“Tiara said I didn’t do anything to my mind, but she has to be wrong.”

I am once again in the recliner in Mr. Berry’s office. 

“Why do you say that?” he replies.

“Because I was fine before last Monday.”

“And you’re not fine now?”

“I am when I’m the girl, but when I tried being myself again last night, it felt bad.”

“Bad how?”

I try to describe it to him. About how things seem flat. About how I seem flat. I don’t think I do a very good job.

“Could you switch back right now and tell me how it feels?”

“Do I have to?”

“You do not.”

So I don’t. Instead he starts asking me questions about my life before the incident. Mainly about my feelings, but also about my activities.

He is clearly trying to figure out how to say something, so I wait as patiently as I can.

“That doesn’t really sound like you were fine before this started. Before last Monday, when is the last time you remember feeling happy?”

I think about the Perry incident, but Marie was right about that. I can’t actually remember any specific moments of happiness. I tell him as much.

“But I’m sure there were some,” I insist.

“And when is the most recent time you can remember feeling happy since?”

That’s easy. This morning I talked to Coach Lacey about rejoining the after school martial arts class. I took it for a while when I first got to The School, but dropped it after a few months. I’m really looking forward to it.

I start to tell Mr. Berry that, when I remember walking between first and second periods, and this girl I don’t even really know complimented my earrings.

I get his point.

“I don’t understand,” I say. “Why am I happier like this than I am as myself?”

“That’s something you have to answer for yourself. But realizing that you are happier as you are now is an important step.

“Our time’s just about up,” he says. “There’s something I’d like you to do before our next appointment.”

“Great, I’m getting homework for therapy?”

“Something like that. Imagine that you have a friend; we’ll call them A. A has been living as a girl for all their life, but recently became able to change their body to match either sex. A tells you that they like being a boy better, and asks you what you think that means. What I’d like you to do is write a dialog between you and them for us to discuss on Monday.”

“But—”

“I think it will help. We’ll talk again on Monday.”

“Fine.”

When I get home, I get a message from Denise telling me to check my maiI. There’s a small package addressed to me.

Back in my room, I open it up. Inside, there are a few small makeup items and a note with a YouTube URL on it, which takes me to a video of Denise.

“Hi, Frank!” video Denise says.

“I hope you’re okay. I’m sorry I freaked you out the other day. Here’s a little eyeshadow tutorial for you, but I totally understand if you don’t want to watch it.”

I spend the afternoon watching the video and following along until I’m happy with my results. 

I don’t even realize Mom is home until I hear her call out, “Frank! You home?”

“I’ll be out in a minute.”

I grab a makeup wipe and clean off my face as quickly as I can. 

Before I leave my room, I type out a quick reply to Denise. “Thank you!”

Dinner is uneventful. Mom even almost looks at me twice.

It isn’t until I’m in bed, ready to fall asleep, that I remember my promise to turn back tonight. Shit. Well, Mom is probably falling asleep. It would be better to wait until Wednesday.

It’s Thursday afternoon and I’m still the girl.

Wednesday morning, Denise texted me to see if we could hang out Friday after school. Of course I said yes. I thought about switching back on Wednesday night, I really did. I could go hang out with Denise as myself, instead of as her. But the thought of Denise seeing me like that, as the boy, makes me feel sick. Especially without any warning.

Just a few more days. I can hang out with Denise and tell her what’s going on with me. If we’re going to be friends, I’m not going to keep hiding the truth from her.

That’s why I’m sitting in the courtyard eating a tuna sandwich from the cafeteria, wearing a dress that would look right at home on Wednesday Addams. I’m thinking about what I’ll wear tomorrow night when an alarm sounds. Somewhere in or around the school, an incursion is happening, the third one this school year. Seconds later, a calm voice issues from the PA system.

“An incursion is imminent. Please report to the nearest classroom and stay put within until the all clear sounds.”

Most of the kids hurry out of the cafeteria. 

Not everyone has to go lock themselves in a classroom, since this is a class three or four incursion. If it were a class one or two, the announcement would have included a bit about ‘all students’ and there would be red flashing lights as well. As it is, members of the Student Response Team are allowed to show up and try to help. The operative term there is ‘try.’

I, of course, as a fine, upstanding member of the student body, am a member of the SRT. So far, I haven’t accomplished anything helpful and don’t expect that to change, but then again, neither have most of the other members.

As a member of the SRT, I get a notification on my phone. Any of us who are interested in helping out are directed to report to the hallway outside the auditorium. I put my phone away. I might as well let some of the other kids get there first. I finish my lunch in a mostly empty courtyard.

“Yay. It’s Frank,” a student observes flatly when I flicker in near the auditorium.

I recognize her as Bella Root. I don’t have any interesting information on her, so I ignore her and take a look around. There are eight other students here already, and I hear running footsteps coming around the curve of the hallway.

The kid nearest the auditorium door is a senior named Kevin Souder. He’s an officer in the SRT and seems to be taking charge here. He surveys the assembled students and doesn’t look all that pleased with what he sees.

Looking at the other kids here, I can see why. We’ve got Bella, who can turn anything transparent, as long as she’s touching it, another who can summon and control a two foot globe of darkness, and Cat, who is currently a mountain lion. Sure, there are five more, but they’re all less useful than those three.

Not that I’m one to talk. There’s not much I can do to help deal with ninety-nine percent of incursions. My biggest talent is being a distraction if one is needed, since I can always get away if necessary. Not that I’ve actually done that yet. I generally come to these things as more of an observer than a participant. Seeing how people behave under stress can be useful.

Kevin glances down the hall behind me and looks a little relieved. I follow his gaze and see two girls running our way: Diana Miller and Talia Kitchens. Diana’s mark gives her telekinetic control over her hair, which might not seem like much, but Diana’s hair is at least seven feet long, and there is so much of it. I’m pretty sure she can grow it longer, too. Talia can control water. Three six-inch spheres of it are circling her head as the two girls come into view, and one of those darts to the nearby water fountain and holds down the button. The stream of water flows upward, forming a new sphere.

That’s more like it.

Kevin claps his hand to get everyone’s attention. This works well since his mark lets him amplify and focus sound.

“It looks like we’ve got between thirty and fifty unknown creatures in the auditorium,” he says, holding up his phone. I can’t see it from here, but it’s probably showing a feed from the cameras in there. “We need to contain them and, if we can, put them back through the aperture before it closes.”

I check the SRT channel on my phone for the video feed. Sure enough, a bunch of creatures around the size of a very large housecat are skittering around the room. There’s a purple-white glowing disk hanging in the air not too far from the doors.

I’m not really worried. Someone in the office has obviously decided these things aren’t a real threat. If they were, we’d (almost) all be on lockdown in classrooms while the professionals deal with it. Looking at the faces of the other kids, I think at least some of them haven’t figured that out yet. Well, I’m not going to be the one to tell them there’s no Santa Claus—not today, anyway.

Kevin’s been shouting out directions to various kids, but I’m not paying much attention since he hasn’t said my name, and I doubt he will. If he’s smart, he’ll be using Talia and Diana as heavy hitters. Thinking of that, I notice a stream of water pouring through the air from a nearby bathroom. Talia’s taking this seriously, at least. 

Bella steps up to the wall next to the door and places her palm on it. An area of transparency spreads out from her hand until it covers a twenty foot section. Okay, her power is somewhat useful, I guess. And it gives her a reason to stay out of the line of fire.

Through the wall, I can see the creatures much better than I could on my phone. The housecat comparison is even more apt than I thought. That’s pretty much what they look like, except that their tails appear to be prehensile, and their fur is a glowing turquoise color. If I could capture a breeding pair, I could get rich selling them on the black market. Not that I would do something like that.

I watch a moment longer as a couple of them jump on seats. Based on their movements and how the seats react when they land on them, I’d say they weigh between ten and twenty pounds.  Probably mostly around fifteen. That gives me an idea.

I flicker to the equipment room in the gym. We have some pretty odd stuff in here because of the Gauntlet, a twice a year event where we compete to resolve a simulated incursion. I vaguely remember us having something useful, and there they are.

I reappear outside the auditorium and hand out pole nets, the kind animal control people use, to the kids with less relevant powers, keeping one for myself. I mean, they might as well feel at least a little useful.

All of the other kids except Talia and Bella gather right up against the door. Talia creates walls out of her collected water, such that anything coming through the door will still be trapped. Kevin opens the door and the group charges in. I stay put and watch. Once they’re through, Talia follows, closing the doors behind her with a tentacle of water.

I watch through the transparent wall. It is not going well. For some reason, Kevin is having everyone just charge in and start trying to catch the alien cats instead of, say, seeing if they could be talked to. Sure, they’re probably animals, but still. They don’t seem dangerous, but they’re very fast and don’t want to be caught. 

Talia looks like she might make progress for a minute when she grabs one of them with a tentacle of water. But it freaks out and seems so distressed that she immediately sets it back down. She even pulls the water out of its fur. After that she starts trying to herd them toward the disk, instead of picking them up. It’s not working.

Everyone else is having even less luck. I’m a little disappointed that my idea of the nets isn’t working out. The little guys are too fast, and there are too many places that they can hide where the nets can’t reach. 

The only one who is having any luck at all is Diana. She captures a couple with long tendrils of hair and places them through the portal. They jump right back out and dart away from her. After that, all the cats start giving her a wide berth.

I’d just keep watching, but I can see some of the kids are getting really frustrated, and that’s making them careless and irritable. That has potential for hilarity, but the cats might get hurt, so I should see what I can do. I flicker onto the stage at the front of the auditorium. 

There are a couple of the cats on the stage with me. I sit down, since it’s just as easy to flicker away from that position as it would be any other, and the cats will probably find it less threatening. I hold out a hand toward one of the cats. It looks at me, then approaches carefully, sniffs my fingers, then licks them. 

That gives me another idea. I pull my hand away and stand, causing the cat to back away a little, then I flicker to the cafeteria. Good, the food is still out. I grab a couple of tuna sandwiches from the buffet area and flicker back to where I’d just been.

I tear off a little piece of one of the sandwiches and hold it out to the cat. It sniffs it, then licks it out from my fingers. Once it swallows the food, it mrrs at me. I give it another piece and a few more of the cats come to investigate. They follow, sniffing, as I slowly walk toward the disk.

The other kids start noticing me and stop what they’re doing to watch. I make it to the disk and hold a chunk of sandwich right in front of it. The cats approach cautiously. I toss the chunk of sandwich through and three cats leap after it, disappearing back to where they came. I hand the remaining sandwiches to the three nearest kids, then flicker back to the cafeteria. 

I’m back seconds later with an armful of sandwiches. I distribute them, and soon we’re all luring cats to the disk. I throw four or five sandwiches through the disk, so that the cats on the other side won’t feel the need to hop right back through.

Ten minutes later, the auditorium is cat free.

We hold nets up against the disk until it disappears another ten minutes after that.

The bell signaling the end of lunch rings, so I flicker to my next class.

Friday evening, I flicker to a spot behind a dumpster near my favorite pizza place, The Science of Pizza. It’s all the way across town, but I could have gotten there by bus, so it’s an easy jump. Once I have the pizza, I message Denise.

Me: Okay if I come straight to your room?

Denise: Sure!

She hasn’t even lowered her phone when I appear in front of her, pizza in hand. She jumps in surprise.

“You squeaked,” I say.

“Did not,” she retorts. “Anyway, you startled me.”

“Sorry.”

“I’ll be right back.”

She’s back a minute later with plates and a couple cans of fizzy water.

“Or we can eat in the kitchen, if you want,” she says.

I feel safer where we are. We sit on the floor and focus on the pizza.

We finish the food, settle in sitting on her bed, and she pulls up the latest Mission Impossible on her TV. As the opening credits roll, I reach for the remote and press pause.

“What?” she asks.

I take a deep breath.

“So,” I hesitate. This is hard. “I’m not really trans.”

“What do you mean?”

I explain what happened. Once again, I try to make it very clear that I was sure the locker room would be empty and just wanted to know that I could do it.

“So you’re just stuck like that?”

I am so tempted to let it go there. To lie.

“No, I figured out how to turn back, and I’m going to, this weekend.”

“When did you figure it out?”

“Last Wednesday.”

“I have questions.”

I wait.

I can almost see gears turning in her head. She starts to speak and stops several times.

“Why am I waiting?” I offer.

“Sure, that’s one of them.”

More truth time. I explain that it’s funny to confuse people by leaning into being the girl, but making it clear that I am still a boy.

She tilts her head.

“And how is that funny?”

Before I can answer, she continues, “Never mind. How’s that working out? Are people confused? Is it funny?”

“I—” I stop. “I—”

I try to gather my thoughts.

“I don’t know,” I confess. “I guess I haven’t been paying attention. Maybe? Probably not?”

“So—”

“Could we not talk about this any more right now?”

“Okay, but are you talking to somebody, at least?”

“I am. I’m sorry I misled you, and I can go if you want.”

“Don’t you dare. Just shut up and start the movie, bitch.”

I smile and press play.

Monday morning, I’m still the girl.

Mr. Berry does not look surprised. 

I start telling him what’s happened since our last session. I don’t get far.

“Why didn’t you want Denise to see you as what you’ve been referring to as yourself?”

“It just felt gross.”

He lets me continue.

“Why did you stop the conversation?” he interrupts when I get to the part about movie night.

“I was tired of talking about myself.”

“And that’s all?”

“I just didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay. You said you told her that you’d be changing back over the weekend. What happened there?”

“I didn’t find a good time. Mom went shopping. I had homework …”

“That doesn’t sound like enough to take up the whole weekend.”

“I don’t know. I kept meaning to. I just... didn’t.”

I tell him about the weekend. There isn’t much to tell. I messaged a lot with Denise. I played a few video games. I really did do my homework.

“Speaking of homework …” he trails off.

“I didn’t do the dialog,” I admit.

“Why not?”

I shrug.

“I think it will be good for you to do it. Will you try again before next session, please?”

“Yeah.”

And then it’s time for class.

I’m wearing a white skirt today, so I decide to sit in the cafeteria proper instead of the courtyard. I’m looking for an empty table when I see Bella waving me over to join her and a couple of other girls. This is odd, since the only words I can remember her ever speaking to me were at the incursion last week. 

“Hi!” she greets me warmly. “Do you know Lisa and Haley?”

I take a seat and admit that I don’t. We introduce ourselves.

“Aren’t you the one who almost got Sally killed?” Haley asks.

Before I can respond, Bella answers for me.

“That’s not her anymore. She hasn’t done anything like that in weeks. She’s even the one who figured out how to deal with that incursion last week.”

Haley says something else, but I don’t process it. I just hear Bella’s words again. “That’s not her anymore.”

“I just remembered, I need to see Mr. Silverstone,” I say, and flicker away.

Marie doesn’t think I’m the same person anymore. Bella doesn’t either. But I am. I’m still Frank. It doesn't matter that I look like this now. I’m still me. They can’t take that away from me again.

Maybe it’s too late to change Marie’s mind. I don’t know if I even want to deal with Kyle and Len anymore. They’re in ISS because of whatever stupid plan they tried to pull off without me.

But I’m still me. I’ll show everyone that I’m still me.

I have an idea. It’s something I thought of quite a while back, but chickened out on. It’s finally time.

This is going to be epic.