Mackenzie and I started walking towards the dorms.

“Brook, you look quite angry. What’s happening? Are you boy-crazy and feel like this place might be hell?” Asked Mackie while laughing.

I did feel like this place was like hell, but it was for completely different reasons!

I honestly didn’t know what do right now. Trying to contact my “father” would be difficult, impossible even, I simply didn’t know how I could do that… His phone number, his postal address, his email, pretty much everything I knew about him was written in one of my notebooks, but that notebook was now gone. I couldn’t go see the principal either because there was no way he or she would believe that I hadn’t gone through this voluntarily. I mean no matter how you put this, no boy would accidentally end up going to the all-girls school he was accidentally accepted to wearing girl clothes and having a girly haircut. That was simply unbelievable. I mean, people believe all sorts of things nowadays, but there was no way that I could make my story sound convincing. To go see the principal was like a deer trying to talk an avid hunter into veganism, an incredibly stupid idea. I could already see the headlines “Teenage boy, tries to sneak into a girl’s school but gets cold feet!” or “You will never believe what this teenage boy tried to do!” Just thinking about it made my shudder. I could already see the bullies at my old school talking to the media and saying stuff like, “He had always been a little bit creepy, but to think he would go that low.”

Until I could contact “father”, I had to perfectly play the part of a girl while making sure that no one discovered my little secret (with atomic potential).

“Brook, are you alright? You have been quite quiet.” Asked my worried new friend.

“Yes, I’m just shocked by the quantity of information my father withheld from me…”

“Your dad didn’t tell you this was an all-girl’s school? Wow, that’s almost as bad as my dad who secretly had another child but never told my mother and I about it.”

“That’s messed up.”

“I know, right. The worst part about it, is that we still don’t know anything about the other kid and my father has decided to take her in.”

Could she be … Nah, impossible, we have already established that the universe hates me.

“Your dad sounds as bad as mine. He doesn’t even know my g…name.” Almost messed up there.

“Seriously?” Asked Mackenzie completely incredulous.

“Seriously,” I answered back.

“Brooke, you win.”

“I didn’t know this was a competition.”

“It isn’t. But just to let know that even if we have just become friends I will be there for you if you need anything.”

“Thanks.”

Mackenzie really acted as an excellent friend. Back at my old school I did have friends, but they wouldn’t defend me when I was teased and they would ignore me when I started talking about personal stuff. I kinda wished I would have met Mackie as the old me, the real me.

We arrived in front of a board that had quite a large number of people around it. It didn’t take us long to realize that the board contained a list with our assigned dorms and rooms.

I went searching for “my name” and ended up finding it without any difficulties. I was with two “other” girls in my room and sadly none of them were Mackenzie. I ended up in room 102 of the Northern Dormitory, while Mackenzie was in room 109. The rooms were assigned alphabetically by dorm and by first name, so it didn’t take long for us to find were we would be.

For some strange reason Mackie wasn’t sad that we weren’t in the same room instead she started profusely laughing.

“What’s happening are you in a room with somebody you know?” I asked the still cackling girl.

“No, I’m laughing for a completely different reason. I just read something incredibly funny.”

“What?”

“Not telling. You will discover soon enough,” Said Mackenzie with a devious smile.

I rolled my eyes. Girls, man, I’m pretty sure I will absolutely never get them.

Mackie and I arrived at the Northern Dorm and then separated in order to see our rooms.

My room was square, large and had beds on all the walls minus the one were the door was. 3 sets of uniforms were placed on each bed. The Uniform consisted of a red tartan pleated skirt, a blouse, white knee socks, a red blazer and what I considered to be and a bow-tie. There was also a note that said to try it on and report back at the entrance if our uniform didn’t fit.

I took a set of clothes and decided to try them on in the bathroom. I opened the door of what I thought the bathroom and…

…

…

Decided that this was impossible after all. I should just pack my (long lost) bags and go back to my (now non-existent) home. There was no point to this! Why do you ask? Well, because there wasn’t a (place profanity here) bathroom in this f-ing room, it was a closet! An f-ing closet! How was I supposed to change or take shower if there wasn’t a bathroom in my room? Was I supposed to just go the communal shower room and risk exposing myself to the girls who wouldn’t understand my situation? Today the gods had forsaken me and now I had concrete proof of it.

Ugh … I took a deep breath, calmed down and decided that the best place to try my clothes was the closet.

I entered it and closed the door. Sadly for me, not even two minutes after I started changing my two roommates entered the room and my heart started going at full speed. I quickly put on my skirt and my blouse, but tripped as I was putting on my socks and found myself lying in the floor of the room with thankfully enough clothes to not be immediately expelled.

I quickly found out that my roommates were changing too and so I decided to get the hell out of the room as quickly as possible. I wanted to reduce my crimes to the minimum if I ever was caught.

As I was went out of the room, I heard some comments from my roommates.

“What was that?” Said one of the girls.

“Our roommate coming out of the closet!” Said the other one while laughing.

As if!

I will admit that her comment was funny and that normally I would have laughed at it, but because this time she was talking about me I couldn’t help but be extremely embarrassed.

Soon after that embarrassing incident I found myself knocking on Mackenzie’s door.

I was welcomed by someone I assumed was Mackie’s roommate, a brunette on the chubbier side.

“Hi, you searching for something?” rudely asked the girl at the door.

Before I could answer Mackenzie came to the door.

“It’s ok, Kendra, she’s here to talk to me.”

Mackenzie and I sat on her bed.

“Brooke, where are your shoes and why is one of your socks is missing?”

“It’s a long story…”

“I can’t be that long, we were together 20 minutes ago. Start talking.”

“Well, I was changing in the closet when ...”

Mackenzie interrupted me while looking me confused.

“Why were you in the cl...” She stopped her sentence, looked at me head to toe and then restarted talking.

“Oh, never mind.”

“What was that about?”

“Nothing, nothing, I just realized that I would do the same thing if I were you.”

This girl I swear…

“What was that supposed to mean?!”

“What I’m saying is that if I was underdeveloped as you are right now, I might also be a little too embarrassed to change in front of others.”

“…”

“I know, why don’t we go bra shopping on Saturday? Wearing at least a training bra might help you gain a little bit of confidence,” Mackenzie said cheerfully.

“…”

I want out…

No, seriously I want out!

Bra shopping… Bra shopping! I, a guy, a totally masculine guy at that, was going bra shopping!

No way!

I frowned.

“You lost all your clothes, so going shopping is a great idea. Anyway, you need a bra, you almost look like a boy like this. Also we might wear our uniforms most of the day, but you need something for the afternoons and the weekends. The uniform is not obligatory after 6 pm and people are going to think you are weird if you don’t change. ”

As much as I wanted to argue with her, she was right…

“Are we allowed to do that?”

“Do what? Going out on weekends? Sure, some of the older students even have their parents drive their cars here in order to have a little bit more freedom.”

“How do you know so much stuff about this school, isn’t this your first year here?”

“One of my half-sisters, who is in eleventh grade told me all of this.”

“Wait, you have several half-sisters?” I asked surprised.

“Yes, dad, is sadly for mom, a ladies man. Almost all of my siblings go to this school, the exception is my half-brother John for obvious reasons.”

“How many half-siblings do you have?” I asked curious.

“That I know of, four. I also have two full-fledged sisters.”

That man gives my father a run for his money.

“I think your dad deserves the prize you gave my father a while ago.”

Mackie giggled uncontrollably at my comment

“Yep. Brook why don’t you go take a shower? Afterwards, you can change into this.”

She presented me a pink t-shirt and some black shorts.

“I know from our conversation on the bus that you have lost most of your clothes, so I thought, why not give her some sleepwear. Seeing how you are only going to wear them at night the fact that they might be a little too big for you doesn’t matter that much.”

I accepted her clothes and then went back to my room. Shower, eh, how was I supposed to shower?

Thinking about that I arrived to my room.

As I opened the door, I stumbled upon my two roommates talking.

“Oh, if it isn’t our roommate, the runner?” Said one of the girls, a Hispanic looking girl with long hair.

“Sorry, about before …” I said quite embarrassed.

“No, no, no it’s ok, there is no need to apologize. You are completely allowed to be shy.” Said my other roommate, a small girl with black hair and a ponytail.

“I’m Beatricia and the small girl over here is Adele, happy to meet you.”

“Brooke, happy to meet you too.”

I shook their hands.

“Say, changing in front of other people gives me anxiety (almost the truth) can you wait outside for a bit?”

“I’m ok with that, it’s almost time for supper anyway, so we should probably go to the dining hall. You coming Adele?”

“Yes.”

“Well then, see you Brook. Oh by the way, when you weren’t here the dorm supervisor came in with a letter she put it on your bed.”

I took a look at the letter decide to read it after changing and putting all of my stuff, uniform included, in the closet.

I took some post-its and made sure to label all my clothes with them. Afterwards, wishing with all my might that the message that had come in was from my “dad”, I turned the letter.

…

…

The letter was from a bank. I opened it and apparently my dad got me a credit card with a very high expending limit.

I would say thanks, but the man hadn’t even met me and anyway what I needed wasn’t money, what I needed was a way to get away from here ASAP!

I put my new credit card in my wallet and then went in direction of the dining hall.

As I made my way there, I started thinking of a way of safely taking a shower. I mean, there had to be a way, right? I’ m pretty sure that I couldn’t be the only person here that couldn’t shower with the others, right? Right?

Maybe, late at night I could sneak out of my room to take a shower. I didn’t know if there were people making rounds at night, but I had to take a chance.

Thinking about my plan, I started memorizing the layout of my floor.

Dinner was quite uneventful, I simply sat down with Mackenzie and started cracking down jokes with her.

Afterwards, I excused myself and went back to my room for a quick nap. I would need it because I wasn’t sure when it would be safe to execute my plan.

At 10 pm, 3 hours after dinner, I woke up and started faking being asleep, my roommates looked like they were sleeping too, but I needed to wait until the 11pm curfew had passed to execute my plan.

By midnight it sounded like everyone in my floor was sleeping or at least I hoped they were, because I absolutely didn’t want to get caught by anyone. I waited an extra 30 minutes to make sure no one was holding guard and then I started putting operation Midnight Shower in progress.

First, I put 2 out of my 3 pillows under my sheets and arranged everything to make it look like I was sleeping. Making sure everything looked nice, I then proceeded to silently go to the room’s closet and take out one of the numerous towels that were neatly arranged inside. Making sure to not make any noise I opened the door to the room and sneaked out as discretely as mouse.

The halls were dark, very dark actually, but I had already memorized where the showers were so I had just to make sure to keep in mind where the walls were. I advanced at snail pace around the halls until I finally made it to the bathroom.

There the door luckily opened. I opened the lights for a minute to make sure I knew where I had to go and then started advancing towards the back of the room were the showers were. I tried to open the door of the shower room and I realized that the door was locked.

My plan had failed!

I couldn’t even take a shower in this place!

Ugh… I resigned myself to simply washing myself with the help of the sink. I disrobed myself, put my towel near me and started cleaning. Everything was going well, until I heard someone walking towards the bathroom. I wrapped my towel around me, took my stuff as quickly as possible and tried to find the nearest stall. Sadly, I slipped because of the wet floor and face planted with my things going everywhere.

I tried to gather all my stuff again, but because of the darkness I couldn’t catch everything. Seeing how useless was my struggle I decided to just give up.

I took everything I could and then stood up.

As I made my final prayers the lights went on and somebody entered.