We went straight home after lunch and changed clothes; I wore old sweats and a T-shirt, saving my one girl outfit to wear on a school day, and lay around finishing Dragonsong and starting Dragonsinger for most of the day.

Monday morning when I arrived at homeroom, I found Lily and some other girls listening to Emma or Emily talk about her date the past weekend. I sat down near them and half-listened while I skimmed over the current chapter in my biology textbook, but then I caught a name: “— so Andrew pulled up in front of my house and said he’d had a great time, and I thought he was about to kiss me, but he didn’t, and so I said —”

Was this girl whose name I couldn’t quite remember the “Emilia” that Andrew had had a date with Saturday? Or had she dated some other Andrew? There were at least a couple of other Andrews in our grade, and probably more if you counted juniors and seniors. I thought about asking, but she didn’t pause for breath until the bell rang, so I didn’t interrupt. I was about to ask her then, but she was out of her seat and out of the door before I had my book back in my bag, and out of sight by the time I got out the door.

“Sorry we didn’t have time to talk,” Lily said as she followed me out. “How are you doing?”

“Pretty okay, considering,” I said. “I finally talked Mom into getting me gym clothes that fit, after I showed her Coach Wilcox’s note. And a week’s worth of underwear. But nothing else.”

“That’s progress, I guess. See you tomorrow.”

I needed to use the restroom before I went on to Biology, so I got there too late to chat with Andrew before class started; I just said hi to him as I walked in and found my seat. After class, I asked him how his date went.

“It went pretty well,” he said, blushing adorably. “I picked her up at her house around three, and drove to the theater for the last show at the matinee price. It was a little awkward finding something to talk about at first, but after about ten minutes we were chatting like old friends about all kinds of things... she’s pretty easy to talk to. The movie wasn’t as good we’d heard, but it gave us something to talk about during supper. We ate at that Chinese place near the mall in Catesville, the Happy Family.”

“That’s great,” I said, hoping my face wasn’t showing my distress. Andrew was always better at making friends easily than me, and that skill apparently carried over to dating now that he looked so... dateable.

“And she asked me about the machine and how Evan and I used it — we’d talked about that some at school last week, but during supper we talked about it some more. So I said, what about if we go by the library before I take you home? And we did, but the door on her side wouldn’t close. I don’t know why; the same reason it won’t close for most kids our age, I guess.”

“Yeah. I hear people speculating it’s because the machine can tell somehow whether you’re mature enough to make a decision about transforming like that?” Hint, she’s not mature enough for you. And I am.

“Maybe. In homeroom I heard some people talking about how they or their older brothers or parents or somebody went to use the machine, and Ethan Becker said the machine wouldn’t work for his uncle and his uncle’s girlfriend when they went over there half drunk. But I think I’d notice if Emilia was drunk or something... Oh, look at the time.”

“Yeah, gotta go. See you at lunch!”

---

At lunch, I had to endure Andrew telling Evan, Wyatt and Ian about his date with Emilia again. I won’t trouble you with the crude questions Wyatt asked him about how far they went on the first date. But eventually, that topic was exhausted, and we started talking about the people who’d used the Venn machine that weekend. A couple dozen seniors and juniors and a few sophomores had shown up to school transformed, and there were all kinds of rumors about weirder things that people had turned into temporarily for a few hours or a day or two. There was also talk about people with illnesses or injuries being cured by the machine, transformed for three years into healthy bodies; there was a junior I barely knew with muscular dystrophy who’d been spindly as a rail and dependent on a wheelchair, and was now walking, looking as healthy and fit (not to mention smoking hot) as Andrew, plus any number of kids' parents and grandparents who’d gotten young again as word about the machine spread.

P.E. was, as I expected, much more pleasant when not only my body but my gym clothes fit me. There was still a little grumbling from a few of the girls about me changing with them, but less than there had been last week.

Tuesday during homeroom, I heard a rumor about the woman who’d been turned into a doll that first day — she’d been in an evidence locker for over a week, but yesterday her relatives had gotten her back and put her in the machine to reverse the change. During lunch, Andrew showed me a Facebook post that Emilia’s mom had shared with Andrew’s mom — a photo of Andrew and Emilia just before they went out last Saturday. Yes, that was Lily’s friend, the “Emma or Emily” I sat with in homeroom. I didn’t tell him I sort of knew her; I suspected if I did, he’d want to know what she was saying about him to her girl friends. And I didn’t plan to tell Emilia that Andrew was my best friend.

Things went pretty routinely for a couple more days. Thursday morning, I woke up with belly cramps. At first, it was just aggravating, but as I woke up more and thought more clearly, I was suddenly excited. I mentioned it to Mom after I showered, and asked, “Do you think I might be starting my period?”

She pursed her lips and looked skeptical. “I’ll believe you’re having a period when I see it,” she said. “There are other things that could be — most likely a stomach bug. But I guess you’d better wear a pad for the next couple of days just in case. If it gets worse in the course of the day, have the school office call me and I’ll bring you home.”

Despite what she said, I was pretty sure I was having my period, and I was determined to tough it out (unless I started having obvious stomach bug symptoms like diarrhea). I didn’t expect it to be fun, but it was validating to have my body remind me that I was a real girl, despite Dad and to some extent Mom still treating me like a boy.

She gave me a pad and explained how to use it, so I put it in my panties and finished getting dressed. The cramps came and went throughout the day, and when I used the toilet after Geometry, there were a few spots of blood on the pad. I started crying. It was too amazing for words. Until a couple of weeks ago, I’d been resigned to paying through the nose for a rough approximation of the body I should have had, one that couldn’t have babies and might not even pass a casual inspection. Now I had everything I’d thought was impossible... except for Mom and Dad calling me “Meredith” and letting me wear skirts.

I should have asked Mom for a couple more pads, I thought. Hopefully I wouldn’t soak that pad completely before I got home.

But when I undressed to get in the shower after gym, I realized I was really going to need another pad.

“Hey,” I said to the girls changing clothes near me, feeling my face get hot, “does anybody have a pad I could borrow?”

“Sorry, no.” — “I’ve got some extra tampons.” — “You’re on your period? I didn’t know you could...”

“Thanks,” I said to Ellen, the girl who’d offered me a tampon. “Could you, um, tell me how to use it? I’ve only used a pad, and Mom didn’t really believe me when I said I might be starting my period, so she only gave me one...”

As embarrassing as it was, that incident pretty much put a stop to the girls in P.E. grumbling about me changing and showering with them. A couple of the girls who’d been gossiping about me actually came up to me and apologized after we’d showered and were getting dressed, or the next day, though most of them just shut up about how I wasn’t a real girl and pretended they’d never said anything bad about me.

When I got on the bus and sat next to Sophia, she asked me in a low voice, “So?”

“Yeah,” I whispered back, “it was my period. I started bleeding before lunch and by the time gym was over I needed to borrow a tampon from one of the other girls.”

“Now maybe Mom will believe you’re a real girl,” she murmured hopefully, and gave me a hug. “Or at least let you have some Midol.”

---

When we got home, we found a note saying Mom had gone to the post office and Dad was out shopping. Twenty minutes later, when I heard the front door open and close, I got up and walked out of my bedroom, and was glad to see it was Mom who’d just gotten home rather than Dad.

“Mom, could I talk to you privately for a minute?”

“Sure.”

We went in her and Dad’s bedroom and she said, “What’s up?”

“Those cramps this morning — it was my period starting. By the time I changed after gym, the pad was pretty bloody and I had to borrow a tampon from one of the other girls. And I checked it when I got home and had to borrow another pad from Sophia.”

She looked gobsmacked; I think she had assumed that the Venn machine’s transformations were just skin-deep. “You’re sure?”

“Do you want to see the tampon I threw away? It should still be on top of the bathroom trash can.”

“...N-no, that’s okay... I was just... oh. You’re really all girl, aren’t you?”

“Even if I didn’t have a period, I’d still be a girl in my head. But yeah.”

“I need to make an appointment for you with Dr. Chaudhari.” She glanced at the clock. “It’s not too late... hang on and we’ll talk more after I get off the phone, okay?”

So she called her OB/GYN clinic and made an appointment for me. I sat on the edge of her bed and listened, shivering with pleasure when she described me to the receptionist as “my daughter.” When she hung up, she sat down beside me and hugged me.

“Are you still sure this is what you want, Tyler? A boy shouldn’t have to go through this.”

“I’m sure,” I said. “When I saw the blood on the pad and realized I could have babies someday, I was so happy... I figured it might be possible after I saw what the machine could do for Andrew and Evan, and read about it changing people into animals and stuff, but finding out for sure was super exciting even though it hurts and it’s gross.”

“I guess I need to give you the Talk, don’t I?”

“Yes, please!”

I’d already picked up a lot of little factoids about menstruation and feminine hygiene from the stories I’d read where boys got magically transformed into girls, but I wasn’t sure how reliable they were. I was pretty sure most of the authors were either trans girls like me, or dudes with a transformation fetish, and had never had a period themselves. So I listened and asked a couple of questions here and there as Mom gave me the female version of the Talk that Dad had given me a few years earlier. It made me feel good, the fact that Mom was treating me as her daughter now, even if some of the stuff she was talking about was pretty icky.

We were still talking when Dad got home. Mom looked up at the sound of the door opening and said, “We’ll talk more later.”

“Okay, Mom,” I said, and hugged her again.

We walked out of the bedroom and found Dad going into the spare room to put away a couple of things he’d bought. “Hi, Dad. Is there more stuff to bring in from the car?” I asked.

“No, this is it,” Dad said. “Thanks for asking.”

“Then I’m going to go finish my homework.”

As I went to my bedroom, I heard Mom say: “We need to talk, Justin —” Then their bedroom door closed.

I thought about what Mom had said. I was a little disappointed with her gender essentialism. Even though I was glad she finally accepted me as a girl, the fact that she initially did so because I had a period when she didn’t accept other trans women who’d transitioned the old-fashioned way stuck in my craw a little and made me feel vaguely guilty. But thinking about it more, I realized that she had shifted to thinking of me as a girl, not just because I had a period, but because I was happy about it, about being able to have babies someday, and thought that finally proved that I was a girl mentally. That made me feel better. And even if she wasn’t perfect, she was still a zillion times better than a lot of trans people’s parents.

---

I finished up my homework and asked Sophia if she wanted any help with her English homework. She asked me to check her work, so I did, and then we helped set the table for supper. (It was Caleb’s turn to cook.)

At supper, I half expected Dad to say something about my period, but I wasn’t surprised when he didn’t. I figured, even if he wanted to talk to me about it, rather than delegating it all to Mom, he’d rather not do it at the supper table, or in front of Caleb. But from the way Dad looked at me and didn’t say much, letting Mom and Caleb do most of the talking, I was sure Mom had told him a lot, if not everything. Probably not the squicky details of how many pads and tampons I’d already gone through, but the basic facts.

Afterward, Dad and I cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher. “So,” he said when everyone else had left the kitchen and dining room. “Your mom tells me that you started your period today.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And that hasn’t changed your mind? You still don’t want to change back?”

“No, sir. If anything, this makes me even more sure. I already felt better, just having a body that looks and feels right, but knowing I can have babies someday makes it even better.”

He was quiet for a while. “I don’t understand it,” he said. “Why would you — I don’t get why a boy would want to have a period. Even women and girls don’t like their periods, they just put up with them because they can’t do anything about them.”

“I’m not a boy. And we don’t like periods because we enjoy bleeding and cramping, but if you said you could stop them but we wouldn’t ever be able to have babies, how many women would say yes? Some, sure, but mostly women like Mom who’ve already had as many kids as they want. I think most girls my age want to have at least one baby someday; I sure do.”

He grimaced, maybe thinking about what I’d have to do to have a baby. What he said next surprised me. “That’s a lot like what your mom said. She talked about that old Connie Willis story, ‘Even the Queen,’ and said if she could have turned off her periods until she was ready to have kids, she would have, but she wouldn’t have turned into a man if that were the only way to make them stop.”

“Neither would I.”

I was hoping for some epiphany on his part next, that he’d say something that showed he finally realized what I had been going through and why I needed this. But he didn’t say anything else that didn’t relate to cleaning up.

---

Friday, I went to school with a little bottle of Midol and several spare pads in my backpack, and went to the restroom in between every couple of classes to check if I needed to change my pad. Other than that, things were pretty normal except for one thing. After lunch, when I was busing my tray, an older girl came up to me and said, “Could we talk?”

“For a couple of minutes, sure,” I said. The gym was practically next to the cafeteria, so I didn’t have far to get to my next class.

“You’re Meredith Ramsey, right? You used to be a guy and you changed into a girl with that machine?”

“Kind of,” I said cautiously. “I’m transgender, so I wasn’t really a guy before except biologically.”

“Yeah, sorry, I don’t know all the terminology. But the thing is, my boyfriend and I are talking about maybe switching places this weekend — me turning into a guy and him into a girl, right? And I’ve read about people on the Internet that tried it, but I wanted to talk to somebody real if I could, to see how much of what those people on the Internet said is true. I heard you have actual periods now; is that just a rumor?”

“No, it’s true. My mom’s made me an appointment with her OB/GYN, but I haven’t seen her yet.”

“Okay,” she said thoughtfully. “Then I guess we’d better assume we’re fertile when he’s a girl and I’m a guy, and he could get pregnant if we don’t take precautions.”

“Yeah, you’d better,” I said, squirming uncomfortably. “I don’t know what would happen then. If he’d have a miscarriage when the time limit expired or would just stay a girl until the baby’s born or what. Better safe than sorry.”

“Okay, cool. Thanks!”

“You’re welcome, I guess.” She walked off, still not having told me her name.

Caleb’s team had an away game that night, and Mom went to see it, but Sophia and I weren’t allowed to go because of being grounded. We didn’t necessarily go to every single game, but we generally went as a family several times per season.