Yet another thrilling installment in the life of The Boy With Something Extra!

After introducing the chief to my folks, I ducked into my room to dump my stuff. I could hear him telling them his version of the events after school. Good. That meant I wouldn't have to go through it.

Ok, who was I kidding. Mom & dad would still want to hear my version.... But at least this way they'd be more likely to accept my version. Not that they didn't trust me, but hey, they were parents. They were always gonna be worried that I hadn't tried hard enough to avoid a confrontation.

When I came back to the living room, they seemed to be done with the attack. Good.

Mr. Watt turned towards me and said "You know, I could sign off on you carrying pepper spray given this afternoon's attack, if you want. My daughter carries it."

"Thanks for the offer, but it might be a bit too tempting to use it instead of trying to defuse things. Besides, someone at my last school got nailed in the face with some once. A supposed 'joke' by a jerk."

I shook my head.

"Didn't work out too well for the jerk. Y'see the guy he nailed wore glasses. And had bad allergies...."

Mr. Watt nodded. "And so he was used to dealing with teary eyes and milder burning. Plus the glasses kept most of it out of his eyes, right?"

"Yep. Just made him mad. Pity the jerk could outrun him."

"And that is why we tell new officers to not rely on pepper spray." He chuckled as he said it.

Mom spoke up. "Morgan, maybe you should carry it anyway. It's not just bigots you have to worry about. As pretty as you are and the way girls styles are, somebody might try to rape you if you are out at night...."

Dad and I just winced. That was one of the realities of being able to pass that neither of us liked to think about. We did, because we weren't stupid. And mom had given me the talk about what girls had to watch out for. Creepy and kinda sad. But it was the way the world worked, damn it.

After glancing at my folks, Mr. Watt nodded and said "Ok, I'll get the paperwork done tomorrow and get it run over to the school. You ought to be ok until the end of classes anyway. I'll have Chris take a spare spray with her tomorrow."

"Okay, I guess. I still don't want to use it."

"Well, that's good," quipped dad, "because we hope you never need to use it."

The chief spoke up again. "Pity you hurt your leg when those guys tried to jump you. Hopefully you won't need that cane for to long."

At my puzzled look, he pointed towards my purpleheart cane that was over by the door.

"But I ... Oh."

I could see dad get it about the same time I had. An excuse to carry the cane at school might be good. It was nice. Large head, thick shaft and textured for a good grip. It was more intended for hiking, but it'd made a good accessory for a few con outfits so I'd made a cover for the brass 'spike' on the end so it wouldn't ruin floors and being rubber it gave a decent grip on even smooth floors.

But besides being decorative, being purpleheart, it was a hard fairly dense stick. It'd work ok as a single-stick or even just a club. Best of all, I'd actually taken it to the dojo and practiced with it some, just in case.

Mom still looked a bit puzzled but I caught dad mouthing "later" at her.

Mr. Watt coughed. "I'm afraid there's one other thing you should consider. From talking with Morgan, I gather that the plan was to start out mostly stealth and slowly go more feminine until she could wear things like what she's wearing now?"

"Uh, yes. I take it you don't think that's a good idea?" asked mom.

"Oh, it was a fairly good idea. Unfortunately, Morgan getting spotted by those Neanderthals this afternoon has probably ruined any hope of stealth. I know their parents bailed them out just before I left work. But even with the warnings to keep away from Morgan, I think we can be pretty sure they've been spreading the word to everyone they know."

I sat down hard on one of the chairs. This was so not good.

Mr. Watt left a bit later to let us have a family discussion. He did mention that unless something came up, he'd have a couple of officers hanging around the school in the morning and when we got out.

My folks decided that they wanted to hear about my day before discussing things..

There wasn't much to describe until PE, and I've gone over that already. I didn't even edit that much in telling them. After all, when we lived closer to Portland we'd gone to the nude beaches nearby, and even ridden in the World Naked Bike Ride there every summer.

So it wasn't like they were surprised by my lack of modesty in the locker room.

I had a harder time telling them that after the shower, I thought I might be bi. I didn't think they'd be upset or anything, but even with parents like mine, it's hard to talk about your sex life.

After hearing the details about how I probably got spotted dad commented that I'd blown my cover. Neither he nor mom had much to say about the fight.

Mom did ask a few questions about what Chris and I had done at the mall.

After I finished, there was a long pause while they thought things over. Well, they exchanged a bunch of looks too. I'd love to know how that worked. I'd long ago figured that they were communicating stuff when they did it.

Mom was apparently elected spokesman.

"Morgan, I think Mr. Watt is right. The plan to femme up gradually is toast. So, we think you've got two choices. Either go for full on girly girl, or just dress like the girls do."

I thought about it. Well, ok, I'd sort of been thinking about it some already. But now I was actually trying to make a decision, not lay out options.

"I think girly girl might be a bit much. It's fun, but it's also a pain sometimes. So I guess that means 'normal girl' type stuff."

Mom and I discussed some possible outfits. Dad mostly stayed out of it, except for a couple of comments about the way guys might react to a few of them.

He and mom exchanged some more looks when my blushes made it obvious that I was actually sort of hoping for some of those reactions.

Somehow I wound up with both of them hugging me.

"Look, we aren't that surprised that you're starting to be interested in boys. We know that most TVs are straight, but then again, most of them don't have your weird hormones. So we've been trying to be ready for whichever way things went."

I wasn't surprised by their reaction. I'd been fairly sure the folks'd be cool if I was into boys, but there's still a big difference between being "fairly sure" and actually being told they were ok with it.

"Glad to hear it. I just hope most people will be understanding. Especially since I'm pretty sure I like girls too."

Dad quipped, "Well, yeah, that is what bi means, pretty much."

We watched a bit of TV together and I went up to my room. I made sure I had everything I'd need for the next day. Books, assignments and a few other things.

Then came the hard part. Going through my closet to figure out what to wear. After a bit of thought I realized that I didn't want to wear anything too nice, because if somebody was dumb enough to jump me in the halls, it might get ruined.

For that matter, I could think of a few "harmless pranks" that could mess things up too. Yuck.

Hmm. I decided that I needed to pack a complete spare outfit, just in case. Have to be something that wouldn't take a lot of space though.

I finally got an outfit picked, as well as a spare set of clothes.

A while later I was in bed thinking over the day. I managed to not think too much about the fight and the jerks. But I kept coming back to Chris. And a few of the hunks in PE.

What I did after that is none of your business. But I fell asleep with a pleasant glow and a smile on my face.

Next morning, I woke up before the alarm. I thought about going back to sleep, but a glance at the clock told me I'd feel less rested when the alarm did go off. So I got out of bed and started getting ready. At least I got to take my time in the shower.

The shower was nice. Unlike the day before, I could use my regular body wash, shampoo and conditioner. Mmmm. Lavender.

Drying my hair took a bit, but it was worth it. I took another look at the outfit I'd set out. Yep, I'd do it.

So I carefully parted my hair and then braided it into a pair of pigtails. I tried it with the butterfly hairbands, but that was a bit too over the top, so I just used a pair of plain ones that matched one of the colors on the skirt.

When I got downstairs, my sister was eating breakfast. I guess she had an early class or something.

She took one look at me and laughed. "You aren't really going to wear that to school are you?"

"Actually, yes. My cover got blown yesterday, so I figured I might as well scrap the slow build-up and just go with stuff I'd like to wear."

"Ok, I get that. But still, wearing that?"

"Hey, I might as well play some mind games. It's not like it'll piss off the bigots anymore than my just existing will."

Sally just shook her head. "I'm almost tempted to give you a lift, just so I can watch the reactions."

"Thanks, but I want to take the bus so I can ride in with Chris."

"Oho, a new friend already. Is he ok with you?"

"She is just fine. We went shopping together after school last yesterday."

"Ok, so she's a girl friend, not a girlfriend?"

"Maybe, maybe not. I'm not gonna rush things."

She got me talking about yesterday since she'd missed most of the excitement because she'd been doing some studying with friends from her college classes.

Suddenly, I realized it was getting late. I said goodbye and grabbed my stuff. I even remembered to grab the cane.

In a few minutes I was waiting for the bus. I got a few odd looks, but I think that was more for the outfit than because anybody recognized me.

When Chris got on she was obviously looking around for me. When she spotted me she tried not to laugh. A few snickers slipped out as she sat down next to me.

"I can't believe that you have this much less that you wore it."

"Hey, it doesn't violate the dress code at school. And I got it for Halloween, but I figured it'd be a great mindfuck today."

"Right. You being a sweet innocent Catholic schoolgirl. I don't think so."

I smiled back at her and gave her my best innocent look. "Just wait till we get to school. It gets better."