1.

“I swear, getting a person’s gender legally changed is far more difficult than it should be,” Mom dumped some mashed potatoes on my plate. I had to admit, I was hungrier than I thought I was. “And then they expect you to explain that particular name. Adam very easily translates to Amanda, I don’t understand how hard it is to understand!” She sighed. “So, how was everyone else’s day?” She looked directly at me. “Amy?”

I finished chewing some lasagna. “It was pretty easy. I told Dad about it earlier.”

“And?”

“And nothing. Today was easy. I got through my first day in public as Amanda. And while on my first period, too.”

Dad laughed. “Sweetie, please, keep that kind of talk to a minimum.”

I blushed. “Sorry, Dad.”

“No, it’s okay. Just, to a minimum.”

Mom changed the subject. “Melanie? How was your day?”

Mel shrugged. “About the same as Amy. There were a lot of people talking about her.”

“Good talk or bad talk?”

“Not really either. There were a few people who pretty much called her a monster for being transgender, but the indifferent far outweighed the negative.”

“Some people called me a monster?” I asked, my voice tiny.

“Like, two.”

“How am I a monster?”

“Well, the two I know about were those really macho type guys who think being female is a disease.”

“Still, Mr. Malski should have been told about these people,” Mom said.

“As much as I’m sure he’d like to help me out,” I responded, “I’m sure he’s too busy helping his daughter transition into the principal’s office.”

“I didn’t know Mr. Malski had a daughter.”

“She’s the sorceress who did this to me!” I coughed out a laugh at the end.

Mom did a double take. “What?!”

“Oh… Sorry… I kinda thought Dad would have told you about that by now…”

“No, I didn’t know anything about this. When did you find this out?”

Melanie answered for me. “This morning when we went to tell Mr. Malski about Amy. She was there, already.”

“Was she there to keep an eye on you?”

I shook my head. “No. She’s genuinely the next principal, it’s all just a weird coincidence.”

“Are you sure?”

I sighed. “I dunno. It’s just... I dunno.”

2.

“Aw, c’mon!” I shouted at my TV. Stupid barnacles. What idiot at Valve decided they’d be a good thing to bring back in Half-Life 2? I hated those things in the first game! I never paid attention to them, and I almost always got killed by them. Stupid, stupid, stupid barnacles.

I laid back on my bed and sighed. This was like the fourth time I’d started Half-Life 2, and I was still getting stuck at the same place. It didn’t help that I’d owned the damn game since Orange Box came out, it just made me feel worse for getting stuck all the damn time. Steve’s beaten the game like four times, but he’s never helped me, and I wanted to punch him for that.

I pressed the Xbox logo in the middle of the controller and dropped back out to the home screen. I wondered if Steve was on. I could just call him, but I didn’t really want to talk to him. Not for any bad reason, or anything, there were just certain times of the day when I didn’t want to talk to people on the phone.

As if to test my feelings, Melanie walked in. “Okay, little sis, get dressed.”

I sighed. “Why? What is it you want me to do that requires me to leave my bed and cover my underwear?”

“Well, don’t you have to get off your bed to change the game?”

“Yeah, but I don’t have to leave my room and thus I don’t have to put anything on over my underwear.”

“Is parading around in your underwear that important?”

“I don’t wanna get dressed, okay?! Jeez, can’t I just stay home?”

She shook her head. “No. I have a little sister now, and I want to hang out at the mall with her.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You don’t hang out at the mall with your own friends, why do you suddenly want to with me?”

She rested her hands on her hips. “I just told you, because I finally have a little sister.”

I shook my head. “Not really that fantastic a reason, if you ask me. What happened to missing your little brother?”

“What? I still miss Adam, but is he really gone? You’re chromosomes are different, that’s about it.”

Well, and I liked boys, and I had somehow grown a minor fashion sense - that part I can’t figure out - but other than that, I wasn’t too different.

She smiled. “Besides, I still wanna enjoy having a sister, is that really so hard to understand?”

“What if I just don’t feel like leaving the house?”

“And why wouldn’t you? And don’t say because you’re on your period, because that’s not gonna work.” Shit! That was exactly what I was gonna say. How had she predicted me so well? “So, are you gonna get dressed and go?”

I gave it about two seconds of thought, then said, “Nope.”

Melanie faced the doorway. “Mom! Amy won’t go to the mall with me!”

Dad answered, “Shut up, Melanie!”

I just burst into laughter.

3.

There was a loud knock on my door. Had I fallen asleep? I sat up and looked around. My TV was still on, but there was a weird light coming from my window. Oh, great, I was dreaming again, wasn’t I? It was either that, or aliens were coming to dissect me. ‘Oh, Glorbfop, look! A human!’ ‘Look at her, Breelfrop, she was obviously a male.’

I’m stupid.

I stood up and reached down to tug at my skirt. Wait, I was wearing a skirt? I looked down at myself and saw I wasn’t wearing a skirt at all, I was wearing a dress. Great. Was this Melanie’s dream, or something?

Somebody was still knocking at the door. Loudly, too. “Hold on,” I said. I nearly stumbled on my way there. Why? I was better at walking than this. I looked down at my feet and saw a pair of high heels. Yep, this had to be Melanie’s dream. “Be there in a sec,” I told the person on the other side of the door.

I made it to the door eventually, and opened it to see a weird silhouette standing there. Great. It was an alien. The silhouette stepped forward and I nearly did a double take. That was Dean, and he looked so… So… Tiny. He was thinner than me, and just looked so wrong.

He grabbed me by the arms. “What did you do, Richards?! What the hell did you do to me?!”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“I’m a frikkin’ pansy, you stupid cunt! I can’t play ball, I can’t understand anything my friends say, I can’t even grow a damn beard!”

“I didn’t do anything!”

He fell onto his knees in front of me. “I don’t even remember how to play basketball! I don’t remember what it feels like to wear guy jeans! I dream about boys and if anything I own isn’t frilly or girly, I hate it! Why would you do this to me?!”

“But, I didn’t! It was the sorceress!”

“You ruined me… You ruined my life…”

“I didn’t do anything…”

4.

I woke up and nearly tossed my blanket across the room. I was sweating, my hair practically stuck to my skin. What the hell was that? What the hell was that?! That wasn’t anything like any of the other dreams I’d had since the curse started. Holy shit…

My phone was ringing. I reached over and picked it up. “Hello?”

“What’s wrong with you?” Steve asked.

“I had a weird dream.”

“Oh. Like, bad weird or just weird weird?”

“You know you talk more like a valley girl than I do, right?”

“Whaddya mean?”

“You say ‘like’ more than I do. It’s kinda a valley girl thing.” I laid back down. “So, whaddya want?”

“I just wanted to talk before we get to school. And to ask you if you’d unlock your door.”

“Huh?”

“I’m outside right now. I tried doing that whole throw pebbles at your window thing to get your attention, but that didn’t work. That’s why I called you.”

I considered getting up and looking out the window, but I didn’t want to give him a look of me in a nightie, so I just remained on the bed. “Ringing the doorbell wasn’t an option?”

“I didn’t want to wake everybody up.”

“Ugh… Gimme a minute, okay?” I hung up the phone and walked over to my closet, where a pair of leggings were sitting in a corner. I didn’t really wanna get dressed yet, so I just pulled those on so that Steve wouldn’t be gawking at my legs. I looked ridiculous wearing a blue nightie and black leggings, but I really didn’t care as much as I should have. I was tired.

I felt somewhat lighter than I had the day before. Probably had to do with all that diarrhea I’d had. When I opened the door, Steve took one look at me and it looked like his eyes were about to pop out of his skull. “What?” I asked.

“You uh… Um… Ah…”

I looked down at myself but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. (Okay, nothing other than I was looking at a girl’s body when I’d had a boy’s body for most of my life. That’s not what I meant, though.) What the hell was he getting at? “My what?” I asked, looking back up at him. He looked like he wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure how to say it. “Just say something!”

After another five minutes of nothing, he finally said, “Is it okay if I say you’re hot?”

“Um… Yeah? You said I was cute yesterday, why is it so strange today?”

He shook his head. “No, you’re not just cute today. You’re… hot. Like Melanie, but… y’know, a little younger.”

“Huh?”

“Well, yesterday, you still looked a little like a guy. Not a lot, but you could still see Adam in you. Now, you… Don’t.”

I rubbed at my arm. “Am I still… Y’know… Recognizable?”

He nodded. “Yeah, you’re obviously still Amy, but… I don’t think anybody’s gonna call you a ‘shemale’ anymore.”

I sighed. “You mean you heard people call me a shemale, too?”

“Whaddya expect? You were in the girl’s locker room, I was in the guy’s locker room. Guys talk about girls, y’know?”

I nodded. “Yeah. So, um, wanna come in?”

He smiled.

5.

“Can you wait out here for a second?” I asked, stopping him from walking into my room. “I’ve gotta get dressed.”

He nodded. “Yeah. I’ll wait.”

“‘Kay, thanks.” I mentally facepalmed. I said that. I really said that. Why did I say that? I’m a damned idiot. I shut the door between us and locked it. I didn’t think he’d come in without asking me, but for some reason, I just needed to lock the door. Maybe it was because of something that I never expected once.

Steve was handsome.

Was I feeling this way because of the curse? Steve’s challenge was to get over being selfish, did that have to do with me? Was this my challenge? Being attracted to Steve? Was I attracted to other boys? I picked up my phone again, tapped the internet icon and went to Google Images. I typed in ‘naked bodybuilders’ and the first four images were naked women. The fifth was a disturbingly veiny Asian man. I zoomed in on it and started to feel kinda… How do I explain it… Hot? I kinda felt like I was sweating, but I wasn’t.

I clicked out of the tab and set my phone down on my dresser. Good, at least I was turned on by any guy, not just Steve. That would have scared me. I tried thinking other thoughts to rid myself of that image, because I really didn’t want to feel so awkward all day long. Get dressed, Amy, just get dressed.

I pulled the leggings and my nightie off and then walked over to my mirror. I made a very close examination of my boobs, for the first time in my life. (Well, the first time that didn’t involve a shower, that is.) It didn’t feel odd that I had breasts anymore, they were just kinda there. I turned sideways to look at myself in profile, checking to see if they’d grown anymore. It was hard to tell, because as far as I was concerned, they looked big enough. They ached, a little, but not uncomfortably so.

I reached into my now-dedicated bra drawer (I’m not gonna lie, Mom went a little overboard on how many bras she bought me; she’s not gonna be happy if I suddenly outgrow them all) and slipped into it. I was getting better at putting bras on, but I still wasn’t as fluid at it as Mel was. The bra still fit, but it was kinda snug, unlike yesterday, when it fit comfortably.

I guess I shouldn’t have been confused. Even if I weren’t slowly sliding from male to female, assuming I was born a girl, my breasts would still be growing. Puberty would be kicking my ass for a couple more years now.

I pulled on a different pair of panties, after I secured a pad in. I noticed that my crotch area looked a little different. Little Adam had slipped inside a little more. I didn’t mind as much as I should have, though. I guess it was getting easier and easier to say goodbye to Adam entirely. Either way, I actually looked somewhat like I had a vagina now. Not much more left to change.

I rubbed my hand up one of my legs. A little fuzz, already. Man, how often do girls need to shave their legs? Oh well, I’d decided to wear pants anyway. I grabbed a pair of jeans and wiggled my way into them. Man, if girls can barely get these things on, how do boys do it? There were quite a few boys who wore girls’ jeans.

Next I grabbed a long-sleeved shirt and pulled it on. Pulling it down over my boobs was still slightly awkward, but when I had it on, and saw myself in the mirror, I smiled at my reflection. I looked pretty good, actually.

Oh, crap… This is what Steve was talking about. I actually looked pretty hot. And now I’m getting ridiculously vain, good work, Amanda! Apparently, I’m turning into every other teenage girl in southern California.

I put on a pair of sandals and grabbed my book bag. Walk to school with Steve, just get through the day, that’s all I had to do.

I opened my door and Steve was waiting there, smiling. “You look good,” he said, which made me blush. Damn me for turning into a girl!

6.

“So, where’d you get the new clothes?” Steve asked when we got outside. He had his hands in his pockets, and just looked laid back. He wasn’t as nervous around me as I was around him right now.

“My mom bought them for me yesterday, while we were at school.”

“You look really nice.”

I brushed some hair behind my ear. “You said that before.”

“And I meant it.”

“You look good yourself,” and I meant that. He looked better than he had the day before. He didn’t look as much like a slob as he used to. Was this a real change, or just in how I perceived him? He was still wearing the same kinds of clothes that he always wore, but he just looked different.

“Thanks. Stephanie said the same thing.” He chuckled. “She asked where her ‘slobby twin’ went.”

“So, what’s with the change?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. I just felt like it was time. What about you? What’s with your changes?”

“You mean besides being cursed and turned into a girl?”

“Well, yeah, but… Y’know… You’re different.”

“How?”

“You’re… Different.”

Why didn’t I want to answer that question? Why couldn’t I answer that question?