Jonatha checked his binder again and learned his next class, as it had been before, was English. English is probably considered a boy’s class now, he realized. He filed into the classroom pretty early, which allowed him to get a sense of who else he might know in this period. Behind him, Keitha and Brandi, the two cheerleaders he didn’t know, sat in the same row. He thought he saw Sarrah — odd, why was he pronouncing it that way in his head? — dart in. Whew, nothing out of the ordinary, he thought, but just before the bell and before the teacher, Mstr. Salem, walked in, Nicole showed up and took the seat directly to Jonatha’s right. Uh oh.
“Welcome to class, everybody,” Mstr. Salem began. He was, to put it mildly, a well proportioned teacher, the type many girls might find hot, who wore a red dress that only accentuated his assets. “Today we’re going to go over the sonnets you wrote for homework, so pull those out.” Jonatha rummaged through his backpack for his homework assignment and through his purse for a pen.
“Before you turn in your sonnets, we’re going to read them in pairs to each other so that you can try reading them for rhythm.” Jonatha, hoping to avoid a pairing with Nicole, turned behind him, but Keitha and Brandi had already begun talking, and so too had the girl in the row on the opposite side. He had no choice.
With something of a gulp, he finally looked at the paper he held in his hand. It was a sonnet, alright. It was an ode to cheerleading. “Can I go first?” Jonatha said to Nicole.
“Sure, go ahead.” She smiled as Jonatha read off the paper. It was actually a decent sonnet, but even Jonatha was finding it weird because it was about something that pre-wish Jon had literally never done. “What did you think?”
“Well, I guess it’s certainly you now,” she replied, sort of covering and also understanding a bit more of who this boy was now. “Want me to read mine?”
“Yeah, go ahead.”
“Alright… Here goes. She cleared her throat, somewhat nervously, and read from her paper.
“Jonatha’s a cheerleader, cute and bright;
His smile is sweet, just like a summer day.
For you he yells from the edge of the fight,
He knows when a team win is on its way.
His flips into the air are all so clean,
And when he shouts with that beautiful voice,
It comes in clear above the game and scene
Reminding of the support from the boys.
‘Tis for the Panthers that he cheers and yells;
In sparkling dress of pink and navy blue;
Ensuring that we all do very well,
Leading us on to victory, proud and true.
Jonatha, you’re the cutest boy I know;
Cheerleader boy, I do adore you so.”
When Nicole looked up from reading, Jonatha was positively blushing. He had no idea Nicole had written something like this! Granted, it wasn’t the greatest of sonnets, but…
“Alright, time to hand them in,” Mstr. Salem chimed in. With that, Jonatha was able to finally break away from the awkward exchange with Nicole. He picked up the papers that were being passed up from the back and learned that the names of the cheerleaders behind him were Keitha Jones and Brandi Brittain. He couldn’t recall Brandi’s last name having been at this school. Did this wish...create some people? And erase others?
With the homework all turned in, class launched into its normal routine, a quick vocabulary review followed by a literature discussion. It was pretty boring, and given that whatever they had read certainly had changed, neither Jonatha nor Nicole could talk much. While he listened, Jonatha looked again at his class schedule. He had two more classes left, history and an art class. I never would have taken that, but… In fact, three of his classes had changed. The morning gym class had become cheerleading-specific; science was replaced by home economics, as he already had learned the hard way; and now, the art class instead of Web design. His binder also had a schedule of basketball games, which only served to remind him of tonight’s game and attendant cheerleading performance, and pages of notes, which at some point would allow him to play catch-up and at least sound like he knew what he was talking about in this class.
The boys bathroom, on the other hand, was the site of something a bit more frantic.
During his science class, Jade noticed a very awkward feeling and rushed, almost into the wrong restroom. He went to go and noticed something odd as he did...red. Blood.
A note from the health class came back in his head.
Men are a lot more complicated. For one thing, they experience menstruation periods. These occur every three weeks and involve emotional mood swings, blood in the urine stream, and sometimes general embarrassment.
He realized that around his crotch area was something else, red and stained. It finally occurred to him what it was. A tampon, or whatever those looked like in this world.
Jade had at least, in all this, thought to bring his purse. He rummaged through it and found a package of tampons. After a moment of staring at it, he applied it as if it were second nature. How did I do that?
Relieved in more ways than one, he dashed out, purse in hand, and returned to class. Another new experience. I’m boldly going where no man, or at least this man, has ever gone before, I guess.
