“What do you mean, she’d need to know why?” asked Simon.

  “She’d have to know who she’d be getting clothes ready for,” explained Amy. “And that means we’d have to bring her in on your secret. But we don’t have to tell her now. It’s just that, in the future, when you’re ready to bring someone else in on your secret, there’s someone who can help with your clothing situation.”

  “Who?” asked Simon.

  “Lacy,” answered Amy.

  “Your friend, Lacy?” asked Simon.

  “Yes,” affirmed Amy. “She’s deep into magical fashion design. She can adjust old clothes to be like new and fit you perfectly - and might even be able to make something new for you once in a while.”

  “But what if she tells?” asked Simon.

  “We can have her promise to keep it a secret,” said Amy. “If it were my secret, I’d trust her not to tell. But it’s your secret, so you decide.”

  Simon cringed a little, and began running his hands through his hair, almost scratching his scalp.

  “Which one of us will tell her?” asked Simon.

  “I was thinking we could go together and talk to her,” explained Amy.

  “You sure she can help?”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “Okay,” said Simon. “Let’s tell her.”

  “You sure about this?” asked Amy.

  Simon nodded, nervously.

  * * *

  Simon waited on the bench while Amy went to find Lacy. At first, he was very nervous. However, within a moment after Amy’s departure, Luna jumped on his lap again and once again demanded attention. As he pampered his cat, Simon went from being extremely nervous to just somewhat anxious.

  After what seemed an eternity, the two of them came down the stairs and sat down on the bench, Amy to Simon’s left, and Lacy to his right.

  “So,” said Amy. “Simon here has - something to tell you.”

  “What is it?” asked Lacy.

  “I want to be a girl,” Simon said, glancing at Lacy, and quickly looking away.

  “You do?” asked Lacy. “That’s cool. Do you have a girl’s name?”

  “Rosemary,” said Simon.

  “Well, Rosemary,” said Lacy, “you’ve come to the right place. Nobody’s better at somamorphy than Amy here. I know you haven’t seen my cat eyes, but I know you’ve heard of them - and she designed them. If there’s anyone who can give you a girl’s body, it’s her.”

  “But here’s the thing,” said Amy, “once Simon has a girl’s body -”

  “Why’re you calling her ‘Simon’?” asked Lacy.

  “I don’t want to rush him,” said Amy, “and also, he’s not out to everyone. And you can’t tell anyone about this.”

  “I won’t,” said Lacy. “I promise. But how ’bout this.” She turned to Simon. “How’d you like it if I call you Simon when we’re around others who don’t know about this, but Rosemary when it’s just us?”

  Simon nodded, a huge smile on his face.

  “Alright then,” said Lacy, “Rosemary.”

  “And what if you slip up and use the name Rosemary at the wrong time?” cautioned Amy.

  “Wrong time?”

  “Yes,” said Amy. “Until our friend here is ready to be open to everyone - using that name in front of someone who doesn’t know can blow the secret wide open. And I know you said you’ll only use that name in front of people who know, but slip-ups happen.”

  “Rosemary has to go around being called Simon by everyone else,” insisted Lacy. “Least we can do is not put her through more of that when it’s just us here.”

  “Just be careful,” resigned Amy. “But anyway, once Si- — Rosemary has a girl’s body, she’s going to need clothes to put on that girl’s body.”

  “I can help there,” grinned Lacy.

  * * *

  The next morning, after calling roll and playing the morning announcements, Professor Hathaway addressed the class. “As you may know if you’ve read your schedule,” she said, “the time slot after Homeroom on Wednesday is reserved for school assembly. But we don’t have assembly every week, so on weeks when we don’t, it’s our custom to give you the extra time before lunch. But remember, you don’t have the whole day off. I will still see you here in the afternoon for Study Hall. Everyone got that?”

  The Professor listened to the din of students answering everything from “Yes,” to “Got it, teach.”

  “Okay,” she said. “You are all dismissed. See you after lunch.”

  Simon went back to his dorm in Hemlock Tower to fetch his copy of ‘The Body Transformed’. He then found a picnic table in the South Wing Courtyard where he sat by himself and began reading it.

  He had only been reading a few minutes when Lacy came and sat down opposite him.

  “Hey Rose,” she said. “Amy’s looking for you.”

  He knew the risk of being called by that name in such a public space — but he was too elated at finally being called by that name to mind. He half-hoped that Lacy’s move wouldn’t get him caught — but the other half of him was fantasizing about her accidentally exposing his secret, and that somehow pushing him into living the rest of his life as Rosemary and never having to look back again on life as Simon.

  He finally pulled himself back to reality from what he knew was a pipe-dream. “What is it?” he asked.

  “She has the trait imprint stone ready,” said Lacy. “She’s setting up for you in the room under Hamilton Tower.”

  “I didn’t bring a flashlight,” said Simon. “And I don’t have a wand yet, so I can’t use magic light to find my way there.”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “Don’t worry,” said Lacy. “I’ll be going there with you. I mean, someone’s going to have to take your measurements.”

  “Didn’t Amy do that last time?” asked Simon.

  “That’s different. That was your protoprint,” explained Lacy. “I now need your measurements - for your clothes.”

  Simon put the book in his satchel and followed Lacy all the way to Hamilton Tower, all the way down the stairs, and into the same room in which Amy had taken his protoprint less than a week before. When they got to the room, it was already lit. Amy was there, seated at one of the desks with something that looked like a large heap of brownish off-white clothes on the table. In the far left corner, there was a black privacy screen with butterflies painted all over it.

  Amy got up, picked up the heap of clothes, and held it out to Simon. “Go there and change into this smock,” she said, nodding toward the privacy screen. “Make sure this is the only thing you’re wearing when you come out. Anything else could interfere with the transformation.”

  “Okay,” said Simon.

  “And just leave your clothes there on the chair,” said Amy, as Simon headed to the screened-off area. “You’ll be going back there anyway when it’s time to put them back on.”

  A few minutes later, Simon emerged shyly from behind the privacy screen, wearing the smock that Amy had told him to put on — and nothing underneath it. His state of undress, however hidden by the smock, made him feel extremely vulnerable.

  “Okay,” said Lacy, placing a book on the table. “Before we begin, is it okay if I take your ‘before’ measurements?” Simon hesitated. “It’s so we can know how much you change when you transform,” she explained.

  Simon nodded.

  “Okay,” said Lacy, raising her wand in the air. “Metiretur vestimenta sua.” A yellow beam with a slight helix winding around it shot out from the tip of her wand. She lowered her wand until it pointed at Simon’s chest. “Nunc,” she said, and then began lowering her wand. As she did, the one beam that projected from the wand’s tip became two - one still connected to Simon, the other continuing in the direction that the wand was pointed. She lowered the wand, until that other beam reached one of the pages of the open book in front of her.

  “Ad recordum,” Lacy chanted, and the two beams of light vanished. A quick pulse of the same color as those two just-vanished beams shot from Simon onto the page in Lacy’s book, where it took the form of luminous writing that moments later faded to black.

  “Got it,” she said, nodding at Amy.

  “Okay,” said Amy, placing a green stone the same shape as Saturday’s protoprint stone on the desk in front of her. “Ready?” she excitedly asked Simon.

  “Yes,” he said, timidly, as he nodded in kind.

  “Okay,” she said. She pointed the wand in the general direction of the stone and chanted “Somamorpho initio”. At that, the tip of the wand emitted a field of green light - not in a straight line, but spreading out as it went forward, like a flashlight. This light reached the stone, but it also reached a lot of the desk around it. Yet within moments, the field of light had narrowed into a beam that just connected her wand with the stone. A second beam of light shot out directly from the tip of the wand, a bit more exactly in the direction that the wand was pointed. For the moment, that beam also landed on the desk, but Amy lifted her wand slowly until it was pointed squarely at Simon’s chest. This caused Simon to have the faint glow of a green aura - though that aura was very subtle in the well lit room.

  “Hic est subiectum,” she said - and another beam of light appeared connecting the trait imprint stone directly to Simon. Right in front of Amy, Simon could see what looked like four zeroes appear - with a colon separating the two on the left from the two on the right. Amy touched her wand to the zero that from Simon’s perspective was immediately on the left of the colon — which would have been on the right from her own perspective. She lifted the wand slowly, turning that zero into the mirror image of the number one — and then two.

  She finally pulled her wand back and chanted one more phrase: “Formam nunc assume.” With that, all the numbers and beams of light vanished. Even the glow around the stone on the desk vanished. The glow around Simon, however, intensified to the point that it was noticeable even in the lit room. It lasted for several seconds, during which Simon could feel his body subtly rearrange itself under the smock.

  As soon as the aura around Simon faded, Lacy repeated the same spell that she had used to take his measurements before the transformation. This time, however, she directed the words to form on the page opposite the one she had directed them to form on earlier.

  “Okay,” said said Amy, getting a pink two-inch-tall dropper bottle out of her bag as soon as Lacy had finished taking the measurements. On the bottle, there was a print of the Venus symbol used to represent the female above an image of a pair of scissors. “One more touch,” she said.

  “A liquid spell?” asked Simon. “Is the transformation not complete?”

  “It is,” said Amy, “for about twenty minutes. But you’ve still got a boy’s haircut. This’ll fix that.”

  She dripped one drop of the liquid spell on top of Simon’s head, and he could feel his hair grow out, down to his back. She put the bottle back in her bag and pulled out a hand mirror.

  “Look at you,” she said, holding the mirror up to Simon. “Don’t you look adorable?”

  Simon took the mirror from Amy and held it, gazing at the face in the mirror, beaming with happiness. He wanted to believe that the face in the mirror was his own - but found that too good to be true.

  “Thank you,” he said, enthusiastically, “but could you give me more than twenty minutes?”

  “I could,” said Amy, “but since I initially cast it for twenty minutes, the amount of time I can extend it starts going up from there. I’d have do at least two renewals at minimum just to get it to last an hour.”

  “Can’t you just let it wear off,” asked Lacy, “and then cast it for a longer time?”

  “In theory,” answered Amy, “but you can’t possibly have clothes ready already.”

  “I don’t,” admitted Lacy, “but the difference between her before and after measurements - well, there is a difference, but it’s really small. She should be able to fit in the same clothes.”

  “Okay, then I can,” said Amy. “The stone supports an initial casting of up to twelve hours.”

  “I thought initial castings of somamorphy spells can last up to twenty-four!” exclaimed Simon.

  “They can,” said Amy, “but for a stone that supports that, you’d be looking at a two-week wait at the very least. But if you want, we can wait here till the spell wears off, and then I can do it for twelve hours if you like.”

  “Okay,” said Simon.

  The remainder of the twenty minutes, Amy and Lacy sat talking amongst themselves. Simon, however, paid little attention - as he was so elated at finally getting a taste of his physical form being something that he felt comfortable in. This elation distracted him from just about everything else. Finally, however, this elation faded when, out of nowhere, he was enveloped by a green aura just like the one that had enveloped him earlier. He felt his body go through the same transformation under the smock — but this time, in reverse.

  When the aura faded this time, Simon could see that both Amy and Lacy had stopped talking and were paying attention to him.

  “Amy,” asked Simon, “can you do the spell again now?”

  “I can,” said Amy, “but there’s something I have to do first.” She pulled a blue liquid spell bottle out of her bag with the same scissor symbol as was on the bottle she had used earlier. Only this time, not only was the bottle blue rather then pink, but instead of the female Venus symbol, there was instead the male Mars symbol.

  “What’s that for?” asked Simon, already suspecting what the answer would be.

  “I have to give you a boy’s haircut again,” she explained.

  “Do you have to?”

  “Unless you’re ready to tell everyone your secret, I do,” she explained. “If you go out with a girl’s hairdo, people will notice.”

  “What if it’s not the same boy’s haircut I had before?” he protested.

  “That’s easy enough to explain,” insisted Amy. “People get their hair trimmed all the time. That’s not a big deal. But if you go out there with a girl’s haircut — well, that you can’t do if you’re not yet ready for people to know your secret.”

  As much as he didn’t like it, Simon knew that Amy was right, so he allowed her to drip a drop of the liquid spell on his head. His heart sank as the hair that had grown out earlier pulled back in.

  He was still sulking when Amy cast the transformation spell on him again, only being pulled out of his funk when he noticed the overwhelming green glow around him again, as his body began once again reconfiguring itself under the smock.

  “Okay,” said Amy when the aura faded. “I can give you one renewal later today, but that’s it till your next time. I can’t transform you full time.” She noticed Simon’s despondency. “It’s for your own safety. And before you know it, you’ll have your own wand.”

  “I guess,” said Simon.

  He went back behind the privacy screen and changed back into his uniform — but knew that underneath his boy’s haircut and boy’s uniform, he finally had the girl’s body he already wanted — at least for until the spell wore off.

  “Oh,” said Amy, as Simon emerged from behind the privacy screen, picking up the trait imprint stone on the desk, and holding it out to him. “Take this, and put it your safe for safekeeping.”

  “But don’t you need it?” he asked.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “I have a backup. But make sure it’s in your safe.”

  Simon felt his heart lift as he took the stone from her and placed it in the side-compartment of his satchel together with his pencils.

  “Thank you,” he said, beaming.

  “I’m giving this to you because it could be part of who you are,” she said, “so I can’t keep it from you. But do be careful how you use it. Be safe.”

  “But still do what you have to do to be happy,” said Lacy.