back, directing Amy to a seat behind me where she took out a book and started reading to kill time. I really felt bad about dragging her along like this.

“So what have we worked on this week Tiffany?” she asked.

“Well I spent a lot of time on the scales you wanted me to work on, and the pieces for the honor band auditions next week.” I almost stuttered when I said that last bit. I couldn’t believe those auditions were already here.

“Let’s see what you’ve done.” She told me with a smile. As I went through the scales that I would have to play two of next week, she corrected a few things here and there, but mostly didn’t say a lot.

“Good Tiffany, there’s only a few things I want you to change…” the lesson continued like that for the next hour after we had finally managed to get through the pieces too.

“So do you think I have a chance?” I asked her as I put my saxophone in its case.

“I think you have a very good chance. Definitely a better chance than most seventh graders do, just remember there will be some ninth graders auditioning for the junior high band too.” She pointed out to me as if to prepare me for the possibility of failure. I just nodded. As I walked out of the studio I gave her a quick hug and said ‘thank you,’ for her help.

With that Amy and I walked back to the front of the store where my mom was waiting. “How is she doing?” my mom asked my teacher.

“Tiffany played really well tonight; as long as she keeps up what she’s doing she should have a decent chance next week.”

I blushed but was again happy to have the compliment. “Thank you for all of your work with her,” my mom told her as we left the store. With that we drove to Amy’s house, with Mom coming inside just briefly to say ‘hi’ to Melanie before leaving to go home.

“Hi Tiffany,” Melanie said to me as I walked in.

“Hi,” I told her while giving her a small hug.

“Why don’t you two go wash up and then come downstairs for dinner?”

“Okay Mom,” Amy said and we went upstairs. I threw my stuff into my room and washed up in my bathroom. I still couldn’t get over the fact that Amy’s parents had redone one of their spare bedrooms for me this summer. Knowing, that her parents loved me almost as much as my parents, was an amazing feeling.

Amy and I met up at the staircase to head back downstairs to the dining room. “What’s for dinner, Mom?” Amy asked.

“Shrimp fettuccini alfredo,” she told us.

My stomach instantly growled. I loved fettuccini alfredo in the restaurants, but knowing Melanie this would probably be better than the restaurants. Both of us sat down just as Mr. Hancock came into the door. “Hey Amy, Tiffany, how was your day?” he asked as he came and kissed Melanie.

“It was good.” We both said together. That of course caused a small giggle. We were used to finishing each other’s sentences by now, but it was still funny sometimes.

“Good,” he said to us before going down the hall to a bathroom on the first floor to wash up. Meanwhile Melanie dished up food to all of us and we began eating. I was so hungry for some reason, and I finished my plate really quickly. Melanie offered me seconds but I politely turned it down. As good as it sounded I really didn’t want to get fat from it… I had felt the calories oozing out of the food as I’d eaten it!

After Amy finished up we both began to excuse ourselves from the table. “Hey Amy I thought you might want to look at this, it came in the mail today.” She said holding up a new Sears Wishbook catalog.

“Ooooh!” Amy fairly squealed. She jumped up and grabbed my hand with the free hand that wasn’t holding the catalog in her hand. “Let’s go make Christmas lists!” she told me.

“That sounds like fun,” I told her as I followed her up the stairs to her playroom. Beginning this summer it had begun to look more like a room just for studying… but all of her toys were still around the room. I smiled when I saw the dollhouse that was a sister to the one I had at home — we’d both received them from Mattel for our video project. It was off to the side now though, a desk had been moved into the room last month and a brand-new computer sat at it for her to use in classes.

“What do you want for Christmas?” I asked her. I wasn’t really sure what I was supposed to want this year. Seventh grade seemed to be a really awkward year in that way.

“I don’t know. I mean I’m sure my parents will end up getting me a couple Barbies… but it’s not like we have time to play anymore,” she said sadly. “I guess maybe clothes?” she suggested.

“It seems so boring…” I said.

“Yeah… let’s look through this catalog though; maybe we’ll get better ideas.”

And so the Wishbook frenzy began in earnest. The two of us oohed and awed about a lot of things in there, and both of us started a list with a few things on there. We came across the CD players that were listed in there after a bit and I suddenly knew something I would like for me. “I’m going to put down a CD player,” I told her.

“Ooh! That’s a good idea, do you mind if I still your idea?”

“Nope.” I replied as the two of us then began scrounging through the catalog some more. We were just about to call it a night of looking at it when her Mom came up and asked if we wanted some ice cream.

“It’s freezing outside Mom, how can you possibly think of ice cream today?” Amy asked incredulously.

“It’s warm in here,” she pointed out to her. She took that as a ‘no’ though and headed back downstairs.

“Why don’t we go ahead and get our pajamas on?” Amy suggested. “I’m cold and those pajamas are a lot warmer than what I’ve got on.”

“Sure,” I told her and went down the hall to change. I felt ridiculously young as always as I put them on, but I noticed something. My chest really looked like it was beginning to change. I touched my nipple and discovered it was kind of sore. That was supposed to be a good sign right? I quickly zipped up my pajamas and skipped down the hallway to Amy’s room.

“Amy… can you look at something for me?” I asked nervously.

“Sure Tiff, what?”

“Well I think maybe the hormones are starting to work. Would you mind looking and seeing if I’m just going nuts?”

“Sure!” Amy said to me. She really was a sister to me, and things like this showed it more than almost anything else.

I was really embarrassed, almost frozen as I went ahead and unzipped the top of my pajamas down and showed her. “Tiffany I think you’re right! That’s what mine were doing at the beginning of the year!”

“Really?”

“Really. Do they feel any different?” She asked curiously.

“Well they’re kind of sore if I touch them… that’s okay right?” I asked.

“It’s normal Tiff. This is great! Soon you’ll be wearing a real bra too.” She had been so proud last month when she had gotten her first real bra, an A cup. I zipped my pajamas back up when I heard a knock at her door. It was Melanie.

“What are you two up to now?”

“Nothing…” We both said.

“Don’t be getting into trouble now,” her mom said to us.

“We won’t… get into much.” Amy said with a smile.

“Your dad just started a fire in the fireplace downstairs… why don’t you two come downstairs and have some hot chocolate with us?” She asked. “It’s not even something cold.” She said with a smile to Amy.

“Okay!” I said and we both headed downstairs with her.

For the rest of the night Amy and I just hung out with her parents. It was nice to hang out there at her house. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel like I had a family at home… but it was easier to relax around her parents than it was with mine. My dad always worried me a little bit, that I was taking too large a toll on him. At least here it didn’t seem that way at all. Her mom eventually sent both of us to bed and said goodnight to both of us. I had just gone through and gotten my clothes ready for the next morning when she came in to check on me.

“Tiffany do you need anything?”

“I think I’m good,” I told her with a smile.

“Okay then, why don’t you go ahead and get in bed and I’ll get the light for you,” she said with a smile. As she turned off the light and closed the door I felt absolutely safe and happy. I didn’t think that anything could possibly get better than that.

 

Chapter 12:

 

IN THE MORNING Melanie made breakfast for Amy and me, before driving us off to school. Things seemed a lot calmer that day then they had on Monday. So far nothing else had happened to me, and I was hoping it would stay that way. After school we asked Coach Holt about the moves that we didn’t know, and she showed us them so we could work on them. I think we were the only two to look at the routine on Tuesday, because everyone else looked really frustrated just getting through the first easy parts of the routine. I was proud that Amy and I were setting such a good example!

I wanted to go home with Amy again that night, but knew I shouldn’t push it with my parents. Instead I ended up talking to her on the phone for an hour while we worked on the same essay for English. We also made plans for her to come over to my house on Friday, that way my parents wouldn’t feel like I was completely abandoning them.

As I walked into the school building on Thursday I felt like things were going well, and I thought maybe things were going to be going great for a third day in a row.

Science made it kind of a toss-up though.

That day in class we were discussing the periodic table. Mr. Grainger spent some time discussing how we were to read it, atomic weights, and had given us an assignment we were to do in small groups. That was pretty normal for us in class. At the end though he called us all together as a class again, “Okay class, what number is Oxygen?”

I raised my hand high in the air, that was an easy one, “Yes Tiffany?”

“Eight?”

“Very good,” he said and then continued onto the other questions he had.

Two minutes before class was to end I overheard a boy and a girl in the corner whispering, “You know Brandon was an annoying know-it-all before all of this began, and he still is.”

I felt my face turning absolutely red.

Mr. Grainger was an intelligent teacher and he seemed to sense that the two of them were not focusing on the assignment so he called out, “Why don’t you two tell me how many protons Rubidium has?”

The boy, Erick, sneered, “I don’t know, why don’t you ask the genius Brandon over there. I’m sure he can tell you all about it.”

“Erick I’ll see you after class.” Mr. Grainger said to him coldly.

I was in shock. I didn’t even know what to say. Crying didn’t even occur to me at that point because I was taken so aback by his statement. Kyle was sitting a couple desks in front of him. I saw him turn around and mouth something to him… but I wasn’t really paying attention.

The bell rang and I found myself moving to Choir with Amy and Lindsey putting their arms around my shoulders. They actually steered me into a bathroom next to the choir room. “Are you okay Tiffany?” Lindsey asked. She looked appalled.

“I think so… What in the world just happened?” I asked them. They both looked at each other and gave me the shrug of their shoulders to emphasize they didn’t have a clue either. “I mean I just answered one question — not the whole worksheet. What in the world did I do to Erick?”

“I don’t know Tiffany,” Amy told me. “Are you going to be alright to go on to choir?”

I nodded, “I think so. I’m too shocked to cry right now.” Both of them gave me a friendly hug and we headed to class. The bell rang just as we came in the door. If we were any other girls I’m sure we probably would have been marked tardy, but in our cases Ms. Beecher just gave us a concerned look and motioned us with her head towards our spots on the risers.

Since the three of us were sopranos it made it easy enough to make our way in there without separating. We worked on some music for the Christmas concert that was only a month away. I was in the front row due to my shortness, while Amy and Lindsey were behind me. All through class I could feel their eyes watching me as if they were worried I was going to collapse.

Honestly I wasn’t bothered by the incident because of the know-it-all comment, or even just the fact they had intentionally referred to me as Brandon. It was the venom and outright cruelty that Erick had put into his voice. I was trying to think what in the world I had ever done to him to cause it. But there was nothing I could think of. ‘Maybe he was friends with Lucas?’

‘Yeah, that would explain it,’ I thought to myself. He was friends with Lucas. I had dealt with problems with him early on in the school year, but he had backed off when confronted by the administration. He’d been threatened with expulsion if it continued… but he probably thought he could get others to do his dirty work and get away with it… The part that bothered me was that he was probably right.

I explained this to Amy quietly over lunch. “Tiffany, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re right… but there’s no way we’d ever be able to prove it.”

“I know… just tell me I’m not insane for seeing a plot against me every time I turn around…” I answered.

She just smiled slightly and gave me a hug around the shoulders with her arm. It was freezing again for a third day, so once again we were inside after lunch instead of hanging out outside. Luckily for us though Coach Holt let Amy and I look through some uniform catalogs to see if we could start picking out outfits for next year. It gave us something to do at least.

Practice after school was brutal that day. Coach Holt had us run through the first sixty-four counts of the routine slowly, again, and again, and again for a half hour straight. It was tough enough to do it once, but with as many times as we repeated it I felt like I was going to curl up from the pain I felt. All of the other girls must have felt the same way by their expressions. The entire rehearsal went that way as she worked to try and improve it as much as she could in one rehearsal.

By the time Amy’s mom picked us up we were both on our way to sleep as soon as we crawled in the car. When she dropped me off at my house I briefly discussed her coming to pick us up after a lesson I was having with Mrs. Remar after school on my honor band music, and then dropping us off at my house so Amy could stay the night. As soon as I finished though I went inside my house, grabbed a blanket, my stuffed tiger, and curled up on the couch in the living room.

A half-hour later my mom came home and found me curled up on the couch, she nudged me awake. “Hey Tiffany, are you all right?”

I was groggy so about all I was able to do was go, “uh?”

“Sweetie I’ll let you go back to sleep for a bit. I’ll wake you up when dinners ready, ‘kay?”

“Okay…” I said and nodded right back off to sleep. I was so tired.

When she woke me up for dinner I had a hard time trying to stop being groggy. I ate dinner just silently looking at the TV. It was only after my plate was empty for several minutes that I considered how much I really needed a shower. Both of my parents were still sitting at the table, “Mom? Dad? Do you guys mind if I take a shower? I should have taken one after practice but I just fell asleep.”

Mom seemed to breathe a sigh of relief; I think she was worried there was something seriously wrong at that moment. Both of my parents shared one of those communicating looks with each other, and my dad responded, “Sure Tiffany, let me go to the bathroom really quick first though.”

“Okay,” I told him. In the meantime I went ahead and went to my room and got pajamas and put them in the bathroom. I also decided to wash my face while I was waiting for dad to finish up.

“Tiffany? I’m done with the water,” my Dad called through the bathroom door.

“Thanks,” I told him and started the shower water.

‘Might as well wash my hair tonight…’ I told myself. Once I got my hair washed I washed my body too, and then just stood there in the steaming water. I knew that life was always going to throw me curves like today… but I wasn’t real appreciative about having to deal with them all of the time. At least I still had my good friends.

I eventually noticed that the water was getting cold and heard my Mom knock on the door, “Tiffany are you going to stay in there all night?”

“Sorry Mom!” I called out as I turned the water off, dried myself with a towel, and threw on my pajamas. I hadn’t meant to stay in there that long. I looked at myself in the mirror with my hair wet. ‘I didn’t look like a boy. Why did they have to still call me Brandon?’

I sighed and then went out to the couch where I’d lain this afternoon with my hairbrush in one hand. My mom rushed into the bathroom when I opened the door, and then she came and joined me on the couch watching TV. I was still just holding the hair brush… I didn’t really have the energy to run it through my hair. When my mom came and sat on the couch next to me I gave her a small smile and held out the brush to her.

She sighed, “Well I never got a chance to have to do this for you every day when you were little, so it’s the least I can do now…” She grumbled as she took it. “Turn around.”

“Thank you,” I told her. There was something about her taking the brush through my hair that helped me relax. Well… at least when she didn’t find the occasionally snag. Those hurt! I felt my eyes seem to get heavier and heavier as she brushed though.

“So Amy is coming over here tomorrow night?” Mom asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s alright, right?” I asked her.

“Of course sweetheart, I love having both of you here! Sometimes I worry that if I’m not careful you’ll be like a kitty and go adopt another family,” she was joking, but I was afraid that was something she was really worried about.

“Mommy,” I said turning around, “I’ll always be your daughter! Just ‘cause I may spend time with them doesn’t mean I don’t love you guys.” I told her.

“I’m just teasing Tiffany; I don’t mind you spending time over there either.” She reassured me. That helped me relax again.

“Thanks,” I told her.

“I know how much your friendship with Amy means to you. I’m so glad that the two of you have that friendship — don’t think for a moment I would ever be upset about it.”

“Thank you for understanding Mom,” I told her and gave her a hug before turning my back to her again to convince her to keep brushing.

That earned me a poke in the side.

“Hey!!! Not fair!” I told her while I stuck my tongue out at her. I sat there for a while longer while she brushed my hair more than it really needed before forcing myself to go practice. The auditions were on Monday and I wanted to do well. As soon as I was done practicing though I went to bed, falling asleep quickly.

 

FRIDAY AT SCHOOL was a lot better than Thursday, no incidents, and it was a Friday, what could possibly be wrong with that? It had even warmed up to a balmy 40 degrees! For half-a-heartbeat that morning I considered wearing a skirt or a dress to school that day, but that died when I realized it was still too chilly for my tastes outside.

The school day even seemed to end before I knew it, and I was sitting in the band room with Mrs. Remar working on my honor band audition music. My private lessons teacher was a decent saxophone player… but she really was a flute player, so there were always limits to her help on saxophone. Mrs. Remar though, was a saxophone player and she was able to really get picky with my playing.

While I was working with her Amy was next door bugging Ms. Beecher. She’d seen the two of us come in together and I was pretty sure that she’d pegged Amy for some sort of task as soon as she’d seen her. I was just glad she didn’t have to sit in there and listen to me have another lesson again. I had felt kind of bad about her sitting through the last one.

“Tiffany, you’ve done some really good stuff with this music — you really should be proud of yourself.”

“Do you think I stand a chance?” I asked timidly.

“We’ll see Tiffany. You’re definitely going to be the best seventh grader trying out. The only problem is that there will eighth graders, and even a few ninth graders trying out too… just do the best you can, and we’ll see where that lands you.”

“Thanks,” I told her.

“Anytime, Tiffany.”

“You said we should dress up right? Are we going to have time to change before the auditions?” I asked. She had just broken the news to us earlier that the judges were going to be looking at us so we needed to look nice.

“You’ll have time seventh period before we leave. If you want just bring your clothes and leave them in the office.”

“Oh no! I forgot to tell Coach Holt I’d be missing practice Monday…” I muttered as I was pulling my saxophone apart to clean it.

“Don’t worry about that Tiff, I was talking to her earlier about you — she already knows.”

“Whew… Wait a second.” I said a little concerned, “You were talking about me?” I felt my face turn a little red with embarrassment.

“Well you came up in the conversation yes,” She said.

“About?”

“Well how I was really proud of how well you had been balancing band and cheerleading.”

“Oh, thanks. What did she say?”

“She said she was very impressed with you as well. She mentioned to me it wasn’t just those two things that you’re balancing… and both of us agreed that we think you’re going to go really far Tiff.”

“Thanks,” I said turning redder as Amy came in the door from the choir room. Looking for an out I asked, “Are you ready Amy?”

“Yep! You’re sounding really good,” she said as she came over to where I was latching my case shut.

“Thanks,” I felt like I kept repeating that word way too much today.

“Have a good weekend Mrs. Remar,” I said as I walked out the door with Amy.

“See you Monday, Tiffany!” she called out as we left.

Her mom was already waiting in the car outside so we went in and climbed in for the ride to my house.

“Hey Amy, Tiffany,” she said as we got into the back seat. The three of us talked all the way to my house where she dropped us off.

“Thanks for the ride!” I told her with a smile.

“No problem. Amy I’ll pick you up at eleven tomorrow, we have to go run some errands tomorrow.”

“Okay Mom,” Amy replied to her before giving her a quick hug through her window. The two of us went into my house and put her bag in my room. We had a spare bedroom that she could sleep in, but whenever she stayed over she was still sleeping on the trundle bed that I had in my room… We just liked it that way.

“So what are we doing tonight Tiff?” Amy asked me.

I shrugged, “My mom talked about going and renting some videos, but other than that I have no idea. Do you have anything you want to do?”

“Well… not specifically no.” She said.

“Hrmm… We’ve got about an hour until my mom gets home. Do you want to play with Barbies until then?” I asked. I didn’t really have a lot of enthusiasm behind that at the moment.

“Not really. What else could we do?” She asked.

I paused and thought for a second. “You want to see those dresses I got last weekend?”

“Sure!” she said. Clearly clothing seemed to be a more interesting thing at the moment.

We went over to my closet and I pulled out the three dresses one at a time to show her. She giggled. I glared at her.

“Tiffany, I think you’re going to look cute in these… but we’re going to do our best to make sure this is your last year in these,” she told me with a wink.

“I might as well let my mom have one set of pictures with me in one though,” I told her.

“Yeah, you’re probably right. Of course you’ll have a hard time convincing people later on that you took these when you were twelve though!” She said with a smirk.

I just stuck my tongue out at her. “Careful, your mom wants to get you one now too.”

That earned me a well earned glare and we were done with my closet for that point. The two of us ended up just sitting on my bed and talking for the next half-hour. We were just beginning to comment on our fear of our stomachs going on a rampage when I heard our dog start barking at my mom. Luckily for us she was carrying a couple pizzas when she came in the door.

“Tiffany can you grab these?” She asked.

“Sure,” I said while grabbing them. I took them into the kitchen and set them down on top of the stove. I heard the door open and close again a moment later and knew my dad must have come home as well.

“Would you like something to drink Amy?” My mom asked.

“Umm… what do you have?”

“Coke, Diet Coke, Tea, Water?” My mom rattled off waiting for a response.

“Tea please?”

“Certainly sweetheart,” my mom said while getting her a drink. “Would you like something Tiffany?”

“Tea as well please,” I told her.

Amy and I ate with my parents while they asked us about how school went. Amy and I spent some time talking about the dance team at certain points. I don’t know why but my dad always seemed to squirm a bit there. Well of course I had some guesses… but I didn’t want to think too hard about it.

“How did practice go after school today with Mrs. Remar?” My mom asked.

“It went well. She seems to think I have a decent shot at making it.”

“That’s good.” My dad said.

As we all finished eating our fill of pizza my mom asked Amy and me, “Do you two want to go rent some movies?”

I looked at Amy and she shrugged, so I said, “I guess so.”

“Well let me get ready and we’ll go rent some before they’re all gone for the weekend.” She said. “Joe, do you want to go with us?”

“Not really,” he told my mom. “I have a feeling I’m going to have to go work on something for Rob here in a bit — so you’ll be better off going without me.” I didn’t really care that he wasn’t going with us… but I was really tired of his side job working for this, other guy was taking him away all the time.

“Okay, well we’ll see you later then,” Mom said and we headed out the door soon after that.

The three of us looked through the movie aisles quite a bit and ended up bringing a couple movies home. Once home, Amy and I went into my room and grabbed a few bottles of nail polish before going into the living room to watch the movies. My dad hadn’t ended up having to go help his friend so he came in and joined us Every now and again I thought maybe he was giving Amy and me a funny look while we painted each other’s nails.

‘Was he having a harder time now with this?’ I silently wondered. I was beginning to get nervous about it. ‘I should probably mention that to Dr. Reynolds this week…’ I thought before getting back absorbed into the movie.

The movie, which had been a ‘chick flick,’ was pretty good. I think all four of us were crying at the end of the movie. You might find the fact that my dad was crying surprising… but he actually cried at movies almost as much as my mom. After that movie I ran to the bathroom before anyone else, being careful of my freshly painted nails. As I came out Amy was waiting to go in. I gave her a small smile and went back to the living room to grab my empty glass and get more water in it.

“Tiffany, why don’t you and Amy go ahead and put on your pajamas and we’ll watch the other movie?” my mom suggested as I entered the kitchen.

“Okay,” I told her with a shrug. I had just made it back down the hallway to the bathroom when Amy came out.

“My mom told me we should put on our pajamas and then we could watch the next movie.”

“Okay,” Amy said and followed me into my room. I looked at her a bit sheepishly, “Do you want me to go into the bathroom and change?” She knew what I meant.

“Tiffany, you’re a girl. Don’t worry about it.” She told me and the two of us went ahead and changed in my room together. It wasn’t a big deal really, but I was always afraid it was going to be a big deal. Once the two of us were both in our pajamas we went back out to the living room and sat on the couch next to each other. By the end of the movie we ended up sitting with my head on her shoulder. If I had never felt like she was more my sister than anything before, I certainly felt that way now.

“Okay you two; it’s time to go to bed. And please don’t stay up all night talking.” Mom added as she prodded us down the hallway to my room after the movie.

I didn’t want to lie to her, so I just stuck my tongue out at her. It was only ten after all; did she really expect us to fall asleep? Two teenage girls (well almost teenage), going to sleep early on the night of a sleepover? She was crazy!

The two of us settled down to sit on our beds and told my mom goodnight with a gleam in both of our eyes. She ended up just closing the door, not bothering with the light. Mom must have decided it was a losing battle that she didn’t want to fight. Of course as soon as she closed the door the two of us began giggling softly and talking. Our conversation stayed pretty light for a long time before Amy asked me something I wasn’t expecting.

“Tiffany… I’ve been wondering about something.”

“What?”

“Well, we all agree that you’re a girl… and I know that you’re on hormones and everything, but the one thing I’ve been thinking about and wondering is are you going to date girls or guys when you get older?”

Of all the questions she could ask me, this was the one I had the least certainty on. “I don’t know…” I started. “It all seems a little bit odd right now honestly. I mean as long as I have my male parts it’s kind of hard to think a guy would want to date me. At the same time I really don’t find that I look at girls in that way either…”

“You’re never really going to have an easy time are you?”

I shook my head, “I doubt it. In some ways it might be easier just to never date. Then I don’t have to put anyone in a bad situation.”

It was quiet for a moment before Amy said, “You know you’re wrong about guys not wanting to date you.”

“Huh?”

“I know for a fact that Kyle would go out with you in a heartbeat.”

“You’re kidding right?”

“No. He really would like to go out with you at some point. There are others too.”

“You’re serious aren’t you…?” I asked thoughtfully.

She nodded. “You’re not seriously thinking of going all the way through high school without dating anyone right?”

I bit my lip and shook my head, “No I can’t see being like that all the way through high school… but I have a feeling since I’m now their daughter, my parents are going to put the same strict rules on me they would have if I’d been born a girl.”

“Like?”

“Well I think she was kind of joking… but my mom told me I wasn’t allowed to date until I turn sixteen.”

“Well what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” she told me with a wink.

“Actually I don’t really mind that. It’s not like I want to get stuck in this stupid little town anyway. I’d really like to go to school somewhere else when I get out of high school.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know… maybe somewhere out east? I know there are a lot of good schools out there… or maybe California or something. I have a while to figure that out at least.” I told her. “Do you have any idea what you want to do when you get out of school?”

“Not really, though I don’t want to stay here any more than you do. You’re right, it is a really long ways away, I don’t even know why we’re talking about it.” She kind of laughed a bit at that.

I joined in. It was a fun night for us — and we definitely stayed up way too late. The last time I looked at the alarm clock in my room it read three a.m.