"This can't be permanent!" Sarah wailed. "It just can't!" She slapped the tip of her tail against the floor, which Jon guessed was an attempt to stomp one foot. "I have a life! I can't spend the rest of it looking like this!"
The nurse sighed. "Sarah," she said, "I understand that this is frustrating for you, but getting angry about it isn't going to change your situation. Eventually, you're just going to have to accept this and learn to live with it. Many other people have, and I'm sure you'll find that you can, too, once you set your mind to it."
Sarah maintained the power-glare she'd been displaying, but said nothing more. The nurse gave the paperwork a once-over, then wrote "permanent" in both of the duration boxes. She looked up at the two naga-girls. "I'm afraid I'm no herpetologist," she said, "but I can tell that you're a milk snake, Sarah. Non-venomous, so you don't need to worry about that. I'm afraid I really don't know about you, though, Jon. I'll try and find out for you; right now, I can't even tell you if you're oviparous or not."
"Oviparous?" Jon tried to remember what that meant; the root word there was "ova," which meant... She blanched.
"Well," the nurse said, "nagas are known to follow either the oviparous or ovoviviparous reproductive cycles, like real snakes. The milk snake, like Sarah is, is oviparous, which means that their eggs, once fertilized develop outside the body. Other varieties, like garter snakes or rattlesnakes, are ovoviviparous, which means that the fertilized eggs develop inside the body, resulting in a live birth. But I don't really know what kind of snake you are, so I can't tell you which applies to you, yet. I'll try to find out as soon as possible."
"Wait," Sarah said. "You mean I'm going to...? Oh fuck no."
The nurse nodded. "It's all right, dear," she said. "I know it sounds strange to think about, but your new body is built to handle it. It's supposed to be no more unpleasant than the human equivalent, and it's over more quickly."
Sarah began to freak out again, and Jon started to edge her way towards the door as best as she could with a tail. The nurse grabbed a couple pamphlets from the rack of them and handed them to Jon as she left, then returned to trying to calm Sarah down.
Once she was out in the hall, Jon took a look at the brochures. One was the naga edition of "Caring For Your New Body," and the other was an "Adjusting To A Sex Change" booklet. Well, that was thoughtful of the nurse, but it wasn't going to be relevant much longer. Jon turned and made her way down the hall.
By now, the hall was pretty much empty, and with nobody to block her path, Jon was able to move around much more freely. And once she got in the groove of serpentine locomotion, so to speak, she found that she could actually move at a pretty good clip. Before long, Jon was at her locker. She reached for her padlock key...
...but it wasn't there. She must have forgotten it in the chaos this morning! Jon smacked herself in the forehead and groaned loudly. Well, she couldn't get to it now. Nor could she make it home and back during lunch, even with her newfound speed. No, she'd have to stick it out for the rest of the school day, go home, get the key, and try to get her parents to give her a ride back before school closed. Gah. Well, at the very least, she'd kep an eye out today, in case it wasn't in her locker.
