Much to my relief, Mom never said a word about my morning with the neighbors. Truth be told, she didn't say much about anything; she was too far gone by that stage. As I said, Mom had turned a little weird after Dad left. She'd quit her job and taken up drinking as an occupation, parking herself in front of the TV most days. That was the main reason why I'd been sitting out on the porch the morning the Reinharts turned up. She tended to wake up with a mean hangover, and I had no wish to risk her razor-edged tongue that day.

Mom didn't have too many friends here in Fairmont; no one she could confide in or open up to, anyway. Worse still, her drinking was alienating her everyone who may have been able to help. Don't get me wrong, she wasn't abusive or neglectful - at least not at first. Dinners still got cooked and the shopping always got done (one way or another) but the woman sprawled on the living room sofa was slowly becoming a stranger to me. It was like standing on a shore watching a boat drifting out to sea and knowing that it would never, ever return.

In the meantime, Chrissie and I started living in one another's pockets. In the first month after she moved in, I gave her a whirlwind tour of our neighborhood. I took her first to Wentworth Park, where we spent most of our afternoons, then introduced her to all the local attractions. We followed the trails through the Wilderlands; tossed coins into Memorial Fountain; and checked out the concrete tunnels running beneath the old railway station (that was kinda scary – the place had been abandoned for decades, and everyone said it was haunted). We played and talked and read comics in each other's bedrooms, and somewhere along the way, we forgot we'd only known each other for a couple of weeks.

"Whatcha doing?" Chrissie called out from the tree-swing.

We were playing in my back yard that morning: Chrissie had commandeered the old rope-and-saddle and was currently trying to touch the sun with both feet. I was perfecting my gym routine over by the back porch, standing on my hands and turning the odd flip whenever my balance shifted the wrong way. I picked myself up off the grass, extravagantly tucking my T-shirt into my jeans.

"Gymnastics," I replied, making a rolling gesture with my right hand, "I'm going to join the circus."

"Gym-NAS-tics?" She arched her back for greater height, aiming her feet towards the heavens. Her skirt-tails streamed out behind her in a billowing scarlet mass.

"Yeah, gymnastics," I repeated, "you know: backflips, cartwheels, somersaults." I was vaguely surprised that she hadn't done any tumbling at school, but I was getting used to that now. It was sort of like the Whipper-Snapper: she'd never seen one until she came to Fairmont. I was getting the impression that she must've lived on a farm or something back in Longridge Bay.

Realizing she had no idea what I was talking about, I leaned over and demonstrated a better than average handstand, wavering on the brink for around five seconds. Chrissie's eyes snapped wide with understanding: I wasn't just horsing around (as she'd originally thought); this was something she could actually learn.

Launching herself off the swing, she hit the ground running and scrambled across the yard. I recognized her expression; I'd seen it at least a thousand times over the last month; every time I introduced her to anything new or unusual, something she hadn't experienced before. Her pretty, round face was radiating delight as she halted before me, eyes glittering like purple diamonds.

"Do it again, Billy!" she twittered impatiently, "show me how to do it!!" Her fingers spidered down her dress, kneeding and twisting the hemline. I was getting used to that, too.

"All right," I laughed, swept up in her childish exuberance, "it's easy, you just bend over like this..." I flopped onto my hands and waved my feet in the air. Chrissie watched in round-lipped delight, absorbing every detail of my performance. The curve of my spine, the spread of my palms, the tilt of my skull. The span of my fingertips, the shifting of my tendons. Every microscopic detail, in the space of a heartbeat.

"Let me try now, Billy!" she trilled excitedly, "tell me if I'm doing it right!"

"Want me to hold your legs?" I offered hastily, though it was only a precaution. I knew from prior experience that she'd be perfect from the very first try. She always was.

"Yeah," she answered, barely hearing the question.

Drawing in a calming breath, Chrissie raised her arms over her head and swept over into a perfectly controlled handstand. Tensing her thighs, she brought her heels together, pointing both feet toward the sky. It was a most impressive performance for an absolute beginner: balanced, graceful and confident. Her stance was tighter then an exclamation point.

"Billy!" she piped from under her dress, "how do I look? Am I doing it right?"

"Great," I told her, truthfully. As I said, perfect from the very first try.

"I wanna do it again!" she yelped, squiggling her hips excitedly from side to side.

"Okay," I agreed, releasing her ankles and backing up a few strides. She dropped lightly onto her feet, grinning from ear to ear. Her face was flushed with exhilaration; wild cherries bloomed on both cheeks. She reached out to grab my hand.

"What else can we do, Billy? Show me something else!"

I stared up at the swing for a few seconds, mentally cataloging all the stunts I'd learned at the youth center last year. There weren't many -- mainly rolls and basic mat-work. What could I teach her next? It couldn't be anything too easy, or she'd lose all interest in a second; I knew that much at least. No, it had to be something complicated, like a handspring, or a cartwheel or a –

"Step-over!" I exclaimed in sudden inspiration, "you know how to do a step-over?"

"No, I don't."

"Well, it's sort of like a handstand, except you go over and land on your feet."

"Show me," she said, gesturing towards the grass.

"No, I'm not very good at it…but you could do it easy. Just start by standing on your hands."

"Okay," she nodded, and flipped onto her palms in a swirl of red cotton, "what do I do now?!"

"Uh ... bend your leg backwards," I instructed, already picturing the move in my mind's eye, "yeah, that one ... now let yourself – "

And over she went, executing a perfect two-point dismount that would have impressed a gold medalist. I couldn't help giggling a little; she honestly had no idea how cute and pretty and funny she really was. I covered my mouth with both hands, laughing through splayed fingers.

"This is FUN, Billy!" she giggled, eyes twinkling with innocent joy.

Before I had time to reply, she twirled round on the spot and launched into another step-over. Pausing at the height of her arc, she whirled to the ground, voicing a shriek of pleasure – and then she was shaking me by the shoulder with both hands.

"C'mon Billy! Let's do it together!"

"I can't," I laughed, "I'm not as good as you."

"Yes you are!" she insisted, dragging me forward. And incredibly, she was right. A moment later, we were both careening across the yard, bounding and plunging and flying head-over-heels with pure summer madness. Chrissie dipped and swirled almost faster than the eye could follow, skirts and pigtails flailing in her wake. We were utterly possessed. It was like a force of nature, sweeping us along like a gale through the trees. I have no idea how long it lasted. Could've been two minutes, could've been twenty.

We finally found ourselves stretched full-length on the lawn, gasping and exhausted under the slowly revolving sky. It was like the first day we met, that morning when I saw her spinning around her yard like a human top. It had been pretty funny, watching her collapse in a boneless heap over by the fence, but now I understood the simple, child-like joy she'd experienced. Understood ... and envied.

I looked across at my little friend, enjoying the high, tinkling chime of her laughter. Chrissie lay giggling beside me panting with helpless mirth. Catching her breath by slow degrees, she sat up and started smoothing back her pigtails. It couldn't have been more than 11.30 in the morning, and we still the whole day looming over us.

"Whatcha want to do now?" I asked, still catching my breath in quick shallow gasps.

"You wanna walk up to the Crest?" she suggested, absently smoothing the wrinkles out of her sunfrock.

"Yeah, okay," I nodded. The Crest was the highest point in Fairmont, a grassy summit with lots of trees and picnic tables. We often went up there lie on our backs and watch the cloud-animals drift by. On a good day, you could see clear across to the Pacific Ocean (or so we imagined). It was one of Chrissie's favorite places. We rose at precisely the same moment – juvenile telepathy again – and walked around the side of the house, brushing the grass from each other's clothes without exchanging so much as a glance. It never crossed my mind how strange that might have seemed to an outsider.

We ambled up to the footpath, our feet avoiding the cracks our eyes picked out in unison. As we reached the corner, I felt her fingers slipping into mine. I suppose any other boy on the planet might have pulled away, but over the few short weeks since our first meeting, we'd somehow grown closer than friends.

Closer, perhaps than siblings.

And for some unknown reason, that never crossed my mind, either.

---

I got home around four-thirty that day, bristling with grass-blades and smelling of pine needles, most of which came off at front door. Disposing of the evidence had become a daily routine over the past four weeks: I couldn't give Mom an excuse to cut Chrissie out of my life. No matter how tanked she got, Mom had eyes like a hawk and was always aware of the hours I was keeping. She'd also begun to notice whom I was keeping them with, and I wasn't all that certain she approved.

As I'd expected, Mom was still camped out on the sofa, watching The Price is Right with the remote in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She didn't appear to have budged since I left that morning, but I knew that couldn't be right; there was a bottle of Jim Beam on the coffee table that hadn't been there before. Next to that was a half eaten bag of Doritos, original cheese flavor. Last night it had been Johnny Walker and pineapple pizza. Don't ask me how she could afford all the whiskey, she'd been out of work a good two months. Heck, I didn't know how she could afford the rent, the way things had been lately.

Hearing my step on the floor boards, Mom shifted around on the sofa, a ponderous, grey woman overflowing slightly at the hips. The first lines of age had taken root in her face around the time I'd been born, so I'd never known her as a young woman. The last few traces of beauty had disappeared along with my father, and the gaze she turned on me now was heavy with exhaustion.

"You been spending a lot of time with that little girlfriend of yours," she commented in a gravel voice, "what's the deal, Billy-boy? Her mom a better cook than me?"

Eve most certainly was a better cook than Mom, but I thought it prudent not to mention that to her.

"No, Mom. I just like playing with Chrissie."

"Yeah, right," she drawled, "the golden child and her gilt-edged momma. You been inside next door yet?" She knew I had, but she interrogated me on the subject at least once every afternoon.

"Yeah, a couple of times," I nodded.

"Rich, aren't they?" she asked.

I shrugged. Maybe they were, who knows? I was a kid, I didn't notice that sort of thing.

"Lots of fancy furniture?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Pictures on the wall?"

"Yeah."

"Silverwear on the tables?"

"...yeah." I had to think about that one.

"Like it better over there?"

"No," I replied immediately. Mom fixed me with a level, measuring stare, silently estimating the truth of my answer. I couldn't understand my mother's growing hostility towards Eva Reinhart. They'd spoken maybe twice since she moved in, and Eve had never been anything but polite and friendly on both occasions. I'd learnt very quickly never to praise Chrissie's mother under any circumstances, it was like waving a red flag at a bull.

The resentment slowly drained from Mom's eyes, replaced by a sort of dull apathy. Apparently, she'd decided I wasn't lying to keep the peace (or maybe she'd decided I was, Mom's expressions were impossible to decipher these days) Turning back to the TV, she waved me off with a careless gesture.

"Left-overs in the fridge," she said, bringing the cigarette to her lips, "I didn't feel like cooking tonight."

Dinner was a slice of cold pizza with some three day-old ravioli and diced ham. As I dished it onto a plate, Mom told me to come and eat it in the living room; she didn't want me tossing it out the window while her back was turned. She knew I wouldn't have done that, but evidently she wasn't done with me yet. Odd thing was, she didn't say a word as I scraped down the sad remains of three slaughtered meals. Barely looked in my direction, as a matter of fact. Guess she just enjoyed hearing me choke on every succulent mouthful.

The evening progressed in this manner until about seven-thirty, when I asked her if I could stay up and watch TV another hour. The only answer I got was a blue-grey stream of Marlboro. I recognized the signal instantly: silence was lethal in the Campbell household, as I'd discovered all too often in recent weeks. Standing up as quietly as possible, I headed out to the hallway without a sideways glance. I made it as far as the door before she called me back.

"Hey."

A cold finger traveled the length of my spine. Her voice sound strained, terse. Not quite venomous, but I already knew she was angry. The fact I'd done nothing to antagonize her made no difference. Like I said, it was impossible to predict her moods. I walked back through the living room and halted before the sofa, hoping she just wanted to kiss me goodnight.

She didn't.

Reaching out a hand, she touched my hair, flicking it back from my face several times. It wasn't a caress; there was something dismissive – almost contemptuous – in the gesture. Eyes slitted in cold detachment, she studied me with a vaguely troubled expression, as if seeing some alien child she didn't quite recognize. An unwanted and rather unpleasant child, perhaps.

"I'm taking you to the barber's tomorrow," she croaked, turning back to the TV, "you're starting to look like a girl."

I lay on the bed in my pajamas, watching the curtains exhaling the cool evening air. Despite the breeze, it was too warm to sleep under the covers; almost too warm to be wearing PJs. Our house wasn't as big as the Old Stewart Place; the rooms were yellow, peeling sweat-boxes straight out of an Alabama work-farm. Well, I suppose that's an exaggeration of titanic proportions, but that's how I remember it to this day. There were huge damp patches on the ceiling and the walls were yellow and warping from the annual humidity. The climate was turning sultry as the great summer heat descended; in a few weeks, a good night's sleep would be close to impossible, even with the window open.

Still, it was early days so far, and the mercury was yet to climb past eighty most days. I moved my legs around on the bedcover, looking for a cool spot to put my feet. It was a wasted effort needless to say, I'd already used up most of the available positions over the past twenty minutes. In all honesty, however, it wasn't the heat that was keeping me awake. Slipping my hands behind my head, I stared into the streetlit darkness, recalling my mother's parting shot.

You're starting to look like a girl.

She wasn't the first person to say that. It was a popular taunt around the school yard, usually accompanied by such time honored favorites as I Know What I am But What Are You and the classic playground retort I'm Rubber You're Glue. All the same, I seemed to get that particular insult more often than anyone else in the fourth grade, especially since Josh Hogan and his goons had elected me last year's scapegoat, alienating me from my small number of friends and making me a target for every meathead with an ego problem (Josh Hogan had been the sixth grade's resident demon for two years running, the sort of kid you change continents to avoid.).

Strangely enough, Mom's sneering comment hadn't bothered me all that much. Quite the opposite: vindictive though her tone had been, I'd felt a brief flare of surprised pleasure – almost exaltation – at her words. The implications made my head swim with feelings I couldn't put a name to. Emotions; strange, exotic, arousing, began to cascade through my mind faster than I could process them.

Was she right? Did I look like a girl?

Did I look like Chrissie?

Sliding off the bed, I turned on my old Elmo nite-lite and padded across the floor, avoiding the loose boards with a practiced tread. There was a small dressing table on the other side of the room, a yard-sale knock down equipped with a three-quarter mirror. At nine years old, I must have seen my reflection at least a zillion times, but tonight, I was looking for something different. Someone different, perhaps. Stepping closer to the mirror, I scrutinized my face through narrowed eyelids.

My hair was straight and thick and chestnut brown: longer than most boys' my age, hanging down past my shoulders. The sun had bleached it a shade lighter over the past month or so, lending it some striking blond highlights. A little wild at the moment, but I doubted I'd be getting it cut tomorrow. Mom's hangover would keep her in bed until midday and she probably wouldn't leave the living room after that.

The hair framed a pudgy, heart-shaped face with dark blue eyes and small, rose-petal lips. Like Chrissie, I'd never completely lost my baby fat. My features were soft and round slightly infantile. A spray of freckles across my nose completed the image of childish innocence; people often mistook me for a six year old (another reason why I had trouble finding friends my own age). A six year old of either sex.

You're starting to look like a girl.

Backing up three steps, I took off my clothes and stood before the mirror, running my gaze up and down my naked body. I was more than a little surprised by what I saw. While I wasn't precisely a girl, I seemed to have the same supple limbs and rounded proportions. I even had a girl's protruding belly and dimpled bottom-cheeks. Strange I'd never noticed it before. There was only one part of my body that wasn't female, and that was a very small part indeed. If it weren't for that ...

Kneeling down before the dresser, I opened the top drawer and started sorting through the piles of shorts and socks and t-shirts, pulling out several items and taking them over to the bed. Again, I avoided stepping on the loose floorboards. Mom had probably passed out by now, but I couldn't afford to take any risks. I had to keep this a secret from her, a secret from everybody, for that matter. I couldn't have said why, I hardly even knew what I was doing at that point. Somehow, I understood that there couldn't be any witnesses to this particular game.

I pulled on a pair of cotton underpants; white hipster briefs with a tight elastic waist band. They weren't exactly the same as what Chrissie had been wearing today, but they were close enough for what I had in mind. Turning back towards the mirror, I froze in mid-breath. With my hair spilling over my shoulders and my panties drawn up to my belly button, I was no longer a boy. Raising a hand to my throat, I regarded my image in round-lipped silence. My mother had been right.

I looked just like a girl.

Sitting down on the bed, I reached for the next article of clothing. Chrissie normally wore frilly pink ankle socks (the ones with the strip of lace running around the top; I'd always found them unbelievably sweet). They were an essential part of her wardrobe, as pretty in their own way as her little satin panties. I didn't own anything even half as cute, but a pair of white nylon school socks would serve the same purpose. I slipped them on one foot at a time, watching myself closely in the mirror. It was easy to picture Chrissie doing precisely the same thing every morning before she went out.

I stood up in my socks and panties, posing in the mirror. My pulse began to quicken; a rare, fine color invaded my cheeks. I ran my fingertips slowly down my torso, raising hum of goose flesh over my bare tummy. Fluttering my eyelids in gasping response, I reached down for the last piece of my costume. It was time to finish the illusion.

I didn't have a short red sunfrock, but I did have an outsized cotton t-shirt of the same color. I dropped it lightly over my head, allowing it to hang loosely down to the tops of my thighs. And somehow, as it molded itself against my girlish shape, it became a dress. Not like the one Chrissie had been wearing today: it didn't have a bow on the back or small yellow buttons running down the front, but it was a dress all the same. A high-waisted scarlet shift so sheer I could almost see the ghost of my underwear through it.

A child's imagination is a wonderful thing.

I'm standing on the lawn on a glorious summer morning when the cicadas call from tree to tree and the sky seems to go on forever. A light June mistral whispers through leaves and branches alike, lifting my skirt with teasing, invisible fingers. Squealing with surprise, I push down on the blossoming fabric and lift my face towards the wind. My veins are flooded with liquid joy, the kind of joy only a child can experience on a morning like this.

Sweeping along in the thrill of the moment, I canter about the yard with my head thrown back in the breeze. My long blond hair whips out behind me, platinum curls blazing in the sun. I skip and dance across the turf with my dress kicking up to my thighs, tracing a broad circle beneath the trees. The world streaks by in a riot of greens and blues and lavenders, all of the colors of summer thrown together in a single glance.

Raising my hands over my head, I launch into a long, spiraling cartwheel. Gravity snatches at my dress, and a moment later, my pretty white panties are staring at the sky. I scream an embarrassed protest as the skirt falls over my face, cutting off my view, but I know my pants are still on full exposure. I can feel the breeze flittering over my bare tummy. I splay my legs apart and tilt my center of balance. The dress slips down a few inches, disclosing more of my pale midriff.

I complete the cartwheel and immediately sweep into another, star-rolling across the lawn with my hemline flipping topsy-turvy. My hands and feet scarcely touch the ground; it's as if I'm soaring through the endless blue skies. The ground rushes up at terminal velocity then plummets away, over and over again.

I finish the performance with a handstand, holding position for maybe ten seconds. The dress instantly flutters inside out, dropping over my waist and torso. Handstands are even better than cartwheels; you get to show so much more. I arch my spine and wriggle my bottom slightly, allowing the frock to peel away from my body, inverting all the way down to my shoulders. Warm, fluid delight bubbles through my bloodstream as I imagine how I must look. And for one breathtaking moment, I can actually see myself: a petite little girl suspended upside-down with her long, sleek legs waving in the air. My dress pools on the grass in a soft red heap, covering my head and arms; pristine white panties flash in the bright June sunshine. The image fills my heart with unvoiced laughter.

Dropping lightly to my feet, I glance around the yard, grinning from cheek to cheek. A high, fine color darkens my features. It was time for the spinning game.

Drawing in a deep breath, I pirouette on my right foot like a ballet dancer: like Chrissie on the very first day I met her. My skirt begins to balloon around my hips, rising slowly up my thighs. The thrill of showing off my panties is utterly irresistible. They're so pretty; so dainty and girlish. The hem inches up by tantalizing degrees: a hint of gusset, a dash of lace, a delicate satin frill. A mischievous zephyr whickers over lawn, sweeping irresistibly up my legs. The dress billows above my waist, revealing everything in a flash of white satin.

I cyclone across the grass in a crimson blur, spinning so fast that my skirt threatens to fly away completely. I'm giggling with delicious, girlish rapture: my panties are on display to the entire world, and I've never felt so unashamedly saucy in my life. A vast surge of pleasure overwhelms my nervous system; it strikes me like a bolt of summer lightning. I swirl the dress ever faster, ever higher, until the hemline is standing out at right angles from my body, an undulating scarlet disk flying level with my ribcage.

Then suddenly, it's over.

I'm stretched out amongst the dandelions, watching the vast, lazy clouds circling overhead. I seem to be floating inches above the ground; gliding away without actually moving. It's a strange, dreamlike sensation, one I've felt before but had almost forgotten over the years. And I feel something else too, something I've never known before. It courses through my body like waves of electric fire, making my nerve-endings buzz and jangle. Parting my lips in wordless bliss, I inhale a draught of sweet morning air, listening to the frantic beating of my heart.

Far away, like a voice in a distant memory, I hear my Mother calling my name ...

I opened my eyes, staring up at the blistered yellow ceiling. My body was still humming with that strange tingly feeling. My entire nervous system lit up like Times Square on New Years Eve. It seemed to pulse and flow like a static charge. The images were still tumbling through my mind's eye: memories and fantasies and scenes that never happened and yet somehow felt completely real. Real enough to make my heart thunder like a steam locomotive, real enough to dilate my pupils and darken my complexion several shades.

I was lying on the bed with my t-shirt thrown up to my midriff, casually exposing my white cotton briefs. The room was still a little on the warm side, but I was covered with a thin film of sweat, cool and moist in the evening breeze. I barely noticed the humidity anyway. Something had happened to me, some change had occurred – and, once again, I hadn't seen it coming. For a few minutes I'd become someone else. No, that wasn't right. I hadn't become someone else.

I'd become my real self.

I got off the bed and walked over to the mirror, unconsciously adjusting my t-shirt to a more modest position. Even now, it looked more like a girl's shift than anything else. I leaned in to study my reflection once more, knowing that what I was thinking was impossible. Such things only happened in the realm of Long Ago and Ever After, and I hadn't put much stock in fairy tales since my seventh birthday. It was silly, really – crazy, in fact – but I honestly couldn't help myself. I had to see.

Needless to say, there was no change whatsoever. For a second I thought maybe my face was a little fuller than I recalled, but that was just my imagination. And while a child's imagination was a wonderful thing, it had its limitations. It could turn a t-shirt into a sundress, but it couldn't change a boy into a girl. Even at nine, I understood that wishful thinking didn't get you anywhere. Look at how my parent's marriage had turned out. Placing a hand on the top of the dresser, I bent forward in to study my features at extreme close up – and froze.

There were footsteps coming up the stairs. Heavy, slumping footsteps; the sound of a drunken woman hauling herself along the banister. It was Mom! She was awake. I stood bolt upright, staring at the door. Had I woken her up, cartwheeling across the floor like a lunatic? Was she coming up to investigate? Leaving my face in the mirror, I padded back to bed, pulling the t-shirt over my head. I couldn't let her catch me wearing it, she'd know I was playing around when I should have been asleep.

I flung the t-shirt aside and all but dived under the covers. I was frightened. Mom had a mean temper this time of night, but that wasn't the extent of my fears. Illogical though it was, I was sure she'd work out what I was doing. And if that happened, she might make (what I imagined was) the obvious connection; that this was all somehow tied in to the girl next door. She'd be absolutely furious, banning Chrissie from our home and forbidding me to see her.

And that simply could not happen.

The footsteps approached my bedroom door. Reaching over the side of the bed, I flicked off the nite-lite and snuggled down against the pillow, forcing my breathing to slow to a snail's pace. Then she's standing in the hallway right outside, I can almost feel her hesitating by the door, looking down at the knob. I lie in knife-edged silence, waiting for it to turn ...

Five seconds pass. Ten.

I heard her footsteps receding down the hall towards her bedroom. Returning my gaze to the ceiling, I remembered to breath, realizing for the first time that I was trembling under the sheets. It took me several minutes to relax completely; for some reason, I'd been close to all-out panic. I ran my fingers through my hair in a calming gesture, unable to explain my near-terror. Mom had a mouth that could gut a fish, but even in her worst moments, she'd never done anything to really hurt me.

A sort of midnight quiet began to descend over the house, broken only by the odd rustle and creak of settling foundations. I wanted to get out of bed and play the spinning game again, but eventually decided not to risk fate twice in the one evening. Pushing the covers to the bottom of the bed, I found one of the few remaining cold spots on the mattress and made myself comfortable.

I looked towards the darkened window, remembering how it had felt, twirling across the yard with my dress soaring over my tummy-button. I could recall everything: the glaring of the sun through the leaves, the roaring of the trees overhead. The scent of freshly trimmed grass, the rush of the wind through my outstretched fingers. The gentle waving of the dandelions as I drift off to the place where dreams are born…

Dozing lightly on the lawn, I hear my Mother calling from the veranda.

Her name is Eve.

---

I have this pet theory that adults and children come from different planes of existence. I mean, they occupy the same Cartesian space and everything, but they seem to inhabit totally separate realities. You probably couldn't write a dissertation on the subject, but if you think back to your own childhood, you'll realize it has to be true. A child's world is huge and bright and wonderfully unpredictable; a place where the laws of physics are constantly rescinded as a matter of course. Time has a fluent, malleable quality unknown in the adult realm. A minute could last for an hour, an hour could stretch out to a year. A good summer could literally scroll away into eternity, sort of like those old-fashioned barber poles you used to see down in your main street. That's the thing I remember most from my childhood: the days seemed to go on forever.

I think it was because we were experiencing everything for the first time. There was so much to see and touch and know from one heartbeat to the next, we had to squeeze the life out every last meandering second. A simple walk to the park could take you to some crazy, Technicolor land where cats could fly and trees could dance and every rainbow led to a pot of gold. As you grow older, you lose touch with this world of gnomes and sprites and Puff the Magic Dragon. You're taken to a room where you forget the wondrous lessons of infancy and learn the insurmountable truths of life in the Real World. And finally, you descend into some lifeless gray limbo of loans and paychecks and mortgage repayments, where nobody lives happily ever after because all the fairytales are politically correct.

And the worst part is this: you go there of your own free will.

Well, most of us do, anyway.

For those of us who never quite abandon Alice or Pooh or Dorothy, there are the memories of an endless, golden season in the middle of the year. Looking back to those fine, still mornings I spent playing in the Reinhart's front yard, I realize that they were amongst the happiest in my life. There were shadows, needless to say (including the one I faced every afternoon around 4.30), but they seemed to take up only a tiny portion of each day, like the passage of a single cloud over a vast green landscape. If the cloud signaled the presence of an oncoming storm, it seemed too low on the horizon to pose any serious threat. The days were long, the days were warm, the days were beautiful. And whenever I recall the casual miracles of that everlasting June, I know that I'm seeing the world once more through the eyes of a child.

I tiptoed down the stairs with a hand touching the banister, listening for sounds of movement down in the living room. Mom usually slept until about twelve, but she occasionally woke up early and staggered 'round the house in a rambling stupor. It didn't happen very often, but I knew better than to draw attention to myself when she was tanked to the gills. Last time she'd awoken in that state, she'd gone on a minor rampage, smashing glasses and screaming at the top of her lungs. I spent the next two days hiding in my room, listening to her cursing my father to hell.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, I crept down the hallway towards the front door. I was dressed very simply; blue spandex bike shorts under a Hard Rock t-shirt four sizes too big. This was a radical departure for me, but there wasn't much else to choose from. Everything else was in the laundry, had been for the last fortnight... Still, the new look suited me in some respects. I'd taken to wearing oversized t-shirts over the past week, ever since the night I played the spinning game. The one I had on now hung almost to my knees, so I'd hitched it up with a knot at the right hip.

I glanced back over my shoulder, making sure she wasn't standing at the top of the stairs. That was how these things always work; it was kind of like those Wes Craven movies where you think the hero's finally safe and then the monster appears out of nowhere to rip his face off with a rusting garden hoe or something. They always get you when you're not looking. Fortunately, there was nothing lurking on the first floor landing, so I continued down the corridor, glancing into the living room as I slipped past the doorway.

Mom was lying on the sofa.

No, that's not the right word. She wasn't lying; she had collapsed like a landslide, like an imploded skyscraper. The sofa was surrounded by the wreckage of her disintegration; a chaos of upturned furniture, broken bottles and cast-off pizza cartons. Shattered glass and scraps of refuse littered the floor; a trail of chicken bones and KFC boxes led out to the kitchen. The whole downstairs area was a wasteland stinking of garbage and cigarettes and three-day old vomit.

But worse than all this was my mother herself.

She was sprawled half off the sofa with her knuckles grazing the floor, her lank, matted hair pasted to the side of her face. A thin runner of drool hung from the corner of her mouth, threading its way tenuously to the floor. Her face was puffy and bloated, the skin tinged with a faint yellow cast. I studied her features, trying to see the woman she'd been only a few months before, the woman who used to cook me flap-jacks for lunch every weekend; flapjacks with sugar and maple syrup. There was no sign of her. She'd been submerged beneath a torrent of rancid, melting flesh. Her body had fared no better; she seemed to be overflowing around the midsection. Her loose-fitting jogging pants had worked their way down her hips, exposing a sweeping vista of pulpy cellulite.

Despite my fear of her drunken rages, I still felt some degree of compassion. At the age of nine, I understood that she was lonely and hurt and depressed, that she wasn't entirely responsible for her actions. There were things I didn't understand, of course. I didn't know that Dad had managed to drain most of her bank account all the way from Chicago. I didn't know about the unpaid bills, the repossession waivers or the eviction notices. I had no idea how desperate our position was about to become. No idea whatsoever.

I stood at the doorway staring down at her, wondering what I could do, how I could help my mother escape the gray, swollen mass bulking out the sofa. Even now, I ask myself if there was anything I could have done, any words I could have said; something that might have brought her back from her self-constructed purgatory. But I was a child, barely three months past my ninth birthday. What could I have done?

She stirred on the couch, grunting under her breath and fluttering her eyelids. I backed quietly down the hallway, holding my breath in case she heard me and woke up shrieking.

A moment later I was stepping out into the wide, cool morning, shutting the darkness behind me as I trotted down the porch steps. A green haze of dragonflies darted across the lawn, their multi-faceted eyes glinting like emeralds. I watched them swarm off towards the street, then walked over to the fence dividing the Reinhart's yard from ours.The sun had barely cleared the trees, the day was unfurling before me, and the cloud had passed over the landscape.

At least for now.

The Old Stewart Place was a colonial-style homestead with a veranda running all the way 'round the outside. Easily the most picturesque house on Lakehurst Avenue, it had bay windows out front and attic sleepers in the roof. The front garden had erupted into full bloom almost the same day Chrissie arrived and appeared to be taking over the footpath as the season progressed. You had to follow a footpath through the rose bed to reach the veranda. Maybe that's why sprinting up the Reinhart's front steps always felt like coming home. By definition, a home should have a garden.

The front door was open (Eve didn't believe in air conditioners, said they caused insanity or something), but I paused to knock all the same. Even in a place like Fairmont, you don't just go waltzing into someone's house all unannounced, everyone knew that. I waited with my hand on the doorframe for a few seconds, then I heard a clear, warm voice inviting me inside. It was Chrissie's Mom, calling out from the living room.

"Come in Billy."

Evelyn always knew when it was me, probably because I arrived around the same time every day. I walked into the long transept hall, figuring Chrissie must've been up in her bedroom (as she didn't come scampering out to answer the door like she usually did). Probably playing with the Whipper-Snapper I gave her a few weeks back; she never got tired of zocking it back and forth.

As I headed down the corridor, I noticed a trail of tiny footprints leading from the staircase to the living room. Tiny wet footprints. For some reason, this fact didn't quite register on my consciousness. I turned into the archway, raising a hand in greeting, oblivious of what I was walking into.

"Hi, Mrs. Reinhart, is Chrissie - "

That was as far as I got. Freezing in mid-sentence, I dropped my eyes to the floor, my cheeks igniting with sudden embarrassment. All at once, I realized what the little footprints had meant. Chrissie wasn't up in her bedroom at all. She was down in the living room with her mother, standing in front of the sofa. Her moist blond hair trailed down the middle of her back, and there was a soft blue bath-towel lying at her feet.

And she was in her underwear.

---

"I'll - I'll just wait... out here," I spluttered to no one in particular, half-stumbling into the corridor. What was I supposed to do? I knew I shouldn't be here right now; maybe I ought to go home. Or at least wait out on the veranda until it was OK to come back inside. I peered out the front door, thinking Chrissie would probably never speak to me again. Gnawing on my lower lip, I started inching towards the door, unable to believe what I'd just seen.

(chrissies got no clothes on)

"Billy." Eva's voice again.

"Y-yes, Mrs. Reinhart?" I stammered, still averting my gaze.

"It's all right," she told me reassuringly, "you can come in if you want."

"Really?" I asked in overt surprise. My eyes started to wander through the archway, but I yanked them back on a short leash.

"Yes, it's fine, honey," she replied in coffee-cream tones, "we'll be finished in a minute."

(but chrissies got no CLOTHES on)

Despite my mounting agitation, I turned and looked into living room once more, mainly to confirm that it was all right for me to enter. I thought maybe Chrissie had climbed into a dress or was wearing the towel around her shoulders. Either option would have been okay, but it turned out that I was wrong on both counts.

Eva was sitting on the chaise-long in her jeans and t-shirt, hair tied back in a bushy black ponytail. Chrissie was standing to one side in her bra and panties, carelessly brushing the tangles from her hair, totally oblivious of her state of dishabille. She turned in my direction, eyebrows raised in silent inquiry, her posture completely relaxed. Well? Are you coming in, or what?

I looked hesitantly up at Eve, unsure as to what to do next.

"Come and sit here," Eve told me, patting the space next to her. There were some clothes laid over the end of the couch, along with a pair of spangled yellow sandals. Evidently, Chrissie had just finished bathing, and Eve had brought her out to the living room to get dressed. It was a big, airy space with light spilling in through the windows, painting the floor with long golden rectangles. Pushing myself forward through a supreme act of will, I walked across the room and sat down beside Mrs. Reinhart – and saw what little girls were made of.

I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised. Chrissie and I were practically joined at the hip, I'd grown so used to the sight of her underpants that I barely noticed any more. But this was the first time I'd ever seen her this undressed. Heck, it was the very first time I'd ever seen any girl this undressed.

I stared at my playmate in childish wonder. She was so different to me, so totally different. Having no point of reference, I'd always assumed that we looked pretty much the same under our clothes, except that Chrissie was smaller and prettier and had longer hair.

Looking at her now, however, I realized she was somewhat taller than I'd previously imagined – taller and more mature, in fact. All this time, I'd thought she was around my age, maybe eight or nine, but that had all been a mirage, a … glamour, for lack of a better word. It was just one of the countless illusions that seemed to surround her. She had the face of a child, true, but her body was blossoming. I could see that much, even at a glance.

How old was she really? Eleven? Twelve? Old enough to wear a training bra, at the very least. But that couldn't be right – only a month ago, I'd seen her almost completely disrobed, back when we'd played the handstand game. She'd looked no more than eight that day, and I could have sworn that –

"Billy," Evelyn said, snapping me out of my reveries. I practically leapt out of my flesh, staring at her in red-faced guilt.

"Sorry?" I replied after an uncomfortable pause. It was all I could manage.

"Could you hand me that skirt, please?"

"Yes'm," I replied, biting my lip once more. What had I been doing?! I knew it was rude to stare. She must've thought I was the biggest prevert in the space-time continuum, practically drooling over her half-naked daughter like that. I looked frantically around the room, not quite certain what she'd asked for. Had she said 'skirt' or 'shirt?' No idea. A single, rampant thought was flashing through my mind in glaring, neon letters:

(chrissies not wearing any clothes and they caught me staring)

Of course, I hadn't been drooling and neither of them considered me a 'prevert'. Eve was actually regarding me with considerable amusement, raising a comical eyebrow as I finally found what I was looking for.

Earlier on, I'd noticed a small pile of clothing neatly folded over the edge of the chaise-long, although I hadn't paid much attention at the time. There was a sky blue mini with a big silver zip down the side, along with a short-sleeved blouse splashed with strawberries. There were no socks on this occasion, but a pair of spangled yellow sandals had been placed on the floor, ankle straps lying open.

"Here," I mumbled apologetically, averting my eyes as I handed the skirt over. Chrissie snatched it up with an exasperated sigh.

"About time," she clucked impatiently, shaking her head in evident disbelief: you aren't a prevert, Billy. You're just an idiot. I smiled sheepishy at her disapproval, then turned my gaze towards her long-suffering Mother. Eve shrugged a wordless reply, carefully maintaining a straight face. The day was just getting started, after all.

I sat watching Chrissie dress for the next few minutes, silently recording everything I saw for future reference. It was like some magic reverse-striptease where the girl covered everything up rather than slipping everything off. Tonight, I'd replay the entire morning's events from start to finish, over and over on a continuous loop. It was the one thing I could look forward to when I went home: casting myself in Chrissie's role and feeling that familiar mix of shame, pleasure and excitement that accompanied my nightly 'dress up' shows. My emotions had become increasingly more complex since the Reinharts moved in. Part of it was the wonder of new experience, part of it was the joy of childhood friendship.

Part of it was sheer jealousy.

Chrissie had a Mother who cared for her, a Mother who loved and doted and fussed over her. Chrissie ate pancakes for breakfast and meatloaf for dinner. Chrissie had soap in the shower and towels on the rack. Chrissie had fresh bed-sheets and clean pillow slips and clothes that didn't smell like they were ready to crawl away and die in the corner.

Most of all, she had a Mother who talked to her.

I supressed a deep stab of envy, knowing how all of this had been denied to me for reasons I simply couldn't fathom. It all seemed so desperately unjust. When was the last time my mother had bathed and dressed me? When was the last time she'd brushed my hair, stroked my cheek, told me how special I was? Five months ago, six? A year? I couldn't remember.

I shoved the darkness into the back of my mind, understanding how unfair it was to blame the Reinharts for my misfortunes. If anything, their presence was my final refuge from complete and abject misery. I looked over at my erstwhile playdate, suddenly grateful that we had the whole of summer ahead of us.

"Well? How do I look?"

Chrissie finished strapping on her sandals and stood up to face me with her usual quizzical expression. She was every bit as beautiful as I'd ever seen her – more so, in fact, than on the day we'd first met. It's hard to say how – it was like she was ripening as the season climbed into mid-summer. Eve looked her over once or twice, fiddled with her hair, then nodded to herself in approval. Perfect.

And so she was.

"Can we go down to the park now, Mommy?" Chrissie asked, kneading her hemline.

"Not 'til you've had something to eat, Missy," Eva said, rising to her feet, "can't go out with an empty tummy, can we?" She glanced over in my direction, placing her hands on her hips. "Have you had breakfast yet, Billy?"

The question caught me off guard, and I hesitated several seconds, not sure how to answer. I hadn't eaten anything substantial for nearly two days - the fridge was empty and Mom had destroyed every plate in the kitchen during her last howling binge. I'd been surviving on a diet of potato chips and cheese-curls lately, and I'd left home without eating anything at all that morning. To say I was hungry would have been an understatement, but I was reluctant to let Eve know there was anything wrong.

"I...uh, I yah um – " I began, lapsing into the stream of gibberish I normally employ when my brain clicks into shutdown mode. Chrissie put a hand over her mouth and giggled, eyes rolling up to meet her Mother's.

(billys really funny mommy)

(no darling billys very hungry don't laugh)

"Already eaten?" Eve asked, reading my expression as much as my mind, "well then, why don't you come out to the kitchen for a snack? You ever tried French Toast?"

"No I haven't," I replied, intrigued by the name, "what is it?"

"Real yummy is what it is, Billy," Chrissie announced, scampering over to grab me by the arm, "c'mon, you'll love it!" She started yanking me off the sofa, regaling me with epic descriptions of her Mommy's culinary skills (all of which were totally indisputable, I should add).

In a span of minutes, we were seated at the kitchen table, chattering away in fluent childspeak while Eva tied on an apron and wove her motherly enchantments. Switching on the radio, she bustled about the breakfast bar, humming under her breath and filling the air with a floury haze. Call me old-fashioned, but the sound of a woman singing in the kitchen never fails to swell my heart with contentment. I think most people forget what a mysterious, magical place a kitchen is for a young child, with its jars and spices and secret, hidden spaces.

It goes without saying that Eva Reinhart's French Toast was the most delicious thing I'd ever tasted up to that point. I like to believe it had nothing to my being on the brink of starvation.

Perhaps I was asking for trouble. I was old enough to understand that my mother wouldn't take this desertion lightly. At best, she'd see it as a criticism of her parental abilities (such as they were); at worst, a defection to the enemy camp. But as I said before, what else could I do? I was nine years old, I was hungry, and there was no food in the house. Eve's generosity was a godsend. Unfortunately, none of this would make any difference to Mom. The moment she discovered I was eating my meals next door – and this was inevitable – she would give in to a fury that could melt lead.

Mom had come to loath Evelyn Reinhart with a passion that bordered on the irrational. There was no logical reason for her hatred; she hardly knew Eva, had traded maybe a hundred words with her, and most of those had been at their introduction. But Mom despised her all the same. During her less lucid moments, she held, long, rambling monologues with herself, attacking first Eve and then my father with equal venom. Sometimes, she seemed to imagine that Dad had run off with Eve, or at least someone like her. Times like that, I either got out of the house or hid in my room, as her delusions often signaled the onset one of her frenzies.

Most evenings, however, she spent comatose in the living room, and I frequently prayed she'd stay that way. Much as it pains me to say this, Mom had grown so unpredictable that I was avoiding her as much as possible. Fortunately, she was usually unconscious when I sneaked in through the back door at four-thirty. This afternoon I'd found her half-submerged into the couch, clutching a bottle of cheap wine in a death-grip. Evidently, Johnny Walker had been slashed from the budget, along with the pizzas, the corn-chips and the Colonel Sanders. Staring around the room at the fall-out of our lives, I fancied we'd sunk about as low as we could go. I couldn't have known how far we had left to fall. How very, very far.

But all of that lay in the future. For now, the oncoming storm was an insignificant blur, betraying not a hint of the havoc it would eventually wreak in our lives. As the temperatures climbed, I played in the sun with the girl next door; oblivious of the Darkness gathering on the horizon. How long did we have together? How long before the dogs began to howl around the streets of Fairmont? Three months, I realize now; little more than ninety days to run and shout and revel in the joy of her company. It seems impossibly short, a fleeting interval in the passage of years, but as I noted earlier, time moves differently for children.

And a lot can happen in three months.

Later:

My bedroom offered some small measure of protection from the encroaching shadows – not much admittedly, but better than nothing at all. It was eight o'clock, the sun was setting, and I had the evening to myself. It was time to slough off my daytime identity and free my Otherself. I'd come to see myself in two different roles – the boy I played during daylight hours and the girl I became every evening. She had no name, no existence beyond the frame of my three-quarter mirror; yet, like any other child, she lived in a realm of dreams and fantasies. And – like any other child – she inhabited more than one plane of reality.

I kicked off my clothes and walked over to the dresser, recalling how Chrissie had looked the morning her Mom cooked breakfast for us. The image had been replaying itself through my head like a video set to repeat and I'd acted it out every evening for the past week. It was one of a number of games I played while my mother was asleep and the house was on silent running. All of them were extremely sensual, a few of them left me breathless with excitement (the "Dressing Up" scenario was probably the most exhilarating – the scene at the end where I zip on the mini skirt always left me quivering in near-ecstasy).

Sliding open the dresser drawer, I reached in to find my costume. The underwear situation was becoming desperate, but I always kept a pair of white cotton hipsters in reserve. They weren't as pretty as Chrissie's underthings (particularly her Days of The Week selection), but they smelled clean and served their purpose in every other respect. I kept them hidden under a stack of t-shirts, the most priceless item in my top-shelf collection (where were they anyhow? Must've pushed them to the back for safe keeping).

Leaning over the drawer, I glanced absently at my reflection – and stopped.

There was a girl looking back at me.

Straightening up to my full height, I studied myself in the mirror: my hair, my face, my pre-pubescent figure. Lifting my fingers to the glass, I shook my head in slow disbelief, still doubting the evidence of my eyes.

Was it possible?

I'd been denying it for weeks now, telling myself that it was just my imagination. Dreams never came true in the real world, wishes were never granted, I knew that for a fact. If they did, Prince Charming would never have run off with his secretary and Cinderella wouldn't be lying paralytic down in the living room. Life was no fairy tale, no matter how desperately I wanted otherwise; ducks didn't turn into swans, straw didn't turn into gold, and boys couldn't turn into girls. Yet here I was, staring into a face that only barely resembled mine.

I was changing.

A transformation had been taking place, just as I'd suspected; one so gradual as to seem virtually non-existent. What had been the first signs? A rounding of the limbs, a faint swelling of the tummy? That could have been anything - a change in weight, a trick of the light. Blonde streaks in the hair? Had to be the sun; I spent most of my time outside. Nothing dramatic, nothing inexplicable. No Hollywood CGI, no Terminator-style morphing. Just a slow, plodding transition from one state to another, as imperceptible as the growth of a child.

When had it begun? Back in June, the night of the spinning game? No, it had started weeks before that, right after school let out, not long after Dad had hopped an Airbus to Chicago. End of spring, around the same time the season turned and the flowers burst forth along the sidewalk. The day I sat listening to the radio on the front porch, idly tapping away at a paddle-ball while a huge blue moving van rolled up before the Old Stewart Place.

The morning Chrissie moved in, to be precise.

How long ago was that? Eight, nine weeks? The whole length of summer so far. As the days grew longer and the streets pulsed with vibrant green life, some bizarre metamorphosis had occurred; was still occurring right now. There was no other explanation; the signals were all there, and they were far too obvious to ignore.

My hair had lightened by visible degrees. At first I'd thought it was common sun-bleaching, but it had also changed color somehow, going from a dark reddish-brown to a rich honey-blonde. It had thickened and grown at an impossible rate, taking on a sumptuous wavy curl. How long before it was down to my waist? Three weeks, a month? By the beginning of fall, it would be longer than Chrissie's, perhaps even as fair.

The changes extended to my face as well. The features had softened, growing steadily more feminine. My lips had folded into a sensuous pout, dimples appearing either side of my mouth, and my nose was melting into a clipped, round bump. The very structure of my face had altered; the cheeks padding up with puppy-fat, the jaw shrinking away to doll-like proportions. And while I hadn't lost any height, I had the open, blameless expression of a very young child – a girl of maybe six or seven.

I moved my hands down the front of my body, examining the differences with my fingertips. My tips were as large and dark as plums, the ends jutting from my chest in hard red points. My figure, lithe and rather girlish to begin with, was overflowing with lush, ripe curves, especially around the thighs and bottom. Even my belly button had changed. Back in May, it had been a shallow dip in the middle of my tummy. Now it was poking out like the tip of an impudent pink tongue.

Scanning myself closely in the mirror, I slid my fingers down to the junction of my legs. I was vaguely aware of how different girls were from boys, but that difference had been evaporating off my body for over two months. I hadn't noticed it until quite recently (perhaps because this was the slowest of all the transformations I was undergoing), but there could be no question now as to what was happening.

Strangely enough, this particular modification hadn't frightened me in the least. Most other boys would have run screaming through the house, but I found myself accepting it with the same puzzled confusion I'd felt all along. In a way, it was no different to anything else that had happened that summer. It was almost as if I'd been... well, expecting it, I s'pose. That's not exactly the right word, but it's close enough.

However, that wasn't the full extent of the changes. There was still one more, perhaps the most significant, something I hadn't noticed until a few days ago. It was the most perplexing – and maybe the most alarming – of all the enigmas I'd encountered so far. In a way, it was the key to everything that had happened to me, although I wouldn't understand that for quite some time yet.

Bracing one hand against the wall, I leaned in towards the mirror, close enough for my breath to fog the glass. Gazing into that innocent, elfish face, I sought an answer to this mystery, a clue to this paradox. And there it was, the final proof I was seeking. There could be no doubt, no mistake. Somehow, it was all true. Against all logic, all commonsense, I was evolving into a girl. And not just any girl, either.

My eyes had turned purple.

Purple, rimmed with turquoise.

---