14 Cheerleader Cold Front
“Change is not merely necessary to life; it is life. By the same token, life is adaptation.”
Toffler, Alvin. (1970). Future Shock. Random House, Inc.
As Jacob tightened his grip on the discolored doughnut of tarnished eldritch metal, a brief wave of light-headedness swept through him.
Blinking once or twice, he shook his head and found the vertigo had passed.
Had passed … but … he wasn't in the Johnson family's front yard any longer.
Emily was nowhere in sight. The green-stained metal ring he'd been holding had disappeared. And he was in a carefully manicured field of some sort. With a loud chattering of voices just behind him. And a breezy, vulnerable sensation of feeling suddenly exposed ran, shivering, throughout his body.
Jacob looked down to take stock of himself and discovered he was dressed as a cheerleader!
“What th--?!” he muttered, blinking twice in hopes this horrible, hallucinatory dream might dissipate.
But no: there, on his overweight, hairy, adolescent male body, was a cheerleader uniform. It consisted of a sleeveless shell on top, white with blue lettering stitched across the chest … and a thigh high, box-pleated skirt of alternating blue and white fabric folds. His smoothly shaven legs were bare, terminated in a pair of soft cotton ankle socks and blindingly bright white shoes.
“Jacob? Are you okay?” came a lilting, feminine voice from behind.
Spinning about and gulping with fear, Jacob found himself standing face-to-face with a gaggle of cheerleaders, roughly the age of his sister Ashley. Gazing into that sea of perfect complexions, peroxide blond manes, and lithe and lissome bodies, Jacob could find no words. Petrified, he stood staring at the gorgeous, golden goddesses attired like himself … and froze.
“Jacob? What's wrong?” asked one of the cheerleaders. “You look like you've seen a ghost. What's the matter? Are you okay? Snap out of it, Jacob. You're really scaring us.”
They seemed worried, reflected Jacob.
Worried, but not furious … not angry … not outraged at finding a clumsy, male schlub from the nerd castes now impersonating their rarefied ranks in the hierarchy of high school.
They thought of him as one of their own. Just like … just like Jacob's seventeen-year old sister Ashley. Had he been thinking about her when he gripped that stupid copper ring? In his panicked state of mind, Jacob couldn't recall clearly, but it certainly seemed likely. He'd been, what? … envying Ashley's easy lifestyle. Wishing he here popular, confident, attractive, and well-liked … just as she was.
And now … now, with a sinking mixture of apprehension and shame, Jacob realized he was in all likelihood wearing his sister's clothes and attending her cheerleading practice right now.
And Ashley's fellow cheerleaders thought this was the most natural thing in the world: a chubby, fifteen-year old boy with shaved legs, dressed like a cheerleader, socializing with them.
“I … I … I just don't feel myself at the moment,” Jacob stammered truthfully.
That seemed to placate the concerns and worries of Jacob's exclusive new coterie.
“Let's call it a day then, girls!” said another of the cheerleaders. “That was a good practice. We'll be ready for the weekend game. You sure you're going to be okay, Jacob? You sure look pale.”
“Uh … no, no. I'll be fine. Thanks, though!” Jacob mumbled.
Numb with a combination of fear and confusion, he followed the clique of older, beautiful girls back to the school building, through a maze of corridors, and into the girls locker room. Sweating profusely, Jacob felt intensely flustered and bewildered by the whole experience. All around him, the cheerleaders began to disrobe, chattering and gossiping as they changed clothes. Every last one of the girls was utterly unfazed by the presence of a male interloper in their midst. And he was not just any gatecrasher: he was pimply-faced, fat, male, nerd dressed in his older sister's clothes! These girls ought to be downright infuriated with a cross-dressing social climber having infiltrated the intimate privacy of their sanctum sanctorum. But he wasn't persona non grata. Instead of being viewed as a peeping tom, Jacob was accepted as … well … “one of the girls” evidently.
Gingerly investigating the unfamiliar sights and sounds of this holy temple all teenage boys sought access to, Jacob stepped through a sea of bubbly, giggling, deshabille beauties, each with the power to utterly entrance him. Yet fear of his peculiar plight being exposed firmly kept Jacob “in character.” He wandered about quietly, trying hard not to stare at the shapely nymphs surrounding him. Eventually, the process of trial-and-error yielded an open locker with a series of familiar belongings: his sister's black and magenta backpack, and her white and blue gym bag with an appliqué patch of the school crest stitched upon one side.
“Guess this must be 'my' locker then,” Jacob thought to himself.
Something truly bedeviling was going on here. A mometary pique of sibling jealousy had resulted in Jacob somehow inheriting everything that belonged to Ashley. Her locker was his … her gym bag, her backpack, her position on the cheerleading squad, her cheer uniform, her … everything. As Jacob himself prepared to strip, he realized with twinge of horror he was also now the owner of Ashley's underwear. He could clearly feel the sensation of his sister's bra and panties on beneath his skimpy uniform.
This made no sense! Why would he need a bra? But why were the girls all unconcerned about his male presence in their private, personal changing room? Did they think he was a girl? If so, why did they call him “Jacob”? He seemed to still be himself – just a version of himself that possessed most of the accoutrements of Ashley's life. Did that mean she was back home, wearing Jacob's clothes and living his lonesome, nebbish outcast existence?
Carefully folding Ashley's uniform and stowing it in her gym bag, Jacob retrieved a pink t-shirt, a pair of gray leggings, and a pair of plain, black ballet flats from the locker. Sighing once with a trembling shiver of trepidation, Jacob forced himself to quickly put on his sister's clothes. He immediately felt like a clownish transvestite, but none of the other girls seemed to see anything awry about the situation.
Mumbling a quiet, “good-bye, see you tomorrow” to the girls, Jacob shouldered his sister's backpack with one arm while carrying her gym bag with the other … and thus, he began the long, dreadful walk back home, uneager to discover just what the real Ashley thought of this turnabout in the siblings' fates.