"...I JUST WISH THAT THIS STUPID PLAY WASN'T HAPPENING!!!" screamed Eugene in his nauseatingly shrill girly voice.
With that absent minded wish, the Ahn'Ger Stone flared to life in the former janitor's hand, though Eugene was too upset to notice. For that matter, neither did Emily McLeod, who was perplexed at why her best friend had totally lost her mind. The strange artifact warped the very fabric reality all around the two oblivious mortals, and for a moment, Eugene felt disoriented. Then everything went dark.
And then the world returned.
Just a brief moment ago, he was backstage in the Shermer High auditorium, crying his eyes out like the emotional teenage girl that he was stuck as, humiliated at being trapped in this body, the stupid wishing stone having interpreted his angry, frustrated desire for a better life in the most bizarre way possible. Then, his cringeworthy attempt at musical theater acting had made things even worse, making him feel like a total incompetent loser in front of over a dozen students, not to mention Ms. Barry. That was followed by an extended feud with some teenager named Emily who claimed to be Eve's best friend and seemed to have jealousy issues. Whatever.
Now, the magic gemstone that had called out to Eugene had transported the down on his luck custodian inside a large, cavernous hall dotted with basketball hoops, bleachers on either side, and various intersecting red markings covering the floor.
He was inside the Shermer High gymnasium.
"Well I'll be damned" he whispered softly.
It didn't take long for the janitor to put two and two together and recall the wish he had just made that the school play wasn't happening. The former man took a deep breath and cursed himself for his bad luck. It seemed that the stone only responded to wishes when it wanted to, like the capricious trickster genie's of legend. At least Eugene knew that the magic gemstone was still working. He wasn't where he wanted to be, but he felt slightly better knowing that at least in theory there was a way out of this.
The realization that he had literally teleported twice today hit him like a ton of bricks. First he had teleported from his utility closet to that burger joint McFly's where all the kids hang out, and now from the auditorium to here! Eugene was never much of a sci-fi fan, but all this jaunting around reminded him a little the original Star Trek series he occasionally watched on TV as a kid, when the poor red shirts of the U.S.S Enterprise would beam down to whatever planet they were exploring that week.
As much as he hated being stuck as a teenage girl, Eugene felt that it was kind of neat knowing for sure that the supernatural was a confirmed real thing that existed. He had always been a religious man, and more than a little superstitious, so knowing that his beliefs were probably more true than untrue was a feather he could put in his cap for the rest of his life, knowing that all those hours at church weren't a waste of time. It also made him feel special, knowing that he was living through a once in a lifetime opportunity. He had never had very many memorable life experiences prior to today, and this was certainly the single weirdest day he'd ever had up until now, so it was definitely right at the top of the list.
Eugene took moment to simply appreciate where he was. The lonely ex-grown man stared up in awe at the sheer craftsmanship that went into constructing Shermer High's gym. The high ceiling. The pristine walls adorned with the school crest. The polished linoleum floors. The rays of the afternoon sun poured through the metal grating framing the windows in a way that the older man found aesthetically pleasing. As a man, he had often grumbled to himself about how spoiled these kids were when he lived in a crappy little two room apartment and they had a state of the art gym that they took for granted, but now he simply admired that it existed.
To the right of Eugene were more than two dozen teenage girls, all dressed in the school's green and yellow cheer uniforms, all of them in the middle of one of their routines. A bouncy pop song by...Eugene wanted to say Ariana Grande...was playing in the background, setting the rhythm to to the complicated footwork and impressive displays of agility and athleticism these girls were engaged in. A part of Eugene remembered when he was back in high school. Back then, all he could think about were girls. He daydreamed about the ones he liked in class, and he tried numerous times unsuccessfully to go out with them. Self consciously, he admitted to himself, he had spent countless hours rubbing one out as he fantasied about one particular Senior girl named Sally Hendricks he was attracted to in his bedroom late at night.
But that was over forty years ago.
The girls he saw now who were practicing for the big football game on Friday were awfully pretty too. Every single one of them waving their pom poms and doing high kicks were at the very least incredibly adorable. Eugene hated thinking that way. These girls were all young enough to be his daughter, maybe even his granddaughter. And now he was one of them.
"Jesus H Christ, what a day" he quietly moaned to himself in that incessantly cutesy voice that distinctively belonged to Evelyn Sophia Kazinski, the most popular student in Shermer High. How he knew Eve's full name, he wasn't sure, which worried Eugene a little. He flexed his slender fingers and his eyes suddenly shot open in alarm as he realized his hand were empty! Eugene's eyes widened in alarm as he stared at his empty palms.
'Where's the gemstone!?' His mind screamed in panic before he spotted a large pink duffel bag with the name 'EVE' stenciled on the side of it. 'Oh wait, its...its probably in there with the rest of my...clothes'
The Adriana Grande song ended with the cheerleaders forming in several cupies, each flyer coquettishly holding her right hand on her hip as the stood on top of her three comrades.
Self consciously, Eugene looked down on the body he was still stuck in, taking in how his shorter, curvier frame clung ever so attractively against the green and yellow fabric of Eve's own cheerleading uniform, her not insubstantial breasts tenting out against the image of Shermy the Salamander, the school mascot. He reached behind him for a fistful of Eve's curly red hair, and quickly realized that it was tied up in a loose ponytail. His legs looked nice. Today he was wearing some black knee high socks, which looked so cute...
What the hell?
Eugene again was disturbed by this, how he was becoming so concerned about his looks, almost as if the Eve part of his brain was slowly taking over, but he was immediately pulled out of his reverie by a harsh, spiteful voice.
"Bitch, stop playing with your hair! You weren't paying attention at all!"
A stunned Eugene whipped his head around until he saw the source of the voice. It was a pretty, exotic looking dark haired girl, a little taller than Eve.
"Are you talking to me?" he squeaked out.
The dark haired girl scowled. "Earth To Eve: Duh! We're performing in front of the entire school in a few days, and our captain isn't paying any attention to see if our choreography is right! It looks like you've been staying up all night sniffing glue! Why do you look so clueless right now, you dumb pollack? Is the pressure getting to you? Huh? Have we found a chink in Little Miss Perfect's armor? Huh? Huh?!"
For a moment, Eugene didn't know how to react. He was so so much smaller in this new body. He felt more vulnerable like this than he had as a man, and despite himself, his body began to visibly tremble in fear.
"I..." he stuttered nervously in Eve's quivering voice. Gloria looked like she was enjoying watching Eve squirm before she was cut off.
"Gloria, shut up!" demanded a feminine yet strong and authoritative voice. Eugene, heart pounding by Gloria's brutal tongue lashing, turned his head towards a very tall, stunningly pretty blonde who had emerged from the crowd.
It was the girl from McFly's! Joanna Ingerman, the daughter of that rich guy! Joanna gently lowered her flyer, a small Asian girl, down to the ground before marching right over to Gloria.
"As Co-Captain, this is me giving you one final warning, Vanapoulous. Everyone here, myself included, is sick and tired of your nasty attitude. Eve is a fantastic captain and ten times the woman you'll ever be. She earned her place being in charge of us. How many competitions have we won this year under her leadership? That's right, three. Three more than you ever earned when you were captain, and look at all the other shit she does! What do you do besides slut shame everyone and abuse your poor boyfriend?! You're not the Queen Bee, Gloria, you're just an insecure little brat! Now you apologize to Eve or I'm kicking you off the team!"
Joanna briefly pointed directly at Eugene then confidently strolled back to her quartet. She smiled at who she believed to be Eve Kazinski with a friendly and knowing grin. Slowly, the other cheerleaders on the team began to clap.
Eugene was in sheer awe of this. He hadn't been here for five minutes, and he was already knee deep in the petty drama of girl world. He didn't want a single part of this, especially from Gloria Vanapoulous, who he now remembered as the little bitch who spread those nasty rumors about him as a man. But the applause continued and grew louder, until it became as loud as thunder.
"We love you Eve!"
"You're the best, girlfriend!"
"Ignore Gloria, everyone knows that she has herpes!" came from one taunting voice in particular, which got some laughs.
Holy shit, it's Emily! thought Eugene.
Emily was standing among one of the quartets, herself dressed in the school colors, seemingly a cheerleader herself. Eugene grinned back at her, remembering that less than ten minutes ago the two had been fighting profusely in another timeline.
"Ugh!" grunted Gloria in disgust as she stormed off towards the changing room, shooting daggers in Eugene's direction along the way.
Suddenly tired and really just wanting to be done with the insanity he had been thrust into, Eugene looked at the clock on the far side of the gym. It was almost 6:30 P.M. If he was really one of the team captains then he should be able to decide when practice was over, right? He decided to test how far his authority over the other girls actually went.
"Guys, how about we call it a day?" he asked them politely. After the way his day had been going since even before he'd found the wish granting rock the former middle-aged janitor expected to be told no. That there was some other horrible humiliating thing he had to do before he was released from his torment, but was pleasantly surprised as he saw the Ingerman girl nod her almost impossibly blonde head in agreement.
"That sounds good, Eve! We've got this routine memorized anyway!" Joanna said, beaming. She bounded over, her massive breasts seemingly defying physics as she gave Eugene a massive hug. "Don't worry about Gloria, I've got your back girlfriend!" Releasing her co-captain, Joanna turned to the other girls and hiked a thumb towards the brightly lit entry of the girl's locker room. "Pack it in girls!"
The other cheerleaders nodded and followed Joanna to get changed and go home (as well as get in on the juicy drama that would no doubt happen in the locker room between Gloria and Joanna). Each of them paid 'Eve' a compliment as they passed her by, some even giving her a supportive hug or words of encouragement as they retrieved their duffel bags from the large pile that surrounded 'his' on the bleachers. He didn't know how to feel. He loved the human contact (even if some of it was currently sweaty and a little smelly) and the well wishes, but he wanted it to be for himself, not for this unwanted persona he was stuck in. As soon as the last few girls were out of the gym he was going to get that gemstone from his bag and...
"HEY EVE!" shouted a loud voice from the gymnasium entrance. Eugene turned to follow the voice, his red ponytail bouncing on the back of his head and saw...
Option 1: It was that geeky kid from McFly's! He looked really out of breath. Curious, Eugene goes over to him.
Option 2: It was some tall, curly haired girl holding what looked like a cheerleading uniform! Curious, Eugene goes over to her and the girl introduces herself as...