Talia starts the morning like normal with her jogging first thing in the morning. She got up earlier than normal, so she could get a shower in and catch a ride with her mother to school. Normally, she rode with either her mother or father to school and caught the bus home.

“Bye, mom.” Talia had worn a dress to school today.

“Have a good day, sweetie.” Brenda watches as Talia starts walking towards the front door of the high school.

“Thanks, mom.” Talia walks towards the front door of the high school she went to.

She was a junior this year and had only one more year left. She shared a locker with one of the girls she grew up with. She goes and grabs the books she needed for her first three classes. The first bell was math and she was glad to get it over with.

The subject was Algebra and she was doing so-so in it. She had a hard time wrapping her head around the formulas the teacher wanted her to use to solve the problem. Luckily, her mother was good at dumbing it down for her. Her older brother was good at math, but her mother was better.

As Talia was recording everything Mrs. Passante was writing on the blackboard. She gets hit by a balled-up piece of paper. She ignores it because she already knows who threw it at her.

She feels another one hit the side of her head. Talia ignores that as well. When a third one hits her, Talia pulls out a small round object and throws it at Dave. She knew he was the one throwing the pieces of paper at her.

The round object hits Dave and shatters. The next thing everyone in the classroom smells is a foul odor coming off him.

“Mrs. Passante, can we leave please.” Betty was holding her nose, because of the stink in the classroom.

Mrs. Passante turns around and finally smells the foul odor drifting around in the classroom. The smell was so bad, that she was ready to lose her breakfast.

“Yes!” She rushes for the door, followed by everyone else.

A smile appears on Talia’s face as she glances over towards Dave. He was ready to throw up and was being avoided by everyone sitting near him. She gathers her books as quickly as she could and walks out of the classroom.

Tony walks up to Talia “You didn’t need to do that.”

“What? He had it coming and Mrs. Passante wasn’t going to do anything. She’s one of those teachers who think I shouldn’t be here or on the track team.” Talia knew how most of her teachers felt about her.

Her brother gave her the idea of bugging her teachers. Most of the gadgets she used came from a website called Spy Eye. The watch she wore had a built-in eight-gig SIM card in it. She also had a pair of sunglasses she could wear that had a hidden camera in the bridge of the glasses that she could link to the watch. That way she records everything she sees.

“I don’t know what you used, but you didn’t need to stink up the classroom.” Tony knew Talia had been getting picked on ever since she came out in middle school.

“Well, if Mrs. Passante did her job. I wouldn’t have to go to such extremes.” Talia tried resisting being picked on and reporting her attackers. Sometimes it did some good and other times it didn’t.

“Well, you know Dave is going to get even with you.” Tony knew Dave was the vengeance type.

“Let him, I have something for him.” Talia was given a bottle of pepper spray to defend herself with. She was shown how to use it properly and was warned about what would happen to her if she missed using it.

“Do you want to tell me?” Tony knew Talia had a bunch of tricks up her sleeve.

“Nope, it's best you don’t know. Hey, did you finish the report we were assigned to do for Mr. Willis's government class?”

“Yeah, I sent it in over the break. I wonder what our teachers did during the break.” Tony knew most of his teachers worked hard.

“Hopefully, catch up on grading the papers we turned in.”

Talia and Tony, walk into their second-bell classroom. The two of them sit next to each other and start taking notes. By the time class was over, the two of them headed toward their homeroom.

The morning announcements were announced. Nothing they didn’t already know. A dance was coming up and it was a big thing around school. It was opened to all grades, and since Talia has been attending. She has never been asked to dance. She asked a few people in the past but was turned down.

The few friends she did have, already had dates or girlfriends. So, she never went to any of the dances. Talia reads a few posts on her cell phone while waiting for the bell to ring. When the bell rings, she heads towards her third bell class.

“See you at lunch, Talia.” Tony waves and heads towards his next class.

Talia heads towards her third bell class. She was taking chemistry next, which she enjoyed a lot. She was good at causing explosions and doing all sorts of tricks with different elements.

After the third bell, she has advanced French and Spanish before lunch. For lunch, she sits with her friends and eats the salad she made to bring for lunch. Since, ninth grade she hasn’t eaten a school lunch. She always brings her lunch from home.

After Lunch, she has gym class. This week they were back in the gym, instead of the classroom. She doesn’t bother to dress out for the gym. She didn’t feel comfortable being in the boy’s locker room with the latest developments she learned about herself.

When she walks into the gym, she sits down on the floor and waits for her gym teacher to come out of the locker room. She spots Mr. Stone as he walks out of the locker room. She waits for him to come over to her.

Mr. Stone spots Talia sitting over by the wall when he exits from the locker. He wonders what her excuse is this time for not dressing out for gym. He walks over to her “Why aren’t you dressed out for gym?’

“Well,” Talia stands up off the floor.

“Well, what?” Mr. Stone watches as Talia stands up off the floor.

“Just as you and everyone else say girls shouldn’t be exposed to people like me. I don’t think it’s right that I should be exposed to boys my age when I’m developing breasts.” Talia looks up at Mr. Stone. He stood a good foot taller than her.

“What are you talking about? You’re not developing breasts, because you’re a boy. Unless your parent has been giving you drugs to make it possible.” Mr. Stone was getting tired of putting up with Talia’s nonsense.

“Wrong, my body is naturally developing breasts, Mr. Stone. I went to my doctor’s office two days ago and he discovered that my body is developing like a teenage girl’s body does, instead of a teenage boy’s body does.”

“Do you have a letter stating this?” Mr. Stone couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“I sure do.” Talia reaches into her backpack and pulls out the doctor’s letter she was given for her gym class. She hands the letter to Mr. Stone.

Mr. Stone accepts the letter and starts reading it. He looked at Talia and couldn’t believe what he was reading. He didn’t know how he should handle this, because if the letter was true, he couldn’t in good conscience expose her to the other boys in the locker room and he couldn’t expose her to the girls, in the girl’s locker room.

“Take this letter to Principal Vernon and show him it.” Mr. Stone hands the letter back to Talia.

“Okay.” Talia puts the letter back in her backpack and leaves the gym.

Talia had a smug look on her face as she left the gym and walked towards the main office. She felt a little satisfaction showing the letter to Mr. Stone. He had always disliked her, now he had to swallow his pride and accept the fact that he and all the others were wrong about her.

Talia walks into the main office and looks at Mrs. Woods, the head office secretary.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Woods, is Principal Vernon available?”

Mrs. Woods looks at Talia and wonders what she wants. She didn’t have a problem with Talia, but she just didn’t agree to let Talia use the facilities for girls. If Talia wasn’t equipped like a boy, she wouldn’t have a problem.

“Let me check, Talia.” Mrs. Woods stands up and knocks on Mr. Vernon’s office door.

“Enter.” Mr. Vernon looks at his office door.

Mrs. Woods enters and looks directly toward Principal Vernon “Sorry for bothering you, Mr. Vernon. But Ms. Miller would like to speak to you.”

“Do you know what she wants this time, Mrs. Woods?” Principal Vernon wishes that Talia Miller was attending another high school. She’s been nothing, but a problem since she got here.

“No sir. She’s supposed to be in gym class right now.” Mrs. Woods was good at remembering all the schedules for every student in the building.

“Let’s get this over with. Show her in, Mrs. Woods.”

“Yes, sir.” Mrs. Woods turns and leaves Mr. Vernon’s office.

“He’ll speak to you now, Talia.” Mrs. Woods lets Talia behind the main counter.

“Thanks, Mrs. Woods.” Talia walks past the counter and heads toward Principal Vernon’s office.

Mrs. Woods opens the door for her. She looks at Talia “Good luck.” As she shuts the door behind Talia.

Principal Vernon looks up at Talia as she enters his office “What can I do for you, Ms. Miller?”

“I have a letter here from my doctor, that you need to read, Mr. Vernon.” Talia walks over to the chair sitting in front of Mr. Vernon’s desk and opens her backpack. She reaches inside and pulls out the letter she showed Mr. Stone during gym class and hands it to Mr. Vernon.

Mr. Vernon accepts the envelope and takes the letter out and starts reading the letter. He couldn’t believe what he was reading as he kept going. He had never in all his years of teaching heard of such a thing happening to anyone before.

Mr. Vernon looks up from the letter and looks at Talia “Why did you bring me this letter, this morning when you arrived?”

Talia looks at Mr. Vernon with a serious look on her face “I forgot. I didn’t remember I had it, until lunchtime.”

“I’m going to need to speak to your parents and get the superintendent of schools involved in this as well, Ms. Miller.”

“No problem, sir. Just let my parents know, so they can make arrangements.” Talia knew it wouldn’t be a problem for her father because he was the boss. However, her mother was a different story.

“You can go back to class, Ms. Miller.”

“Yes sir.” Talia gets up and leaves Mr. Vernon’s office.

She gets a hall pass from Mrs. Woods to go back to class. Talia looked at her watch and noticed she didn’t have much longer for class, so she took her time going back.