By Jesse Rabbit Edited by Erin Halfelven of bigcloset.ateros.com
This chapter dedicated to Rumiko Takahashi. You saved my life once upon a time. Thank you.
If it seems like
I panic a lot, it's only ‘cause I do. I mean, any normal person would panic a
lot if they had my problems. But then again, why would any normal person have
my problems. I think having my problems may very well be a definition of
abnormal. If I looked up abnormal in a dictionary, I would be not at all
surprised to see an entry that said [Abnormal - adj. - see Elan Owen's Life.]
well, actually I would, but it could happen, right? So, as a result, I panic.
It's perfectly natural. In times of stress, some people remain calm, some pass
out, some get angry. I panic. But not all panics are the same. Some are really
full blown panics; ones that send you running into walls, or boy's locker rooms
when you are a girl, or, just start sobbing and screaming alternatively. At the
other end of the spectrum of panic, some are just mild panics: ones that cause
you to run all over town looking for ice cream at four o'clock in the morning
(Dad), or make you suddenly decide that lunch would be a perfect time to cram
for that exam you have spent the last four nights studying for (Sam), or pull
all the cushions out of all the chairs and couches in the entire house because
you cannot find your car keys (Mom).
My panic at
having just been turned back into a boy should have been in the first category,
but this time it tempered a little by three factors: 1) I wasn't in school at
the time, 2) I wasn't in school at the time, and 3) I WASN'T IN SCHOOL AT THE
TIME! So, all I did was yelp and drop down into the ocean so fast that I got a
nose full of seawater. Yerg!
The first
thought that filled my head was that there was no way in hell I could get out
of the water like this. Our stuff was twenty feet from the waterline, but less
than ten feet from the boys who had been hitting on us and there is no way they
wouldn't figure out that I was a boy in a girl's outfit. I'm not sure what they
might do to me, either for being a boy dressed as a girl or for letting them
hit on me, but I wasn't willing to take the chance. After all, we were much
closer to LA than San Francisco and boys anywhere don't like to be made to look
foolish.
I looked round
but with my eyes at sea level I couldn't see Karen anywhere nearby, so that
ruled out having her get me some clothes. I scanned round, treading water as I
did so, and spotted the long brown mass of Bishop Wharf, which I decided would
make a good hiding spot / lookout spot, so I set out for it, wincing with every
kick as the tight suit pinched certain parts of my anatomy. I tell you, never
before had I felt such an intimate understanding of the differences between
boys and girls.
The swim wasn't
taxing and once there I settled down onto the cool slippery rocks in the shade
of the wharf and hugged myself, sighing at the trivial unfairness of life that
had landed me with a lunatic for a grandparent. As I gazed down at the beach I
saw Karen standing in the shallow water looking round for me a worried
expression clear on her face even from a hundred yards away. I tried waving but
she didn't see me so I decided to call her on her telecomm as shouting was
likely to bring a great deal of unwanted attention, and there was no guarantee
that she would be able to hear me over the sounds of the sea.
I was pretty
sure that the Watch had transformed me back into a boy deliberately, but I was
still a little unsure that the Watch hadn't just shorted out. Yet, when I
looked down at it, a little nervous for reasons I couldn't quite put my finger on,
I was pleased to see that it was working just fine. In fact I was vaguely
amazed to see that the face was flashing "Boy Mode Initiated" and
"Open Watch Please" alternatively. Figuring that grandpa could wait
and Karen was looking more worried with each passing moment I quickly called
her telecom and watched her scramble over to her bag and then almost dive into
it to dig for the ringing telecomm. She looked so funny that I had to laugh.
"Hello? Elan?"
She sounded really worried, instantly making me feel really guilty for laughing
at her.
"Yah, it's
me…"
I would have continued
but she interrupted me. "Oh My Frog! Elan! Where the blank blank are you?
I was so…"
Figuring
turnabout was fair play, I interrupted back, "I'm under the wharf. Grandpa
is playing games again."
"Huh?"
"Never
mind, just grab my shorts, t-shirt, and towel could you?"
"Uh yeah,
sure. And then?"
"And then
come over here, you dimwit!"
"Oh
yeah!"
Sometimes I
think geniuses are incapable of common sense or even basic thoughts. Sigh.
While I waited,
I flipped open the watch to listen to Grandpa's newest insanity, and - as
expected - his holographic octogenarian face reappeared, looking just as sane
as before. That is to say, not at all.
"Elayne, my
girl! How good to see you again. You look wet."
And there it
was, grandpa once again admitting to being alive, or at least as good as.
"I hate you too grandpa," I said with no small tinge of
disgruntlement. I know its an old comment, but what exactly is gruntled? Is it
like flammable and inflammable? Or are gruntled people happy like grunting pigs
or something?
"Ha ha. Now
I'll bet you still haven't read the Manual I sent you, but that's okay ‘cause
this isn't in it. Heh heh heh." Did I mention that my grandfather had a
sign on his lab that said "Evil Geniuses: Nature's Answer to the
Population Explosion"? In other words, he's a mad old thing. I'm not even
sure - especially after this whole Gender thing - if they come any madder or if
grandpa is at the absolute maximum.
"Now I am
sure that you are wondering why you are a boy again. Well… I'll tell you. I
figured that making you be a girl all year would give you a really lopsided
view of the whole thing, and that you would need to be reminded of what you
like about being a boy. I didn't want you to become too comfortable as a girl.
So every other day you will be a boy and every other day you will be a girl.
Now since you've been a boy longer, I'm going to make you a deal. On Boy days
you can change to a girl and back up to four times each day, for as long as you
want each time. That's not the deal. The deal is this. For every hour you
voluntarily give up as a boy on a boy day, you gain 1 minute of panic time on a
girl day. Sounds fair?"
I grunted,
‘cause it didn't but I figured that screaming obscenities at a holo of your
"dead" grandfather in public might cause more than a few people to
take notice.
"Glad you
agree. Now to initiate the panic mode you…" and he told me how to do so,
which I paid attention to mostly out of habit, ‘cause I wasn't going to want to
be a girl on the roughly 182 days I had as a boy now was I? You know? For a
smart person I'm a bit of a dummy. Why do I say this? ‘Cause as soon as grandpa
finished and signed off I realized that I could just transform back into a
girl, finish having fun on the beach, and then go do the shopping Karen and I
had planned to do this afternoon. And it also dawned on me that I'd have to
change into a girl to go shopping ‘cause otherwise the blank blank clothes
wouldn't fit and I'd get strange looks from the sale's ladies. So, mentally
kicking myself, I decided that I might as well build up 48 minutes of bonus
time before girl day began tomorrow.
Now I know what
you are thinking. "Since when are there 48 hours in a day?" well
grandpa had made me another deal after explaining everything. It was simple. I
could cancel a boy day anytime within the first twenty minutes of it and gain
double credit for the time. I think the old bat put far too much time into
thinking up these strange rules, but who am I to argue. I mean, I'm the victim,
he's the Mad Scientist. I cannot wait till I'm old enough to have victims of my
own, happy-sigh.
***
Thus it was that
half a minute later I was racing down the beach to tackle Karen who was lugging
my entire bag towards the wharf. We rolled in the sand, me giggling and
tickling her madly, her shrieking and giggling and batting at me frantically,
trying to get me to stop. Once those nice boy's had separated us, then brushed
sand off of us, and then offered - and not listened when we said no - to carry
us back to our spot so that we wouldn't have to walk on our - as they said -
"Dainty Little Feet". So there we were, slung over the shoulders of
two brainless, but nice, if overly-enthusiastic, boys. And, after they had
carried us back they convinced us to play volley ball with them, which Karen
and I sucked at ‘cause we're eleven and not tall and they were fifteen and tall
and there were three of them. So of course, we won. And you better believe it
was skill and not them letting us win. You believe me, right? Course you do,
‘cause I'm the one telling this story and I never lie. Nope, Nope, Nope. Okay.
They sooo let us win. And then convinced us that since we won, we had to let
them take us out to lunch to soothe their bruised egos.
Now my dad says
lots of stoopid things - like "Don't take any wooden nickels" or
"Don't put all your files on one Hard-drive" or " A stitch in
time saves nine" - and most of them are either brainless or completely
obvious, and some are both. But one of the smarter things that has he said
over the years was "There's no such thing a free lunch." Now I don't
know if regular girls would have been fooled by these jokers, but Karen and I
certainly weren't. Now, even if I had wanted to go on a date at all, it
wouldn't be with a boy, it wouldn't be with someone four or five years older
than me, and it wouldn't be with them outnumbering us by one. But no matter how
rich you are, free food is free food, so we let them buy us some ice cream and
hot dogs from one of the food stands that serviced the beach and we let them
give us piggy-back rides, but always in plain sight of the lifeguard stands.
All in all, my
first morning as a girl was "pretty swell" to quote my mom. The sun
was warm, the ocean was cool, Karen and I had lots of laughs, and best of all?
Pig was stuck in school the whole time! Weeeee!
***
No matter how
much fun one is having, eventually it becomes time to leave, so we said our
good-byes to Jefferson, Daniel, and Ray, who told us that we were just as cute
as could be and got a tentative invitation to meet Daniel's little sister Becca
who was having her birthday party at Zavoo – our local super arcade - the
Saturday after next. Truth be told, Becca sounded like a real brat, but we said
that we'd see if we could show up, and we meant it. Zavoo was always cool. We
could play the newest videogames and eat pizza 'til we felt sick, whether or
not we actually clicked with Becca and her crowd.
From the beach
we rode back to Karen's house, called out to Linda that we were back and that
we'd be in the shower, assured her that we'd eaten lunch and that we hadn't
drowned, gotten kidnapped, or been replaced with alien clones, all at the top
of our lungs. Isn't it great when families communicate?
This time I had
plenty of time to compare Karen's body to my new one, but the differences weren't
all that interesting. When I was a boy Karen was three inches taller than me,
mostly cause her legs are longer, but I claim it's 'cause her head is pointier
than mine. Well, when I was a girl Karen was still three inches taller than me.
Our torso's were the same size, our feet the same size, our hips the same size.
The only real difference besides hair (Mine is platinum blonde and just past my
shoulders cause the watch had set it back that way; hers is a pixie cut in
electric blue 'cause she's weird.), eyes (Mine are bright, bright green; hers
are icy-blue. She kinda looks like a blue albino.), and skin tone (I'm fair;
she's got a billion freckles.) was the fact that her titties were slightly
larger than mine, but still not large enough to require a training bra.
I hear shocked
gasps from you. Yes, I know what a training bra is. Karen's been complaining
that they aren't growing fast enough cause she wants to get a training bra and
her moms say she's still to small. I know far more about training bras than any
eleven-year-old boy should. But, then again, I know more about particle physics
than any eleven-year-old boy should.
It was while we
were getting dressed that Karen asked me what had happened under the wharf. She
had asked on the beach but I had leaned over and in a hushed whisper promised
to tell her when we were in a more private setting. I sighed and explained, all
the while waffling over what I should wear. I had just selected a nicely
neutral pair of khaki shorts and a blue top from among Karen's near endless
supply of clothing, figuring that they would make me look like a girl but not
automatically brand me as one should someone who knew me saw me, when I reached
the part about canceling a boy day.
Karen gasped and
exclaimed, her voice rich with surprise, "You willingly became a girl?
Whoa! This is momentous! I mean… I thought you hated the idea!" She gave
me a hug, obviously overjoyed that I had made this epic breakthrough or
something, but I just stood there, stunned.
She was right;
I'd willingly become a girl for the first time there under that wharf and
hadn't even noticed. I definitely didn't like being a girl, I was happy being a
boy. I mean… I was good at it. After all, I'd had more than a decade of
practice. So why had it been so easy for me to just cancel an entire day I
could have spent as a girl? Did I like it? Did the Watch do something to me
mentally? I had to sit down at that, and Karen looked down at me, confusion and
concern evident on her face.
"You okay,
Elayne?"
I nodded and
gave her our personal hand-sign that indicates "Deep Thinking. Please Wait
of Brain to return. Thank you for your patience." I think she nodded at
that, but I wasn't playing much attention, which is kinda the point of deep
thought. I sat and thought and thought and sat for a while, mind ablaze as I
tried to muddle through the twisted maze of motivation. I finally had to
conclude that it hadn't really been a willing decision, just one forced upon me
by logic. Logically I had already planned today as a girl. Logically I was
already dressed as a girl. Logically if I was a boy we would have to go home
and change and then return to the beach which would have wasted time. Logically
if I was a boy I couldn't shop for the clothes I might need on those days I was
a girl.
That last
thought sent me down another path in my mind. Was I really willing to go
shopping for girl's clothes? Wouldn't that be like giving in? Again logic
seemed to provide the answer. Logically I had no way out of this transformation
without telling my parents and there was no way in hell I was going to do that.
If I told them everyone would find out, especially Pig and if I was annoyed by
my present I was hoping that pig would be doubly annoyed by hers and there was
no way I was going to miss that. And the patents on this technology would pay
for nearly unlimited research and fun, and that was worth being a girl for 183
days or so, wasn't it? So if I was stuck as a girl, I would need the right
clothes, right? It was like wearing panties. I was a girl, so I wore what girls
wore.
That was it, I
was going to have to think of myself as a girl, at least while I was one. The
thing is, when I was a boy, I never really thought of myself as a boy. I just
was one. Simple as that. How did one think like a girl? I had no idea. So I
asked Karen.
She pulled her
head up from the book she was flipping through and blinked at me, "Huh?
What do you mean?"
"How do you
think of yourself? I mean, how do you think of yourself as a girl?"
I guess the
question really made no sense 'cause she just shrugged and said, "Dunno. I
just am. Never thought about it. I think therefore I am, and all that. Why do
you ask?"
So I explained
and she started giggling, which kinda annoyed me. It must have annoyed me
enough that it showed on my face 'cause Karen gave me that "You are such a
dummy" smile of hers and said, between giggles, "Elayne, don't think
about it. Just be yourself. Boy or girl doesn't matter all that much. A hundred
years ago it did, maybe even fifty years ago it did, but now? Naw! What you do
and what you know, those are important. Boy and girl are just things, they
don't have that many social conventions attached to them anymore. If you don't
want to tell don't think up excuses, don't try and find logical reasons, just
go with your heart. You changed back into a girl under the wharf 'cause it was
simpler than not, 'cause today is a day you don't have to worry about being a
girl in school where lots of people know you, and 'cause we were having fun
right? So what. That’s over and done with. Once you've made a discision the
reasons for it rarely matter. It seemed like a good idea at the time,
right?"
I nodded, still
kinda stunned.
"Then don't
worry about it. At the end of the year you can look back and contimplate. For
now, just live, do what seems natural, and have fun. You're too serious,
Elayne. We're 11 for Pete's sake!"
I grinned at
her, "Okay, okay. I have just one question though?"
She gave me an
annoyed glare, "What?"
I struggled to
keep a straight face as I said, "Who is Pete?"
Karen looked
blankly at me, totally confused, "What?"
"Who is
Pete?" I was holding it in, but just barely and my sides were beginning to
hurt from the strain.
"Pete?"
"Yah, You
said it was for his sake, so who… who…" at that I just lost it and fell off
the chair I had been sitting on and just rolled about on the floor laughing
while Karen glared at me. Finally she got it and - after calling me a whole
bunch of names in Spanish, French, Russian, Japanese, Swahili, and even some in
English - joined me in laughing. I was laughing so hard already it's a good
thing she didn't tickle torture me for that, or I might have peed my pants.
Once the
laughter had subsided I got up, brushed myself off, lifted Karen off the floor,
and said "So, whatcha gonna buy me?
She grinned at
me, "Well, that depends…"
"Depends?"
"Yep!"
"On
what?"
"On what
kinda girl you wanna be."
"Say
what?!"
"What kinda
girl do you want to be?"
Well now, that
was the question wasn't it? And I had no idea what the answer might be. No idea
at all.
To be continued
in Part 11 - What Kind of Girl do You Want to Be?