And now the fun begins…

Tuesday afternoon when I got home from school, my phone rang. I was surprised to find that the caller was Emily.

"Hello?" I asked after I answered the phone.

"Hi, Zoe," Emily said. "I just wanted to tell you that I got your blood work back, and it looks fine for a thirteen year old boy... I think we need to change that to be the normal levels for a thirteen year old girl. I have everything ready for you and your mom to pick up tomorrow."

"That sounds good to me." I said. Heather came in the back door and smiled at me, and then gave me a funny look. "I will see you tomorrow, Emily." Heather nodded and then smiled again. I hung up my phone and put it back into the purse that I had carried to school.

"Was that the status of your blood work?" Heather asked.

"Yep. She said it's not normal for a thirteen year old girl." I smiled and Heather chuckled.

"Are you going to fix that?"

"She is, I probably just have to take some pills..." I replied. "I wonder how long it will take for me to start to develop." Riley had already started to develop and was proud of her slowly developing figure. I was proud of my girlfriends slowly developing figure as well.

"I don't know. I think I developed at a normal rate. You may develop at a different speed." Heather shrugged. I opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. I offered it to Heather and then grabbed another bottle.

"I'm going to go take care of my homework so Riley and I can hang out tonight." I knew I was close to the top of the class and darn it, I intended to stay there...

"Smart girl. Mom and dad would kill you if you let your grades slip now." Heather said, after taking a drink of the water. "You are happier than you've been in quite some time. Now you don't have an excuse to give..."

"This is true." I said to Heather. She had made her point, and countered it to the point where I wouldn't be able to argue back...

"I know." She said. "Get to it. I need to work on biology... I'm still not sure why I took that class..." Heather let the thought trail off as I went up stairs to work on my homework.

#
I had just finished my homework when my phone rang and I saw Riley's smiling face. I answered the phone with a smile in my voice.

"Hi Riley." I said, not hiding the smile in my voice.

"Hey Zoe. Is it ok if I come over now?"

"Yep. I just finished my homework, so I can have guests now." I replied, trying to sound formal and failing. Riley giggled.

"Ok. I'll be there in about five." Riley said.

"Ok, I'll see you then." I held the phone to my ear until Riley disconnected the call. I took the clothes that I had worn to school and dropped them in the hamper and looked at my self in the mirror. The white tights looked really white against the royal blue plaid jumper that I wore, and the beret matched. I had worn a pair of jeans and a heather grey sweater to school, and had gotten soaked when I fell in a puddle. The outfit I had on now was new, and Riley had never seen it before on me. I looked at my self in the mirror and noted that my eyes really sparkled. I thought about it for a few seconds and decided that this is what I wanted to wear the next day to my appointment with Dr. Francis. I went downstairs to wait for Riley's arrival. When she knocked, I opened the door and let her in, feeling the cold air from outside coming into the house. She looked me up and down.

"That's not what you wore to school..." She said as I took her coat and hung it in the closet.

"I know. I managed to fall in to a puddle on my way into the house... Maybe the blonde does suit me..."

"Either way that looks really cute on you." Riley said, giving me a hug. "It buttons up the back? How did you button it?"

"I only undid the buttons I needed to in order to put It on. I was thinking about wearing it to the appointment with Emily tomorrow."

"I think you should. Speaking of Emily, did the results of your blood work come back?" We walked into the living room and sat on the couch.

"Yeah. She said that my blood work is not normal for a thirteen year old girl..." Riley looked at me and blinked, not getting the joke.

"Huh?"

"My blood work came back as normal for a thirteen year old boy, not girl..." I said. "She said we're gonna change that..."

"Good." Riley said. "You know that research paper that we have to do for english?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"I have an idea for you..."

"Oh?"

"Write yours on the laws that directly affect you. I'm sure that you could find quite a bit of stuff. Maybe even start to push for change...'

"Maybe. I'll think about it." Her suggestion was better than the only idea I had come up with, which was nada... Maybe I could do something to narrow it down just a bit and go forward from there. "I can't push for change, I can't even vote yet." I heard the garage door open and then shut, and then the door into the kitchen opened.

"Is anyone home?" Mom asked. She knew the answer, her phone had told her the second we had gotten home from school.

"Riley and I are in the living room." I said aloud.

"And I'm upstairs." Heather shouted down the steps. Mom walked into the living room.

"Cute!" She said, smiling. "Stand up and let me get a look at you." I stood and did the obligatory spin. "Very cute, I think you should wear it to the appointment tomorrow."

"I was already thinking that." I said. "Also, Emily called and said that my blood work came back as not normal for a thirteen year old girl. She said we're going to fix that tomorrow..." Mom raised an eyebrow and then chuckled. "Since you can't wear the beret to school, do you want me to put it in the car so you can wear it to the appointment?"

"Please?" I said. Mom nodded. "I'll put it on the island in the morning." Mom nodded again.

"Riley, your dad said he's pick Tom up and they should be here by ten, so you are welcome to stay until your dad gets here with Tom and then ride home with him. Zoe you can stay up too."

"Thank you, Mrs. Franks." Riley said.

"Thank you, mommy." I said, Riley giggled and mom smiled. Her and dad both would smile when I'd call them mommy or daddy... Although I called dad, daddy more than I called mom, mommy.

#
At nine, I excused my self really quickly to run up to my room and change into something to sleep in, returning to the living room wearing a lilac colored satin top and pants. Riley smiled at me and I walked over and sat next to her. I think we both were tired, as the last time I saw on the clock was five minutes after nine... I woke up to a flash from a camera, and saw mom's smiling face. I looked over at Riley and saw that she had dozed off as well. The clock read that it was quarter till ten. Riley did this cute little stretching thing and I noticed that someone had covered us with a blanket. Rather than get up, we just snuggled closer to each other. I think we fell asleep again, because I woke to dad laying me in my bed.

"Hey, pumpkin," Dad said. "Go back to sleep. You have a big step on your way to growing to as a woman tomorrow. I want you to be rested." He kissed me on the forehead.

"Did Riley go home?" I asked groggily.

"Yeah, She didn't stir either. Her dad just picked her up and carried her out to the car. Now you get back to sleep."

"Uh huh." I rolled over and fell asleep for the third time that evening.

#
Riley and I walked hand in hand into the school, she had elected to wear jeans, and I not really thinking about the temperature outside had chosen to wear black knee socks and my black loafers. The outfit looked great, but I got cold on the short walk from the car into the school. Somehow, Megan had beat us to the school, and was waiting on us.

"Good morning," She had a grin on her face. Riley and I looked at each other. She, like Riley had worn jeans, not that I blamed either of them, I think I was starting to be able to feel my toes again... "How are you guys today?" The three of us walked toward the cafeteria and found a place to sit in the large deserted room.

"We're good. You are awfully chipper this morning."

"I slept really well last night." Megan said. "And I had a dream where the two of you got married." Riley and I looked at each other, both of us knowing that we were too young for that...

"We got married?" I asked, feeling my cheeks warm up.

"Yep. You both were wearing beautiful white gowns, I was the maid of honor, wearing this light pink dress that was also pretty. It was a good dream." Riley and I looked at each other, the same look on our faces.

"This came out of the blue..." Riley said.

"Yeah, I know. Zoe you look really cute today." I looked down at my jumper and then up at Megan.

"Thank you. I have a beret that matches the jumper, but it's in the back seat of mom's car. I can't wear it here, otherwise I'd have it on." Megan nodded.

"The blue really brings out your eyes..." Megan said. Riley looked at me and nodded. I had some stunning blue eyes, and I loved it when they were shown off. I had heard that the eyes were the window into the soul and I knew that mine now said that I was happy.

"I love showing off my eyes." I replied. Megan looked above my head and smiled.

"Hi, Mrs. Chattfield." Megan said. I craned my neck to look behind me.

"Good Morning, Girls." She said. "Riley and Zoe, can you girls come see me in the office please?" Riley and I looked at each other and stood up, grabbing our bags and following Mrs. Chattfield to the office. When we walked in the office, Mrs. Young was there, waiting on us.

"Girls if you would come with me, please." Mrs. Young said walking back toward her office, Riley and I looked at each other and then followed her back to her office

#
Riley and I sat in our usual spot in Mrs. Young's office, and watched as she sat across from us.

"Zoe, even in this bad lighting, that jumper brings out your eyes." Mrs. Young said. "But I didn't bring the two of you in here to complement you on your clothes."

"Then why?" Riley asked.

"Zoe's mom sent me an email." She turned to pick up a piece of paper. "Zoe, first of all, congratulations on the next step of this process. As of this point, we don't know if you will have to take the hormones at any point while you are here during the day, but if you do, they have to be actually administered by the nurse. You can't have them on your person while you are here. What we can do is see if Dr. Francis can write a second, smaller prescription for you to keep here, if necessary."

"Ok. I'll know more tonight and will let you know tomorrow about that." Mrs. Young nodded.

"Ok, thank you. Your mom may beat you to it though, I already outlined this to her in an email. It may be resolved by the time that you see Dr. Francis tonight. That's all I needed. You girls run along to first period."

#
Mom was sitting in the visitors parking lot when I walked out of building Riley's mom was parked next to her and they were leaning against the cars, talking when Riley and I walked up.

"Afternoon, Girls." Riley's mom said. Mom turned around and smiled, handing me my beret. It has warmed up a little bit as the wind had died down and the sun had come out. I put the beret on my head and used the mirror on the drivers side door of mom's car to adjust it so that it was sitting right on my head. Riley smiled at me.

"And now the look is complete." Riley said giving me a hug. "Call me when you get home, Ok?" I nodded. "We need to go over that stuff from Henderson's class that I didn't quite understand. I just hope that it doesn't result in us having to try to get together before class tomorrow." Riley said, Our parents looked at us. It wasn't uncommon for one of us to help the other in an area where we excelled and the other wasn't as strong. One of my strong points was the written and spoken word. Riley was decent in math and ok with the spoken word, but the written word was not a strong point with her.

"Ok. I'll call you when we are on our way home. I don't know how long this is going to take." The last two appointments had been several hours in length. Riley smiled. I got in the car and was thankful that mom had left the heat on. I watched as Riley got in her moms car and we waved as mom backed out and headed for the main road so that we could head to Dr. Francis' office.

#
Mom and I walked into Dr. Francis' office and sat in our usual spots. Emily got up and walked over from her desk.

"Good Afternoon, Zoe, Katherine."

"Afternoon, Doctor."

"Afternoon, Emily."

"This is going to be a quick appointment, unless Zoe has anything that she needs to discuss with me." I shook my head. Everything had been going well the last week. Plus if I came up with anything that I needed to discuss, I could call her.

"Alright then." She passed four pieces of paper over to mom. "I know there are four prescriptions there, one of them will need to be taken while Zoe's at school. The two of them are taken morning and night the bottles will say that. The third is the same one that we're filling a smaller prescription for the school so that Zoe doesn't have to deal with making sure that she takes the pills to school and then takes them home, etc." Mom nodded and stuck the prescriptions in her purse. "Zoe, you are going to need to make sure that you take the pills every day, otherwise there will be no point is us even going forward." I nodded. I wanted to develop so that I looked like I felt, rather than try to deal with it later in life. I would take the pills. "Zoe, if you notice anything that seems unusual, make sure you let me know as soon as you can."

"I can do that." I said, looking at Emily. "But won't some things that seem unusual to me actually be quite normal?"

"Yes, and that's why you need to let me know so I can tell you if it's an expected change, verses an unexpected change." I nodded, knowing that she would know better than I if something were awry. "Zoe, you can start by taking the first dose when you get home. No sense in waiting any longer."

#
Mom backed the car in the drive way and I got out as soon as the car was stopped. We had swung by the pharmacy and picked up my new pills and I was anxious to get started on my path to full blown girlhood. I knew the changes wouldn't happen over night, but I was looking forward to the caterpillar turning into a butterfly so to speak.