Transfer

By Karin Bishop

What happens after a wish is granted?

It was a night like any other—not a special night; there was nothing unusual about it. A 14-year-old boy went to bed—and woke up in someone else's body…somewhere else.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543954722

Book preview

Families

- Prologue -

Balance

You can’t plan everything.

I thought I had planned for every detail but never considered how cold the garage floor would be. I would expect a freezing floor in December, but it was the middle of June and the longer I lay on the concrete the colder I got. Suddenly I worried that I’d cut too deep and was actually bleeding to death.

I had a couple of options. The first was the most obvious—get off the floor. Clean up the mess, patch myself up, and bluff my way through things. The second was to stick to my plan. The third was to die. The last one bothered me the most because I didn’t want to die, especially now that I was so close to getting my heart’s desire. In theory, I should be discovered in about five minutes, so I’d take the second option.

To pass the time and to monitor that my brain was still functioning and not slipping away, I reviewed my setup.

Kitchen back door leading to the garage was open? Check.

Stepladder missing the rubber foot that I’d thrown behind the washing machine? Check.

Right sandal torn? Check.

Scattered toys? Check.

The toys were the key; for my fall to be believable, I had to have a believable reason for climbing in the first place, and a believable reason for losing my balance. The toy box had been stacked on a white wire shelf high enough to require the little three-step folding ladder. I rooted around the strange toys and selected a cowgirl doll as the likeliest object. The manufacturer’s little tag said ‘Cowgirl Carrie’ and she looked almost new. Then I put the doll back in the box, pulled it off the shelf, turned and raised the box high over my head and dropped it on its bottom corner.

The box hadn’t broken; only one side had caved in, but the toys had spilled out all over the place in a random array that looked good. A snow-globe didn’t break so I had to pick it up and gauge things and throw it just right and it broke nicely, leaving the Seattle Space Needle in a puddle of broken plastic.

I climbed down, got some pliers from the tool chest next to the washing machine and twisted the buckle of my right sandal out of shape and put the pliers back. The utility knife was in its proper place in the toolbox. I had taken the spare blade and used hydrogen peroxide I’d found in the bathroom to hopefully sterilize the thing. I had wrapped it in tissue and set it down on the floor near me.

I lay down and carefully arranged myself, placed my right foot on the bottom rung of the ladder and twisted my left to catch the ruined buckle behind the ladder’s leg. I wondered if all the details would be noticed or not. One fallen toy was lumpy under my thigh and annoying but it should stay there, despite the discomfort. The discomfort increased when I lay in the little puddle of water from the broken snow-globe; it soaked the side of my t-shirt and one curved plastic shard was poking my shoulder. I’d tough that one out, too, as long as I could stand it.

The most essential step was next, the point of no return. I reached out for the wad of tissue and carefully unwrapped the blade and held the back of it carefully as I rolled one hip so I could tuck the tissue into the back pocket of my jeans. I lay out flat, slowly lowered my head until it rested on the floor, and felt through my hair to where the back of my head was touching the concrete. Then just slightly above it … I held the spot with one finger while the other hand gripped the blade about a quarter-inch from the edge, to keep me from making the cut too deep.

That was the plan, anyway …

Alright … deep breath …

Three, two, one, do it!

I mentally screamed and actually whimpered aloud as I cut the back of my head. I could feel my blood flowing, and I quickly twisted to look at the washing machine. The next step was to toss the blade into the dark and dirty space under the machine; fortunately it went back far enough.

I released my hair and gently set my head down on the concrete. The cut hurt like cold fire but I stared at the ceiling beams and figured I was arranged exactly right; if my information was correct, she should arrive within a few minutes. But what was supposed to be only a few minutes felt like forever and the concrete was cold. The point where my blood-soaked hair touched was cold, my shoulders were cold—especially the wet one—and even my butt was cold.

How much time had actually passed? Had she decided to not come right home? Had the car broken down? Was I going to bleed to death? Fear was starting to chill me even more, but then I heard a car engine outside the garage door. Now it was time for the final step: I’d read about kids who held their breaths and would pass out, and there had been some YouTube videos of the trick. I didn’t know if it really worked, or if it would work lying on my back on a cold concrete floor, or how long it would take, but I figured if it didn’t work I’d still be red-faced and panting. If it did work, I’d be unconscious and bleeding and everything would be perfect.

I took a couple dozen of the deepest, fastest breaths I could and then held my breath. And held it and held it and held …

And fell into darkness.

- 1 -

Hospital Night

Well, young lady, you gave us all quite a scare!

The doctor’s smile was professional; bland and impersonal.

Um … sorry, I said, wincing at my massive headache. I had just woken up and was groggy. Or I was groggy because of my accident.

The doctor leaned over me and took out his penlight from his pocket while saying, Just give me a few moments and then I’ll get your mother.

He did the follow-the-finger thing with my eyes, asked me to look all four directions without moving my head, and then looked at the back of my head. He grunted with a nod and made notes in his chart and then looked back at me and put his smile back on.

Yep. You’re on the mend! He gave a fake chuckle, as if that would make me laugh with him, which wouldn’t be pleasant with my headache. Smile in place, he said, I’ll get your mother; she’s just outside.

Okay, here it comes, I thought: Showtime. Or maybe Showdown?

Please let this work; let this all be worth it!

The photos didn’t do her justice; she was quite pretty. She wore a green blouse and dark blue skirt and flats and had longish blonde hair that was coming loose from behind. But right now her pretty face was crumpled with worry.

Oh, God! Victoria—I mean Vic! How are you? she said in a rush, as she came to the side of the bed.

He says I’m on the mend, I said, motioning with my jaw to the doctor.

Unfortunately, the movement made my head throb and I winced.

Oh, sweetie! she cried, and then her eyes widened. Sorry!

Sorry? Why … I closed my eyes and waved a hand limply. It’s okay, Mom.

It had been a gamble but the word ‘Mom’ seemed safe to say; she seemed slightly less tense.

The doctor told her, She’s going to have a bad headache for awhile longer. Our main concern is if it doesn’t go away. Be on the lookout for vertigo and … well, we’ve already discussed this, Mrs. Garrison. Just watch her closely. He turned to me. "And you, young lady—no more ladders for awhile!"

Chuckling as if it had actually been humorous, he left us.

So I am Victoria Garrison, I thought, as Mrs. Garrison—my mother, now—pulled up a plastic chair and reached towards me, only to pull back, as if stung. She frowned and seemed to make a decision and then reached again and held my hand.

"I was so worried, Vic, she said. And, oh God, if only I hadn’t stopped at Sloan’s …" Her face twisted with guilt.

I had no idea if that was a store or a person so I just mumbled, It’s okay. I … um … I’m sorry, Mom.

Hush, hush, she said gently, patting my hand. It’s not your fault; it was an accident. What do … what do you remember?

I was … I frowned.

Actually, I remembered everything because it wasn’t an accident but had been a staged scene, a carefully arranged set-piece. A one-act play, of sorts. Still, I had to seem confused for all of this to work.

I cleared my throat and winced—the wince was real, not staged—and said, I was looking for the doll … the Carrie doll?

She frowned. "Why on earth were you looking for that? Oh, I’m sorry; it doesn’t matter."

No, it’s okay. One of the kids from school … I paused, keeping it vague and without pronouns, like I was drifting in and out. … little sister wanted one and I remembered it …

She softened. Aw, that was a nice thing you were doing. Oh, isn’t it awful that you were doing a nice thing and got paid back this way?

What do you mean? Um … what exactly happened?

"It seems like you were getting the box down from the shelf and somehow caught your sandal in the ladder. You might have turned with the box or something but you lost your balance and everything spilled and you hit your head on the concrete and oh, God you were bleeding so much and unconscious and I …"

She was shaking her head and had tears in her eyes and I thought, She totally bought my staging—and, wow; she really does love this girl; that’s good!

I smiled weakly and said, Mom? I’m kinda … I paused. How long do I have to stay here?

They want you to stay overnight. They ran tests and they’ll do some more tomorrow morning and then you can go home. Can I get you anything? Anything at all?

Besides a new head?

She started to tease. "Aw, the one you’ve got is so pretty—sorry!"

She’d almost bit that back, her lips tight, her eyes wide with worry.

Mom, it’s okay. I’m … I frowned. I’m kinda tired; is it okay to sleep?

I think so. Let me just double-check. Smart girl for thinking of—I mean, you were smart to think of it! Her grin was limp, and then it wavered.

She seemed almost gun-shy around me—around Victoria. He never told me it was that bad!

She came back—Mom came back, I reminded myself, I’ve got to think of her as Mom now—and said, Dr. Sebesky says they’ve got you hooked up and monitored and it’s okay for you to fall asleep. Are you sure I can’t get you something?

I’m okay, Mom, really. Did he say I can go home tomorrow?

Yes, after the tests. Probably around noon. I can … She looked around the room. I can stay the night with you if you’d like … She acted like she was offending me somehow.

Seriously messed-up situation I’ve got here. I cleared my throat and winced and said, Mom, it’s okay. I’m really, really sorry this happened and … I’m just sorry. Go home and have a nice night. A nice …

I let the sentence fail; it seemed that I was weak and drifting. I was actually going to say to have a nice ‘bath’ but I didn’t know if she took nice baths or not, and it was too soon to be weird. Plenty of time later for me to be weird, I chuckled to myself.

She smiled and said, Thank you, Vic; I’m really worried but if you want me to go home, I will.

"It’s not that I want you to go home; but I’d rather you be comfortable at home than uncomfortable in that chair. I saw you squirm!"

She grinned and said, Well, it’s probably not meant for long-term sitting. Okay, swee— Her grin turned brittle with worry. I mean, Vic. I … um … I’ll see you tomorrow. She was nearly on tip-toe, ready to bolt.

The door closed and I was alone.

God, Vic must been really cruel to her! I thought. Just in that little meeting, she seemed such a nice lady and Vic must have just been hurting her so badly. But then, Vic had been hurting so badly … and I had been, too …

I had the night in the hospital to think over how I’d wound up here. Well, think over what I knew from my end of things, which were actually Brian’s end of things …

- 2 -

Life Before Waking

All of my life I knew that everything about my life was wrong.

I was born in Cleveland and raised in Parma and that was alright except my birth was all wrong. I should not have been Brian Kendall, son of Mark and Andrea Kendall, younger brother of Steven Kendall.

I should have been their daughter and sister. My dream was that I had been born a girl named Susannah, and everything else could stay the same. We could still have gone camping like we always did and we’d have gone to all of Steve’s games like we always did and we could still watch the football games together every Sunday like we always did.

Or they did. I was there because it was expected, but I could watch the cheerleaders and dream of being one of them, or watch the girls in the commercials and dream of being one of them, and nobody could guess my dreams—as long as I remembered to yell at the TV along with my family at the appropriate times.

I just didn’t fit in their world, because I just didn’t fit as a boy. I never felt like one and I didn’t think like one. It wasn’t just my imagination; I knew how my father and brother felt and thought about things, as well as the boys I’d grown up with. God knows they talked enough! With fourteen years of living in a guy’s world, I knew the territory—but never felt like a native.

My mother wasn’t a tremendous amount of help in either direction. She was very tomboyish, even as a married woman with seventeen-and-fourteen-year-old sons. She was tanned and fit, lean and flat-chested, and always wore sports bras or racerbacks. In my entire life I’d seen her in a dress only three times; two family funerals and when my brother graduated from middle school—and she’d worn the same black dress. She favored black, brown, and athletic gray, or bright primary colors like red, blue, and green, but not yellow or pink or certainly not pastels. And I had never seen her in lace, not once.

Andi seemed to live in bike shorts and Under Armor tank tops and cross-trainers, with sweats when things got cold. Her hair never grew past her chin; usually it was shorter and stiff with some spiky gel, or stuffed under a ball cap; it never got long enough for even a short ponytail. She was not the casual suburban mom that got together on weekends with her girlfriends for Pilates and Chardonnay. She was a jock and she played hard. She played basketball with the family, played outfield in a women’s softball league, and was the prime mover of our camping and hiking trips.

I could never sit down with her and say that I felt that I was a girl, or talk about not feeling masculine, because she herself was so distant from anything feminine. She was closer to being male than I ever felt.

But around the girls in my school, I felt most comfortable and right. I had to be ultra-careful to not be thought a perv or creepy or anything, but I always listened to the girls around me. Always. So I knew what they were feeling and thinking and I knew that I felt and thought just the same. It wasn’t a matter of having to ‘act like’ a girl or ‘imagine being’ a girl. Often I thought something just before a girl said it, which meant that there had to be times we both thought the same thing but didn’t say it.

A year ago, Susan Laughlin’s parents divorced. When I first heard about it, I’d thought, Poor Sue! I’d like to see if there’s anything she needs. I wish I could go shopping with her; she likes that and it would distract her from the divorce.

Not two minutes later, Hailey Caldwell said, Poor Sue! We should see if there’s anything she needs. Immediately followed by Jenny Ishikawa saying, We should take her to the mall; she loves shopping and it’ll get her mind off things.

My closeness with the girls and distance from the boys was really obvious when the local news showed a terrible video of a boy on a bicycle being hit by a truck. The kid was alive but badly broken. Everybody was talking about it at school the next day.

I had been horrified and besides hoping he would be okay, I’d thought, His poor family! They must be so worried! Then I overheard Sherry Rodriguez and Monica Ostravsky pass by saying, Did you see that video? Oh, that poor family!

But the boys … almost to a man, they were laughing and said, "Did you see that kid get creamed?" and variations of the last word.

Karen Rasmussen heard them and yelled, "How can you guys be such … such dickheads?"

And I had to agree with her. They were dickheads. But they were guys. And part of it was being programmed by their Y chromosome to be amazed and excited by carnage—which explained the popularity of ‘Epic Fails’ on YouTube, Jackass and the Saw movies. But I thought another part of it was to suppress any emotional reaction. Guys simply wouldn’t say, ‘Oh, his poor family’ because they didn’t think that way—and even if they did, they’d be too embarrassed and afraid to let the other guys know. So even if they thought, ‘Oh, his poor family’ the social pressure of being a guy wouldn’t let them say it out loud.

How could they go through life like that? It was madness.

And completely alien to the way I felt and thought.

Needless to say, I had no real friends. I had study partners and a few people I said ‘Hi’ to at school, but mainly I walked alone through the halls, through the mob of boys and girls. And I was neither one nor the other. And every day, over the years, the pressure was building.

At least I could lose myself in books. The Kendalls read magazines and sports websites and The Plain Dealer newspaper, but it was rare that they had books in their hands. Somebody gave my father a best seller for his birthday, and he told my mother to wrap it up for somebody else; she told me it was ‘regifting’. But my grandmother gave me the first of The Sports Beat series and after that, my family was used to me reading, and gave me books for birthdays and Christmas. They shopped from lists on Amazon without really checking them, and fortunately for me, many of the books featured girls my age. I found I really liked mysteries—even the sports ones—but I especially liked ones with a plucky heroine solving the puzzle.

When I got a bit older, I learned to go to the library and slip magazines like Seventeen behind Sports Illustrated issues—they were on the same shelf—and sit in a corner so nobody could see me from behind. If they looked at me at all, they saw the sports magazine with some football player and ‘Ready for Super Bowl?’ on the cover. In truth, I’d be reading ‘Best Ways to Moisturize’ in the magazine hidden behind.

And I could say with absolute honesty that looking at the clothes and even the lingerie ads, not once did I get an erection. I didn’t think, What a hot babe; instead, I thought, I think I’d look cute in that skirt. And the thought of wearing girls’ clothes didn’t get me excited; they were just clothes, of course, but they were the clothes I should have been wearing. And they were so pretty!

Thanks to the internet, I had looked up ‘transgender’ as soon as I heard the word, and I learned everything I could about it, and I learned words like transsexual and transvestite and genderqueer and so much more. I read medical texts and personal histories and I knew—absolutely knew—that I was transgender. I wasn’t abused at home like some of the poor girls I read about, but I didn’t exactly have a supportive home environment, either. All of the transgender teen boards went on and on about ‘talking things out with your mother’ but that wasn’t really possible, but not out of embarrassment on my part.

I was confused about my mother when I was little; why wasn’t my mom like any of the other moms I saw at school? Then I wondered if she was so mannish out of some sense of self-preservation; being in a family of males, did she think she had to match them? But I learned that she’d always been that way; Andi had been an only child and while I never heard anything definite, I had the feeling that my grandparents had wanted a son—my grandfather’s name was Andrew, so it seemed obvious. The stories they told of her growing up were full of exciting activities and funny mishaps, but other than the feminine pronouns, they could have been the adventures of a boy. They’d tell about six-year-old Andi climbing up a tree to get a cat, or twelve-year-old Andi kayaking on Lake Erie with ‘Sam and Ed’, or the time ‘Andi and the boys’ ran into bears while hiking in the Allegheny National Forest.

There were no stories about Christmas dresses, favorite dolls, dance lessons, or prom dates.

Over time it was clear to me that my mother preferred typically male activities and wanted to be treated as ‘just one of the guys’. It wasn’t about equality, though. I was certain that she wasn’t proud or happy being female; that she felt she was an almost-male—that in being a woman, she was a failed man.

There was no way I could tell her that I would be gloriously happy to be a girl.

Somehow, she’d married the perfect man for her; a former college football star who’d used his Business degree to build a small chain of sporting goods stores. They had Steve, a total jock and ‘chip off the old block’ of both, but then they’d had Brian …

Not only did I not fit in our masculine family, I was also the least physically fit. I wasn’t fat or anything, not with all the hiking and running around my family did; but since I avoided those activities as much as I could, and didn’t ‘perform a hundred and ten percent’—the motto of the Kendall family—I was just this side of pudgy. There was a part of me that wanted to get pudgy enough that I could push my fleshy chest into little boobs … but that would just be torturing myself with an imitation. I wanted breasts, yes, but my own, as every girl did.

But I was a fourteen-year-old boy and completely miserable; I was destined to stay miserable unless something happened. Every newspaper or magazine article, every YouTube video about transgender teens living happily made me sick with envy; I knew, too, of the oppression and murders of transgender girls but I wanted the chance to be a girl, just a chance! In the library I read articles in medical journals and scanned the science news for gender breakthroughs, and every night I prayed that God or a mad scientist or the Blue Fairy or someone would let me wake up as a girl.

And then, the first week after school let out for the summer, I woke up as a girl.

- 3 -

Waking

I’d gone to sleep in my Cincinnati Bengals t-shirt and boxers. I didn’t particularly care about the team but it was unavoidable in my family, and my room reflected that. I had the obligatory posters of local teams on the walls, Bengals and Reds, along with a poster for Green Day, my touch of ‘teen rebellion’.

Most important to me was a photograph I liked of Mom’s hair with the sun behind her. I’d shot it with my phone early one morning on a fishing trip, when she’d come out of her tent fresh and ready for the day and without any product in her hair. There was a softness to it and I thought if she ever let it grow long, it would be beautiful. Maybe that was what was important to me, the possibility of femininity that her tousled hair showed. I’d enlarged it a little and cropped it on my computer’s software, and printed it on special paper.

When Dad asked what it was doing on my wall, I’d lied and said it had been such a great fishing trip that I wanted to remember it, but for some reason it was the only photo that came out. He just gave a nod and agreed it had been a good trip, and told me again about how great it felt when he was ‘hooking that big rainbow’. Of course he meant a trout and not a Pride flag, and nothing was ever said again about my wall photo of feminine possibility.

Other than that photo and the posters, the walls were white, the furniture brown, and my bed had a NASCAR comforter. The two words just didn’t go together—NASCAR was about as far away from ‘comfort’ as I could imagine, but Mom had given the sheet-set to me last Christmas so I had to use them.

But then I woke up in different sheets in a different bed in a different room. The sheets were light pastel green, as was the comforter with a soft paisley pattern, and the pillows and bed were softer than usual. My NASCAR bed had been on a low platform of dark wood, but this bed was higher and white. From my hidden teen girl magazines, I recognized that the frame was a style called a ‘lilac bed’, and I was pretty sure that a boy wouldn’t know that detail. The room was amazing; the walls were ‘dusty rose’—and a boy probably wouldn’t know that, either. There was a French Impressionist framed on one wall, a pretty girl with an parasol. I thought it was by Monet or Manet because I could never keep them straight, but she was lovely. All of the other furniture was white—and there was a vanity …

A vanity? That could only be in a girl’s room, right?

Obviously I was dreaming; this would have been a lovely room if I was Susannah. The poignancy of that thought almost brought tears to my eyes and I thought, Hey, it’s my dream; I could be Susannah if I wanted to be in this room, in my own dream—and I want to be. This room is heaven to me!

So what would Susannah be wearing? A pretty nightie, maybe something short and white and lacy? A ruffled chemise, maybe? I lifted the long edge of the soft green damask comforter—which was blessedly free of cars and drivers’ signatures—and leaned my head over for a look down my side and sighed. Nope. White t-shirt and dark blue boxers, like what a boy would wear. I dropped the comforter.

What was the point of having a lovely girl’s room and not dressing like a lovely girl? What was the point of having this dream in the first place if I couldn’t be what I wanted to be?

Except … how could I get the room so right and the clothing so wrong?

I stretched and somehow that’s when it clicked that I was feeling things that were not dream-like and also felt very different from stretching any other morning. My eyes were already open but it was like they suddenly were open. The t-shirt had moved oddly when I stretched, and my legs had done some bends and toe-curls that I’d never done before. I tilted my head lower and there were … mounds on my chest. I pulled the neckline out and gasped.

Breasts!

Small, young, but breasts! On my chest! On my chest!

The silly Dr. Seuss sound of that made me giggle, something I was always on guard against. I covered my mouth with my hand—something else I guarded against. Two strikes against me and I hadn’t even gotten out of bed!

My brain went, Gee, if I have breasts, I might even have … And I began reaching for my boxers. I hesitated, and then pulled the waistband up and looked. Didn’t see anything. Not completely unusual, but I reached a hand down slowly and …

Oh … my … God …

I’d never seen the real thing outside of a computer monitor, and certainly never felt a vagina before, but that’s what was there.

I was in a girl’s room. And although I was dressed like a boy for bed, I seemed to be a girl.

Not dreamed that I was—seemed to be. I was being conditional, but everything pointed to me actually being a girl, with breasts and a vagina. There was a sudden and overwhelming wave of happiness, confusion, joy, and fear. All of the ‘how’ and ‘what’ and ‘why’ and everything imaginable slammed around in my head, but even if it was a dream, even if it ended when I woke up in Brian’s body in Brian’s bed, then until at least that moment, I was a girl. It was the deepest, most intense wish of my life come true, and my eyes teared up.

I was a girl!

Thank you, was all I could say. "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"

I didn’t know who I was thanking—God, hopefully, rather than Dr. Crazy or the Blue Fairy—for listening to my prayers and hopes and just as sudden as the joy came a wave of sadness.

If it ended right now, and I was Brian again, I would know at least this moment of bliss of finally the Universe being right. Of being the girl I was meant to be all along.

But the blissful moment went on, and on, and on …

And then I realized I had to pee.

In my family, you ‘took a leak’ or ‘whizzed’. And what came out was ‘piss’. But in my mind, the word was ‘pee’. A small, silly victory, but my mind was always thinking along female lines. And right now, this female-thinking mind knew that this female-feeling body had to pee.

But where was I—who was I—and what was on the other side of that door? Where was the bathroom? I’d have to brave it because I really had to pee. And it dawned on me that I wasn’t sure how girls held it in; hopefully my new body knew how to do, just like when I’d stretched, and I should just try to ‘go with the flow’ so to speak—

No! Don’t think ‘flow’ right now!

On the doorknob was a name tag on a lanyard. ‘Victoria’. Unless it was a present for someone or stolen or a souvenir from British Columbia, I must be Victoria. Okay. Victoria had to pee.

I opened the door and looked into a small hallway. Baby pictures of a small blonde girl. A bedroom to the left, and on the right—an edge of pink tile! I stepped gingerly out and down to the right, closed the door and lowered my boxers and it was so strange that there wasn’t anything down there. I wondered about how to do it, but I had to trust that my body knew; it wasn’t a cerebral thing or something that had to be taught. I relaxed and then I was peeing and it just like anything I’d ever heard girls talk about—not that they talked about it a lot, but I had always been listening over the years—although it sounded slightly different than when I sat and peed.

When Brian had sat and peed, that is.

Except that now I was Victoria. Peeing.

It seemed like I was spending a lot of thinking about something as fundamental as urinating, but maybe because it was so fundamental, and because it was the first action in my new body besides standing up and walking. When I was done, I knew enough to wipe front to back, flushed, washed my hands, and looked at myself in the mirror.

Um …

I was cute! Not gorgeous or anything like that, but I had a face that I knew would be called ‘cute’ and even ten or twenty years later would still be ‘cute’. And I was kind of pretty, actually. Not drop-dead gorgeous or anything like that, but personal beauty wasn’t as important to me as the fact that I was a girl!

I had short strawberry blonde hair with a sleep-mussed side part; it looked like it might have some wave to it when it was longer. I knew from the magazines that it was the hairstyle called a ‘bob’ which I’d always thought was a cute style, but my new hair was cut bluntly just below the ears and was a little ragged. I had the feeling