The cruel part
What followed was nearly unbearable for the girls, a months worth of normal life. They did not see Mrs. Holloway, nor did the stone allow any sort of release from their situation, there was no magic in any part of their lives that they could notice for exactly 34 days. That didn't stop life from continuing, everyday was another challenge of having to be a woman for the girls. Everyday required the make up, the social cues, the expectation, the work of being a high school girl and none of it felt comfortable. What was worse was near the end of that month when it finally did start to feel like something normal, when wearing a skirt wasn't something that Jen felt self concussions of, when curling her hair was something Miranda found she preferred, when it became second nature to ignore or notice a boys glances for Jade, or when Delia found that she had a support group at the ready when she said she "had to use the Ladies room". The month was long, humiliating, humbling, but for those girls they never forgot or tried to let go of who they were, they were all stuck in a world where they were suddenly women, a world none of them wanted. Still after a while they all made the adjustments that they needed to, found new friends, worked out who to trust, which was mostly each other with a few finding friends outside the group. For all of these changes though, most of them kept a sort of tomboyish bent to themselves, not ever feeling comfortable enough to let themselves really go into the feminine world farther than the few steps that were necessary, most finding some sort of happy medium between the feminine grace that was expected of them and the masculinity that they clung to. This was always interrupted by the world of women though in particular when their time of the month came, something they were all surprised to find was extremely uncomfortable.
This was not true for all the girls though, just for the ones that had been boys. For Nadine and Karyn things were more manageable but also strange in their own way. If you had asked any of their friends who had known them before, they would have said it was a minor change, but to the girls how they now felt was miles different from how they did before. For Karyn it was a new found confidence, a pride in her appearance which brought out a new side of her, a braver side, a side that wasn't afraid or intimidated by new things. She tried some new fashions, flirted more than she usually did, which was literally never before, now if a boy came up to her, she would just have fun with it.
Nadine took the change in her with more cation, thinking something evil was at work. This made the first week of the new her unnerving, as she was constantly on the look out for signs of her "going rouge". She knew in her mind she was more beautiful than she was before, and she didn't want to go back to being a little mouse like she was before, but she didn't feel any more beautiful, any more desirable. She kept her normal routine, went to church just as often and found that world wasn't any different than it was before, eventually she calmed down and settled into her new pretty self.
But this was a calm before a storm. Eventually it would have to end...Summer came and then one day Mrs. Holloway came back.
