"I'm in a waking nightmare," Dion thought gloomily and rolling over onto his side, he stared out as his room, now decorated with rainbows and Unicorns as he decided, "At some point I must have gone to sleep, never woken up, and this nightmare is my punishment."
It had been a long week, longer than any he could remember, and would have thought possible. And except for one possible clue, which he wasn't sure if it meant anything, he wasn't any closer to figuring how he had transformed into a girl. Starting to grow despondent, he was certain he was being punished for something, as well as positive he disliked being a girl. Stretching, rolling onto his back, he stared up at the ceiling, glad school was over for the week as he let his mind wander, never settling on one thing.
There were a number of reasons why he didn't like being a girl. Some of them he was willing to concede were probably piddly. Like the displeasure he felt when he looked down and didn't see his boy parts, but instead only saw flat skin with a very subtle cleft hint of the girl parts between his legs. Or the fact that he had to pee sitting down, and not only knew how to do so, but also what he was to do afterward when he reached for some toilet paper. These and other things he felt paled when he thought about other things, with the two biggest things about being a girl that bothered him were the way people acted around him and the clothes.
Church was in two days day and Dion wasn't looking forward to it as he knew he'd be made to wear a dress again. After last Sunday's church service, he'd thought he would be able to skip wearing dresses of any kind, somehow knowing he wasn't the type of girl who wore them. But here he found how wrong he was as, on Wednesday, he had, instead of his usual Boy Scouts meeting, a Junior Girl Scouts meeting, which required a skirt as part of the uniform, and then school picture day on Thursday, which meant a pretty dress.
But it wasn't just the idea of wearing skirts and dresses that bothered him. He didn't know how to explain it, but was sure it had something to do with how different girls clothing was compared to what he had worn until he was forced into the nightmare he was certain he was in and was slowly coming to believe he couldn't awake from.
When he'd been a boy his clothes hadn't been exactly baggy. They had been loose fitting and never tight. Now, he found his clothes to be snug, hugging his body, pressing into areas that reminded him that he was now a girl. They were soft, often brightly coloured, and had designs on them that were feminine, like the flowers and pastel hued butterflies stitched on a couple pairs of the bib-overalls in his dresser, and the Unicorns, Hello Kitty, and pastel coloured horse images on his undies and some of his shirts. Grousing about the brightly shaded flower prints on a number of his panties, thinking about the bib-overalls and long-sleeve, white body suit with a snap-crotch that he currently had on, Dion wondered why the pyjamas and sleeper sets he now wore at night weren't as snug.
Uncertain, he rolled over on his side. Reaching out for one of the plush Unicorns on his bed, he hugged the animal close as he listened to the house, continuing to let his mind drift as he waited.
He couldn't quite put his finger on what exactly it was, but Dion thought that both his teachers and his parents now acted differently around him now that he was a girl. Before, there had been a sort of closeness with his dad. But now, it seemed his dad was distant, whilst his mom seemed closer. In class, his teachers he noticed often gave more attention to the boys, who it seemed generally ignored the answers given by him and the other girls.
"Or outright overruled them," he thought.
And it wasn't just this. For he had noticed that when he gave a incorrect answer to something, his teachers now seemed more critical about it, whilst when he did give a right answer on something his teachers more often than not overlooked it. The flip side of this Dion guessed was that his misbehaviours were more overlooked.
"It's got to be more than just the way people view me," he thought as he tried to unravel why it seemed like people acted and treated him different now that he was a girl and then realised this wasn't exactly accurate.
There were two exceptions that he had found, one of them Dion found to be a welcome relief. When he had gone to school on Monday, still struggling to come to terms he was now a she, Dion had been certain that his friends he hung around with would now be as different as everything else seemed to be. But as he boarded the bus, he was immediately flagged down by Davis, who instead of calling him Dion, had addressed him as Taylor. When Henry got on a couple stops later, the other boy joined them, which Dion felt was a welcoming, as he didn't really relish the idea that because he was a girl, his friends would now be girls as well. And when they got off the bus at school, the three spent the time before class horsing around on the playground, with the same thing also during recess.
Glad that at least Henry and Davis didn't have an issue with hanging out with him as a girl, except when he had been forced to dress nice for school picture day, Dion sat up, tossed aside the plush he'd been cuddling and scooted to the edge of his bed. Listening to the house, wondering if Holly had left with mother for her eye appointment yet, knowing his dad was out helping the neighbours with something or other, he went back over what else he noticed in the past week.
Whilst it seemed like everyone around him acted like he was girl, treated and talked and behaved like he was such, addressed him as Taylor, or Denise, or Denise Taylor, there was one thing that seemed to stand out. He hadn't noticed it at first, too wrapped up in trying to come to terms with what happened, trying to figure out how and why it had, and how he could undo it.
"If such a thing is possible," he thought as he stood and tiptoed over to one of his bedroom windows and peeked out, searching for his mom's car.
Again, he was uncertain whether he was right about what he had noticed, but over the course of the past week, it had seemed like there was one person who did seem to be aware of what had happened to him, of what he was going through. At first, when he did become aware, he'd thought he had imagined it, that it was impossible that they would know. And then he began to notice things, hear what they said, including accidentally starting to call him by his male name before quickly covering it up with a cough that mangled it together with his female name. Wondering what she was playing it, if indeed he was right and she was knew what was going on, Dion muttered, "What is your game, Holly," as he stepped away from the window and crept across his bedroom.
Not a hundred percent positive, he felt he needed more proof that Holly knew something and with her gone to an eye appointment, he figured now was the best time as ever to get an answer as to whether she did or did not know anything. Slipping down the hall, his stocking feet barely making any noise, he stopped before his sister's door. Before, going in her room had always be an outright no-no. But now, now with him being a girl, it wasn't so much so and more of a polite courtesy, as he could remember his mother explaining a girl needed her space and her privacy, and that both he and Holly were to respect each other's privacy and space, which was why they had separate rooms. He could still go into Holly's room, but it was better if he were invited first. Reaching for the door handle, thinking back on these confusing memories from growing up as Denise Taylor, Dion pushed open the door and stepped in.
Holly's room wasn't that different from his, as it was painted white, had the same hardwood floor, and only was missing the Unicorn and rainbows theme his had. The posters on the walls showed her favorite bands and such, whilst the dresser, vanity, and the nightstand next to the bed could have been a match to the one in Dion's room. The air smelling sort of sweet, Dion found it pleasant as he headed for Holly's nightstand, where he began his search.
Several minutes later, as he looked through the closet, he found a spot on the back wall where the paneling was lose. Working to pry out the small square, he thought it wouldn't be anything but an access panel to get at the plumbing, and was surprised when he found not only the pipes, but also that Holly had stuck a notebook, wrapped in plastic, behind the pipes, as well as something that looked like a necklace, stored in a Ziploc bag. Taking out the bag with the bit of jewellery, he peered at it for a moment, wondered what the word printed was before setting it aside and reaching for the notebook.
Carefully, he slid it from the plastic and as he casually flicked through it, he only took in a word or sentence here and there until something caught his attention. Stopping suddenly, he read fully what was printed, backed up a couple paragraphs, read that, then flipped back. Sitting down, listening for the subtle hint of a door opening or his mom's car returning, Dion began to read what he could see was Holly's account of what had happened to him, her thoughts on it, the amulet that had done it, and her further plans.