Mom gives me a really funny look as I come into the kitchen, my eyes still full of sleep, for breakfast. It is a typical Monday and I don’t want to go to school. I had slept as late as I knew I could get away with, jumped out of bed, and thrown on some clothes. I know I am sloppy-looking…my hair probably needs combing, too…but that is all nothing new for a Monday.

I look at Mom in exasperation and ask, “What? It’s Monday…” She just looks at me and shakes her head as she asks, “What have you done to your eyes? It looks like you have…eyeliner…on. Is this some sort of phase? A bet?” Now it is my turn to have the funny look on my face. I shake my head and ask, “What are you talking about?” I grab a donut and take a bite as I go to the downstairs bathroom to look in the mirror. I gasp…dumbfounded. Mom is right, I look like I have heavy eyeliner on…complete with little ‘cat-eye wisps’ at the edges of my eyes. You know, like when girls extend the lines to make it look like they have longer eyelashes.

I try rubbing the lines off…no dice. I rush back to Mom and say, “I have NO idea what this is…honestly! Get it off, PLEASE! I can’t go to school looking like this. Everyone will laugh at me!” Mom shakes her head and takes me upstairs to her bathroom and pulls out a disposable cloth from a dispenser. I know it is a makeup remover cloth, having seen her use them to take off her makeup with them before. She rubs my left eye with it. Looks…then rubs harder. I protest, “Hey! Take it easy! Leave me some skin?” She moves to the other eye and rubs just as hard. Finally, she says, “I give up! I have NO idea what you have done…but it is NOT coming off. If I did not know better, I would say you had this TATTOOED on! Wait! You didn’t lose some stupid bet, did you? You are nowhere near old enough to be tattooed…and permanent makeup is nothing but that… I will have that person’s license…and more!”

I look in the mirror. Nothing has changed. It is still there. I shake my head and whine, “No, Mom! I don’t know what this is! HONEST!” She says, “Well, we will sort it out AFTER school. You will be late. Into the car. NOW!” I whine louder, “But, MOM! I can’t go like this!” She just shakes her head and says, “Well, at least it is well-done… Any GIRL would kill to have that look…” I continue to protest all the way to the car…to no avail; fifteen minutes later, she drops me off at school...

“Parker? What the HELL, Dude?” I look over at Lewis, my best friend since Kindergarten and shrug at his question… I sigh, knowing what he is asking, and say, “I don’t KNOW! I just woke up this way…and it won’t come off!” Lewis looks at me and says, “Well, it is kind of pretty…for a GIRL! Seriously, you need to figure this out, Landon. Maybe Bethany can help you hide it? Here she comes!” He waves at his girlfriend and I want to shrink into the floor as he says, “Hey, Babe! You have any advice for Parker? He seems to have grown…well, I don’t know what!?”

Bethany, Lewis’s beautiful girlfriend, and co-captain of the cheerleaders comes over…curious. She takes one look at me and says, “Wow! Those are some AWESOME cat-eye lines! Who did them? And…more importantly…why? I mean…on you…” I shrug and, once again, proclaim ignorance…and innocence…

She shakes her head and takes me to a secluded spot in back of the school. She pulls out a small bag from her purse and says, “It is a shame to hide such beautiful work… “She pulls out a tube of something. It looks like a large lipstick, but it is skin-toned. She uncaps it and turns the bottom to extend the stick from the tube. She starts applying the stick to the outer edges of my eyes and says, “The tone is not perfect, it is a bit too light for your skin…” She smudges it and continues, “You are lucky that girls carry emergency concealer with them…” She finishes and takes out a compact. She puts some of the powder on the applicator and dusts over the concealer, then hands me the compact to look at myself in the mirror.

I gaze into the small mirror. She is right, the color is slightly off, but better than the black lines extending from my eyes. The concealer and powder cover the lines completely—well, except AROUND my eyes. I still have heavy black lines along the edges of my upper and lower lids… She says, “There is nothing I can do about the lines on your lids. Oh, and that is not waterproof makeup by any means… Be careful not to get it too wet or it will come off… Meet me here at lunch and I will see about fixing it, if it needs it. You are going to have to find a better solution for the long term, though. Your mother can probably get you some better concealer/foundation that will last longer.”

I thank Bethany and we hurry off to class, since the first bell had already rung. I find my seat in class and sit with my head down, sure that everyone is going to notice. By the time class is over, no one has said anything and I am feeling better. I do get a few double-takes between classes, but no one seems to be able to really put their finger on what is different and I escape being found out through lunch.

After lunch, I meet Bethany at the same spot and she touches me up with a little more powder and proclaims me to be ready. I make it through the afternoon unscathed, as well, and hurry home as soon as the last bell rings.

I am scrubbing my face when Mom gets home and still not having any luck. The black will not come off, no matter what I do. She shakes her head again and comes over to examine…and interrogate me. After a fruitless thirty minutes of the Spanish Inquisition, she sighs and gives up. She asks, “So Bethany used concealer on it? That is not a bad idea… I don’t have anything in your skin tone either, although mine is probably closer to yours than hers… Come with me to the drugstore and we will get something that will be sure to last and match your skin better…”

She takes me to the makeup section in the store where I am quickly lost in all the different bottles and tubs of ‘foundation’, ‘concealer’, ‘foundation/concealer’, and other cosmetics. Then there are a hundred shades of each kind and brand. She looks through a bunch of the bottles, holding them up to my face until she finds exactly what she is looking for. She picks up a few more things, pays, and we go home. Once we are there, she says, “Pay attention to what I am doing, you are going to have to do this yourself from now on.” She dabs a bit of the foundation/concealer from the bottle on her finger and then gently dabs that onto my skin. Then she takes a little wedge-shaped sponge and moistens it. She gently wipes the stuff on my face in roundish strokes away from my eyes and blends it in to my skin. In no time, the lines extending from my eyes disappear. She waits a bit, then ‘sets’ it with powder (her words, not mine).

I sigh and look at the heavy lines around my eyes that are still very visible and ask, “Can’t we put this on my eyelids, as well?” She smiles and shakes her head, “It would not hide the lines. They are not near as noticeable as you think, now. You are just focused on them. Now, let me show you how to remove the makeup…and moisturize. You will need to do that at the end of the day, after each application…always. Do you understand? If you don’t remove it correctly EVERY NIGHT you will break out. If you don’t moisturize, your skin will dry completely out…”

She takes a towelette from the package she had bought with the foundation and the powder and shows me how to clean and wash my face. Then she takes some moisturizer, that she had also bought for me and shows me how to dab it on my face and spread it in circular motions. My skin sort of glows when she is done. I sigh and grab the bottle with the intent of reapplying the stuff. She tells me to not waste the expensive makeup, since no one is going to see me here at home. I sigh and put the bottle back on the counter by my sink…then go to do my homework.

The next couple of days are strange, but also normal. I guess you could say they are strangely normal. The strange part is that I am becoming adept at hiding the ‘extensions’ with the foundation/concealer, as well as removing the makeup, washing and moisturizing. They are normal, in that the makeup seems to be working. No one has mentioned anything, since Lewis saw me and Bethany helped me on Monday morning.

Unfortunately, it does not last. I get up Thursday morning and sleepily make my way to the bathroom. I jump in the shower, like normal. After washing myself, I get out, dry off and wipe the steam off the mirror…and gasp… I blink, thinking I must still be dreaming. I look again. Nope! Still there! My eyelashes have grown really long and thick. They have that ‘butterfly’ look that you see advertised on TV all the time—only, I don’t have mascara on. They almost look like I have those fake eyelashes on you see in the stores.

I look again and blink. I can see my lashes as I blink. They get longer towards the outer edges of my eyes. I can feel them touching above my eyes as I blink. They are also really dark…

I yell for Mom. She comes running and almost slips on the wet tiles in the bathroom. She exclaims. “I swear, this is the last time I let your Father go on a long trip… What is wro…” She sees my eyes and gasps, “Landon James Parker! False eyelashes? Really? What on earth? You are a sixteen year-old BOY! What is this all about?” I give her a ‘REALLY?’ look and say, “Mom, you saw me before I went to bed last night. Did I look like this? Do you REALLY think I could have done something like this MYSELF?” She gives me a strange look and says, “No, I suppose not…” She checks the makeup and moisturizer. She gives me an exasperated look and says, “Nothing in here that should cause that…heck, if there was it would be some miracle makeup that would cost a fortune!” She tugs on my lashes just to be sure they are ‘mine’ and shrugs when it is clear that they really are.

She turns to leave and says, “You better hurry up! You don’t want to be late. There is not much sense in putting on the concealer with THOSE lashes, the lines blend in, like they are designed to do…just giving the appearance of longer lashes. You would probably look funnier without them now than with…”

I groan and get dressed. I look in the mirror again. My eyes just scream, “LOOK AT ME!” If I were a girl, I would be in heaven, I think. As a boy, I am in…well, NOT heaven…

Of course I catch heck that day at school…and the next. All I can say is TGIF. I still have NO idea what caused this. I have even less of an idea of how to fix it. I just keep thinking that if I were a girl, it would look awesome; several of the girls at school have even said so, including Bethany. Since I am NOT a girl, though, this is a disaster. I toy with the idea of trimming my lashes, but Mom vetoes that, saying that I would look even more ridiculous if I tried and messed it up than I do now (Gee, thanks, Mom!)

I get home after school and go back to my room. I get on my computer and search the internet, again, for anything to help explain this. I have several sites bookmarked on eye makeup, by now, and I study them, trying to figure anything out that makes sense. The ‘eyeliner’ that is now on me perfectly matches the eyes on one of my favorite female actresses—and her picture is on one of the sites. I actually remember seeing the same picture, not cropped to show off her eyes, on another site several days back and thinking about how pretty her eyes were. I study the picture a little closer and see that her eyelashes are very similar to mine now, as well. The difference is that you can tell she is using mascara…

I subconsciously finger the heavy metal chain around my neck as I think about this. I had gotten the chain at the flea market last weekend from a really pretty lady at a stand full of old jewelry. She had practically given it to me, telling me that she just was not able to sell it and it was perfect for me. Right now, I am not thinking about the chain, though, even though my fingers are sort of hooked on playing with it while I think.

I look at the picture again and wonder if my eyelashes would look like hers if I had mascara on like she obviously does in the picture. I study the picture some more. The more I look, the less sense it makes. Her face is beautiful…and her eyes are captivating, especially with her eyebrows carefully shaped the way they are and the perfectly applied eyeshadow. But, why would my eyes suddenly take on some of her look? I love it, yes…but on a beautiful sixteen year-old girl—not on a sixteen year-old boy that has already gone through puberty…

I sigh… Of course, I can’t tell anyone that I secretly LOVE the look…that *I* want to be that girl that can wear this look… Maybe I have completely lost it and really AM crazy… Or, I am dreaming…that has to be it… This can’t be real. Things like this don’t happen without an explanation…