A Whateley Academy Tale
Enter The Chaka!
By Bek D Corbin
August 31st, Thursday
I woke up, and the first thing that went through my mind was, ‘Finally! Today’s the day!’ I literally flipped out of bed, landing on the balls of my feet in a near perfect gymnast’s dismount, and made for the bathroom.
*****
Vince watched his younger brother zip out the door. ‘Wonderful,’ he thought to himself, ‘the goddam freak is finally leaving.’ Vince pulled himself out of his bed. Vince was in a lousy mood, and for all the world, he didn’t know why. He was finally getting rid of his little brother. No more watching as Tony preened in front of the mirror, checking the progress as his body got more and more feminine. No more worrying whether the kids at school were noticing that his little brother was turning into a freak. No more having to listen as Tony went on and on about his Aikido lessons, and how if he did this, his Ki would do that. No more watching Tony do impossible things like jumping up to a second story window. Nope, no more of that. They’d found a school for freaks like him, and Tony was going there, hopefully to stay. So, why didn’t he feel better?
The thing that really pissed Vince off was that Tony was so fucking happy about it all. He was actually happy that he was turning into a girl! He was actually glad that he was some kind of mutant freak, who’d probably wind up growing claws and fangs and things! Why couldn’t he just stay his little brother and be a normal boy? His life had been perfect until Tony started taking those idiot Aikido lessons and all this fell out of the closet...
*****
I came bounding back into the room, and noticed Vince giving me the cold fish eye. “Well, look at the bright side, Bro! One less person in line for the bathroom!”
“How did you do all that so quickly?”
“Believe me, you don’t wanna know.” I went into my warming up Tai Chi Chu’an routine as Vince climbed into his clothes. With the last bit of the routine done, I stripped out of the pee-jays that I’d slept in, and pulled on a pair of lacy pink panties.
Vince almost tied himself up into a knot doing a wince of revulsion. “Do you HAVE to do that here?”
“Hey, it’s my room, too- for the next hour or so. If you don’t want to see this, why don’t you just go downstairs and wait for someone to cook you breakfast?”
“Why should _I_ leave? It’s MY bedroom!”
“Yeah, and YOU’RE the one getting all weirded out!” I struggled for a bit with a lacy bra that matched the panties, and then tucked my B cup breasts into the cups. That done, I looked into the mirror and bounced a bit. My breasts bounced securely in the cups, and the pink contrasted nicely with the bittersweet chocolate brown of my complexion. I smiled at the effect and saw a lovely picture in the mirror. Y’know someday, I’m going to get used to this; in the mean time, I’m just gonna enjoy!
“Jeezus KRIST, don’t _DO_ that!” Vince spat out.
“Vince, what is your problem? All summer long, you’ve been bitching at me to wear those stupid baggy clothes, even though you know that I HATE those ratty ‘Hip-hop’ things that you’ve been handing down to me for the last five years.” I cannot stand Gangsta Rap, largely because big brother Vince, a.k.a. ‘.44 Mag Vin’ was so heavy (and in a totally whack way) into it. I pulled on a baby blue demi-T with a glittery butterfly decal on the front, and a pair of low-riding blue jeans.
******
Vince curled a lip at Tony. Dressed up like that, Tony made a very pretty young African American girl. Tony was thin, but he wasn’t the scrawny thin that he’d been last year. Now he was a sort of sleek, pantherish thin, with just enough curves to suggest the beginnings of a killer female figure. Tony’s face was heart-shaped with a pointed chin, very high cheekbones, a leonine nose, a large pair of amber colored almond-shaped eyes, and a wide mouth with full lips. The features, set on Tony’s long graceful neck, all joined together to create a rather feline impression. The fact that Tony’s hair was trimmed close to his head didn’t make him seem more masculine- too many girls wore exactly the same style. Even without any jewelry or makeup, Tony made a Stone Cold Babe. Three years ago, Vince would have made a total fool of himself to get next to a girl who looked like that. Vince made a disgusted sound. “Y’know, dressin’ like that still ain’t gonna make you White!”
*****
I shot a hard look at Vince in his jeans that buckled nearly at the knee, ‘muscle T’, flannel over-shirt, big belt buckle, and do-rag. Man, I have been taking this shit for too long. There is no way that I’m gonna leave without letting ‘.44 Mag Vin’ know what I really think. “Yeah, and dressing like that ain’t gonna make you Tough. Vince, we do NOT live in a rat-infested tenement in Bed-Sty! We live in Pleasant Oaks, our parents are married and well employed, nobody in this family does drugs- and if you’ve even SEEN crack cocaine, I’m telling Dad!- and the closest that you’ve ever come to being ‘Put down by The Man’ is getting pulled over for Driving While Black! You don’t have to go out and pull crimes to support this family, ‘cause Mom and Dad both pull down six-figure a year salaries, plus bennies. You wouldn’t know what to do with a gun even if you found one, and if you ever even suggested to your girlfriend Muriel that she turn tricks, she’d pound the crap out of you! The only _Posse_ that you got are those six shit-head Gangsta-wannabe friends of yours, and two of THEM are whiteboy wussoids who are even bigger losers than YOU are! We are well-off! Get used to it.” Even at fourteen, my voice is still smooth and clear, without a hint of cracking, and I can use it like a whip. Of course, it helps that I have all the real ammunition.
“F’ the luvvakrist, why don’t you at least try to be a Man, y’fucking sissy?”
“ ‘Be a Man’? ‘Sissy’? Hey, _I_ ain’t the one who just stood by while his six loser friends jumped his brother and tried to beat the crap out of him. And then shit in his drawers when that brother wiped up the floor with the aforementioned losers!”
Vince got up in Tony’s face. “Yer a goddamn disgrace to this entire family!”
“Disgrace? Me? Hey, I’M the one who has an all-expenses paid scholarship to an exclusive New England Private School! You? You’re a second string athlete on three mediocre teams! And with your grades, you’ll be lucky if Dad can grease you into a college that’s even in the same Zip Code as an Ivy League school.” I glared up at him, square in the eyes. “What’s really got you pissed off, Vince? That I’m turning into a girl, or that I’m a mutant, or that now I’m stronger, faster, tougher and smarter than you are? Don’t worry, Bro- maybe some day, you’ll evolve into a higher life form, too!”
Vince went red in the eye, stepped back, cocked his fist and let fly. Not bothering to move, I calmly caught Vince’s fist in the palm of my hand, and didn’t budge an inch. Vince looked into my eyes, and saw rage there. I have taken so much shit from this chucklehead that I am not about to take any more, especially on this, of all days! He tried to wrestle his fist free from my grip, but couldn’t. I could tell that he could feel something building up in me, something invisible and silent, but still ominously strong.
*****
But before Tony could unleash whatever it was, Valerie Chandler opened up the door to her sons’ room and walked in. “Are you two decent? OH!” She saw Vince and Tony. “And exactly what is THIS?”
Tony let go of Vince’s hand. “Oh, nothing, Mom. Just getting in a little ‘male bonding’ while we still can.”
Valerie looked at her two elder sons, decided that it wasn’t worth the aggravation, and gave that sigh that only a mother can give. “Okay, but come down to the kitchen- I want us all to have a breakfast together as a family. After that, well you know that there’s always something the pops up at the last minute, and we have to be at the train station at Eleven. Tony, honey, are you going to be wearing that on the train?”
“Sure!”
“But why are you wearing one of Cindy’s hand-me-downs? We spent most of the weekend buying you girl clothes to wear at Whateley.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t want to waste any of my new stuff on the train. You know, sitting next to the guy who gets motion sickness, the idiot who’s carrying coffee past me just as we hit a rough spot, not to mention the joys of eating on a train.” Besides, it would probably drive Cindy crazy to see Tony wearing her old clothes.
*****
Big Sister Cindy didn’t disappoint. When she came down for breakfast, she took one look at me and shrieked, “Those are MY jeans! And MY baby-Tee! What are you doing in MY clothes?”
I just kept chewing peacefully. Cindy is SO EASY. “Eating.”
“You go upstairs and change out of them right now!”
“Cindy, you haven’t worn these things in over a year. And you know the Rule: If you haven’t worn it in a year, it’s handed down. B’sides, they don’t fit you anymore. Though they might if you laid off the Rocky Road.” Y’know, I really shouldn’t enjoy razzing Cindy so much, but I really can’t help it. Even more than Vince, Cindy has me pigeon-holed: I’m the brother than she can get away with ordering around. I’m the one who doesn’t get the grades that she does. I’m the one who isn’t in all the committees and clubs and teams that she is. I’m the one who doesn’t get picked to be the lead in the school play. I’m the one who makes her look even more like the perfect child that she needs to be.
Or, at least I wasn’t. Things have changed.
Twelve-year old Lucy glared at me. <Hmmph!> “I wanted to wear that! By the time that you’re through with it, it’ll be all worn out!”
“Luce, by the time that you’re big enough to fit these, they’ll be way out of date.” I leaned over and whispered, “Besides, if _I_ wear them all out, Mom’ll have to break down and buy you something NEW. And aren’t you sick and tired of wearing Cindy’s hand-me-downs?” Despite their big-time careers, Mom and Dad have FIVE children to pay for in a bad economy. So, they use old-fashioned money-saving tricks like handing clothes down and jumping at the opportunity to send one of their children to a private school for _free_. Indeed, the only reason that Mom had sprung for the new clothes, was that she wanted me to make a good impression up at Whateley.
A calculating look crossed Lucy’s face, and she started complimenting me on how good I looked.
*****
Joel Chandler came down to breakfast, and did a double take when he realized that the lovely young girl sitting at the kitchen table was his son, Tony. “Ahhh... Looking Good, Tony!”
“Thanks, Daddy!”
Joel almost managed to not flinch when Tony called him ‘Daddy’. “So, are you excited about going to Whateley today?”
“You betcherass!”
“Tony!”
“Sorry.”
Nine year old Matt, or ‘Mutt’ as Vince sometimes called him, looked hard at his next-to-eldest brother and tried to figure out why Tony was dressed like that. “Why does Tony have to go to school t’day? School don’t start ‘til next week!”
Valerie put a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon in front of the baby of the family and said, “Well, honey, Tony isn’t going to the same school as Vince this year-”
“Thank You, Jesus!’ Vince intoned with rare sincerity and piety.
Valerie resumed, “Tony’s going to a boarding school that’s up in New Hampshire, and they want all new students to go up there and get used to the place before school starts.”
“Why does he have to go to New Ham’shire? Why can’t he go to school here?”
Lucy smiled widely. “I heard Mom and Dad talking- it’s ‘cause Tony’s got Super Powers!” She pointed her hands at Tony and made noises like energy discharging. <Sha-Kow!>
“Howcum Tony gets super powers, an’ I don’t?”
“ ‘Cause you aren’t old enough.” Tony replied with the calm certainty of an expert.
“What’s that got t’do with anything?”
“Mutt, I’m what’s called a Mutant. I’m born with certain kinds of things that most people aren’t born with.” Tony made a point of ignoring the disgusted noise that Vince made by way of comment. “But they don’t become active, until you hit puberty. Mine kicked in about five months ago, while I was at my Aikido dojo. It took a while for Mom and Dad a while to find the Whateley Academy, and by then, it was summer, and the Academy didn’t want to start me until the beginning of the regular school year.”
“What’s all that got t’do with me not getting super powers?” By the irrefutable logic of a 9-year-old, if one family member got super powers, then so should everyone.
“Matt, it’s not like Mom and Dad got a super power in the mail and decided to give it to ME. You’re either born a Mutant, or you’re not. I was born a Mutant, and it’s too soon to be sure about you two munchkins.”
Matt perked up. “Y’mean I might still be a Mutant?”
Valerie jumped in. “It’s not that simple, Matt. There are a lot of drawbacks to being a Mutant, and one of the reasons that Tony’s going to that school is to learn to deal with them. You should be glad if you don’t turn out to be a Mutant.” Naturally, this levelheaded maternal advice went in one 9-year-old ear and out the other. Matt was too hyped on the possibility that he might have super powers.
Further discussion was cut short by the sound of a knocking at the kitchen door. Joel held up a hand and went to the door. “Oh, good. He’s right here.” He opened the door and let in two fourteen-year-old boys.
“Thanks, Mister Chandler.”
*****
It was Scott and Greg, my two best buds. What were they doing here? Dad turned to me. “Tony, you haven’t told Scott or Greg why you’re leaving. I think that you owe them an explanation as to what’s going down.”
Scott and Greg goggled at me in stereo. “Tony? Man, is that YOU?”
I let out a gusty sigh. “Yeah it’s me.” Then I looked around the kitchen at all the focused family attention. “Can we take this into the living room?” Scott and Greg nodded and moved through the kitchen. I glared at those who started to get up from the table, and then joined my friends.
Once we were (reasonably) alone, Scott said, “Tony? What IS this? You goin’ fag on us, or somethin’? And what’s this about you goin’ to some outta state school?”
I held up a hand for silence. “Okay, it’s like this. You guys know that things have been kinda weird for me lately.”
Greg folded his arms across his chest and glared at me. “No shit!”
“Guys, you remember a few weeks back, when I jumped over that ten-foot high fence in a single leap?”
“Yeah- you said that it was something that you learned at that Aikido school that you go to. I been buggin’ my Dad to let me take classes.”
“Well, that wasn’t completely true. I did learn how to do that at the Dojo, but it isn’t anything that Mister Colliard can teach you. Guys, I’m a mutant.”
“A Mutant? Y’mean like all those superheroes an’ stuff?”
“Not quite- just ‘cause you’re a mutant doesn’t automatically mean that you put on a cape and tights.”
“What’s being a mutant got t’do with you going away to some school, and looking like a girl?” Scott’s eyes drifted down towards my chest. “Are those real?” He stretched a hand out.
“YES!” I slapped Scott’s hand away. “It matters, ‘cause being a mutant is the reason that I’m wearing these clothes. Guys, I’m turning into a girl.”
“Hunh?” “Say What?” “Yer kiddin’! What kind of mutant power turns a guy into a girl?”
<sigh> ‘Sit down, this is gonna take a lot of explaining. Guys, you ever noticed when you read one of those superhero fan magazines that superheroes and super villains- at least the mutant ones- seem to come in one of three basic types? Either they look like Joe Six-Pack in a leotard, or their bodies are all weird an’ twisted lookin’, or they look like they could pose for ads for health clubs.”
“Yeah? So?”
“Stay with me, I’m going somewhere with this. The last kind are called ‘Exemplars’. These are mutants whose power, or some aspect of their power shapes their body, making it stronger, faster and tougher. Somewhere in their mind, everyone has an idea of what the perfect body looks like. Somehow, their power uses that idea- they call it a ‘template’- and molds their body into something that looks like that idea.”
“Yeah? So, howcum you ain’t all buff and stuff, instead of looking like a chick?”
“Well, y’see, you can’t choose what your template looks like, it just sort of happens in your brain. And my template is a girl’s. So, every time that I use my power, it makes my body a little more girlish.”
“So, why don’t you just NOT use your power?”
‘It ain’t that simple, Greg. There’s all sorts of other stuff going on, too. Y’see, my power is that I can manipulate Ki.”
“Ki? Isn’t that that stuff that you were always talkin’ about, that you learned at your Dojo?”
“Yeah. Ki is this bioelectric force that runs through your body. It’s what all those martial arts masters use to do all that weird stuff like you see in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The thing is, most people have to study for years, decades even, in order to control their Ki enough to the slightest thing. Me? I can, just by snapping my fingers, do Ki stuff that Mister Colliard would have to meditate for hours and work up a gallon of sweat to do. I am to Ki what Mozart was to music. Also, I can tap into the Earth’s magnetic field to power my Ki stuff. Thing is, my power is working, even when I’m not thinking about it. My Ki is constantly flowing through my body, making my power change my body. Even if I made a point of not doing any Ki stuff, the doctor says that it’s already affected my body so that it’s producing female hormones, not male hormones.”
“Couldn’t you use your Ki to make your body more, y’know, manly?”
“I don’t know how, nobody I know knows how, and it’d probably be dangerous as hell.”
“How do you know all of this?”
“Well, do you remember about four months ago, when my eyes suddenly changed color?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
<aggravated sigh> “Have you ever noticed that mutants always seem to have these really weird eye colors?”
“Yeah. So?”
“The doctor told me that there’s this gland in your eye, all it does is kick in ONCE, when you’re a baby, and it turns your eye from that kinda dark blue that all babies have, to whatever eye color you get for the rest of your life. BUT, in mutants, when your mutation goes on-line, it kicks in that gland again, and it turns your eyes a new color, and a lot of the times it’s a pretty rare color. It’s one of the classic signs of a person being a mutant. ANYWAY, when my eyes changed color, Mom and Dad took me in to see a doctor ‘cause they thought that something might be going wrong with me, and he referred us to another doctor. He told us that I showed all the signs of being a mutant, and then I started doing all that weird stuff in Aikido class. And I’ve been going to that doctor once a week ever since. And that’s how I know all of this stuff.”
An awkward silence fell over the room. Then Scott looked up uncomfortably. “So, what are you gonna do now?”
“So, now I’m gonna go to this school out of state. The doctor knew someone who knew somebody, and they arranged for me to go to this school, where they teach mutants like me to take control of their powers. I mean, I’ve only lost control of my Ki once or twice, but believe me, you DID NOT want to be there when I did.”
“And, when you come back, you’re gonna be a real girl?”
“Well, eventually, Yeah.”
“Man, you are taking this real well.”
I shrugged. “Well, like my cousin Herb said, back when he was doin’ the Black Muslim thing, ‘When Fate throws a dagger at you, there are two ways to catch it: by the handle or by the blade’.”
“Hunh?”
“That means, you make the best of a situation when it happens to you. The way I see it, if I gotta be a girl, I might well be a Babe!”
Greg looked me up and down. “Well, at least you got THAT part down!”
I flashed my best Stone Cold Babe smile at him. “Why thank you!”
Scott looked uncomfortable. “Tony- why are you telling us all this? I mean, what are you gonna do if we start spreading around that you’re turning in to a girl, or that you’re a mutant? Won’t that put your family in danger or sum’thin’?”
“I think that my Dad asked you over ‘cause he thought that you deserved an explanation why I’m suddenly gonna up and split. And, besides, I’m gonna be coming home for Summer and the Holidays.” <amused snort!> “Besides, what are you gonna do? If you go spreading around that I go around wearing dresses, you guys ain’t gonna look too good y’selves. Guilt By Association, and all that.”
Greg shifted his feet nervously. “Uhm- Tony- Exactly how do you feel- y’know- about Guys and Girls? I mean, you had it real bad for Gail Enderby. How do you feel--- now, that you’re a girl and all, I mean.”
“Hey, I DON’T KNOW! I’ve only been like this for a couple of months! I mean, I’m still getting used to all this! Right now, I’ve got enough to worry about, not freaking out when I go into the Ladies’ Room!”
That pretty much put the capper on the conversation. They made the usual ‘we’ll still be buds’ and ‘well get together and hang out on Summer vacation’ noises, but nobody was fooled. The fact of my mutant powers was like a wall between them and me. And, to be honest, our friendship was largely a matter American Grade School Social Dynamics. In American schools, cliques form along lines of a kind of specific gravity. Out-going, gregarious types only have ‘wacky best friends’ on TV. In real life, A-List types hang out with other A-List types, thugs hang out with thugs, weirdoes hang out with weirdoes, and wimps hang out with wimps. Through Grade School and most of Middle School, Scott, Greg and me were almost depressingly average kids, and our averageness was the bond that held us together. Now, I was extraordinary, beyond even the A-List types. They might have held onto our friendship, even with me being a mutant, but my becoming a girl made that unlikely. And my becoming a Stone Cold Fox made it impossible. Looking like I do, I’d almost certainly be expected to hang out with the A-List types.
But the thing that put the last nail in our friendship’s coffin was the fact that I was leaving school. Grade school friendships often fall apart in High School, and best friends in High School usually go their own ways when they go to different colleges or they get jobs. And I was going to High School out of state. There was no way that I could stay ‘in the loop’ of Greg and Scott’s lives. There’d be embarrassed, awkward attempts to stay in touch during the Summer vacation, but they all knew that I was already pretty much out of their lives.
There was an embarrassing silence for a long minute. Then there was a yelp from the landing at the top of the stairs, “Hey Tony! Watch me fly!” Little brother Matt hopped onto the top of the banister. Mom gave a panicked shriek from the kitchen doorway. I did a lightning back roll onto the back of the couch and was coiled to spring even as Matt jumped off the railing.
It took a split second for Matt to realize that he wasn’t going to fly, and was beginning to scream as I caught him in mid-air. I tucked Matt into my midsection and rolled to brace against the wall. I rebounded and tried to diminish my speed by caroming off a couple of walls, but didn’t hit one right, and went tumbling down to the ground. I managed to wrap myself around Matt so that I took the brunt of the landing, rather than little brother.
Mom skittered over in a near panic and pulled Matt away from me. She fussed over Matt, who was striving mightily to keep from crying with fear. I pulled myself up and muttered, “S’okay, I’m fine, thanks for askin’.”
Mom glared at me and snapped, “This is ALL YOUR FAULT! If you hadn’t been doing all that freak crap, jumping all over the place, none of this would have happened! You almost killed your little brother!” Then she let loose with what I’ve heard called ‘a blistering stream of the old rancid’ on PBS.
‘Freak’. She said it. For all his homophobic crap, Vince had never said ‘Freak’.
I put up with this for several minutes. When Mom finally ran out of steam, I trudged past a smugly smirking Vince up the stairs. Several minutes later, I came back down wearing a blue denim jacket, a large carrying tote slung over each shoulder and a trunk that must have weighed at least sixty pounds up on my shoulder. But these days I might have been carrying a bag of groceries for all the effort that I had to put into it. At the foot of the stair, I turned to Dad. “Dad, would you drive me to the train station? I might as well wait for the train there.”
Looking at Mom, Dad nodded, and went to get his keys.
I went to the door, but stopped in front of Scott and Greg. “Ah, guys- I don’t think that you’ll have to worry about avoiding me, come Summer vacation. I don’t think that it’s gonna be an issue.”
I went out to the garage and loaded my luggage into the family SUV. I climbed in the shotgun seat, fighting tears, and tried to pull myself together. Just breathe, let it in, let it out, and breathe from the bottom of your stomach. Dammit, this was supposed to be where it gets GOOD! This is supposed to be one of the best days of my fucking life, and everybody shits all over me, even my own mother! Damn!
I sat and stewed for several minutes. Then Mom came out, wearing her overcoat, and climbed into the driver’s seat of the car.
I looked at her warily. “I thought that Dad was going to drive me to the station.”
“He was.” She started the engine and pulled out of the drive. “We changed our plans.”
We drove for several minutes in complete silence. Then, at a stoplight, Mom said, “Honey, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have cut loose on you like that. I know that it isn’t your fault that Matt took some damnfool idea into his head. It’s just...” She grimaced, and you didn’t need super powers to tell that all her feelings and tensions all balled up in her throat, all wanting to be voiced at the same time.
I looked at her. “Mom? What am I supposed to do? I mean, I know what Vince wants. He wants me to pretend that nothing happened, and go around wearing baggy clothing that hide my body, and maybe go through some Sit Com shtick about getting me out of Gym class. All so that he can go on living his bullshit suburban Gangsta fantasy. I know what Cindy wants- she wants me to shut up and dumb down, so that she can still be little Miss Perfect. They want me to crawl back into that neat little pigeonhole that they built for me, and nail myself in. Is that what you want me to do? Maybe you want me to go around wearing weights on my wrists and ankles, so I’ll only be able to run as fast and jump as high as ‘normal people’. Is THAT was you want?”
She grated out a “No” through gritting teeth.
“Mom, I’m one of the lucky ones! I got super powers, and I didn’t even have to get bit by a radioactive gerbil or anything! My super power is, mostly, a safe and useful one! There are mutants out there who are growing bug exo-skeletons and bleeding radioactivity! Mom, I already told you that I always felt that I shoulda been born a girl, and now, not only am I turning into a girl but I’m turning into a FOX!
“Mom, you always said that it isn’t the cards you’re dealt, it’s how you play them. For the past fourteen years, I’ve been playing the game with a pair of fours- now I got a dealt a new hand, and it’s a freaking ROYAL FLUSH! I am supposed to be ashamed of this? Mom, not only can I do things with Ki that revered Chinese Kung Fu masters can only dream of doing, not only am I as strong as Arnold Schwarzenegger, not only do I have the reflexes of freaking Jet Li, but I’m actually smarter now! I can remember things right off the bat, now. I can do Algebra in my head. When I put my mind to it, I can read an entire 400-page book in an hour. Why shouldn’t I be able enjoy all of that?”
Mom conceded the point with a sigh. “You’re right, you’re right. I know, you’re right. I just got so scared when I saw Matt jump off that stupid railing. And I feel that I’m losing my little boy...” She stopped the car and looked at me pleadingly.
Oh Crap- how can you be mad at your own mother for being a Mom? “Mom- there’s nothing that anybody can do about it. I’m not going to be male- let alone a boy- for very much longer. But you’ll always be my Mom.”
She did a classic ‘Mom Melt’ and gave me a big hug. Y’know, at fourteen, you’re supposed to think that getting a big hug from your Mom was all smothering. But this was good. Real Good. Good like I really needed. As she started up the car again, she said wryly. “I notice that you didn’t tell your friends that, along with all the other stuff, your IQ went up 40 points.”
I preened a little, and said in my best ‘flighty girl’ voice, “Yeah, well, you know how boys are- they’re always scared off by girls with brains.”
Mom looked over amazed, and started to snicker. She was barely able to restrain it long enough to pull over and then give way to an all-out laughing jag. The laughter was catching, I found myself laughing along with her. Mom laughed herself out, and all the fear, worry and tension that had been bottled up washed out of her. Letting the last giggles play themselves out, she wiped the tears from her eyes and looked at me. She could see that I’d needed that as much as she had. The air between us was much clearer now. She gave her daughter another big hug.
As we drove along, our conversation shifted from strained confession to all-out girl talk. We agreed that I would spell my name with an ‘I’ from then on, and that Matt would move in with Vince, so that I could have my own room when I came back for vacations.
Mom was telling me what she really thought of her mother-in-law when we pulled up in front of the train station. “Oh dear.”
“What’s the matter, Mom?”
“I just realized- it’s only a little past Nine! The train leaves at Eleven! We went storming out the door so fast, we’re two hours early. I don’t want to hang around a train station for two hours!”
I barely managed to restrain a grin. “Weeellll... You did say that the only reason that you wouldn’t let me get my ears pierced is that it would freak out the menfolk...”
Mom grinned back at her daughter. “We have just enough time- let’s do it!”
*****
Two hours later, the train pulled out as Valerie sadly waved Toni off. Oh well, she’d have a chance to get to know Toni better when she came home for Christmas vacation. And she seemed so much happier now. Tony had always been such a quiet and withdrawn boy. Maybe Toni would genuinely be happier.
*****
Train travel is hardly the most interesting way to travel, and the stretch between Baltimore and Boston is a particularly bleak stretch of urban and suburban blight. But I’m headed somewhere where they don’t know me as Vince’s little brother or Cindy’s dimbulb tagalong. After I switched trains in Boston, the scenery grew more interesting, especially as the train rolled out of Massachusetts and into the wilds of New Hampshire. The local from Concord rolled up into the Mountains region, stopping at more rinky-dink little burgs than I thought a little place like New Hampshire could possibly have. My stop was a place called Dunwich.
The Dunwich train depot (you couldn’t really call it a station) looked like it hadn’t been renovated since the Great Depression, and the only sign of that upgrade was a WPA mural. Two other people got off the train at Dunwich, both of them kids about my age. We all looked at each other warily. One was a foxy-faced white girl with big violet eyes and flaming red hair that barely reached her jawline. The other was a fine-featured white boy with dark hair and strange gray eyes.
Well, they were just standing there, so I decided to take the initiative. “So, are you guys, like, going to Whateley Academy?”
The redheaded girl just nodded shyly. The boy gave a tentative smile. “Yeah. It’s my first year here.”
“Me Too! Kewl! My name’s Toni Chandler! And you are?”
“Hank. Hank Declan.”
The wispy redhead managed to get out. “Fey. Call me Fey.”
“So... any idea of what we’re supposed to do? Do we wait for someone to come get us, or do we call the school?”
“I’m not sure. How about this- you go ask at the counter, while I watch our stuff.”
“A man with a plan. I like that! C’mon, Fay!” I marched into the depot building, walked up to the ticket window and gave the desk bell a whack.
A rather sour looking middle-aged man came from out of the back and glowered at me. “Let me guess- you’re here for the Whateley Academy, right?”
“Right!” I chirped back at him, refusing to be intimidated in the least.
“The school should be sending a van for you pretty soon. There are a couple of kids already here, waitin’ on ‘em. You can wait in there.” He pointed at a wooden door with a pane of frosted glass in it. “They got a special waitin’ room, just for you Whateley kids, with refreshments an’ everything. You can leave your bags and stuff on the hand-truck out on the landing.”
“Thank You!” I sang back at him. As I turned, I almost ran into Fey, who was tagging along after all. We hurried back to Hank with the news.
As we loaded the bags and trunks on the hand truck together, I noticed that Hank barely struggled with the heavy trunks. Well, I guess that I have a good idea of what his mutant power is.
The ‘special waiting room’ consisted of three ratty plastic covered couches, and couple of even rattier looking plastic covered chairs, a coffee table with magazines that the local dentist had probably thrown out, a pay phone, and some vending machines for hot drinks, soft drinks, candy and snacks. The sole provision for keeping school age kids from dying of boredom was a very old pinball machine, which two boys were busy hogging. They were dressed for traveling, so I guessed that they were going to Whateley too.
Sitting on one of the couches, flipping through a hardback book was a Hispanic girl whose classic ‘Aztec princess’ looks were set off by a strip of scarlet hair down the center of her head. She looked up with large ice blue eyes. She gave a hasty smile. “Hi. You’re for the Whateley School?” She had a California accent, with a hint of something else.
“Yeah. Any idea of when the bus for the school is due?”
“Well, when I got my travel arrangements, they said that they were expecting me at 4, so I don’t think that they’ll be here much sooner than that.”
The clock on the wall said 3:15. I sighed, “Okay crew, grab a seat and settle in, we’re gonna be here for a while.”
I plopped down on the sofa. “Hi! I’m Toni Chandler. That’s Hank Delancy.”
“Declan.” He corrected.
“Ooops! My bad! Hank Declan. And that’s Fay.” I smiled expectantly at the young Latina, hoping that she’d take the opening.
“My name is Elena Neva Natividad Amicella Lucita Obregon.”
“You got extra luggage, just for that name?”
“You can call me Rip.”
“Rip?”
“Short for Riptide!” With a wide grin on her face, ‘Rip’ cupped her hands in front of her, and a mist formed. The mist quickly condensed into water, formed a tiny wave in Rip’s hands, and then dispersed into mist again.
“Hiisst!” Hank hissed at Rip. “I don’t think that it’s a good idea for us to go flaunting our powers, at least not until we’re sure of what the score is around here.”
“Aaahhh... what’s the use of having special powers, if you can’t have any fun with ‘em?” Rip looked at the three of us. “What can you guys do?”
Once again, it was up to me to take the initiative. “Well... let’s see what I can do without upsetting the locals...” I noticed a row of shabby hardback books on the table with the magazines. There was a gap in the row. “Did you get this book from that table?”
“Yeah. Why?”
I took the book and hefted it to get an idea of its weight and balance. “Let me shelve it for you.” With a brisk snap of the wrist, I threw the book at the table. The book flew right to the gap and fit in perfectly. Okay the spine stuck out a bit, but what do you want? I plopped down on the couch, kicked my feet up, folded my hands behind my head and grinned in a ‘That’s right, I’m BAD!’ pose. Gawd, I love this!
“COOL! How did you DO that?”
I gave Rip a thumbnail sketch of my Ki abilities. “Y’mean you can do all that ‘Matrix’ stuff, with running along walls, dodging bullets and hanging in mid-air when you’re about to kick the shit out of someone?”
“Uhm, run along walls- Yes; dodge bullets- I dunno; hang in mid-air- Get Real. I can’t stop bullets in mid-air, neither.”
“Oh well, y’can’t have everything.” Rip turned to the other two. “How about you two?”
Hank looked around. “I don’t see anything that I can do without blowing our cover.”
Rip and I looked at Fey, who blushed under the scrutiny. “Me neither”, she mumbled.
Since that fascinating topic seemed to have tanked, I settled in to talk with Rip. Or at least Rip settled in to talk. Period. Rip was from Redondo Beach, which was just outside Los Angeles, she wasn’t exactly sure where Baltimore was, she was the fourth of six children, her older sister Angela was a pain, her parents ran a beachside shop back in Redondo, she was an avid surfer, and her powers over water had almost gotten her lynched. Rip passed along that information in almost exactly the same way as the previous run-on sentence. And people say that _I_ have a motor mouth!
We rambled on, talking about everything and nothing, and I could tell that she didn’t have the slightest idea that I wasn’t a girl. I felt a knot in my stomach that I didn’t even know was there start to untie itself.
Another train stopped at 3:30, and dropped off five more students. Long-distances buses also stopped, dropping off a few students. As 4 o’clock rolled around, there were about twenty or so Freshman age kids milling about the waiting room. Most of them looked normal enough; well except for the chubby kid who wouldn’t take that weird looking knit cap off, or the gangly boy who was at least 6’6” tall and all of ninety pounds, or the girl with weird blue-gray hair that grew up in spiky clumps that sort of crested back along her head. Most of them had obviously never been away from home for very long, and they were either very subdued, or they were enjoying being loose for the first time. Somebody had a boom box, and Rip, a curvy black girl named Vanessa, and I were dancing along with the bubble gum pop. I tried to get Fey to join in, but the she was having a shy-fit and refused to be pulled out of her shell.
At 4:00 on the dot, a tall Asian woman came in. She walked over to the boom box and shut off the music. “Okay, listen up! I am Mrs. Shugendo; I’m the Dean of Students at Whateley Academy. There are two shuttles here to take you to the school. I’m going to call off your names alphabetically. When I call out your name, let me know who you are, and then go out to the vans. Now, I know that you have a lot of questions- but, unless it’s an _Emergency_, save it for when we get to the school.”
Mrs. Shugendo called off the names and I found myself crammed in between one of the boys who’d hogged the pinball machine and a very tanned white girl with pale blonde hair piled up on her head. My nose is sharper now than it was before, and I noticed a smell around the girl. It wasn’t a bad smell, just an odd one- the scent sort of reminded me of just after a rainstorm for some reason. I tried to start up a conversation, but the girl was really wrapped up in her personal stereo and pinball boy had an attitude.
I tried to get interested in the scenery. The Mountain section of New Hampshire depends heavily on tourism, and you could really tell it. The little town of Dunwich laid on the ‘New England Rustic Charm’ with a trowel, with red brick and fieldstone buildings, high gabled roofs and all that touristy crap. The town was small, maybe three or five long streets crossed by seven or so short ones, and the blocks weren’t exactly densely packed.
But, give ‘em their due, the natural scenery was worth the trip. Dunwich was situated on a good-sized mountain lake, and the woods were really thick. According to the wooden signs that they passed as they left town, there were a couple of summer camps set along the lake, as well as the School itself.
The road wound itself through the hills, following the angles of the Presidential Mountains. After about a half-hour, the vans pulled off the road and went down a private road and through the gate of a high fieldstone wall. On either side of the gate, the posts were ‘guarded’ by a pair of weird lookin’ gargoyles that had baglike wings, but no faces, carved in a slick black stone.
The vans passed by the large red brick buildings that I’d seen in the brochures, and then went past several smaller buildings, and pulled up in front of one of them. Like the other buildings that we’d just passed, it was four stories tall, four if you counted the attic with the dormer windows, and made of dark red brick with white trim in a blend of the Colonial and Federal styles. As the students piled out, I noticed a discrete plaque by the door, saying ‘Poe Cottage’, and, yes indeed, inside the entry there was a bronze bust of Edgar Allen Poe set in a niche.
After getting all the luggage inside the entryway, Mrs. Shugendo called us into a large common room. When we kids had arranged ourselves on the sofa and chairs, Shugendo called three seventeen-year-old kids wearing school uniforms and a middle-aged woman over to her. Then she addressed us all.
“Well! Welcome to Whateley Academy! Now, you’ll get the formal Welcoming speech from the Headmistress along with all the other Freshmen, but this little talk is just for YOU. Now, the reason that you were all told to come here a day ahead of the other Freshmen, and the reason that you’re being put up in this dormitory is that you all have something in common that sets you apart from the other students, even beyond your individual mutations. You are what is currently called ‘Alternative Sexuality’ types. You are Gay, Lesbian, Transgendered, or so aggressively Bisexual that it is an issue for you. We don’t condemn you for this; you didn’t really have a choice in it, any more than you chose to be mutants. We realize that it’s hard going through adolescence. We realize that it’s even harder when you’re a mutant. You have enough to put up with; you don’t need the extra aggravation of being branded a -quote- sexual deviant –unquote-.
“Unfortunately, homophobic bias is so deeply ingrained in the American, Canadian and British school systems, and to a lesser extent in the European schools, that letting you go around openly declaring that you’re Gay or Lesbian or Bi or Transgendered is just asking for trouble. So, we have Poe Cottage, a place where you don’t have to worry about the kids down the hall finding out, because they already know about you, and you already know about them.
“Now, while we are very proud of the fact that you were brave and honest enough to admit your... persuasion during on your admittance forms, I’m afraid that we’re going to have to ask you to curb that honesty. I’m afraid that it’s a matter of your continued safety. There are students here who have been victimized quite cruelly. And, unfortunately those who have been hurt that way tend to be the cruelest of all, when they find someone that they can pass that pain onto. And in our society, homosexuals and ‘fellow travelers’ are still considered fair game for that sort of thing. Given the abilities that students at Whateley have, a ‘Gay Bashing’ could turn deadly, even Apocalyptic. It is, simply said, easier for all involved, if it simply doesn’t become an issue. If your sense of pride demands that you come out of the closet, then you have a right to. But please, have consideration for the other people here at Poe, and don’t reveal the overall status here.
“The reason that you were brought here a day before the more.. mainstream Freshmen, is twofold- to give you a day to get used to the campus before the others get here, and so that you will sort of be part of the background when they get here. This will give you a certain... credibility that should allow you to make connections more easily. Yes? You have a question?” She pointed at the tanned blonde girl who sat next to me on the van.
“Ma’am, you’ve just pointed out that everyone here is queer or something like that. So, how is that gonna affect how we’re paired up when it comes time to choose roomies? I mean, the brochure kept mentioning roommates like it was a given. So, like, are you gonna put us in Boy/Girl- which would make my mother, like, shit, fart and die!- or are is it gonna be Boy/Boy- Girl/Girl, which would be, really, like the same thing, but for real?”
Mrs. Shugendo cleared her throat nervously. “It will be Boy/Boy- Girl/Girl. To have it otherwise would advertise that there was something unusual going on at Poe Cottage to everyone who looked at the roster. However, I must remind you that Carnal Relations involving students, whether between opposite sexes or the same sex, is Strictly Forbidden at Whateley, and any homosexual student caught breaking that rule will be punished as severely as any heterosexual student doing so!” In other words, she knew that they didn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell of really stopping anybody, but she had to say the words, for form’s sake, and don’t embarrass us, kids.
Hank raised a hand. “What are the rules about using your powers openly, like flying for instance?”
“That question, along with many others, will be handled by the Headmistress at her Freshman’s Orientation speech in two days. In the mean time, just try to keep a low profile. If nothing else, it will keep you from tripping into some of the more senior students.”
Shugendo then introduced the middle-aged woman as Mrs. Horton, the ‘house mother’ for Poe. Mrs. Horton said the expected pleasantries, and then explained the layout of the cottage: there were three floors, the bedrooms were built for two, there was a bathroom for each sex at each end of the hallway, there was a community room and a library for studying. There was also kitchen, but meals were to be served at the campus dining room. Food left in the kitchen was more or less open game, but there were ‘studio coolers’ in each room. There was an exercise room down in the basement, which was open to everyone. There was a laundry room, and the students were responsible for their own laundry. “In other words, it’s your own fault if you stink”, she finished up. Mrs. Horton looked like any other suburban matron that I’ve ever met. And yet, there was something about her impeccably maintained person that suggested that she was completely unfazed by the prospect of keeping an eye on a group of super-powered teenagers.
Mrs. Shugendo took over again. “So, if your heads are quite ready to explode from information overload, let’s get you broken down into groups that we can actually work with. These three-” she indicated the three uniformed teenagers, “are Steve Rossiter, Belle Forbes, and Rosalyn Dekkard. They’ll be your Student Guides for today. You can also go to them for help after today, but you do so at your own risk. They’ll show you around, answer your questions, and get you sorted out as to your sleeping arrangements. And so, I’ll leave you with these words- Don’t destroy anything.”
Steve Rossiter was a buff looking 17-year-old blonde guy who looked like he could audition for the lead in a Captain America movie. Belle Forbes was a svelte 17-year-old girl with sapphire blue eyes and ravenswing black hair pulled back in a high ponytail. Her face was long and angular, with a long straight nose. She might have been harsh looking, if not for a touch of wry humor about the eyes and mouth. Rosalyn Dekkard was also 17, and had the lush curves of a homecoming queen. Her eyes were emerald green, and her hair was also ravenswing black, but it hung loose in waves past her shoulders down to her waist. Her triangular face also had humor, but it was more of the amusement of a pantheress regarding a flock of tender young lambs.
In turn, they started reading off names from clipboards. Belle Forbes called my name, along with Hank’s, Fay’s, and names of the girl with odd spiky gray hair, and a girl with short spiky black hair and dark green eyes, who dressed like a punker. She also called a girl I hadn't seen waiting at the depot. The last girl didn’t look like a teenager; she looked to be about 12 or so. She looked Asian, with long straight dark hair, large dark eyes, and a cute upturned nose. The girl with the odd gray hair called herself Billie, the girl with the punker look was called Ayla, and the kid was called Jade. And, for some reason, Fay answered to Nikki.
When Fay joined us, I shot a glare at her. “I thot that you said that your name was ‘Fay’.”
“That’s my superhero name. And its ‘Fey’, with an ‘E’, not an ‘A’.”
“What kind of superhero name is ‘Fey’?”
“ ‘Fey’ means ‘touched by magic’.”
“OH-kaayyy...”
Our guide cleared her throat for attention. <Ahem!> “Very well, welcome to Whateley, pleased to meet you and all that jazz- hope you don’t mutate into giant slugs.” Her voice had a merry British accent, the cultured ‘Public School’ kind, with a trace of a lilt that suggested touch of the Irish, delivered with a John Cleese deadpan. “Don’t laugh- it’s happened. I’m Belle Forbes, as those of you with short term memories that exceed 15 seconds should well recall. Just between us,” she added conspiratorially, “My name isn’t Belle, it’s Kendall. But, my ‘code name’ is ‘Beltane’, so everyone’s taken to calling me ‘Belle’. Don’t worry, I won’t eviscerate you if you call me Belle- well, not unless I’m having a really bad day. Don’t want to commit to anything I can’t make good on.”
The two other groups finished pairing off. I noticed that all the boys had gone with Steve Rossiter (and were looking up at him like he was a centerfold), and all the girls were clustered worshipfully around Roslyn Dekkard. The division complete, the guides started to shoo their charges off in different directions. Rip caught my eye and gave me the ‘call me later’ hand jive.
Rosalyn took the girls upstairs, and the other two guides took their charges out of the cottage. Steve took the boys off in one direction, and Belle took us off towards the main building. “Very well, Fresh-things,” Belle sang, “Here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to have to discuss some rather personal things, and we don’t want the others listening in, and vice-vicious. So, Rosalyn will show the Dykes in training around the cottage, Steve will show his little nancy-boys around the grounds, and _I_ will show you changelings the school buildings. And then we rotate.”
Changelings? If the gay boys went with Steve, and the lesbian girls went with Rosalyn, then that must mean... They’re like --- Me? I looked at the others, and the others were looking at me and each other. The little one, Jade, had her jaw almost scraping the sidewalk.
Belle smiled acidly. “Ah, the light dawns! Yes, m’lovelies, you are all in this group because you are, one way or another, defecting to the enemy in the War between the Sexes.”
The punker gritted her teeth and grated, “OR, were drafted by the wrong side!” I don’t know what her problem was-- _I_ was dancing on air!
Belle just waved us in the direction of the Administration building. “Yes, yes, I’m sure that it was all very traumatic. Now keep up, keep up! We ARE on a schedule!”
As we walked, I looked over at Hank. “You are getting more feminine?”
<Heh> “Wrong Way.” Hank blushed.
“Y’mean- you’re really a girl?”
Hank reddened even more. “Well... I was born a girl, but right now, I’m what the doctor called a ‘bilateral hermaphrodite’. I sort of have both sets of equipment. But the doctor also says that my female equipment is shutting down.”
“Hey, Dewwwd! Not to worry! You got the recipe for Studmuffin, and all the makin’s!”
* * * *
It was only a short walk to main campus. Poe was at about middle distance, as cottages went. Belle pointed out three cottages farther out from the center and identified them as Hawthorne, Twain, and Whitman. As we passed the others in succession she called out Dickinson, Emerson, and Melville. Around us, the trees were still green, although one or two were showing the first signs of yellow. There were occasional leaves on the ground, but the brick walkway was kept scrupulously clean.
We crested a small hill and saw the campus spread out below them. Near the center was our destination - Schuster Hall. It was a really weird mix of styles, your basic Federal style building, with a huge sparkling glass geodesic dome at the end.
Belle gestured to the large building and the nearly incongruous dome at one end. “That, Fresh Ones, is Schuster Hall, administration, classrooms, and that dome is called The Crystal Hall. It’s where the dining room is and tends to be where most students with free time hang out. We’ll be having dinner in The Dome, then I’ll give you a thumbnail tour of the classroom areas, and show you where to find the offices and important stuff like the restrooms and gaming areas.”
We continued along the pathway until reaching a wider, flagstone-paved square in front of the imposing, if strange looking building. There were stone and metal benches scattered all around the square, and a small fountain occupied the center. Fey looked at the benches as if they were hot griddles.
Belle stopped the group in front of a statue of an old man with longish hair, a beard and deep penetrating eyes. “This is the statue of Noah Whateley, the man who founded this school back in 1878. They only put this thing up because a school is supposed to have a statue of its revered founder. Actually, the school that he founded was mediocre at best- the highest that any graduate of the original school ever reached was a Congressman for Vermont. Anyway, after about eighty years of producing complete non-entities, the original Whateley Academy shut down and was foreclosed on by the bank. Then it was bought by a group of mutant superheroes in 1966, because they wanted a remote place to train emergent mutants in how to use their powers. They kept the name, mostly so that the school would appear to have a long and presumably illustrious history.”
Belle took a long breath and gave us a long measuring look. “Very well, now that we have that tiresome bit of trivia out of the way, let’s get down to it, shall we? First, we’ll tour the Administration and School buildings, so that it won’t be a complete shock to you. Also, this will give the girls a chance to get their luggage upstairs and choose their rooms, without tripping over us. After a decent interval of viewing the torture chambers, we will return to Poe, and you will lug all of your stuff up the stairs and pick your cells. When all of that’s settled, we’ll thrust out again, this time to tour the grounds, athletic fields, and the Combat Training Areas.”
Combat Training Areas? We all stiffened as one
Belle grinned as she savored a direct hit. “Yes, Combat Training Areas. No, you haven’t been kidnapped a Mutant Terrorist Cell, or drafted into the military. Whateley’s policy is that the students are left completely to their own devices to make up their minds as to things like politics and philosophy. HOWEVER, given the nature of many mutants powers, the bellicose nature of humanity in general and the viciousness of Anti-Mutant militants in particular, it is quite likely that (whether you want to or not) you will be faced with situations where you will have to fight. And it would be a criminal waste of all this expensive education if we let you graduate, just to let you die a week later because you couldn’t defend yourself.
“And here we come to one of the reasons that we split up as we did. Young ladies, Gentleman, we are a group apart. Even more than being a mutant or being *ahem!* of ‘Alternate Sexuality’, we are a group apart. Whether as a matter of deep-felt conviction or as a matter of our mutation forcing it on us, we are all changing into members of the sex opposite from that which we were born in. Others, even the Gays and Lesbians, may sympthatize, but they don’t really understand. So, while we’re here, we’re going to have to rely on each other much more heavily than the other students do. Now, having Six transgendered students is a trifle unusual, especially at the beginning of the year. Normally, we only have one or two TGs at the beginning of the year, maybe with one or two showing up later in the year. Still, the rule is that the TGs room together and help each other out. With Six, we have the makings of a nice little team. At least, that’s what we’re going to try for.
“So, while we’re here, out of earshot, I’d like each of you to introduce yourself, tell the others about your background, how you feel about your change, what you want to make of that change, and- Whateley’s version of ‘what’s your major?’- what your mutant power is. Let me start off.
“My name is Kendall Forbes, and I was born in the outskirts of Bristol, Yew Kay. My family was a perfectly respectable Professional class one. And in keeping with sacred tradition, my parents packed me off to a ‘decent Boys’ School’ the first chance they got. What they didn’t realize was that I wanted to be packed off to a decent Girls’ School. At any rate, when I was in my Second Form, I started seeing wispy things floating around. I started having nightmares about a ghoul that I called ‘Gnashitty Rippit’, a foul thing with a wide befanged mouth and grasping betaloned hands. Then one night, I woke up in my bed, and Lo And Behold!, there was Gnashitty Rippit, floating over my bed, licking his chops. The demmed thing chased me all over the school before it cornered me. Then I screamed at it to go away. And strike me down, if it didn’t! It turned out that not only did I have complete control over Gnashitty, but I had actually created him, out of that wispy stuff floating around. That ‘stuff’ is called ‘Ectoplasm’, and I have the power to gather it up, mold it into whatever form that I want, and set it to doing things.
“I, being a sane, stable, responsible young man of Twelve Summers, immediately started one of the most horrific hauntings in the history of England. Severed heads floating down the halls, blood dripping down the walls, gawd-awful screams in the dead of night, horrible things turning up in the Masters’ beds-” A misty look of nostalgia went over her-“Lord it was wonderful! They wound up sending the Gray Wizard, one of Britain’s foremost superheroes (AND a bit of All Right, if I must say so!) in to investigate. It took him a solid week to figure out that it was me! I’ll give him this, he is a sharp one- the only reason that it took him that long was that his scryings indicated that a Girl was behind it all. Y’see, I’d discovered that I could also use the old Ecto to disguise myself-” Belle swept a hand down in front of her, and suddenly turned into Marilyn Monroe, dressed as she was in that scene in ‘The Seven Year Itch’ where the gust from the grating blows her skirt up. ‘Marilyn’ cooed at us, and swept that hand back up, and Belle was back, grinning evilly.
“At any rate, the Wizard took me aside, explained that I was going about it all the wrong way, and set me up with an interview with an agent from Whateley. He even explained it all to the Mum and Dad, which went a LONG way towards me not getting my backside shellacked. When they sent me to the doctor, to see if anything else unexpected was growing in me- you know, forked tail, cloven hooves, unspeakable writhing mass, that sort of thing- the doctor discovered that I was showing the first signs of puberty. A Girl’s puberty. It seems that by disguising myself as a girl, I was affecting my body so that it was conforming to the image that I was projecting. The doctor told me that if I kept disguising myself as a girl, that it could affect the progress of my puberty. So, naturally, I started disguising myself Twenty-four/Seven. They had no choice but to enroll me here at Hogwar- I mean, Whateley as a girl at Poe.” Belle finished with a grin.
“Now, just to wrap up, as I said before, I can gather up or generate Ectoplasm- though just gathering the stuff up is a lot easier- and I can mold it into various things and animate them.” To demonstrate, she cupped her hands in front of her. A pale gray mist gathered in her hands and congealed into a white dove. The dove cooed and then spread its wings to take flight. It flew for a few moments, then dispersed back into a gray mist, which faded.
“Now, it’s your turn.” She looked at Hank. “Well, you’re the odd man out- and in this group, that’s saying something!- why don’t we start with you?”
We all turned to look at Hank, who blushed at bit. He seems to do that a lot. Then he stood up straight and squared his shoulders. “Okay, my name is Hank Declan. It used to be Hannah Declan, but that doesn’t really fit anymore. I’m an Army Brat, I was born at the Military Hospital at Fort Dix, and I’ve lived at four different postings. That I can remember. I’m the oldest child-”
“Oh, don’t tell me it’s the old ‘my father always wanted a son’ gag!” The punk girl- Ayla, I think her name was- interrupted.
“Ah, No, Dad was always happy with a daughter. Besides, I have a younger brother. Dad never saw anything wrong with a girl going out and rough-housing with the boys- especially not with some of the female Non-Coms that he’s served with! As a matter of fact, I didn’t have any real problems with being a girl! It’s just, when my body started changing, and my testicles dropped, it just seemed so... right! Y’know, it was like, of course! That’s the way that it’s supposed to be!”
“How did your parents take it?” Belle prompted.
“Well, they were weirded out, all right. All their ideas of what the rest of my life was gonna be like kind of went out the window. The one that was really weirded out was my little brother. And he really went nuts when it turned out that I could lift five tons without even straining, let alone when I found out that I could fly!”
Billie, the chick with the weird gray hair asked, “You can fly?”
“Yeah. It came in real handy when my little brother went to one of the Sergeants at Bragg who had a hate on for mutants a foot wide and a mile long, and told him that a mutant was holding his parents hostage.”
“Your own little brother did that to you?” I asked. Jeezus, I’d trust even Vince not to rat me out to the local Mutant Haters!
“Well, it was a lot more involved than that. A lot of melodrama went down before that happened. Anyway, Sergeant Lennox came at me with an entire squad armed with assault rifles and LAWS rockets. I managed to get away, and there was a lot of noise, with Lennox screaming that there was a dangerous mutant terrorist at large, and my Dad screaming back at him that that ‘mutant terrorist’ was his daughter, and Lennox screaming back at my Dad that he was under some kind of weird mutant mind control, and Jay -that’s my brother- backing him up.”
“Dear, that’s two ‘Ands’ too many.” Belle gently corrected.
“Anyway, after a week of dodging Army helicopters, a Ranger team caught up with me and convinced me that Dad had convinced the Colonel that Lennox had his head up his ass, and they brought me in. While they weren’t going to press any charges- I sort of had to wreck a couple of patrol jeeps and a tank getting out of the Camp- it wasn’t a very good idea for me to stay at Bragg. Y’see, while Lennox didn’t exactly follow procedure, he was using proper initiative in a High-Risk situation, so he was still on base and he still has his stripes. Then some people from the Academy showed up, and did some weird tests and stuff, and they talked my Dad into signing the papers so’s I could come here.”
“Still too many ‘Ands’, Hank. Remember, Grammar always. You said that you could lift five tonnes and fly. What exactly are your powers?”
“Well, they said that I was a ‘High Level Functioning Non-Ranged Psychokinetic’ or something like that. I sort of generate this telekinetic field. I can lift stuff with it, includin’ myself, and I can stop bullets and things with it. Oh, and they said that I was a ‘Level 3 Exemplar’, whatever that means.”
“Well, you see, Hank,” Belle explained, “There are some terms like ‘Energizer’, ‘Warper’, ‘Shifter’, ‘Deviser’, ‘Wizard’ and of course, ‘Exemplar’ that describe the basic function of what a mutant does. The more powerful or extreme the traits are, the higher the level. This is not necessarily a good thing. You see, the further you stray from the baseline human mean, the higher the likelihood that you will develop gross physical deformities is, and the higher the chance that your mutation will turn lethal.”
“Gross physical deformities?” “Lethal?”
Belle nodded and said, “Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you children, but being a mutant isn’t all fun and games. The more powerful the mutant ability that you have is, the greater chance that something’s going to go wrong with your body. Last year, five students died during training. Some of them burned out, some of them had seizures during practice. One chap just upped and died in class. Nobody noticed anything until everyone got up at the end of class and he didn’t. The girl who sat next to him had a panic attack that laid her up for a week.”
Belle waved that rather morbid topic aside. “Now, where were we? Oh yes- Exemplars. An Exemplar is a mutant who has the power to slowly shape their body according to an ideal that they’ve formed somewhere in their subconscious. They make their bodies stronger, faster, tougher and usually cuter. Hank, when they say that you’re a Level 3 Exemplar, that means that your power pushes your strength, agility and so on to a level that is just above the maximum that a normal, unaugmented human can achieve. Anything more, Hank?”
Hank shook his head. “Very well. Next--- let’s see--- YOU.” She pointed at me.
Well, it’s time to make that all-important first impression! I turned to face the group and bounced on the balls of my feet a bit. “Hi! I’m Toni - that’s Toni with an ‘I’- Chandler. I’m fourteen- I’ll be fifteen in February- and I’m from Pleasant Oaks. That’s a suburb of Baltimore. I come from a big family, and I don’t have any really traumatic ‘trigger’ stories or anything. I was practicing at my Aikido dojo, and I was facing off against Danny Mancell, who’s a 14 karat jerk, and he was giving me shit about being a wimp and stuff. Anyway, I was trying to focus my Ki-” I gave them all a thumbnail description of Ki and what it does. “Anyway, I was trying to focus my Ki like Mister Colliard- he’s my Aikido sensei- told me to, and suddenly *Bam!* I feel this force flowing through my body, and I hit Danny with it, and he goes flying across the Dojo and smacks into the wall on the far side.”
“Too many ‘Ands’, Dear.”
“Sorry. Anyway, at first, I just thought that I was really hot shit with Aikido. But then my eyes changed from plain old Brown to this-” I pointed at my Amber colored eyes, “and they got the clue that something might be up. So, they took me to a doctor, who referred us to another doctor, who referred us to the Academy, and well...”
“So, basically, your shtick is Super-Martial Arts.”
“Well, sorta, but there’s a lot more to it than that. I can see how Ki flows in other people and how it flows through the Earth and the stuff around it-”
“Wait a minute! The Earth doesn’t have Ki!”