Eventually, Mrs. Pepper returned, looking for her dog. Megan delivered the sad news that he had run away because the door was left open. This gave Mrs. Pepper a negative perception of Megan, but she told a half-truth and said she'd alerted the pound.
Days passed without a sign of Fido-Nick. The young Megan, who Megan had resorted to calling "Nicki," grew restless. Then, a series of very unfortunate events occurred. They found the nude Fido-Nick, but had to commit him to an insane asylum. He also did not have with him any sort of medallion (some assumed he must've buried it in the woods.) This came as a shocking blow to Nicki, who cried that night for the first time since she'd been a little boy. She felt a distinct sense of drowning when the news came that the void between her legs might be permanent.
The next step was to put up fliers asking for the whereabouts of the medallion, featuring a crudely-drawn illustration by Nicki, who both couldn't remember quite how it looked, and was not used to being left-handed, like Megan.
Finally, a plan was concoted that Nicki had to, unfortunately, start living a life of her own, gradually phasing Nick out of existence until they could get the medallion back. She sent an e-mail to Nick's work that "he'd" be giving his 2 weeks notice and completing his work from home. She then e-mailed her parents and told them their son would be going to Europe to "find himself" and that they could reach him via e-mail only. The last step was a tough one - getting Nicki into school was a little difficult, because she had no birth certificate, but the fanagled their way around that. The idea was, Nicki had to be doing something, if Megan was now the only working person in the house. The story was that Megan was looking after her niece, whose parents were... unfit.
It was more than a slight adjustment, and that goes beyond fashion. At first, she was prone to spells of dizziness from being a foot and a half shorter, and nearly a hundred pounds lighter. She also had to adjust her eating habits- she got sick the first time she tried to eat a Big Mac. That was very irritating to her. Alcohol and coffee were out of the question.
Another shocking blow came less than a month into the transformation when she realized, rather late, that 12-year-old girls do menstruate. Nicki tried to punch a hole in the wall the night she found that out.
The saddest day, though, came when it was time to box up Nick's old clothes to make room for Nicki's wardrobe. They couldn't get rid of it, because they'd need it, hopefully, when they could change her back, but for the time being, Nicki needed to dress like a 12-year-old-girl in the seventh grade. Nicki didn't agree and for months, the only thing she wore to school was a baggy sweater-sweatpant combination. She was trying to both hide her body and feel more manly.
Nicki was an outcast at school from the start, because she dressed oddly and was extremely anti-social, hardly saying a word to anyone if necessary. The teachers all said she was getting good grades, but had a bad attitude about doing the work. They also suggested to Megan to get her to dress in a style that "might benifit her, socially."
Eventually, though, it seemed Nicki started to loosen up. She became more active in class, and got into the habit of making sarcastic remarks to her teacher. She made one comment about long division in front of the entire class that made everyone laugh, and from then on, one by one, they started to think she was cool.
Eventually, to Nicki's dismay, spring came, and it was too warm to cover up in those baggy sweatshirts. She also discovered that the breasts whose growth was incipient when she'd first transformed, were now at least a decent B-cup. She monitored the rest of her groth, and smiled with glee with each inch she grew. She drank lots of milk because she hoped - perhaps futilely - that she'd be taller than Megan. She also began to become athletic, which is something Megan was never. Because of the weather, she began wearing t-shirts and sweat pants. Then one day, she wore a pair of tight jans, and looked almost like a real girl.
Some girls from her class, Katie and Sarah, invited her to a sleepover on weekend in April. They decided to give her a makeover, against her will. Nicki was mad at first, but actually thought the result looked decent. They even gave her a top to wear that had spaghetti-straps and exposed her middrift.
One day, she dyed her hair a siryn red, to make it distinct from Megan's. Then one day, she decided "why not get my ears pierced?" Then there became a lot of "why not's." "Why not paint my nails?" "Why not wear perfume?" "Why not wear lipstick from time to time?"
Nicki didn't even notice the first time she spent an hour with Megan shopping for shoes. Sometime between that and the first time she wore a skirt to a school dance, Nicki could hardly remember her life as Nick. That's a figure of speech, mind you - she could remember every last detail about his life, but was no longer sad that it was over.
Megan didn't notice, either. About the time Nicki began becoming very girly, she started dating again. That didn't bother Nicki, either, because she'd come to think of her more as a mom than an ex-girlfriend.
Once she wore a bikini to an end-of-the-year pool party at Katie's, the boys started to notice her, and though she didn't want to, her hormones made her notice the boys. She started getting a lot of boys asking her out, but refused as many as she could. But by the end of the summer, she'd had at least one steady boyfriend that she'd brought home to meet Megan.
"He's cute," she said.
"Yeah, but I don't think he's my type," Nicki replied.
"What's wrong with him?"
"He's not you."
This bizarre reversion to Nick's attitude really bothered Megan. She thought they'd been getting along fine, but apparently that wasn't the case.
"I didn't mean it like that," Nicki said, "I just mean that, boy or girl, you're the only person I've ever loved. I don't feel that way anymore, but I do remember the way I used to feel."
Megan let out an 'awwwww' and gave her 'niece' a hug.
At first, every once in a while, Nicki would send her parents an e-mail from "Nick," saying how great Europe was, and lying her ass off. "I'm staying in Belgium now... the tulips are really something," she'd write, wondering if there really were tulips in Belgium. Then, she just stopped writing her parents, except to respond when they'd say "Jeannie down the street had another baby" or "Old Mr. DiLorenzo had a stroke."
They celebrated Nicki's birthday, privately, on Nick's birthday. Nicki invited some friends over to celebrate Megan's body's birthday. Finally, when the first anniversary passed with a solemn glance through Nick's old photo albums, followed by Nicki retiring to her room and crying herself to sleep.
Oh, she was more than comfortable with her new life, but that day came as a reminder that she once had a life that was ripped from her in the virtual blink of an eye. It's a lot for a grown man in a 13-year-old girl's body to try to handle.
That September was an easier one for Nicki. She was now well accepted in the world of pre-teens (or "tweens," a new term Nicki had never heard before,) although she had trouble fitting in with current trends, her friends loved her because of her love of "weird old things," like Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, Martin Scorcese, Woody Allen movies and Seinfeld. Another year passed and Nicki was almost voted Eighth Grade valedictorian, except she'd been disqualified for being suspended after she was caight with a cigarette behind the school (it had been so long, she was curious.)
The year came and went by so fast, mentally it was difficult for Nicki to be anything but a 13-year-old girl. On her 14th birthday, she got an amazing kiss from Tad Michaels, a boy she really thought was cool. On the second anniversary of her change, instead of a sad affair, she and Megan got an erotic cake, shaped like a topless woman, and stuck a "2" candle on her chest. They had a good laugh that night.
By the time Nicki was in high school, she had actually grown a full inch taller than the original Megan, which she assumed was because of all Nicki's sports (and milk-drinking.) She'd also, ever since the seventh grade, gotten into the rather expensive habit of dying her hair a different colour every few months, in an attempt to carve out a unique identity. They also began to share clothes, which gave her a grown up look that drove the high school boys wild. Girls, particularly her best friend Katie (of whom Megan had grown rather fond,) had started emulating her fashion sense. She even turned a few of them onto classic rock.
Then, one day, something shocking happened. Instead of doing her homework, 16-year-old Nicki was up late on a thursday night, in her underwear surfing EBay for Sonny Chiba DVD's, when it appeared to her, for the low, low price of $9 + Shipping and Handling... she couldn't believe her eyes. It was the Medallion of Zulo. Or so the seller (hunneeB12,) claimed.
Nicki knew what had to be done.
