Mikey huffed angrily at nobody in particular. This sucked. It was bad enough to have suddenly become a bird-thing and a girl, but now she had been deprived of what was left of her hands, as well. And while the school nurse's claim that her talons would work just as well was true enough, in a sense, it was kind of like saying that a left-handed person could do things just as well as a right-handed person; you had to rearrange things to make it work. But this was even more so; a left-handed person would just have some reflex and coordination problems if things weren't flipped horizontally, but Mikey couldn't use her talons for anything besides walking unless she was sitting down.
And though they were just as manipulable and nearly as dextrous as her hands had been, there were only three toes on each, plus a rear toe that wasn't quite as useful as her thumbs had been. And it was difficult to avoid having her legs get in the way of seeing what she was doing unless the she was sitting level with or above the work surface, which was only true of the loveseat and coffee table in the living room, where she was now.
She sighed and stared down at the book she had open. This did technically work, but it was profoundly inconvenient. But she'd better get used to that, because this was her life now, an ex-boy trying to learn to live as a harpy-girl, with not much to look forward to besides starting to lay eggs and going through puberty as the wrong sex. (At least Jon had had all her development occur during the change.) Mikey reached down with one talon and carefully flipped to the next page of the book, spent a minute or two trying to reposition the strap of the training bra her mom was making her wear so it wasn't digging into her shoulder, then continued reading.
Jon, meanwhile, had gotten most of her saleable stuff up for auction. Some of it had had too much sentimental value, and some of it, like her clothing, hadn't been worth selling and would go to Goodwill, but she'd gotten everything else taken care of; the micro-sized keyboard and mouse she'd borrowed from the school IT guy had made things far easier for her, although she still needed to get a much smaller monitor. She played a little Quake II, then put on a record and sat back to think about things.
There was a lot to think about. Obviously, there were all the problems of her transformation and Mikey's, but there was also that offer of "help" from the bunny-girl she'd met at school; what kind of help was it? Jon knew she'd have to adjust to life as a girl, but she didn't want any help that focused on getting her to act feminine; she was still Jon inside, and there was no reason for that to change.
And then there was Sarah; Jon was still more worried about him than she would've expected. She didn't like Sarah, not by a long shot, but she found that she pitied him, for having a life so shallow and easily-destroyed. And she certainly didn't want him dead; her worries about Sarah killing himself were probably unfounded, but with his social position in the school all but destroyed, who knew? Jon would be watching him carefully, just to make sure.
And, Karyn's ribbing aside, pixie-boy Sarah was fairly attractive, now that she thought about it. He was nobody's Adonis, and his sloppy haircut wasn't doing him any favors (though it was probably the result of a hurried early-morning attempt to make himself look more different and avoid suspicion,) but he wasn't a bad-looking guy by any means.
In a purely objective sense, Jon assured herself.
Sarah sat on his bed, fighting back tears. He had spent so many years as the one who did the snubbing that he'd forgotten how much it hurt to be on the receiving end. When he'd found out it was permanent that morning, he had hoped to quietly drop off the radar with noone the wiser as to where Sarah McMillan had disappeared to, but it hadn't worked out that way. First Jon Madison had caught him at his locker, then later, in P.E., the instructor had addressed him by name, in front of everyone else. With his cover completely blown, the news had spread over most of the school by the time he left, with the accompanying mockery and derision.
And now Sarah was left to face his new life alone. Sure, his mom was there for him, but she couldn't get him back into the top spot at school, and probably wouldn't if she could. And there was nobody there for him at school; the "cool" kids, who'd clung to her in her glory days, wouldn't have anything to do with him now, and everybody else almost assuredly hated his guts. He was alone.
In a way, it was something of a relief that he wouldn't have to invest all that time and energy into maintaining the popular-girl image she had kept so flawlessly all throughout high school, but for now all Sarah could think about was just how far he had fallen, and just how alone he was.
