Chapter 5

We all went to the shop to take our pick. It was sixteen well-dressed and made-up women who were picked up by a bus and taken to the restaurant that the four of us had been before. We were ushered to a private room where Khepri was waiting with his parents. There was also Abbas, his wife, Heba, her husband, as well as a few of the Museum administration and Gyasi with his wife.

We had a lovely meal and were sitting there after dessert when Gyasi went to a screen and turned it on. The picture was the general view from his video, showing the finds layer.

“Ladies and Gentlemen. When I saw this, I had to sit on the sand. I’ve been on digs where we have found great things, but I had never been shown a layer like this. Everything has been brought here for further examination. Abbas brought back some bones and charcoal when he left, and that has been dated to nine thousand years ago, which proves that the site was there in the African Humid era, and also proves that habitation went a lot further east than we first thought. The site has been remediated and everyone who has worked on it have been told to stay quiet until we can do further work.”

The Minister interjected.

“When will you be doing further digging?”

Abbas spoke up.

“When these girls come back in their next break.”

The expert switched to a picture of the scan to the west of the camp.

“This is why we’re going to keep things to only those already involved. Although the finds we now have will rewrite the books, what lays in the ground has the potential to tell us even more. Eve showed me the results this last scan in the last week we were there. This picture shows more pits that could rival the one we have recorded. There is a place on this scan that looks like a burial. That, on its own, is very important. I will study what we found until they come back, but these girls deserve to be the ones to uncover one of the oldest burials we have had the chance to look at. It’s going nowhere while they continue their study. Khepri and I will look at the terrain and see if we can site the next camp in the area to the east, where a scan shows no returns.”

The Minister beamed.

“I will make sure that there are enough army there to make the digging a quick thing. From what I’ve been told, it’s likely that there’s more to be found directly where the two camps were set up. You’ll be able to dig on that area while others are scanned. I like it.”

There was a toast to the future. I was starting to feel tired, and I knew that the others would be feeling the same. For the last month we had gone to bed just after sunset and rose with the sun. We made our exit and were taken back to the Hotel. When we were all together, I got one of the hotel staff to take group pictures with all the phones that were thrust into his hands. It would be interesting to put one up in the classroom, alongside one that had been taken at the camp by one of the army girls.

We had two more days in Cairo, being a school trip of tourists, and then we were back on the bus to the airport, ready to leave Egypt until we were all back in the next break. For me, it had been highly successful. The three teachers had worked well with the students and the students had grown up into women who could work together as a team. We had made discoveries, and it was those discoveries that would turn that team of women into a group of successful archaeologists. What may have been a hobby was now serious and worth a career.

What I wanted now was a good sleep and a long session in the salon. I had itching under the breasts, and I didn’t think it was sand that had burrowed into the glue layer.

The flight home was restful, and most of us slept most of the way. Once again there was a teacher with a sign and a bus outside to take us back to the school. Once again, we were greeted by the Headmistress and allowed a short break before dinner. I reported on the trip, with the great things that the Museum had done for us and told the diners that we had found a few things which needed us to return to the site on the next break. I didn’t say a word about the importance of what we had found.

The next term seemed endless. I went to the salon for a full check, to be told that the jabs were working, and the itching was from budding breasts. The twelve girls that we had taken to Egypt were now in the tops of their classes, across the board. It takes a good session doing the real thing to see if you want to continue, and our dig had been more real than anything I had been on. I started getting emails from Gyasi to tell me some of the results of his research. He was excited that we had picked up enough bits of pottery to assemble about a third of a bowl, which allowed them to recreate what the complete bowl would look like.

Towards the end of term, I was told that I had to take some time off if I was going back with the group. The Headmistress was firm that I deserved some time to relax. What I ended up doing was not relaxing. It involved a trip home, to show my parents what I now looked like. When I arrived, I booked into a hotel, just in case, and rang Mum to let her know I was in town, arranging a meeting in a café as the first contact.

To say that she was surprised would be an understatement. I explained that it was a girl’s school and they had thought that I was female. I told her about my experience with the Morality Police and she put her hand on my arm.

“You poor dear, that must have been frightening!”

I put my free hand over hers and she didn’t pull away. I then told her about the mix-up with the display event and her eyes went wide.

“We saw that picture and your father commented on how a beautiful girl had discovered an ancient tomb. He was quite taken with you in the picture, and we had a laugh about the name. We had no idea that it was you. Are you one of those celebrities now?”

“Not yet, Mum. With what we are looking for on our digs, it may happen that I’m part of a large group who might get some pictures in the paper. If you and Dad come out to Cairo while I’m there, I’ll show you around the Museum. It’ll blow your mind. Now, if I book a table at your favourite restaurant for special times, will you both join me for dinner tomorrow evening? I’ll glam up so that Dad can meet the girl in the picture.”

She laughed and told me it was a date. When we stood, there was only a fraction of a second before she pulled me into a hug that lasted quite a while.

“We’ll see you tomorrow, Evelyn. I’ll prepare your father for the first look at your new, and improved, changes. You do make a lovely woman, and I’m so proud of you.”

The next evening was good. My father didn’t hesitate to give me a hug and tell me that he was proud of his new daughter. We had a good meal with a lot of laughter, and I checked out of the hotel the next day to take my case to my home. I counted myself as truly lucky that I had been accepted as who I now was. I got the family computer going and printed off some of the pictures I had, of the dig, the display, and general pictures of the Museum and our group. I had bought some frames as I came home and set the pictures up in my old room.

A week later I was back at the school and planning the next dig. Abbas had sent an email to tell me what support we would be getting this time. They had relocated the camp, and we were getting better class officer’s tents. We would be eighteen this visit. Two from the previous year were joining us, having been told how wonderful the trip could be. There would be the week of acclimatising, with sessions with the experts. As before, me and the three teachers would go out there first, to lay out the surveys.

On top of the ground penetrating radar units, we were going to use an explosive echo setup. This meant that we had an army expert to set the charges and the receiving sensors. It works by creating a pulse of sound which is reflected off of solid items, giving us a better idea of the depth. We would do this before the rest of the girls arrived, as it takes a little longer to interpret the results. Also, it wasn’t the thing to be letting off a large number of small explosions with schoolgirls close by.

You can survey a much bigger area with this system, you just added more explosive and more sensors. It wasn’t a method that I had seen in the past and was keen to see the results. We spent two days helping to set it up, and another two days with regular explosions. When the girls arrived in a Chinook, the army expert left in the chopper, with all his gear and the computer that the echoes had been recorded on.

We set the girls working with the radar units and took a week with that. The new survey areas, where the two camps had been, showed a lot of promise and we then marked out all the test pits we wanted to dig. We four had students each and set about digging the pits. Two pits were fireplaces and two were rubbish pits, but not as big as the original one. Gyasi had shown the girls what had been found before and the two new girls were very keen, so I let them loose on the next dig. It was the site that we wondered if it could be a burial. Both girls had dug a burial site during the first year, so they knew what to do. With four of the others, they got stuck into the space I has pegged out. The rest of us worked in smaller groups to do the usual metre square pits on other targets.

Three weeks on site, we were visited by Gyasi with a laptop and a large screen. We all sat in the meal tent as he showed us the results of the first deep survey. It had mapped echoes off low remains of dried mud walls, so giving us a good idea of the layout of the settlement. It showed us the relationship of the fireplaces and rubbish pits with the buildings. We were quite naughty, as we allowed him to complete his presentation and answer questions before we took him outside and showed him the larger pit, where the girls had arrived at the layer with the first bones showing.

On the day we were supposed to leave, the Chinook arrived with ten Museum staff, who would be taking over the dig when we went home. It had become too important to leave alone for another three months. I didn’t feel upset with this, as I knew that there would be some hard digging now, to go down either side of what walls showed. Gyasi came back to Cairo with us, his case full of our new finds.

This time, before we left the city there was a media release, where our dig was explained to the journalists. Our part in the find was highlighted and we were all photographed and spoken to. Abbas and the Minister heaped praise on our skills and highlighted that the dig was led by Evelyn Saunders, who had discovered the site which led to the new, smash hit, display. Now that the site would be manned until it had been totally searched, it was time to let the world know about it.

When we landed in Britain, there were some journalists waiting to talk to us. We were all photographed as we exited the customs and there was a babble of questions being flung at us. The Headmistress was there, and she used her headmistress voice when she told them that we were all tired from the journey and that she would host a press conference at the school the next day. She had four of the other teachers to help us with our bags and push through the journalists until we reached the school bus.

That evening, the dinner was very different from before. There had been an article in the national papers, with pictures from the press conference in Cairo. The headlines were along the lines of ‘British schoolgirls find ancient civilisation on school trip,’ which made us laugh. We got a screen going and showed them the pictures that we had taken at the two digs, explaining that we were not allowed to say anything about the first dig in case it was raided by treasure hunters.

The next day saw us fronting the small pack of journalists and it was down to me to relate the full story of the two digs. I was asked why we had been sent to such a remote place and I told them that it was my discovery of the chamber, some three years before, and my good relationship with the Museum. I said that we had originally been allocated some time at Heliopolis, a site in Cairo that had been dug by dozens of people, because it was thought that British schoolgirls wouldn’t be able to take a remote site.

They wanted to know what was happening now, so I told them that a large group from the Museum was digging now, with the hope of finding what little remained of the mud walls, and that we would be going back to extend the surveys to find the western extent of the settlement. After that, I said that I thought we may do another survey along the cliff behind the settlement, in the hope that we might find burials, but that the practice of tomb burials didn’t come in for another few thousand years.

We showed them pictures of the group, at the hotel and the site, as well as some selected ones of the finds. I had a picture of the reconstructed bowl, telling them that this was made from over a hundred small pieces that we had found. They went away happy, and the teachers that had sat in on the talk were happy as well, now with a lot more insight on what we had been doing. There was just four days to the start of term, and we all spent it quietly.

The next term was interesting, as I moved further with my transition. My nubs of breasts were now big enough to do away with the forms and start with a training bra. The heat and work that I had put in had lost me some weight, mainly around the stomach and waist. My hair had grown long enough to be trimmed, with a colour change which was closer to my original hair. It had been a pain to need to keep using a spray on my roots as the hormones caused the hair to grow faster. The school doctor was very pleased with my progress and told me that I would be able to book an operation in another few months, seeing that I would have been living as a woman for nearly a year.

That altered the next break for me. The other three would be taking the girls to Egypt. They had a good rapport with the Museum and more of the staff than I did, had been in the country three times, and it had been decided that the next visit would be the two older girls, plus any from the senior school who wanted to go. They ended up with a total group of twelve. When I waved them off, I was heading to a hospital to become Miss Saunders, after a week at home with my parents.

I was sad to see them leave without me, but I knew that Veronica, Stella, and Tracey were capable enough. This dig, for them, would be mainly survey work and to catch up on what had been discovered. The following dig would have me back there, looking along the cliff edge to see if we could locate anything else.

My mother took me to the hospital and made sure I was settled in. What happened after that was something I had thought about for weeks. I wasn’t upset at losing my penis, it had only been used for peeing up to now. What worried me was how I would feel when I was complete enough to be a partner in bed. I had never taken a woman to bed, so had no idea how they acted. Although I had gained some information about the activity during our evening talk on digs, I knew that I wasn’t ready to think about doing it.

That was before the operation. Afterwards, as I was being pumped full of hormones and now starting to make my own, my thoughts gradually changed. After a week I started to notice how good-looking my specialist was. One thing that made me realise how much of a change I had gone through was when I had a dream one night. I had often had the dream about a man’s weight on me and being kissed. This dream had a man taking me to bed and making love to me. In my dream, the man was young American who had kissed me! I woke during the most wonderful feeling as my body had its first orgasm.

As I lay there in a sweat, a nurse came in to see how I was, as the monitor in the nurses station had gone crazy. She helped me out of bed and into the shower. When I came out there was a clean nightie to put on. She assured me that all girls have similar dreams and I just proved I was now like all girls.

That made me take a long while to go back to sleep as I thought about things. For most of my life I had tried to fit in with the people I had been with. Since becoming a crossdresser, I had used my skills to fit in with all the women around me. Since I had become Miss Saunders, I did fit in as one of half the human race, and had stopped trying to fit in, now standing out as a celebrity in my own right. If I had been a chameleon before, now the colours were fixed. I was a woman, a teacher in an all-girl school, a noted archaeologist, and a friend of a few men who had never seen me as anyone else.

I spent the rest of the break at home, going shopping with Mum for new things that fitted my new thoughts. When I got back to the school, I was part of the group who welcomed the girls at the terminal. At the dinner, I listened to what they had done. It was, as I expected, mainly survey work and that had found the western edge of the settlement. While they were there, the army guy had arrived with his stuff, and they had helped him set up the echo survey of the new area. Veronica said that the survey showed more places that looked like the fireplaces, but no more rubbish pits of burials.

The Headmistress told the three that they were in line for the next break off, so that I would be alone and taking a smaller group of girls on the next visit. During the term most of the girls taking History wanted to go on a dig, and the Head thought that we could do a short one if I could find somewhere who were asking for help. I checked with my contact list and found a site on the edge of The Wash where they were tracking a pathway, expecting that it would lead to a small pier. Most of the artifacts from that period were wood so you looked for places where the wood may have once been.

I took ten girls there for a week. It was different to working in a desert. One thing that it did lead to, was a visit that I had not wanted. One of the archaeologists had been on a dig while I was in University, and he had recognised my name with the latest Egyptian dig. He had spoken to someone who had spoken to someone else, and I was sent a text, asking me to make an appointment with the Society. I cleared it with the Headmistress and sent my party back to the school in a bus while I was given a lift to the nearest railway station.

In London, I took a taxi to a hotel close to the Society and checked in. My appointment was for the day after, so I called the Museum to see what had been happening and what was planned for the next time I was there. I spoke to Abbas and said that I would like to run a targeted survey with the echo system, to take in the whole section between the settlement and the cliff face. My girls could be utilised in helping with the main dig until I had targets to work on. He told me that I could come back to Cairo with the expert and see how the results get compiled. He would send Heba down to look after my group. He thought that it would be good for me to meet a lot of the other people who were asking him to set up meetings.

The next day I walked to the Society HQ and told the receptionist my name. She asked me to wait, and someone would come for me. It was about five minutes when Fiona, a woman I knew from other digs, came in and shook my hand. She led me into the building and to a room which already had two men sitting at a big desk. She went and sat in the third chair while I was pointed to a single chair in front of them. I was getting a bad feeling about this, not made any better when the guy in the middle spoke.

Marianne Gregory © 2024