“You need to go in sometime before the first bell, you know,” May said beside me. She’d driven me to school for my first day, because that’s what moms did. It wasn’t the plan going forward; Hadley Upper’s campus gates sat right across the road from a City Rail station and she’d taken me to our local library to get a City Card—a photo ID good as a public library card, voter ID, and transit pass on all the city’s street-rail and bus lines. After school the North Line would take me to City Center from here, where I could take the West Line out to Twain Street and get off for a short walk to our place. I’d reverse the route in the morning, just a half-hour ride with the train schedule. I’d supported the Public Transport Expansion Initiative and it was nice to see my tax dollars pay off so directly.

  “I know,” I sighed, staring at the school. Students arriving at the station or getting dropped off curbside or arriving under their own steam (bikes and scooters looked popular) flowed by us on their way onto the campus.

  First day of school. And true to form and more than forty years after my last day of high school, I felt a little sick. I adjusted my pleated school skirt, trying not to think. Since my transformation I’d spent most of every day in the company of Carl and May, especially May since Carl was gone most of the day. She’d shown me how to live in this body, teaching me everything from feminine hygiene to makeup to the right way to launder “special items” of women’s apparel. She’d helped move me out of my family home, saved my sanity in all the craziness. Except for the party (which hadn’t exactly been an unmitigated success), she’d been with me for every step outside my new home. Over the past near month and a half she’d done so much, and school had become part of my plan to give her her days back. Now I didn’t want to go. I really was scared.

  “Hun, are you alright?” A question full of understanding and that got me to move. Opening the passenger door I slid out of the van, grabbing my backpack from the footwell and giving Steph in her baby seat a finger wave. “You’ve got your City Card?” May asked before I could close the door.

  “Yes, Mom. And I’ll call if . . . if anything. But I’ll be fine.” I managed a smile I was pretty sure didn’t fool even Steph. “I’ll see you at home.”

  “Sure, honey.” She gave me a smile back that looked just as real as my own felt. “See you at home.”

  Closing the door, I turned away and then couldn’t leave it at that; I’d be seeing her strained smile in my head all day. Instead of crossing the street I dashed around the front of the van to the driver’s side and knocked on the window. When she rolled it down, I put a foot on the running board to hoist myself up and stuck my head in to drop a quick kiss on her cheek. “Love you, Mom. I’ll see you at home.”

  Dropping back down I spun around and looked both ways before scooting across the street. When I looked back at the van May was staring, her mouth fallen open. I grinned and waved. I’d take that over her fake smile any day. Feeling so much lighter I almost laughed, I entered the gates of Hadley Upper.

  The tide of uniformed students flowing through the front gates with only minutes left until the morning bell carried me in through the front doors where it split into separate streams to the right and left of the administration offices. Boys went left, girls went right, and swallowing my rising nerves I followed the girl tide into lavender pink territory. Reaching my locker through the crush, I found streamers and a fancy envelope had been taped to it, opening it revealing a Welcome to Hadley! card from Pinky. Inside my book locker I found my school pad and battery pack—what the school provided instead of hefty textbooks and I would have been given on Welcome Day—and a very high quality stuffed bear wearing an equally high quality Hadley Girls uniform with a second note from Pinky: “Another Hadley sister for you!”

  “Hey, sis!” a voice chirped behind me and I jumped, almost dropping the bear. It was Pinky and she beamed at me. “I see you’ve met Hads. Ready for your first day? Also, you look good.”

  “Thanks?” Mom had chosen the uniform combination—spookily, exactly what Hads was wearing. Dark green vest and blazer, both closely tailored, white shirt and Hadley tie, tartan skirt as short as Hadley’s regs allowed which was short thanks to the Cheerleader Rule—in theory made up for by the equally regulation dark green shorts I wore beneath it so as not to flash cheek or underwear.

  At least Hads wasn’t sporting my white Alice band that Mom insisted went together with my white collar and cuffs to tie it all together.

  I’d bowed to Mom’s expertise, but standing in front of my mirror this morning I honestly hadn’t been able to believe, well, that it was me from the top of my red head to my socks and brown Oxfords. Or that the school even really allowed skirts so short in their dress code (although it did make separating the boys and the girls for most of the school day seem more prudential). Standing in the school hallway I still thought I looked like a schoolgirl from some Japanese anime but I fit right in with the girls around me. Bouncing on her toes beside me, Pinky was dressed exactly the same except for her thigh-high socks—which May had tried to push on me; had she coached May’s choices to try and ensure I was riding the fashion wave?

  Now my “big sister” grabbed my bag to hold it open as I stuffed my schoolpad into it. “Go ahead and hang your street skirt in your locker,” she said. “No reason to pack it around with you all day.” Nodding I pulled out the rolled-up skirt, a Hadley tartan skirt like the one I wore but almost knee-length; when Pinky found out I intended to use the city rail she’d strongly suggested it, even told me how I could shimmy it on at my locker and put my school skirt in my bag when I was ready to go home.

  “You’ll thank me,” she’d said. “The bus and rail are safe—God knows the city puts enough Public Transport cops on them during the morning and evening hours the schools use them—but there’s a lot of creepers who like the fresh young stuff and you don’t want creeper eyes crawling on you as you’re standing or sitting there.” And no, I definitely didn’t want that. “So, you ready?” she asked now. “I know coming from homeschooling it’s got to be a little overwhelming . . .”

  I gave her a smile, a mostly real one. “I’m just not used to the crowds yet. I’ll be fine in class?” Which just might be true for reasons she couldn’t know. Feeling almost suffocated in the thronged hallway, I’d never been more aware of my loss of height. Before my transformation I’d been used to being able to see over most people’s heads and shoulders, giving me plenty of room to see around me even in tight crowds; now my eye level was below most of my fellow female students’ shoulders, severely limiting my field of vision. I wasn’t panicking but the hemmed-in feeling was growing.

  Pinky made sure I stashed my cellphone in my book locker. The school had a strict school hours cell-ban policy and phones visible between the day’s first starting class bell and final ending bell, even in the halls, could be confiscated with detention required to get them back. When the first bell rang, a pleasant, tonal chime, I slung my bookbag over my shoulder and she immediately pulled it down for me to hold by the top handle. “Carry it like a bag,” she instructed. “Hold it in front with both hands if you’re standing around. You’re less likely to get knocked around by it in the crush that way, trust me.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And good luck, not that you’ll need it. Go on, see you in gym!”

  I watched her disappear back into the flowing stream of uniformed bodies; knowing she’d come back to her locker just to meet with me as it all began made me warm inside. Turning I pushed the other way, moving into the tide to head to my homeroom class.

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

  Pinky was right about my backpack and it wasn’t just my height. In my last years of high school I’d been hefty enough that if someone bumped into me I hadn’t been the one who moved, but now just about everyone seemed to out-mass me and when anyone bumped into me I bounced off of them—and this was in Girl Country. I would have been caught by my backpack more than once and probably gone right to the floor, but instead I made it to Ms. Hollander’s room without getting knocked off my feet.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  I got to the classroom with minutes to spare and about half the seats still open. Picking one off to the side but only halfway back with no neighbors yet, I sat, one hand going back to smooth the material under my butt from back to front as my knees bent so I sat on my skirt without crumpling it instead of sitting on the bare seat. Knees together, I crossed my feet a bit to the side, smoothing the skirt pleats over my thighs.

  At May’s urging I’d practiced the move a lot.

  I got a few curious glances but nobody introduced themselves before the second bell chimed as Ms. Hollander shot through the door to the classroom with the last wave of girls. She didn’t look a whole lot older than us but was the one not wearing the school uniform. “Sorry everyone!” she sang out, waving the covered cup of coffee in her hands as explanation. “Welcome back, take one minute to sign your attendance, and we’ll talk.”

  The twenty-one girls around me (half of Hadley’s female tenth-years) pulled out their school pads and unlocked them as I hurried to do the same (the fact-sheet I’d been provided had given me a temporary sign-in of my new birthdate). Clicking on the Homeroom icon, I tapped Present and the class screen locked as the pad began opening files.

  “Okay!” Ms. Hollander chirped. “Again, welcome back everyone, I hope you all had an exciting summer. I’d like you all to welcome your new homeroom sister, April Seever. Since she’s jumping into Hadley Upper in the third year you should all be impressed and patient with her—that she’s joined us midway is both an achievement and a challenge. It’s going to be rough, let’s all help her out.” There was a ripple of laughter and even a bit of applause as the girls around me turned to openly look the new girl over.

  Face heating, I gave a half-wave.

  “I won’t make you stand and tell us about yourself,” she directed a wink at me. “Your classmates can interrogate you later. Moving on . . .” She went on to go over the block of history we would be covering this year; world and US history from the end of Reconstruction to the end of World War One with all its associated political, social, intellectual, and artistic developments.

  I checked the accessed files; half of them were primary sources we would be reading, a long booklist.

  “As a quick reminder,” she finished, “a substantial part of your grades will be from your scores on periodic Brain Pickers to ensure that you’ve completed the readings before we discuss them in class. If you score poorly on them, the only makeup credit will be monitored essay writing right back here during detention time. For those of you who have forgotten or never experienced that trauma, the Brain Pickers are easier so be prepared. And feel free to share some horror stories with April. For the remainder of our time today, I’ve earmarked some selected writings by Mark Twain, Frederick Douglas, and others who we’ll be discussing this week. There will be a Brain Picker on them in the last half of today’s class to refamiliarize you with what’s expected, so I suggest you get reading.”

  She tapped her own school pad and on my screen a document file opened to display the readings for today with notes explaining the source of each. Tapping the first one, I started reading Mark Twain’s “Advice to Youth,” described as “A satire puncturing the sober hypocrisy and self-congratulatory advice of graduation speeches.” By the time I got to “If a person offend you, and you are in doubt as to whether it was intentional or not, do not resort to extreme measures; simply watch your chance and hit him with a brick, that will be sufficient,” I was snickering and so was half the class. (The other half looked shocked.) At her desk Ms. Hollander smiled at whatever she was reading while sipping her coffee.

  Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

  ********************************

  “They’re trying to kill us!” I gasped. They had to be, there was no other explanation. My lungs were on fire and my heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest as I put one foot down in front of the other, barely feeling my legs as I almost staggered down the track.

  Ms. Hollander had dismissed us when the bell had chimed, with a wave and a reminder of our readings for the rest of the week—and with a warning that there would be more frequent Brain Pickers as we got up to speed. I’d been honestly surprised by the way my first homeroom class had gone. In my decades-old teen memories the first day of school had always been a waste, academically speaking; here they were assuming you were ready to hit the ground running.

  And that turned out to be literally true. Our Second Period class was Gym Class, and I’d come to school with my gym clothes and shoes in my backpack. A sign at the doors to the girls’ gymnasium saying “Welcome back! Be dressed and in the gym by starting bell,” told me Second Period was going to be more of the same hit-the-ground-running.

  I’d changed fast, ignoring the girl bodies around me as they trickled in. The gym uniform was again regulation; in this case white sneakers and socks, a t-shirt in the school’s dark green with a Greek helmet printed in white on the front in the pocket-logo position and SPARTAN printed in big bold letters on the back, and a school-green skort. That’s right, the athletic bottoms were skorts, wide-pleated skirts with incorporated undershorts in the same material. The skirt was shorter than my already-short uniform skirt, barely longer than the boyleg shorts beneath them.

  After the starting bell they’d lined us up in a block, the whole girls’ tenth-year class, about forty of us. The eleventh-year class had joined us in a separate block on the floor of the gym that included a full basketball court and an open side devoted to rings, climbing ropes, and chin bars. Pinky’d waved at me, bouncing cheerfully, and I’d waved back less cheerfully; we had a five-period schedule with homeroom and gym class every day, those first two periods being ninety minutes long so gym, my least favorite school class ever, was going to be an hour and a half of torture every day. And somehow I didn’t think there would be much standing around.

  I was right; Coach Bracken and her assistant coaches quickly took roll and distributed our preset fitness bands, walked us through a refresher on them—first time for me—and then ran us through a “warm-up” calisthenics series. She pushed us hard and fast, making notes as girls failed to complete the fast set repetitions (pushups, sit-ups, jumping jacks, and squats—workup on the ropes, rings, and bars would come later), and I was the first to tap out of each set. Once we were done with that and lying around gasping for air, she whistled us to our feet and then jogged us all out to one of the school tracks to run a mile in our “individual times.”

  The tenth and eleventh-year boys were out there running on the other track, putting something like a hundred and sixty students on the two wide tracks. Before we started I spotted Brad and Lizard and knew Papa was running somewhere deep in the leading boy-pack. I didn’t care; after the whistle blew I was just trying to survive. Like the boys we broke into clusters of runners before completing our first lap and by our third I was barely hanging onto the last group, four of us together. We were going to get lapped by half the class before the end, I could just tell.

  “We’ll live—” a girl named Gemma gasped out in response to my airless declaration, “We just won’t want to. I really should have— Worked out this summer. They do this— Every year. Test our individual— Fitness levels. Then assign our— Individual programs. Don’t try to— Keep up. Just finish!”

  “Finish! Right!” I immediately slowed down, focusing on keeping my wobbling footfalls regular. Completing the third lap at least fifty feet behind Gemma’s group, already getting lapped by the faster girls, I almost cried when the assistant coach standing at the finish line called out “One more lap!” as I jogged by.

  Gemma’s group was halfway around on the other side of the field but not moving much faster than me now and, narrowing my gaze to the strip of track in front of me, I put my head down and jogged on with a short-lived burst of speed that faded fast. By the time I came around the last curve into the straightway of the now-empty track all I could hear was my breathing and my footfalls. Crossing the finish line I was barely aware enough to not just stop and fall over, dropping to a staggering walk instead until, between one lung-filling gasp and the next, my gut seized and I threw up on the grass by the track. To applause.

  “Woah, hey!” Gemma laughed beside me; I hadn’t heard her come up with the coach. “When I said to finish, I didn’t mean to make yourself sick.”

  Coach helped me straighten up, handing me a water bottle. “Are you steady? Going to heave again?” I breathed for a moment then shook my head. “I’m fine.”

  “Then you’re going to walk, slowly, over to the ice chest, and Gemma and Joy are going to help you ice your legs.” Joy was the assistant coach who’d urged me on into my last lap. Coach hung something around my neck and walked off.

  “Way to show off your first day,” Gemma quipped, stepping in to take my arm as I staggered to the aid station.

  “Show how to come in last?” I looked down at the golden whistle on a red cord Coach had hung on me.

  “No! You won the Spartan Girl award! Didn’t you hear the applause? First day back is always hell, but we’re all Hadley Spartans, it’s expected. Pushing yourself so hard to finish that you vomit? That takes grit.” She snickered, laughing at the school and not me. “The school is big on grit. Wear the whistle the rest of the day. Give it back tomorrow, but your name’ll be on Coach’s Honor Board by the end of the week.”

  “I—what?”

  Grit. I was going to die.