Chapter 10
Congratulations! It's a Boy!

If it seems like I panic a lot, it's only 'cause I do. I mean, any normal person would panic a lot if they had my problems. But then again, why would any normal person have my problems? I think having my problems may very well be a definition of abnormal. If I looked up abnormal in a dictionary, I would be not at all surprised to see an entry that said Abnormal - adj. - see Elan Owen's Life. Well, actually I would, but it could happen, right? So, as a result, I panic.

It's perfectly natural. In times of stress, some people remain calm, some pass out, some get angry. I panic. But not all panics are the same. Some are really full blown panics; ones that send you running into walls, or boy's locker rooms when you are a girl, or, just start sobbing and screaming alternately. At the other end of the spectrum of panic, some are just mild panics; ones that cause you to run all over town looking for ice cream at four o'clock in the morning (Dad), or make you suddenly decide that lunch would be a perfect time to cram for that exam you have spent the last four nights studying for (Sam), or pull all the cushions out of all the chairs and couches in the entire house because you cannot find your car keys (Mom).

My panic at having just been turned back into a boy should have been in the first category, but this time three factors tempered it a little: 1) I wasn't in school at the time, 2) I wasn't in school at the time, and 3) I WASN'T IN SCHOOL AT THE TIME! So, all I did was yelp and drop down into the ocean so fast that I got a nose full of seawater. Yerg!

At first, my head filled with the thought that there was no way in hell I could get out of the water like this. Our stuff lay twenty feet from the waterline, but less than ten feet from the boys who had been hitting on us and there's no way they wouldn't figure out that I was a boy in a girl's outfit. I'm not sure what they might do to me, either for being a boy dressed as a girl or for letting them hit on me, but I wasn't willing to take the chance. After all, we were much closer to LA than San Francisco and boys anywhere don't like to be made to look foolish.

I looked 'round but with my eyes at sea level I couldn't see Karen anywhere nearby, so that ruled out having her get me some clothes. I scanned 'round, treading water as I did so, and spotted the long brown mass of Bishop Wharf, which I decided would make a good hiding-spot-slash-lookout-spot, so I set out for it, wincing with every kick as the tight suit pinched certain parts of my anatomy. I tell you, never before had I felt such an intimate understanding of the differences between boys and girls.

The swim wasn't taxing and once there I settled down onto the cool slippery rocks in the shade of the wharf and hugged myself, sighing at the trivial unfairness of life that had landed me with a lunatic for a grandparent. As I gazed down at the beach I saw Karen standing in the shallow water looking 'round for me, a worried expression clear on her face even from a hundred yards away. I tried waving but she didn't see me so I decided to call her on her telecomm. Shouting seemed likely to bring a great deal of unwanted attention with no guarantee that she would be able to hear me over the sounds of the sea.

I felt pretty sure that the Watch had transformed me back into a boy deliberately, but still a little unsure that the Watch hadn't just shorted out. Yet, when I looked down at it, a little nervous for reasons I couldn't quite put my finger on, it pleased me to see that it was working just fine. In fact, I felt vaguely amazed to see that the face was flashing "Boy Mode Initiated" and "Open Watch Please" alternately.

Figuring that Grandpa could wait and Karen looked more worried with each passing moment, I quickly called her telecomm and watched her scramble over to her bag and then almost dive into it to dig for the ringing telecomm. She looked so funny, I had to laugh.

"Hello? Elan?" She sounded really worried, instantly making me feel really guilty for laughing at her.

"Yah, it's me..."

I would have continued but she interrupted me. "Oh My Frog! Elan! Where the blank blank are you? I was so..."

Figuring turnabout was fair play, I interrupted back, "I'm under the wharf. Grandpa is playing games again."

"Huh?"

"Never mind, just grab my shorts, t-shirt, and towel, could you?"

"Uh yeah, sure. And then?"

"And then come over here, you dimwit!"

"Oh, yeah!"

Sometimes I think geniuses are incapable of common sense or even basic thought. Sigh.

While I waited, I flipped open the watch to listen to Grandpa's newest insanity, and--as expected--his holographic octogenarian face reappeared, looking just as sane as before. That is to say, not at all.

"Elayne, my girl! How good to see you again. You look wet."

And there it was, Grandpa once again admitting to being alive, or at least as good as. "I hate you too, Grandpa," I said with no small tinge of disgruntlement. I know it's an old comment, but what exactly is gruntled? Is it like flammable and inflammable? Or are gruntled people happy, like grunting pigs or something?

"Ha ha. Now, I'll bet you still haven't read the Manual I sent you, but that's okay 'cause this isn't in it. Heh heh heh." Did I mention that my grandfather had a sign on his lab that said "Evil Geniuses: Nature's Answer to the Population Explosion"? In other words, he's a mad old thing. I'm not even sure--especially after this whole gender thing--if they come any madder or if Grandpa is at the absolute maximum.

"Now, I am sure that you are wondering why you are a boy again. Well, I'll tell you. I figured that making you be a girl all year would give you a really lopsided view of the whole thing, and that you would need to be reminded of what you like about being a boy. I didn't want you to become too comfortable as a girl. So every other day you will be a boy and every other day you will be a girl. Now, since you've been a boy longer, I'm going to make you a deal. On boy days you can change to a girl, and back, up to four times each day, for as long as you want each time. That's not the deal. The deal is this. For every hour you voluntarily give up as a boy on a boy day, you gain 1 minute of panic time on a girl day. Sound fair?"

I grunted, 'cause it didn't but I figured that screaming obscenities at a holo of your "dead" grandfather in public might cause more than a few people to take notice.

"Glad you agree. Now to initiate the panic mode you--" and he told me how to do so, which I paid attention to mostly out of habit, 'cause I wasn't going to want to be a girl on the roughly 182 days I had as a boy, now was I?

You know? For a smart person I'm a bit of a dummy. Why do I say this? 'Cause as soon as Grandpa finished and signed off I realized that I could just transform back into a girl, finish having fun on the beach, and then go do the shopping Karen and I had planned to do this afternoon. And it also dawned on me that I'd have to change into a girl to go shopping 'cause otherwise the blank-blank clothes wouldn't fit and I'd get strange looks from the salesladies. So, mentally kicking myself, I decided that I might as well build up 48 minutes of bonus time before girl day began tomorrow.

Now I know what you are thinking. "Since when are there 48 hours in a day?" Well, Grandpa had made me another deal after explaining everything. It was simple. I could cancel a boy day anytime within the first twenty minutes of it and gain double credit for the time. I think the old bat put far too much time into thinking up these strange rules, but who am I to argue. I mean, I'm the victim, he's the Mad Scientist. I cannot wait till I'm old enough to have victims of my own, happy-sigh.

***

Thus, half a minute later I raced down the beach to tackle Karen who was lugging my entire bag towards the wharf. We rolled in the sand, me giggling and tickling her madly, her shrieking and giggling and batting at me frantically, trying to get me to stop.

Once those nice boys had separated us, then brushed sand off us, and then offered--and not listened when we said no--to carry us back to our spot so that we wouldn't have to walk on our--as they said--"Dainty Little Feet". So there we were, slung over the shoulders of two brainless, but nice, if overly-enthusiastic, boys. And, after they had carried us back they convinced us to play volley ball with them, which Karen and I sucked at 'cause we're eleven and not tall and they were fifteen and tall and there were three of them.

So of course, we won. And you better believe it was skill and not them letting us win. You believe me, right? Course you do, 'cause I'm the one telling this story and I never lie. Nope, Nope, Nope. Okay. They sooo let us win. And then convinced us that since we won, we had to let them take us out to lunch to soothe their bruised egos.

Now my dad says lots of stoopid things -- like "Don't take any wooden nickels" or "Don't put all your files on one Hard-drive" or " A stitch in time saves nine" -- and most of them are either brainless or completely obvious, and some are both. But one of the smarter things that he's said over the years was "There's no such thing a free lunch." I don't know if regular girls would have been fooled by these jokers, but Karen and I certainly weren't.

Even if I had wanted to go on a date at all, it wouldn't be with a boy, it wouldn't be with someone four or five years older than me, and it wouldn't be with them outnumbering us by one. But no matter how rich you are, free food is free food; so we let them buy us some ice cream and hot dogs from one of the food stands that serviced the beach and we let them give us piggy-back rides, but always in plain sight of the lifeguard stands.

All in all, my first morning as a girl was "pretty swell" to quote my mom. The sun was warm, the ocean was cool, Karen and I had lots of laughs, and best of all? Pig was stuck in school the whole time! Weeeee!

***

No matter how much fun one is having, eventually it becomes time to leave, so we said our good-byes to Jefferson, Daniel, and Ray. They told us that we were just as cute as could be and gave us a tentative invitation to meet Daniel's little sister Becca who would be having her birthday party at Zavoo -- our local super arcade -- the Saturday after next. Truth be told, Becca sounded like a real brat, but we said that we'd see if we could show up, and we meant it. Zavoo is always cool. We could play the newest videogames and eat pizza 'til we felt sick, whether or not we actually clicked with Becca and her crowd.

From the beach we rode back to Karen's house, called out to Linda that we were back and that we'd be in the shower, assured her that we'd eaten lunch and that we hadn't drowned, gotten kidnapped, or been replaced with alien clones, all at the top of our lungs. Isn't it great when families communicate?

I had plenty of time to compare Karen's body to my new one in the shower, but the differences weren't all that interesting. When I was a boy Karen was three inches taller than me, mostly 'cause her legs are longer, but I claim it's 'cause her head is pointier than mine. Well, when I was a girl Karen was still three inches taller than me. Our torsos were the same size, our feet the same size, our hips the same size. The only real difference, besides hair (mine is platinum blonde and just past my shoulders 'cause the watch had set it back that way; hers is a pixie cut in electric blue 'cause she's weird), eyes (mine are bright, bright green; hers are icy-blue; she kinda looks like a blue albino), and skin tone (I'm fair; she's got a billion freckles) was the fact that her titties were slightly larger than mine, but still not large enough to require a training bra.

I hear shocked gasps from you. Yes, I know what a training bra is. Karen's been complaining that they aren't growing fast enough 'cause she wants to get a training bra and her moms say she's still too small. I know far more about training bras than any eleven-year-old boy should. But, then again, I know more about particle physics than any eleven-year-old boy should.

While we were getting dressed, Karen asked me what had happened under the wharf. She had asked on the beach but I had leaned over and in a hushed whisper promised to tell her when we were in a more private setting. So I sighed and explained, all the while waffling over what I should wear. I had just selected a nicely neutral pair of khaki shorts and a blue top from among Karen's near-endless supply of clothing, figuring that they would make me look like a girl but not automatically brand me as one should someone who knew me, see me, when I reached the part about canceling a boy day.

Karen gasped and exclaimed, her voice rich with surprise, "You willingly became a girl? Whoa! This is momentous! I mean... I thought you hated the idea!" She gave me a hug, obviously overjoyed that I had made this epic breakthrough or something, but I just stood there, stunned.

She was right; I'd willingly become a girl for the first time there under that wharf and hadn't even noticed. I definitely didn't like being a girl, I was happy being a boy. I mean... I was good at it. After all, I'd had more than a decade of practice. So why had it been so easy for me to just cancel an entire day I could have spent as a boy? Did I like it? Did the Watch do something to me mentally? I had to sit down at that, and Karen looked down at me, confusion and concern evident on her face.

"You okay, Elayne?"

I nodded and gave her our personal hand-sign that indicates "Deep Thinking. Please Wait for Brain to return. Thank you for your patience." I think she nodded at that, but I didn't paying much attention, which is kinda the point of deep thought. I sat and thought and thought and sat for a while, mind ablaze as I tried to muddle through the twisted maze of motivation. I finally had to conclude that it hadn't really been a willing decision, just one forced upon me by logic. Logically, I had already planned today as a girl. Logically, I was already dressed as a girl. Logically, if I were a boy we would have to go home and change and then return to the beach which would have wasted time. Logically, if I were a boy I couldn't shop for the clothes I might need on those days I would be a girl.

That last thought sent me down another path in my mind. Was I really willing to go shopping for girl's clothes? Wouldn't that be like giving in? Again logic seemed to provide the answer. Logically, I had no way out of this transformation without telling my parents and there was no way in hell I was going to do that. If I told them everyone would find out, especially Pig and if I were annoyed by my present I hoped that Pig would be doubly annoyed by hers and there was no way I would miss that.

And the patents on this technology would pay for nearly unlimited research and fun, and that was worth being a girl for 183 days or so, wasn't it? So if I was stuck as a girl, I would need the right clothes, right? Like panties; I was a girl, so I wore what girls wore.

That was it, I would have to think of myself as a girl, at least while I was one. The thing is, when I was a boy, I never really thought of myself as a boy. I just was one. Simple as that. How did one think like a girl? I had no idea. So I asked Karen.

She pulled her head up from the book she was flipping through and blinked at me, "Huh? What do you mean?"

"How do you think of yourself? I mean, how do you think of yourself as a girl?"

I guess the question really made no sense 'cause she just shrugged and said, "Dunno. I just am. Never thought about it. I think therefore I am, and all that. Why do you ask?"

So I explained and she started giggling, which kinda annoyed me. It must have annoyed me enough that it showed on my face 'cause Karen gave me that "You are such a dummy" smile of hers and said, between giggles, "Elayne, don't think about it. Just be yourself. Boy or girl doesn't matter all that much. A hundred years ago it did, maybe even fifty years ago it did, but now? Naw! What you do and what you know, those are important. Boy and girl are just things, they don't have that many social conventions attached to them anymore. If you don't want to tell, don't think up excuses, don't try and find logical reasons, just go with your heart. You changed back into a girl under the wharf 'cause it was simpler than not, 'cause today is a day you don't have to worry about being a girl in school where lots of people know you, and 'cause we were having fun, right? So what. That's over and done with. Once you've made a decision the reasons for it rarely matter. It seemed like a good idea at the time, right?"

I nodded, still kinda stunned.

"Then don't worry about it. At the end of the year you can look back and contemplate. For now, just live, do what seems natural, and have fun. You're too serious, Elayne. We're eleven, for Pete's sake!"

I grinned at her, "Okay, okay. I have just one question though?"

She gave me an annoyed glare, "What?"

I struggled to keep a straight face as I asked, "Who is Pete?"

Karen looked blankly at me, totally confused, "What?"

"Who is Pete?" I held it in, but just barely and my sides began to hurt from the strain.

"Pete?"

"Yah, You said it was for his sake, so who...who..." at that I just lost it and fell off the chair I had been sitting on and just rolled about on the floor laughing while Karen glared at me. Finally she got it and --after calling me a whole bunch of names in Spanish, French, Russian, Japanese, Swahili, and even some in English-- joined me in laughing. I was laughing so hard already it's a good thing she didn't tickle torture me for that, or I might have peed my pants.

Once the laughter had subsided I got up, brushed myself off, lifted Karen off the floor, and said "So, whatcha gonna buy me?

She grinned at me, "Well, that depends..."

"Depends?"

"Yep!"

"On what?"

"On what kinda girl you wanna be."

"Say what?!"

"What kinda girl do you want to be?"

Well now, that was the question wasn't it? And I had no idea what the answer might be. No idea at all.