Chapter 7

 

“You can’t be serious,” Ryan said, pacing back and forth while Matthew, still clutching her stomach and cackling, had seemingly taken up permanent residence on the floor. “You can not be serious.”

“Dead serious,” Hunter said. “It’s going to work, trust me.” Ryan’s incredulous looks burned a hole in Hunter’s forehead, and he did what he could to ignore it. “Trust me,” he repeated. 

“Is what going to work, Hunter?” Ryan asked. “Trust you with what? Because it looks like you’re trying to outsmart this whole thing by just turning yourself into a girl ahead of time? Which is, I’m going to point out to you Hunter, insane.”

“You can’t say that,” Matthew said, sitting up and wiping her face. 

“Can’t say what?” Ryan said, waving at Hunter. “He’s clearly dressed like—“

Matthew stood up and walked over to the washbasin, splashing some water in her face. “No, I mean you’re not supposed to say ‘insane’ anymore,” she said. “It’s kind of ableist and, yknow, it’s kind of disrespectful to people with mental health issues.”

“Well it’s stupid is what it is,” Ryan said, throwing his hands up in the air in despair.”

“Not that one either,” Hunter said. “Same thing.”

“I’m going to lose my shit.” He looked between Hunter and Matthew.

“That’s still allowed, I think,” Matthew said with a giggle. “Look, if you want to say what I think you’re saying, just say that it’s a bad idea, or not well thought-out, or incredibly funny and guaranteed to backfire in the most hilarious way possible.”

“No, listen,” Hunter said, noting that Drew hadn’t said anything but was looking at him with the kind of intensity they used to carve marble. “If I prove to people they don’t have to turn me into a girl, that I’ve already done the work for them, it gets me off the hook!” He put his hands on his hips. 

Hunter didn’t really have the hips for the outfit his mom had helped him with, but then again, neither had his mom back when she’d worn it. The jeans, with the little diamond studs on the backside and the holes at the knees fit him like a glove. The halter top had needed some stuffing, but he had it on good authority he wouldn’t be the only one doing that, either. His mom had wanted to cover him in jewellery, all kinds of necklaces and armbands, but that hadn’t felt like his style, so he’d kept it to a small bracelet and a little gemstone on a chain. 

He hadn’t needed to do anything with his hair or wear a wig, it already came down to his shoulders. “Well,” he said when nobody responded (except for Matthew, who was biting her lip, clearly to keep from laughing), “I think it’s a great idea, and we’ll see how well it goes, won’t we?!” He looked at the scoreboard. He was in sixteenth place, out of twenty five. If they were really going to halve them every day from now on, he was going to need a sizable amount of votes. Not to mention that, despite his bravado, he was feeling less than entirely confident. It was a long shot, and one that had the potential to backfire spectacularly, as Matthew had so succinctly put it. What if someone took offence to his dressing like a girl? 

He picked at his fingers as he felt the shadow of doubt fall over him, quickly pushed aside by the actual shadow of Drew, who almost — but not quite — put a hand on his shoulder. Hunter looked at the hand, hovering a few inches above his shoulder, and then up at his friend with a questioning look. 

“I, uh,” Drew mumbled, “my mom told me I shouldn’t put a hand on a girl without her consent.” 

Hunter’s brain just about dribbled out of his ears. If he’d had egg on his face before, it would’ve been frying now. Words came out of his mouth, although the syllables were organised somewhat randomly and the consonants had been thoroughly shredded. “O-okay,” he managed. Drew’s hand landed gently on his shoulder. 

“Well,” Drew said, “if you’re sure about this, I’ll help.”

“You can’t be s—“ Ryan started, and then immediately stopped when Drew’s head turned on his neck like a Terminator scanning for targets, staring him down. 

“Anyone gives you grief, Hunter, and I’m going to make them wish they hadn’t come to class today.” He gave his friend a reassuring smile, unaware of the psychic damage he was inflicting. 

“Uh,” Hunter said, which he followed up with a careful and considered, “Um.” Drew cocked his head. “About that.” He paused and hesitated. “If I’m really going to sell this, I can’t have people call me Hunter, right, I mean, that wouldn’t make sense… right?”

“Oh God,” Matthew said, her eyes watering, “you’re serious.”

“I mean, of course I am. If you g— if y’all keep calling me ‘Hunter’ then nobody is going to take me seriously,” he said. “I need a new name, because even if people will still know who I am — they have to if they’re going to vote for me, you know — then they have to know there’s nothing they could do to turn me more into a girl.”

“Are you going to want us to switch pronouns for you?” Matthew asked. “You know, since you’re going to be pretending to be a girl and all.”

“I guess so, yeah,” Hunter said. “It just makes sense.”

“It just makes sense,” Matthew said with a smile in her eyes that was leaking onto the rest of her face. “Okay girlfriend, what’s your new name?”

“Well, I’ve been giving this a lot of thought—“

“Of course you have.”

“— and it took me a while. At first I wondered if I should have gone for a name was, like, significant in some way, maybe something Greek, but those always felt too on-the-nose. So then I asked my parents what they would have named me, which was also a bust because I’m not calling myself Karilynn if you paid me to.”

“Caroline?” Drew asked hopefully.

“Sadly, no. So finally I decided to just go with what felt right because, even if this is only for a few days, it has to be a name I can easily respond to when people call it out to me, you know? Again, I can’t afford to half-ass this because people will be able to tell and it might ruin the entire thing.”

“So what did you settle on?” Ryan asked, leaning against the sink with crossed arms and a grumpy expression. 

“May!” she said excitedly. She’d been working on this one for a while, and had run it past her parents several times. In fact, she’d had them call her a bunch of different women’s names as preparation. “Yeah, I was going to go for Mae first, but that was the family dog’s name, so that would’ve been weird. Good puppy, though.”

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“Good p—“ Ryan mouthed, and then shook his head. “Okay, ‘May’, now what? Just act effeminate until it gets you votes? Do you realize how cr— how ins— how st— how bad that sounds? Like, do you think the effeminate guys in school have it easy?”

“Well, obviously not,” May said, rolling her eyes. “The point isn’t for this to be easy. I know this is going to be difficult, but the point isn’t for this to be easy, the point is for this to work.” She put her hands on her hips again and dared him to refute her. 

“It won’t,” Ryan said just as the bell rang. 

As they left the room, none of them noticed that silently, the name in sixteenth place changed, replaced by May. “We shall see,” she said with all the threat she could muster. 

They did. Eight hours later, in front of the mirrors again, Ryan had given up on eating his granola bar and had switched to eating his words instead. “How,” he said, “the f—“

“Told you,” May said proudly. Even Matthew looked at her in disbelief. 

“There’s no way…” Ryan said. He was locked in place, his gaze flitting back and forth between the scores and the timer, which was down to a few minutes again.” The bathrooms were once again full and everyone was talking about and pretending not to look into the direction of May. Drew stood next to her and looked ready to throw down with anyone who so much as tried to start anything with her. 

“Is it just me,” Matthew said, “or are the bathrooms getting a bit… mixed?” May looked around. She wasn’t wrong. At the end of the day, everyone flooded to the mirrors, after all, and there were several girls among them. May couldn’t actually tell which of them had been boys yesterday, and at this point, it didn’t really matter all that much. She shrugged.

“That’ll happen,” she said. “As long as people can pee in peace, right?”

“Fair enough.” 

“Okay, but how?” Ryan repeated, staring at the screen. “This is—“

“This is bull,” someone else said. All heads turned to look at Paxton, who was elbowing his way through the crowd to look at the mirrors. At the top was, predictably, Paxton. Then, just below it, in bold, pink letters, was the name May. “Who the fuck is May? I don’t know any guys named May.”

“That’s me,” she said, holding up her hand. “Looks like your top spot isn’t as guaranteed as you thought it was, my dude.”

“Who the hell are you?!” Paxton stormed over to her and for a brief moment, May felt her chest tighten. He was not only more athletic than her, he was also taller and more popular. “There weren’t any girls on the board yesterday!”

The day had not been easy. Some of the younger boys had jeered at her, but they were children, easily tuned out. The older kids sneering, that had been unpleasant. To her delight, though, the girls had almost unanimously gathered behind her, complimenting her outfit or offering to help her in case people gave her grief.

And some people did, of course. And then they immediately regretted it when they saw Drew walking towards them like Michael Myers. They either walked it back quickly or slowly, but they all walked it back. The hardest thing all day had been not to fawn over him for that.

But right now, the boy in school most likely to get away with having a go at her was having a go at her, and she was scared. Scared, right up until Drew parked himself in front of her and rolled his shoulders. Paxton stopped moving but not glaring. 

“You said you couldn’t remember my name last time,” May squeaked. “Guess you remember it now, huh?” The boy frowned and stared at her, and then his eyes went wide.

“Hunter?!” Everyone stared at them now. “Jesus, I told you not to be homophobic but this is taking it a bit far, isn’t it? So, what’s the plan here, chief? Seduce all the guys into voting for you?” He glared at the board, probably wondering if that was actually working out for her. She shook her head.

“No, ass. Besides, most of the votes are coming from girls anyway.”

“What, because you’re one of them? That’s ins—“ he said, just as the boy next to him started to hum like a phone set to silent. He was getting slightly hard to see, his features vibrating. The humming grew louder, until suddenly he went -pop- and she sagged to the ground in a shower of glitter and confetti. Paxton glared at May. “You’re going down tomorrow, you fucking weirdo.”

“I’ll let you call me a slur if it makes you feel better!” May said as he turned around, but he ignored her. All around him, boys were being popped like balloons and girls left in their wakes. Slowly but surely, the second mirror was wiped clean. Ryan was now about halfway up the first one, in ninth place, so he wasn’t particularly worried.

Not until the second mirror was empty and the name at the bottom of the first mirror disappeared and the boy in thirteenth place went Pop.

“Um,” Ryan said, “hold on, that’s not supposed to happen.”

Pop. Twelve.

He ran over to the mirrors, along with three others. “No no no no—“

Pop. Eleven. 

The girl to his left was quickly whisked away by the other girls. Ryan and Ten, a boy named Porter, looked at each other in horror and then… 

Nothing happened. The timer at the top reset once again, and Ryan and Porter sagged to the floor in relief. 

“This is going well, isn’t it?” Matthew giggled. “Come on, let’s get some ice cream.” She nudged Drew and May, then nodded at Ryan. “You coming?”

He looked at her like he’d just ran a marathon, exhausted but relieved. He smiled. “Sure,” he said. “I’m buying.”