Synopsis

In many ways Tiffany is the newest girl in her small community near Albuquerque, New Mexico. In the whirlwind of the last few weeks she has emerged from the shell of a scared and confused little boy named Brandon. Ever since Tiffany's parents confirmed with her their suspicions of her deepest wants and needs, they've supported her completely. With solid support from her family, her best friend and family and surprisingly, her growing circle of other friends it seems she might have a chance for a successful future.

'Can all this last?' is one of the biggest questions on her mind now. 'Will everyone stick with me when things get tough?' She's had an amazingly easy last couple weeks and she knows it won't last. What will happen when she returns to school? And most importantly, what will her psychiatrist decide? Will her doctor force her to return to living the lie as Brandon? These fears and more whirl in her mind as she looks to an uncertain future.

Daring to Hope is the continuing story of a bright, talented, and beautiful girl, who dares to hope for a future that is one based on happy dreams.

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Viewing Note: This story should be viewed with the Edwardian Script ITC font installed on your Windows platform in the c:/Windows/Fonts directory. Microsoft Word installs this font automatically.

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The Legal Stuff: Daring to Hope  © 2008 By Tiffany Shar

This is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright  © 2008 By Tiffany Shar. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.

Preface

Last month I finally got around to publishing the first book of this trilogy, Standing Up to Life here at BigCloset. I had been delayed in publishing it there while trying to get it also published by Lulu.com. Well it’s taken me a bit longer on this book to get it up here as well, but here it is!

Like the first book I posted here, I am posting a standard copy of this here at BigCloset, and announcing that I have two versions available for purchasing through My Store at Lulu.com. Back by popular demand is the ebook download of the book. My assumption is that the majority of my readers would be most interested in this edition of the book. If you enjoy this work perhaps you will consider supporting me by purchasing it from my store($3.00 for the ebook). I also have a hardback edition that is available, and will work on making a paperback edition available as well here in the coming weeks. With both the paperback and hardback editions I hope to have them available through Amazon.com in a couple months as well, and will offer to have Erin sell it through her Amazon page at that time.

Thank you to all of you, my amazing readers! Your comments have kept me going through some times when I thought I would never be able to write or edit another minute! Speaking of editing, thanks to my amazing editor, Carla Ann, for helping me out with this large work. Now that this project is coming to a close I hope to be able to focus solely on Book 3, and have that ready for you all this summer. Since it is the concluding book of the series I wish to be sure that it’s done right. Thanks again, and I hope you enjoy this book!

-Tiffany Shar

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Chapter 15

"TIFFANY, IT’S TIME to wake up," I felt my dad nudge me gently.

I started a bit before realizing what was going on. I’d just been having a really bad nightmare, even as I was waking up I was forgetting it, but I was sure I had been getting beat to a bloody pulp about the time Dad woke me. I somehow managed to keep from crying as I went and jumped in the shower.

I washed my hair and showered as quickly as I could — I was planning on spending every spare moment on my appearance this morning. I tried not to tremble as I put my earrings in my ears that morning — it wouldn’t do to have to stop my ears from bleeding in addition to getting ready! I felt like I was going to start shaking at any moment if I let myself.

I had thought about wearing a skirt or a dress today, but Amy and Mom both thought it would be better if I wore shorts and a t-shirt like most of the other girls would be wearing. I ended up wearing a striped light blue t-shirt that had shorter sleeves than anything I’d ever worn as a guy. It also covered my stomach, but just barely so, it was a new style that was coming in. I’d heard about it for the first time when we’d been at cheer camp. I then put on a pair of shorts that didn’t even come halfway down to my knees.

I put on a pair of white tennis shoes I had and a pair of blue socks that matched my shirt. I spent the better part of an hour perfecting my hair that morning — I knew if I did it right it would help keep people from recognizing me a little bit longer. I knew it was inevitable… but if I could get through half a day without them figuring it out it would be nice.

I ate a quick breakfast of cereal before hearing Amy’s mom honk outside. She’d offered to take Amy and I to school this year, at least for a bit, the other night. Mom and I had thought it was a great idea — if I didn’t ride the bus I would have one less opportunity for something to go wrong.

I grabbed my purple backpack (which just had my trapper keeper in it) and my saxophone, before I ran outside locking the door behind me. I got into the back seat next to Amy and sat quietly. She put her hand on my shoulder, "You’ll be fine Tiffany," she reassured me.

"Tiffany, your hair looks very nice today," her mom told me.

"Thanks." I said. I couldn’t even bring myself to smile at her compliment. I was terrified.

When we pulled up to the drop off point at our school, Amy and I got out while waving goodbye to her mom. We had purposely timed it so that we got there just a few moments before the bell rang. I had just enough time to take my saxophone into the band hall with Amy before we heard the bell and went to our first class, social studies with Mr. Randolph.

As we took a seat in the classroom in desks next to each other, I looked around to see who else was in our class. I was glad to see that Ashley and Lindsey were in the same class. Kyle walked in a couple minutes late and sat down on the other side of me.

"Some of you I know, some of you I don’t know, so I’m going to go ahead and call everyone’s names. Please say here if you are here," Mr. Randolph told us.

He read through the list of names, when he got to mine he asked, "Tiffany?"

"Here," I was grateful he remembered our arrangement to just call my first name — not my last. The hour passed with me introducing myself to a couple of the kids in there that had known me before — but none of them recognized me. After that class I went to science class, grateful to see that Amy, Nikki, Ashley, Lindsey, Jennifer, Kyle, and David were all in that class.

Mr. Grainger seemed to be a neat teacher that also remembered to not use my last name when he called attendance. Of course, half of this class knew who I was, but everyone was friendly. I found myself making friends with several other kids that I had never really had a chance to get to know before. All of us were hyper and giggly at first, but as the day went on and we heard more and more of the rules over and over again we grew kind of restless.

In choir I discovered there were only fifteen of us in the class. Apparently most of the other kids had quit rather than have to deal with Mrs. Schultz again. Amy and Lindsey were the only two that I really knew since we were in the advanced group that was made up more of eighth graders than seventh graders. Amy introduced me to the cheerleading captain, Kristina, who was also in that class. When she told her that I had gone to the same cheer camp with her this summer she seemed very jealous about it.

"Wait a second! You’re the one that got to get tossed by the college guys?" She asked.

"Yeah, it was fun and terrifying all at the same time," I answered with a giggle.

"I can only imagine. Amy said you were sent a good fifteen feet in the air above the guys."

"I don’t know if it was quite that far, but I’m certainly glad they caught me!"

The three of us began talking with Lindsey about different cheerleading stuff up until our new choir teacher, Mrs. Beecher, began talking. She introduced herself, went over the same boring expectations, but then became one of the first teachers to actually do something that day when she at least ran us through some vocal warm-ups. She actually had some fun ones that we hadn’t done before.

Amy, Lindsey, and I were all in the same Algebra class with David, Kyle, Ashley, and Nikki. I could really see that the vice principal had played a lot with the schedules. I had many of the same classes with everyone that knew already. There were a couple of others from the trip in this class too.

Mr. Martin was the most boring of all of the teachers so far. He even had the nerve to give us a test on the first day back! I used to think of him as a nice teacher… I guess he still was, but come on! A test the first day?!?

After that we walked as a group down to the cafeteria to eat lunch. Amy introduced me to a bunch of the eighth grade cheerleaders that were at lunch and asked to sit with us. I was really amazed that they would be willing to let an outsider sit with them. Kristina was one of the eighth graders that joined us and I found myself really enjoying the conversation I was having with them.

After lunch I went to my home ec class, where Amy was the only one in there that I knew. "Amy are you alright with having basically every class with me?" I asked her quietly in the hallway before going in. Mrs. Henry had changed her schedule so that she had everything but band with me now.

"Of course Tiff. Why wouldn’t I be?"

"I don’t know, I just keep expecting you to get tired of hanging out with me…" I told her.

"Stop worrying Tiff," she told me.

Home Ec was going to be a different class. I was certain of that. Mrs. Holt discussed how we were going to be learning about cooking, sewing, finances, and child care this year. Child care? That part was not something I really wanted to look forward to. I’d heard that they made you carry around these little dolls everywhere you went for a weekend. They would cry incredibly frequently and you were lucky if you could get sleep at night. Not to mention they kept track of whether or not you changed them and fed them, and for all of that you got a grade.

At least the rest of it sounded useful though… I also noticed that there were a lot of ‘unintelligent’ kids in this class. I would say half of the students were in a gang of some sort — ‘maybe we should have taken a different class,’ I thought to myself.

It was another class that took place without incident though, and I began to feel more confident that I might be able to make it through the day without having anything go wrong. Sixth hour came quickly and I found myself in one of the most ideal classes for English. Right off the bat I discovered that Ms. Damien was a really neat teacher. She was a huge improvement over Mr. Tamera, who I’d had last year, just in the fact she spoke English!

All of the students that went on the trip were in this class. Unfortunately that included Jarred. Midway through the class I saw him looking up with a group that had five people who hadn’t been on the trip. He pointed to me and I saw people shake their heads in disbelief. Was he outing me? Out of all of the guys he had been the one I was most worried about. I looked at Amy next to me and whispered to her what I suspected, but it didn’t take him long to take care of confirming my suspicions.

"Yeah, that ‘girl’ over there isn’t really a girl guys. She’s really that freak Brandon." He started to say at the top of his lungs before Ms. Damien told him to join her outside in the hallway.

I was dead. People knew now.

Kyle wasn’t going to have any of that though, he walked over to the group that Jarred had talked to. He said something to them, I wasn’t sure what, but they all kind of nodded their heads and looked a bit scared. Not as scared as when Jarred walked back in though — I don’t know what Ms. Damien had told him, but he was on his best behavior through the rest of the class period.

Kyle walked with me to band, along with Nikki, and I took my seat in the saxophone section. Mrs. Remar said to get our horns out and so I warmed up — glad I had spent a bit of time recently practicing. I watched some of the other players try and play — they seemed to be in a lot of pain.

While we were warming up I heard some whispers from behind me and knew that the jig was definitely up now. Word had made it around quickly — likely to the whole school by now. One of the girls that I didn’t really know that well stood up from the clarinet section, walked over to me and asked, "Tiffany is it true?"

"Is what true?" I asked trying to play dumb.

"That you’re really Brandon?"

Yep the cat was out of the bag and on a rampage… "I’m not anymore, I’m Tiffany now." I told her firmly yet softly.

She looked confused, but nodded, "okay, you’ll have to explain that to me sometime. You do understand this is really weird right?"

"Maybe, to others. But I am who I am, and I know who that is now." I told her. She appeared to chew that over as Mrs. Remar told everyone to sit down and began warming us up as a group.

The sounds we made that day as a group were terrible! She berated everyone and told them all to go home and practice that night. She didn’t want that sound to ever happen again.

As I was getting ready to leave class Mrs. Remar asked, "Tiffany can you come here for a moment please?"

"Sure," I replied.

I went into her office and she closed the door. "How are things going so far today?" She asked me.

"I suppose they could be going worse," I started off, "No one had figured it out until one of the guys that I didn’t trust from the trip told people about me last hour. Up until then the day had been going perfect. I’m sure tomorrow will be bad though."

"Keep your chin up Tiffany, things’ll work out. I think you’re very brave to be true to yourself like this."

"Thanks."

"Nice job today, I’m glad to hear that at least one person practiced this summer," she told me as I left her class. That last comment kind of made me smile again as I walked out.

At that point I realized that I needed to go back to my locker really quick to grab something I’d left there earlier. As I approached it I felt a hand push me against the locker. I spun around and saw it was Lucas, a kid I’d had problems with the previous year. I turned back around and began opening the locker, grabbing what I needed.

"So not only were you a wuss last year, but, you really are a fag like I thought," he told me. It was just like a situation I’d run through several times with Dr. Reynolds.

"Get lost Lucas, you’re just mad there’s one more girl in school that wouldn’t go out with you even if you were the last guy on earth." I said smartly to him with a smile on my face. I watched his face go ashen, go into shock, and turned around before he could respond to anything. I began walking down the hallway when I heard running steps towards me. He came up in front of me, and I saw a fist fly towards me.

"How dare you fa…" he started to say before I saw a hand catch his hand in mid-air. In the blink of an eye he was on the ground with his arm pinned behind his back.

David looked at him and said, "You will leave Tiffany alone, you will not call her names, and you will certainly not attack her again."

"Or else?" He sneered trying to maintain his tough guy image, even though he was lying on his face in the hall looking like a frightened little baby.

"Or else me, and several other football players are going to be paying you a house call. Do you understand? Tiffany is under our protection, and you’ll pay dearly for not remembering that," Kyle said from behind him.

David released him and Lucas scampered down the hallway like the rat he was. "Thanks, that was a little scary" I said to both of them.

"You’re welcome Tiffany, you’d better hurry or you’ll miss your bus." David told me. I hurried off down the hallway and out to the bus stop. I made it onto the bus just as she was closing the doors.

I ended up sitting down right behind the driver as that was the only seat left that I could see. "You must be Tiffany?" the driver asked.

"Yes ma’am." I told her.

She handed me a card and said, "Would you please fill this out with your information?"

"Okay," I replied. I filled it out and gave it to her when we got to my bus stop.

As I got off at that bus stop I heard, "Hey Tiffany," I turned around and saw a new sixth grade girl that lived just down the street from me.

"Hey," I said politely. She began walking with me down the block towards our houses.

"Is it true?" She asked.

"Is what true?" I asked. I wasn’t trying to play dumb… but I didn’t really want to spread things farther than they already had.

"You know…"

Oh well, so much for damage control. "That I used to be Brandon?" I asked her.

She nodded.

"Yeah, I used to be, but I’m not anymore."

"How did this all happen?" She asked me.

She was being nice enough to me, ‘the least I could do was be civil about it and explain some of it,’ I thought. I began explaining things as we walked down the block. We ended up sitting outside my house for a half-hour or so talking and after all was said and done she told me, "Tiffany, this is really strange… But you make a really pretty girl, and I’m okay with this. I doubt many others are going to be though." She told me

"Well, we’ll see how much David’s threat against Lucas holds them back," I told her.

We parted and I went inside to collapse into a blob on the couch. I had made it through one day… but it was going to probably have been the easiest day since kids hadn’t known the whole day. I ended up crying just because of all of the pent up stress before falling asleep in a ball.

Chapter 16

THE NEXT THING I knew, Mom was opening the door as she came home. "Tiffany, are you awake?" She asked me. I could see she was really worried about me when she saw the condition I was in.

"Uh-huh, I guess," I said nodding my head as she sat down next to me.

"How did things go?"

"Well, they were going perfect — probably too perfect — until sixth hour when Jarred decided to tell everyone who I used to be. By the time I got to band everyone was talking about it. No one was sure what to make of it though, so I only had one girl in that class come up and ask me if it was true. She couldn’t believe it of course. At least she didn’t freak out on me."

I sniffled before continuing, "After class Mrs. Remar pulled me into her office for a few minutes to talk to me — she wanted to see how my day had been. That was an okay time until I got to my locker to pick up some stuff I’d left in there. Lucas came up to me and grabbed my shoulder to turn me around and called me a bad name. I got my stuff out of my locker and told him ‘you’re just mad there’s another girl in the school who can’t stand you,’ or something like that, and walked away."

"How’d he react to that?" Mom asked.

"Well he was pretty shocked. It took him a few moments to even get the insult — that was enough time that I started heading for my bus. He jumped in front of me and started to try to hit me when David got there and stopped him."

"Good for him, what happened?"

"Well he and Kyle threatened that they and the other football players would make a house call if they needed to… I’m so glad that they’re my friend’s Mom, but I can’t for the life of me understand why they are."

"I think it’s because they understand what an incredible girl you are Tiffany — and I think you can trust them." She gave me a hug.

"Other than that things went okay?"

"Yeah, Katrina, the captain of the cheer squad sat with Amy and me at lunch. She and I hit it off really well… I’m sure that’ll be over tomorrow though. It can’t be cool to hang out with the freak…" I said with tears coming out of my eyes.

"Sweetie, it’ll work out. I promise you things’ll eventually work out." About that time the phone rang.

Mom got up to get it and told me it was Amy.

"Hey," I said to her in a fairly lifeless voice.

"Are you alright?" She asked me.

"I guess. You must have heard about after school?" I asked.

"Yeah, Katrina saw it and told me about it."

"So she must be appalled that she sat with me today huh?" I asked.

"No, actually she was incredibly cool about it when I talked to her." She replied.

"Really?"

"Yeah. When we were changing into our workout clothes a lot of the girls were talking about Kyle and David sticking up for you — and since they know that you and I are best friends they started asking questions."

"Like what?"

"Well, I’m not going to go into detail — some of them were pretty stupid and I don’t want to upset you — but after all was said and done I think most of them respect your courage to do this."

"You’re kidding right?" I wondered if this wasn’t some massive setup for horror to come.

"No, especially Katrina was talking about how they want to make sure you get a chance to prove yourself as the girl you are — not as the boy that came to school before."

I was flabbergasted. "Not all of them thought that… right?"

"No. I won’t lie to you. We have fourteen girls on the squad, seven of us — including Katrina and Lindsey and me — are going to be standing right behind you, three of them are okay with it — they think it’s weird but aren’t going to make fun of you for it, but then there are the other four. I don’t think they’ll go out of their way to be mean to you — but I think they could cause some trouble especially when it comes time for tryouts next month. But Tiffany, three of those four are terrible and you’re sure to beat them!"

"Well ten out of fourteen isn’t bad." I told her

"No Tiffany, it’s not. So other than that did anything else happen after sixth hour?"

We talked for a good twenty minutes before Mom made me hang up so we could eat dinner. I had to recant everything for my Dad that night and Mom reminded me that Dr. Reynolds wanted me writing all of this in my diary. Of course that was in addition to practicing my instrument, doing some stupid homework some teachers had already assigned… and oh yeah I had to sleep too…

After a quick dinner, I decided to begin with practicing. We didn’t have much from school to work on, so I worked on some stuff that my private teacher had me working on. It was an etude that had a lot of fast sixteenth notes in it, and I’d been fighting with it for a week or so. After about an hour though I didn’t really have any desire to keep practicing — I was still completely frazzled and nervous about tomorrow and it was just too hard to concentrate.

Following that I flew through the homework that I had — thankfully it was just some stupid stuff that was easy to do. Then I had to do the task that I really didn’t want to do. Dr. Reynolds had asked me to start doing a diary a few weeks back but I hadn’t really started. That had caused Mom to begin riding my case and I promised that I would actually start doing it today… She told me if I didn’t I wasn’t going to be allowed to go to Amy’s. Talk about hitting below the belt!

I sat down and started writing about everything that had happened during the day. As Dr. Reynolds had asked, I described how I felt about everything as it happened — scared senseless covered most of it. I worked on it diligently until I had reached talking to Amy after school. At that point I looked up at my clock and saw it was already 8:30pm. My parents always wanted me in bed by 9 last year. I wondered if I could bargain for a later bed time this year…

I walked out to the living room, "Mommy?"

"Uh-oh… What do you want sweetie?" Mom asked. Was I that transparent? Okay, yeah maybe I was.

"I was wondering if I could stay up later this year — maybe till Ten?"

"I don’t know sweetie, you have a hard enough time getting out of bed in the mornings as it is."

"Please? Can we at least try it? I haven’t had any time to do anything fun tonight so far."

"Did you do your diary entry for Dr. Reynolds?"

"Yes, I worked on it for more than an hour."

"I dunno, I suppose we can try it — but if you start showing signs of not handling it I’ll move it back to nine. I want you in your pajamas and ready for bed by nine though, okay?"

I gave her a hug, "Thanks Mommy!"

She hugged me back, "what’s the chance you could call me Mommy sometimes when you don’t just want something?"

I just smiled back at her and went back to my room to change into my pajamas. As I left the room I turned to her and said dramatically, "You should know by now Mommy that I ALWAYS want SOMEthing!" I tossed my hair up and down as she smiled at me. Then I went into the bathroom and took care of the essentials of brushing my teeth and washing my face. I grabbed a teddy bear and sat down on the couch in the living room to watch TV with Mom. We watched something worthless until she told me I needed to go to bed.

As I went to my room with my teddy bear, turned off the lights, and lay down to go to sleep, I found that my thoughts of tomorrow completely overwhelmed me. What was going to happen? EVERYONE knew now. I just knew that as soon as I pulled up in front of the school tomorrow there were going to be two reactions.

The first would be all of the kids staring and talking about me, but they wouldn’t acknowledge me. They’d be staring at me just like some sort of kid that had been severely scarred in a horrible accident. When I looked at them they would turn away as if they hadn’t been looking — but we both would know that they had. If I spoke to them they would act like I didn’t even exist.

With the other group they would walk by me and taunt me. Some would be just as simple as whispering things like ‘freak,’ or ‘fag,’ or worse… but they wouldn’t say it loudly enough for a teacher to hear. They’d snicker as they passed by me or maybe purposefully run their shoulder into me to try and knock me over. Of course some of them would be like Lucas yesterday, and actually be obnoxious enough to make a scene if they thought they were safe.

At least with the first group I knew I wouldn’t be harmed physically. Psychologically was a whole other story…

Tomorrow was going to be hell.

With that thought I began crying softly… Then not so softly…

Mom came into my room without saying anything. She just held me while quietly stroking my hair. I clung to her for a long while that night before I must have finally gone to sleep.

Chapter 17

AMY AND I stepped out of her mom’s car and out to destiny. I’d done everything I could to delay stepping out of the car, but Amy had persuaded me to go ahead. When I stepped out of the car I swear all of the eyes that were near us went straight to me. ‘Straight to the freak,’ I thought.

Amy and I walked together to put my instrument in the band hall, and then stood by the door to wait to go into our class. As we stood there I felt someone come up from behind me. ‘Great, it starts,’ I thought to myself.

I decided to turn around just to see what threat was behind me.

"Hey Tiffany, how are you doing?" Kyle said as I looked at him.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief, after yesterday I knew I could trust him, "Better now that I know it was you behind me." I said with a tense smile. I felt a little bit of the tension in my body leave with him standing next to me.

"Don’t worry, we’ve got your back today."

"I appreciate that," I told him as the bell rang.

As we entered the door to go into the hallway I felt like I was an important person with bodyguards. Behind me Kyle was joined by David, and although people stared at me in the hallway, no one seemed to be willing to say anything with them next to me. Who would have thought I’d be able to make it to my first hour safely?

As I sat down in my chair a kid leaned up from the desk behind me. "Why’d you come to school today freak?"

I just ignored him. What else could I do? In the mean time I saw another girl come over to me. "Is it true that you’re really Brandon?"

"No, I’m not Brandon anymore."

"But you used to be right?"

"I guess. I finally got tired of pretending I was him." I told her.

She just stood there with her mouth kind of open, before saying, "oh," and going back to her desk.

When I was guessing the types from earlier I had clearly forgot there would be some kids that would be in denial that I was who everyone said I was. That’s okay, that’s better than the kid behind me. I finally looked back and saw that it was a kid named Markus, he was a wannabe cool kid, but apparently thought he was cool enough to make fun of me.

As we went through the class I felt my desk get kicked over and over again by him. He did some other things throughout the class trying to get to me but I managed to tune him out. At one point I think Kyle figured out what he was doing, because he looked over my way — then back behind me, and the kicking stopped.

All in all, except for being a pointless class of coloring maps, I survived the hour without further incident. As I walked from that class to Science I remained in a nice sandwich between Amy, Lindsey, Ashley, and Kyle. The five of us actually managed to have a fairly normal conversation as we went through the hallway.

"So how about being in Mr. Randolph’s class again…?" Kyle asked me.

"It’s just loads of fun. I so look forward to another year of being educated by ‘America’s Funniest Home Videos.’"

"Watching someone getting kicked in various places ‘is’ educational right?" Lindsey asked.

"Sure!" Amy said. "It’s great ammunition for when you see Jarred running his mouth everywhere," she said. You know how making a girl mad can be a really bad thing? I don’t think Jarred even began to know of Amy’s anger…

"So what all did you do this summer after the trip?" Lindsey asked me.

"Well I went with Amy to that cheer camp," I told her. She’d been there yesterday when we’d talked about it, "Then I mainly dealt with stuff and did some shopping with my mom. Other than that I was at Amy’s house, or she was at mine, most of the time."

"That’s cool," she said as we rounded the corner to a hallway that led to a side area of the school that had our science class in it.

"What did you do?" I asked her.

"Well we had the team camp that we went to. That was a lot of fun — we’ve got to get you on the squad, I think you’d have a blast. My family also went to Texas to see some family in San Antonio. It was really hot down there! I didn’t do a lot beyond that though," she told me.

As we entered the class some of the students in my class shot me glares, some stared, some looked frightened, and some looked curious. Honestly the last group didn’t scare me — they were probably the most likely to be able to deal with this. The first were the ones that really made me nervous. Who knew what they were capable of doing?

That day Mr. Grainger assigned seating by last name, and I ended up by a couple of the kids I didn’t really know. One of them, a girl named Janica, leaned over and asked, "Have you heard about the strange rumor about you? A bunch of people seem to think that you’re really a boy. Can you imagine that?"

I couldn’t trust myself to speak… so I just smiled and shook my head. She was the resident airhead of the school.

"But it’s true though right?" A boy next to me, Paul, asked.

"Yeah, I guess it kind of is," I told them.

"You’re kidding?!?" the girl asked.

"I wished I was," I told her honestly. I wanted to ask her, ‘so are you going to just treat me like a freak, be a friend, or be an enemy?’ But of course you can’t ask something like that.

"But people like that go to hell…" She sort of trailed off into space. I realized that she wasn’t meaning to insult me — that was just what her parents had always said.

"Well, the way I’ve been taught one sin is as bad as the other, so this really wouldn’t be any worse than calling someone a name," I told her.

She seemed to think for a moment, "Well, I won’t hate you if that’s what you’re worried about. I can’t say that my parents would approve of me hanging out with you… but I don’t care."

I was truly amazed — someone who could think on their own.

Paul however opened his mouth, "Well I won’t be hanging out with a homo like you at any point. I can’t believe the school would even allow you to come to school like that."

At that point Kyle, who was sitting in the seat behind him leaned forward and said something to him. I watched his face turn pink, then red, then purple in quick succession. I’d have to ask him what he said later. After that Paul didn’t really speak at all in class again that day.

If you can believe it, all of that took place before Mr. Grainger finished handing out textbooks! He got up in front of the class and said, "Okay now that you have your textbooks please open them up to page…" We read through the introduction at the front of the book as a class. Everyone ended up reading a section of the text.

After that he told us he expected us to have read through the first chapter by the next week. He was a strong believer in us doing work on our own. At least we weren’t supposed to have vocab notebooks this year! This year we had an ‘earth science’ class. It seemed like it would be somewhat interesting… but I definitely thought biology last year was more fun than this would be. With biology there were lots of labs to do, dissections and such — it didn’t sound like we would be doing that as much with this class.

Class ended fairly quickly and Amy and I went to choir. The new choir teacher continued to impress us as a teacher — she was definitely way better than Schultz. Ms. Beecher seated us all by voice types that day and once again I found myself seated with the sopranos. At least this time as a girl that seemed more acceptable. Amy and Kristina were also both put in the soprano group with me.

That day we started learning ‘The Water is Wide,’ a song that Amy and I thought was really pretty. About three minutes before we were to be let out of class one of the secretaries called over the intercom asking for Amy to go to the office.

"It must be my lunch money," she said to me on her way out, "I forgot it on the kitchen table."

She left and I found myself alone for the first time in a day-and-a-half. Amazingly as we were leaving I heard, "Hey Tiffany!"

I turned around and saw it was Kristina. "Hey, what’s up?" I asked her.

"Is it true?"

"Yeah," I knew what she was talking about.

"Wow, that’s crazy..."

"Yeah, it kind of is…" I braced myself for awkward silence or something.

"Well, anyway I think you’re a really cool girl. Don’t let anyone get you down about this."

"You’re cool with it?"

"Sure. From everything that Amy’s told me about you from the camp I absolutely want to get to know you. Several of the other seventh grade girls have said some really good things about you too. I really hope you try out for the dance squad that Mrs. Holt is putting together in September. I don’t care whether or not you were originally a boy, when I met you yesterday you were definitely a girl."

"Thanks Kristina," I said as I began walking towards my next class. I was feeling really good at this point. I had never expected to do this well with people, maybe there was hope for my year to go really well.

Suddenly I found myself grabbed and shoved into a side hallway that few students ever went down. I tried to keep my wits about me long enough to figure out who had shoved me, but I was in shock at the surprise of it.

As I turned around I heard "Well, well, well, if it isn’t our resident tranny," from Jarred.

I also looked to see Lucas had joined him for this. "Yeah, I always thought it was a little fag, but I really didn’t think it would show it this much."

"All I know is my parents aren’t going to stand for a freak like you being in this school. They don’t want me to catch whatever diseases you have." Jarred sneered.

"Yeah, it’s probably already got AIDS or something…" Lucas looked absolutely disgusted.

"All I know is my parents are going to the school board to get you kicked out of here! Imagine if they let you in here what else they’d let in. Well my parents’ll get you out of here, mark my word, or you’ll be back in boys clothes. When they found out that you’d been allowed to dress like this the last part of the trip they flipped." He paused, "With any luck Mrs. Manning and Ms. Fitz’ll be canned after this too!"

I was shoved against a wall by Jarred now while Lucas said, "Well if you really want to be a girl that much perhaps we can arrange for it…" I honestly had no idea what he had in mind, but I knew that this was getting out of hand quickly. Dr. Reynolds had drilled this kind of situation into me so many times over the past few weeks I just reacted.

"You would like that wouldn’t you Lucas? There’s not a single girl that wants to go out with losers like you two, and you know what?" I paused, "You’re going to have to hope there’s another girl that wants to — because I’m certainly not going to." I kneed Jarred in the groin, twisted and ducked underneath Lucas’s arms and managed to get away from them. As I twisted away I left some scratches on his arm from my nails. I ran down the hallway as quickly as I could, crying all the way.

What else could I do? I was so upset I couldn’t make it to my next class. Instead I sat down on the landing of a flight of stairs. I curled up with my arms around my legs… It was only the second day and the first time I was alone I had been assaulted… To make it worse the possibility of them making me leave the school, or have to come back as Brandon frightened me to no end.

‘I’m not Brandon! I don’t think I ever was! Why couldn’t they just let me be? I wasn’t hurting them. I wasn’t hurting ANYONE!’

I don’t know how long I sat there before I felt a hand on my shoulder. I didn’t even have the energy to jump or run away at this point. ‘I might as well let them pound me into a pulp,’ I thought.

"Tiffany?"

I didn’t want to look up, it would probably be another bully out to get me.

"Tiffany, are you alright? Class started ten minutes ago."

I looked up and sniffled, it was Kyle. I shook my head, I definitely wasn’t okay.

"Come on, Mr. Martin sent Amy, David, Ashley, and I to look for you. Everyone’s worried about you." He offered me a hand to help get up.

I just looked dumbly at it for a moment before taking it. He led me back to the outside of my math class where he got Mr. Martins attention. I was just staring off into space down the hallway. He must have told Kyle to walk with me down to the office. About that time Amy and Ashley returned running up to me to hug me. They said a lot of things to me, but I really don’t remember any of it.

I knew it was going to be bad — I knew the risks coming in — but I just… Why?

"Tiffany, are you alright?" I looked up and found myself in Mrs. Henry’s office.

I managed to bring myself to wipe the tears from my eyes with my palms. ‘Tiffany, you have to get yourself together,’ I told myself.

"Not really…" I trailed off.

"What happened?" She asked me.

"What good will it do to tell you? Nothing’ll happen to them…" I started to say.

"Tiffany, that’s absolutely not true! Tell me what happened."

I looked at her and decided it couldn’t really do any harm right? "I was coming to this class just enjoying the fact that Kristina didn’t hate me now that she knew about me. As I was walking down the hallway I was dragged down another hallway I never go down, I think the special ed classroom is down it."

"When I had a chance to turn around I saw that it was Jarred and Lucas that were dragging me down the hallway. Jarred then called me a ‘tranny,’ and they took turns shoving me up against the wall. Lucas called me a ‘fag’ somewhere in this. Jarred then… Jarred said his parents were going to go to the school board to get me kicked out… or make me… make me come… make me come as Brandon." I really lost it at that point.

She handed me a Kleenex at this point, and I think I may have seen a bit of compassion in her eyes. After a couple minutes I settled down a bit, and she asked "What happened next?

"Lucas finally said something about, ‘if I wanted to be a girl — he could arrange for it.’ My doctor and I have talked about violence against other girls like me — I became really scared then. I managed to make a comeback against him about ‘them just being mad because all the other girls wouldn’t go out with them, and sorry to tell them I wouldn’t either.’ I kneed Jarred and managed to just twist away at that point and run away. I think I scratched one of them while I was trying to escape."

"Is that all that happened?" She asked me.

I started bawling again at this point, "yes ma’am." I couldn’t believe that she asked if that was ‘all that happened?’

IT WAS A long time before I managed to regain some semblance of control. When I did I found Amy was giving me a hug and my mom was walking in the door. Mom came up to me and took over for Amy.

Are you alright sweetie?"

"No… not…really." I told her.

She hugged me for a long moment before I could finish, then heard Mrs. Hinther say, "Would you please come into the conference room?"

"Hold on a few moments," my mom said. "I’d like to take Tiffany to the restroom to give her a chance to wash her face off."

"Well… we really don’t have all of our day at your disposal…" she began to tell my mom.

My mom stood up and said to her, "You WILL have all the time we need. If you don’t I guarantee you that there will be a lawsuit filed against you and this school by the end of today. Do you understand?" She did so with a low voice that dripped with venom.

Mrs. Hinther realized she was in a bad situation and directed her to take me down the hall to a faculty restroom that I had been using. I finally managed to regain some control of myself as I splashed warm water on my face. I spent several long moments sitting there doing that before I wiped it off with a paper towel. Mom produced a hair brush from somewhere and brushed it back to the point that it looked mostly normal. I still looked like a wreck.

She walked back with me to the office. As we began to enter the conference room I heard a voice say, "sorry it took me so long to get down here, I was finishing up in court with something." I turned around and saw Mr. Hancock standing there.

"Hi Tiffany," he told me.

I couldn’t believe he came down here on what must have been incredibly short notice, "Thanks for coming…" I said, trying not to start crying again. I knew with him present I would have a strong advocate.

As we walked in with him present Mrs. Hinther said, "Excuse me, he’s not a guardian and will not be allowed in this meeting…"

"Is that so?" He asked her. "Well then you’d better go ahead and let Mr. Jameson know that there will be a suit placed against the district by the end of the day."

I think she was surprised that he was going on the same line as Mom. "On what grounds?"

"Well first of all you’re not allowing a parent to have legal counsel with her when her daughter has been attacked at school. I might begin to believe that you condone the actions of the two students and wish to be lumped in with them."

"You can’t pull this. Mrs. Harris would you please call the police to have Mr. Hancock removed from the campus!"

"Mrs. Hinther, may I speak with you for a moment?" Another voice asked from the office. I wasn’t sure who it was, but it sounded familiar. Really all of this was just a fog around me — I wasn’t that coherent.

I know this incident doesn’t seem like that serious… I mean after all every student has been attacked in this manner at some point right? I certainly had more physical harm done to me last year at times. For me this was an event that was everything I’d feared might happen to me. Being attacked, called names, and threatened with some sort of sexual assault. It was eating at the very core of a fragile feeling of security that had formed since coming back to school yesterday. Well, not really eating, it had bashed and shattered that feeling. The worst part was now I had to deal with the mess that it already seemed to be causing.

"Mr. Hancock, I’m sorry for overreacting, you may stay for this meeting." Mrs. Hinther came back in and said.

I was taken aback by her change in attitude this quickly, but a second later saw who was responsible — Mr. Jameson, the Superintendent, had come to the school.

He joined my mom, Mr. Hancock, Mrs. Hinther, Mrs. Henry, and me at the table. "Okay, so what happened here today?" Mr. Hancock asked me after starting a tape recorder.

I managed to relate the events and what happened as calmly as I could… I only sniffled and had some tears go down my face — I managed not to outright bawl. I think I was pretty cried out at this point.

When I finished Mrs. Hinther responded, "Clearly I believe that this is a sign that this arrangement isn’t going to work. I believe we need to move Tiffany to a separate educational unit for…"

"Excuse me Mrs. Hinther, but that is completely unacceptable to my clients," Mr. Hancock started. "As we have previously discussed with you, all students must be in the ‘least restrictive environment.’ To place Tiffany in that situation would not follow the law. Tiffany’s grades are in the top three percent of her class. She has plenty of friends and relationships — proving that she can handle herself in the general population. Do you have some reason why she shouldn’t be in this population?"

"Well clearly h…she cannot be trusted to be in with other students. It’s only the second day and she has started a fight."

"Excuse me?" My mom and Mrs. Henry both asked.

My mom seemed surprised by Mrs. Henry asking the same question. Mrs. Henry also seemed equally surprised that she had let herself lose control.

"Mrs. Henry, Mrs. Hinther, may I see you in one of your offices?" Mr. Jameson asked calmly.

When they had left I asked mom, "How did he get here for this?"

Mr. Hancock answered though, "I called Robert as soon as your mom called me. I told him I had a feeling it would be in the district’s best interest to attend this meeting. He agreed."

"Why are they accusing me of starting the fight?" I asked Mr. Hancock.

"I think Mrs. Hinther is trying to drum up a charge to get you out of this school." He responded.

"Will they be able to do anything to Tiffany?" Mom asked him.

"I doubt it. It’s a good thing you called me though, I don’t like where this could go. We’ll see what their story is when they get back here."

We didn’t have to wait long, Mr. Jameson entered behind Mrs. Hinther and Mrs. Henry. As Mrs. Hinther sat down she looked at me and said, "Tiffany you have my apologies, I was out of line."

Mr. Jameson then spoke, "I assure you that there will be no action taken against Tiffany for this incident. We obviously cannot, and will not, discuss actions against other students due to privacy concerns, but I will assure you they will be punished."

"And the concerns, that were raised by Mrs. Hinther, about segregating Tiffany from the population?"

"That would be a foolish thing that will not be done while I’m superintendent. We have spoken and Tiffany will be treated with respect," I saw him give a glare towards Mrs Hinther, "and allowed to proceed through her education without interference. Everything will be done to maintain a safe environment for her — including punishment for anyone that attacks her."

"We would like to file a formal complaint against the students with the police in regards to this incident," Mr. Hancock told him.

"I can fully understand that, ‘Mrs. Hinther would you please call the school’s resource officer to the office?’" Mr. Jameson ordered.

I could tell she was in deep trouble with him as she walked away with her shoulders slumped down.

Discussions continued, statements were given to the resource officer, and they eventually noted that it was time for my lunch. Mr. Hancock stepped out to talk to the secretary for a few moments and then came back in. "Do you have what you need?" he asked the resource officer.

"I do, I don’t know what all we’ll be able to do at this point — this is going to probably need to be handled at the school level for this incident. We have it on paper though for now and we will have it for any further incidents."

"There’d better be more than enough deterrent to prevent that," my mom said to the principals.

"I assure you things will be taken care of," Mrs. Henry told us.

"Very well then." Mr. Hancock said while standing up. He led Mom and I out to the office.

"Would you two like to join Amy and I for lunch?" He asked Mom and I.

"Sure," Mom said. "Let me just check Tiffany out, hasn’t Amy eaten already?"

"I sent for her a little bit ago, we’ll bring them back after lunch."

We left for a brief lunch to a nearby Chinese restaurant. After eating off the buffet and having a chance to chat with Amy, being reassured by her that I would be okay to return to classes, I managed to gather enough courage to go back to school.

After all was said and done we returned to school in time to go to English. Kyle, David, Lindsey, Ashley, Nikki, etc. all completely surrounded me making sure I was okay. They were all concerned by what had happened. It was interesting — everyone except Jarred from the trip was sticking by me so far… who would have thought anyone, let alone a large group would stand behind me?

There were more threats issued towards Jarred and Lucas than I cared to catalog, and I somehow knew that I should have a while without problems from them. Jarred wasn’t in class — apparently the administration was following through with their promise to take care of things. I was afraid of what he was going to do to me to get even now though.

English proceeded that day with us getting textbooks. I had apparently missed a couple earlier from other classes. I’d get them tomorrow — I didn’t really care at this point. As I went through my last class, band, my friends never left my side. I arrived home without further incident that day.

Chapter 18

AS SOON AS I got home that day I had to quickly get ready to go to a dance class that I was starting. It looked like I was going to be having a very busy time during my weeks this school year. Mom had signed me up for two nights of dance classes, a night of gymnastics, a night of Tae Kwon Do, and my sax lessons doubling on the night of Tae Kwon Do. Of course, this was because I asked her to.

Prior to the film money my parents might have been able to afford one of those… but certainly not all four. It was definitely more than any one kid should do… but I had reasons for everything. Of the two nights of dance class one was a traditional ballet class and the other was a "cheer" dance class. The studio had enough girls interested in improving their chances to make the elite dance team at our high school that they could fill a class for that.

After this summer I really wanted to become a cheerleader, and possibly even get on the dance team I now knew they were putting together this fall. I figured both classes would give me a much better shot at achieving that goal. The gymnastics lessons were going to be one-on-one with an instructor to help me with that goal as well. And of course I didn’t really have a choice on the Tae Kwon Do lessons… they were a good idea and my parents were making me take them.

Mom came home at 4:30, fed me, and got me to the dance studio by 5. There were nine other girls in the dance class — all beginners like me — and I found myself having a great time throughout the class. Actually, because of the summer camp I felt like I was a bit better off than everyone else. I had a lot of fun, but it certainly was a lot of work.

All of the girls in the class were from other schools; none of them knew that I wasn’t physically a girl — and I did everything I could to keep it that way. We all talked a little bit as we finished up — but overall there hadn’t been a lot of time to get to know anyone. Just before we left the instructor came up to Mom and I, "I just wanted to tell you Tiffany that since you’ve done this stuff before maybe you should be in the level two class we offer."

"Done this before?" I asked.

"Surely you’ve done this before? You were doing so well with everything. I mean it’s clear that you haven’t done more than a year of training, but you’ve obviously had a very good year of training before."

I looked at her with a stunned expression on my face, "Umm… I’ve never done any of this before coming to class today," I told her.

"Any of it?" She asked incredulously.

"No, I went to a cheer camp this summer but that’s it. Never anything with ballet." I told her.

Mom piped in at this point, "Why don’t we go through another week of class, and if you still feel like Tiffany should move up we can think about it then?"

"That sounds fair enough. I’m thoroughly impressed Tiffany, you could do very well if you continue in this," she told me with a pat on the back.

"Thanks Mrs. Tyler," I told her as we left.

I was beaming by the time we were on our way home from that. During the time I had been in the dance class I’d managed to forget about everything that had happened that day. Maybe, given enough time, I would be able to have experiences like I’d had that night and at cheer camp — where no one knew that I was different from everyone else.

I worked on some homework for awhile until I got a phone call from Amy.

"Hey Tiffany, how are you doing?" She asked me.

"Actually I’m doing okay right now I guess." I told her.

"How was ballet?" She asked me.

"It was a lot of fun — I actually had the teacher fooled into thinking I’d studied for a year already."

"How’d you do that?"

"I’m not really sure. I guess I was picking up everything fast enough that she assumed I had been studying already. She wants me to join the next level up," I told her with a smile on my face.

"That’s cool, are you going to?"

"Mom wants me to wait and see what happens next week first. If I continue doing this well she’ll do it."

"That’s awesome. So you were kind of able to forget about earlier a bit?" She asked me.

"Yeah… kind of." I paused for a moment. She seemed to know to wait, "you know if today was the first day of this stuff how bad is it going to get?"

For some reason I was past tears… I wasn’t really sure why. I should have been bawling — instead I just felt numb about it all.

"Tiffany I don’t know, but we’ll all be here for you. From what Dad told me I don’t think you should have any more problems for a little while at least from the school. I don’t know, I’m a little worried about what Jarred’s parents are going to do about all of this. They’re fairly involved with the school board — they could cause problems."

"Yeah, I’m worried about that too."

"It’ll work out though Tiff, just wait and see." She told me.

"I sure hope it will."

We kept talking about a lot of different things for a while until we got to a topic I hadn’t really thought about. "So Tiffany, your birthday is like next Friday right?"

"Yeah it is. I haven’t really thought much about it though. I’ve been too worried about trying to get through this week."

"So what are you planning on doing for it?" I could sense she was trying to keep me thinking about positive things.

"I don’t know… I haven’t really talked to my parents about it. Usually I just end up having some sort of dinner and cake with my grandparents coming over. I’d kind of like to do something different this year — twelve isn’t as big as thirteen, but it’s my first birthday as Tiffany."

"We really should do something cool. Let me talk with my mom about a couple ideas I have." She told me.

"Like what?"

"Let me talk to her first okay," she said with a bit of glee in her voice. She was up to something; I hoped it was going to be good.

"Okay… Let me know soon though — otherwise I’ll get stuck into the same old lame tradition." I told her.

"Trust me! I’m not going to let you have another lame birthday party!" She told me. I could feel the smile on the other side of the phone. After a few more minutes of talking she let me off so we could both work on finishing our homework.

That night I went to bed and woke up three times to different nightmares about getting called names, beaten up, and in the one my dad woke me up to get ready for school it was even worse.

DAD HAD TO hug me and help get me moving after that one. He asked me what my nightmare was about… But I couldn’t go into it with him. It had been a dream that Jarred and Lucas were making good on their promises. I honestly was completely innocent in my way of thinking at that time — and really only understood what happened in sex due to my research on becoming a ‘real’ girl.

That was more than enough though for my brain to come up with an attack by the two of them. Somehow I found myself dressed in a skirt and a blouse, hair done, and looking pretty when Amy’s mom honked to pick me up that morning.

Amy’s mom knew something was wrong when she saw me though. "Tiffany are you alright?" She asked me.

"I guess…"

"I guess isn’t alright," Amy said to me gently.

"I just," I paused and breathed, "I just had a really bad dream last night. Well actually a three of them. I don’t really remember the first two — I just remember waking up — but the last one’s kind sticking in my head."

"What happened?" her mom asked me gently.

"I don’t really want to talk about it," I told her softly.

"Are you sure?" she asked.

At that point I definitely was fighting the tears, my voice cracked as I said, "no, I really don’t."

Amy gave me a hug and I did my best to keep myself in control. I didn’t really want to get to school and look like I’d been crying. A few tears went down my face though as I said, "I dreamed that Lucas and Jarred attacked me…"

"Like beat you up attacked you?"

"Worse…" I said unevenly. "They were doing other things to me."

I wiped the three tears that had escaped my eye off of my face with the palm of my hand. ‘I should be letting myself break down,’ I thought to myself, but I couldn’t do it right then.

Amy undid her seatbelt and gave me a hug, "It’ll be alright Tiffany, it was just a dream."

"Tiffany, do you feel like you really should be going to school today?" Her mom asked me. She had stopped the car at a red stoplight and turned around to look at me.

"Not really… but I have to go. I can’t run." I told her. My voice was far more firm and secure than I felt.

"If you change your mind call your mom or me okay?" She told me. She had to turn around and start driving. "She set it up to where Greg and I can pick you up from school too if we need to."

"Thank you," I told her with a forced smile.

Amy handed me a Kleenex and after using it to wipe my face I blew my nose. Amy rubbed my back with her hand the rest of the way there. Somehow by the time we got there I managed to look decent again.

Stepping out of the car that day was as big a challenge as anything. I knew that I had allies, but I also knew that there were other Jarred’s and Lucas’s out there. I wasn’t even sure that the two of them were done with me — rather I doubted that was the case.

We walked up to the school to follow the usual routine and I made it to first hour without incident. During class we were given some time just to talk while we were doing a crossword puzzle. So Kyle, Ashley, Lindsey, Amy, and I just pushed our desks together so we could talk.

"So have you heard about what happened with Jarred and Lucas?" Ashley asked me.

"No, no one has told me anything today yet. And… yesterday I just tried to make it through the day." I was fighting to keep my composure. Just the mention of Jarred and Lucas brought the nightmare and yesterday’s incident right back to the front of my mind.

Amy sensed trouble, but before she could try and warn Ashley off she told me, "Well they were going to try to expel them, so they gave them a ten day suspension until they could have the hearing. Jarred’s dad though apparently has more power than my parents thought — they threatened to sue the district if that happened — so they just gave both of them a five day out of school suspension."

"That’s it?!?" Lindsey asked incredulously.

"Well it could have been worse. They tried to get my dad’s TV station to run a story on how the district was allowing Tiffany to come to school and ‘disrupt’ the learning environment."

I was being pushed past the breaking point right now. I hadn’t even thought of the possibility that the news media might get involved with this. I think Ashley finally got the hint at that point and tried to do some damage control.

"Tiffany, don’t worry about that happening though, okay?" She started. "Remember my dad is the manager, he chooses whether stuff like this gets on or not. He likes you, and doesn’t want to see you hurt, so he squashed the story flat before it was able to take off." She said the last part with no small amount of pride in her voice.

"Tell him thank you for me," I told her with a forced smile. "What about the other stations and the newspapers though?" I asked her.

"He also let them know in no uncertain terms that if they ran with this story he would make sure there was a lot more coverage on his station about the ‘irresponsibility’ of running a story about a minor. I don’t think it’ll come up anytime soon around here." She told me.

"Thanks Ashley, your dad is awesome."

"I’ll tell him you said that. He also said he was going to call your parents and warn them though — so they have a heads up."

First hour seemed to finish pretty quickly after that, and second hour soon followed. As we were walking down the hall to choir a kid called me another uncreative derogatory remark.

Unfortunately for him though David was still walking with me. I’m not even exactly sure how David managed to do it, but the kid ended up sprawled on the floor pulling a wedgie out of his rear end. He mumbled a quick apology to me as he then scampered on to his next class. I just smiled at David and waved as Amy and I split off to go another direction.

As I sat down on the choir riser Kristina came up to me, "Tiffany are you doing okay?" I turned to look at her and saw some genuine concern. That surprised me given the fact we’d known each other all of three days now.

"Better so far today," I told her.

"I can’t believe what those two jerks did. And then I can’t believe that the school basically let them get away with it!"

"Yeah, I know five days of suspension is a lot — but it definitely wasn’t enough. I just hope maybe the two of them won’t try anything for the rest of the year."

She whispered to me and Amy at this point, "Actually the word’s gotten out that anyone who messes with you is going to be taken out by the football team and beaten."

"Good," Amy said.

"I won’t turn down help," I added.

"It’s kind of interesting that it’s not just the seventh grade players though, somehow David and Kyle convinced Bobby — he’s the captain this year — to get the eighth graders in line." Katrina said this with her eyebrows raised a little bit — and a big smile.

"I just hope that it doesn’t come back as something that they’re acting nice and they attack me when I don’t expect it…" I said warily.

"I think you’re safe Tiffany," Amy told me.

"Especially if you make the dance team." Katrina added. "You are trying out right?"

"I want to. Has she set the dates yet?" I asked.

"Not yet, she told me she’d have them by Friday though. I know she wants to have a week of working out and a Saturday session before having the tryouts. But she also said by the end of September, so I’d guess that last week will be the tryouts and the week before that the other part."

"How’s that going to work out with all of the cheerleaders that are sure to want to try out?" I asked.

"I think we’re just going to make that cheer practice that week." Amy told me.

"Well, I’m not getting my hopes up — but I’d really like to make it."

"You should Tiff. I saw the video from your camp yesterday at practice — I couldn’t believe how well both of you did." Kristina told me.

"Are you talking about their video from their camp?" Lindsey butted in.

"Yeah," Kristina said.

"That was really cool Tiffany — I couldn’t believe some of the stuff that you all did." Lindsey added.

"You took the video to practice?" I asked Amy. I wasn’t sure what I thought about that.

"I thought maybe it would help you out if some of the other girls could see how talented you are." She told me, "Are you okay with that?"

"I suppose. I think I’m just nervous because of yesterday. So you really thought I was okay?" I asked Kristina.

"Yea…"

"Time to start class Ladies," Ms. Beecher said ending our conversation.

"Sorry," I said meekly. I was among a chorus of a few girls there.

I kind of felt bad — how rude had we been? I didn’t know, but I was definitely enjoying her as a teacher. She actually taught us! It was another fun day in choir that led up to Algebra.

This time Amy didn’t let me out of her sight and we made it to class without incident. Towards the end of that class Mr. Martin asked me to come up to his desk. "Tiffany, are you doing alright?"

"For the most part Mr. Martin." I replied to him.

"I’m terribly sorry about what happened to you before my class yesterday," he told me. "If there is anything you need — or if there are any students giving you a hard time please let me know."

"Thanks," I told him.

"Did you have a good summer?" He asked me.

"Yes. It was definitely a busy one." I told him.

"What all did you do?" He asked me. This was kind of awkward… I guess he was trying to make sure I really was alright?

"We went to Florida in June, then I went to a cheer camp with Amy in July, and other than that I had a lot of appointments and such." I answered.

"I can imagine. Well anyway I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay, let me know if you need anything." He told me as I walked over to my desk and he wrapped up class.

At lunchtime that day I actually had fun talking with the group that sat at our table. Kristina, Lindsey, and I talked a lot about the video they had seen. I enjoyed the look on their faces when I told them about the college team that had tossed me.

"How high did you go?" Lindsey asked incredulously. "Is she serious?" she asked Amy.

"Yeah, I couldn’t believe how lucky she was that she got picked. First she gets to be on the top of that massive pyramid — and then she gets to get tossed by these really hot college guys!" She giggled. "She even has a picture of it too!"

"So what are you up to tonight?" Amy asked me. The two of us hadn’t been able to get together after school at all this week so far since she had cheer practice.

"Well I’ve got an appointment with Dr. Reynolds right after school. Then at 7 I’ve got that dance class for cheer stuff." I told her.

"That’s so cool that you’re taking that," Amy said. "I wished I could take it — but we have football games till about then that we’ll be cheering for each week."

"You’re already on the squad, so you’ll have a better shot of making the dance squad no matter what you do." I told her.

"I think you’ll both have a good shot at it," Kristina replied to me.

"I hope you’re right," I said as we walked out of the cafeteria that day to sit outside and talk. The conversation moved to more mundane stuff before we all headed off to our other classes. From there my day ran just as smoothly — it was a nice change from the day before.

---

 
To Be Continued...