My second week of high school, just two months since being stricken with Changeling Fever, nearly drowning in my Japanese soaker tub, and waking up age-regressed to my teens and a girl, started a lot better than my first. And better than any given school week of my first childhood.

  Monday homeroom with Ms. Hollander wasn’t horrifically embarrassing. I’d feared it would be after my mortifying social anxiety sex-dream featuring her and Lizard, but I managed to act cool and be calm even if I must have flushed noticeably a couple of times, once when she called on me to answer a question. (I could tell that Gemma had wondered what was going on with me, but she didn’t say anything.)

  Gym class was still a beast and I didn’t think that was ever going to change but starting from such a low level of fitness I could already feel my “wind” improving. Which was a good thing; I was used to working through the feeling of aching muscles and burning lungs from my rehab and crash-fitness year after my heart attack and before my transformation, but the coaches seemed to think that any class that didn’t end with us soaked in sweat was a waste of a gym period.

  (As I’d gotten older I’d grown a lot more finicky about body odor and freshness, and, post-changeling transformation, I could easily believe the science claiming that on average women had a sharper sense of smell. I was taking my gym clothes home to wash a lot more often than twice a week.)

  Lunch was an apple and a sandwich and listening to Queen D guide the conversation around us (Delia was fantastic at picking up gossip while not appearing to be fishing at all), and the full effect of one of Hadley Upper’s eccentricities was only now dawning on me; all our phones being left in our lockers throughout the school day, nobody around me was looking at their phone or texting away. Our first week, with everything else to deal with, I hadn’t noticed how socially engaged the boys and girls around me were with each other, seeking each other out to talk in the halls and over lunch instead of bending over their phones like every teen I’d ever seen these days. Because we didn’t have them.

  Cellphones had made their debut after I’d gone to school—even the pager phase had come after college graduation—and I totally got why the school made us sequester our phones during the day so we could focus on class, but was it for this, too?

  “What are you smiling about?” a voice jerked me from my thoughts, making me jump.

  “Papa!” He sat beside me, setting his tray on the table. I’d forgotten to check my alien sense for him today.

  “You’re running better this week,” he observed. We’d done the mile run again today; it looked to be a Monday gym class ritual. Pacing myself I’d still come in dead last but at least I hadn’t staggered across the finish line.

  “I didn’t throw up this time, so yeah.”

  He laughed. “Progress, right?”

  His attention and closeness and even the deep pitch of his voice made me shiver, and I crossed my legs beneath the table. That didn’t help, in fact the pressure on my vulva only exacerbated my awareness and unease. First it had been Brad, and now it was him. God he was tall; even sitting down so leg length didn’t factor into it, my head barely came to his shoulder. Think about something else!

  Looking up at him I blinked, hit by a realization. What I was doing now, every day, was mentally stalking him with my alien sense. And I knew he was a changeling too since I could feel him, but he didn’t know I knew and it wasn’t fair. But I could hardly just text him and say Hey, I know you’re a changeling, me too, let’s discuss. It was the kind of thing that needed to be face-to-face and it couldn’t happen here. I opened my mouth before I could second-guess myself.

  “What are you doing Friday? After school?”

  A bushy eyebrow rose. “Nothing I’m committed to, why?”

  Committed myself, now, I flushed. “My church teen group is having a bowling and burgers thing. No preaching, just playing, friends invited.”

  He grinned at me. “And I’m an invitable friend? Cool. And sure. Where? When?”

  “Bowling King, City Center, six. Pop’s Diner afterwards.” On my other side, Pinky had stopped eating to look at me like I’d grown a second head. What?

  “Sounds great. Text me the details after school.” Pulling a tiny pen and what looked like a blank business card out of a pocket, he scribbled his number on it and passed it to me before digging into his own sandwich. Pinky cleared her throat.

  “Hey, the thing!” She elbowed me. “We’ve all got club after school so I need to give you the thing!”

  Looking at her stupidly, I finally realized her head-pointing was a signal. “Yeah, the thing.” Taking a last big bite of my apple, I rewrapped my sandwich and stuck it in my bag. Rising with her I waved to everyone. “Later!”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Return waves followed us as she led me out the north doors into Girl Country, turning us towards our lockers but ducking into the closest classroom’s doorway nook instead, out of the traffic flow.

  “So what was that?” she demanded, eyes wide.

  “. . . I don’t want to show up alone on a group date?” That was my excuse, anyway. A sudden thought made me freeze. “He’s not— He doesn’t have a girlfriend, does he?” I’d never seen him with a girl hanging on his arm or talking in his ear. A second thought hit me. “Is he the one you’re—”

  “No! But you just declared your interest in Papa in front of Delia and everyone! And it’s Matchup Month!”

  “I what? And it’s what?”

  “Matchup Month! Old Hadley tradition. It’s like with the clubs, where memberships aren’t set until everyone’s had the month to try them on. Socially the . . . first few weeks are a kind of unofficial pairing up scene for tenth, eleventh, and twelfth years if they’re not already tandeming. Delia’s party was one of the first Matchup Month parties.”

  “Tandeming?”

  She sighed. “Hadley expression. Riding tandem. Like in tandem bikes, ‘A bicycle built for two?’”

  I choked on a laugh. “Like going steady? Hey, he’s an athlete right? Would I wear his letterman’s jacket? Does Hadly Upper do letterman’s jackets?”

  “Ha, ha.” She rolled her eyes. “And yes, yes we do. The point is, you just made a public play for one of the hotter unpaired eleventh years and he didn’t say he was busy or something, so . . .”

  Ohhh. Oh, no. No, no, no. “I wasn’t— He’s just—” Fuck, how was I going to dig my way out of this? My and Pinky’s weekend adventure notwithstanding, I wasn’t anywhere near ready to get with a boy, romantically or intimately. Did he think— I groaned as she cocked her head.

  “Well, this could be good? If you go out Friday and decide that’s all it’ll be, Papa’s pretty nice, he’ll give a good report. Matchup Month gives you leeway and this could launch you.”

  Because of course news of the “date” would be all over the school, or at least all over Delia’s circle, which wasn’t small, before the end of the day. “I could . . . cancel? Say the group thing isn’t happening after all?”

  “Won’t work, nobody’s going to believe you unless you find something else for you and Papa to do.”

  I wanted to beat my head against the door. And why had I even thought of Papa and Bowling & Burgers together? I knew why; thinking about any kind of a meet-your-peeps social activity filled me with anxiety. It had still been in the back of my mind even though Mom had said it was off the table if I was set against it, and at Delia’s party Papa had come to my rescue.

  One act of chivalry and he’d been linked to social safety in my head.

  But I’d been off the hook for Bowling & Burgers and now Mom was going to absolutely freak out, trying to figure out what was going on in my head. Maybe wonder if, for all our new understanding, I’d felt pressured into it.

  “Okay,” I finally said. “I can do this. It’s a group date. We meet there, we bowl some frames, we eat, we catch our own rides home.”

  “He has a car this year. I’ve seen him come to school in it.”

  Of course he did. “He’s still meeting me there. Carl will want to drive me.” To everyone at school, Carl was my hot stepdad since Pinky’d seen him dropping me at Delia’s party and had spread word of his hotness. Carl had met Papa briefly when he’d picked me up at Delia’s—the eleventh-year boy had insisted on walking me out to the street—but I just knew he’d would want to do the “So you’re dating my daughter,” thing. When had Carl and I established that kind of protective father-daughter dynamic? I strongly suspected that Mom had filled him in on my previous horrible high school experience; he’d gotten cautious when asking me how my schooldays were going, more serious.

  Could I arrange it so Carl would just be dropping me at the curb? But would it be weird if I didn’t let Papa drive me home? My thoughts were all over the place.

  Pinky brought me back to the point. “Okay, you’re going to do this. I’ll get the 411 on Papa’s dating history but I can tell you now I’ve heard no bad about him. He’s a sweetheart or I wouldn’t let you do this. What?”

  I shook my head. “. . . Nothing, just, thanks?”

  She rolled her eyes and gave me a quick hug. “It’s what big sisters are for. We’ve got this.”

  ***************************************

  Anticipation of Self-Defense Club had my stomach in knots during last period, but the first day turned out to be just a lecture covering what it was about. It was not martial arts training for exhibition or competition. It was going to be physical training that got us accustomed to falling (and falling right), leading to our being able to take hits and power through, how to use leverage to break holds, how to hit to insure maximum damage with the force we could throw—all understanding that girls were at a distinct physical disadvantage against boys so we were going to train for it. Master Judith told us all that the fighting techniques came from Krav Maga, a “street-fighting” school of martial arts that focused on getting the job done.

  We were also going to learn good situational awareness, spotting potentially dangerous situations early and preparing for them or, better, avoiding them completely. And lastly, Master Judith let us know in no uncertain terms that if any of us got into fights using what she taught we would be closely scrutinized; if we initiated it or it turned out to be our fault, we’d be booted from the club for the year. Then she covered business like choosing our club president and other officers and let us go.

  Shania met me at the station and we road to the Twain Street Station together. On a sudden thought I invited her home for sweet tea before she had to head home herself. Accepting, she was nervously polite to Mom, who made her feel totally at ease in under a minute, fixing us some small sandwiches to tide us over till our dinners.

  She didn’t stay for long, pleading homework but thanking Mom and telling me that I had to come to her place next. Closing the door, I turned slowly, somehow already knowing what I’d see; Mom almost bouncing on her toes with a huge grin on her face. I’d made a friend. Hotly red at her ridiculously fond and proud look, I stuck out my tongue. “I’m going to go study.”

  I escaped up the stairs with her laughter behind me.

  As always, comments/feedback welcome!

  TP