Princess for Hire

By Melanie Ezell

Daniel Henderson has managed to beat the odds and been accepted into Kingston Academy, one of the best private high schools in the country. However, when Daniel is invited to take part in a special program, he learns that there's more to the school than he had thought...

NOTE: This story is loosely -- as in VERY loosely -- based on the manga/anime "Princess Princess." After the initial concept, any similarities are mostly coincidental, unless they aren't. (Puzzle that out why don't ya.)

Part 11: Thanksgiving Interlude (2)

-31-

I walked out of the bathroom clutching my old clothes in my hand to find Sarah standing there waiting for me. When she saw my face, she shrugged her shoulders and grimaced in a way that said quite clearly 'I tried!'

"Now come here, sweetie, let me see. Oh, now isn't that so much better on you than those old boy clothes, a girl as pretty as you shouldn't be dressing like that."

"Yes, Mamma Graham." I said, suppressing my sigh and trying to match her smile.

"Good. Now, come and help me with setting the table."

Sarah and I had been standing at the door for only a few seconds when it had been pulled open. Before me had been the biggest, most adorable eyes I had ever seen on a human even though they were on a small woman who must have been old enough to be my grandmother's mother.

"Good morning, girls!" She had said in a melodic voice and wrapped us both in hugs. "You must be..."

"I'm Beck," I had said, "nice to meet you, ma'am."

"You can call me Mamma Graham, sweetie" she had said, giving me an extra squeeze, and I had known then that I would never be able to say no to her.

Miss Sakaki, Mr. Graham, and Sarah all tried to tell her that I was a boy while Tommy had simply looked on bemused, but the little old lady was like a whirlwind of good-natured misunderstanding. She thought I was like Sarah, and could not be swayed, so I had eventually pulled the three of them off to the side and told them to let it drop.

That had been when she had spoken the ominous words.

"Dearie me, I was so glad when Sarah stopped trying to dress like a boy. Honey, come here, I've got something for you."

I had thought Sarah's puppy-dog eyed pout was bad enough, but I soon found out she held nothing on Mamma Graham.

At least the dress was warmer than my old clothes, I told myself, or as warm as a calf-length dress could be anyhow. My sneakers looked somewhat out of place with it, but the plain white did not clash too badly with the cream and yellow print dress.

As soon as I walked in the kitchen, I heard Miss Sakaki gasp, and when I looked about I saw Mamma Graham giving her a broad grin.

"See? She's so much prettier when she wears pretty clothes, isn't she?"

Sarah's mom simply nodded, giving me a sad look. I smiled at her, and shook my head, trying to let her know it was okay.

In a way, it was actually somewhat of a relief to get it over with. Though I had wanted to be a boy for at least the majority of the weekend, and everybody had told me that was fine, there had been a tension between us that I had known was because of my presentation. They had expected a girl, in a way at least, and instead had gotten me. It probably would not have been so bad, but with my looks...

Now, I knew that tension would be shattered. For better or worse, I was Becky for at least the rest of the visit at Mamma Graham's home, and more than likely the rest of the weekend. Considering it, I surprised myself by realizing how little difference it actually made to me.

Soon, all my thoughts were taken by helping the rest of the women in the house prepare the table and take care of any last minute food items that may have been forgotten. I had never gotten on well with my mother's or stepfather's parents, and my dad's parents had died before I was born. Seeing how much love there was not only between Sarah and her own parents, but her grandparents, and aunts and uncles and too many cousins to count, it was a powerful experience.

"Hey, are you okay?" One of the random aunts whose name I had not managed to catch asked me worriedly.

"Yeah, why?"

"Because you're crying," she said, with a frown, and reached up and wiped the tears I had not noticed falling from my cheek.

I laughed. "I'm fine, really. I'm just not used to seeing a family as close as this."

She gave me a small hug. "Well, get used to it," she said. "As long as you're here you're part of our family. Right girls?" She asked the rest of the room.

A chorus of yeahs, yups, and of courses answered her, and I found myself being passed around to all the aunts and cousins there. When I eventually reached Sarah and her mom, they both hugged me at once, while I no longer bothered to try and stop myself from crying. It was a surreal, but immensely happy feeling to be with these crazy, wonderful people, and a dress was an insignificant price to pay for that feeling.

"You girls go on, we'll finish up here," Mamma Graham said, shooing me and Sarah out of the kitchen. We ended up on the front porch, wrapped in our coats and sitting side by side on the old bench swing that hung there.

"Sorry about my family, I probably should have warned you they can be a little intense."

"A little?" I said, then laughed. "It's alright, I just didn't expect it is all." I paused, listening to the wind and watching it blow the dry brown leaves across the lawn.

"It's nice," I finally said, after what felt like five minutes of silence.

"I bet you would prefer to be with your own family, though."

"Are you kidding?" I asked her, giving her a look of disbelief. "Being tormented by my stepbrothers and cousins, listening to my stepfather argue with HIS brothers and their Aunt Mary, getting the standard speech from his grandparents on how I needed to cut my hair and start playing football. Having to WATCH football, ugh," I gave a thumbs down for emphasis. "This is infinitely better than any Thanksgiving I've had since my mom and dad were still together."

"Wow," she said, her eyes wide. "I'm sorry."

I shook my head. "Don't be. Even if I was with my dad, it'd just be us, or a few of his friends from the club. It wouldn't be anywhere near this wonderful." I grabbed her hand and squeezed it. "Thanks for inviting me."

"You're welcome," she said, smiling.

"Now, let's get back inside." I stood up, dragging her with me. "I'm hungry, and I don't want Tommy to eat everything before we get in."

"He would," she said, giggling as she followed me into the warm, inviting, and cheerful home of Mamma Graham.

-32-

I gave Mamma Graham another hug before loading into the back of Miss Sakaki's car.

"You come back and visit any time you want, honey."

"Thank you, ma'am. I will."

Sarah and I waved to her and the rest of them as we pulled away, including Tommy, who had stayed behind with Mr. Graham's SUV so he could play more football with his cousins.

I turned to the front, and caught the dirty look Miss Sakaki gave her husband as he cradled his bruised but not broken hand and grinned at her, a few pieces of grass still stuck in his teeth.

"I thought you promised not to play so rough? You could have gotten seriously hurt!"

"Yes dear."

"Most of those boys are half your age, and Tommy's not the only one in the army! What were you thinking!"

"Sorry dear."

He continued to grin, and it was not too much longer before Miss Sakaki's mask of anger cracked and she began to giggle, just like Sarah had a tendency to do. "Did you at least have fun?"

"Yes dear," Mr. Graham said in the same tone of voice he had been using when she had been berating him.

I looked over at Sarah, and we were both smiling at their antics.

"So, when we left the house, you were a boy," he said matter of factly, looking at me in the mirror. He was trying to be stern, but the leaf hanging off one ear and the grass in his hair made it hard to take him seriously.

"Um, yeah?" I looked down and nervously played with the hem of the dress Mamma Graham had told me to keep.

"They didn't make you change, did they?"

"Alan!"

"I just want to make sure," he said, interrupting her.

"Uh, no sir, not really."

"Not really?"

"Mamma," Sarah said, as though it was enough of an answer, and when I looked up Mr. Graham was nodding.

"The puppy dog eyes?"

"Yup."

"Uh huh," he said, biting his lip. "Do you want to stop somewhere so you can change?"

"No that's alright, I'm -- crap!" I said, realizing I had never grabbed my clothes.

"Don't worry, they're in a grocery bag in the back."

"Oh, thank god. Thank you so much, Ms. Sakaki."

She gave me a smile, then returned to her driving.

"You can change when we get home... if you want to," Sarah said with a shrug.

I sighed. This was going to be a difficult part no matter how they took it.

"Actually," I started, "I was thinking I'd just go ahead and be Becky for the rest of the weekend, if that's alright."

Mr. Graham's eyes popped up to look at me sharply. "Are you sure? Why?"

I shrugged. "It just seems... easier, is all," I said quietly, not looking at him.

He grunted. "We already told you to make yourself comfortable. If that's as a boy, then, well." He stopped.

"That's just it," I said, shaking my head. "It doesn't really matter all that much, it's just clothes. I mean, it doesn't matter to me, I mean I thought it did, but it's more, grh!" I hit my leg a couple of times in frustration, trying to work out how to say what I needed to say. Then it came to me. "The clothes don't matter so much to me, as how people act around me. When I'm dressed as a guy, I just want to be treated like a normal guy. If I'm gonna be treated like a girl, I might as well be a girl, or dressed as one anyway."

"But we weren't--"

"We were," Miss Sakaki cut him off. "We just didn't think about it." She turned to me. "Beck, I'm sorry, we can watch how we act around you more."

I shook my head again. "It's okay. Really." I was getting so tired of saying that. I knew what I had to say next would hurt them, but, it had to be said. "You weren't as comfortable around me as a guy as you are with me as a girl."

Everyone in the car was silent at that, even Sarah, who was staring at her shoes with a frown on her face.

"It's up to you," her dad said at last, after almost half an hour of silence.

I looked over at Sarah again. "I'll need to borrow some clothes, if that's okay?"

She finally looked up at me. She did not look happy, exactly, but she did look more comfortable. "Okay, we can find some when we get home."

"Good. So, where are we stopping to eat?"

That caused all of their eyes to boggle, and when I began to laugh the tension that had again built between us quickly drained as the conversation picked up again.

-33-

I flopped down on the inflatable mattress, glad to finally be able to rest after a long and stressful day.

"Was it fun?"

I looked over at Sarah, who had begged her mom until she had agreed to let her sleep on the couch in the room with me. "Thanksgiving? Yeah," I said, nodding sleepily.

"Not just that." She growled softly in frustration. "Being a girl."

"It was okay. I mean, I've gotten used to it."

"But you don't enjoy it?"

"Well, I won't say that," I said. "It can be fun sometimes, but it's mostly a hassle, and I get annoyed when people see me as a girl when I'm dressed as a guy."

"Why?" She asked, in a confused tone.

"Because I'm not a girl."

Sarah gave me a tired grin. "But sometimes you are." Then her eyes closed, and she fell asleep.

I wanted to drift off myself, but like so often lately, instead I found myself trapped in my thoughts.

I really had enjoyed the day immensely, and I knew that if Sarah ever asked me to stay over at her home again, I would probably accept. Her family was wonderful, and seeing how much they all cared for one another made me hope that some day, when I was older, I could have that kind of family too.

But that brought me back around to the whole issue of me being seen as a guy or a girl, not to mention my sexuality. Or did it? I was so confused.

Did it matter whether I was a boy or a girl? No, that was the wrong question. The question was, did it matter whether people saw me as a boy or a girl?

I thought over the last few months I had spent in the Princess program, and I could easily tell that it mattered to me a great deal. I was surprised to note, however, that I was only really irked when people determined me to be something other than how I was presenting. Being seen as a girl when dressed as a girl failed to bother me like it once had, but being seen as a girl when dressed as a boy still grated on my nerves. I imagined that being seen as a boy when dressed as a girl would bother me as well.

So, what did that say about me? Was I a boy who could play a girl well, or was I somewhere between boy and girl? I thought about what it might be like to actually be a girl in body, and I recoiled at the idea. Changing myself so drastically... for what? For the most part, I was happy with myself. Why would I change that just because nobody else saw me for who I was?

Who was I, exactly, anyhow? That was really the question, I told myself as I rolled over and wrapped up in the covers against the chill that had crept into the room. Was I Becky, or was I Beck?

What was the difference between Becky and Beck besides clothes?

If there was no difference, then why did everyone around me see one?

I tossed and turned, but eventually I must have fallen asleep, only to find myself trapped in my dreams, a princess trying to hide herself from an evil magician by dressing as a boy, but no matter where I ran, everyone saw through my disguise. No matter what I did, everyone would shout "there she is, there's the princess!" everywhere I went. Finally, after many days of torment and fear, I fled to the tower of a good wizard, who gave me a magic potion that he said would let me be whoever I wanted to be, and make the evil wizard leave me alone forever more.

I threw my head back and downed the potion in one gulp, then turned to watch my transformation in a nearby mirror. But before my changes were complete, the world around me began to shake, and with a start I sat up to find Sarah crouched over me with a worried expression on her face.

"Becky, are you okay? You were jerking around and mumbling something."

I sighed, and laid back down. "Yeah, I'm fine," I said, patting her shoulder gently. "Just trying to figure something out."

"Well, if I can help, let me know," she said, giving me a quick hug before climbing back onto the couch and wrapping up in her own blankets.

"I will," I said, then returned to sleep, this time without dreams.

(End of Part 11)

NOTES:

As I write this story, it's becoming more and more obvious to me that I need to get a thesaurus and work on my writing vocabulary. I seem to keep using similar phrases and actions over and over, mostly because I don't feel that I can properly express what's going on in the scene without them, but I know that there are probably better options out there sometimes.

Sorry for the end of this one turning kind of serious. I plan on the next one being a lot of fun, and it's also going to be my first ever attempt to write some kind of shopping experience, so be prepared for it being either a typical TG shopping cliche' or completely horrid, probably both :P Still, stories with that kind of thing tend to do okay, so who knows? We'll just have to see.

Am I making Beck too emo? I am, aren't I? Sigh. And, of course, IF YOU COMMENT, MORE WILL COME.

Melanie E.