"...going to figure this out. You and me, man."
Meagan blinked. The last thing she could remember, she'd been in the school library, working on her Spanish homework. And then... then there had been a flash, and...
"You know, Madison, I never used to think all that much of you. You were a weenie. I never knew what that Karyn chick saw in you. I mean, a girl with tits like that, hanging out with a loser like you? It, like, violates the laws of physics."
Meagan turned slowly toward the source of the voice. She still felt a little dazed... okay, more than a little... but she managed to focus in on the person speaking. It was a girl, pretty young... maybe fifteen? She was dressed up like a total goth... black hair, black dress, black boots, the whole bit. (Her hair was kind of cute, though; it was pulled back in pigtails. Maybe she should try wearing her hair like that some... Focus, Meg. Focus.)
Goth Girl was prattling on, pacing back and forth across the small room she and Meagan were in. No, pacing wasn't quite the right word... Goth Girl was swaggering, like a guy, and like a guy twice this girl's size no less. And the girl seemed to be straining to force her voice into as deep a pitch as she could get it, which was not very deep at all. There was something weirdly butch about this girl, despite the dress and heels. Something that didn't quite fit, didn't make sense.
"...telling you, Madison, together you and me are gonna figure this out. We're gonna..."
"My name's not Madison," Meagan said a little groggily. "It's Meagan."
The girl seemed to notice Meagan for the first time. Turning to Meg, she said, "Huh? What are you talking about, Madison?"
"Look," Meagan said, "I don't know who this Madison girl you're talking about is, but I'm not her. I'm Meg. I..." She looked around the room again and said, quietly. "I'm Meg, and I don't know where I am."
The girl frowned at Meagan, like she wasn't quite understanding what Meagan was talking about and was trying very hard to process it. Meagan, meanwhile, closed her eyes and tried to dredge up her muddled memories. She'd been in the library, then the light, then... then poof. Suddenly she's in a bedroom that she's never seen before and a crazy person is talking to her. Nothing in between. It didn't make sense. Had she blacked out somehow? Had she been drugged? Was it some kind of freaky amnesia? Meg's pulse began to pick up. This wasn't good. This was really not good. The last thing she needed now was one of her panic attacks."
Snap. Snap. Meagan's eyes burst open, and she saw Goth Girl snapping her fingers in front of her face. "Jon, man," the girl said, "you still with me?"
"Stop," Meagan said, trying to keep her breathing steady. "Just stop."
Goth Girl bristled. "Listen, Madison, you don't get to talk to me like that. Just 'cause you helped me out doesn't mean we're..."
"Shut up," Meagan said, holding out a hand. "Please shut up." And, to her relief, that actually shut the other girl up.
Meagan ran a hand through her hair, then got slowly to her feet. "I need to think for a minute. I need..."
It was at that moment that Meagan first noticed the clothes she was wearing. Before the flash she had been wearing... what had she been wearing? It took her a second, but she was able to recall her exact outfit: she had been wearing a cute pink cami and her favorite skirt. But now... now she was wearing baggy jeans and a loose-fitting shirt with some kind of mushroom and the words--it took her a minute to make it out, since she was looking at it upside down--"1 up" printed on it. She'd seen a few guys--mostly kind of geeky guys--wearing shirts just like this on campus. Frowning, she realized that this whole outfit looked like something a boy might wear... an idea reinforced by the fact that she didn't seem to be wearing a bra, and rather than panties it felt like she was wearing boxer shorts. Her pulse sped up a few beats, and the air in the room was suddenly beginning to seem a little thin.
She just hoped none of her friends had seen her dressed this way...
At that moment, however, Meagan saw the crowning detail. In one of the corners of the room, she saw an ornate, full-length mirror, and reflected in it... struggling now to keep her breathing level, she pushed past Goth Girl and approached the mirror. In the mirror... she couldn't believe it, but in the mirror she saw...
And at last, every bit of her composure snapped. She burst out crying, and in the mirror she saw tears running fast down the face of the tall, skinny, frantic, red-faced boy who was standing where her reflection should have been, the one who was wearing the same clothing she was.
"Madison," Goth Girl said, "you're not a queer, are you?"
At that Meagan started crying even harder.
The last few months, this last year... everything had been going so WELL for her. She'd gotten into Delta Zeta Phi, she'd joined the volleyball team, she'd met some really cool new friends, she'd even started dating a new guy. Freshman year had been so hard for her after Brad had told her he wanted to start dating other girls, but after that incident with the beer and her brother's car she'd been just fine... and whatever those cows who she used to call her friends had said, Meagan wasn't crazy, she really wasn't. She'd just been depressed. But now...
Squinting into the bloodshot, tear-stained eyes of what looked every bit to her like the reflection of a teenage boy, what other choice did Meagan have but to accept that she was insane?
"Look, Madison," Goth Girl said, her voice taking on a note of gentleness for the first time, "This has been a crazy morning for both of us. Let's just sit down and--"
Meagan ran to the door and swung it over, pushing Goth Girl--who she was surprised to find was surprisingly sturdy, despite the three or four inches Meg had on her--out of the way as she went. She had to get some air. She tried to remember how she was supposed to deal with her panic attacks, but she couldn't remember a word now of what Dr. Erickson had told her.
Rushing through the hallway of this unfamiliar house, she tried to find a door that looked like it led outside. Rounding a corner at a jog, though, she found herself almost tripping over a pre-teen boy. She managed to keep her own balance, but the boy tumbled roughly to the ground. "Sorry," she muttered through her tears.
And then at last she was forced to stop as the whole world seemed to shake and sway around her and a big whoosh of elecricity seemed to swarm over her. For a second she thought she was going to faint, but she managed to steady herself against the wall and resume running.
...Mikey, however, was quite shocked when, after a blinding explosion of light like something out of a cartoon, he found himself not in the hallway of his house but somewhere else entirely...
