I stared at my smaller, yet girlier hands, torn between what to do. Shopping with the new Marie and Linda would bore me out of my mind, certainly make me even more girlish, and do who knows what to my mind. Ballet would be a hammer blow to my ego, make me feel like I'm surrendering to being Anna, or more likely Annie. True, it came with the welcome side effect of annoying my brother turned female cousin, which would be a good thing, especially if I retained my lack of grace, flexibility and general unathletic ability. Of course, I'd be stuck with other little girls... Arrgh. I didn't want that. To be molded into one myself... "Aunt Linda" I said nervously.
"We're here" Linda announced, to my confusion. I looked around and saw a barely recognizable building which i knew was the ballet studio. I cursed myself for my indecisiveness as Marie opened my door and stared at me. I could tell she was looking for an excuse not to get me out of the car. I didn't want her to trigger any more changes in me, so i unclipped myself from the booster.
"She's fine" Marie said, sourly. We knew she did not want to be responsible for me and was looking for some excuse to get out of it.
"Sure about that?" Linda asked.
"Yes, mom" Marie sulked.
"Okay. I'll be back in a hour. Have fun you two. And Marie, remember you used to love this when you was Anna's age..."
Marie gave a slight anguished moan as she was left with me. The image of her prancing around in pink almost cheered me up. Almost. Marie's reaction did.
"Listen squirt. I can't believe mom left me to watch over you. I wanted to go shopping but noooo you have to got and do your stupid dance."
"Why didn't you say i looked dazed or something. You easily faked it" I demanded.
"I didn't want to get into trouble because of you, you little brat. Mom would had checked. What you're going to do is get in there and actually be good at it for once"
"Or what? Go and dress me like some stupid boy" I said, unaware I had planted my hands on my hips like any other annoyed little girl, or that I had poked my tongue out at her. I was aware of my intent. To bait her to making me feel normal.
"Don't tempt me, Annie" Marie growled, motioning for me to walk inside. To my surprise, the class had lots of girls there, ranging from eight to twelve, though skewed more towards my new age. All of them were warming up. I figured I should mimic them, but Marie stopped me. "Forgetting something, you little ditz?"
"What?" I demanded as Marie produced a pair of ballet slippers Reluctantly, I put them on, and stared at my reflection. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. A cute, petite blonde girl was staring right back at me, dressed for her first ballet class. I felt sick; I didn't know the first thing about ballet....
It turned out I was good. Very good. I felt torn between disgust, fear of it triggering further changes, pride that i was actually good at some kind of physical activity, and even more disgust that the one thing was ballet. I looked towards Marie, who looked bored staring into her phone. Another part pf me wanted to 'volunteer' her to show some moves, and to see what her new older, girlish body looked like in a leotard. After all she must had do it it herself in this new reality, and this new Marie seemed proud of her new girlish figure, but I knew not to press my luck. Eventually the hour was up and Linda arrived to collect us, holding some bag containing an outfit for me to wear.
