“They're not going to let you play football!" he exclaimed.

I decided that I didn’t dare let anyone find out about my condition. I couldn’t even tell my parents and for sure not my sisters. Jordan was fourteen, and in high school this year, Molly was only eleven, but they both had the biggest mouths in town. They told their girlfriends everything.

I sighed again. I would have to make sure that Megan and Jake at least told no one else. And I should get home and check in with Mom before I went to the team meeting.

I cranked the car up and readjusted my mirrors, then pulled out into the non-existent traffic and started into the maze of crooked streets that led home. I could do this.

Dad would be at work this weekend, selling trucks at Friendly Ford, so I wouldn’t have to face him until the evening.

Bigger problem but not as immediate; how would I handle the locker room on Monday? If Jake would cover for me, I could probably deal with that, too. Maybe I had too much optimism, but it was better than sitting around, crying my eyes out. I pulled my car around the house onto the wide backlot we owned. Hardly anyone in this part of Friendly had a lawn with grass or anything, so people just parked wherever.

And right there beside my house sat Jake’s nearly new, red F-150 pickup truck. I felt a twinge of envy every time I saw the thing. My dad sold them, and I didn’t have one. I had to make do with the six-year-old station wagon Mom used to drive.

But I hurried toward the house, hoping that Jake hadn’t told Mom that her only son had had a terrible accident. Well, it sure wasn’t on purpose!I didn't make it into the house because my littlest sister, Molly, waved at me from a window and pointed toward the backyard. I spotted Jake sitting on one of the wooden benches near the barbecue pit. He looked up when I came around his truck.

"You get banished to the backyard for uncivilized behavior, again," I joked. It kind of hurt to talk, but I pushed my way through, hoping Jake could not hear the strain in my voice.

He stood, smiling vaguely. "I just told them to send you out here where we could talk." Jake is a big guy, six-three at least. "You okay?" he asked.

I felt my lip try to twist, so I just nodded. Afraid to speak. I looked past him, through the ponderosa pines toward the blue edge of the Mogollon Rim in the distance.

"Did you see a doctor?"

I could hear his concern, and it nearly broke me. I nodded again. My throat still felt tight, so I swallowed a couple of times.

Jake had a strange expression. "Well, jeez, Petey. What did he say?" He wasn't glaring at me, but it wasn't just a frown, either.

"She," I managed. "The doctor was a she. Dr. Verre." I coughed, and the tightness in my throat eased a bit. This was Jake, and we had been friends since pre-school.

Jake made a motion like waving flies away from his face. He seemed on the edge of exasperation. "What did she say, Petey?"

I tried to smile. "I'm fine. She says I'm fine." It sounded like a lie.

Jake blinked. "Oh, it's back? What did it get—I dunno—sucked up inside you or something? Huh?" He grinned.

I don't know what my face looked like, painful, maybe, but Jake's expression changed to one of horror. "Pete…?"

"No—I'm—it's gone, Jake. My insides have changed, too." I guess I'd cried myself out because no tears came.

"What the fuck, Petey, what the fuck?" Somehow the distance between us had disappeared. Jake stood right in front of me, within arms reach.

I couldn't stand for him to be so close, so I turned away and took two steps, but I heard him follow me.

"Pete?" he said again, but I didn't turn around and just shook my head.

"I was worried about you, guy," he said. "Afraid that, uh, you might do something."

"Like what?" I asked, almost choking.

"Like hurt yourself or something?"

"Huh?" I wasn't looking at him.

Neither of us said anything for a bit while I realized what he meant. I laughed, and a sour taste filled my mouth. "I'm not going to kill myself, Jake. We've got too many football games to win."

"Huh?" Jake's expression changed. He looked astonished. "You want to keep playing football?"

"Sure," I said. "We've got to win our league, then the division tourney. This year, we take it all!" The optimism sounded hollow.

"I—you—They're not going to let you play football!" he exclaimed.

"Why not?" I demanded, turning to face him.

He shook his head. "Petey, you're a girl now. Girls don't play football!"

"Do I look like a girl?"

He blinked. "You look like you've always looked," he admitted.

"Then why can't I play football?"

He scowled. "Petey, they won't let you play! They don't let girls play football!"

"One: oh, yes, they do! And Two: how they gonna know if no one tells them?" I tried to look mean, which wasn't easy. Jake was my best friend, and part of me still wanted to cry. "You ain't gonna tell them, are you, Jake?”

He threw up his hands. "You're talking about that girl in L.A. that's a kicker! But you ain't a kicker, and this ain't L.A." He took a breath, "And how would you even keep it a secret? I mean, locker rooms and showers and—and the team doctor?"

I stuck out my chin. "You're going to help me!"

"Me?" Jake protested.

"You know, Joanna knows, Megan knows, her aunt and her granny know, and that's it. No one else is gonna know!" I had to make this stick. "You didn't tell Mom or my sisters, did you?"

"No—you—huh?" he said. "You're not gonna tell your folks?"

I shook my head. "It just happened, without a reason. It could unhappen, without a reason. Why complicate my life if…if…." I couldn't stop it—I was going to cry.

So I ran away.

*

I ran toward the treehouse Jake and I had built, with Dad's help, back when we were nine. It was barely six feet off the ground, a square platform built around a Douglas fir with springs and inner tubes holding the construction away from the living tree, one of only six of the slender firs on our ponderosa-heavy property.

I pulled myself up using the hemp rope we left dangling for just that reason, then turned to sit on the platform, letting my legs dangle. I didn't try to crawl into the 'doghouse' we had built up there. Just six by four feet and three feet high, it had been big enough for both of our sleeping bags when we'd been younger.

I could still fit inside, but now Jake was too big to be comfortable. I wiped my eyes with the heels of my hands while Jake caught up. "I bet I'm still the fastest runner in the senior class in the forty-yard sprint. Heck, I may even be faster than before."

"Huh?" he said, stepping carefully around a sticker bush.

I just looked at him sadly, not mentioning that I no longer had things down there to get in my way while running. But running had felt good, and I knew for sure that I wasn't any slower than I had been. "I'm the fastest running back in the league," I reminded him.

"You're the smallest, too," he noted. "You could get hurt."

I scowled. "So could you! And they have to catch me to hurt me! You stand there and try to throw the ball and hope nobody gets through the line to take you out!"

He waved that away. "Why do you want to do this?"

"Same reasons as before! Win football games, win the state championship in our division! Uh…." I trailed off. My other two reasons, frequently discussed around coke and pizza, were a possible scholarship and getting girls.

Jake nodded, peering up at me. "Okay, let's do this," he said. "Make room."

I scooted to the outer side of the platform, and Jake, who was over six feet tall, put one foot on the trunk of the tree and levered himself up with just his forearms. He turned and settled beside me with his feet dangling, too.

"You're crazy," he commented.

I nodded agreement. "Goes without saying."

"Because you're a girl now? No, you've always been crazy." His big face was even higher above mine than usual, even though we were both sitting. Most of my height is in my legs.

He looked at me and grinned. "Don't think I don't know how hard you've worked to learn to run and to build muscles. If you could actually catch the ball…."

Sore spot. I retaliated. "If you could just throw it…."

We laughed, and it was almost the same as it had ever been. Jake was the brother I didn’t have.

"Okay," Jake said when we stopped laughing. "You can play football. But if you get hurt, I may have to kill someone. Probably you."

I grinned at him, but it was a peculiar feeling. He was being protective of me, more even than before. And why? Because now I was a girl. Ow. I didn't think I liked that, but at least he'd agreed not to tell my folks or Coach Wilson.

We still had to figure out how to negotiate the locker rooms on Monday.

*

We headed into the house to say hi to my Mom before going to our team meeting at two, but my sisters met us halfway to the house. Jordan, a freshman at our school, had been at the game and looked especially cute today wearing a summery print thing like a knee-length dress, except the bottom half had wide-but-short pant legs instead of a skirt.

Was I going to have to learn what such things were called?

I glared at her on general principles. She was the beauty of the family and knew it. She had waves of red hair and the same blue eyes I had—was almost as tall as me, too. She had more curves than most fourteen-year-olds had, and she made an effort to be sure Jake noticed them.

"Rah! Lions!" she said, shaking imaginary pompoms.

Jake grinned at her, appreciating her enthusiasm.

Molly, the eleven-year-old, bounced around her sister and delivered a tackle-hug to me. "Petey!" she screamed. "Way to kick Buckaroo butt!" Our opponent last night had been the Green Valley Buckaroos.

"Did you go to the game, too?" I asked. Generally, she had no interest in football.

Molly bounced on her toes and squealed again. She had black hair and blue eyes like mine and was already five feet tall. She'd also recently discovered boys, so maybe that increased her interest in sports. "Uh, huh," she nodded. "Mom, too, and we watched you score four touchdowns!"

That made me smile. "It was two touchdowns and two conversions."

"Uh, huh," she agreed, still bouncing. "You guys won 23-0, and Petey, you scored sixteen of those points!"

"Yeah, well, I had help from the rest of the team."

Jake did the congratulatory self-handshake gesture, causing the girls to giggle. Well, not me.

"Pooh," said Molly. "All Jake did was hand you the ball, and you ran with it." Jake rolled his eyes at that.

"Dennis and Jesse blocked for me," I pointed out.

"You had to slow down so they could stay in front," she scoffed, making all of us laugh. Though I was glad Dennis Calumet and Jesse Velasquez were not there to hear my sister disrespect them. They were both big guys and good blockers.

*

We went inside, and Mom gave both Jake and I hugs. I'm barely taller than her, but she had to stand on tiptoe to put her arms around Jake's neck.

She laughed. "Back when you were over here all the time, you two were the same size." Jake's family had moved across town about the time we started middle school, and he got a huge growth spurt.

"Yeah, huh?" Jake agreed, but he looked at me with an odd expression.

"I'd offer you boys some lunch, but you're going to your team meeting soon, right?"

We nodded.

"Can I come, too?" Molly asked.

Jake and I both said no at the same time.

"I want pizza!" Molly protested.

"We'll go to the mall," offered Mom.

"Mall pizza sucks," Molly complained in a tactical error.

Jake and I retreated while Mom delivered a lecture on avoiding vulgar slang. Jordan followed Jake out the side door and I followed her. "Let's go in my truck," he offered. "We still have stuff to talk about."

I made a noise in agreement and headed for the passenger side of his F-150. Jordan followed Jake to the driver's side.

"I take it I'm not invited either," she commented.

"Heck," said Jake. "You'd be worse than Molly. All the guys would be looking at you instead of Coach with his chalk talks."

She giggled, he grinned, and I glared at both of them.

We got underway and waved when irrepressible Molly, still bouncing, joined Jordan in pretending to be cheerleaders. "Go, Lions!" they shouted. “Friendly Pride! Score that pizza!" Molly added in a squeal.

It was less than ten blocks to Pizza Barn, but first, we had to get out of the Timber Heights neighborhood, which involved half a dozen turns. Neither of us said anything for that part of the trip, but when we turned onto Manzanita, I said, "Don't flirt with my sister."

"Hmm," he said.

"She's only fourteen," I added.

"It's not serious, either one of us," he offered. "For Jordan, it's just practice with someone safe."

"Yeah, well, I don't like it."

Jake gave me a look with his head lowered, so his eyes were visible through his bushy blond eyebrows. "Jealous?" he asked.

I hit him in the shoulder with my fist.

"Ow," he said.

"Just don't."

"Okay," he agreed. He pulled into the alley behind the Barn. "Don't flirt with your sister, or don't tease you about hitting like a girl?"

He'd always teased me about that, but now it stuck deep. I waited till he parked, and then I hit him again—a knuckle punch behind the elbow where it would really hurt.

"Ow," he said, mildly. But he rubbed the spot. "You missed the funny bone," he commented.

"Next time," I promised as we climbed down. He laughed.