The_Luce

  It was all supposed to be a joke. A fun bit of light-hearted rolepying.

  I had found the amulet at a yard sale, on sale for only five bucks from some clueless schmuck who had no idea what he really had in his possession. I recognized it immediately, of course, as an original creation of Antonio Siciliano, one of the most prolific wizards of the 18th century. I, with my highly discerning eye, could just tell by the superior craftsmanship, the overwhelming aura of an enchanted object.

  Nah. Actually, it was the signature engraved on the rim.

  While doing my very best not to clue the seller into the fact he was selling a priceless magical artifact for cheaper than a good lunch, I quickly took the amulet off of his hands. That was the second best deal I'd ever made. Sucker.

  As soon as I had it securely in my grasp, I began examining the artifact in greater detail while on the short trek back to my house. It consisted of a silvery hoop with a brass disc inside of it, connected to the outer hoop by a spindle running straight through it lengthwise, giving the impression that it could be spun in pce. I supposed that was how you did the magic.

  Holy crap. The reality of the situation was finally settling in. I had a genuine, actual, real-life magical artifact in my hands. It was mine. I owned it. I had seen one before, in a museum - a ring that apparently compelled whoever wore it to speak only the truth - but I had never touched one, let alone activated its power.

  This was gonna be so cool!

  Engraved on one side of the disc was the symbol of Mars, and on the other id Venus. Male and female. Already, I could guess at the nature of what it did, though I would reserve judgment until I had seen it firsthand.

  Honestly, it was probably a bad idea to use a random magical amulet I found without any certainty of what it does, but how could I possibly resist? It was magic.

  Turning onto my home street, I shoved it into my pocket. A huge, giddy grin was pstered on my face at the moment, and I did not need my parents questioning what I was so excited about. They'd probably try to confiscate it, since it was... technically illegal to use an unreguted magical object.

  Not that that was going to stop me, of course.

  I just had to act normal. As if it were any other regur day. I had to be cool, calm, collected, and other synonymous words that begin with 'c'.

  "Hey, Mom, what a normal day, right?! Heh. Heh heh," I called out as soon as I entered through the front door, dropping my textbook-den backpack on the floor next to the shoe rack.

  I was never any good at acting, okay? I wanted to facepalm immediately, but that would probably be, well, even more suspicious.

  Mom peered at me from the kitchen with a raised eyebrow, and I shrugged in response. She shrugged back. Crisis averted.

  Elegantly scrambling up the staircase to the second floor, I barely avoided smming my bedroom door behind me. Now, here in the sanctity of my own room, I could finally experiment.

  I whipped the amulet back out of my pocket and immediately pushed on the side of the disc in an attempt to get it to spin - no luck; it wasn't budging. I peered closer at the seam between disc and hoop, and noticed something jutting out and connecting the two pieces. Tracing it to the outer edge, I found a tiny tch on the rim. A flick of my fingernail caused it to click into a new position.

  Maybe it would spin now?

  More calmly this time, I pushed at the disc - with a bit of pressure, it spun easily. Venus eclipsed Mars as it locked into pce after a 180 degree rotation.

  What happened next was a lot like that satisfying feeling when your ears pop, and you can suddenly hear at a higher volume and with more crity than before. Except instead of just your hearing, it was your whole body.

  I immediately knew what the amulet had done. Honestly, I had already guessed at its function as soon as I noticed the symbols engraved on it - but even disregarding that, the physical sensations were pinly apparent. The way my jeans now sagged, the unfamiliar weight on my chest that chafed against the fabric of my shirt, the sudden void in my briefs, and a billion other sensations all added up to one obvious conclusion: girl.

  Magic! Real magic! The specifics of its effects were secondary to the sheer awesomeness of wielding such power in my grasp!

  As far as magical items go, I thought as I turned to face the mirror, this one was pretty neat. There was a cute girl in the reflection! I made a peace sign, and she followed suit. I gave a flirtatious wink, and she copied that too. Cool!

  The girl in the mirror looked a lot like me, but more... well, girlish. It was like she could be my own sister. She even had the exact same ratty chestnut hair that I did. Well, that all made sense: she was me!

  Could I turn back?

  I spun the amulet again. Mars eclipsed Venus, and I returned to my regur boy form. If the previous transformation was like my ear popping, this one was more like diving into a pool, except without the burning in my nose from the chlorine.

  Huh. That was good. It'd really suck if I was stuck like that.

  Alright: I had a magical artifact that allowed me to turn into a girl at will. Awesome! What next? Well, I had one idea.

  ***

  "Okay, Ryan, what did you wanna show me?" asked my best friend, Drew, as he entered my room.

  I was sitting on the side of my bed, attempting a distraught expression while currently in my new girl form, "I- I don't even know what happened!" I cried out.

  "Who- what are- wait, what?!" his face went through a whole range of emotions within only a few seconds, "Why are you a girl?!"

  "I- I don't know! I just... messed with this amulet and then- then this happened!" I sobbed, holding the amulet in my outstretched hand. I really tried to sound like I was crying, but it was difficult - impossible, really - for me to fake actual tears.

  "What?! How did you-" he started hyperventiting, no longer able to speak through his panic. Okay, yeah, I'd teased him enough.

  I started ughing, "Rex, dude, I was just messing!" I spun the amulet to go back to normal and smirked.

  "Wh- What the hell, man! That was- ugh, I hate you."

  I stuck my tongue out and flopped on my bed, "Got you so good. Heh."

  He sighed, deeply, "Don't- don’t do that. God. So... you finally found something magic?"

  I grinned and whipped back up, "Yup! Some idiot was selling it for five bucks! Pretty cool, right?"

  "Are you sure it's... safe? What exactly does it do?"

  "Iunno. I think it just lets you go back and forth from boy to girl," I spun the amulet again, and continued, "It's kinda fun. Try it!"

  For whatever reason, he didn't take up my offer. Instead, he grimaced, "Uh... no thanks. You probably shouldn't mess with that. It could be really dangerous, y'know?"

  "Come on, dude," I whined, "It's magic. Isn't that, like, inherently exciting?"

  Drew replied by pinching the bridge of his nose, "Why can't you ever exercise even the tiniest amount of caution? Remember the monkey bars incident? Back in grade three?"

  Ugh. I flopped back down. This time I was in girl form, though, so my brand-new boobs bounced under my shirt as I did. It felt weird - not in a good or bad way, just weird.

  In the corner of my vision, I saw Drew flinch and avert his eyes. Holy crap. Was bro actually blushing?! Was it the boobs?

  Right back up again - this was starting to give me vertigo - I teased, "What's wrong, dude?"

  He briefly made eye contact, "Can you... not do that?"

  "Do what?" I asked, cupping them in my hands. Squishy.

  "That!"

  "Wanna touch 'em?"

  "Ryan!" he facepalmed. It was loud, and probably hurt a lot. All because of me. Wow!

  I cackled, "You're such a dweeb, Drew."

  The ensuing long-suffering sigh must have set a new world record in length.

  I debated messing with him even more, but I erred on the side of giving him a break. For a while at least. Switching back to boy form, I held up the amulet and asked, "So... what should we do with this?"

  "Hand it over to the authorities?"

  "Dweeb."

  ***

  "So," Dad began, in his disappointed-but-trying-to-be-subtle-about-it voice, "We need to talk about your report card, Ryan."

  I groaned and shoved another spoonful of mashed potatoes into my mouth, trying to avoid this conversation. My parents were always getting on my case about school - why couldn't they ask about, say, my hobbies? Interests?

  "A C+ in Math? That's unacceptable. You used to get straight As."

  "That was when school was easy! They've been giving me so much homework now. I can't keep track of it," I didn't face him as I spoke, instead gring down at my pte. I wasn't feeling particurly hungry anymore.

  Mom frowned, "It's that computer. You're always spending too much time on it. How do you think you're going to get into a good school if you're spending all your time goofing off?"

  "I dunno," I muttered. Ugh. Sure, sometimes I'd be unable to focus on my homework and do some gaming instead, but that was homework's fault for being entirely unable to hold my attention. Math was particurly annoying: a series of tedious, repetitive tasks I already knew how to do. What was the point of that?

  School always had a lot of tedious, repetitive tasks to do. It somehow made learning so... boring. Honestly, I learned most of the things I knew in my free time, browsing Wikipedia when I had nothing better to do.

  Dad sighed, "College applications are coming up pretty soon. Have you at least been researching where you want to go?"

  No. The mere thought of actually doing that - of making concrete decisions for my future - practically made my brain shut down. If I said that, though, they'd probably just call me zy.

  "Yeah," I lied.

  "Good. what schools have you been thinking of?" he asked.

  Crap. My bluff was called. Turn options: admit deceit, deflect, item, flee. I selected option B, of course.

  "Uh, I dunno, I'm still deciding. Oh! Today I learned that-"

  "Ryan. Have you been researching schools, or did you just lie to me?"

  "I-" I didn't know how to respond to that. All I needed was for them to stop pestering me about my future for one night. I suddenly stood up, gsses on the table shaking from the motion, "I'm done eating. Goodnight Dad, Mom."

  I smmed the door to my room as I left. My parents were the worst. I'd figure that stuff out when I got to it. There was no reason to worry about grades or college right now. All I wanted was to have some fun as a teenager before I became an adult.

  Was that really too much to ask?

  ***

  Once the weekend had finally arrived - css had been more terrible than usual, since I was too busy daydreaming about what I could do with my magical artifact to pay attention - I showed up at Drew's house. I had warned him of my impending arrival via text, but that wasn't to say I wouldn't surprise him. Heh.

  I knocked exactly three times, clear and discrete, exactly as I always had. He'd know it was me. I then stepped back to csp my hands behind my back.

  Half a minute ter, the door swung open.

  "Hey R- ...why are you a girl again? What are you wearing?"

  "A dress," I replied, looking down to make sure I was still, in fact, wearing it - it was white and flowy and had little flower patterns on it. It was... neat.

  I had decided that my girl form needed clothes, so yesterday I went to the mall to find a few outfits for her. Sure, I could've gotten some jeans and T-shirts, but I figured that if I was gonna have a girl alter ego then I should get the full experience from it. When in Rome, and all that.

  Getting the underwear was pretty awkward, though.

  "...Yeah. I see that. Why?"

  "'Cuz why not?" I shrugged, "Don't I really look like a girl now? Shame my hair's so short though."

  Unfortunately, the amulet didn't do anything to the length of my hair. It was kinda me, because I was pretty sure girl-me would look cuter with long hair. I supposed it made sense, girls didn't have to have long hair.

  "Uh..." he eloquently responded, "Wait, where did you change? At home? Did your parents see you?"

  "Oh, I just did it all in my room. Turned into a girl, put on a dress, jumped out the window."

  "...Your room is on the second floor, though."

  "Yup! My knees aren't happy about it," I shifted the topic away from my exploits, "Anyway! I, in my infinite genius, have come to a conclusion!" I procimed, fingers spyed across my sternum, "To resolve your overwhelming dweebishness, you need... a girlfriend!"

  "Nope. We're not doing this." The door nearly smmed, but I managed to jam my foot in before it could. Ow.

  He reluctantly creaked it back open, "Ryan, why are you- why are you even suggesting being my girlfriend?!"

  Oh, that was what he thought? I rolled my eyes, "No, idiot, not me. I just had this idea."

  "What idea?" he asked suspiciously, "The st time you had an ‘idea’, they had to evacuate a cssroom."

  "It's simple," I smirked, stepping into the house and pushing the door closed behind me with my foot, "You have this crush on Anne Wilcox, right, but you can never get the nerve to talk to her?"

  "Yeah...? Come on, man, she's way out of my league. It'd just be embarrassing."

  "Exactly! You're afraid! So I was thinking, if I pretend to be a girl you want to date, you can practice asking one out for real!"

  "I don't think that's gonna work," he looked unimpressed, "Like... you're my best friend. Not Anne. It's completely different."

  Ugh, he just wasn't getting it. "Sure, but we can just act like I'm not. I mean, I don't look anything like Ryan. Well, okay, maybe like his sister or something, but still!"

  "'His'? Dude, you're Ryan," he gnced at my outfit again, "Are you sure the amulet isn't, like... messing with your head?"

  "Yes? I still feel like me, dude, it's just easier to talk about it like I'm two separate people. Which reminds me, actually..."

  "What?"

  "I need a name!"

  "You already- fine, I won't be a pedant about it. I still don't get why your girl form needs one. Are you really pnning to use that thing regurly?"

  "I mean, yeah?" I replied. Why wouldn't I?

  He squinted at me, like I was some bug he'd never seen before, "I... sure, whatever. Don't come crying to me when messing with that thing ends horribly. Because it will. Because you don't actually know how it works."

  "It'll be fine! I've got it figured out, it's perfectly safe, you just worry too much about everything."

  He rolled his eyes, "I'm also right about everything, apparently. I don't understand why you even want to use it, anyway. Like, why would you wanna turn into a girl?"

  "Aren't you curious? Plus, it's fun to be someone else for a while. No responsibilities or preconceptions, y'know?"

  "I guess."

  "Besides, since I'm giving you practice talking to girls, you can do the same for me next week!"

  "Not happening. Ever." He shuddered.

  Jeez, the dweeb levels were off the charts with him. Too scared to do anything fun - that's how he always was: a perennial spoilsport. Fun to mess with, though.

  "Anyway," I segued, clearly enunciating each sylble, "The name thing. It's important."

  "Uh… Rebecca?"

  "Nah, I don't really have 'Rebecca' vibes."

  "Renee?" he suggested.

  I shook my head, "Too French."

  "...Rain?"

  "Okay, that's just a regur frickin' noun. Who would name themselves that?"

  "Well then what do you have in mind? I dunno what name you want, and it's your alter ego, anyway!"

  "Hmm... how about... Mary?"

  "That's kinda random."

  "Nonono, don't you get it? It's basically an anagram. Except for the 'm', but that's just a different nasal. Close enough."

  "Sure. It doesn't really matter."

  "Maybe not, but it's fun to pick a good one, isn't it?"

  The conversation trailed off, so I decided that it was officially Drew-practices-talking-to-girls time.

  "Okay, dude, it's time."

  "For what?"

  "I'm gonna pretend to be a cute girl you like, and you can try asking me out," I said, then got into position: leaning all cool-like on the kitchen isnd, attempting to twirl my hair in my fingers. It was a critical failure: the strands kept slipping right out. Stupid parents, demanding haircuts!

  "Do I have to?"

  "Yes! It'll be fun!"

  "I feel like this is more for you than it is to help me, but fine," he sighed. What did he even mean by that?

  Drew walked up next to me, and I turned to face him, "Hey, uh, Mary," he said.

  "Hey!" I replied, trying to make my intonation sound more girly with a rising tone - while the transformation made my voice a lot higher, I still kinda spoke like a boy if I wasn't thinking about it.

  "Um... you're pretty?" he awkwardly continued.

  "Thanks!" I beamed, "You don't look so bad yourself."

  "Do you... uh..." he shook his head, "Sorry, I can't do this. It's too weird."

  That was disappointing. I whined, "What? You were just being too awkward. I mean, come on, 'you're pretty'? You really had no better lines?"

  "I dunno! It's all too stilted. I know who you really are, I can't pretend you're just some random girl I wanna ask out."

  I wasn't sure why, but the way he said that kinda hurt. I countered, "Well you'll just have to practice more, 'cuz you're never gonna get a girl to date you with an opener like that."

  "It's a completely different situation! I'm not that awkward in real life!"

  "Aren't you, though?" I asked, mock-snidely.

  "Shut up, man." he sighed, "Why am I even friends with you?"

  "Well, that's obvious," I replied, "Without me around, you'd be the most boring person in the world. You'd never do anything fun!"

  "Considering your definition of 'fun', that might be a good thing."

  "Eh, you know you love me," I grinned.

  "Debatable. Uh... maybe this is rude to ask, but all this," he gestured at my general existence, "has made me wonder."

  "Yeah?"

  "...Are you gay?"

  Huh?! Taken aback, I responded, "What? No. I like girls."

  "I- okay, fair. Taking you at your word. I don't get it, though."

  "What's to get?"

  "You... willingly turned into a girl so you could go to my house and pretend to get chatted up. That's- agh, as always, I do not understand what goes on in your mind. At all."

  "Fuhuhu..." I chuckled, my attempt at a chuuni voice severely hampered by how cute it now was, "No mortal could possibly comprehend the inner machinations of my psyche. Your mind would be torn asunder!"

  "Yeah, okay," he deadpanned, "Wanna py some Smash?"

  "Yup."