One interesting thing about being in a state of emotional distress is how well you sleep afterwards. Jason took a while to finally drift off, but slept more soundly than he had in months. He rolled out of bed early Sunday morning feeling refreshed and energetic, ready for anything.
This only lasted until he went to go to the bathroom and realized what had happened to him, but this time he actually remembered midway down the hall instead of having to re-discover the changes, so the shock was somewhat diminished. By the time he had finished his business and gotten to the kitchen, he was almost back in a functionally civil mood.
"Good morning, dear," Rachel greeted her son. "How are you feeling?"
"You don't wanna know," Jason groaned.
His mother frowned. "I know what you mean by that," she said, "but for the record, if anything is wrong or something feels bad, I do want to know. Alright?"
Jason sighed and nodded. "All right. But nothing's wrong that we didn't already know was wrong."
"That's good," she replied. "We'll go over to the Connelys' for lunch and see what they can tell us about this, then we'll figure out what to do from there. In the meantime, just try not to think it too much, okay?"
Jason nodded. She didn't need to tell him twice.
Becky awoke to the sound and smell of frying eggs and brewing coffee. She sat up, then stood up, wondering why her clothing felt odd. Then she remembered that she was wearing a nightgown on loan from Ellen, one of the "more typically girly" things they'd had her do after finding out that she was planning to sleep in her underwear. That hadn't been bad; if nothing else, she had to admit that it was comfortable. But the makeup they'd put on her had been a bit unnerving; fortunately, her hair had been too short for them to do anything with.
Still, she had stayed the course; they were pretty good about not making her too uncomfortable, and she was going to have to learn to live with people treating her as a girl. Besides, the makeup would come right off as soon as she got home; getting used to these things didn't mean she had to adopt them as part of her lifestyle. She walked over towards the kitchen in search of breakfast.
Mrs. Carlisle looked up from the stove and smiled. "Good morning, Becky!" she said. "My, don't you look nice!"
Becky wasn't quite sure what to say to that. "Um, thanks?"
Mrs. Carlisle frowned. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't think about-"
"It-it's all right," Becky said. "I'm just still getting used to this, that's all." She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down, then picked up a spoon and began to play with it, turning it this way and that to distort the reflections. She stopped when she caught a good view of herself, gasping as she realized that Ellen's mom was right. Outside of her attempts to look and act like a boy, with a little makeup and more feminine clothing, she was...she was pretty.
