Focus
	By me (mwahahaha)

 This is fan fiction for the Whateley Academy series. It 
may or may not match the timeline, characters, and 
continuity, but since it's fan fiction, who cares?
 To see the canon Whateley Stories, check out either 
Sapphire's Place 
(http://www.sapphireplace.com/stories/whateley.html)
 or the Big Closet 
(http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/taxonomy/term/117)



Introduction: Intro-Focus


September 15
Emerson Hall


“Oh god, is it 2 am already!” I glanced at the clock 
confirming my roommate’s statement.  The guys had had a 
really fun time by the looks of it.  Jack stumbled to his 
bed and turned off the lights.  All the lights.  I flipped 
the switch on my desk lamp back and forth a couple times 
until the power resumed flowing.  Then I turned back on my 
computer and waited for it to boot up.

This was the third time this week he’d been out all night 
with his team.

Team…

In orientation they told us about forming teams and stuff.  
Jack had gotten together with a bunch of the other Emerson 
boys and formed a team that night.  And that weekend the 
whole team had been initiated into the Ninja, which felt 
silly to me.  They reminded me of times spent crawling 
around in the dark with my brother whacking each other with 
broomsticks.   But I couldn’t say anything, I didn’t have a 
clique or even a team.

In this school, if you weren’t in a clique, and you didn’t 
have a team, you were nobody.  I haven’t even picked out a 
name yet.   I just feel like that is something that should 
be awarded to you, like by a newspaper when you 
mysteriously show up on the scene of a crime to thwart the 
evil doers… or something like that.  Mrs. Ryan had said 
that was a sure way to get saddled for life with something 
embarrassing, like Thunder Bolt, or Light Beam.  Not that 
it really feels like it matters.  It’s not like I’m going 
to be stopping any crimes anytime soon, not with my lousy 
powers.

The computer flashed the welcome screen and I hurriedly 
fumbled with the speakers to avoid waking up the roomy.  I 
pulled up my mail account and sure enough I’d forgotten to 
save.  With a sigh I opened a new window.  I didn’t expect 
to write so much, otherwise I would have remembered to save 
before Jack got home.  Once again, I typed in her e-mail 
address and started with quick greeting…


Dear Becky,

I know I haven’t been the best friend recently, but I hope 
you’ll give me the chance to explain.  I don’t know what 
you remember, and I don’t know how much of this Lisa told 
you, so I’ll just start at the beginning.

I don’t know why, but whenever I think about how this all 
started, I’m always reminded of that stupid sleepover last 
softball season.  You probably don’t even remember it.  We 
were over at Sara’s house with a bunch of the other girls 
from the team.  Ya, we all thought we were totally too old 
to be doing something so childish, but that didn’t stop us 
from having a lot of fun.  There was the usual giggling 
over talk of boys and who thought who was cute, which 
digressed into the glamour slaves showing the rest of us 
how to make ourselves up and attract said boys.  We’d been 
having fun painting each other funny colours when one of 
the girls noticed a bunch thick dark hairs on my chin.  I’d 
noticed them before and had been plucking them whenever I 
noticed.  I tried to play it down without too much success.  
Everyone was teasing me about waxing my lip until I managed 
to turn them on Lisa, you know how she feels about her big 
bushy eyebrows. Within no time her head was in Sara’s lap, 
yelping and blinking out tears as Sara plucked her eyebrows 
one hair at a time.

As for me, the damage to my self-image was already done.  
The next Monday, I was peering closely at my face in the 
magnifying mirror my mom had just bought me for my birthday.  
That was also the first time I noticed my eyes.  I’ve been 
brown haired, brown eyes all my life.  But as I looked in 
the mirror, I could tell they were different.  My mother 
would later call them hazel, I just thought they looked 
pretty and figured it must have been the light.

Painstakingly I plucked every hair I could from my face.  
That day the teasing about my lip died off, but I never 
went a week without spending time looking into that mirror 
trying to find every last hair.  I was too afraid that the 
‘way-too-happy-for-their-own-good’ types would pick up on 
it, but they just continued to poking fun at more mundane 
things like my and Sara’s friend’s hair.  Then we’d jab 
back with something like, why doesn’t someone untie that 
bow on her head and let out some of the hot air.  To which 
we all laugh and they all walk away satisfied that we’d 
been proven lame enough for that day.  Good times, huh?

And so things went for a couple weeks.  The hair returned 
and no one seemed to notice.  In time, I stopped worrying 
about it, after all, Tina, that Indian girl who kept 
breaking the curve in our earth sciences class, had as much 
as me and no one bothered her about it.

I thought everything was fine until I started noticing 
clerks calling me sir and stuff.  By that spring it was 
happening often enough to piss me off.  Then one day, Lisa 
and I were going to the movies to catch a chick flick and 
laugh at how much the other one cried.  (What can I say?  
It was a thing we used to do.)

Well, she’d bought the tickets, while I got in line for the 
popcorn.  (To replace all the salt from the crying we were 
going to do.  You have to plan these things you know.)  She 
came strolling up next to me passing me my ticket as the 
consumer in front of us parted to the side to wait for his 
nachos and hotdogs to be piled up in front of him.  The 
pimple faced clerk hardly acknowledged us as he gave his 
practiced line. “Hello, what can I get you.”

“One bucket of popcorn and a large coke.” Pointing to each 
display as I said it, just to be sure.

“Thank you sir, and would your date care for some candy?” 
he said it calmly with a casual smile.  He probably didn’t 
even realize what he had said or that there was anything 
wrong with it.

I was about to respond thoughtlessly to the negative when 
what he had said finished running through my head.  My jaw 
just dropped and I stood there aghast for a full five 
seconds before screeching out a loud, “WHAT!?”

I’d intended to ask ‘what did you say?’ but stopped after 
the first word when my voice cracked.  I swear the entire 
lobby of the theater turned and stared at me.  The clerk 
was just confused.  I wanted to run but my feet seemed 
stuck to the carpet, and not by the usual theater mix of 
dried cola and chewing gum.  I wanted to cry, but my eyes 
were burning and dry.  I wanted to rip the pipsqueak’s head 
off.  I wanted to scream and tear everyone to peaces.  I 
knew I couldn’t, and in that knowledge, I just wanted to 
die.

I looked to Lisa, her bushy eyebrowed face smiled at me.  
(They’d long since grown back, you know how we were about 
our appearances.)  I thought things might be ok until the 
chuckle sputtered out between her lips.  I broke and ran 
but the laughter seemed to follow me.  I don’t remember how 
I got home home, but I remember sitting in front of our 
house when my dad tapped at the window over my head.  

“Hey princess, can I open the window?” And I nodded, still 
too in shock to think better of it.  “That’s better.  Mind 
telling me what’s going on?”  I looked up but he didn’t 
wait for me to respond.  “Your friend Lisa called.  Seems 
she’s kinda worried about you.  Something about storming 
out, leaving her alone at the movies.  Don’t worry, her 
mother’s picking her up.  She told us…”  He paused and 
thought for a bit.  I could feel the uncertainty and the 
pain on his face.  “She told us what happened.  Is there 
something you’d like to tell us?”

Then there was a lot of uncontrolled sobbing, maybe a 
shoulder or two, and I yelled a lot about how unfair life 
was.  The usual teenage stuff with a slightly abnormal 
twist.  We argued and yelled.  A lot of mean things were 
said.  My parents thought I was overreacting, I thought my 
life was ruined.  I screamed that I would never show my 
face again and tore off into my room, slamming the door.  
Evidently it worked.  I’m not sure why it never worked any 
of the other times I’d tried it, but this time my little 
temper tantrum paid off.

The next week we were at the dermatologist’s office getting 
my skin scoped out by a doc with a magnifying glass the 
size of my head.  He didn’t say a word to me, which I 
didn’t really mind. I felt silly enough already.  The 
doctor just made a bunch of notes on his clip board and 
left.  A short time later, a nurse came in and drained me 
of about a pint of blood, one test tube at a time.  She 
told me I could check out and the lady at the desk 
scheduled me for another visit in two weeks, hopefully by 
which time the test results would be back.  

Those two weeks weren’t as bad as I feared.  Nothing much 
changed.  We had two more softball games, both of which we 
lost.  Lisa didn’t say a word to me the whole time, which 
was very awkward with her playing second base right next to 
me.  I almost ran into her trying to get to a pop-fly she 
refused to call.  It was all very silly.  I know we weren’t 
the best team, in fact we sucked.  But we usually put up a 
better fight than we did that game.  The whole team was 
just having an off couple of weeks.

The next visit to the doctor came and went with nothing 
resolved.  I was going to have to go to a different doc, 
and echino-ologist or something.  That was gunna take 
another month.

The team won the next game and lost the rest.  We finished 
out the season with one win, though of course you remember 
that.  We were happy enough and we all promised to get 
everyone together when summer soccer season started up.  We 
were always like that.  Middle school girl’s sports teams 
all had so few people going out for them, the few of us 
that cared tended to stick together and play a bunch of the 
same ones.  Most schools didn’t even have enough for a full 
team, so they just played with what they could get.  This 
year would have been different.  The high school being a 
larger school, we would’ve had more teams to play.  I’m 
sorry I can’t be there for you girls.  If there were any 
way for me to be there.  You know I would.


You know I started playing just because my parents thought 
it would look good on a high school transcript for me to be 
in sports.  But I enjoyed the time we all spent together, 
and I’d never give that up if I didn’t absolutely have to.  
Not being able to play this last summer convinced me of 
that. Even after softball ended, we still hung out at each 
other’s houses or talked on the phone instead of talking at 
the softball field.  You probably didn’t notice, but all 
that time Lisa never once talked with me.  She would always 
find a reason not to be alone with me.  If you didn’t 
notice, you wouldn’t be alone.  None of the other girls 
seemed to notice, or if they did, paid no attention to it.

Just two weeks before the end of the school year, I had my 
appointment with the endocodin doctor.  It went just like 
the first visit to the dermatologist.  A quick visit from 
the dock and a few basic questions about my health, and 
another pint or two of blood.  I was told to come back in 
two weeks for the results and I cheerily went home.  That 
doctor’s appointment got me out of that test in English on 
“A Separate Peace”.  It was a good thing too since I still 
had to read the last 50 pages of it.

Two weeks and a solid B test grade later, I was out of 
school, and back in the doctor’s office.  I was sitting in 
one of the bigger, cushier chairs in the waiting area, 
reading through all the copies of news week I could find 
trying to find the editorial cartoons when the nurse called 
my name.

“Yes?” I answered putting the magazine back on the table.

“The doctor will see you now.  He said to tell you your 
parents should come in too.”  They had been sitting on 
either side of me, probably because they thought I was 
gunna get into trouble.  I’m not sure why.  It’s not like 
my brother was even here today.  He was off at his friend’s, 
while I was still grounded.  It was so unfair too.  I mean, 
HE was the one who started it.  I don’t care if he’s a foot 
shorter and I was the one pinning him against the wall when 
my parents walked in. HE was the one who was throwing 
caramel corn in my hair.

The injustice of my having to be in a smelly doctor’s 
office on a sunny Saturday weighed on my mind as we sat and 
waited in the little examination room.  After what seemed 
like an eternity the doctor finally stepped in with a 
friendly, “Hello, what seems to be the problem.”

“I was supposed to get some tests back today,” I answered.  
This guy was getting paid, and we’d been waiting 30 minutes 
in this room.  You’d think he would take the time to at 
least look at what he was supposed to be doing.

“Ah yes, let’s see.”  As he flipped through the folders he 
was carrying I wondered if I could have gotten away with 
saying, ‘you were about to write me a prescription for 
morphine’ or ‘my parents are here for the two for one sale 
on lobotomies’.  About the time he found what he was 
looking for I decided he probably wasn’t qualified to give 
out controlled substances or perform brain surgery. Or at 
least I hoped not.

“Ah yes. Here it is, I see you originally went to Doctor 
McNeill to see about some unusual facial hair.  He ran some 
blood tests and… yes, I see I have them here.  Mmhmm… yes, 
you were referred to me after your hormone levels checked 
out a little odd.  And… yes, here it is.   The tests I ran 
the other day, they seem to show the same trend.  Well.  I 
think I can order a few more tests, and maybe we can figure 
this out.”

“Do you have any idea what it is yet?” my mother, ever the 
impulsive one.

“It’s really too early to tell.  I wouldn’t want you to 
worry over nothing, and at this point, there’s a good 
chance that’s all this is.  We’ll just run this next series 
of tests for now. After that, we’ll see where we are.”

And so, I was poked and drained of another liter of blood.  
The receptionist scheduled me to come back in another week 
and get an MRI.  On the way to which, I’d seen a lot of 
radiation signs on the doors around that room, so I asked 
the technician if anyone had ever gotten superpowers from 
it.  She answered with some crack about my having to settle 
for being an evil genius. I wasn’t impressed.

After another two weeks of waiting, we were back at the 
doctor’s office, who entered once more with a “Hello, what 
seems to be the problem?”

“We were hoping YOU’D tell US,” my mom had gotten a lot 
jumpier. She’d become convinced it was cancer.  She’d had 
an aunt die of cancer, and a couple of her friends from 
work knew people who had had breast cancer.  I wasn’t 
really worried about that one.  The breast fairy hadn’t 
seen fit to pay me a visit yet.  That thought conjured up 
an amusing image of a big breasted fairy blindly thumping 
kids on the head with a wand.  Percy came to mind, HE had 
gotten a visit from the breast fairy.  He had bigger 
breasts than half the girls in my class.  Although he was 
also as fat as a…

The doctor was saying something, “…and after we get back 
these last couple tests, we’ll probably know for sure which 
it is.”  I think I missed something important.  My mother 
was wiping a tear and my dad looked pained.  I’d defiantly 
missed something important.  “and so, we’ll get you signed 
up for those last couple tests, and see you back here in 
another two weeks.”

The doctor was already closing the door as he finished his 
sentence.  As the door closed, my mother gave me the 
biggest hug I can remember while my dad started pacing the 
floor.  I was too embarrassed at having missed the doctor’s 
speech that I just kinda sat there and took it.  The nurse 
came in and pulled my mother off of me enough to get an arm 
to draw another couple quarts of blood out of me.

My parents talked with me the whole ride home.  A lot of 
“this doesn’t change anything,” And “you can still live a 
full and happy life” and “it’s not like this is the end of 
the world, there are ways we can deal with this.”  None of 
this was reassuring nor particularly informative.

Looking back, I really wish I’d been listening.  As it was, 
I started worrying about what the fuss was all about.  

What could it have been?  Cancer?  That was my biggest 
guess at the time.  

I was still grounded for the next two weeks, which was way 
excessive since the little brat wasn’t even hurt.  My 
brother was just jealous of all the attention I was getting. 
And it’s not like a couple more bruises were going to hurt 
him!

Those two weeks sucked.  My mom wouldn’t even let me call 
my friends.  Most of you were joining the summer soccer 
league, but it was my mom who wouldn’t let me.  She said it 
“wouldn’t be a good idea for someone in my condition”.  So 
not only was I dieing of cancer, but I was dieing alone of 
boredom.  And I couldn’t even tell anyone what was going on 
because my parents thought it would be a good idea not to 
tell anyone about the doctors until we knew what it was all 
about.  So, as far as you all knew, I’d been missing school 
for dentist appointments.  

Just before my next doctor’s appointment, I found out what 
Lisa had been saying about me. That I was a lesbian and had 
made a pass at her at the theater.  And I know how that 
sounds along with my leaving her at the theater.  I guess I 
don’t blame you all for stopping talking to me all at once 
like that.  I was being a bitch.

That all turned out to be a moot point anyways after the 
doctor visit.  This time I heard what the doctor said.  
“Mutant.”  I couldn’t believe my ears.  Mutants were 
superheroes.  They live the lives that make up the pages of 
comic books.  My life was so very not like theirs.  No 
strange bug bites, no super soldier serum, no gamma weapon 
tests, no alien fashion accessories.

The doctor continued, “Now, most mutants go on to live 
perfectly normal lives.  Some find their mutation to be of 
use to society, others pay no attention to their mutation.  
We have no reason to believe that your child will be one of 
the unfortunate mutants who suffer lifelong disfigurement.”  
That sent my head reeling.  I had been worried about a 
couple hairs when this all began, I could have ended up as 
hairy as the wolf man.

“Now there will be some adjustments to be made with these 
changes.  The sooner your child can adjust to these changes, 
the better it will be for everyone.” The doctor turned 
towards me, up until now he’d been addressing only my 
parents.  In a serious voice he said, “You’re going to have 
to change you name, cut your hair, and get all new clothes.  
Do you under stand?”  I didn’t.

“Why? I mean, if I’m just going to be living a normal life 
anyways, why do I have to do all that stuff?”  I mean, 
changing my name to a super hero name and getting a bunch 
of super suits didn’t sound very appealing.  I’d rather 
have just gone back to you guys.  

The doctor answered, “I thought I told you last week, err..  
or maybe I didn’t.  NO… I’m fairly sure I did.  I’m sorry, 
but you’re going to have to face the fact that your body is 
becoming male.”

It was odd to hear.  It’s like, the words make sense.  But 
it feels like they pass right by you.  Like if you just 
hold really still, they will blow by like a light breeze.  
That maybe they will come to land on someone else.  But the 
longer you wait the more you realize that they aren’t for 
anyone else.  The words are circling you, like vultures.  
Going around and around in your head.  “YOUR body…” not 
anyone else’s.  “…becoming male,” and all that entails.  It 
felt gross, slimy, gritty.

The doctor was right of course. That was obvious, and I 
couldn’t deny it.  That night I stared in that familiar 
mirror, but what it showed me was anything but familiar.  
All I saw was a grossly distorted image of my face.  The 
odd hazel eyes staring back at me amongst a jumble of 
pieces of faces.  That was how I felt, all jumbled up, 
distorted, gross.  A shamble of pieces being held together 
by nothing more than habit.

Out of habit I got my self ready for bed.  Out of habit I 
went there.  Out of habit I got up the next morning.  At 
the breakfast table the next morning, I ran out of habits.  
My dad was telling me something.  “I thought the two of us 
could go out today.  I already took off work so we have the 
whole day.  Your brother can stay here with your mom, 
she’ll explain everything when he wakes up.”  Ya, he as 
always sleeping in.  if he wasn’t at school or bugging me, 
he was in his room asleep in bed.

“Sure, I guess.  That sounds like fun.”  My dad never took 
a day off.  He’d only taken one vacation in my lifetime and 
that was to take us all down to see his grandmother after 
grandpa died.

“Get your skates, we’ll head to the park.” The whole family 
had gotten roller blades last summer.  My mom thought it 
would be a good way for us to spend time as a family and 
her and dad could stay in shape.  That lasted about three 
weeks.  I wasn’t even sure if the skates would still fit, 
but they did.  There were really tight, but that felt kinda 
a good, like they wouldn’t slip or bend or anything.  My 
feet didn’t pinch or go numb, so I guess they worked.

It was my dad who had to rest his feet first.  I was 
spinning circles on path in front of the bench he was 
setting his feet up on.  We’d skated the long path, the 
nice one that goes through the woods, and over all those 
steep hills.  He was breathing kinda hard, and looking back 
on it, maybe I should have taken it easy on the old guy.

“Are you *pant* getting hungry yet?” Right on cue my 
stomach rumbled.  

“Uh sure, you want to skate down to the McRonalds and pick 
something up?”  It was another half mile down the path to 
the street, then another couple hundred yards to McRonalds.  
And right now Dad didn’t look like he could stand long 
enough to fall down.  

“How about I just skate on down and pick something up while 
you sit here and rest?”  He just panted, nodded, and handed 
me a twenty.

I let loose and skated off to the McRonalds by myself.  I 
didn’t realize just how much my dad was slowing me down.  I 
decided to push myself and since the doctor had said I was 
a mutant, it was time to find out what powers I might have.  
I obviously hadn’t gotten the good looks that are 
synonymous with superheroes.  I gave a jump and tried to 
fly, willing myself into the air like in a flying dream.  I 
landed semi-gracefully and not in any way spectacular.  
Tried to read the mind of a random driver, then tried to 
just get them to do something stupid like scratch their 
nose.  Nothing.

I went on like this the whole way to the restaurant.  I 
went through every super power and super hero I could think 
of, both off the news and from the comic books.  Nothing 
came to mind as I stood in line.  Finally, as I was putting 
my skates back on I decided this whole thing was silly, my 
test results had to have gotten mixed up with someone 
else’s.

On the way back I daydreamed about that lucky girl, 
somewhere in the city.  She was getting super powers and no 
one knew it.  She’d get to do whatever she wanted.  She’d 
have the good looks, the super strength, and all the 
friends.  I’d probably played sports against her.  Thinking 
back there were quite a few girls who fit the mold.  That 
girl from St. Paul’s was really something, remember her?  
She has to be a mutant.

You know the rules about mutants playing sports.  Now 
there’s no way I could ever be let to play, I would never 
be allowed to ever again.  Even if they found out that it 
WAS a mistake, there will always be people wondering.  If I 
ever play too well, they will just say I was a cheating 
mutant.  If I don’t do well, they will just kick me off the 
team.  And that’s if the “Humans First” people let me get 
THAT far.

So see, none of this was my choice.  

After skating back, my dad and I swapped places, with me 
laying on the bench, catching my breath as he dug through 
the paper bag for his hamburger.  I made room for him as he 
handed me my fries.  “So, is there anything you need to 
talk about?”

“Oh come on dad, give it up.  I know there’s something 
important YOU want to talk about or else you wouldn’t have 
taken today off work.”

He sighed, looked a little disappointed, then gave me a 
smile.  “I should have known you would be too smart for 
your old man.  I was thinking that you needed someone to 
talk to about what the doctor said yesterday.”

“What about it? You know they can’t be right.  I can’t be 
a… what he said.  There’s nothing exceptional about me.  
I’m not strong, I’m not fast, I can’t do magic, or read 
minds.  You saw what that doctor was like!  He never knew 
who he was going to see, he didn’t know my name.  He 
probably just switched my lab results or something.”

Dad didn’t look happy at that.  “That’s not what I meant.  
I meant the other thing.  How do you feel about becoming a 
boy?”

There were those words again.  Repetition hadn’t lessened 
their impact.  This time felt more surreal since it was my 
father, someone I knew and trusted, telling me.  “I told 
you, the doctor made a mistake, he had to have.  I’m not a 
mutant and I’m not turning into anything.”

“Pumpkin, you can’t hide from this.  The doctor didn’t make 
a mistake.  If it was only one test, that might be true, 
but they reran all the tests just to be sure.  You remember 
all that blood they drew.”  I sure did.  I don’t like 
needles, but then, who does.  “The doctors are sure about 
this.  I wish I could help you…”

“If you want to help me then let me talk to my friends.  
Let me join their soccer team! Let me be myself and stop 
saying that I’m something I’m not!”  He just held his arms 
out to me and tried to give me a hug.  “STOP THAT!”  I 
didn’t want to be held.  I didn’t want to be consoled.  I 
didn’t want to be told what I had to do with my life.

I pushed him away and he slipped off the bench.  He looked 
up at me from the ground like I’d hurt him.  Like he didn’t 
know who I was any more.  I was ashamed, but I didn’t want 
to...  I didn’t want to be anything.  I didn’t want to feel, 
I just wanted to leave.

I skated away down the path as fast as the wind would allow.  
I fought against tears that never came.  The world faded to 
the blur of pavement sliding away from under me and the 
whistling of wind in my ears.  My heart pounding in rhythm 
to the clacking of the wheels.  My mind was empty.  I 
didn’t care anymore.

The path turned, I didn’t.  I just rolled right onto the 
soft grass, and toppled ass over head when my wheels sunk 
into the soft earth.  I lay there in the damp grass, 
staring at the pale blue sky.  It’s odd how we all know the 
sky is blue.  But it’s not all the same blue.  Directly 
over head it’s much lighter than near to the horizon.  As I 
pondered this, thoughts slowly returned.

My body would change.  This health classes had been telling 
me for years.  All you other girls in my class were well on 
your way.  Everyone said there was nothing wrong with me.  
That I was just a late bloomer.  I held onto that fact.  
That whenever the bowheads made fun of me, I knew I was 
just a late bloomer.  I thought of the day when I would be 
tall and thin with breasts and everything, I’d be happy and 
popular.  I would look at the bowheads with my head held 
high and laugh in their face.

Now my stupid body was screwing up everything.

“Hey, kiddo. I almost didn’t see you there.”  Dad had found 
me again.  “You sped off so fast, I hope you didn’t hurt 
yourself.”

His silly mustache twitched as he talked.  I smiled and 
relaxed involuntarily, enough so to ask the unavoidable 
question.  “Dad, what’s going to happen to me?”  

“That’s what I was hoping we could talk about.”  He looked 
around a bit and finally settled on sitting on a patch of 
grass next to me.  “What would you like to have happen?  
Keeping, of course, within the realm of possibility.” He 
qualified hurriedly.

“I don’t know.”  I’d like this all to go away, but that’s 
not possible.  “What are my options?”

My dad seemed reassured by my inquiry.  “You have a number 
of them actually.  First, we could do nothing.  Your body 
will continue to change and it will become increasingly 
difficult for you to live as you are.  Which brings us to 
the second option; we do nothing but change your name and 
birth certificate.  We could even move so you wouldn’t have 
to worry about people’s reactions.  You and your brother 
are both changing schools this year anyways, so doing it 
this summer would be ideal.”

The look on my face must have convinced him that that 
wasn’t what I wanted.  “I guess you’d rather not change 
your life that much.  Well, the doctors might be able to 
slow or stop the changes.  But these aren’t always 
successful.  It would mean pills, shots, and at least one 
surgery.”  He had me right up until surgery.  But he went 
on, “Of course even if everything works there will be the 
scars and you’ll never be able to have children.  Though, 
you’ll probably be able to enjoy sex.”  I don’t know what’s 
more startling, hearing my dad say ‘sex’ or everything he 
said up until that word.

“DAA-aad!!!”

“I’m sorry, but if we’re going to talk seriously about your 
options, we’re going to have to talk about this.  Do you 
like boys?”

“DAAA-aaAD!!”

“Well do you?  Is there anyone special for you?”  And he 
just gave me that look.  The one he gives when he wants me 
to go to my room and do my homework.

“Well… there’s Michael.  He’s kinda cute.  But the bowheads 
are all over him.”

“Bowheads?”  I mimed it for him.  “Never mind.  Have you 
ever asked him how he feels about you?”

“He’d never even look at me.  Besides, like mom is always 
saying, I’m too young to date.”

“That never stopped your mom from dating.”

“What!?!?”  This was something new.  I was hearing 
something I wasn’t supposed to.

“Your mother wasn’t always as perfect as she pretends to be.  
But you’ll have to get those stories from her, I’ve been 
sworn to secrecy.”  Now that I know they exist I’ll be sure 
to ask about them.  “Back to you.  Have you ever tried 
dating girls?  How about…  umm.. whats her name, Lisa?”

“DAD!  It’s not like that.  We’re just friends.  And I’m 
not sure we’re even that anymore.”

“Anything you want to talk about?”

“No, it’s nothing.  Just…  She’s been spreading rumors 
about me.”

“She’s been telling everyone you’re a lesbian?”  I was 
about to deny it, but he saw my answer on my face.  “Don’t 
be surprised.  You’re uncle Bill has been telling us that 
for a couple years now.  Didn’t you wonder why he got you 
that soccer ball last Christmas?”

“But I LIKE soccer.”

“And there’s nothing wrong with that.  I was just pointing 
out that Bill is a bastard.”  I was once again surprised at 
how my dad talked about his older brother.  I knew about 
the rivalry, but am always surprised at its ferocity.  “So, 
DID anything happen between you and Lisa?”

“DAD!!”

“Ok, ok, just making sure.  You don’t have to talk about 
anything you don’t feel comfortable with.  There’s no rush 
for you to make any decisions about this today.  Although, 
the longer you wait the less options you’ll have.”

“Is there anything else I could do?  I mean.  The surgery 
thing doesn’t sound very appealing,” the thought of people 
cutting stuff down there was making me cringe.  “But I 
don’t want to be a boy.”

“That’s ok.  You don’t have to do anything you don’t want 
to.”  He looked into my eyes with a love I hadn’t realized 
was there.  “No matter what you are, what you become, or 
what you do, I’ll still love you.  It doesn’t matter if 
you’re my daughter, my son, or whatever.  I love you.  I 
will always love… You.”

I cried, he held me. Blah, blah, blah.  I’m sure it was a 
very touching moment.  But the fact was that nothing had 
changed.  By the time we pulled up to home, I realized that 
none of these plans address the problem of me being a 
mutant.  That little problem was determined to screw up my 
life.

So, I prayed.  Not that I’m religious or anything.  I can’t 
even remember the last Sunday mass I went to.  But my 
parents felt like I should be raised with some kind of 
religious background.  I had had to go every week right up 
to my first communion. Lisa had shared some of the stuff 
from her confirmation classes though.  I think somehow her 
renewed interest in religion must have rubbed off on me, or 
else I never would have bothered.

I knew the answers in my head weren’t really god talking to 
me.  They were just my own thoughts echoing in the silence 
of my room.  I decided that if god had a path for me, it 
couldn’t have been what I had wanted my whole life.  I 
could either take the new developments as an obstacle in 
that path, or a signpost to a new path.

Whatever my path, I have no choice but to follow it 
wherever it takes me.  I can fight it with surgery, or I 
could fight it with prayer, or I could just choose not to 
face it, turning my back on everything.  No matter what I 
decide, my life will forever be controlled by me being a 
mutant.

This was all kinda heady, and I needed someone to talk to.  
I couldn’t talk to my parents, as much as they said I could, 
that would have just been… you know, weird.  I decided 
needed to find out something before I made any decisions.  
I had no reason keep any bridges left unburnt.

I picked up the phone and dialed.  I was sure my parents 
would be upset, but that didn’t matter nearly as much.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Lisa?”

“Speaking.  Who is this?”  Had my voice already changed 
that much?

“Lisa, quit joking around, it’s me!”

“Oh, it’s you.  What do you want?”  She didn’t sound happy 
I called.

“There’s something I need to tell you… but I’m not sure if 
I want you to tell everyone yet.”

“Then why are you telling me?”

“I trust you.  And it’s the reason why I can’t play sports 
anymore.”

That changed her tone.  She was almost sympathetic now.  
“What?  It’s not just for the summer?  Are you sure?  We 
all thought you were just blowing us off.”

“No, it’s nothing like that.  I’ve had to go to the doctor 
a lot lately. It started before graduation, but my parents 
didn’t think I should tell anyone.  Well, just before 
soccer sign up, I got the news….”  My stomach flipped and 
squirmed as I thought about what I was going to say.  What 
I would admit for the first time, both to Lisa and to 
myself.  The words came out surprisingly easy.  “Lisa, I’m 
a mutant.”

Nothing but silence for a long time.  I sat there listening 
to the background noise of the phone, that quiet whine you 
can only hear when a phone is dead silent.

“Lisa?”  I gave in to the need to know, killing the silence.

“Is this some kinda joke?”

“NO! I’m serious here.  I’m a mutant, my body is changing, 
I’m not even sure if I’ll be able to show myself at school 
next year.”

“Well, good!”  Not a response I expected.  “We don’t need 
you on our team anyways.  And if you want to be a mutant, 
you deserve it.  After the way you treated us, we’ll be 
happy to never see you again.  We don’t need friends like 
you.”

“Well FUCK YOU!”  putting more effort into slamming the 
phone back into it’s cradle that was needed.  I had to 
fumble with it to get it settled back on the cradle, and by 
then tears were streaking down my face.

That’s how it really happened.  I don’t know if she told 
you anything about that call or even that I called her at 
all.  After that call I thought my life was over.  I told 
my parents I was going to accept everything and change and 
that night we started creating my next life.  My mother 
chose the name Charles, so if you find it in your heart to 
respond, please use that name.  And before you ask, my 
middle name wasn’t Charlene or anything, we chose a 
completely new name not based off of any relatives or 
ancestry.

We were looking into finding a new school when a pamphlet 
arrived in the mail.  Dad thinks the doctor sent it to us, 
mom thinks she accidentally sent a request when she was 
mailing away to the hundreds of schools she was looking 
into.  Personally, I think it’s some kinda government 
conspiracy to keep all the mutants in one place.  There 
they can gather all kinds of information on us and assure 
our loyalty so they don’t have to worry about mutants 
taking over the world.

Regardless, the school was perfect.  It was a boarding 
school, which meant my family didn’t have to move which 
pleased my brother.  My parents were happy about the 
student’s SAT/ACT scores and the number of students that 
went on to Ivy League colleges.  Before I knew it, even I 
was looking forward to going there.

This makes it sound like everything was easy, which it 
wasn’t.  The big haircut was scary.  I liked my long hair, 
but we all agreed it had to go.  Now I’m used to it, but at 
the time it was scarier than getting my ears pierced was.  
Going into the men’s restroom was the same way.  Over the 
course of the summer, I slowly got used to the little 
things, though it never felt entirely natural.  I kept 
waiting for someone to spot me or beat me up.

But by far the worst thing was leaving my friends.  But 
this was too good of an opportunity to pass up.  Even if I 
stayed in town, I’d have never been allowed to play sports 
with you, but there, I’d have a chance.  It was the next 
best thing to being a normal person again.

There was still the interview that I had to pass. I had to 
go to some office where a guy in a suit asked a bunch of 
questions.  They needed to make sure I was legit, they 
apparently get a lot of phony’s applying.  I answered “No” 
to pretty much everything.  When I told him I hadn’t 
noticed any powers yet he just said “That’s not unheard of” 
and repeated the question.  The written test was mostly 
multiple choice, and I breezed through it without thought.  
I had brought a doctor’s note and the test results, which 
didn’t impress him.  He was even less impressed at my eyes 
having changed colour (I’d had run across a rumor on some 
web sites that it was common for mutant’s eyes to change 
colour).  And since I was applying as a boy, my other 
changes weren’t brought up.

Somehow though, the acceptance letter came.

My parents were ecstatic.  My brother, who had been growing 
more distant since I cut my hair, was surlier than usual.  
Mom took me shopping for school supplies, which included a 
LOT of clothes, a lot of pens and paper, notebooks, an 
oddly collapsible laundry hamper, dishes, silverware, flip-
flops, bathrobe, shower tote…  you get the idea.  It took 
forever.  She kept dragging me around making me try on 
everything asking me a million questions about which colour, 
scent, pattern, style, etc.  She was worse than Sara!

My dad was much more reasonable and simply bought me my own 
computer.  Yay for parental guilt!  He kinda blames himself 
for my mutation and everything.  I think he thinks that if 
he would have spent more time with me I’d have turned out 
normal.  I’m never going to correct him either if he keeps 
getting me stuff like this way cool computer!  (please 
don’t tell him I said that)

I packed up my stuff without really thinking about the fact 
that I wouldn’t be returning home for months.  That fact 
didn’t hit me until I was getting on the bus.  I freaked 
out thinking over every thing I needed, everything I could 
have forgotten, everyplace something could have hidden that 
I didn’t check.  By the time I reassured myself that I had 
everything I needed, the bus was halfway out of the state.

So, now I’m here at this school.  The other kids are nice, 
the food is great, and best of all there’s no bratty 
younger brother.  My roommate is nice and we even have some 
of the same classes.  Tryouts for their soccer club are 
this weekend, I’m really looking forward to it.  

How is your new school?  Is the whole gang still together?  
Are you all going to be on the same team again this year?  
I hope to hear from you soon.

					Your friend forever,
						Charles.


I read back over it, correcting a couple typos and 
punctuation before hitting the send button.  No matter how 
many times I read over the last part I still felt bad lying 
to them.  But it wouldn’t do them any good to know how 
miserable I was here.  I probably wouldn’t even bother 
trying out for any sports all year.

When I first noticed changes they felt so good.  I felt 
like I could do anything.  My body was so much stronger and 
I cold do things I never thought possible.  I could do 
chin-ups now!  Plural, as in more than one.  Half a dozen 
even.  I could do pushups, jog for miles, and all other 
kinds of incredible things.

The enthusiasm was short lived.  After running me through 
test after test, each one opening me up to whole new 
possible uses of my new found strength, he told me the 
results.  Exemplar level 1.  What does that mean?  That I’m 
strong for my age.  That would be great if I was in a 
normal high school, but here, I would be competing against 
mutants.  I’d be lucky to even get a second look for any 
sport I tried out for.

I turned back to the computer, erased the name at the top, 
typed in the next name, and hit send.  I did this for every 
name on the list.  I hoped at least one of them would read 
it.  Maybe that will be enough.