I was 16 and I was desperate. Oh, not because I was bullied in school. I was but that wasn’t it. I was used to THAT. No, the problem was mother and her health. That and money, or rather the lack thereof.

Mother had married father despite the opposition of all her family. Southern Baptist all of them. The problem was that father was, or possibly is, a Roman Catholic and mother agreed to raise all their children as Catholics. Well, she sort of did. All the children turned out to be only me and while I’m nominally a Catholic the stress is on nominally. However, that didn’t bother us. We were a happy family. My father worked in oil prospecting and was well-paid so it didn’t matter that mother had a less well-paid job. We missed father the long periods he was away but we enjoyed the long periods he was at home as well. He spent much time with me then. He got me my first baseball mitt and ball. He got me my first football. He also got me my first ballet tights when he realized that baseball and football weren’t for me but ballet was. He always supported ME. Not trying to mold me into what he wanted me to be. And then he disappeared. He was in Africa when the local guerilla attacked the camp. They never found him, dead or alive.

In hindsight it would have been better if he had died and they had found the body. Now there was an eternal process with the insurance companies. Soon mother and I had very little money. The first thing I did was to quit ballet. That broke my heart but the studio was generous enough to refund me for the rest of the semester.

We managed. No frills, but we managed. Until half a year later when the doctors found out that mother needed major surgery. Mother was smart enough to realize not having surgery wasn’t an option. We could pay for that with an extra mortgage. The problem came afterwards. How to pay for rehabilitation and lack of income for a long time? I managed to convince her that I had got a job that would help us bridge the gap. I lied.

I was not employable. No upper body strength. Lanky, my length was mainly in my legs. Good for ballet and running away from bullies. Less marketable. Add to that I looked girly. And I was a boy named Sue. Not literally Sue but effectively the same since my French father had named me Jean-Marie. I would gladly have changed names to get a job. I would have been prepared to sacrifice my hair if that would have made any difference but I was told to forget it. Even the burger joint preferred someone stronger to flip their burgers.

I was getting more and more desperate. School didn’t help. Oh, I kept up my schoolwork which surprised me but my social standing in school, that never had been very high was slipping. Worn and, eventually, mended, clothes is bad. Even though I got pretty good with a needle and thread. I had even started to use my mother’s lay-off as I had a growth spurt after my father disappeared. Still too big but who cared? Well, the bullies. So far, I had only been the target of the usual bullies but now the football team had started to look at me and apparently discussing me at their table in the cafeteria. Especially the way the QB stared at me made me uncomfortable. I feared what they were planning.

But despite everything in school it was my mother and money that really freaked me out. Father had no close relatives and those he had lived on the other side of the Atlantic. Mother’s relatives lived in our town but had broken off all contact with her when she married. I had met my aunt, the best of them, exactly twice. I got desperate. I thought there was only one way out of the situation. Crime!

I decided to rob a jewelry store. The one relative on my mother’s side that I had come into contact with, let’s not get into how, had “connections” and he assured me that he could fence any goods as long as it was not too distinctive. Mid-range jewelry for example. Ha, imagine that he was a member of good standing in my mother’s family when they had shunned mother who couldn’t be more honest and moral!

I had it all figured out, I thought. I’d do a smash and grab thing and then run away and quickly change back into a boy. Oh, did I forget? I intended to do the actual crime en femme. No one would be looking for boy. I prepared. I pierced my ears. To save money I did it myself. I wouldn’t recommend that. I “loaned” some clothes from my girlfriend. Or rather my ex-girlfriend since she found out and somewhat spectacularly broke up with me. She screeched that the pervert, that is I, could keep the clothes. I had to buy the shoes. I found a pair of reasonably priced high heels (stiletto heels) that fit me in a thrift shop. I know, I know. How stupid can you be? Yes, I know that NOW!

My mother went in for surgery and I went into her room to put on make-up. I had trained before. I dressed up and went to the jewelry shop that I had found to be the best opportunity. At first everything went perfectly. I asked to see some rather pricey earrings. While I was doing that another customer came into the shop distracting the owner. Just as I was to sweep the stuff into my bag and run out things stopped going according to plan. I had NOT planned to be involved in another, simultaneous, heist. The other customer pulled out a gun and pointed at the owner and demanded that the owner opened the safe. The stupid old codger refused. That’s when the robber, that is the other robber, pointed the gun at me. The codger rapidly changed his mind. This was all too much for me. All my plans had gone down the drain. I kicked. Ballet had given me the fundamentals for that. I had intended to kick him in the belly but I miscalculated. I would have missed altogether if it hadn’t been for the heels, the stiletto heels. Well, I had always wanted to perform in “The Nutcracker” now I did, sort of. Unfortunately the guy had lowered the gun somewhat and just as I hit I saw that is was pointing at roughly the corresponding area on me. Bang. Black.

I woke up in hospital. To my surprise I shared the room with mother. Well, that was the first, and smallest surprise. The biggest one was that I was hailed as a hero for stopping the robbery. Another was that everyone believed I was transgendered and had been in the shop to buy earrings for myself. That was why I was in a female ward. The police was rather straightforward. To be honest they didn’t care about my gender. Then people started parading through the room.

The Principal came and held a long-winded speech about how proud the school was of me blah blah blah et cetera. Then he whammed me by telling me that I was to return to school as a girl. He personally would make sure everything would go smoothly for me. While I still was groggy from that my ex-girlfriend gave me another hit. She was sorry she hadn’t understood I was really a girl and thought I had taken her clothes for fetishistic purposes. She was so sorry and hoped we’d be BFF (not boyfriend-girlfriend of course).

The next visitor wasn’t for me but mother. My aunt came! Apparently my status as hero had changed things. Or possibly they just wanted to rescue my mother from my evil transgender influence. The bottom line was that mother was whisked away by my aunt to be taken care of during convalescence. And I had so worried about the cost for that.

Talking about money, I was suddenly moderately wealthy. The guy I had kicked had a big reward on his head. Well, you know what I mean. On top of that the jeweler gave me a reward as well (well, actually it was the insurance company at his proddint). Surprisingly since he was the only one who suspected why I really was in the shop.

“You were really stupid to attack a man with a gun. I’m relieved that things went well.” They had. I won’t say I was lucky. No one is lucky being shot but things could have been worse, much worse. Even if everyone was convinced I was a girl I still had the option to decide myself. The shot had gone straight through my thigh, miraculously without severing any artery.

“I’m getting old. I’ve been thinking of getting some help. Would you be interested in an after-school job? Girl OR boy.” He saw my worried face. “I don’t think I will have to worry. Not now.” And then he smiled.

Another unexpected visitor was my ballet teacher. The studio wanted in on my fame as well. The offered me free classes Free classes for the hero that had used his, er, her ballet skills to disarm a robber, or should it be dismembered. Of the male member that is. Not for the poor penny-less guy though. Ok they had been pretty decent to me even then, I admit. Anyway, free classes including pointe classes. I was a girl now.

The jeweler came back the next day as well. Together with his grandson. The grandson carried a huge bouquet. When he stopped covering his face with all that vegetation, I saw it was the QB in my school.

“Jean-Marie, I’m so relieved that you really are a girl. You are just so cute that I couldn’t keep my eyes off you. I was even beginning to accept that I might be gay. The team really tried to dissuade me. But you are a girl! A girl hero! Now I can hope that you will be my girlfriend. Please go on a date with me!”

WTF!!! Had the world got completely mad?!!

I fell back on the pillows. I was woozy from the painkillers. Oh, what the hell. I was too tired. The last months with father disappearing, the money problems, mother’s medical problems and now all this with my robbery failure and the hero thing. It was all too much. I gave up. Then I looked up at him again. He looked so insecure and cute waiting for my answer. To be honest he had a reputation to be a pretty good guy. And he was rather cute. And I owed so much to the grandfather standing next to him, also eagerly waiting for my answer. And life had completely turned around. And he was sooo cute. Time to start a new life.

“YES, I will!”

Who says crime doesn’t pay?