“Read this word right here. Spell it out if you need to.”

  “L-I-N-C-O-L-N…Lincoln?”

  “Correct. Now, what do you remember about him?”

  Josh hesitated for a moment. “He was president number sixteen. And he was president in the Civil War?”

  I nodded and pointed to the next sentence. “What does it say about him here?”

  He carefully examined the sentence, silently sounding it out. “It says that he freed the slaves.”

  I clapped my hands together. “Good job, Josh! Now, read the next section and see what it says about the other president. I’m going to check on Nick, and see how he’s doing.”

  “Thanks, Maya!” Josh grinned, and went right to work reading the next paragraph as I stepped over to the next boy in the row. It was President’s Day next week, and Ms. Foster had the class reading short paragraphs about former presidents, and I was with the group of students who, in polite terms, weren’t as good of readers as the rest of the fifth graders in her class.

  After Christmas break ended and we returned to class, Ms. Foster had the entire class take some sort of standardized test. I found it a bit different than the tests we usually had in class, and while I breezed through it I noticed Ms. Foster observing me several times. It turns out it was a sort of cognitive intelligence test which I surmised Ms. Foster had implemented on my behalf. My parents and I were called into a conference, where it was announced that I had gotten a perfect score on the fifth grade skills, in the high genius category. I think my parents were more shocked when they were told their daughter was suddenly a genius than they were when they were told their son was suddenly their daughter.

  Ms. Foster told my parents that I was adapting well in class, despite the unusual circumstances socializing with my gender change. However, she noticed I was often unfocused and non-participatory in class, but my assignment scores were nearly flawless in every subject. She felt I wasn’t challenged enough in class, and it was suggested that perhaps more challenging material was required, if not an advancement to a higher grade

  In my head, I knew I was no genius. By some odd circumstance, my forty-something old mind had been transposed back in time, and inexplicably into a female version of my body. The official reason was that I had had some sort of intersex condition, but only I knew the truth. Of course my adult mind was able to effortlessly finish fifth grade tasks; I had done them decades ago!

  Because of my time traveling circumstances, I thought a lot about the Butterfly Effect, about how small changes can lead to large changes over time. Everyday of my life had been identical up to the point I woke up in 1991 in the body of a girl, and now it was splitting into a Matthew timeline and a Maya timeline. I was starting to see deviations already: for example, in Matthew’s timeline, my cousin Nikki had been born on New Year’s Day, yet in Maya’s timeline she was born a week later. In Matthew’s timeline our family had gone on vacation to Florida for the winter, but in Maya’s timeline, due to the increased medical bills and the need to reset my entire wardrobe, we didn’t have enough money to make the trip.

  I was noticing more and more of these deviations, and it worried me that they would become more pronounced as time went on. So when Ms. Foster floated the idea of skipping me to the sixth grade, I was against it from the start. Sure, I was bored sitting in fifth grade everyday, but I was still trying to adapt to being a kid again, and what’s more, how to be a girl, which I still struggled with despite it becoming more natural everyday. I made these salient points to Ms. Foster and my parents, stating that I couldn’t adjust to being the only ten year-old in sixth grade as well as my new gender at the same time.

  Ms. Foster and my parents heartily agreed, but the issue of my malaise in class had to be addressed. It was decided that in addition to my schoolwork, I could be promoted to an unofficial teacher’s assistant. I would be able to help some of the other students with their homework and be given a bit more autonomy and responsibility. After all, I was extremely well-behaved in class, even if I was a bit reserved and isolated from the other students.

  That’s why on this day in February I was circulating and helping some of the more remedial students finish their social studies assignments. My brown hair fell in front of my face as I leaned down to help Nick with his answers, which I blew away irritably. My hair was still continuing to grow, almost to my jawline now. I kept forgetting to tie it back, though annoyingly it wasn’t quite long enough to tie back properly. Still, I found it wild that my hair was growing out; in Matthew’s timeline it was starting to thin out on top. Now, my hair was thicker than it had ever been and it was a relief to know that as Maya I would never go bald.

  Nick listened intently as I explained the paragraph and helped him with some of the more difficult words. He was clearly happy to receive the attention from me, and I was pretty patient with him. After a while he was attempting to impress me with his correct answers, which I amusedly congratulated him. I found it a lot easier to deal with people as a girl, since in Matthew’s timeline I felt like I was a little overbearing to the point where people had an aversion to listening to me. As Maya, people seemed to be a lot more patient with me and I wasn’t seen as too aggressive if I asserted myself. People were just nicer to girls.

  The bell rang over the intercom, and at the signal everyone started to pack away their books. Over the din, Ms. Foster called out “Everyone please put away your things and line up for lunch. We’ll be doing Valentine’s Day arts and crafts once recess is over!” I shook off three of the boys who had a last minute question, and went to the cubbies to grab my lunchbox. As I knelt down into my bag one of my classmates, a blonde girl named Becky, sidled up to me and whispered in my ear.

  “Maya, you shouldn’t be doing that,” she spoke into my ear.

  I pulled my lunch out of my bag and stood up. “Shouldn’t be doing what?”

  She hesitated for a moment. “You’re talking to Nick a lot, and Sarah really likes him. She thinks that you like him too, which is why you’re talking to him so much.”

  I raised my eyebrow, and glanced over my shoulder at Sarah, the girl Becky mentioned. She was standing with her two friends across the room, and she was glaring at me before she caught me looking and turned away. I turned back to Becky.

  “Well, I don’t dislike Nick, but Ms. Foster is having me help all of the students with…wait a minute, what do you mean she thinks I like Nick?”

  Becky shrugged. “You know, that you like like him. Nick was going to be Sarah’s boyfriend, but now she thinks that you want to be his girlfriend.”

  My eyes bulged and my mouth went completely dry. The pit of my stomach lurched, and I gagged for a split second. I twisted my head towards Nick, standing in line with Josh and a couple of the other boys, and he gave me a friendly wave and a grin. I jerked my head back to Sarah, who once again was eyeing me with a look of contempt.

  “I didn’t…I’m not…what the fuck!” I stammered, and Becky gasped at my language.

  “Girls,” called Ms. Foster, gesturing to the two lines forming at the door. “Come on you two, stop talking and line up!”

  Becky and I got to the back of the girl’s line as we trudged to the cafeteria. I felt sick to my stomach. To actually think someone thought I was interested in some boy?! One aspect of being stuck in a prepubescent body was the complete absence of any sort of sexual desire. There weren’t any arousal signals being sent to my brain, and it actually led to much clearer thinking. I assumed that might change later, as I grew older, but I had no intention of having any sort of relationship like that. I had been straight in Matthew’s timeline – hell, I had been married! – but I had no idea what I would be now that I was reliving life as a female. And I certainly wouldn’t even consider a relationship like that with a minor. The thought disgusted me to my core.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  In the beginning of the year I had been a bit ostracized by the other students in my class because of my unusual gender change. The boys, even my best friend Randy, no longer could see me as “one of them” and the girls never saw me as one of them in the first place. As time passed, they seemed to cautiously accept me, and for the last few months I sat with the boys that I had sat with when I was Matthew, since the girls were still wary of me. However, because of this little revelation I had to wonder: did they let me sit with them because they remembered me as Matthew, or was it because they were interested in me as Maya?

  Today I purposely avoided sitting with them, opting for a seat that was a little isolated. I had noticed Nick waving me over, but I gave a tight-lipped smile and walked the other direction. I could only bring myself to stare at my sandwich because my stomach was tied in knots. I merely sat with my face in my hands. Eventually my friend Randy saw me and sat across from me carrying his lunch tray.

  “Maya, why are you sitting all the way over here?” he asked.

  I sighed. “One of the girls just told me something horrifying. I dunno if I can actually process it.”

  Randy frowned, popping open his milk carton. “What did they say?”

  I leaned back. “Apparently Sarah thinks that I am trying to make Nick my boyfriend. I didn’t even know she liked him, and now she’s mad at me. She thinks I like him or something.”

  Randy took a swig of milk. “Do you?”

  I shot him an incredulous look. “Are you kidding? Of course I don’t like him! Why would I like him?”

  “Well,” started Randy, “you are a girl now. Isn’t that what girls do?”

  I threw up my hands. “I might be a girl, but it’s not like I act like one.”

  “Well, you act like one a little bit.” He raised his hand defensively. “No offense or anything. And you definitely look like one. You kind of looked like a girl at the beginning of the year, but now you really look like one. Plus, you’re sort of…er…nevermind. Forget I said anything.”

  “No, tell me. I’m sort of what?”

  Randy scratched the back of his neck. “Well, you are…sort of…nice looking…” he trailed off, suddenly embarrassed.

  I covered my face with my hands. “Fuck!” I mumbled, while Randy shoved french fries into his mouth and not looking at me. There were a couple of minutes of silence as Randy ate and I had a metaphysical crisis.

  “What am I supposed to do?” I said into my hands. “The guys are all probably pleased as punch that some nice-looking girl is helping them with their schoolwork. I’m just doing it because Ms. Foster told me to!”

  “Could just ignore it,” Randy suggested.

  “Easy for you to say. All of the girls probably want to kill me, and the boys all want to…ugh, I don’t even want to think about it.”

  “Well, I probably wouldn’t give them valentines tomorrow during the party.”

  I froze, my mouth agape, staring at him. “I forgot about Valentine’s Day tomorrow. Fuck.”

  Every year for Valentine’s Day our classes always had a little party where we made mailboxes and passed out little candies and cards to everyone in the class. Mom had even bought me one of those generic Valentine’s card packs for me to pass out about a week ago, and I completely brushed it off. It was just another one of those holiday activities for kids that I had no interest in. She had even gotten me a bag of little heart-shaped candies, which I was supposed to pass out in class.

  The plan was to make Valentine's mailboxes this afternoon, and tomorrow to pass them out the cards. Valentine’s morning was a regular study day, and I was decidedly curt with the boys I was helping with their math problems. I gave one word grunts, and was sharp with the criticisms if they got it wrong. I figured praising them was just asking for trouble. Unfortunately, it seemed to have the opposite effect, and they doubled their efforts to show me the right answers. Nick in particular was knocking out math problems left and right to get a positive response with me, which wasn’t going to happen.

  I felt like every boy in the class was ogling me, and I would snap at any of them who spoke to me. In the span of one day they had all become the enemy and no longer just some harmless kids who needed tutoring. I felt targeted, and wished that I had had the benefit of other girls to run interference for me, or a group of them that I could disappear into. Instead, their coldness left me to fend for myself. Perhaps I was being dramatic, but that’s what it felt like to me.

  After recess we set out our mailboxes from the previous day, and I perhaps made the most generic pink box in the entire class. I never liked doing arts and crafts during Matthew’s timeline, and I certainly didn’t like doing them now. I had grudgingly glued a few well-cut paper hearts to my box and dumped glitter on it. We then circulated and passed out the cards. Mine were generic Disney cards, which I had labeled and dropped into the mailboxes as quickly as possible while everyone else milled about and chatted.

  I sat at my desk once I was finished, ignoring the festivities around me. I stared at the clock with my head resting on my hand, disinterestedly. Every so often a student would walk up to slide a card into my box, and I would mumble a thanks. Eventually, some timid footsteps approached me, and I looked up to see Josh approach me. He was carrying a slightly more prominent card, which he gripped with both hands. He looked a lot less intimidating than he did when he cornered me with his gang at the beginning of the year.

  “Uh, hey Maya. Um, happy Valentine’s Day,” he said nervously. He stuck the card in the box, and quickly turned away. It was almost endearing how nervous he was. I stared at him as he hurried away. Damnit, I thought to myself, how dare he make me empathize with him.

  The last person to drop a card into my box was Nick. He actually had a little bag of candy that he passed over to me. “Maya, I’m supposed to thank you for helping me with my math stuff. This is from my Mom,” he added, gesturing at the little bag of goodies.

  I was impressed that he was actually so polite and appreciative. It actually made me feel good, deep down, but I quickly squashed whatever signal my body was sending my brain. Fine, I would grant that he was a good kid. But that was all.

  “Thanks, Nick,” I said, accepting the baggie. I cleared my throat. “And just so you know, I’m happy to help, but we’re just friends, okay? I’m not looking to be your girlfriend or anything like that.”

  Nick blinked for a moment. “Oh, I know that. But we can be friends if you keep helping me out. You couldn’t be my girlfriend, anyway, right?.” And then he turned to walk away.

  It was my turn to blink. I stood up, calling him back. “Yeah, uh, out of curiosity, why couldn’t I be your girlfriend?” I have no idea why I felt I had to say anything.

  Nick turned back and shrugged. “Well, even if you are a girl now you used to be a boy. So you can’t be my girlfriend. Besides,” he added, scratching his head, “I think Sarah is my girlfriend. I can’t remember.”

  As he sauntered away, I was stunned. I was relieved he wasn’t interested in me, but…also disappointed? Maybe even a little jealous of Sarah? No, that was idiotic. These were kids. I was glad that he wasn’t thinking of me in that way. I sat back down and crossed my arms, with too many confusing and conflicting thoughts in my head.

  Randy and I walked home together, both of us with our boxes of candy under our arms. “I guess it wasn’t that big of a deal after all.”

  Randy was sucking on a heart-shaped lollipop. “What, the guys in class?”

  “I don’t think most of them care about girls. And some probably think of me as a boy. So I think I’m safe.”

  “I don’t know why they would think of you as a boy, though. You’ve got longer hair now and you’re cute, too.”

  I stopped walking, frowning confusedly. Randy turned around to face me, his lollipop still in his mouth. “What?” he asked.

  “You…think I’m cute?”

  Randy breathed in sharply, gagging on his sucker. After coughing, he came up with “I mean, you know, like you’re cute for a girl. I guess. I gotta run, I’ll see ya later!” And like a bolt, he ran for home, leaving me standing awkwardly with my Valentine’s day box clasped in front of me.

  “Ugh,” I sighed. “This is bound to get worse.”