And here's the next three chapters of The Curse of Womanhood. Sorry, I don't actually have much to say. Actually, that's not true, as I'm fidgeting around with another story, the next part will have to go up in two weeks time. The chapters for part 5 (13-15) are up on TG Storytime, but the final two/three chapters aren't, so I'm giving myself enough time to finish the story. If all goes well, the final part here will go up the same day as the final chapter over on TGS.

~o~O~o~

1.

The next class after the big auditorium session was chemistry. It was another class I shared with Steve, and we’d always been lab partners. Today was no different, except that I was wearing denim shorts that made my butt look bigger than it was (and it was mighty big, now, thanks to turning into a girl; okay, so it looked big to me, shut up, this is new to me) and a shirt that was paper thin and made me feel chilly all day long. Nothing was different.

It may seem strange that I was explaining my clothes, but there’s a reason. That reason is that today we were on a field trip to the local college chem lab, and we had to wear lab coats. Naturally, anybody dressed like me would look silly in a lab coat, and I wasn’t the only one wearing short shorts.

“Why did we need to come here when we have the exact same stuff in our chem lab?” I asked Steve.

“Couldn’t tell ya on a bet.”

Mr. Simms tapped a ruler against the chalkboard at the front of the room. “Now, you’re all probably wondering why we’re here, especially considering this was only a ten minute trip from our building.” Oh my God, he’s a mind reader! “Certainly, you see some differences between this lab and ours, right?” Well… No. It looked like a very basic school chem lab. This one looked more like the one at middle school than ours did, but still. “This lab is a bit more like the ones you’ll see if you decide to go into a chemistry-related career. As such, I thought we’d take this opportunity to get you acquainted with this type of lab.”

Really? This looks more like an actually chemical lab somewhere? You mean they look different from a high school chem lab? Wow. I’m so very - Nope. Nope. Can’t even think that with a straight face.

“Mister Rich - Ah, excuse me, Miss Richards, do you have something to add?”

I hate you, my brain. “No, Mr. Simms,” I said, completely red-faced. More than one of my fellow classmates laughed at me.

2.

“How was your day?” Dad asked when I walked through the front door.

I set my book bag down on the floor beside the front door, then sat down on the floor, my back against the door. “Well, I’m the only transgender girl in the locker room. There are two teachers who gave me awkward stares, I think Steve likes me, and the sorceress who did this to me is the new principal next year.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You serious?”

“According to the woman at the administration office, Ms. Malski - the sorceress - has been ready to take over since last semester, but Mr. Malski wanted to finish out the school year. Her being the new principal and my being cursed seem to have absolutely nothing to do with one another.” I sighed. “It’s a little too coincidental, I know, but unless she’s changing school records magically, it’s legit.”

“So, how do you feel about this?”

I laughed. “How can I feel about this, Dad? The woman who took my manhood away is gonna be running my school next year, I’m only three days away from getting confused for Melanie more easily, and… I’m not sure how I should feel about who I’m becoming.”

Dad sat down beside me. “Amanda, when your mother told me what you’d said, that you were becoming a young woman because of a sorceress cursing you, I wanted to tell her to stop joking. My boy, turning into a girl? I couldn’t accept it. I didn’t accept it. Even when she handed me the phone, and I started talking to you, I didn’t want to believe that this scared girl was my son. I wanted so very badly to believe it was Melanie trying to play a joke on me, and your mother was in on it.”

“I thought Mom said you wanted all girls.”

He smiled. “I did. Then I got a son, and I felt proud of that boy. And as he grew up, I wanted to see this boy through everything he wanted to do. I didn’t want to push him, I didn’t want to prod him, I wanted him to be his own man, as my father did for me. Nothing that you did disappointed me - Well, that’s not entirely true, that ‘F’ in English class last semester made me want to punch you through a wall.” I smiled. I felt a tear hit my cheek.

“So, am I a disappointment now?”

“Of course not. Do I miss my son? Of course. I raised that boy for fifteen years, I watched him grow, I watched him stumble and fall and pick himself back up. Every time I look at pictures of that boy, I’m going to miss him.”

I hugged my knees to my chest. Great. I’m not a disappointment, but I’m going to be a reminder to him of the son he lost.

He put his hand on my shoulder. “And every time I look at you, I’m going to see another beautiful daughter who’s going do the right things with her life.” Wait, what? I’m what? “Amanda, you’re not Adam. I don’t know what happened to Adam, but if I keep believing that you’re Adam, then I’ll lose you. I need you, sweetheart. You’re not a replacement for Adam, but I’d lose it if I lost both of you.” He leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead. I reached forward and hugged him.

I wasn’t a replacement.

3.

Mom had been busy in my room. All of my Adam clothes were gone, replaced by feminine equivalents. No dresses or skirts or anything, but skinny jeans, shorts, tank tops, crop tops, spaghetti strap tops, camisoles, etc, etc…

(I thank Melanie for telling me names for certain types of tops, because as far as I’m concerned “shirt” should apply to everything.)

There were bras and panties in my dresser drawers, new socks, a couple new pairs of shoes (Yay, I don’t have to wear Melanie’s anymore!). There were a couple of nighties, but as I discovered last night, those were very comfortable to sleep in. I picked up one of the bras and looked at the tag on it. 34B. Was that how big I was? Was that big for a fifteen year old girl? Would I get…

No, no, no, no no no no no no no no! I would not ask myself that question! That’s the wrong question to ask and I’m not going to ask it! I don’t care how big my boobs get! I won’t consider that a concern in my life at all!

I plopped down on my bed and hugged the bra to my chest. I was already thinking about it. If I was a B cup, would I be stuck as a B cup? Or would I grow some more?

“What’s up with you?” Melanie asked. I didn’t even realize she was standing in my doorway.

“Don’t ask. Really, really, don’t ask.”

She looked at my dresser and pulled out another one of my new bras. “I wish Mom hadn’t done this.”

“Why?”

“Because! Clothes shopping is fun! And now you don’t get to learn that for yourself until you grow some more.”

I laid on my back and stared at the ceiling. “You mean I’m not done?”

“What do you expect? Even if you didn’t have three more days of transitioning from male to female, you’re still going through puberty. I’m not even done growing!”

I almost wanted to cry. Great. The odds that my breasts would get bigger and make boys look at me more were greatly enhanced. Just because I liked boys didn’t mean I wanted to be stared at all the time.

Now that I thought about it, why did I like boys? Shouldn’t I at least have some attraction to girls still? Just because I could look down my own shirt and see a pair of boobs shouldn’t stop me from looking at another girl’s chest. But, no, I had no attraction to girls, and… I liked staring at guys.

“What’re ya thinkin’ ‘bout?” Melanie asked.

“I’m trying to figure out why I like boys.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s weird.”

“No, it’s not. Take it from somebody with double x chromosomes her whole life, there is nothing weird about wanting to date a boy.” She sat down at my desk. “Not that there’s anything wrong with wanting to date a girl, either. After all, my friend Britney likes girls.” She wheeled the chair over to me and then rolled onto my bed beside me. “But, why would anything be weird about liking boys? Boys are big and strong and have that one organ that can go anywhere and - “

I smacked her in the face. “Stop that. I really don’t want to hear about ‘organs’, okay?”

She giggled. “I’m joking, obviously. You really think I like boys just because they’re ‘big, strong and have an organ’?”

“So, why do you like boys?”

She shrugged. “I like boys because I like boys. There’s no real reason for it, just like there’s no real reason for liking whatever you like. Why does everybody care about why you fall in love with a specific gender? You like boys, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Does it really matter why? Is knowing why you like boys gonna change why you like boys?”

I rolled over onto my stomach. “I dunno. I guess… I guess I just wanna know when I started to like boys. I mean, I liked girls before, and now I suddenly like boys. It’s like it just happened and I didn’t notice.”

Melanie rolled over onto her stomach now. I swear, we looked like we were having a sleepover. “I guess it’s good to know my little brother liked girls after all. Shanna always thought you were gay.”

“That’s what she said at gym today, too.”

“Were you?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I just… I really don’t think I wanted to date anyone.”

“But were you attracted to girls?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, really. I didn’t find girls unattractive, that’s for sure.”

“You never had a girlfriend.”

Why was that the only evidence being thrown up in my face about this? “You’ve only had one boyfriend.”

She stuck her tongue out at me. “That you know about.” She put her arm around me. “Little sister, I’ve probably had more boyfriends in the last two years than you had morning wood when you were a boy.”

“Uh, that’s gross.”

“What? Having a lot of boyfriends? No, it’s awesome.”

“No, the analogy.”

“Oh. Sorry, it was just the funniest thing I could think of.”

“It was horrible.”

“Still. I go through lots of boyfriends that nobody knows about.”

“Why?”

“Well, for one, I’m exaggerating. I’ve had probably five boyfriends in the past couple years. Two, I like having boyfriends. If I’ve got a boyfriend, the gross guys aren’t hitting on me.” She ruffled my hair a bit. “That’s probably something you’ll find out about pretty soon.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You wouldn’t imagine all the talk I heard about you in the cafeteria today. A lot of it was boys talking about ‘that weird shemale Richards turned himself into’.”

“Shemale? Really?”

“More than a few of them were talking about how hot they thought you were.”

“They thought I was hot?”

“I’m pretty sure I heard ‘hot shemale’ more than once.”

“They thought I was a shemale?”

She flicked me on the nose. “Well, ya kinda are, for now. Little Adam is little, but he’s not gone just yet.”

I sighed. “Yeah.” I brushed some hair away from my eyes. Was it longer already? Wait a minute, did it change? “Hey, is my hair longer?”

Melanie sat up then sat me up and took a very close examination of my face. “Yeah, yeah it is. And your face is a little different.”

“How different?”

“Just a little softer. Your lips are a little fuller, too. That lipstick didn’t look out of place before, but it looks perfect on you now.”

I was actually relieved that I looked more feminine. Maybe it was just because I was over the hump, into the last few days. Little Adam only had until Friday before he was gone.

Though, honestly, it already felt like he was.

4.

“Girls! Time for dinner!” Mom called up to us, but I was already downstairs, practically right behind her. The upstairs bathroom toilet didn’t work, so I’d been downstairs having a diarrhea attack. I didn’t feel bad or anything, which made me wonder if it was just another part of this stupid curse. Mom turned around and saw me. “Good God, Amy, how long were you standing there?”

“A couple minutes. I was in the bathroom.”

“Go make sure your sister heard me, okay?”

I nodded. “Yup.”

I walked upstairs and was about to knock on Melanie’s door when I heard her talking. She must have been on Skype, or something. “I love Amy, but it’s getting a little tiring, y’know? She’s worried about everything, when she should just be enjoying her life.” Huh, I didn’t think I was worrying too much. After yesterday, I actually thought I was doing good. “Well, I should get going. Dinner should be soon, so I’ll talk to you later.”

I knocked on the door now. “Mel! Dinner!”

“Just a second!”

“It’s lasagna, so hurry up!”

I wondered who she was talking to about me. Did she really think I should just throw Adam away and enjoy being Amanda? Wasn’t I already kinda doing that? Or did she think I should start being uber-girly, because that I wasn’t doing. I could be a normal girl, not some perpetually pink wearing girly girl.

Hrm… I think I’d ask her about that after dinner.

~o~O~o~

1.

“I swear, getting a person’s gender legally changed is far more difficult than it should be,” Mom dumped some mashed potatoes on my plate. I had to admit, I was hungrier than I thought I was. “And then they expect you to explain that particular name. Adam very easily translates to Amanda, I don’t understand how hard it is to understand!” She sighed. “So, how was everyone else’s day?” She looked directly at me. “Amy?”

I finished chewing some lasagna. “It was pretty easy. I told Dad about it earlier.”

“And?”

“And nothing. Today was easy. I got through my first day in public as Amanda. And while on my first period, too.”

Dad laughed. “Sweetie, please, keep that kind of talk to a minimum.”

I blushed. “Sorry, Dad.”

“No, it’s okay. Just, to a minimum.”

Mom changed the subject. “Melanie? How was your day?”

Mel shrugged. “About the same as Amy. There were a lot of people talking about her.”

“Good talk or bad talk?”

“Not really either. There were a few people who pretty much called her a monster for being transgender, but the indifferent far outweighed the negative.”

“Some people called me a monster?” I asked, my voice tiny.

“Like, two.”

“How am I a monster?”

“Well, the two I know about were those really macho type guys who think being female is a disease.”

“Still, Mr. Malski should have been told about these people,” Mom said.

“As much as I’m sure he’d like to help me out,” I responded, “I’m sure he’s too busy helping his daughter transition into the principal’s office.”

“I didn’t know Mr. Malski had a daughter.”

“She’s the sorceress who did this to me!” I coughed out a laugh at the end.

Mom did a double take. “What?!”

“Oh… Sorry… I kinda thought Dad would have told you about that by now…”

“No, I didn’t know anything about this. When did you find this out?”

Melanie answered for me. “This morning when we went to tell Mr. Malski about Amy. She was there, already.”

“Was she there to keep an eye on you?”

I shook my head. “No. She’s genuinely the next principal, it’s all just a weird coincidence.”

“Are you sure?”

I sighed. “I dunno. It’s just... I dunno.”

2.

“Aw, c’mon!” I shouted at my TV. Stupid barnacles. What idiot at Valve decided they’d be a good thing to bring back in Half-Life 2? I hated those things in the first game! I never paid attention to them, and I almost always got killed by them. Stupid, stupid, stupid barnacles.

I laid back on my bed and sighed. This was like the fourth time I’d started Half-Life 2, and I was still getting stuck at the same place. It didn’t help that I’d owned the damn game since Orange Box came out, it just made me feel worse for getting stuck all the damn time. Steve’s beaten the game like four times, but he’s never helped me, and I wanted to punch him for that.

I pressed the Xbox logo in the middle of the controller and dropped back out to the home screen. I wondered if Steve was on. I could just call him, but I didn’t really want to talk to him. Not for any bad reason, or anything, there were just certain times of the day when I didn’t want to talk to people on the phone.

As if to test my feelings, Melanie walked in. “Okay, little sis, get dressed.”

I sighed. “Why? What is it you want me to do that requires me to leave my bed and cover my underwear?”

“Well, don’t you have to get off your bed to change the game?”

“Yeah, but I don’t have to leave my room and thus I don’t have to put anything on over my underwear.”

“Is parading around in your underwear that important?”

“I don’t wanna get dressed, okay?! Jeez, can’t I just stay home?”

She shook her head. “No. I have a little sister now, and I want to hang out at the mall with her.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You don’t hang out at the mall with your own friends, why do you suddenly want to with me?”

She rested her hands on her hips. “I just told you, because I finally have a little sister.”

I shook my head. “Not really that fantastic a reason, if you ask me. What happened to missing your little brother?”

“What? I still miss Adam, but is he really gone? You’re chromosomes are different, that’s about it.”

Well, and I liked boys, and I had somehow grown a minor fashion sense - that part I can’t figure out - but other than that, I wasn’t too different.

She smiled. “Besides, I still wanna enjoy having a sister, is that really so hard to understand?”

“What if I just don’t feel like leaving the house?”

“And why wouldn’t you? And don’t say because you’re on your period, because that’s not gonna work.” Shit! That was exactly what I was gonna say. How had she predicted me so well? “So, are you gonna get dressed and go?”

I gave it about two seconds of thought, then said, “Nope.”

Melanie faced the doorway. “Mom! Amy won’t go to the mall with me!”

Dad answered, “Shut up, Melanie!”

I just burst into laughter.

3.

There was a loud knock on my door. Had I fallen asleep? I sat up and looked around. My TV was still on, but there was a weird light coming from my window. Oh, great, I was dreaming again, wasn’t I? It was either that, or aliens were coming to dissect me. ‘Oh, Glorbfop, look! A human!’ ‘Look at her, Breelfrop, she was obviously a male.’

I’m stupid.

I stood up and reached down to tug at my skirt. Wait, I was wearing a skirt? I looked down at myself and saw I wasn’t wearing a skirt at all, I was wearing a dress. Great. Was this Melanie’s dream, or something?

Somebody was still knocking at the door. Loudly, too. “Hold on,” I said. I nearly stumbled on my way there. Why? I was better at walking than this. I looked down at my feet and saw a pair of high heels. Yep, this had to be Melanie’s dream. “Be there in a sec,” I told the person on the other side of the door.

I made it to the door eventually, and opened it to see a weird silhouette standing there. Great. It was an alien. The silhouette stepped forward and I nearly did a double take. That was Dean, and he looked so… So… Tiny. He was thinner than me, and just looked so wrong.

He grabbed me by the arms. “What did you do, Richards?! What the hell did you do to me?!”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“I’m a frikkin’ pansy, you stupid cunt! I can’t play ball, I can’t understand anything my friends say, I can’t even grow a damn beard!”

“I didn’t do anything!”

He fell onto his knees in front of me. “I don’t even remember how to play basketball! I don’t remember what it feels like to wear guy jeans! I dream about boys and if anything I own isn’t frilly or girly, I hate it! Why would you do this to me?!”

“But, I didn’t! It was the sorceress!”

“You ruined me… You ruined my life…”

“I didn’t do anything…”

4.

I woke up and nearly tossed my blanket across the room. I was sweating, my hair practically stuck to my skin. What the hell was that? What the hell was that?! That wasn’t anything like any of the other dreams I’d had since the curse started. Holy shit…

My phone was ringing. I reached over and picked it up. “Hello?”

“What’s wrong with you?” Steve asked.

“I had a weird dream.”

“Oh. Like, bad weird or just weird weird?”

“You know you talk more like a valley girl than I do, right?”

“Whaddya mean?”

“You say ‘like’ more than I do. It’s kinda a valley girl thing.” I laid back down. “So, whaddya want?”

“I just wanted to talk before we get to school. And to ask you if you’d unlock your door.”

“Huh?”

“I’m outside right now. I tried doing that whole throw pebbles at your window thing to get your attention, but that didn’t work. That’s why I called you.”

I considered getting up and looking out the window, but I didn’t want to give him a look of me in a nightie, so I just remained on the bed. “Ringing the doorbell wasn’t an option?”

“I didn’t want to wake everybody up.”

“Ugh… Gimme a minute, okay?” I hung up the phone and walked over to my closet, where a pair of leggings were sitting in a corner. I didn’t really wanna get dressed yet, so I just pulled those on so that Steve wouldn’t be gawking at my legs. I looked ridiculous wearing a blue nightie and black leggings, but I really didn’t care as much as I should have. I was tired.

I felt somewhat lighter than I had the day before. Probably had to do with all that diarrhea I’d had. When I opened the door, Steve took one look at me and it looked like his eyes were about to pop out of his skull. “What?” I asked.

“You uh… Um… Ah…”

I looked down at myself but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. (Okay, nothing other than I was looking at a girl’s body when I’d had a boy’s body for most of my life. That’s not what I meant, though.) What the hell was he getting at? “My what?” I asked, looking back up at him. He looked like he wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure how to say it. “Just say something!”

After another five minutes of nothing, he finally said, “Is it okay if I say you’re hot?”

“Um… Yeah? You said I was cute yesterday, why is it so strange today?”

He shook his head. “No, you’re not just cute today. You’re… hot. Like Melanie, but… y’know, a little younger.”

“Huh?”

“Well, yesterday, you still looked a little like a guy. Not a lot, but you could still see Adam in you. Now, you… Don’t.”

I rubbed at my arm. “Am I still… Y’know… Recognizable?”

He nodded. “Yeah, you’re obviously still Amy, but… I don’t think anybody’s gonna call you a ‘shemale’ anymore.”

I sighed. “You mean you heard people call me a shemale, too?”

“Whaddya expect? You were in the girl’s locker room, I was in the guy’s locker room. Guys talk about girls, y’know?”

I nodded. “Yeah. So, um, wanna come in?”

He smiled.

5.

“Can you wait out here for a second?” I asked, stopping him from walking into my room. “I’ve gotta get dressed.”

He nodded. “Yeah. I’ll wait.”

“‘Kay, thanks.” I mentally facepalmed. I said that. I really said that. Why did I say that? I’m a damned idiot. I shut the door between us and locked it. I didn’t think he’d come in without asking me, but for some reason, I just needed to lock the door. Maybe it was because of something that I never expected once.

Steve was handsome.

Was I feeling this way because of the curse? Steve’s challenge was to get over being selfish, did that have to do with me? Was this my challenge? Being attracted to Steve? Was I attracted to other boys? I picked up my phone again, tapped the internet icon and went to Google Images. I typed in ‘naked bodybuilders’ and the first four images were naked women. The fifth was a disturbingly veiny Asian man. I zoomed in on it and started to feel kinda… How do I explain it… Hot? I kinda felt like I was sweating, but I wasn’t.

I clicked out of the tab and set my phone down on my dresser. Good, at least I was turned on by any guy, not just Steve. That would have scared me. I tried thinking other thoughts to rid myself of that image, because I really didn’t want to feel so awkward all day long. Get dressed, Amy, just get dressed.

I pulled the leggings and my nightie off and then walked over to my mirror. I made a very close examination of my boobs, for the first time in my life. (Well, the first time that didn’t involve a shower, that is.) It didn’t feel odd that I had breasts anymore, they were just kinda there. I turned sideways to look at myself in profile, checking to see if they’d grown anymore. It was hard to tell, because as far as I was concerned, they looked big enough. They ached, a little, but not uncomfortably so.

I reached into my now-dedicated bra drawer (I’m not gonna lie, Mom went a little overboard on how many bras she bought me; she’s not gonna be happy if I suddenly outgrow them all) and slipped into it. I was getting better at putting bras on, but I still wasn’t as fluid at it as Mel was. The bra still fit, but it was kinda snug, unlike yesterday, when it fit comfortably.

I guess I shouldn’t have been confused. Even if I weren’t slowly sliding from male to female, assuming I was born a girl, my breasts would still be growing. Puberty would be kicking my ass for a couple more years now.

I pulled on a different pair of panties, after I secured a pad in. I noticed that my crotch area looked a little different. Little Adam had slipped inside a little more. I didn’t mind as much as I should have, though. I guess it was getting easier and easier to say goodbye to Adam entirely. Either way, I actually looked somewhat like I had a vagina now. Not much more left to change.

I rubbed my hand up one of my legs. A little fuzz, already. Man, how often do girls need to shave their legs? Oh well, I’d decided to wear pants anyway. I grabbed a pair of jeans and wiggled my way into them. Man, if girls can barely get these things on, how do boys do it? There were quite a few boys who wore girls’ jeans.

Next I grabbed a long-sleeved shirt and pulled it on. Pulling it down over my boobs was still slightly awkward, but when I had it on, and saw myself in the mirror, I smiled at my reflection. I looked pretty good, actually.

Oh, crap… This is what Steve was talking about. I actually looked pretty hot. And now I’m getting ridiculously vain, good work, Amanda! Apparently, I’m turning into every other teenage girl in southern California.

I put on a pair of sandals and grabbed my book bag. Walk to school with Steve, just get through the day, that’s all I had to do.

I opened my door and Steve was waiting there, smiling. “You look good,” he said, which made me blush. Damn me for turning into a girl!

6.

“So, where’d you get the new clothes?” Steve asked when we got outside. He had his hands in his pockets, and just looked laid back. He wasn’t as nervous around me as I was around him right now.

“My mom bought them for me yesterday, while we were at school.”

“You look really nice.”

I brushed some hair behind my ear. “You said that before.”

“And I meant it.”

“You look good yourself,” and I meant that. He looked better than he had the day before. He didn’t look as much like a slob as he used to. Was this a real change, or just in how I perceived him? He was still wearing the same kinds of clothes that he always wore, but he just looked different.

“Thanks. Stephanie said the same thing.” He chuckled. “She asked where her ‘slobby twin’ went.”

“So, what’s with the change?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. I just felt like it was time. What about you? What’s with your changes?”

“You mean besides being cursed and turned into a girl?”

“Well, yeah, but… Y’know… You’re different.”

“How?”

“You’re… Different.”

Why didn’t I want to answer that question? Why couldn’t I answer that question?

~o~O~o~

1.

The rest of the trip (about three more minutes, honestly) until we got to school was silent. His words had cut me pretty deep. I really didn’t feel any different. I mean, I acted a little bit more feminine, but how could I really help that? I’m sure Steve would have acted more feminine if this was happening to him, seeing as Stephanie probably would have done her damnedest to make him act that way.

My problem was that Melanie wasn’t explicitly making me act this way. She wasn’t helping in any way, especially after that phone call I overheard half of last night, but she wasn’t trying to turn me into her little sister, she was just enjoying having a little sister.

As I made my way to my locker, I heard laughter echoing down the halls. I looked around and nearly burst into laughter myself as Dean turned a corner. I wouldn’t actually have recognized him, if not for the fact that his absolute cleavage dress showed absolutely no cleavage. He didn’t seem uncomfortable in those high heels he was wearing, either. He did however, look very angry.

He went up to his locker, quickly grabbed his stuff, then silently made his way into homeroom. He was thinner than he had been the day before, a lot more… Well, to be honest, he looked girlier than I did, except that I had boobs. What the hell? How far was Ms. Malski going to go with him?

“He’s shaping up quite well,” the bitch said, right behind me. I nearly jumped out of my skin. She was standing there, smiling, arms folded under her breasts. “He’ll be finished tomorrow, just like you and Steve.”

“Tomorrow? I thought you said Friday?”

“I said you’d be Amanda by Friday, and you are, really, you’ll just be finished physically tomorrow.” She nodded toward Dean. “So will he.”

“Are you getting a kick out of this? Do you enjoy screwing with our lives the way you are?”

She shook her head. “I’m not screwing with you, Amy. There’s more than one reason why you are the way you are.”

I had to know. “What’s my challenge?”

She smiled again. “Bell’s about to ring, Ms. Richards, you’d better get to homeroom.” With that, she walked away, and I was alone in the hallway as the bell rang.

2.

Homeroom was boring, as always. Homeroom was used pretty much for homework, but I rarely had homework. Every class had a period of time for doing whatever work there was at the end of the class, and most of the time, I finished my work in class. As such, I spent most of my homeroom time drawing, something I’d been doing since I was little.

I didn’t know if it was my state of mind, my current situation, or just because, but I drew a picture that showed a small boy growing into a young woman - in other words, me - and the boy started out happy, then as he grew he got sadder, and sadder, and then finally when he was somewhat female, he was a little happier, then sad again.

“That looks like you,” someone said. I looked up to see Dean standing there, a strange look on his face. “Can I talk to you in the hallway?” I nodded, then followed him out into the hallway, where we stood by the lockers. We didn’t say anything for the longest time, then he finally said, “Did that bitch do this to you, too?”

“Huh?”

“You weren’t a closet girl last week, and now you’re suddenly so feminine that I thought you were a different person. When I saw you at the game on Sunday, I could tell that something was up with you. You had longer hair, and you were wearing girl’s clothes, which I knew was something you never did before.”

“Um… Girl’s jeans. I was still wearing one of my old boy’s shirts.”

“Whatever,” he said, sounding ridiculously valley girl. He cleared his throat. “Sorry. That just pops out every now and again. I’m starting to sound like my cousin.” He rubbed at his exposed - and hairless - arms. “Adam, just because I’m a jock doesn’t mean I’m an idiot. Up until this happened, I was on my way to being the valedictorian this year. Why were you involved in this?”

“Amanda.”

“What?”

“My name’s Amanda. And I’m involved because I was in your room, getting all those panties you stole in that panty raid.” I sat down on the floor, against the lockers. “She caught me.”

“And, what, decided that you should be wearing the panties instead of getting them back for everybody?”

“I don’t know. She just… She cursed me, and you, and Steve, and I - “

He cut me off. “That dipshit Steve is involved, too?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“And now the bitch is gonna be our principal? That’s not a coincidence.”

“Actually, it is.”

He shook his head. “I don’t believe it.”

I looked up at him. “So, none of this has affected you at all? You’re still as much of hard ass as you were before? All this has happened to you, and you don’t think it has anything to do with how you acted before this?”

He shrugged. “I’m still me, whether I’m the way I used to be or a pansy.”

I hugged my knees to my chest and sighed.

3.

The lunch lady dumped a pile of what looked like peas down on my tray. I looked up from the tray and asked, “Do you have anything that doesn’t look like prison food?”

She glared at me and said, “Look, tranny, if they didn’t want prison food here, they wouldn’t have hired me. Now, get the rest of your grub and sit down.”

Tranny had become a common nickname for me among people who weren’t particularly happy with what I’d become. I didn’t like it, but at least nobody was calling me shemale, like Melanie said. That just sucked. After all, I wasn’t a girl with boy parts between my legs.

I finished getting my food and then promptly scraped it off my tray and left the tray on the conveyor to get washed. I could see I wasn’t the only person who’d done that. Looked like I was gonna be eating vending machine food again. Wednesday and Friday lunch ladies were the worst. They served the worst food, and they were the rudest.

I walked over to the table I normally sat at and laid my head down. Lunch was gonna be boring if I didn’t eat cafeteria food. Nobody I knew was in my lunch period, for whatever reason. It made lunch boring, but I only had to sit there for a half an hour, so that wasn’t too bad.

I thought about what Dean had said. He clearly hadn’t changed personality-wise, and neither had Steve, so why had I? Did people who go from one gender to the other do that, or was there some funky magic sorceress thing going on? Was this a part of my challenge, whatever the hell that was? And why wouldn’t that bitch answer me when I asked her about my challenge? Why is she so adamant about keeping it from me, when she’d tell me Steve and Dean’s?

Nothing seemed to be making much sense.

4.

“Now, remember,” Mr. Pendergast said as he did a quick freehand drawing on the whiteboard, “the human face is neither easy nor hard to draw, the difficulty lies purely in the way you interpret your subject.”

Steve sat beside me, grinning like an idiot while Kimberly Shale sketched his face. I just sat there with a neutral expression on my face while Johnny… um… I forget his last name, drew my face. Every so often, I’d catch a glimpse of his drawing and saw that he either was shit at art class or had some odd outlook on everything. I appeared to be a cartoon poodle. No joke. My drawing of him was practically a black and white photograph, but no, he draws me as a cartoon poodle!

“Why do I look like a dog?” I asked.

He smiled. “It builds character.”

“Being drawn as a dog?”

“It makes you look cute.”

Steve said, “She already looks cute.”

Urghguggleurgh, why’d he have to say that? Doesn’t he know I’m conflicted about everything? Stupid, stupid Steve.

Kimberly chuckled. “Yeah, she looks cute for a crossdressing boy.”

I folded my arms under my breasts. “I’m not a boy, and I’m not crossdressing.”

She poked her pencil tip in my direction. “Show me what’s under that top, and maybe I’ll believe you. I’ve seen more convincing trannies than you, Richards.”

“I’m seriously not crossdressing. I made my choice and chose to be a girl, is that really so hard to understand?”

“And made the transition in a weekend?”

More people caught on to that than I thought. “My mom knows a really good surgeon,” was the closest thing to a reply I could give. Clearly I haven’t thought this through.

Johnny said, “She’s hotter than a couple of the skanks I dated last year, just leave her alone.”

Wow, the class casanova was sticking up for me. He probably wanted in my pants. Either that, or I was turning more into a stereotypical girl than I thought. I was seriously starting to sound like Melanie now, and not just because our voices sound similar.

“So why’d you choose to be a girl?” Kimberly asked.

I gave it a second, then said, “Because I never felt right as a boy.” That was pretty much exactly what Shanna had told me. That I wasn’t right, whatever the hell that meant. Was there a “right” or “wrong” when it came to who you were? Was it really that black and white? It couldn’t be. It really couldn’t be. “Because… Something about me felt wrong when I was a boy.”

“And you thought that being a girl would solve all your problems? Be lucky you can’t have periods, then.”

Oh, how wrong you are! Come to think of it, I should probably change my pad when class is over, these things start to feel weird after awhile. Not to mention, I’m pretty sure there’s a medical warning on the box that says you should change them after a certain amount of time.

Johnny set his sketch pad down and said, “Okay, ignoring this talk of female bodily functions, if my drawing of you is so bad, what’s your drawing of me look like?”

“Like this,” I said, flipping my sketch pad over to show him what he looked like. “Which is a lot better than your drawing.”

He took a long look at the sketch pad and finally said, “Yeah, but you’re a girl. Girls are better artists.”

For a brief second I wondered if that was true, then I remembered that I was just as good an artist when I was a boy, so it really didn’t matter.

5.

“Open your books to page forty-nine, children!” Mr. Greene shouted. He had a habit of doing that. He also had a habit of carrying around the handle of an axe without the axe part on it anymore. He used it to hit people when they said something stupid. Never hard, always lightly, and never girls, only boys. I prayed that I qualified as a girl to him, because even if he didn’t hurt anybody with that axe handle, it was still annoying as hell to get hit in the head with that thing.

I opened my textbook to the page he told us to go to and found, plastered in big red, white and blue letters, The American Civil War. I raised my hand. “Didn’t we learn about this already? Like, in elementary school?” Somebody chuckled.

Mr. Greene nodded. “There’s not much about the Civil War I can teach you that you don’t already know, but I’d like to take this time to have a discussion about why we do or do not leave things in the past.”

Why did I have this odd feeling that this lesson for some reason had to do with me, whether anybody other than me knew it or not? Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap.

"The Confederate flag, the symbol of the South, is still flown in many places today, either in tribute of the past, or by those who still believe in its ideals, misguided though they may be. This flag is one hundred and fifty years old, and it lost the last domestic war ever fought in this nation, but it is still flown today."

"Why?" Somebody asked.

Mr. Greene nodded. "Why indeed? What values does it still hold? We don't condone slavery, or racism, or any sort of segregation any more, so why is this flag still flown? Is it flown because of a need to remember the past, because it's still a viable symbol, or simply because of the pretty colors?" More than a few people giggled at that.

I raised my hand. "Does it really matter?"

"Why do you say that, Ms. Richards?"

"It's a flag, people put their own meanings behind it. I mean... Does it matter what the reasons are?"

Somebody else just stated, "It's a dead flag, whether the reasons matter or not, what reasons really are there for keeping it around? Nobody flies the Nazi flag anymore."

A girl on the other side of the room said, "Except for Neo Nazis. They kinda do."

I asked, "But, who cares if they keep flying an old flag? Even if it was just the pretty colors, it's not like anybody needs to explain to anybody else why they fly a flag."

"If they've got a good enough reason to fly a dead flag, why can't they explain it to everybody else? People are less likely to question somebody's motivations if the person flying the flag is willing to tell everyone."

Somebody else asked, "And what if people like the looks of a dead flag, or even a flag that isn't dead? Fly a Nazi flag in Germany, you get arrested. Fly an ISIS flag here, and the FBI raids your house. Is it okay for people to fly these flags just because they like them?"

Mr. Greene was smiling at the front of the room. "So, what have we figured out? Is the flag more important than the ideals placed behind it, or are the ideals more important than the flag? We seem to be pretty divided on this issue, and it raises another important point, whether the ideals are more important or not, do others need to know them to understand why you're flying that flag?

"Your final assignment of this year is to perform a speech to this class on Friday. It can't be long, so we can get through all of you, but you need to choose a flag, and present for us the ideals behind why you chose that flag." As if on cue, the bell rang. "That'll be all, children!"

I just sat there for a moment while everybody else around me got up and left, eager to get back home and out of the building.

Great. I just knew what most people were probably expecting. Amanda, why did you choose to be a girl? Dammit, dammit, dammit.

~o~O~o~

Just a quick end not here, I totally forgot this (chapter 12) was the chapter where I wrote in all that flag stuff. That's based on a conversation I had with a friend of mine, but neither one of our viewpoints is expressly told within the chapter.