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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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 13:

 
IN THE MORNING Mom showed us little mercy for how tired we were. She woke us up at nine and prodded us both to breakfast. I let Amy into the shower first after that so she could get ready to leave. Her mom had called and told her that she was on her way to come pick her up and they were going to go straight to shopping in town. Neither of us really wanted to have the other one go home that morning. I didn’t like how little time we seemed to have to hang out, and I know she felt the same way.

She also seemed to be dreading the shopping trip for some reason. “Why don’t you want to go shopping?” I asked her as I helped her take her stuff to the living room to wait for her mom.

Amy gritted her teeth and said, “I think Mom is planning something today…” She didn’t elaborate any more than that, and I decided to just leave it at that. When her mom came shortly after that I went out and said ‘hi’ before going back into the house and taking my own shower. It was noon before I was really ready to do anything, so I ate the leftover pizza my mom heated up, and then set about practicing.

I knew I would have to be able to play whatever they picked in the songs perfectly, so I played everything again and again until my mouth and fingers hurt. I looked up at the clock at that point and was surprised to see it was already five. I’d been practicing for over four hours! ‘No wonder my lips hurt,’ I thought to myself. I cleaned up my saxophone and went back out to the living room.

“What do you want for dinner sweetie?” My mom asked.

I shrugged, “I don’t know… What were you thinking?”

“Well your dad doesn’t really want to go out to eat, so it’ll have to be somewhere fast.” She told me.

“A happy-meal?” I suggested. I really wasn’t that hungry.

“Nuggets?”

“Yeah that’ll work.” I told her. That meant I’d have a while before I had food, so I decided to go over to the computer and play a game. I didn’t have a lot of time to play computer games now, but it was probably the one aspect of my life that I had any real tie to my former self. I had been playing a game off and on called Monkey Island 2, which was an adventure game. I enjoyed it, and the humor in it, a lot. This was my third time through the game though, so when my mom came home with my happy meal box in her hand I was easily able to save it and go eat.

Shortly after I finished eating the phone rang. I stood up and walked over to the phone behind me. “Hello?” I said.

“Hey, Tiffany?” I heard Amy ask.

“Yeah, how’s it going?” I asked.

“It’s going I guess…” I heard her grumbling a bit. Something was definitely not going well.
“What’s wrong?” I asked suddenly concerned.

“Oh nothing… except my mom decided I needed two dresses almost exactly like yours today!” she grumbled angrily. “And I’m blaming it on you.” She said. I could tell she wasn’t really mad at me though.

I giggled.

“It’s not funny!” she told me. I could hear her lip curled over while she pouted.

“Well actually…”

“Harrumph.” She said and I giggled even louder.

“Well when do I get to see them?” I asked her with a smile on my face.

“With me in them?” She asked.

“Yeah.”

“Never.” She said. I had a feeling she was glaring at her mom.

“They can’t be that bad Amy.” I told her.

“If I was ten they’d be fine, but I’m Twelve!”

“Look at it this way Amy, we’ll make it the last year either of us has to wear them,” I promised.

“How?”

I looked around and was grateful both of my parents were out of the room. “Well, we’ll just have to make sure we have too big of boobs to wear them next year.” I told her.

That finally made her smile, I could feel it across the phone. Sure enough a second later she couldn’t help herself, she giggled. “Well at least we’ll be in it together a couple of times,” she told me.

“Huh?”

“My parents usually have a Christmas party at their house, and of course you’ll be invited. It’s actually usually a pretty big event,” she added. That was kind of intimidating since most of her parents friends were going to be a lot higher up in society than my family was. Oh well, if Amy was there I was sure it would be fun. The two of us talked for a bit longer before her mom asked her to get off of the phone.

The rest of that night was spent watching TV on the couch in the living room. I ended up curled up with my head on my mom’s lap by the end of the night. It felt so comforting to me when she would sit there and play with my hair. She was also warmer than I was, even with the blankets I had piled on top of me. I must have fallen asleep at some point because I felt her push me up right and ask if I needed carried.

Somehow I ended up back in my room and asleep in my pajamas.

 

SUNDAY PASSED BY in a flash. I spent some time practicing when I first got up, then I went to Amy’s house for a bit. I of course had to see the dresses! She was so red when she showed them to me. “They’re not that bad,” I had told her. That had just earned me a glare and she shooed me out of the closet as quickly as she could. We both got some homework done together before I went home to practice some more.

I had a lot of trouble getting to sleep that night because I was so nervous about the audition the next day. When I did finally fall asleep it seemed like it had just been for a moment as I felt Mom shake me awake. I had asked her to wake me up early so that I could work on my hair, and with her consent for once, put on makeup for later.

The auditions were being held at a high school in town somewhere, and since Mrs. Remar said they would be able to see us I was going to dress up. I was wearing the one black and white dress that we had bought a couple weeks ago. It had a velvet bodice and a white skirt, but it didn’t look as little girlish like the other two dresses. The white skirt had an overlay on it, and I did kind of like this one. It was unfortunately the most appropriate thing that I could find in my closet the night before.

Even with the extra time I was still just finishing up in the bathroom when I heard Amy come inside to get me. “Tiffany are you ready?” she asked coming back to look for me.

I stepped outside of the bathroom and said, “Just a minute Amy,” before hurrying back into my room to get my stuff together. Making sure I had my saxophone and music I followed her out to the car.

“You look really pretty,” Amy’s mom said to me.

“Thanks!” I said, pleased with my efforts.

Amy leaned over and whispered, “You can actually see they’re growing,” to me.

In fact I had to wear a training bra that morning because I was afraid that things would show through the tight velvet! That had put me in a great mood that morning. I just nodded at her and we did our usual routine to go to class. In first hour my teacher asked what the occasion was, “It’s honor band auditions today,” I told him. “We’re leaving during sixth period, so I won’t be able to change,” I told him.

“Well I hope you do well,” he told me honestly.

Throughout the day I definitely caught looks from different people that all meant different things. Of course the girls were all examining the dress and me to see if I was in something that they would wear or not. Plus, of course they were looking at whether or not I looked like a girl or not. Thankfully that didn’t really tend to be a problem for me between the hair, size, and the fact that the hormones were beginning to do their job. That was the last reason all of the girls were staring at me. I heard more than one whisper, “How’s she growing those? Or do you think she’s stuffing a bra?”

The first part of the statement of course kind of made me smile a bit. The second part was insulting, but I just chose to ignore it. Boys also seemed to be looking at me more that day as well. The small bumps in the top of my dress seemed to be the thing they were noticing the most. They weren’t big, but just the fact that I had them at all seemed to be making them all wonder if I wasn’t really a girl that had been pretending to be a boy instead. Of course they were right, but they just weren’t right.

By the time sixth period came and we were getting on the bus I was ready to be out of the school — and out of the dress. It really wasn’t uncomfortable, but I got a lot more stares in it than I did my normal clothes. That was what made it a little bit more uncomfortable. The one thing that saved me was the fact that I wasn’t the only girl that had dressed up for the auditions. Nikki and Jessica had both dressed up in dresses too. In Nikki’s case she had an even harder time finding dresses that didn’t make her look like she was five than I did. She was still flatter in her chest than even I was, and combined with her size she didn’t even bother trying that day. She was in a dress that was clearly out of the girls section. Not that mine wasn’t clearly out of that section too… but with the bumps it was a little bit better somehow.

The ride on the bus just made me more nervous about the auditions. I coped by using a mirror on a compact I had and fixing every strand of hair that had escaped since I’d last looked at it in the bathroom ten minutes ago. When I was done with that I touched up my makeup and began nervously looking at the music I had in my lap. Mrs. Remar walked up the aisle of the bus and looked at me, “Tiffany you look very pretty today.”

I smiled a bit, “Thanks,” I told her.

“Just relax and breathe, you’ll be fine.”

I just nodded. How easy it was for her to say that!

At the school we were let off the bus and led into the school’s cafeteria. “Okay guys,” she said to the twelve of us who had come, “Warm up here for a few minutes and then go sign in at your room. Make sure you don’t play in the hallways at all. Good luck, I’ll see all of you in a couple hours. If you need anything let them know you’re looking for me.”

She actually gave me a small shoulder hug on her way past me and told me, “Good luck Tiffany.”

Not long after that you couldn’t hear yourself think in that cafeteria. We had been one of the first schools to get there, but as other schools came in and there were four-hundred students playing at once, it got really loud! I gave up on practicing; it wasn’t going to do me any more good. After I felt like I was warmed up I went down the hallway to find the saxophone room. I signed in as number ten on the list. I stood quietly in the hallway waiting for what felt like an eternity while that list grew longer, before the judge began seeing people in for the auditions. I had asked, when it seemed like everyone had signed in, how many people were trying out. “Looks like about thirty,” the older girl that was running our room told me.

A boy next to me introduced himself, “Hi I’m Doug,” he told me.

I took the hand he offered me and offered a limp shake saying, “Hi, I’m Tiffany.”

“What school are you from?” he asked me

“Holden Junior High,” I told him, and we began a conversation. Soon it included a few others around me and I was able to forget my nervousness a little bit. I was amused because Doug seemed to be…. well ‘flirting,’ or ‘hitting on me,’ seemed to be the best words I could use. There was a girl from his school that was in our conversation who seemed rather annoyed that this was happening. Her name was Erin, and she was an eighth grader like him.

“How many do they take?” I asked them.

“I think they take five if I remember right from last year,” Doug told me.

“Did you make it last year?” I asked him. I was getting more nervous, there were only two people, Doug and another guy, in front of me now.

He shook his head, “No, I missed it by one person.”

‘Ouch…’ I thought, ‘missing it by one? I sure hope I don’t do that.’ Before I had much more of an opportunity to dwell on it though Doug was in the room. I listened to him through the door and he was really good. ‘How am I going to compete with that?’

Soon, too soon, it was time for me to go into the room myself. I was so nervous I didn’t know what to do. The girl sitting outside with the sign-in sheet closed the door behind me. The judge was an older man that had grey hair and looked a bit like Santa Clause. He even had the beard to match the look. He smiled kindly at me and asked, “You’re letter J?”

I nodded, too nervous to speak.

“Relax, you’ll be fine,” he told me with that same smile. “Why don’t you go ahead and play your G and D scales for me first, and then your chromatic scale.”

“Okay,” I told him. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes before beginning on my scales. I could feel my fingers move up and down with the notes and was pleasantly surprised when I finished the chromatic scale that I didn’t make any squeaks or mistakes. I’d also managed to play the scales at least as fast as Doug had! ‘Calm down Tiffany, don’t get cocky,’ a voice in my head told me.

“Now would you please play from the beginning to measure…” he rattled off the sections we were auditioning on. Of course I already knew all of that. As soon as the first girl had gone — I’d felt bad for her — she had been badgered immediately into telling us where we had to play. Of course I was paying attention just in case he switched it up for some reason, but he didn’t. I played that piece, and the other one he asked for, before heading out the door.

Erin was going to be next and she gave me a look that made me wonder if I had played that bad or not. “You’re really good,” she told me.

I blushed, “Thanks. Good luck!” I told her and then headed back down towards the cafeteria. I was beginning to shake by the time I made it down there. I could feel my hands begin to wiggle violently and I tried my best to control them. I managed only as long as it took for me to put my saxophone in its case, and then I sat down quickly because I felt like I was about to fall over.

My face felt wet, and sure enough I was crying. My hand had come back both wet and black because of the mascara I was wearing. I kept my head in my hands for a good while before I felt an arm around my shoulder.

“Are you okay Tiffany?” I heard Kyle ask.

“I guess, I’m just really nervous,” I told him.

“You haven’t gone yet?” he asked me.

“No I went a while ago, you?”

“I just finished. If you’ve already gone why are you nervous now?” he asked with a small smile perched on his lips.

I shook my head, “I don’t know. It happens like this to me sometimes. I get nervous about something but it doesn’t come out until…” I hiccupped. “later. Oh no!” I exclaimed before another one followed.

Kyle was full out laughing at that point. I pushed his arm away from me and said, “It’s not” hiccup, “funny!” I was having a hard time not laughing myself now though. Thankfully Nikki came up right about that time from her flute audition and the two of us went to the bathroom to clean up my face.

“Tiffany, I think you should skip the mascara next year,” she told me.

I nodded with another hiccup coming out. Now she was laughing at me. It wasn’t fair! After about ten minutes I was back to looking normal, and headed out to the snack bar with her and getting a coke. I was still hiccupping frequently though. One of the eighth graders, Lauren, that had come with us had finished with her audition on clarinet and came over to talk to us.

“How did you two do?” she asked.

I shrugged and saw Nikki do the same thing. “Where do you find out the results?” I asked.

She pointed us down the hall to a window outside a library and I saw a few sheets were in the window already. I hurriedly looked to see if the saxes were done yet or not, but it was just the oboes, bassoons, and bass clarinets so far. Nikki and I were joined by the others to stand around and wait. It seemed I began to get more nervous with every passing moment. Eventually Doug came up to me and tried to get a conversation going again, but I couldn’t really bring myself to talk a whole lot more. Besides, it was a bit awkward with Kyle there too.

After what seemed like an eternity I saw my judge walk into the library with an envelope in his hands. He smiled at people as he passed by and I knew it was only a matter of time before we found out. My hiccups just seemed to get worse.

Of course as my hiccups got worse everyone else laughed more. “It’s not” hiccup, “fair!” I said to them, which of course continued the laughter even more. The worst part was that my nerves were starting to go towards the laughing hysterically phase, and so I was laughing soon too in between hiccups. Mrs. Remar walked back with a set of results of her own into the library while giving us a bit of a stare to quiet down. I did my best.

Not a minute later there was a new sheet being brought to the front of the glass window. It looked like it said saxes on it! I walked up there hoping I would finally know…. And then was disappointed when I saw it said tenor saxes. I walked back to my friends to settle in for the continuing wait. I grumbled a bit and noticed other people getting back up, including Doug, a few minutes later and saw that this was finally the alto sax sheet I’d been waiting for!

I attempted to push my way in through people, which wasn’t easy, but kept pushing until I managed to make it to the front where I could see. In the meantime there was a chorus of cheers and moans going on. ‘Would I be moaning?’ I wondered for a second while I tried to look at the list. I started at the bottom because I was sure that’s where my name would be. The fifth chair spot had gone to that girl Erin. I continued up the list not recognizing the names until my eyes settled on second chair…

I screamed. Then I screamed some more “I MADE IT!!!!”

There was a chorus of hugs passed around from my friends to me. Doug came and offered his hand to me, he’d made first chair. At that point shock set in, and I stopped noticing things around me so much. I couldn’t wait to tell everyone at home!

Everything kind of returned back to normal when Mrs. Remar came out of the library to find me. “Great job Tiffany!” she told me as she gave me a big hug. “Mr. Litman said that you only missed first by one little thing,” she told me when I asked what the difference had been.

After that I remembered the camera that I had meant to take some pictures with and went back for it. I took a roll worth of pictures, and had Nikki take one of me in front of the sheets. I hoped you might have been able to see the sheet. Before we left Mrs. Remar took one of all of us together, and then Kyle took one of Mrs. Remar and I together. Kyle had squeaked in as the eighth and last chair trumpet, Lauren had apparently been really good because she got first chair clarinet! Nikki had managed to also squeeze in just barely. Only two other students from my school made it too, and we took a group picture of us with Mrs. Remar before she told us to pack our stuff up.

It was about five-thirty when we got on the bus to go back. After the thirty minute ride back to school I was really looking forward to finding a bathroom. I didn’t get that chance right away though because my parents were already waiting outside the band hall in our car. They both stepped out and looked at me ‘trying to figure out if they were going to be congratulating me or consoling me,’ I guessed. I ran towards them with my saxophone, bag, and stuff giving them each a big hug saying, “I made it, I made it!!!!”

“Congratulations,” my dad said.

“Good job, sweetie,” My mom told me.

Mrs. Remar came over a second later. “Thank you for all of the help you’ve given her,” my mom told her.

“It’s no problem,” she told her. “Tiffany did really well… getting in as a seventh grader is hard enough, but getting second chair is a really big accomplishment” she said looking at my parents and I. I got another shoulder hug from my mom at that point. I guess I’d forgotten to mention my chair.

“I expect you to make first chair next year now,” she told me with a smile.

“Okay,” I told her before we turned and got into our car. They took me out to dinner at my favorite Mexican restaurant that night. By the time we got home at eight I was ready to pass out. All of the adrenaline that had been going through my body had left, and in its place was only exhaustion. I knew I had to call Amy though as soon as I got home or she would be mad at me.

“Is Amy there?” I asked when someone answered.

“Yes, is this Tiffany?” I heard her dad ask me.

“Yes.”

“How did it go?” he asked.

“I have to tell her first or she’ll be mad at me,” I told him. He was laughing.

“Okay I’ll ask her in a few minutes then. Here she is,” he said as he passed it off.

“Tiffany? How did you do?” she asked.

“I got second chair!” I told her with a bit of resurgence in my excitement level.

“Congratulations!” she told me.

The two of us only talked for a few minutes though because I just wanted to go to bed. Sleep came very quickly that night!