The gym teacher Mr. Levinson had decided that after the warm up routines, which included a couple of laps around the gymnasium, that the class would be playing dodgeball today. Half of the class cheered while the other half groaned. Miles was one of the latter.
Normally, Miles actually liked dodgeball. It was fun to knock people out of the game who he disliked, and the game helped him work out his home life frustration. Today of all days though, Miles was not in the mood.
“Oh boy, Victor, this is going to suck isn't it? Victor?”
Victor was jumping up and down squealing, as excited as a little girl on a sugar high. She already had her goggles on, and her red hair was tied into a long ponytail. She experimentally tried out the red dodgeballs and threw one against the bleachers.
“My aim is pretty good” she said to nobody in particular.
Miles realized that he was using female pronouns for Victor now, as it seems like her personality had definitively shifted. Victor still seemed aware of what was happening to the both of them, and remembered the events of this morning, but it was almost as if she liked being this way now. She seemed to prefer being the flirty, sunny, hyperactive theater queen instead of Miles's best mate, the guy who he got blackout drunk with and were like brothers to each other. Miles hoped wistfully that Victor would come back.
Mr. Levinson randomly chose who would be on each team by having everyone pick either a red or yellow flag out of a box, and luckily enough, both Miles and Victor were on the same team. Victor practically crashed into Miles and give him a big bear hug.
“Ready to kick their asses?” she asked merrily.
Miles tied his own long hair back into a ponytail, hair which he seemed he couldn't get rid of, as well as affixing his safety goggles.
“Lets show them how to play dodgeball”.
**
It was a rough game, but ultimately the red team with Miles and Victor won out in the end, thanks mostly to having more athletic boys on their side, but Victor(ia)'s insane energy and bloodlust to strike down as many people as she could certainly helped out as well.
“God, I didn't know you liked dodgeball so much” said Miles, wiping his sweaty bangs from his eyes.
“Sports to me are just a different kind of performance art, and when it comes to art, I'm the best there is!” announced Victor with a flourish, pretending to kick something invisible in the air.
“OK...simmer down, Sarah Bernhardt“ laughed Miles.
“A theater joke! I'm rubbing off on you!”.
“OK, class dismissed” announced Mr. Levinson dispassionately as he sat on a folding chair and finished some paperwork.
Just before Miles and Victor could head back to the girl's changing room, Miles heard a polite cough behind him.
A blonde boy about his age, who had been on the losing yellow team. Thomas somethingorother.
Why did the name Thomas hold a significance for Miles? It was a very common first name, but for some reason, he now had butterfly's in his stomach.
“Nellie?” he asked shyly. “I...um...good job on winning today.”
“Thank you!” said Miles with a smile forming around his face. Victor's alarm bells were going off. These two could be definitely be an item, and she wanted to be there as Miles's wingwoman and moral support.
“Do we know each other?” asked Miles, subconsciously playing with his hair.
“Um..no. I mean, we've been going to the same high school together, but we've never talked....screw it...I just wanted to tell you that I like you. Like, I like-like you.”
Miles was floored.
“Really? Me?” he squeaked out.
“Yeah!” said Thomas. “Ever since I've laid eyes on you Freshman year. There's just like something charmingly old fashioned about you. You're feminine, but you can take care of yourself. You're funny, but you're not gross or mean. You're intelligent and talented, but you don't have a chip on shoulder about it like you've got something to prove. I just...I think you're the total package.”
Miles didn't like being called feminine, and he wasn't used to boys crushing on him, unless his gay friend middle school Alec Protaras counted back in the eighth grade, but Thomas seemed really earnest and sweet. Not like that creep Adam Ford at all.
“I think Nellie here was frozen in the 1950s and brought back to the present” said Victor, injecting herself into the conversation. “Nellie's like an...well, a MORE adorable Captain America.”
Thomas smiled.
“That's a good analogy, I suppose.”
None of the three boys realized just how accurate Victor's statement actually was, as in a way, Nellie really was a relic from another time. After all, Molly's spell was transforming Miles into a simulacrum of his late grandmother.