Dawn woke with a start. "Son of a bitch," she muttered. "Son of a bitch!" She continued cursing under her breath as the other girls awoke.
"No, not again!" Tanya moaned. "Crap, are we still in the boys' room?"
"Yeah," Rachel said. "Ah crap, we've got to get out of sight. Come on, let's hide in the stalls. Grab the new kid."
They managed to drag Willy, or rather Millicent, into the handicapped stall, propping her against the wall. Dawn joined her, as her tail wouldn't even come close to fitting in any of the others. It was a bit cramped, but it worked. Stacy managed to squeeze into one of the regular stalls, although it was a tight fit for her spider half. Tanya had little trouble, and Rachel was in human mode at the moment, anyway.
Kate hovered above the stall divider. "Wait here," she told Dawn. "I'm going to sneak some more gowns; I think I'll be the least likely to be noticed streaking through the halls."
"Right," Dawn said. "Cripes, the nurse's office is going to run out of gowns altogether pretty soon." Kate half-smiled. "No kidding. Back in a bit." She flitted off, leaving the others to wait.
It wasn't long before the new girl began to stir. As Dawn turned to look at her, her eyes fluttered open. "Who are you?" she asked. "Why are you in the boys' room? Why are you nak-" She stopped as she noticed her now-feminine voice. "Wh-what happened to me?" She looked down at herself. "I'm...I'm a girl? A mythic girl? How?"
Dawn sighed. "That book," she said. "You're the latest in an increasingly long list. Sorry it got to you before we got to it."
The harpy stretched out a wing and contemplated it. "It...it's all right," she said. "My God. I'm going to miss having hands, but..." She smiled. "But this is so much closer to what I want to be than what I used to be."
Dawn cocked an eyebrow. "Well, good for you, I guess." I wonder, she thought, that makes three of us who don't like our changes, and three who do. Is that just luck? "Anyway," she said, "one of us is off getting some clothes, so we're kind of stuck here in the meantime."
"Hmm, okay," the harpy said, looking at her I.D. "Millicent? Hah, I like that. You can call me Millie, okay?"
"Uh, sure," Dawn said. "Everybody probably already does."
"Eh?" Millie said. "How do you mean?
One explanation later, the new girl stared at the naga she shared the stall with in amazement. "So everyone thinks I've always been like this?" she asked. "Nobody remembers the old me but you guys?"
Dawn nodded. "Right. We've been trying to get ahold of the book to destroy it, before it changes anybody else, but it always seems to be one step ahead of us, always sitting right where someone else will find it."
"Wow," Millie replied. "I almost don't want to destroy it at all, not after what it did for me, but I suppose you're right. I...I guess that if everybody thinks I've always been a girl, nobody's going to pick on me anymore, right?"
Dawn shrugged. "I dunno. Not for wanting to be one, probably, but it's not like they always need a good reason for it."
Millie nodded. "S'pose not. But maybe, anyway."
The door to the boys' room slowly creaked open. A moment later, Kate appeared over the stall divider, holding several more hospital gowns, and wearing one herself. "All right," she said, "let's get dressed and get out of here before anyone finds us." She handed out the gowns, and the girls put them on. Millie was interested by the way hers was cut with the sleeves off and the sides open, so that it was more of a tarp that draped over her upper body than a garment proper.
Kate hovered by Stacy, waiting for her to finish dressing. "I was thinking," she said. "It doesn't really make sense for infrared vision to make you sensitive to normal-spectrum light. I mean, bugs and snakes can see in the infrared, and they're not blinded in the daytime. I think it has to do with your pupils, it's just that the eye drops didn't work. I found another kind; I'm not sure if they'll work any better, but we can give it a try."
Stacy smiled. "Thanks," she said. "But I think I'll stick with the goggles for now, and we can try other things later; we've got to find that book before i changes anyone else."