Leah let loose a muffled scream with her face buried in a pillow. “Magic is actually real!”

“Oh. Yeah,” Zach answered unexcitedly.

“You got turned into a girl right in front of my eyes!” Leah exclaimed, lifting her head from the pillow.

“Yeah I guess I did,” Zach said with a long sigh.

She looked down at herself, “And I’ve been turning into a girl right in front of your eyes this whole time.”

“Yup.”

“Oh my gosh. That’s so embarrassing.”

“And awkward,” Zach confirmed.

“I can remember everything so clearly now,” Leah said, as she balled up on the bed with her knees pulled tightly to her chest, her shimmering blue ball gown splayed out around her. “It’s like there was a fog all around my memories. I could get little glimpses, just not the full picture. Like I knew I was a guy that was turning into a girl, I just didn’t have a clear picture of who I was or really when this all started. But now I can see it all as plain as day. I even remember specifically what all happened yesterday. First, it was my hair..." she paused, reaching for her long blonde hair that was currently tied up in a set up pink rollers on her head.

“And you’ve just been watching me turn into this,” Leah continued, still with a tinge of disbelief as she motioned to her very feminine looking self.

Zach massaged his temples slowly. “Yeah.”

“This is so weird!”

“Okay yeah. Just let me think for a second,” Zach said firmly, holding up a hand for her to stop talking.

Leah was taken aback at first until she noticed that her friend’s hand was shaking. “Are you okay Zach?”

“I don’t know,” Zach grumbled as he leaned forward and hid his face in his shaking hands.

From the self-imposed darkness of his covered eyes, Zach heard the creaking of the bed, the swishing of sequined fabric, and the sound of something being slid across the carpeted floor. The subtle scent of flowery perfume wafted in the air around him, and then all was quiet and still again.

When he finally looked up, he saw Leah sitting directly in front of him. She had pulled up the other chair so that it was facing him directly with only a few inches between them. Her legs were crossed in a very ladylike way, allowing the skirt of her dress to fall elegantly beneath her. She was looking at him with intent eyes, yet her demeanor was patient.

“What?” Zach asked.

“Nothing. I’m just here for you if you need me. I’m your best friend after all,” she said, resting one of her manicured hands gently on his knee.

Zach looked at the girl in front of him. Someone as beautiful as she had become would have normally made him break into a nervous sweat in the past, but he saw this girl for who she truly was. She was the friend that had stood by him ever since 5th grade.

She was the friend who introduced him to the game of basketball. She was the friend who always helped him up when he tripped and fell. She was the friend who had aided him in fending off bullies. The friend who always called him out on his crap, but always lifted him up when he was feeling low. She was the friend who he could always beat in a race, but could never win against in any video game.

Although she looked very different than she usually did, given the fact that ‘she’ had always been a ‘he,’ she still had a similar presence to the one Liam always carried; it was just a different flavor. None of that really mattered though. Leah was here right now helping him out yet another time, and most importantly, she was the person with who he had finally been able to share his secret.

She smiled at him, “You can talk to me, you know?”

He couldn’t help but smile back, knowing full well that he had just been staring at her for a prolonged period of time again even though she hadn’t bothered bringing it up this time. “I know.”

Leah didn’t say anything else. She just sat with him, providing her comforting companionship.

Zach took a deep breath before speaking, “I just don’t know what to think about this.”

“It’s a lot,” Leah agreed.

“You have no idea. My whole life has been filled with so many weird and unbelievable things, I’ve lost track of them all. I mean yeah, you turning into a girl throughout the course of a day is weird, but I would only put that at number…” Zach paused for a second in thought, “nine on the list of weirdest things I’ve seen.”

“I can’t even imagine.”

“Me either a lot of times, but that’s my life, and now all of that weirdness just got flipped on its head. Magic was an abnormality in my life. What my mom could do was always kept secret from my life away from home. I could always step away from her to escape the magic stuff and pretend I was normal. But now it’s inside of me. Now it’ll be with me wherever I go.”

“Yeah?” Leah asked, urging him to continue.

“It’s too much. I don’t even know if I want it.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. It’s weird, and I… I don’t want to be like my mom.”

When Zach’s statement was met with silence, he continued on. “It’s not like I don’t love her, and her magic has let me do some pretty incredible stuff. You know that I actually got to meet Aristotle one time?”

“Woah, what? Really? Like that old Greek philosopher guy?” Leah asked, astonished.

“Yeah. That one. It was pretty cool. But along with all of the cool stuff, I’ve also seen some pretty messed up stuff too. I just don’t want this magic to make me like her. She says that I’m the spitting image of her, and that kind of scares me,” Zach admitted.

Leah shrugged, “So then don’t be like her. Just keep being a doofus.”

“Thanks,” Zach said sarcastically.

“No I’m serious,” Leah laughed lightly. “Your mom is mysterious, sophisticated, elegant, kind of creepy, and most of all, morally ambiguous. None of those things describe you with or without magic. Just because you have magic now doesn’t mean you have to use it the way she does, just like with anything.”

“But what if I am more like her than you think? Than I think?”

“Then that’s the way it is,” Leah said. “But it’s not like people can’t change, as you can probably tell just from looking at me. If you think you’re too much like your mom, you aren’t stuck like that. You can always try to be something better. People improve themselves every day. Why would magic make that any different?”

“Because it’s magic. It’s powerful.”

“And with great power comes…”

“Please don’t say the Spider-Man line.”

Leah’s shoulders slumped. “Why not? It’s a classic, and it fits this situation so well. You literally have superpowers now. Are you not excited even a little bit?”

Zach smirked. “Maybe a little bit.”

Leah giggled, “Good because having a super-powered boyfriend would be sweet.” Her eyes immediately went wide as the words left her mouth, and her face turned crimson.

Zach could feel his face turn just as red as Leah’s. He looked down at her hand that was still comfortably placed on his knee. She retracted it quickly.

“N-Not like that! I meant a friend that’s a boy. Just a friend. No need to specify gender. It’s not romantic in any way. Not that I wouldn’t mind that. Wait. It’s not like I swing that way, or at least swung that way. I don’t know. I feel like… I mean I don’t think… I mean we’re best friends and I don’t want…” The words tumbled out of her mouth like a waterfall.

Zach watched his flustered friend fall apart. With one sentence, she had gone from confident counselor to gibbering wreck. She fumbled through a slew of sentences, trying to formulate her feelings through language to no avail. Besides the initial shock, Zach had quickly gotten over her statement. He knew full well that the magic was to blame for his friend’s apparent lack of confidence in her current orientation. There was no point pestering her about it.

Leah finally gave up trying to explain herself. “Zach, can you just say something please?” she pleaded through an exasperated breath.

Zach smiled and leaned forward, wrapping Leah in a tight hug. “Thank you.”

She tensed in his arms before finally letting her muscles relax, “For what?”

“For listening, and for helping me. For being my friend,” he stated calmly.

After a few seconds, she wrapped her arms around him in return and patted him gently on the back. “Anytime doofus,” she said through a content sigh.

While they embraced, Zach felt something warm press up against his chest, filling the space between them. Leah immediately gasped and pulled away from him with her hand to her chest. Of course, that only aided in drawing Zach’s attention to her enhanced cleavage that was now noticeably more apparent at the bodice of her dress.

“Not a word,” she warned, her face still blushing visibly.

“About what?” Zach said, playing dumb.

“Wise words,” she said satisfactorily, standing from her chair.

“I had a good teacher.”

“Yes you did.”

“And I really did mean that by the way. Thank you for being here for me.”

Leah’s expression softened, “Yeah. Thank you too. I can tell keeping all this secret from me was hard for you, and you were actually going to break your promise for me.”

“Yeah,” Zach said, standing from his chair as well. “I’m just sorry it didn’t happen sooner.”

“Better late than never, and I’d say it turned out for the best this way. You earned your magic seed thing or whatever it is. I’m happy for you.”

“Only time will tell if that’s a good thing,” Zach said, rubbing his hand together awkwardly. So what do you want to do now?”

“Well I guess I should get out of this mess,” Leah huffed as she tugged the top of her dress up to accommodate her new breast size.

“Okay. After you take care of that, do you want to go swim?”

Leah gave a mock sense of dread. “Oh but I just did my hair,” she whined, reaching up to the rollers in her hair.

“Shut up,” Zach cackled.

Leah grinned. “Honestly, it turns out this actually is a lot of work, but I’ll sacrifice it for the pool.”

“Awesome. Well, I’ll let you have your privacy. Take your time. I’m going to go see what Mom’s making for breakfast.”

“Alright. Sounds good,” Leah said, pulling her chair back over to the vanity.

Zach left the room and closed the door behind him, leaving Leah to pick up where she had left off this morning before she had been interrupted. However, as she looked at herself in the mirror, it felt different. Before all of the craziness that Zach and Ms. Lindsay had brought with them this morning, there was something unknown and uncomfortable about being female. Now however, it felt so normal to look in the mirror and have a girl stare back.

She looked like a girl. She felt like a girl. She knew how and why she had turned into a girl, and above all else, it was now her choice that she was a girl. It was liberating, and the fact that she had all of her male memories made the feeling even sweeter. There was no hesitation in knowing who she was. She was Liam who just happened to be wrapped up in a female body and sporting a new female state of mind. Leah.

She now knew full well that as Liam, she had never really wanted to be a girl, but what person who had ever lived hadn’t at least been curious what life was like as the opposite sex? This was her chance to experience that, and she had to admit that even if she identified as female because of magic, she couldn’t deny that she was enjoying it.

She began slowly unrolling her hair, letting the loose curls fall around her shoulders. As she methodically let her hair down, she began thinking about Ms. Lindsay’s words about wisdom. Already she felt like she knew way more about girls than before, but there was still something missing.

She wasn’t even a full girl yet, and she had only been in this house the entire time she had felt like one. She had only interacted with Zach and his mom, and they both knew her as Liam. She would never be able to really know what it was like to live as a female if she just turned back after the day was done. She wouldn’t be able to empathize with them fully or know about the real ups and downs of being a girl.

She finished with her hair and was quite pleased with how it turned out, given it was her first time styling it. She slipped out of her dress and headed into the closet to find a swimsuit. It was only then that she remembered how different male and female swimming attire was. She hadn’t considered it when Zach had first mentioned swimming, but as she perused the assortment of bikinis and one-pieces in the closet, she felt butterflies flutter to life within her.

Zach had just seen her in a dress and had literally just watched her boobs grow, but these bikinis essentially just looked like fancy underwear. She shrugged. She was in this for the full experience, if this is what girls wore, then she would wear it.

She picked out a bikini she liked, navy blue with a white diamond pattern. She quickly slid the bottoms up to hug her hips; not wanting to witness the undoubtedly sorry state her manhood was in between her legs. Judging by the tiny bump under her bikini bottoms, it wasn’t much of anything anymore. She just wished it would go away and be done with it already.

With that, her stomach gurgled loudly and she felt an odd sensation ripple inside of her. It felt like all of the wind was just knocked out of her and in a matter of seconds, the small bump was gone, leaving the space completely smooth and flat. She gasped for breath after the ordeal.

“It’s gone,” she whispered breathily to herself. “Oh my gosh, it happened. I’m actually a girl now.” She hurriedly affixed the bikini top around her chest and stepped out of the closet.

“I can’t believe it,” she said, modeling in front of the mirror as she took in her female self in its entirety.

“I can’t believe it,” she said, modeling in front of the mirror as she took in her female self in its entirety. There wasn’t a single trace of her male self, and she felt an odd sense of pride at the accomplishment. “One small step for man, one giant leap into womankind,” she said with a slight giggle as she headed briskly out of the room.

***

While Leah was getting ready, Zach had been anxious to dig for more answers from his mother about everything that she had just revealed. He gently closed the door behind him and headed downstairs. As he stepped into the kitchen, his mom slid a plate of freshly made French toast topped with fresh berries across the table.

“Order up,” she chimed.

Zach took a seat at the table but didn’t say anything. He didn’t know how he should start this conversation.

“What? Do you not want French toast?” Lindsay asked.

“No, it looks good mom. It’s just…” he took a deep breath before pressing onwards, “Have you really been planning on giving me magic my whole life? Is that what all of this has been about? All of the lessons? My promise?”

“I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that a mother does what a mother does for many good reasons, but yes, that was the primary one.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me from the start?”

“Because it was a secret,” his mother said matter-of-factly. “And you know what we say about secrets.”

“They’re powerful,” Zach droned.

“Precisely. Where’s Leah?”

“Oh, she’s just getting changed. We’re going to swim.”

“Oh, that sounds nice. They say it’s going to get pretty warm today.”

“They say?” Zach tested, knowing that his mother didn’t have to look at the weather forecast to know what the weather was going to be.

“I say,” Lindsay corrected at her son’s behest, flashing a knowing smile.

“How does that work?”

“How does what work sweetie?”

“Magic,” Zach said.

“Remember. You have to figure out how to activate that switching enchantment first. Your lessons will begin after that. I won’t teach someone who can’t do as I instruct,” his mom said coarsely.

“Just a little teaser? I’ve seen you do magic for so long. I’ve kept my promise, and you’ve talked about promises and secrets enough to make me go nuts. Can’t you at least just tell me a little about what I’m in for here if I really am going to be using magic?”

Lindsay sighed and leaned against the counter. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt to at least tell you a little of what’s to come. But while I explain, eat your breakfast. It’s getting cold.”

Zach quickly cut out a bite of the sweet toast and stuffed it in his mouth, chewing vigorously. His eyes were locked on his mom, eagerly waiting for any information she would divulge.

“Promises are binding,” Lindsay began.

“Ugh,” Zach groaned. “You’ve told me…”

“Don’t interrupt your mother when I’m speaking,” Lindsay snapped. “Do you want me to give an explanation or not?”

Zach nodded obediently, not letting another word escape his mouth.

His mother waited to make sure he would remain quiet before continuing. “Promises are the key factors for the manipulation of reality. You make promises in order to control the physical things of this world.”

Zach raised his hand, not wanting to speak out of turn again.

“Yes?” his mother humored him.

“You’ve always talked about how promises are binding and how they’re so important and dangerous, but what are you making promises to exactly? How do you make them?”

“You make them just like you would make any promise. Now for what we make the promise to, that’s the interesting part. We promise reality itself.”

“Reality?”

“Yes, that is indeed what I said. The things that make up our reality have a will of their own so to speak, so in order to change or manipulate them, you need to make a promise to them. Each fundamental entity in our reality has a set promise. It’s a simple concept, but it can become very complex and very dangerous rather quickly.”

She continued after making sure Zach wasn’t going to interject. “For instance, let’s say I want to manipulate fire. In order to do that, I need to promise fire that I will burn something with it.”

Lindsay flicked, causing a small flame to appear in her fingers. “However, if I don’t satisfy the fire’s will and don’t burn anything, then there are repercussions for breaking my promise.” She let the flame go out and immediately the flesh at the tip of her fingers began to redden and smoke.

A blister formed on her finger as it burned from an invisible heat source. “Since I didn’t fulfill the promise that must be kept in order to wield fire, then I am the thing that must burn,” Lindsay finished her explanation ominously.

She shook her hand quickly, causing the burn marks to rapidly recede and mend. If you don’t know what kind of promise is needed in order to heal yourself, then you could be a charred corpse before you know it, and then of course you must uphold your promise to fulfill health’s will, or then face the consequences of breaking that promise as well,” his mother said, taking a fork and cutting a piece of Zach’s French toast for herself.

Zach sat as still as a statue in his seat. Of all things he had expected to learn during his first little lesson about magic, that had not been it.

“Wait, so you have to make a promise to anything you change? What about when you time travel? What about when you mess with people’s minds or bodies? What happens if you break a promise then?”

“It depends on the scale in which you’re working. If you want to make a promise to time, you better have a good handle on the situation. Changing people’s gender though isn’t as hard as other types of manipulation due to the inherent dueling nature of magic between the sexes.”

“But it always looked like you did everything so effortlessly. It always looked like you could do whatever you wanted without any risk,” Zach reasoned.

“I’m 113 years old sweetie. It’s only natural that I would have mastered my craft and picked up a few tricks along the way.”

“One hundred and thirteen!?” Zach exclaimed. “That’s not even possible, and we just celebrated your forty-fifth birthday a couple of months ago.”

“Ah yes. I’ve celebrated my forty-fifth a few times in my life. It’s a good one to celebrate. Enchants have a much longer lifespan than a normal person after receiving a magic seed. You have a long life ahead of you if you’re careful.”

“But…” Zach mumbled.

“And I expect you to take the knowledge of my age to the grave with you. That’s one secret you must always keep. Never reveal the true age of a woman,” his mother warned.

“Yes ma’am,” Zach said, still reeling from the implications of what his mother had just revealed. If what she said was true, then even if he did tell someone her real age, they would never believe it. Was his lifespan actually going to be that long now?

“How old can a magic person live?” he asked slowly.

Lindsay scratched her head thoughtfully. “It’s different for everyone. Your grandmother lived to be 358 years old. The longest living enchant on record was 426 when they died.”

“Woah,” Zach mouthed. “And an enchant is…”

“A magic user; the broad term for enchanters and enchantresses. Some have called us mages, wizards, shamans, or anything else you’ve heard of the like. Other more distasteful parties refer to us as witches,” Lindsay said with a shake of her head.

“Like what other parties?” Zach asked curiously.

“Never mind that. I think that’s quite enough for you until you’re actually ready and activate the enchantment. Eat your breakfast,” she said snappily, not leaving any room for negotiation.

Zach didn’t have the charisma in him to try to negotiate either. All he could do was sit and eat his French toast dumbly. His thoughts were moving at a mile a minute, not only with the newfound revelation that he now had magic but also everything that seemed to come along with that. And he hadn’t even really started yet.

“I’m finished,” Leah’s voice cut through his thoughts.

He assumed that she meant that she was finished getting ready, but when he turned to face her, he could tell exactly what she meant.

“I’m one hundred percent female now. What do you think?” she asked, striking a girlish pose.

Zach could feel something stir between his legs at the sight of his friend’s well-endowed and very female body filling out a sporty bikini. “Uh. You don’t want to know what I think.”

“Zach,” his mother warned.

“You look nice,” Zach corrected apologetically. “Are you going to a photoshoot or something?”

Leah rolled her eyes. “Shut up.”

Lindsay placed a fresh plate of French toast on the counter beside Zach, “Celebratory French toast is in order. Welcome to the sisterhood Leah.”

“Thanks, Ms. Lindsay,” Leah said shyly. She took a seat next to Zach and dug into her meal. With a mouth full of toast, she glanced back over at her friend. “So you really think I could be in a photoshoot?”

“I’m going to go get my swimsuit on,” Zach said, pointedly ignoring her question. He could hear her and his mother sharing a teasing laugh between them behind his back.

…

The sun had just begun to crest higher in the sky beyond the eastern horizon to make way for mid-morning, and already the day was quite warm.

Zach set up the small basketball goal by the pool for them to mess around with while Leah laid out the towels in the pool chairs.

“So did you just ask to swim just so you could see me in a swimsuit?” Leah asked, not letting up on teasing her friend with her newfound feminine charm.

“Cut it out. I wasn’t thinking about that at all. I was just thinking about something fun we could do to get our minds off of everything.”

Leah smiled, “I know. I’m just messing with you.” She dipped her toe in the water and shivered, “Ooh. It’s still kind of cold.”

“All the better to get our minds off things,” Zach said, bumping her off balance so that she fell in. She came up with a gasp and was met with a wave of water from Zach’s well-timed cannonball.

“Jerk!” she shrieked splashing Zach’s stupid grin off his face with the cold water.

Zach sputtered but was quick with retaliation. Their roughhousing quickly became heated competition as they faced off in pool basketball. Zach easily had the upper hand, causing Leah to quickly become frustrated at her inability to score on the taller and stronger boy, but she had the last laugh when one of her shots bounced off the rim and nailed Zach directly in the nose.

They played, laughed, teased, and swam the hours away. The time they shared allowed for all of their thoughts and worries from the past day to melt away. It allowed them to test the waters of the new intricacies of their friendship. In some ways, it felt like nothing had changed, and in others, it felt like everything had.

After some time, they grew tired and their skin began to shrivel.

“I think I’m going to lay out for a bit,” Leah said, pointing over to the chairs.

“Lay out?”

“Yeah, sunbathe.”

“Wow. You really are a girl now aren’t you?”

Leah quirked an eyebrow, “I am. So what?” She stepped slowly out of the pool. Zach tried to avert his gaze from her shapely backside but failed epically.

“No reason,” he mumbled, following her out of the pool.

He watched as she covered her eyes with a pair of aviator sunglasses before stretching out on one of the towel-covered pool chairs. Zach sat down at the foot of the chair beside her.

“So when are you going to change back now that you’ve gone all girl? Want me to go ask my mom if she can change you back now?”

“I was thinking about that,” Leah said slowly, tilting her head to look at him. “But I started to get another idea.”

Zach straightened attentively, “What kind of idea?”

“I just got to thinking about what your mom said about this wisdom, and about knowing how the other half lives. I’ve learned a lot, but not nearly enough to say that I know what it’s like to live as a girl. I think I get why she did what she did to me now.”

Leah sighed as she tried to find the right words to explain her feelings. “This has helped me realize that when I was a guy, I had oversimplified girls in my head. While you, on the other hand, were overcomplicating girls in your head. Girls aren’t some enigma like you thought, and they’re not just something that looks pretty like I thought. They’re just regular people, and now that I am one, I want to see what life is like through a girl’s eyes for real.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I want to stay like this, at least for the time being.”

“What?! You do remember Liam right? Has my mom taken your memory again? You’re a guy, remember?”

“Calm down. I still have my memory. It’s just that I now see how much I was missing before. I mean, who doesn’t want to at least see what it’s like to live as the opposite sex? This is my chance to do that. I would be dumb to not take advantage of it, just like your mom said.”

“So you want to go to school as a girl?”

“I want to go everywhere as a girl. I want to experience everything I can through this lens. Honestly from what I can tell, I kind of like it so far,” Leah said confidently.

“Great. That’s another friend that I lost to the female team. We’re still going to be friends right?”

Leah chuckled, “Duh. Why wouldn’t we be? Just because I’m a girl now doesn’t mean we’re not best friends. And plus, your mom could just change me back whenever I want right?”

“I hope so,” Zach said softly.

“Maybe I won’t have to,” Ms. Lindsay said, as she came out wearing a black and gold bikini of her own and holding a mimosa in her hand.

Leah sat up, setting the aviators on her head. “Oh. Hey Ms. Lindsay. Did you hear all that?”

“Enough to get the gist of it. That’s quite the decision you made sweetheart, and I can’t say I disapprove of it.”

“What do you mean by maybe you won’t have to?” Zach asked warily.

“What I mean is that maybe by the time Leah decides she wants to change back, if she wants to change back, you could be the one to do it, Zach.”

“I could do it? I’ll be able to do that?”

“I’d hope so, or you won’t make for a very good enchantress,” his mother said, taking a sip of her drink and sitting down.

“So I can change back if I want to?” Leah confirmed.

Lindsay shrugged, “If you want to. I’ve gone ahead and placed another enchantment on you in the meantime. When you come into contact with anything or anyone that you knew as Liam, it will be changed to reflect the new you. You’re parents and friends will remember you as Leah. Pictures will change, identification, birth certificate, and anything else. It should make slipping into your female life fairly seamless.”

“You can do that?” Leah asked, amazed.

“Of course. It’s already done.”

Leah looked excitedly at Zach who only shook his head in puzzlement at the situation.

***

“Well that was quite the weekend,” Leah said as she walked down the sidewalk alongside Zach.

They had wrapped up their time at the pool and were on their way to Leah’s house only a few streets down. Zach had insisted on walking her partway home.

She was dressed casually in white shorts and a grey camisole. Her hair was draped loosely around her shoulders.

“You can say that again,” Zach said with a groan. “It’s one for the record books on so many levels. Are you positive you want to be a girl?”

“Yes! How many times do I have to say it? I’m a girl now. Just accept it. If I get tired of it, you’ll be the first to hear about it.”

“I would hope so. That would be a weird conversation to have with your parents.”

Leah laughed, “True, but do you wanna know what the most important thing that happened this weekend was?

“What?”

“You learned how to talk to girls!”

“Not a chance. I still have no clue,” Zach shook his head emphatically.

“You've been pretty chill talking to me, like right now.”

“Because you’re my friend. We’ve already gone over this.”

Leah grabbed his hand tightly and allowed his hand to envelop hers. “And now we’re just friends that are holding hands. How does that make you feel?”

Zach shrugged, “A little weird, but that doesn’t really change anything.”

Suddenly Leah hopped up on her tippy toes and pecked Zach soundly on the cheek with an exaggerated kissing sound. He froze on the spot.

“Do I still feel like just a friend now?” Leah tested with a wry smile. She was incapable of hiding the reddening of her own cheeks.

Zach didn’t know how to respond as he felt the familiar flutter in his chest swell up again, “I uh. Um. I…” he slurred incoherently.

Leah laughed heartily. “Oof yeah. I guess you’re right. You still have a ways to go until you’ve mastered the art of talking to girls, but don’t worry, class is still in session,” she said with a wink before turning and running off down the street without him.

“See ya at school tomorrow doofus!” she yelled over her shoulder.

Zach reached up and felt the warm spot where she had kissed him on his cheek. Leah had actually kissed him. A girl had actually kissed him. He watched as she leaped over a short hedge and disappeared around the corner.

One of these days he promised that he would figure girls out. With that thought, he felt something click in his mind. His stomach churned, and a tingling warm feeling wracked his body. His hair lengthened over his face. He sensed himself becoming shorter, and he could feel his body take on a new shape with a few resounding snaps and pops.

With a surprised gasp, he looked down at himself, or rather herself, judging by the two mounds that protruded from her chest underneath her now ill-fitting t-shirt. Zach tentatively looked around to make sure nobody was around to see her randomly turn into a girl. After confirming nobody had seen, she blew the long brown hair out of her face with an exasperated huff and turned on her heel to head back.

As she walked, an eager smile crept onto her lips, and she found herself quickening her pace to get home. Her life had been so strange and unpredictable ever since she was three years old because of magic, and today it had gotten inexplicably more insane. However, for the first time in her life, she found that she didn’t mind it one bit

The End.