In the weeks that followed, life in the Corbin household had clearly changed. The most visible difference was the addition of two new members of the family - Luna and Stella, the two twin cats. It wasn’t long before Simon, upon doing some online research, was able to identify their breed. They were clearly both Bombay cats - not quite full-grown yet, but getting close to it. Thanks to the anti-allergen collars that the Corbins had gotten for them at Karodrin’s Magical Pet Supply Shop, there wasn’t even a problem with allowing them to live inside the house. Each had its own cat-house in the wide upstairs hallway which, though minimally sized on the outside, was large and luxurious on the inside - with lots of objects that were safe to climb, and even magical fake windows that they could stare through. They could be very comfortable in their cat-houses, whether by themselves or with their humans. That said, they often preferred to roam outdoors, to the satisfaction of everyone except the local birds and squirrels.

  Simon was excited about going to Misty Peaks come fall rather than to Wheaton Middle School. Of course, there was always the chance that Wheaton might be better than Dogwood Elementary - but Misty Peaks promised to be better than either of those places, and by far. For instance, while some things might be different in Wheaton than in Dogwood, he was pretty sure that even mentioning his discontent with having been born male would not be much safer in one non-magical school than in another. At Misty Peaks, however, he knew that there was at least one person, possibly more, that he could safely discuss that issue with - and could even, by means of somamorphy, explore the possibility of escaping the predicament of always having to be a guy.

  Every day he would spend at least some time in the upstairs armchair with his head buried behind his copy of ‘The Body Transformed’, reading it, and even re-reading sections of special interest. Often, while reading it, his attention would wander from the sheer excitement at the prospect of being able to change his body, and with it, everything that he had to be because of it. Nonetheless, he was able to fix his concentration enough to learn a few basics of the theory behind the art. Granted, he didn’t feel he was any closer to learning how to implement a trait imprint, and wasn’t even sure what that was - but he comforted himself in the knowledge that there would be a seventh-year student at Misty Peaks that he could ask any questions he needed.

  And with every day, his departure to Misty Peaks came closer. Finally, it was one day away. As Miriam knew he would be incapable of doing all the packing in the morning, she insisted that he do most of it the night before. She went so far as to print him off a packing list that included all the listed school supplies as well as a few other necessities such as toiletries and underwear - and even some of the supplies for the cat.

  Early the next morning, Miriam supervised as Simon used a few cat treats to lure Luna into her cat house. Once she was inside, after giving her a few moments of attention, the two of them stepped outside and closed the door - leaving Luna inside. Simon pulled a latch, locking the door. He then got out from his desk drawer a necklace with a tiny key on it and, as he had been shown how to do weeks earlier at the Witch’s Paw just before leaving the Magical Levels beneath Lenox Square, he inserted it into a keyhole just below the latch and turned it ninety degrees to the right. He then sat by and watched as the key and keyhole, over a span of fifteen seconds, moved over the latch and up the outer wall of the cat-house and onto its roof, settling at the center of the roof. Then he watched as over the course of another sixty seconds the cathouse shrunk and shrunk until it was finally nothing more than a metal pendant on the necklace where the key had previously been. Simon picked up the shrunken cathouse as soon as it was no more than a foot tall. As soon as it had shrunk to its final height of no more than an inch, he put the necklace on, tucking the cathouse pendant in under his shirt.

  “And you remember how to open it when you get to school?” asked Miriam.

  “Yes I do, Mammy,” assured Simon.

  After breakfast, the family got into Naphtali’s sedan. This, again, would be a trip for the whole family - but it wasn’t going to be as long a trip as the one that had been made for Simon’s registration and school supplies. Furthermore, even though Simon’s suitcase was large enough on the inside to carry everything except the little that was in his backpack (and could have easily carried that, too, had it needed to) on the outside it was small enough to easily fit in the trunk of the car.

  “So are we going to Simon’s new school?” asked Serena while the family was traveling southeast on South Illinois Avenue.

  “No,” answered Naphtali, his eyes on the road as he drove.

  “But I thought Simon is going to his new school today,” she said.

  “He is,” explained Miriam, “but we’re only taking him part of the way.”

  “Is he supposed to walk the rest of the way?”

  “No,” said Miriam, “but he’s going to travel most of the way with other students who are also going to that school. We are just going to see him off.”

  * * *

  The sky was lightening with dawn by the time the sedan pulled into a parking lot in downtown Knoxville and made its way to a spot on the second level. From there, the family made its way to the elevator and down to Clinch Street. They headed in the direction of the Fort Sanders area just north of the university campus - Simon trailing his suitcase with one hand, holding Naphtali’s hand for safety with the other while Serena held Miriam’s hand. The hand-holding continued until they passed Locust Street and entered a covered walkway on the left side of the street that remained level as the street sloped lower and lower below them. By the time they reached Henley Street, the walkway was high enough above street level that they could safely cross above without having to deal with the traffic of the street itself.

  Shortly after Henley Street, the walkway came to an end, and the family took a flight of stairs to get back down to the street level. But instead of continuing on toward the Fort Sanders neighborhood, they entered the old World’s Fair grounds and headed toward the Sunsphere. At that point, another flight of stairs took them to the base level of this landmark tower.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “We’re looking for the elevator to the fifth-and-a-half floor,” said Miriam. They continued circling the base of the Sunsphere until they found it - a blue elevator door on which printed in large white letters could be read: “To Floor 5 ?”.

  Miriam pressed the button next to the elevator door - and nothing happened. In frustration, she tapped it a few more times - still to no avail. “Is it broken?” she muttered to herself. Then, she thought for a moment.“Simon,” she asked, “can you press this?”

  Simon walked forward, transferred his suitcase from his right hand to his left, and pressed the button. Instantly, it lit up. Immediately, he felt butterflies in his stomach. Going away to Misty Peaks had been all he had been looking forward to for most of the summer - but suddenly, the thought of it was beginning to make him weak at the knees.

  Moments later, the door opened and the family stepped inside. As soon as the doors closed behind them, they could feel the elevator accelerate upwards. Up and up the elevator went. Simon’s adrenaline level seemed to rise along with the elevator, until finally it came to a stop. The doors opened, and they stepped out to find themselves in the middle of a large, circular floor with dark-blue carpeting. Technically, they could only see a portion of the large window that made for the floor’s exterior wall - but as they moved forward, they came closer to being able to see a full half of the circle.

  Directly ahead of them, hanging from the ceiling just in front of the window, was what seemed to be an electronic display screen with several places, times, and other bits of information shown on it. On the fifth line from the top, Simon could read: “USBME 103 - Misty Peaks - G4 - 9:00am”.

  As they stepped forward, the family could see plenty of tables around the place, each with a few chairs pulled up to it. At most of the tables, there were people seated - some of them wearing the same kinds of clothes you’d see people wearing everyday walking down the street, while others were wearing magical robes, and in some cases pointed hats. And near the windows at the room’s perimeter was a row of chairs - just facing outwards. A few of those chairs were occupied as well.

  The family turned to the right. As they moved past the point where the wall opened for the corridor to the elevator, they could see that there were vendor stands of all kinds. One stand sold souvenirs of various kinds. Another sold magazines that Simon wasn’t familiar with. A few of them even sold foods.

  “Ice cream!” cheered Serena, looking at one stand with a sign above it that read “Brigid’s Creamery”.

  “In a little while,” replied Miriam. “We first need to find gate four.”

  It wasn’t long till the family came to an aisle of tile flooring that went from the right between two of the vendor stands in the center island all the way out to a modest clearing of the same tile flooring at the edge of the room. Occasionally, someone would cross that aisle, but nobody lingered there. At the place between the vendors where the aisle met the center island, there was a doorway to a modest corridor with a sign above it labeled “Restrooms”. On the other end of the aisle, past the clearing, there was something on the window that looked like the outline of a somewhat wide door. Above it was a sign that read: “Gate 1”.

  A few feet above the sign was another display board similar to the one that the family had seen upon coming out of the elevator, only this one had only four rows on it. None of these rows mentioned Misty Peaks. Instead, the first one mentioned San Francisco and second New York. The third and fourth rows were blank.

  “That’s gate one,” said Serena, holding her hand out in the direction of the door. “So we have three more gates to go.”

  “Yes, we do,” agreed Miriam.

  Not long after, they reached Gate 2 - which was very similar to Gate 1, except that at the far end of the aisle, instead of the sign on the doorway ceiling reading “Restrooms”, it said “Changing Rooms”.

  “Remember, Simon, that this is where the changing rooms are,” said Miriam, “so that once we find our gate, you can come back here to change into your school uniform.”

  “Okay, Mammy,” replied Simon, obediently.

  Of course, Simon would not have to return to that location, because Gate 3, like Gate 1, once again was across from a doorway labeled “Restrooms” - and the one across from Gate 4 was once again labeled “Changing Rooms”. Miriam herself was quick to point that out.

  “Which bag is your uniform in?” asked Miriam, as the family sat down at a table just by the aisle.

  “My suitcase,” said Simon.

  “Okay,” said Miriam. “Then leave your backpack here and go change.”

  Simon went straight to the corridor of the changing rooms. As he went by, most of them had indicators just above the door-handles displaying red labels that read “Occupied”. Finally, he found one which instead featured a green label that read “Vacant”. He pushed the door and went inside. Once the door closed behind him, he saw a vertical metal dial with the instructions: “Turn clockwise to lock”. He did exactly that, and as soon as he had turned it ninety degrees clockwise, he could see that the instructions now read “Turn counterclockwise to unlock”.

  At the far end of the small room he now found himself in, there was a small bench - and mirrors on either wall to the side. He put his suitcase on the floor and opened it up. Per instructions he had been given when he bought the suitcase, he had packed his uniform in a special compartment inside of the suitcase’s lid, so he didn’t have to get out the full contents of the suitcase. After taking off his everyday clothes, he had no difficulty putting on his black school trousers, his black socks, his black loafers, his white oxford shirt, or even his mostly-black Misty-Peaks robe.

  After putting all of these articles of clothing on, he looked in the window and looked at himself in his robe, with the Misty Peaks school crest displaying proudly on his left breast. He looked at the crest, a shield doubling as a brownish off-yellow four-quadrant window against a lavender sky. On the top-right quadrant, perched on the middle bar, sat a golden owl. Visible in the top-left quadrant was a red fire-breathing dragon. The lower-right quadrant featured a sea-serpent. In front of the center bar, straddling the lower two quadrants was a brown bear. And behind that bear in the top-left quadrant, with its wings extended into both of the upper two quadrants, flew a green pegasus.

  Simon mused for a moment at the surrealism of the crest - especially at how though those animals were no doubt of very different actual sizes, here they were portrayed as being of very similar size to one another. But after a few moments he remembered that he was here in this room to get into his school uniform - and there was just one part of that uniform that he wasn’t wearing yet. He bent back down to his suitcase and got out his necktie. It had all the same colors as the school crest arranged neatly in a repeating pattern of diagonal lines.

  He stood there for a moment trying to figure out how to put it on before he gave up in frustration and threw it on the floor. After sitting on the bench for a few moments to calm down, he got up, closed the suitcase, and picked up the tie. He came out, trailing the suitcase behind him with his left hand and carrying the tie in his right. He was calmer than he had been at the moment he had given up on fastening it, but he was still quite agitated. And it showed, the way the hand with his tie was trembling and the one pulling his suitcase was pulsing.

  “Mammy, I need help with the tie,” he said to Miriam as soon as he reached the his family’s table.

  “One moment, Simon dear,” said Miriam. “Let me finish with Serena one moment.”

  “But I need help now,” he insisted, starting to tremble all over.

  “It’ll have to wait,” replied Miriam, unyieldingly.

  “You need help with your necktie?” he heard someone behind him say.