Be a girl

Well, it had been a week since my birthday, and not all that much happened. I mostly kept to my room, as was customary for me during summer holidays, which I’d basically started early after having been asked to leave school. It was way too close to exams for it to really make sense for my parents to try and find me a new school before next year, not to mention my new ‘gift’ would make school life much more difficult.

Dad had been home all week, so I wasn’t alone. I wondered how long he was going to take off work. Surely, he’d run out of leave eventually, right? Would he quit his job once he ran out? Or would he go back to the office looking as he is? I could always ask him, but it felt like I’d be intruding on his life. If he wanted me to know, then he would tell me. Still, I couldn’t help but worry about him. He looked out of it most of the time, like he wasn’t all there. A bit like how I felt most of the time actually.

He’d taken James down to the doctor’s office during the week to inquire about James’ puberty, and if anything could be done about it. Now that he was female, he was bound to start puberty soon – probably within a year or two – so we needed to act quickly. Once that was over, he took James to school, so I didn’t see my brother again until after that had concluded for the day.

I’d asked dad what the doctor had said after he’d returned home. Dad said that there were options – which made me feel a little better – but James would need to see a specialist, and that could take a while. He left it at that, not saying any more.

I spent a lot of my time this past week simply ruminating on my gift. I joked to myself that it was the gift that kept on giving, then sighed internally due to how depressing a thought that really was. Even dad couldn’t laugh this one off, and that was what he always did. Well, not anymore.

I thought about how the transformations had affected those whom I had changed. Jesse had taken the least kindly to it, of course. I didn’t know if he had hated my guts before, since he seemed to get immense joy out of picking on me, but I knew for sure that he hated my guts now. I couldn’t help but wonder what had become of him in the past week. How he was holding up. Likely about as well as dad and James. Or possibly worse.

James had taken to the transformation the best, not that he was happy about it. Probably because he was only ten and hadn’t begun puberty yet. He could still pretend like nothing had happened. He could still be himself for the most part. Hell, no one would even know he’d changed if he hadn’t told me. At least not until he started puberty.

Dad was definitely struggling, and it was painfully obvious. When we chatted, he tried to act like his usual jovial self, but I could tell it was all an act. He was still in there, I knew that, but he’d withdrawn his true self, putting on a mask that was a facsimile of his true nature.

I thought about the transformations themselves. When I transformed Jesse and my dad, they became smaller. But how? Did they lose mass, or did they get denser? Neither really made sense, though them becoming denser seemed more plausible; mass couldn’t just disappear, could it? Density, however, could change. Although the increase in density would be rather substantial and beyond what would normally be possible.

Obviously, whatever this was, it was magic. No doubt. So, the question really was, did magic abide by the regular physical laws of the universe? Or did it follow its own rules? If the transformee did lose mass, then where did it go? Did it just disappear? Could magic violate the first law of thermodynamics? Who knows.

Perhaps the mass was converted into energy which was then used to fuel the transformation. That would be a stupendous amount of energy though, possibly enough to power the entire world for a good while. Would it need that much energy? I would think not. All it was doing was shifting body parts around and changing some body parts into other body parts. And chemically speaking, all the atoms required for such a change should already exist within the body. It was merely a matter of rearranging them, both physically and chemically.

ARGH! It was so frustrating not knowing the answer. There certainly was a simple way of finding out whether a transformee lost mass or whether they became denser, but I wasn’t willing to put someone through that just for a science experiment. I’d need to do a lot of testing to fully understand the mechanism too. Not something I ever wanted to do, despite my scientific mind craving the knowledge.

Why was I thinking about this anyway? I planned on never using my ‘gift’ again, so asking all these questions was a pointless endeavour. I had my gloves now, meaning no more accidents in the future.  It was a waste of time contemplating these pointless thoughts.

If only I could change people back. That way, my dad and brother wouldn’t have been caught up in this whole mess, and I could sate the hunger for knowledge. Trust the universe to not only grant me a gift I never asked for, didn’t want, ruined other people’s lives, made me feel terrible about myself, and didn’t allow me to properly study how it worked. It was like the universe knew exactly how to make me miserable and was taunting me.

And I was overthinking things again. I really needed to stop. I was never going to get answers, so I needed to stop trying. I’d never get anywhere.

***

It was now Sunday, which meant the family was all sat around the dinner table eating our meals. It was quiet, eerily so. The past week and a bit had changed all of us, not just dad and James. Dad wasn’t the only one who’d become more distant recently; mum had also become much more withdrawn. I’d say that had happened to me as well, but I was already about as withdrawn as a person could possibly get even before all this.

The only sounds in the room were that of cutlery against crockery, and the chewing of food, until dad took a deep breath and began to speak. “I’ve decided, I will return to work tomorrow,” he announced. Everyone stopped eating and stared at dad.

“Is that a good idea?” I asked, concerned. Surely it was too soon for that. He hadn’t had much time to adjust to the changes. And he was still locked inside his shell.

“Probably not,” he sighed, “But I can’t keep putting it off forever. I can’t change what happened, so I just have to accept it.” Dad stared down at his plate, not making eye contact with anyone at the table.

“Couldn’t you work from home instead? Do you have to go into the office?”

Dad shook his head. “Unfortunately, that’s not an option.”

“Will people even believe that you are who you say you are? What if they don’t?”

“I’ve thought of something, don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”

“Do you really have to go back? Can’t you just find another job?”

“Ben, stop!” he yelled, and I immediately snapped my mouth shut, stunned. “This is my decision, not yours.” His voice softened, becoming more delicate after his sudden outburst. “You need to stop worrying about me. I can handle myself.”

I stared down at my plate and picked at the remaining food on my plate with my fork. I no longer had an appetite. “How can I not worry about you?” I grumbled.

“Ben, remember your promise?”

I nodded, still staring at my plate. Even though my promise had no bearing on whether I could worry about him, I decided it best to not argue back about this. I was allowed to worry about him, and he wasn’t going to stop me, no matter how much he tried.

“Good. Don’t forget.”

The mood at the table had been sombre before, but now it had reached a new level. I didn’t want to argue against dad anymore, and I doubted he wanted to argue against me either. I noticed that mum had been unusually quiet during the entire exchange. In fact, she had been unusually quiet all week. Not that she was loud and boisterous like dad used to be, but she rarely spoke too often anymore.

“Dad, will you be ok?” James asked softly.

“Of course I will,” he replied, smiling over at his youngest, “Your old man can handle anything.”

“You’re not really a man anymore, are you though?” mum interjected. She had placed her knife and fork down on the table next to her plate and held her hands beneath the table. Everyone was staring at her now. With one sentence, the entire mood of the room had shifted.

Dad looked as though mum’s words had stabbed him in the heart. He clasped his hands together, placing his elbows on the table, leaning forward with a frown on his face. He stared at mum intently. “Let’s not talk about this now, dear, not in front of the kids.”

“Ok,” replied mum curtly, picking up her plate and cutlery. She emptied the leftovers into the bin and placed the dirty dishes in the dishwasher, all without saying a word. She then promptly left the room.

“What was that about?” I inquired hesitantly. Whatever it was, it didn’t look good.

“Don’t worry about it,” dad said flatly, standing up and following mum out of the room.

That left James and me still sitting at the dinner table, dumbfounded. James was likely more in the dark than me, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew something was up between mum and dad. I hoped they could resolve their issues, whatever they may have been. Undoubtedly, they were caused by what I’d done to dad and James a little over a week ago. It had produced a tension between my parents, but I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what. And they weren’t in the mood to divulge that information.

James began getting out of his seat, but I stopped him. I didn’t want him following after them. This was their problem to deal with, and they didn’t want us involved. “James, don’t. Just finish your dinner.”

“Oooookkkkkaaaayyyy,” he said, plonking himself back down on the seat and resuming his dinner. We both finished our meals in silence.

***

Alone. That’s what I was now during the daytime. With dad having returned to work, that left me on my own. I’d been at home alone in the past, but it was different now. I was going to be by myself for several hours each day, for five days a week from now on, until school holidays began for James, which wouldn’t be until mid December, and it was still November.

It was eerily quiet, but I was mostly fine. Sure, it was strange, but I liked to keep to myself anyway. It wouldn’t take long for me to get used to it. Besides, it was only a few hours each day. James would return at about half past three and make a ruckus, giving the household some much needed life.

The first day was definitely the strangest. I tried to get on with my usual routine, which worked for a while, but the unsettling silence within the house was slowly getting to me. I just wasn’t used to it, and it made me a little uneasy. Nothing I couldn’t handle, and I was sure that feeling would be gone by the end of the week.

I couldn’t help but wonder how dad was fairing at work. His first day back since quite possibly the most life changing moment of his life. I didn’t know how its impact faired against him getting married, or having me and James, but it was certainly up there with those events. I was worried about him, even though he kept telling me that it wasn’t my job. He wasn’t here to say I couldn’t at the moment though, so I could worry as much as I desired.

I anxiously waited for dad’s return – which I knew wouldn’t be until after six in the evening – wanting to make sure he was ok. I waited in the lounge room near the back door where I knew he would enter through, scrolling through my phone to help pass the time, and keeping my ears open to the sound of the door opening.

My ears practically swivelled in the direction of the door once I heard the noise I was waiting on. I got up from the lounge and stood before dad before he even had the chance to close the door. I looked down at him (still wasn’t used to that) with a worried expression on my face.

“How was work? Are you ok? Did anything bad happen? How did people take it? What did you tell them? What’s going to happen to you?” The questions spewed out of my mouth faster than a bullet train, completely overwhelming dad, who looked like he’d taken a stroll through a wind tunnel.

“I’m fine,” he replied curtly, then walked around me with a determined expression on his face.

“But how was work?” I called out to him as he continued to retreat from me.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” He didn’t even bother turning around as he spoke, heading directly towards his bedroom. After he gently shut the door behind himself, I heard the latch click, indicating that the door had been locked.

I went out on a limb and guessed that he was not, in fact, fine. He wanted me to stop worrying about him, but he was making that rather difficult.