In this chapter, Bobby has fun with Cori, Tess, and Rhianna at the slumber party. Everything seems to be going fine ... until someone walks in on Bobby while she's getting changed for bed. Will anything ever be the same for her again? Read on and find out!

Bobby's Rainy Day Adventure - Chapter XIII
Copyright 2007 by Heather Rose Brown
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Even though we were in Cori's living room, it almost felt like a camping trip with the way me, Cori, Tess and Rhianna had our sleeping bags spread out in different directions. In the middle where you might expect a camp fire, there was a huge metal dish with a few pizza crusts scattered across it that none of us felt like finishing off.

I wondered if Tess was thinking about camping too when she asked, "Hey, anybody got a good ghost story?"

Rhianna stopped struggling with the stuck zipper on her sleeping bag and looked up. "Oooo, great idea!" She gave Cori's elbow a light tap. "Hey, you're good at telling stories. Got any really scary ones?"

Cori fidgeted a bit before answering. "I dunno. I don't think this might be the best time to be tellin' ghost stories."

Rhianna sounded more worried than disappointed when she said, "Awww."

Tess reached across the pizza plate and took Cori's hand. "You ain't been havin' them bad dreams again, have you?"

Cori shook her head. "No, I ain't had 'em in a while, but Bobby had a pretty bad one last night."

Rhianna reached over to me and rubbed the back of my shoulder. "You poor girl. It musta been pretty hard after what happened to your mom. Didja wanna tell us 'bout the dream?"

For maybe just a second I seriously thought about sharing my dream, but I wasn't sure I was ready to explain the part where my father had freaked out when he saw me in a dress. I patted the hand on my shoulder and smiled at Rhianna. "Thanks ... ermm ... but I. ..."

"I'm sorry." Rhianna's smile didn't do a very good job of covering her embarrassment as she pulled her hand back. "I really aughta know better than to poke my nose where it don't belong."

Aunt Joan stepped in just then and picked up the mostly empty pie plate. "Okay girls, I'm going to get some sleep after I put this in the dishwasher, and I think it's about time for everyone to get dressed for bed."

All of us moaned, then Cori said what I, and probably the other girls, were thinking. "Moooomm, it's only hardly after eight. Can't we stay up a tiny bit longer?"

Cori's mom held the plate out of the way so she could see her daughter. "Yes, you can stay up and talk after getting dressed for a *little* while, but I expect you and the rest of the girls to at least try going to sleep by ten. You all have school tomorrow, and I'll drag you there in your sleeping bags if I have to." With the way she was grinning after saying that, I wondered how far she'd really go to make sure we made it to school.

Rhianna hopped up and spun around, making the bottom of her nightgown flare out, and started chanting. "I'm already dre-essed. I'm already dre-essed."

Aunt Joan caught her by the shoulder to stop her from spinning. "Did you brush your teeth?"

She somehow managed to look up sheepishly at Aunt Joan while wobbling dizzily. "Ummm ... I was planning on doing it in the morning."

Cori's mom patted Rhianna's arm. "I really think you should take care of that tonight. Why don't you use the bathroom while the rest of the girls are getting dressed?"

She got her balance back pretty quickly, then nodded and turned towards the bathroom, but didn't get more than two steps before Aunt Joan caught her by the wrist. "Hey, don't I get a hug goodnight?"

Rhianna turned on her heel with a huge grin on her face, then reached up and hugged Aunt Joan tightly around the neck. The rest of us lined up behind her to get our hugs in too. Even though my ankle was hardly bothering me at all any more, I still used Cori's crutch as I got to the end of the line. It was simpler to do that than trying to argue with Cori's mom that I didn't need it any more.

Things were a little tricky trying to balance with the crutch and keeping my weight off my right leg, but I eventually worked it out and gave Aunt Joan the biggest one-armed hug I could. I'm not sure how she did it, but I felt safe, warm, and loved when she hugged me back. Aunt Joan then wandered into the kitchen, Rhianna found her way to the bathroom, and I headed for Cori's room ... followed closely by Tess and Cori.

I didn't realize they were behind me until I'd reached the door, so I turned around there to face them. It was one thing to feel like a girl and hang out with other girls, but getting changed around them wasn't something I felt ready for yet. "Ummm...I know this is gonna sound stupid, but would ya's mind if ... umm ... what I mean is. ..."

I might have been there all night trying to get the words out if Cori didn't speak up. "I think what she's trying to say is she's a bit shy about getting changed in front of other people. Is that right, Bobby?"

I nodded and smiled with relief. It didn't explain why I felt shy, but I wasn't ready to try tackling something like that just then.

Tess shifted her overnight bag onto her shoulder and smiled back. "I understand. Rhi's kinda shy like that too. Since Terri ain't here tonight, could I use her room?"

Cori beamed. "That sounds like a great idea! Why don'tcha head in there while I look in my room for something Bobby can borrow? Once I get that and something for myself, I'll join ya."

" 'Kay. See ya in a few." Tess nodded and waved before heading towards Terri's door.

=-=-=

Cori had me sit on her bed while she searched through her closet. As I listened to her rummaging around, bits of the nightmare I'd had while sleeping in that bed came back to me. Fortunately, before I could really start worring about going through the same thing tonight, Cori walked out of the closet with a bundle in her arms.

"Okay, I know this is kinda frilly, but the nightshirt ya wore last night was pretty much the only unfrilly thing I got." She carefully laid part of what she was carrying beside me. "I also included something else, just in case ya ... well ... just in case." She blushed just a little bit. "Anyways, I'm gonna head over to Terri's room now. If ya need any help with anything and we're not out in the living room yet, just knock on Terri's door. Okay?"

Once I nodded, she walked out of the room, closing the door behind her. I looked down at what she left for me. It was a white nightgown with tiny pink and blue puppies playing on it. There was white lace with a strip of blue trim around the neck and pink heart shaped buttons down the front. It definitely was as frilly as Cori had said. I picked up the nightgown and saw there was the same kind of trim around the sleeves and bottom. I also saw the Goodnights Cori had left underneath.

Even though it had been a long time since I'd wet the bed, I didn't wanna repeat the accident I had last night. Wearing the Goodnights sounded a little embarrassing, but not as bad as trying to explain to my friends how my sleeping bag had gotten wet. I kicked off the shoes I'd borrowed from Cori, stripped off the cute shortalls and had just pulled down my panties ... when the bedroom door swung open.

"Hey Cori, I was just wondering if--" Rhianna froze in the doorway.

My brain screamed at me to do something, anything, but I couldn't move. Time felt like it froze as she stared at me with my panties around my ankles. Her voice sounded far away and I could hardly hear her with the ringing in my ears. "Oh Bobby, I ... I'm sorry. I ... uhhh ... I'll just be out in the living room."

=-=-=

I could hardly move even after she closed the door. I turned my head, which seemed to be the only thing I could do just then, and saw my reflection in the mirror on the door of Cori's closet. From the waist up I saw a girl in a pretty white blouse with her hair up in pigtails. From the waist down I saw a boy. The top half looked like it couldn't decide whether to scream or cry; the bottom looked ... awful.

"Oh my god," I whispered as I turned away. "He was right." My stomach flipped over as I thought about something my father had said at the end of my fifth birthday party. I looked back at the mirror. From the look on my reflections face you would have thought she had just smelled something really gross.

"You ... you freak!" I thought I was going to be sick as I screamed. "Go away you ... you freak!" I reached out for something to throw. The first thing my hands found was a fuzzy tissue box, which I tossed at the reflection. It didn't do much besides bouncing off the mirror with a soft 'thunk'. "I hate you. Go away!"

The door swung open again. I was so completely gone just then, I didn't even bother trying to cover myself as I turned. I could barely make out who it was through my tears, but with the way she filled the doorway, a part of me realized it must be Aunt Joan. That didn't stop me from screaming, "Go away!"

Aunt Joan stepped towards me as she asked, "Sweetheart, what's wrong?"

My brain pretty much stopped working about then. All I knew was someone big was coming towards me. I swung out a fist and roared the only words I could think of. "GO AWAY!"

Aunt Joan caught my hand in mid-swing, took hold of the other one, then spoke very softly, but in a way that reached through the rage and fear swirling around me. "Bobby, I realize you're very upset, but if you try to punch me again, you'll get a sharp swat on your backside. Do you understand me?"

Even though I heard her, it took me a while for what she said to sink in, and a bit longer for my head to clear enough to remember how to nod.

"Very good. I'm going to let go of your hands now. Are you going to try hitting me?"

When I shook my head no, she let go, then pulled my panties back up to my waist. I stared straight ahead as she did that, feeling too numb to even think about it. The only things I could feel were emptiness and a deep, aching sadness. Aunt Joan then picked up the tissue box, which had rolled to the middle of the floor, took one of my hands, and led me over to the rocking chair where she had held me after my nightmare last night.

When she sat down and pulled me onto her lap, I just curled up in a ball and started sobbing. All the hopes I'd had that maybe someday, somehow, I could just be me were gone. When I was able to speak again, I asked, "Why am I like this?"

"Why are you like what?" Aunt Joan's soft words came out slowly, as if they were being chosen very carefully.

"Why am I such a freak?"

I felt a hand slip under my chin and my head was lifted until I was facing Cori's mom. The sadness in her eyes almost started me crying again. "Dearheart, who in the world would call you such an awful thing?"

I almost said my father, but that wasn't exactly true. He had asked me if I wanted people thinking I was a freak when he saw me in a dress on my fifth birthday, but that wasn't exactly the same thing as calling me one. "Does it really matter if anybody said it? I'm a girl who thinks she's a boy." It took me a second before I realized what I meant to say had come out backwards. "I mean, I'm a boy who thinks he's a girl."

Something that looked like simple, honest confusion crinkled up her eyebrows and forehead. "What makes you say that?"

"Aunt Joan, you *saw* me naked. You know I got boy parts. I've seen 'em all my life. How could I do that and still think I'm a girl?" Before she could answer, I realized something else. "Oh god ... Rhianna saw me too. That means the whole school's gonna find out."

As I started thinking over how much worse things would probably be at my new school where someone actually saw me dressing and acting like a girl, I heard a new voice ask, "What's the whole school gonna find out?"

I turned and saw Rhianna standing in the doorway, looking sad and worried, with Cori and Tess behind her looking pretty much the same. Instead of answering the question I asked, "What are you doing here?"

I felt Aunt Joan kiss the back of my head. "It looks like your friends are concerned about you."

"Why would they wanna be my friends?"

Even though I'd meant the question for Aunt Joan, Rhianna answered it. " 'Cause you're a nice girl?"

"Girl? How could ya call me that after seein' me like you did?"

Rhianna stared at her toes. "I'm really sorry for walking in on ya like that. I know how ya feel 'bout being seen naked and I really feel awful."

Hearing a girl saying she knew how I felt just piled jealousy on top of the hurt I was already feeling. "What gives you the right to say you know how I feel? Nobody knows how I feel!"

There was a deep sadness in her eyes when she looked back up. "I know."

Guilt piled up on everything else when I saw she was just about ready to cry, but it didn't stop me from feeling mad. "What makes ya think ya know how I feel?"

" 'Cause. ..."

Cori slipped an arm around Rhianna's waist. "Go ahead and say it."

Tess stood on the other side of Rhianna and wrapped an arm across her shoulders. "I think she needs to hear it much as ya need to say it."

Rhianna gave them each a small smile before turning to me with a more serious look, taking in a deep breath and saying, "I understand 'cause, in a lotta ways, I'm like you."

"Whatcha mean you're like me?"

Her cheeks turned a deep pink. "I mean ... I got boy parts."

I couldn't decide if I heard wrong or if she was just telling a really stupid joke. "Boy parts?"

For a long while, I just stared at her when she nodded. "But, you're a girl."

Rhianna frowned at me. "Yeah ... and?"

"Well, girls ain't got boy parts."

Tess let go of Rhianna's shoulder, stepped in front of her, and stood like she was ready to protect the other girl. "Who says?"

I thought long and hard about that, but could only think of one person who'd said anything like that to me. "Umm ... my father."

Rhianna gently moved Cori's arm from around her waist, stepped around Tess, and walked over to me until she was almost close enough to touch. "My granma told me, but sometimes grownups make mistakes."

Aunt Joan's chin rubbed the top of my head as she nodded. "I can certainly vouch for that. With age comes experience, and hopefully wisdom, but that doesn't mean adults have all the answers."

I turned to Cori's mom, who had just the hint of a smile on her face. "You sayin' I ain't supposed to listen to grownups?"

"No, but you should think about what someone says before you accept it as fact. If someone says something that doesn't make sense, keep on asking questions until you find an answer that does. Did being told you were a boy make sense to you?"

"Not really. I did try asking my father questions when he'd told me that, but they didn't make sense neither."

I felt someone touch my arm and turned to see it was Rhianna. "It might help askin' others for answers then. It took me a while before I found somebody who had answers that made sense."

"Who'd ya ask?" The idea of being able to get real answers lifted something I had't realized was hanging over me until then.

"Well, a lotta people, but Ms. Marple gots some really good answers."

"Who's that?"

Tess walked over to us until she was standing next to Rhianna and smiled at me. "That's one of the counselors at school."

Cori came in and gave me a smile from Rhianna's other side. "She's also our homeroom teacher."

I packed those bit of info away for later, then took back out what Cori had just said. "Wait a minute. You all got homerooms? I thought they didn't do stuff like that until high school."

Cori giggled before she answered. "They kinda do things a little different in our school."

"Oh." I thought back to all the weird questions I had to answer when I'd helped Mom fill out the school application form. Back then I'd just figured that's the way schools did stuff. As I started wondering what might have been behind some of the questions, I noticed the faint tapping of raindrops falling on the outside of the bedroom window. "How different is different?"

Aunt Joan wrapped her arms around me a little more tightly for a moment. "Why don't you finish getting dressed, then you can ask the other girls all about it?"

Being counted as one of "the other girls" made me smile. "Are ya's really okay with me being at the slumber party?"

Tess grinned as she rolled her eyes. "Of course we're okay. Now would ya get yourself changed so we can get it started?"

Aunt Joan waved at the three of them with one arm while leaving the other wrapped around me, keeping my backside more or less covered. "Okay, shoo! Bobby will join you as soon as she's finished changing."

Once they were gone, she slid me off her lap, kneeled down next to me, and gave me a huge hug. "Sweetheart, I realize things are probably pretty confusing and a bit scary for you now, but I promise, things are going to be better. Me and your mommy and ... some other people who care a lot about you are going to be there for you. So just relax and be yourself. Okay?"

I felt a couple of tears trickle out the corner of my eye as I hugged her back, but I felt happier than I had in a long, long time. "Okay, I'll try."

Aunt Joan kissed my forehead as she stood up, then gave me another smile before walking out, closing the door behind her.

I sat down on the bed and looked at the nightgown beside me. Thunder rolled in the distance. I thought about how it had started raining just as I was climbing on the bus after my first day of school. Had it really only been two days since Cori had pulled me out of that mud puddle, and this whole adventure started?

I'd learned a lot since then, both about myself and other people. As the rain started falling harder, I kinda got the feeling my adventure was ending, but I also had a feeling another one was about to start. I stood up and started getting changed as quickly as I could. I wanted to ask my new friends all the questions I could before I started my new adventure at school.