"Practice," Chris said simply. "Remember. That teacher mentioned something about practices. And you know, after we're done helping the kids with homework, some of them go to volleyball and basketball and stuff."
"Volleyball and basketball? In this body?" Sure, that would have been great if I were still in my adult body, but now... I looked down at my now-stubby limbs. I certainly wasn't more than five feet tall, and my legs barely touched the floor when I leaned forward to write out my homework. Never mind the rest of my body. All the fat that used to be nicely distributed around my hips and now-absent breasts seemed to have settled in my midsection, a situation I vaguely remembered from just about a decade ago. I looked almost chubby.
Chris only shrugged at me, but sure enough, an announcement came that moment from the other side of the cafeteria.
"Girls basketball, this way!" It was a tall woman -- or was she even that tall? Just taller than me, I realized -- with a clipboard and a whistle. She scanned the crowd of students, many of whom were packing up their homework. A cluster of middle-school girls -- girls my age -- were bustling toward her, forming into a haphazard line.
"Do you think that's me?" I whispered urgently to Chris. "God, I hope not. Can't I just go home, or something? Or even just stay here..."
But I fell silent when I saw the woman with the clipboard staring right at me.
"Sarah!" she shouted, and started motioning for me to come over, too.
"Oh shit," I breathed.
"Well..." was all Chris could muster.
"Fat lot of help you are," I said. I angrily shoved my books into my little monogrammed backpack, hefted it onto my tiny shoulders, and turned summarily away from his pockmarked, gaping little face. The backpack practically propelled me forward, once I got going with it. My little Mary Jane shoes click-clacked across the linoleum floor in the direction of the large gaggle of girls. I realized suddenly that I certainly wasn't among the taller in the bunch. I might -- I realized despairingly -- actually be on the shorter side. Certainly the group in front of me, all of whom were whispering together and looking furtively about, were at least a head taller than I was. Only an hour ago I would have towered over them.
One, a blonde with a little scrunchie holding her hair up in a high ponytail, looked suddenly at me and turned her nose up a bit. I barely had time to be surprised before she turned to the other girls and whispered something. The rest of the group, some of whom turned quickly around to look at me, burst out laughing.
"After me!" the woman at the front of the line yelled.
And off we were.