Top ten lists make everything better. I firmly believe that. I really really do. So, with that in mind, here’s the top ten reasons why my life is stranger than yours. Ready? Here goes.
10. I am a boy trapped in a girl’s body.
9. The person who trapped me here is… me!
8. I have a watch which gives me superpowers… and wants to give me a sex-change every 24 hours.
7. I am an 11 year old supergenius.
6. My grandfather is a real life mad scientist…
5. Who’s just created (thanks in no small part to my last science fair project) an immortality process…
4. and so he’s spending the year dead for tax purposes… and cause he deagified himself… and possibly girlified himself to boot.
3. My little sister is evil… and I’m not just saying that.
2. My boyfriend (well, maybe) doesn’t know that I’m in love with another girl (well, maybe) or that I’m really a boy (kinda)… plus he’s two years older than me.
And the number one reason My Life is stranger than your’s
1. I’m currently being chased by a T-Rex while my best friend in the world and the girl I might just possibly be in love with laugh their asses off.

No. I’m not joking, although seeing as how big rex and the rest of his dino cronies have been dead and buried for, like, a really long time or something (History is so not my strong suit.) you’d be right in thinking that. But you’d be wrong, thanks to the wonder that is AR. Okay, so it’s a stretch. Anyone can be killed by Dinosaurs thanks to Artificial Reality, but I’d run out of things and who ever heard of a top 9 list? Anyway, after being squished by old Kingy for the third time in ten minutes, I sighed, pushed the no box when the comp asked “Try Again? You Have 31 Credits Remaining”, and blinked as the AR Helmet rose from my head.

I looked at my chortling audience and glowered. “Okay, you two. Behave.”
Karen (My BFF) and Kristen (The girl of my dreams) grinned up at me, then, acting as if they shared a brain, dragged me from the AR cradle and out of the arcade. We emerged into the bright light of a slightly chill November Sunday. The crowds that filled the streets of Everland weren’t too bad, and so — linking arms — we skipped down the yellow brick road.

I love Everland, it's insane. Two-thirds Oz, seven-eights Wonderland, nine-thirteenths Narnia, and 27-sixty-thirds Tourist Trap, Everland is everything you want in an amusement park… Sure, Disney’s got its own style, but Everland is cutting edge, interactive, and has theme weeks. Like Fuedal Japan Week, where everyone entering the park can rent (or buy) their very own kimonos and yukatas… which goes a long way towards explaining why three white girls were wearing Japanese clothes and skipping down the yellow brick road towards the Emerald City singing Gilbert and Sullivan’s immortal “Three Little Maids from School”, much to the ABC-Ment (Amuse, Bemuse, Confuse) of passing families.

It’d been a hell of a day, running from ride to ride, store to store, giggling our heads off and squandering our allowances on anything that caught our eyes. I have to admit, it was a new experience for me. The last time I’d been to an amusement park it had been with my family and we’d all had to stay together… all day. Boring!

But Kristen’s dad had driven us to the park, then staked out a spot in a netcafé to while away the hours doing adult stuff. I mean, sure, we’d had to submit to the indignity of locked on locator / pager bracelets, but safety first and all that.

Kristen was a treat; bubbly and self-possessed where I was cerebral and self-conscious and Karen was… well… over-the-top bonkers. Karen and I’d been friends since the cradle, but within an hour, Kristen had slotted herself in just as easy as you please. She had a strange kind of magnetism, an energy which just kinda said “Hiya! Wanna play?” I imagine that Peter Pan had the same kind of vibe… only in lame green tights.

If Karen was a ferret (crazy) and I was a cat (cool), then Kristen was a dog… rambunctious, slightly menacing, and really eager to enjoy everything around her. We’d started off racing from the front gate to the Bumper Sharks (the ride whose time queue fills up fastest) and after getting our return tabs, we spent the next twenty five minutes racing around the park at break neck speed getting tabs for every other ride we wanted to go on. And so that was how we spent the morning, going on rides and then running as fast as we could to the next ride so we didn’t miss our time. It was a strange mix of geeky (you know, time management type stuff) and athletic (running). We didn’t really stop for lunch, just grabbed snacks off of any nearby cart (which are from all over the world, so you can get sushi, kelbasa, hotdogs, takoyaki, kebob, crepes, burgers, okonomyaki, falafel, meat pies, sandwiches, fried things on a stick, and pizza.) we’d grab something from a stand and share it, which was sometimes very much like indirectly kissing, a thought that had me blushing more than once, especially after we got softserve yogurt. Of course, the fact that, when I got a spot of froyo on my nose, Kristen licked it off had a lot to do with my facial redness.

So, all in all, it was a really full day, and although the teenage boys were there in force, wearing their fake katanas and trying to look all samurai or shinigami, we were clearly too young to register on their wolf-whistle or leer radar, which didn’t stop their younger (and thus mentally inferior) kindred from pinching our butts when we weren’t looking… at least I hope it was the little brats and not older pervs, but whatever. Anyway, as we made it to the Bottle Rocket, our pagers went off, telling us that we had half an hour left.

We trooped off to the exit, pleasantly buzzed and little worn out from the day, Kristen dragging us into two last shops, one to get a group picture and the other to buy a trio of silver bracelet charms that were little coins with an infinity sign over a heart on one side while the flipside read “Youth Eternal is a State of Mind”. If only Kristen knew.

As we rode home, I paused to consider. I mean, sure, I complain, a lot, but my life is pretty darn good… aside from the craziness and the evil sister. I’ve got a family that loves me, a cook who makes food I actually like, parents who respect me, a school that I don’t hate, a best friend who creeps me out in all the right ways, I’m probably what you’d consider rich, and, thanks to my watch, I might just be immortal. Seriously, I really shouldn’t complain… now should I? But still, stress is stress, and boy did I have a lot of that.

There are things I’m not happy with, visa vi my life, but that’s pretty much true for everybody. Yeah, I’d like to be more confident when faced with crowds… or audiences… or pretty much any situation wherein large or even largish numbers of people are pay attention to me. Its not that I think they are judging me… just that they might be. Don’t know why it freaks me out… just does. I’d like to me more truthful… and mighty. I don’t know why I want to be mighty… or even really what being mighty might entail… but I’ve always wanted to be Elan the Mighty. Of course, I’d like to be more suave and sophisticated… especially since my name means something like “panache” or “finesse” or whatever. So, the fact that I’m pretty much of a nerdling… although apparently a kinda cute nerdling which I guess is okay… doesn’t help.

On the other hand, there are certain things I expect to achieve in life, most of which being a nerdling should help a great deal with. I want to make my own fortune by the time I turn 18; just so, you know, no one can accuse me of just living off the family fortune and the achievements of my forebearers. I want more patents than Thomas Alva Edison… or at least a few thousand before I… um… get really old. I have a few, or had back then, and a couple dozen were pending, but certainly nothing on my father or grandfather. I’m pretty sure I want to get married and have kids, someday… and eventually I’ll probably want a sex life, although right now even kissing seems pretty overwhelming. I want a nice house, to go to college, get a zillion post graduate degrees… And of course, as a mad scientist, I want my own island fortress complete with an army of goons… and a table equipped with manacles and a slow moving laser on a waldo.

I’d apparently dozed off because the next thing I was really aware of was being nose to nose with Karen. I yelped and pushed her off and she landed on Kristen’s lap. Kristen hugged Karen and announced “Mine!” Much squirming and giggling ensued, until Kristen’s dad said “Ahem… girls… I believe this is your stop?”

I looked out the window and sighed. It was, indeed, Karen and my stop. We piled out of the vehicle. As I turned back to grab my purchases, Kristen flung her arms around my neck and gave me a tight hug.

“I had so much fun today. See you tomorrow?” she practically whispered in my ear.

I nodded, trying hard not to blush at the tingles her breath had sent rushing through me. She smiled and then hugged Karen just as enthusiastically. Then she climbed into the front passenger seat and waved baibai.

Karen gave me a look, then announced that she had reading she wanted to do and she’d see me bright and early and headed into her house. I went inside, told my mom and older sister and house keeper all about our day, then headed upstairs to get ready for bed. I loaded my messages as I got ready for a quick shower before game time, and was just about to delete everything unread as junk, when I caught sight of a familiar sender ID, [email protected]. Whoever Ruby was, he or she had sent me a ten word message on Saturday: I Know Your Secret And I Will Get You, Ruby. I opened the message, wondering what my mysterious friend had to say this time.

YOU WILL GET YOURS… AND SOON. Ruby.

Well, how nice. I hope mine is the one with chocolate frosting. I moved the two messages into their own folder and set my computer to backtrack the sender, although I was certain that it would be a lost cause. It had been almost two years since the Public Key Encryption scheme had been invented and in that time it had become almost impossible to track someone over the network with any degree of reliability if they didn’t want to be tracked. Still, hope springs eternal. Still I wasn’t surprised when I got out of the shower to find a report on my screen reporting no success on tracking anon server. I shrugged and booted up Final Fantasy Twenty. I’d worry about Ruby when the time came… little did I know just how soon that would be.

To be continued in Book 2, Chapter 2 - Today is the Last Day of the Beginning of Your Life