Karyn took her usual front-row seat in biology class, and it did not take her long to look around the room before she noticed differences in the decor. The poster of the human body went from depicting a man to a woman—a fem, according to the sign. Looks like more words changed, she guessed. The rest of the posters, though, were too far apart to look at closely for additional differences. After a couple of minutes, the teacher, Mrs. Helens, walked into the room. He wore a purple dress with a knee-length skirt, and his hair was longer than Mr. Adams—Karyn’s biology teacher before the wish—would have ever worn it.
“Good morning, class,” the teacher spoke in the same voice that Karyn was used to. “Before we get started, I’m gonna hand back some graded papers of yours, a couple different homework assignments from the last week or so.” As he picked up a stack of papers from the lab counter desk at the front, Karyn noticed his nails were painted too, a traditional white.
When Karyn got her first assignment—a quiz that she’d done earlier in the week—she noticed two details that would not have caught her attention if she wasn’t already playing “spot the differences”. First off, her handwriting was much rougher—almost like a boy’s, she reckoned, and nearly unrecognizable to her. But the other caused her to do a subtle double take. Evidently, on this quiz, she’d written her name as Karin Black, with an I instead of a Y. Even my name changed! She looked around the room, with Mrs. Helens busy handing back his backlog of graded assignments, and wondered which faces would be familiar ones (not that she could tell right now). After all of the assignments had been handed out, he took roll. Karin was first, and after her name was called, she listened out for names that she might recognize.
“Victoria Britney." Nah, not familiar. “Rach Cypress.” Maybe, I recall crossing paths with a Rachel a couple of times, but I don’t know her at all. “Luisa Dominguez.” Don’t know...him.
“Joandra Gildaught.” You mean? She turned back and saw a pretty boyelle, a brunette, say “here” back. The face definitely screamed Jon, and the name sounded close enough for this world. She realized that the last names were close enough and waited until M.
“Sara MacMartha.” Close enough, but... Karin tried to keep her jaw from dropping as she saw the former head cheerleader, who now looked ripped. Is she a bodybuilder or something? She’s gotta play a sport.
“Buffy Meadows.” As Karin was still recovering from the last surprise, she turned her head the other way to see the school’s former big man on campus look much smaller and daintier. Buffy sat next to Joandra, and the two looked like they were good friends. Well, this will be interesting to find out...
“Tara Rochdale.” Karin knew of Alastair Rochdale, who had moved to Lake Point from somewhere in Great Britain a couple of years ago; now he sat next to her. I guess this change even affected him. He’d gone from an unremarkable boy to a blonde boyelle with thick makeup.
