A young boy receives a mysterious watch for his birthday and his life will never be the same again.

Elan Owen


Chapter 1: The Watch


By Jesse Rabbit
Edited by Erin Halfelven of bigcloset.ateros.com

It’s funny. All it takes is a second and your world can change completely. I know. Mine did. My name is Elan Owen, for reasons which should become clear sooner or later, and my life is now, officially, very strange.

It all started - the strangeness not my life - two weeks before my eleventh birthday; when my grandfather, Horace Winter (Yes, that Horace Winter, the billionaire mad-scientist inventor.) died. You probably heard about it, it was in all the papers. So anyway, after the funeral - which for being outside in the middle of October was remarkably warm and free of rain - we, that being my parents Grace Winter (48, Mathematician) and Ethan Owen (51, Robotics Designer), my sibs Lawrence (22, third year Georgetown Law), Samantha (15, Claremont High School junior), and Pig (really Michelle or Mike, 8, pain in the butt, in training to be an Olympic Gold-medalist in Obnoxious Little Sister.) as well as my aunts (Lacy and Tricia not Tracy), my uncle Robert, and their broods (9 assorted cousins all stinky) trooped off to the office of one Byron Percival Sledge, esquire. The reason? Well, said lawyer was the executor of grandpa's will and to make a long story short, all four of Grandpa Horace's children got great heaping wodges of cash (not that any of us needed it, but my parents tell me you can never have enough money). After boring all us kids for hours telling us which adult got what house, boat, plane, company, patent, lab, or whatever; Mister Sledge finally announced that Grandpa had left each of us with a present specially made for that particular relative and that we would each receive ours on our next birthday. Then he made each of us sign these papers, which said that none of us would contest the will or any part of it and that was that.

Or so I thought.

Now, as I said, my birthday was only two weeks later, and aside from my promised birthday present I hadn't gotten anything out of the will cause my parents said that all the money for me was going into a trust until I graduated college, ick, more school. So anyway, November first rolls around and I have this huge party which starts at like ten in the morning and an hour and one minute later everyone starts singing "Happy Birthday to You", with some very colorful lyrics might I add. Then my best friend Karen hits me over the head with a wiffle bat and I have to chase her around for about six hours, stopping only to eat cake and ice cream, not to mention smash a piñata and have a water balloon fight. So before I know it the party is over but its okay ‘cause I'm completely drained and very full and sleepy and everyone's gone home and I have a ton of presents to open tomorrow ‘cause in my family we don't open presents at the party ‘cause that will make people jealous or feel bad if I like one present more than the other and anyway they might get stolen or damaged and then I'd be upset. 

So I'm just about to go to bed when there's this knock on the door and it turns out to be Mister Sledge and he's got this little box for me. Well mom says that I can open it but then "it's straight off to bed with you young man". I think she was just looking forward to seeing what the present was. So I let the box scan my thumbprint and it pops open and there's this really cool looking watch, all shiny black and everything. So I reach out for it and as I touch it, it kinda jerks and then it like climbs my hand and slips round my wrist all on it's own. Whoa! My grandfather was so strange.

Mister Sledge explains that the watch is completely waterproof and has lots of features and can only be worn by me, which is so cool. He also says that it won't come off so that I don't have to worry about loosing it like I have my last two (and first two) watches. My mom asks something stoopid about how will I wash up with it on and Mister Sledge explains that the watch moves up and down my arm if I push it. So I spend like ten minutes slipping it up to my shoulder and back down to my wrist, over and over again.

Then he gives me a book that says "For Elan's Eyes Only" and has a palm scanner on the back cover. I crow with glee and dash upstairs to get ready for bed and then have to come back down, say goodbye to Mister Sledge, kiss mom and dad goodnight, and say goodnight to my evil sisters who I'm supposed to kiss but there's, like, not enough money in the whole world. Gah. So after my shower I slip into bed, planning on reading my instruction manual but I guess I was too tired ‘cause the next thing I know it's morning and I have to get ready for school. So I go to my bathroom, brush my teeth, change clothes, put the dirty clothes in the hamper and get my bags and head to school. It's less than a mile from my house so I ride my bike. Karen bikes with me ‘cause she lives like three doors down with her dogs, Zorba and Abroz, I'm not even kidding. In fact their full names are Zorba the Greek and Abroz the Keerg. Karen's parents are sooooooo weird, but what can you expect from people born in the 1980's. Heavy Metal is sooooo gross.

As we ride Karen teases me ‘cause I'm now eleven years and one day old, but I point out that it's not for four hours and she grins and I'd have hit her but I can't while riding.

So everything goes like usual, school sucks, it's too easy even though I'm in all advanced classes and have skipped two grades and I can't wait till I get home so I can open my presents. I'm at lunch, I have first lunch, which is at 10:30, and my watch starts beeping at me. So I look down and it says 10:55 and then the time screen clears and it says, I kid you not, "Quietly go to the bathroom. Alone. Tell no one about this message." So I do, ‘cause this watch is from my grandpa and he was nuts but never hurt anyone, that I know of. So I get my bag, tell Karen I'll see her in last period and go to the bathroom.

When I get there it's 10:59 and when I look at the watch it has a little countdown going. The face clears long enough to print "Go into a stall, lock the door, sit down and whatever happens don't scream." Scream? Huh? What the? I do as the watch says, really confused now, and wait, I have only thirty seconds left when I realize that this must be some kinda surprise from my grandpa ‘cause in twenty-five seconds I'm going to be eleven and one day. So I relax, big mistake… huge… but I don't know what I could have done to prevent it at that point. So the watch beeps 11:01 and for eleven seconds plays "Happy Birthday to You" while tingles rush through my body. I mean real tingles, like sticking your finger into an electrical socket tingles. And then it happened. My body kinda wriggled inside and changed. And that was it. I looked down at myself and shrugged, "Scream? What for?" Then I saw the watch face and it said "Change Complete".

"Change? What change?" I got up and my hair fell down around my shoulders… which was really strange ‘cause my hair was short, like only 4 inches long. I unlocked the stall door, ran over to the mirrors and gasped. My hair was long, really long, like girl long. And my ears had little holes in them, two in each lobe, and my nose and chin were slightly slimmer, and my eyebrows thinner, and my lips just a touch fuller. And my Adams apple was gone, you know, that bump in your throat? Gone, completely gone. I even felt for it and nearly jabbed myself in the throat. I realized that my nails were longer, not that much, just about an eighth of an inch past the finger tips, but definitely longer, and shining as if they had some gloss on them or something. It was then that I had a horrible thought and ran back into the stall, locked the door again, and pulled down my pants and underwear in one motion. Then I screamed. Even though the watch had told me not to. I just had to. I mean - you would have, too, if you had suddenly found out what I had just found out. "It's gone," I whispered, and it was. I sat down on the seat, breathing hard and fast. It was true… I was a girl.

To be continued in part 2 - The Girl in Boy's clothing.

Elan, his family, friends, and Story are copyright 2002 Jesse Rabbit, who may be reached at Terabiel@hotmail.com. Feel free to distribute as long as you do it for free. Anyone who wants to adapt this into any other medium (Like a movie, hint hint) should leave me a comment with an email addy. :P Thanks and enjoy.

since 12/05/02