I work from home most days, designing and building VR scenarios. It can be a little isolated sometimes, but it suits me; in particular, it means I’m there when Arnie comes home from school. And it was also the main reason I got custody when Sephrena and I parted ways — her job involves a lot of travel, meetings that have to be face to face, while with mine, often the whole point of the meeting is that it’s not face to face — I’ll meet a client in one of my scenarios, an older one to show a new client what I can do or the current one to show the progress I’m making. But I always make sure those meetings are over, or at least paused for a break, when Arnie comes home.

The house system gave the distinct ping that signified Arnie was unlocking the front door with his proxcard. I got up, stretched, took a sip of tea, and stepped out of my office into the living room.

I was confronted with the sight of a teenage girl, an inch or two shorter than Arnie, with hair several inches longer. But she was wearing the same clothes Arnie had been wearing that morning, and she had Arnie’s backpack...?

“Hey, Dad. What do you think?” She tossed her backpack onto the sofa, just like Arnie often did, and spread her arms. “It still feels really weird, but Ms. Taniger said in a few days it probably won’t be quite as bad. And it’s not like I’m the only one...?” She looked nervous, and I couldn’t blame her.

“Arnie? What happened?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m a girl this semester. Oh, and we need to go buy some new clothes, 'cause —”

“They just changed you into a girl? I need to have a word with the principal about this —”

“But Daaad! You clicked ‘Accept’ on the permission slip!”

“Oh.” Around the beginning of the school year I got so many permission slips for upcoming field trips and projects that my eyes glazed over. And the habit (a bad one, I know) of automatically clicking ‘Accept’ on every EULA tended to carry over when I was registering Arnie for the new year on the school website. I wasn’t sure when I had given my permission for the school to turn Arnie into a girl, but I didn’t doubt that I had.

“I’m sorry, Arnie. I must have just glanced at it and not realized what I was agreeing to... I’ll see if I can get them to change you back right away.”

“No, it’s cool. I mean, it’s weird, but it would be even weirder to be one of the only boys in my class who was born a boy, right? Almost everybody in eighth grade is changing this semester.”

“Ah... okay. You’re sure about this?”

“Yeah, I think it’ll be okay. All my friends are going through it at the same time, so nobody’s going to be making fun of me for it or anything. Actually they’re making fun of the kids whose parents didn’t give permission, saying they’re too scared or whatever.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Well, we can make an emergency shopping trip this afternoon, but I don’t really know much about women’s clothes — girl’s clothes — I’ll see if your Aunt Madison can take you shopping this weekend.”

“That would be good,” she said uncertainly. “Or maybe Mom?”

“She’s in Los Angeles this week, I think — or is it San Diego? But I’ll call her and see if she can come to Portland and take you shopping.” That was going to be an interesting conversation. “Let me get some shoes on and we’ll go.”

In the car on the way to the mall, Arnie said: “Dad?”

“Yes?”

“Have you ever tried being a girl?”

“No, son,” I said, wondering if Arnie would rather I call him — her? — ‘daughter’. “They didn’t have this kind of technology when I was your age, and up until a year or two ago it was too expensive to try it out of curiosity.”

“The company that changed all the kids — they brought in their changing-chambers and set them up in the gym, so they could change like ten or twelve kids at a time — they said they were offering a special discount for parents that want to change for the semester too.”

“Hmm. Let me think about it, all right?”

But I had a feeling I knew what I was going to decide. Arnie needed a mom right now, and Sephrena probably wasn’t available.