Mikey made her way out of the attic, leaving the trap door open enough to where she could easily get back in later; it had been awfully difficult getting it open, and while she knew she could do it again, she'd rather not have to. Sighing, she flitted downstairs, towards her mother's voice.
Her mom was in the living room, calling for her. "I'm right here, Mom," she said. Mrs. Madison whirled towards her daughter's voice and let out a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank God," she said. "Don't you ever disappear like that again, young lady!"
"I'm not a lady!" Mikey snapped. "I don't care what anybody says!"
Her mother sighed. "I know it's difficult to accept, dear. And I guess I don't blame you for what happened at school; Jon told me about that. But the simple fact is, you're a girl now, and there's no way to change that. I'm sorry about the doll clothes; they were all I had to work with, and I won't make you wear girls' clothing if you don't want to. But I can't let you wallow in denial about your change; that's not healthy behavior by any measure."
Mikey groaned. She knew that if she talked about her and Jon's plans, her mom would think she was coming unglued from the stress, but she wasn't about to give in and pretend that she was okay with being a girl. "I'm not 'young lady!'" she insisted. "And I'm not wearing a skirt ever again!"
Her mom nodded. "I'm not going to ask you to," she said. "I'm sorry about what happened with your classmates, but those clothes were the only thing available this morning. I'll get some less girly clothing for you this afternoon, but I'm not letting you go around naked."
Mikey sighed. "Fine," she said, flitting over towards the front door. She let herself out the mail slot and went over to Jon's pool. Jon surfaced when she saw Mikey hovering above the water. "Hey," she said. "Find anything?"
Mikey nodded. "Yeah. Grandpa had this huge notebook with information on a whole bunch of weird artifacts; it's in the attic, but I didn't get to read much before Mom called me. I'll go back up there when she goes out and see what I can find out."
"Good," Jon said, sighing in exasperation. "I just hope we can find a way to change back soon; this pool is the most mind-numbingly boring place I've ever been in. Cripes, and Karyn's not even getting off school for another three hours!"
Mikey shrugged. "Well," she said, "I guess we can hang out together, until Mom leaves."
Jon smiled, a little. "Yeah, I guess we can," she said. "Anything you want to talk about?"
