The bus dropped Stacey and Jana off in front of the main entrance of the highschool. They were roughly a half an hour late, and the outside school yard which was normally bustling with students before and after classes started was literally devoid of any human life.
Stacey looked over at Jack for a moment, while Jack looked back at Stacey. "Shall we?" Stacey said as she motioned forwards with her left arm towards the main doors of the school.
Jack and Stacey walked for what seemed like an eternity, but what in reality was probably only a few seconds, along the sidewalk which ran up to the main doors. As they got closer, Jack noticed the name of the school on the side of a building wall, it read: "Rockyview High School, est. 1972. " Jack also made out four students standing beside the concrete steps leading up to the doors of the school.
Jack was suddenly becoming nervous at the prospect of high school. "I'm scared," he said silently to Stacey as they approached the doors.
"Don't worry Jans, all we have to do is avoid running into Stone and were safe," Stacey added in a near whisper.
Aside from being nervous Jack felt hungry. He felt how empty his stomach felt, but tried to ignore it. What was harder still though was this sensation Jack was suddenly getting. He felt as though he needed something, but he couldn't quite place what it was that he wanted. He had never felt this way before. As Stacey and Jack got closer to the building and the four students standing outside, he realized the four students were smoking and suddenly his sensation of wanting something went through the roof- he realized he needed a smoke. "I need a smoke Stacey," he added quietly.
"Yeah, like there's anytime for that right now," Stacey countered, "We're late enough as it is."
Jack just nodded silently, and agreed with his friend- he could smoke later.
As they began to climb the stairs, Jack noticed the four students standing outside. There were two girls and two guys. They all turned around to see who it was that was walking by. He knew the girls- they were acquaintances. They were dressed in black, head to toe, and it occurred to Jack that they were goths. One girl had shorter black hair and numerous piercings, she acknowledged Jack: "Hey Jana," she spoke aloud. Jack tried hard to remember the name of the girl, but he could not think of it, so he let out a generic greeting: "Hey," he added sounding somewhat unenthusiastic.
At the top of the short bank of stairs Stacey held the door open for Jack, he walked through without a word, and Stacey followed close behind. The hallway they walked into had an office ahead, and the office created a T-intersection, with hallways to the left and right of the office. Jack just froze for a moment hoping something would come back to him at that moment. Nothing was happening, he wasn't remembering a thing. Right or left, he thought to himself?
"You know, if you're just gonna stand here, in front of the main office, Stone is gonna catch up with you sooner or later," Stacey whispered.
The thought of that sent a chill down Jack's spine. He noticed Stacey head left and he began to follow her. He suddenly realized his boots were making a 'clacking' sound as he walked along. He tried to take shorter steps and place most of his weight on the balls of his feet. That produced only a moderate drop in the 'clacking' sound Jack's hooker boots were producing froming coming in contact with the floor.
Stacey looked behind her to see Jana following closely behind. "What are you doing?" she whispered aloud.
Jack realized he was out of character again. He had to think of something quickly... "Uhh, I need to use the ladies' room," Jack whispered.
"You know there's a washroom down in the wing your locker is in?" Stacey added in a whisper as well. Still she turned back around and marched up the hallway with Jack close behind.
As they rounded corner after corner, Jack realized that none of this was really coming back to him. That worried him. How was he going to get around school if he didn't know where he was going. They finally came to a long corridor lined with green colored lockers on each side. The doors along the hallway were all closed, save for a few empty class rooms.
Stacey pointed out the girl's washroom on the left side with her arm. Stacey had her back turned to Jana and walked off to the right side where she found her locker and began to open it. Jack looked at the washroom, but decided to wait a moment before he walked in. He sensed that Stacey and him were about to part company, and he needed to know when he would see Stacey again- right now, Jack felt vulnerable, and he did not want to let Stacey leave his side. He walked back over to Stacey who now had her locker open and was hanging up her coat and emptying the contents of her bag into the locker.
"Psst, Stacey," Jack whispered as he approached her.
A startled looking Stacey turned around. "Look, you're really pushing the envelope here, and the longer you stay out in the hallways, the greater the chance is that Stone will catch you," Stacey whispered almost angrily.
"I know, but I was just wondering when we'll see one another again," Jack whispered.
"Ok, meet me for lunch outside the Cafeteria, we'll go from there," Stacey whispered.
"Sounds like a plan," whispered Jack trying to play it cool, calm, and collected. Of course, he was nervous as hell, and he had no idea where the Cafeteria. Hed decided he would worry about that later.
Stacey grabbed her books, threw them into her pack, she wrapped her purse around one arm and locked her locker door, using her right knee to hold the door shut as closed the lock.
Jack began to walk towards the washroom... he said he had to use it, so he might as well play the part he thought. Stacey whispered a silent "Good Luck!" to Jack and she wlaked past him and dispappeared down the hallway, headed to her first class.
Jack stood outside the washroom door watching Stacey walk off. A part of him wanted to go in and hide in the washroom for the rest of the day, and a part of him figured he should probably try to figure out where his locker was and get to class. He elected to go into the washroom for the moment, and try to see if his purse held any clues as to where he should be right now.
He pushed open the door and thought to himself for a moment that he was boldly going where no MAN had gone before. The thought made him smile a bit, but when he looked down at himself he realized he was hardly a MAN anymore. He swung the second door open, realizing how heavy the door was or maybe it was just that this female body was that much weaker.
He stepped through the open door and stopped almost as soon as he had entered the washroom. He studied the room for a moment. Three sinks with a long mirror stretching over the entire wall, lined the right side. Along the left there were four stalls.
A girl who was likely a sophomore exited the furthest stall and it kind of startled Jack for a moment who had been thinking that he was alone in the washroom. She proceeded to was her hands and Jack just stood there and watched her. She was short, her hair was light brown, relatively long and it wasn't styled in anyway shape or form. It wasn't greasy or unkempt, it just hung down freely around her ears and shoulders. She had no make-up on, and aside from a slight adjustment of her hair, she spent very little time in front of the mirror. She hit the button to activate the blow dryer off to his left and Jack just watched. He did not know who she was, nor did he know if he should know who she was, but judging by her 'mousy' appearance Jack thought, it likely wasn't important who she was. For some reason, while she stood there drying her hands, Jack felt somewhat superior to this girl- "I'm way more attractive than she is" he thought to himself, and that seemed to make him happy.
The young girl quietly exited the washroom, and Jack stood there for a moment realizing he needed to snap out of his trance. He walked up to one of the sinks, and threw his purse on the counter around the sink. For a moment, it crossed his mind that he should dump the contents of his purse out on the counter and that it would be easier to find his planner that way. Still, he decided against it and instead chose to dig through the purse to find the illusive mini-day planner he had.
It took a few moments, but but he found it. He pulled it out and began thumbing through the pages. Suddenly, it had occurred to him- he did not know what the date was. He checked his dainty wrists for a watch, but no such luck. "Dammit it!" he muttered to himself. In all the confusion and morning rush, Jack had forgot to ask what the date was from Stacey. Still, he remembered it was Friday, and hopefully, based upon that he could find a class schedule for a 'typical' Friday he thought to himself. He flipped through the pages of the planner with little success. He found all sorts of phone numbers and guys' names attached scrawled into the date boxes of various days, along with some stars on some Fridays of various months- "paydays," he thought to himself. Then there was the fact that three of the days out of many of the months were circled. They seemed to have a certain regularity from month to month. He stopped and wondered what they could be. "Exams?" he muttered silently to himself, but that didn't make any sense, after all, what kind of school had that many exams in the course of a year? Besides, it was becoming apparent to Jack that his new identity, Jana, did not care much for her studies- "why would a girl like that mark exam dates?" he thought to himself. He thought some more, but he didn't know what it could be. He thumbed through some more months, and saw the same pattern of three days circled from month to month. Finally, in small writing below the first of three days circled in September were the letters "PMS." "Shit!" he cursed aloud. He had forgotten about that. He was a girl now, and he would have to contend with that every month. Jack felt like kicking himself at that moment for choosing to come back as a girl, but that wasn't the pressing issue at the moment. "What day is it?" he questioned himself silently. He noticed that his planner wasn't all that informative... no class schedule was penciled in anywhere, even his work shifts didn't appear to be written down, and there was no way of gauging what day today could have been since days already passed weren't crossed off. Jack flipped to the last few pages of the planner hoping to find some general info about his new self. He hoped that maybe somewhere, there was a combo written down or a locker number even. No luck. Still, there was a list of more guys' names and phone numbers. The list looked alphabetized. There were also doodles of hearts along side a few names, and "X's" beside others. Again, it made no sense to Jack at the moment, but all the male names in his planner suggested that he was quite a promiscous girl. Suddenly, his choice in the libido category during the after life made himself frown.
"Well that was a waste of time," Jack said aloud.
He put the planner back into his purse, and was about to zip it up when he looked up into the mirror and realized that his lipstick needed some refreshing. He grabbed the tube and expertly applied a new coat to his lower lip while dabbing a little bit on the upper lip. He rubbed his lips together and felt more confident already. He dropped the lipstick back into his purse and took one final look in the mirror, up close, before closing it up. He pulled his head back and looked at himself- he was wearing too much make-up he thought to himself for a moment. However, another part of him wanted to apply more rouge, and eye shadow. He decided it was enough for now and closed up his purse. He slung the denim bag over his left shoulder and headed for the door.
He pulled the first door open and stepped through. Before he opened the second door to re-enter the high school world, he paused for a moment, he took a deep breath while inspecting himself one last time. His breasts lifted a little as he inhaled and dropped as he exhaled again. The motion caught him off guard, and so he made a few more attempts at deep breathing watching his new rack rise and fall. He smiled at the results, composed himself one last time and opened the door.
