My next class, luckily, was study-hall. Mr. Davis, the instructor, could care less that I was almost fifteen minutes tardy.

“I was talking to Mr. Stewart about an assignment.”

Davis glanced up from his EyPad, then shook his head as if he was seeing a mirage. “What the hell?”

“What?” then my hair sorta fell forward a bit. “Oh, yeah. I’m April’s Fool, today.”

He laughed. “Looks good on you, kid.”

“Hah. Thanks.” I went and found an empty seat.

Mitzy Butterfly got up and moved seats, as did Jeff Farnum.

“So?” Mitzy said.

I shrugged, sighed, and told them about what I’d discovered about April’s magical system.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Jeff said. “She needs you to resist? You’ve already been resisting.”

“Yeah, I guess I need to try harder.”

Mitzy frowned. “That doesn’t seem fair.”

“I’d rather all this happen to me than to you, Mitzy.”

She nodded, looking downward.

Mitzy was a kind soul trapped in an unkind world. Her Were curse fed her outlook a bit. She loved flowers, dandelions, and plants of all sizes, shapes, and colors. She was a quiet girl who kept to herself, with rainbow-colored pixie short hair and a cute button nose.

I suspected she was gay, or at least bi, but never wanted to press it. She usually wore jeans and a long sleeve shirt that hid her butterfly tattoos. She had four or five tats on her shoulders and arms, and I thought they were awesome. She was a great friend and always there when I needed her.

“So, what are you going to do for lunch?” Jeff said.

Jeff was the opposite of Mitzy. He wasn’t a were, his parents were both vampires, though they had yet to turn Jeff. It always made me sad to think that the happy-go-lucky best friend would one day become a blood-sucking vampire, but there you go. I supposed I was a ravening animal three nights a month, so I couldn’t cast stones. He was more than a bit overweight from the video games he consumed constantly.

It was our study hall ritual to decide where to eat, and depending on the location, we often snuck out the back of the room when Davis wasn’t watching. He was the football coach and cared little for any students unless they were geared up in pads and a helmet.

I played for the High Valley Saints Baseball team as their starting catcher. I was supposed to head out to the weight room for pre-season conditioning, but today I figured I’d need to pretend to be April’s Fool. Jeff was our equipment manager but wasn’t needed for pre-season workouts.

“I think I should probably help her out, don’t you think?” I said.

Mitzy shook her head. “I don’t believe it, Seth. I mean, yes, maybe she needs someone to express her magic on, but come on, she didn’t and doesn’t need to treat you like that. If it is true, she takes too much joy doing it, you know?”

“So, what, we sneak off campus? I’m supposed to be doing three-a-days.”

“She wouldn’t disrupt weight-training would she?” Jeff said. “I mean, a joke’s a joke, but come on, she wouldn’t destroy your rep there, right?”

I shook my head full of ebony tresses.

“Good point.”

“What I want,” I said. “Is for her to leave everyone alone. Including me.”

“Buuuut—“ Mitzy said.

“But, if she’s going to pick on someone, I’d rather it be me than anyone else. I can take it; I’m not sure about everyone else.” I touched Mitzy’s nose. “Boop.”

“She needs you to resist, though, right?” Randy said. “What better way to resist than to ignore her completely.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Good point.”

“Yeah, stop cow-towing to her…or, well, wolf-towing…” Mitzy said.

“Hah, hah,” I replied.

“No, seriously. The more she has to seek you out, the more she has to punish you, the more—“

“The more girly you become!” Jeff said a little too loudly.

“Whatever is going on back there, you three need to be silent,” Coach Davis said.

“Sorry, Coach,” I said in response.

I winced as my hair caught in the back of the chair. “Can you at least do something with it?” I whispered to Mitzy. It’s annoying as hell like this.

“Braids or bun?” Mitzy said.

“Braids until I can get it hacked off.”

Mitzy proceeded to fix my hair into a long braided cable. She took out her phone and showed it to me.

I looked at my face…it looked a little…different. “Aw, shit.”

“What?”

I sighed. “No facial hair. By this time, I usually have at least a little scruff.”

“When was the last time you shaved?” Jeff said.

“Last night when I took a shower.”

Both of them ran their hands over my smooth cheeks.

“Hey!”

“Wow, it is smooth,” Mitzy said. “Not even a trace.”

“Maybe she stole all your testosterone!” Jeff said in a harsh whisper.

“I hope not,” I said. “Our first tournament is next week.”

I dug out my phone for the rest of the period and started typing away at the essay I needed to write for first period. Luckily, I knew quite a bit about the Civil War and had a deep understanding of the causes and consequences, so I was able to compare and contrast it fairly easily. I’ve always been a good writer, and the words sprang easily to my mind. I was halfway done when Jeff nudged me.

“Five minutes until the bell rings. What are you going to do?”

I thought about it. Mitzy was right, by ignoring her was the best way to resist her. But at the same time, I really didn’t want this feminization project to progress any further than it already had.

“Fuck,” I said. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to be girlified any more than I already am, but at the same time, I don’t want April to find another target or to magically explode or anything like that.”

“Being a girl isn’t so bad,” Mitzy said. “You might like it.”

“There sure are a lot worse things to be,” Jeff said. “A slug, a bug, a disembodied brain floating on your own tentacles—“

“Hey, don’t give her any ideas!” I said, chuckling. “Point taken.”

“And with the new rules about sports teams, you can still play,” Mitzy said. “I dunno; I think it’d be kinda fun to see how you turn out.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I get your point. Okay. I’m going to officially resist.”

“Yay!” Mitzy said, her eyes dancing a bit. “Can I come watch?”

“Sure.”

At the bell, the three of us walked out the door and moved with the flow toward the cafeteria. I grabbed a sandwich and milk, paid, then went to the weight-room.

Jeff and Mitzy followed after; eyes peeled for April and her entourage.

I ate my sandwich on the way and sucked down the milk, tossing the container into the trash. I was on the mat finishing my stretches when Stephanie Hancock, one of April’s mean girls, came in. Her face screwed up in a grimace at the odor.

“Why aren’t you attending your Mistress, Fool?” she said, her eyes wide with feigned, or maybe not so feigned, shock.

“Tell April she can fuck off,” I said as I loaded 45-pound weights onto each side the straight bar.

“Oh, you’re in for it now, Fool,” she said, stalking off. Her heels clicked purposefully as she left the weight-training room.

“And so it begins,” Jeff said, a grin on his face.

I slid onto the bench and took a grip on the power bar. Jim Swenson, our short-stop, spotted me and came over.

“Reps or strength,” he said.

“Reps.” I began pumping the bar up and down, making sure I got full extension of my muscles, taking it slowly at first. I inhaled and exhaled on each repetition, making sure to oxygenate my muscles thoroughly.

I stopped paying attention to my surroundings and started feeling the strength in my limbs. I loved weight training, testing my limits, getting my muscles to sing. I had a bit better than average strength due to my curse, and I took full benefit of it whenever possible. The physical exertion brought clarity and focus to my mind, and the deep breathing helped to make sure I was in top shape for each repetition of the exercise.

The weight-room was silenced as I continued to work. Jim looked up at something or someone, and I knew April had entered the room. An icy wave swept across us, palpable and thick. I wondered if she did that on purpose or was a side-effect of whatever chaos magic she accessed.

“Fool!” she said in a quiet voice. “What is it you think you are doing?”

I exhaled as I pushed the bar up to the apex. “What does it look like I’m doing, Witch?”

Several of my teammates guffawed at that.

“You agreed to be my fool!” she said, and I could feel her gathering power. I’m not sure why I could feel that. It was a new feeling I’d never had before.

“You will put that bar down and attend me.Now.”

I shook my head. “Guess again!”

The weight bar with two 45-pound weights wrenched itself out of my hands and embedded itself in the ceiling above me.

Where it stuck, unmoving.

That did not bode well.

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