As they walked toward the front door, Zoe pulled out the key as if she’d been doing it for years and let the gang inside. Jonatha set his backpack and purse down near the door. “I’m gonna get dinner ready. Who wants some sandwiches?” Zoe called out.
“Sounds fine!” Jade yelled back as Zoe began to get out bread, lunch meat, cheese and condiments. After everyone made their own sandwich, they sat down to dinner.
“So how was your day, Zoe?” Jonatha mustered out, curious to see what his sister was actually like now.
“Well, we had an FBLA meeting, and that was about the most exciting thing that happened, really,” she added. This Zoe was definitely more of a straight-arrow than the one Jonatha knew. Future Business Leaders of America? Was not expecting that. “And you?”
“My day was...considerably more eventful,” Jonatha giggled. If only I could really tell her... “I had to do a presentation in health class, we had a group discussion in social studies that got heated, and it was free sketch day in art. And there’s still a big game tonight. I can’t say I’ve had this crazy of a day in a long time!” Or, more accurately, in my lifetime.
“It was my time of the month, so I had to deal with that, and my stupid math teacher keeps thinking I’m an airhead boy. Plus I keep getting stares and wolf-whistles from girls. Or in other words, it was the usual Jade Experience.” Jonatha nodded in understanding as he took another bite of his sandwich.
Mikelle, probably having not heard much about what his puberty experience would be like, asked about as innocently as was possible for a fourth-grader, “What does ‘time of the month’ mean?”
If not for that health presentation, Jonatha might have been caught off guard, but he didn’t know what he could bring up around Zoe. “...You’ll know soon, Mikelle. Best not to talk about it at dinner.”
Jonatha entered his room, his things in hand, and paused. He’d expected it to be different, but the reality of all of these things kept hitting him. He thought about the fact that Jade had called his day the usual Jade Experience...despite the fact he had no memory of it before today.
And the fact he’d giggled...something that would have surprised him before. And his room. Video games...gone. Books...different. He had a much bigger mirror, makeup, clothes...apparently his new identity wasn’t the neatest person in the world so that was the same, but…
The edges of the mirror were filled with photos. Him and Jade, some of their other friends, the cheerleading squad. He kept noticing how popular new him was. Old him had been perfectly content with a much smaller circle of friends.
“This is me now, isn’t it…” He kept looking around. A corner bookshelf, the only one he had now, served primarily to hold a variety of cheerleading trophies. A few pom-poms hung on the wall.
Jonatha decided he couldn’t see this alone. He went downstairs and saw Jade scrolling through his phone, almost certainly going through the same process of putting together the pieces.
“Mind coming up to my room? I could use some help...processing all this.” Jade followed him back up the steps and to his room, which he’d actually never seen prior to the wish.
“Wow…” Jade, seeing Jonatha’s room as a proxy for his own, realized that not only was this Jonatha...this was his life, too. Everything in it seemed to revolve around that cheerleading uniform, whether it was practices, games, meets, friends or photos.
Jonatha looked up at the clock. “Oh my. It’s 4:00 and we need to be back at school by 5:45. And I have no idea how we’re going to change into those uniforms.”
“At least we have something...that we’re wearing. But I have a feeling this could take a while. You know how it is. Girls...boys now, I guess… They take forever.”
Jonatha nodded in resignation. “At least we have each other. What’s the first step?”
“Well, this top is just a little too small for me, so wearing my uniform might be better.” He took it off to reveal a light pink lace bra. Jonatha followed suit, seeing a similar one in white. “I had a sports bra in my locker, so I’m assuming we have to change out of these.” After a minute of somewhat frustrated unhooking, trying to figure out how to get it off, Jonatha was first. He then took off his skirt and stood there in front of the mirror.
It struck him in that moment just how...delicate he was. Shorter, delicate, and...cute, he thought. He noticed the clear polish on his nails, his breasts hanging down and dominating his upper body figure, the width of his waists. Yet there was still something in between his legs. For this world, it wasn’t strange, but he still couldn’t get used to it.
Jade was looking down a lot, but as he stepped up, also having changed out of almost everything, he caught a glimpse.
“I… I can’t look…” he mumbled, flush with embarrassment.
“Why not? You’re the most beautiful boy in Lake Point, Jade.” Jonatha felt in that moment like he’d been giving brotherly advice to Jade for years. In fact, in this world, he probably had. As Jade hesitantly put on his sports bra, Jonatha did the same, and then both slowly slipped into their cheerleading uniforms, helping each other zip them up in the back.
“Well, that part’s done. Now to figure out how in the world to do my makeup,” Jade sighed. Fifteen minutes later, however, he had managed to do it as if he had been doing it daily for years; in fact, so had Jonatha.
“You know, sometimes these things today have come easy even though we’ve never done them. I wonder why?” Jade thought.
“I don’t have an answer, and I once had the stone that started all of this,” Jonatha sighed.
Back at the mirror, after getting ready, Jade and Jonatha stood there, looking at themselves in uniform for the first time. It was a beautiful ensemble, one Jonatha imagined as a piece of his soul. Wait...did I think that?
His reverie was broken by Zoe yelling from the other side of the door. “We gotta get going soon! You boys take forever!” With a sigh, Jonatha and Jade grabbed their purses and walked out to the car, where Zoe—and Mikelle, because she couldn’t leave him unattended—were waiting.
They’d said this game was big, but for Jade and Jonatha, it was beyond big. It was intimidating.
