Be a girl

At school the next day, Oscar and Jaxon tried to ask me why’d I’d left so abruptly, but I deflected. I didn’t want to talk about it, and I made that fact clear to the both of them. They were both kind enough to drop it.

Over the rest of the week, I became more comfortable spending time with Jaxon’s friend group. I still didn’t really talk too much, but that was fine by me. I wasn’t much for speaking anyway, and the others picked up on that quickly. At least I wasn’t the only one in the group who spoke sparingly.

The group wasn’t always the five of us, however. There was a larger friend group that the more outgoing members liked to occasionally hang out with. It was the group that Jaxon initially tried to introduce me to. There must have been at least thirty people. Far too many. I decided to steer clear of that group, not wanting a repeat of last time. Like me, Isabel also much preferred the smaller group, and stayed exclusively with us, which meant that I always had at least one other person to keep me company. I would no longer be alone like I had for all those years at my old school.

I was still tentative to call them my friends. I’d only known them a week, and that surely wasn’t long enough. I decided to consider them acquaintances for now. That’d do. I’d had a couple acquaintances in the past, but they’d never progressed to the point of friend. I’d have to wait and see how everything all turned out.

Jaxon, Oscar, and I all continued playing that game they’d introduced to me. Our progress was somewhat quick, owing to the fact that the two of them already had max level characters, so they knew what they were doing. I’d allowed James to watch me occasionally, but I made it clear to him not to mention anything that would lead to a discussion about his… situation. Not only for his sake, but for mine. He was very understanding of this.

At some point, Jaxon noticed that I was walking home all by myself and wasn’t happy with that. He absolutely insisted that he tag along. I allowed it, though mostly because I knew that there was no way I’d be able to convince the giant that I would rather walk home alone. He gave me sad puppy dog eyes to which I simply couldn’t say no. It couldn’t hurt, I thought. Plus, there was no denying the warm fuzzy feelings it gave me knowing that he wanted to spend more time with me. I wasn’t even sure if I was capable of convincing myself that I’d rather walk alone.

He was much calmer than usual on our walks home. A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one. There was only so much hyperenergetic giant I could handle for one day. It seemed there was only so much hyperenergy he could handle too. It made the walks much more pleasant than I had initially anticipated.

We always walked to Jaxon’s house first, despite the fact that I lived closer to the school. I didn’t want him finding out about my family situation, so I acted as though his house was on the way, so that he wouldn’t know where I lived. Dad’s house was only a ten minute walk from his, so I didn’t mind. Sure, my walk home was now twice as long, but that wasn’t the end of the world.

The only exception to this was Thursdays, where I would walk home alone, because Jaxon had cricket training. I didn’t fully understand how anyone could enjoy such a dull sport, but I wasn’t going to tell that to him. I simply could not comprehend how a game could have a time limit of five days. It seemed rather excessive if you asked me. Though I didn’t think high school kids were playing full length test matches. Even still, the sport was boring. Nothing happened during cricket matches. Ever.

But because I never mentioned my dislike for that particular sport (or sport in general), Jaxon saw fit to invite me to the first match of the cricket season. I didn’t really want to go, because it was cricket, but I also didn’t really want to upset him. He made it easy for me to imagine the sad face he would make if I failed to show up. But it was cricket. And he would be playing it, which meant I wouldn’t be able to chat with him.

So, instead of letting him down right away, I told him that I would think about it. That gave me time to think up an excuse for why I couldn’t show up without coming off like I hated one of his interests.

When I arrived home that day, I found dad watching tv in the lounge room and sat down next to him. He was still on his break from working, though I couldn’t be sure whether he’d started his hunt for a new job yet since I spent most of my time at school. When I was at home, I hadn’t seen him make any effort in that regard.

“How was school?” he asked, taking a sip from his coffee.

“Alright,” I replied noncommittally. It was the stock standard answer I always had ready whenever someone asked me how I was. I quickly shifted the topic to what Jaxon had brought up earlier. “So, I have a conundrum.”

“Hmm?” dad said, raising an eyebrow at me and placing his mug down onto the coffee table.

“Someone at school invited me to come watch the first cricket game of the season, which they’re playing in, and I was wondering if you had any advice on how to tell them that I can’t go without hurting their feelings.”

“Wait, you made a friend at school?” dad asked with a sparkle in his eye. “How is this the first I’m hearing of this?”

Oh no, I’d awoken his dad instincts. I tried to avoid this outcome but had failed. I hadn’t yet mentioned any of what I’d actually been doing at school, including the group I’d been hanging out with for the past nearly two weeks. So, now that I’d finally mentioned being invited somewhere, he was eager to hear all about it. This was what I got for sticking to my automatic responses. In my defence, I didn’t quite consider them friends just yet, so I didn’t feel it worth mentioning to dad.

“Uh, sorry,” I said. I didn’t really know how else to respond to dad’s question. I couldn’t very well tell him I didn’t think it worth mentioning. He’d gawk and tell me I was being ridiculous.

“I’m happy for you.” He smiled at me, relieved that I’d finally managed to make a friend after years of being bullied at my old school (and saying nothing about it until after the fact).

“Right, anyway,” I said, wanting to steer the topic back to its original purpose. “Any ideas for excuses to not have to go to this cricket match?”

“Why would you not want to spend time with your friend?” Ugh, I hadn’t even said we were friends!

“Because –” I began but was immediately interrupted by a knock on the door. I excused myself to answer the door to let James in. He rushed off to his room to get changed, while I headed back to the lounge room to resume my conversation with dad. Sitting down on the lounge once again, I stared at dad. He took a long sip from his coffee, not saying a word, and neither did I.

The staring contest continued until dad placed his coffee down and spoke up. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Why don’t you want to spend time with your friend?”

“It’s just… cricket is so dull and uninteresting,” I sighed, leaning my head on my hand.

Dad scoffed. “Cricket is an excellent sport, thank you very much.” He paused for a moment, pensively. “Actually, I have an idea. James!” I raised an eyebrow at him, unsure exactly as to what he had in mind.

“Yeah?” my little brother called out from his room.

“Can you come here for a minute?”

Rather than responding with words, he noisily made his way to the lounge room, his feet stomping heavily on the hallway floor. “What?”

“How would you like to spend Saturday with Ben and me as a boy?”

James’ eyes lit up. “Can I!?” Dad nodded, and James squealed excitedly.

So that was how it was. Dad was cornering me. Ensuring that I not only had no excuse to tell Jaxon for why I couldn’t attend, but also that I would absolutely be showing up. He probably just wanted to meet the person he thought was a friend, which wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest. I sighed. I had no way out of this. It was to be a family outing after all. Although, perhaps there was an out…

“Is that really a good idea?” I asked, “What if people find out what happened to you, dad?”

“It’s fine,” dad said, waving me off dismissively. “I’ll just pretend to be your mum. No one will think twice.”

“What about mum? Will she be ok with us spending Saturday with you?”

“I’ll convince her. Don’t worry about it.”

I pursed my lips. I didn’t really have a counter to that. If he could manage to convince mum to let James come along, then I would have no choice but to as well. He really was making me go to this cricket game, wasn’t he? Damn it.

***

And so, I informed Jaxon that I would indeed be spectating his cricket match on Saturday. He was ecstatic that I’d accepted his offer. I did my best to not show my complete unenthusiasm for having to go to a cricket match. It probably didn’t really matter anyway; Jaxon was too busy being excited.

Dad did manage to convince mum to allow James and me to spend Saturday with him. It was simple enough to convince her to let me since I would be spending time with a friend. She was thrilled that I’d managed to make a friend at my new school, and wholeheartedly supported me spending the day with them, even if it meant her time with me would be lessened.

It was a little more difficult to convince her to let James come along as well. She was reluctant but she eventually relented after James expressed that he wished to join dad and me. Dad did have to suck up to her though. He assured her that ‘Chloe’ would be a good little ‘girl’ and make no mention of ‘her’ ‘silly’ notion that ‘she’ was actually a boy. Somehow, mum bought it.

He made sure to pack some camper chairs for us to sit on, as well as a cooler bag filled with drinks, lunch, and some snacks. I had no idea how long this match would actually take, but I suspected it would be most of the day.

Before we left, dad made it clear to James that he was to refer to dad as ‘mum’, so that no one would catch on to what had happened to him. He understood well enough, though I was still somewhat worried that he would slip up on accident. Hell, I was worried that I might slip up. Habits die hard.

***

Nerves wriggled through my body when we arrived at the cricket oval. I was very out of my element here. There were a few people mingling around in bright white clothing – the players, I deduced. Jaxon was very easy to spot, given that he stood a head above everyone else. Not that his long hair and beard didn’t also help to identify him.

He noticed me on our way over and rushed up to meet us, exuberance radiating off of him.

“Ben, you made it!” he said excitedly with a vigorous wave. His eyes darted between me, and my dad and brother. “And you brought your family!”

“Hi Jaxon,” I replied with a much timider wave.

Jaxon squatted down so that he could be at eye level with my little brother and grinned. “Hi James, it’s nice to meet you,” he said, mussing up James’ hair.

“You’re huge!” James exclaimed, eliciting a chuckle from the giant.

“That I am.” He stood up, once again towering over my family and me with his absurd height. Dad held out his hand, and the tall boy graciously shook it. Jaxon’s hand easily wrapped itself entirely around my father’s, owing to the extreme difference in size.

“How’s the weather up there?” dad asked, craning his neck to get a good view of Jaxon’s face, and placing a hand on his forehead to block out the sun from his vision.

Jaxon licked his finger and held it up above his head. “Warm, with no wind to speak of.”

“It’s nice to meet you, young man,” dad said, “Ben somehow failed to mention that his new friend was a giant. Bit of a small detail to miss there.” He gave me a friendly side eye. I wasn’t sure how to respond to his comment, so I didn’t.

“Maybe it was too tall an order for Ben to mention.” Wow, the wordplay was already out on the field. Or perhaps ‘pitch’ was more appropriate. I was used to it by this point, having spent the past couple weeks around him. I now only groaned at the particularly terrible puns, rather than all of them. Groans needed to be conserved for moments that really required them, else I’d run out.

“May I ask how tall you actually are?”

Jaxon chuckled nervously and scratched at the back of his head. “Too tall. Two hundred and nine centimetres.”

Dad whistled, impressed at the boy’s ridiculous height. “Now, I expect you to treat my son well, you hear?” His voice was stern. Jaxon needed to know that he was being serious now. “He’s been treated poorly in the past, and I don’t want history to repeat itself.”

“Yes sir,” Jaxon saluted rather cartoonishly, standing perfectly straight. His goofy grin never left his face.

“Good man,” dad nodded.

A grin of recognition suddenly appeared on Jaxon’s face, and he waved at someone behind me. I turned to look and saw Isabel walking up to us. She gave us a little wave with both her hands. She was wearing a cute blue summer dress with flowers all along it, complementing her fiery red hair nicely. A thin strap of a handbag was strung over her right shoulder, and the bag itself hung loosely at her left hip.

“Hi guys,” she said as she approached.

“Hi Izzy!” Jaxon replied cheerfully with an overexaggerated wave.

For some reason, dad felt the need to lightly elbow me in the side. I looked over at him, only to be met by a smirk and a raised eyebrow. “You didn’t tell me you’d made friends with a girl.”

Please why. He didn’t need to do this. I knew what he was implying, and it wasn’t like that! “I didn’t know she was coming,” I grumbled.

“Oh! I see you’ve brought your family, Ben,” Izzy noted with no small amount of surprise. She faced my father and gave him a small wave, “Hi, I’m Isabel. You must be Ben’s mum. It’s nice to meet you.”

Dad nodded. “It’s nice to meet you too, Isabel.”

Isabel then turned her attention to James, bending over slightly and placing her hands on her knees in order to get down to his level. “And you must be Ben’s little brother,” she smiled sweetly. “What’s your name?”

“Yep! I’m James!” he exclaimed enthusiastically.

His response made me wonder how he would have reacted if we’d forced him to be a girl today, like mum wanted. Much less enthusiastic no doubt. But here and now? He was a giddy schoolboy, allowed to express himself as he wanted. It brought me joy to see him so happy.

“It’s nice to meet you James.”

“Um, what brings you here, Isabel?” I asked tentatively, now that all the introductions were done. I didn’t expect to see her here, but her presence was not unwelcome. She and I did get along quite nicely at school. However, I was never informed that she would also be here, and I really wish I had. Perhaps I would not have been so reluctant to attend.

“Jaxon invited me to keep you company. He thought you might be bored while his team was fielding.”

Oh, well, that was nice of him. Still could have mentioned it to me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw dad raise an eyebrow and smirk. “Is that so?” he interjected slyly with a little waggle of his eyebrow. “Well, if that’s the case, then we wouldn’t want to get between you two. James, Jaxon, how about we give these two some space?”

Was it part of every dad’s job description that they had to embarrass their kids in front of their peers, or was it just my dad? My face was burning in an instant. Why? Why did he have to say that?

He ushered the two boys away from Isabel and me, leaving us alone in the most awkward way possible. We both stared at the three of them as they walked off, baffled. I wanted to curl up into a ball and die from the sheer embarrassment.

“For the record, Jaxon assured me that he wasn’t trying to set us up.”

I’d covered up my face with my hands, utterly mortified by the actions of my father. “Please, ignore my d-mum.”

“Does she normally act this way when you talk to girls?” Isabel asked, seeming not to notice my little slip up. I sincerely hoped she didn’t.

“Well, I went to an all boys’ school before, so there was no talking to girls.”

“Oh. Right. You did mention that.”

“For the record, I’m not interested in you… that way.” I felt compelled to clarify that, not only because it was the truth, but also to stave off at least a tiny amount of the embarrassment dad brought on. I was glad that Jaxon, according to Isabel, had not been trying to set the two of us up, like my dad implied.

Izzy giggled a little, covering her mouth. “If I thought you were, I wouldn’t have come.”

Oh. Interesting.

“So, why did you come anyway?” I asked.

“You seemed… lonely,” she replied, “And, I know what that’s like. Plus, you seem nice.”

I sighed. She was right. I was lonely. It was strange having people actually try to remedy that, but I certainly wasn’t against it. And here I was not wanting to come here. I’d very nearly foiled Jaxon’s not so elaborate scheme all because I didn’t like cricket.

Not wanting to spend the next few hours standing up, I laid out a picnic rug for Izzy and me to sit on. I was originally planning on sitting on one of the foldable camping chairs, but we didn’t have enough for all of us, and it didn’t feel fair to Izzy to have her sit on the picnic rug while I sat on a chair.

Jaxon’s team fielded first, which meant we’d be waiting a few hours before we’d be able to chat with him. It made me thankful that Jaxon had the forethought to invite Isabel. She made the waiting around much more enjoyable. Unsurprisingly, she was also uninterested in cricket, so we laughed together about how dull and boring it was.

She also didn’t seem to mind my little brother, or how over-excitable he could get. She was friends with Jaxon and Rachel, so perhaps that wasn’t too surprising. I was a little worried in the beginning that James might accidentally slip up and reveal the truth about himself and dad, but that was a complete non-issue; it never came up once.

Izzy and I chatted enthusiastically about our shared interest in science, despite our interests lying in different disciplines. But I didn’t mind. The two disciplines were closely linked anyway. I thoroughly enjoyed sharing interesting facts about physics and listening to Izzy share her enthusiasm for geology.

Eventually Jaxon’s team managed to get the entire other team out, and his team began batting. Jaxon, being a bowler, was well down the list for batting, coming in at eighth. He blamed it on his height, since there was a maximum length for cricket bats, and they were too small for him. It sounded like a convenient excuse to me.

He joined us on the picnic rug, though he did complain that it was way too small. Isabel joked that he was just too tall. During our chat, Jaxon’s attention kept switching between the conversation at hand, and the cricket game in front of us. It was a little annoying, what with him constantly missing bits of the conversation, but I didn’t let it get to me. He was here to play a game of cricket after all, even if he was currently able to chat with us.  

Jaxon was also very good with my brother. At one point, he hoisted James onto his shoulders, ran around for a bit which James very much enjoyed. I imagined it would have been quite a sight, looking down on everyone else like that.

I smiled at the two of them. James really deserved to have a day like today, where he could be himself. Where he could have fun, like kids his age were supposed to.

“Foolish mortals,” he had said atop Jaxon’s shoulders they made their way back over to us, “Bow down before your overlord!”

Playing along with James’ little game, I pretended to be a poor, distraught human cowering in terror before the alien invader that was my little brother. James cackled and smote me with his invisible laser gun, and I pretended to die a dramatic death.

By this point, the batter before Jaxon had been called out onto the pitch, and Jaxon had to put on all his batting gear in the event one of the current batters got out. Which happened not too long after the batter before him went out there. Izzy and I decided to actually watch the match for once now that our mutual friend was out there batting.

We cheered him on as he scored the one run required for his team to win the match. It was a bit anticlimactic. But that was cricket. Dull and boring.

***

It was late afternoon before dad dropped us off at mum’s place. We spent as much time as we had available at dad’s house before heading over, mostly to let James stay as a boy for as long as possible. For the sake of his mood.

“Good afternoon you two!” mum greeted us at the door with a soft smile. “Did you enjoy your day?” James didn’t say a word, instead brushing straight past mum and into the building. Her eyes followed him as he huffed and walked off though mum remained at the door with me. “Chloe, what’s the matter?” she called out, concerned. No response. Mum frowned and shook her head.

“Hi mum,” I mumbled.

“Hi Ben. Did you at least have a good day?” mum asked, returning her attention back to me.

“We both did.”

Mum furrowed her brow. “What’s your sister’s problem then?”

“You,” I replied curtly. Realising what I had just said, I immediately pushed myself past mum. I felt my face flush and my heartbeat quicken.

“Ben!” mum shouted, but I ignored her. I rushed to the toilet and locked myself inside. I needed to be away from her, despite her protests. She banged on the door, knowing full well I was inside. “Ben, talk to me!”

No.

Eventually, she gave up and I was able to calm myself. Collect my thoughts. First thought: I couldn’t believe I had just said that. I’d stood up to mum, if even only in a tiny way. It felt invigorating, and terrifying at the same time. A whirl of conflicting emotions. Second thought: that was an extremely rash decision, and I regretted it. I’d probably made everything worse, and for what? As much as mum needed to be told that she was the problem, I couldn’t see this ending well. For me or for James.

I sighed. I couldn’t remain in the toilet forever, and decided eventually to leave. Mum met me instantly, concern painted on her face. “Ben, are you ok sweetie?”

I wasn’t even sure I was capable of speech at the moment, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to speak anyway. I remained expressionless, not even giving her so much as a nod or a shake of my head.

“Ben?”

I stared at her blankly, and her worry grew with each passing moment that I refrained from answering her simple question.

“Ben, please.”

I walked off, sitting myself on the lounge. Mum followed me, but she had realised at this point that she wasn’t going to get anything out of me. We sat in silence for some time. I stared at the wall the entire time, letting my own thoughts occupy my mind.

Eventually mum sighed. “I have to go make dinner now. Can we talk afterwards?”

Continuing to stare at the wall, I answered, finally, “No.”

“Ok,” she said, and took her leave to the kitchen.