“So let me get this straight,” Ella said, rubbing her forehead. “You narrowly avoided dying after being set up by Victors friends, and now Rock For Brains thinks you're flirting with him because you managed to drop a shiny boulder on his head?”

“Pretty much,” I said, sinking deeper into my comfy chair.

We were currently in the freshman library, one of the private study rooms to be exact. We, being every one of my friends, both male and female. It was one of the few places we could talk privately since either dorm was off limit to half of us.

“This is great!” Clarice exclaimed.

Looking over at the tiny blonde, I wondered to myself if she'd gone crazy. There was nothing great about this.

“Come on, Rocks For Brains is Victors biggest advantage. If you can seduce him, we'll have him on our side.”

“Are you kidding me?! He's huge! I barely reach his waist. He's an idiot! He's ugly! And one wrong move and I'm a pancake!” I shouted.

Garth smiled. “The height isn't a problem. In fact it's a pretty convenient size.”

My face went bright red as an image I REALLY didn't want went through my mind. Garth blushed as well when he realized he'd said that out loud.

Ella sighed. “Let's not go there please, I'd like to keep this somewhat PG. And I don't think Petra could pull off a femme fatale very well.”

“She wouldn't have to pull it off for very long, just a day or three. That should be long enough to get Victor, and then she can let Rocks For Brains down gently,” Clarice insisted.

“I don't know how to be a femme fatale,” I insisted. “I don't even know how to be feminine!”

Everyone looked at me, clearly judging me and finding me very wanting. This caused me to blush even more, significantly increasing the brightness of the room.

“She's right,” Naomi said. “There's no way she could seduce anyone.”

That got a round of nods, even from the boys. I wasn't sure if I should be relieved or insulted, Then I remembered being utterly incompetent as a girl meant I wouldn't have to seduce a half-giant and risk getting squashed or put in a very compromising and potentially deadly position.

“You know what that means,” Clarice said.

“What?” I whimpered, not liking the gleam in her eye.

“We'll have to teach you.”

“To the dormitory!” Noami shouted.

Ella turned to the boys. “We'll meet up for supper and after that we can come back here and you can help Petra learn how to flirt.”

The boys, especially Garth, seemed to be quite happy with that.

As Calci, Clarice and Naomi surrounded me, I picked up my chair and held it out defensively. “You'll never take me alive!”

***

An hour later I was sitting down looking at myself in the mirror.

My hair was curled and had sparkling pinpricks of light in it, looking like stars in the night sky. My eyes looked huge thanks to the eye shadow and glitter which made something like butterfly wings at the corners of my eyes. My lips were a dark red and seemed to have swelled up to double their usual size, and my pale skin seemed to be white porcelain with just a touch of colour on my cheeks. My nails had also been done up to match my lips, they were glossy and so shiny I nearly blinded myself when the light shone on them.

I wanted to say I looked like an idiot, but honestly I was hot. Not just pretty or even beautiful, but drop dead gorgeous. Picturing my old, male self, putting a poster of me on the wall to go to sleep to, was all too easy.

“We'll need to go to the school store and pick you up some proper clothes,” Ella said, looking at me with her head cocked to the side, with her hand on her chin.

Clarice nodded. “Definitely. She needs a better bra and shirt to show off her assets. And a nice skirt or pants. Do you have any clothes that aren't the school uniform, Petra?”

“No,” I replied. I didn't have much to say, I was busy trying to force down the very naughty thoughts I was thinking about as I continued to stare at my body.

“All right, we can deal with that later. Now look at me, and give me your best smile.”

I tried to smile nicely.

Naomi leaned back from me. “Is that a smile or are you constipated?” she asked.

“I'm smiling,” I insisted.

“Try to think of something pleasant, like Micheal getting detention,” Ella suggested.

Remembering the look on the creeps face did help. I felt my smile turn into a grin.

Clarice looked at me nervously. “Now you look like you're about to kill someone.”

“Think of a really cute boy you want to kiss,” Calci said.

Everyone recoiled as I scowled.

“Please stop thinking of a really cute boy you want to kiss!” Calci said from behind Ella.

Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to stop thinking of anything. My friends breathed a sigh of relief as I only looked annoyed instead of monstrous.

Ella sighed. “Petra look at me and copy what I do.”

She leaned down and gave me a big, beautiful smile. I could practically see myself in her brilliant white teeth. I couldn't resist smiling back.

“PERFECT!” Naomi shouted.

“Just try to think about whatever you're thinking about right now, when you need to smile,” Ella said. “Now we need a nice rock.”

“Why?” I asked.

“So you can throw it at Rocks For Brains. You need to keep his attention.”

“I can give you one from my rock collection,” Calci said, hurrying out of the room before I could say anything.

“Do I get to say anything about this plan?” I asked.

“No,” Clarice said.

Ella put her hand on my shoulder. “I understand you're not comfortable with this, and I wish we could just do our plan to use the anti-mind control potion. But Victor tried to kill you today. We have to nip this in the bud as fast as possible because he'll try again, maybe not with you, but with Naomi, or Clarice, or Calci, or even me. So can you please do this for us? For me?”

There wasn't much I could say against that. Sure this was humiliating, but everything in my life for the last week had been humiliating. Victor really had tried to kill me, not just control me or embarrass me, but actually murder me. I couldn't let that stand. And I couldn't let him do it to the girls. I just had to do this for a day or two and I'd be the hero, protecting my friends.

“OK, I'll do this. But just once,” I said.

“Thank you,” Ella said, carefully hugging me so she wouldn't mess up my makeup.

Calci came back with a small boulder. It was pure white with streaks of glassy black all through it. When the light caught it just right it glittered prettily. “I think this will be perfect,” she said putting it into my hands.

The boulder had to weigh fifty pounds. My hands dropped into my lap with a crunch. “GET IT OFF ME!” I screamed as my legs started to crack and I lost all feeling in my hands.

***

I looked at the thing in my hands with sheer dread. It was horrible. It was clingy. It was red. It was practically see through.

“Come on Petra, try on the dress,” Clarice said.

I held the scrap of fabric against my body. “This wouldn't cover an emaciated fairy,” I said.

“Yes it will. It stretches.”

We'd been looking through the clothes section of the Doom Valley student store, and I was once again wishing I was a boy. It was easy to shop as a boy. Find pants that look OK, get the correct size, buy pants. Shirts were a bit more tricky because there were more choices, but not that much trickier. I could be in and out of a clothing store in five minutes, fifteen if I was being slow and there was a line up.

But as a girl, I apparently had to look at the fabric, the cut, the colour, the size which didn't make any sense, decide if I wanted to look sexy, demure, flirty, innocent, dangerous, playful or seductive, and match it with the makeup and shoes I was wearing.

Naomi handed me a bra, which seemed to be made mostly out of wires and was possibly a torture device. “This will go with the dress.”

“It will?” I asked, completely confused.

They shoved me into the change room while my head was still spinning.

Taking off my sensible pants and shirt, I looked around to make sure no one was looking and took off my bra unleashing my breasts. They'd gone down slightly since I'd been transformed again, but I still couldn't see my feet. I missed looking at my toes.

I put the bra on, it wasn't soft and cottony like my usual school supplied bra. It was apparently spider silk, and the fabric felt like cool air on my skin. The wires pushed my breasts up, so it felt like I had a table strapped to my chest. The fabric didn't really cover the top of my breasts, leaving them open to the world.

Hastily I threw on the red dress. It clung to me, and I had to twist, shimmy and shake to get it down. Looking at myself in the mirror, I realized that my towel after a shower covered more of my body than the dress did. It also left absolutely nothing to the imagination, clinging to my body like a second skin. If I lifted my legs too much while walking I'd flash my underwear to everyone.

Well that wouldn't be too humiliating, everyone had already seen my underwear in that stupid pass or die test, and when I burned my skirt, and after the wild dogs had mauled me in combat class. Still it was the principal of the thing, I didn't want to be flashing my underwear for the world to see.

Bending over, I could see straight down my top. Couldn't they have found me something a little less revealing? I thought I'd heard that nuns robes were in fashion. Or maybe a suit of armour.

“Come on out Petra, we want to see you,” Naomi said.

Opening the door a little, I hesitantly stepped out. “I think it's too small.”

“No it's perfect. You look fantastic,” Clarice said. “And I hate you.”

“Why do you hate me?”

“Because I'll never be able to wear something like that,” the tiny girl said.

“It will fit you better than it does me,” I grumbled.

“you need actual curves to wear that thing. I don't got that.”

“I'll trade you,” I said.

Clarice got a thoughtful look, like she was really considering it.

“I don't think we should talk about trading bodies here, someone may take you up on the offer,” Ella said. “Petra, you look great. Now lets pay for this and get supper. You're going to knock Rocks For Brains, and every other boy, dead.”

Walking behind Ella, I kept repeating to myself, “I'm doing this to protect my friends. I only have to do this once.”