I agreed on the basis that it was the easiest way to move things on. There really wasn’t anything else on offer that particularly interested me so I had a vested interest in trying to enjoy the costume making.

Which wasn’t that hard in the end. Jenny gave us a loose leaf folder with a mixture of photographs and drawings of period costumes to look through, and to be honest, I hadn’t expected to be that keen on any medieval dress designs – I had this image of long and fairly shapeless outfits with ridiculous cone shaped hats and chiffon scarves – but there was one that just leapt off the page at me.

Ankle length and open necked with long flowing sleeves, golden embroidery around the décolletage, tight bodice and loosely draped skirts. The picture wasn’t clear about the material, either silk or satin, or maybe some sort of felt material in a colour the girls assure me was a deep crystal teal. A golden sash belt finished it off with an end that draped almost the full length of the skirt. I fell in love with it at first sight.

I was vaguely aware of the girls sharing glances and knowing grins. They left me to staring at that one image while they made their selections, then we headed back over to Jenny and handed her what we’d chosen.

“Er, this is...” Jenny began when she saw my choice.

“It’s alright Mrs Ambrose,” Judith said and murmured something in her ear.

If I’d known what the girls intended, I’d never have let them, or at least I’d have tried not to. I’ve never been great at arguing and I doubt I could have held my own against twelve well-meaning teenagers, especially of the cute and curvy variety.

Jenny made a few calculations and handed each of us an estimate for the cost of making our chosen costumes. Mine came to a very reasonable sixty pounds. I’d have probably been able to stretch to twice that, possibly if I dropped the archery, and would have been ready to do so. No need apparently, especially with archery running at just five quid a session, so twenty pounds for the rest of the week.

The extracurricular sessions only ran on weekdays, which meant with Monday out, just four sessions to work with. Saturday would be a kind of celebration of what we’d achieved with a party to end it all – a costume party no less – then goodbyes and a train ride home on the Sunday. Since we were so short on time and it was only the thirteen of us writers who’d signed up to Jenny’s course, she asked if we might want to start a day early. The girls were keen, so I kind of went along with the consensus. To be honest, I was intrigued and happy enough to make an early start.

She had us measuring out and cutting pieces of cloth, though nothing that looked like my chosen piece. She must have caught a glimpse of my confusion because she settled down next to me.

“This is really good,” she said. “Have you done anything like it before?”

I shook my head and was about to ask my question when she forestalled me.

“I thought it best to start everyone off on some of the plainer material that’s going into your friends’ dresses. Yours I’m going to have to special order, and it’s a lot more delicate and easy to mess up, so best to practice first.”

“When will it get here?”

“I doubt it’ll be here tomorrow, but Wednesday definitely.”

“That won’t give me a lot of time.”

“I know, which is why you’re helping your friends with theirs today and tomorrow, then they’ll help you with yours later in the week. We’re going to have to cheat a little with your friends’ outfits as we just don’t have time to do it all by hand. The embroidery, definitely, and it’ll be good practice for later, but most of theirs will be done on sewing machines.”

“Not mine?”

She shook her head. “Again too delicate. We could machine sew it, but it never looks as good. It’ll be good experience for everyone though. It’s not often you get a chance to hand sew quality silk, so an experience for you and your friends, then you get to benefit from it in the end.”

A niggle settled into my rather dense brain. “It sounds considerably more expensive than just sixty quid.”

“Oh, it is, but don’t worry, it’s covered. Peter and I have a private fund we use for special cases like this, and your friends all chipped in a bit. They get their money’s worth from having an opportunity to work on such an elegant project, as well as the pleasure of seeing your reaction at the end of it all.” She must have noticed my concerned expression. “Peter showed me your piece,” she said. “The competition entry? I hope you won’t take that as a betrayal of confidence, but we’re both open minded individuals, and he knows he can trust me to be discreet.”

“I suppose I don’t mind, but I’d hate to see all this effort and expense go to waste.”

“So would we. The girls were all planning on wearing their costumes to the party on Saturday, and I suppose we were all hoping you’d be okay doing the same.”

Headlights. Rabbit. Fight or flight, except like the Questing Beast I’d never been one for confrontations. Neither did I have anywhere to run, so option three. Freeze.

“You don’t have to if it makes you feel this terrified, but give it a few days to settle in. The party is Saturday evening and you leave the next day, so if anything goes wrong – and I doubt it will – you’re out of here within hours.”

“And my parents?”

“Won’t have to know anything, although it’ll be a shame if you don’t take your gown home with you.”

My heart wouldn’t slow down. Jenny gave me a square of cloth to practice hemming and I made a mess of my first however many attempts. She eventually took pity on me and settled next to me.

“Blank out everything that’s worrying you and focus only on the work at hand.”

“That’s easy for you to say.”

“And not so difficult to do. Sure, you’ve just had a big thing landed in front of you, but I doubt it’s worse than the mess of small things girls get to deal with all the time. Try it and see how you get on.”

So I did. The horror of Lance and his entourage laughing at me, grabbing hold of me and beating me to a pulp, tearing the delicate fabric of the dress, all receded and I was able to do good enough work that she let me loose on the hem of a real skirt. By the end of the evening, my fingers were cramping, but the hemline was complete and considered to be definitely good enough.

“Who wants to come back to our room for a nightcap?” Amanda asked. Apparently she was sharing with Stacey. Yet again the general consensus was an enthusiastic yes with a dozen pairs of eyes turning my way to see how I would react.

“I don’t know that the school would be too happy about me spending time in a girl’s room, especially not this late.”

“We’d better make sure they don’t find out then, hadn’t we, girls?” Amanda’s grin was less reassuring than it might have been, and the rest of them were downright scary, but like I say, I don’t do confrontation, so they crowded around me so I was all but invisible, then as soon as we were in the room, Amanda hunted out a handful of clothes and threw them at me, pointing at the bathroom while Stacey leant on the door.

So that’s how come I found myself wearing a short skirt, halter top and a pair of soft, cotton boycuts with lace trim when the matron knocked on the door.

She looked around at us all – me a little closer than the rest, I felt – then made a comment about us all going back to our rooms by eleven-thirty, which seemed fair.

Nightcaps in Amanda’s vocabulary were teas or hot chocolates. The rest of the time involved chatting about the dressmaking, and me being treated to a freshly painted set of toe nails in a sort of aquamarine they all thought would offset my dress really well. They wanted to do my fingers as well, but I wasn’t ready for that yet. They did insist on doing something with my hair which mainly meant trimming the split ends and spraying some stuff on it to give it more body or something.

As eleven-thirty approached, Amanda offered me a pair of white sandals with flowers on them. I looked at them quizzically for a minute until Stacey offered me a sports bag with my shoes and socks, jeans and tee shirt neatly folded.

“What are the chances the matron’s going to be waiting nearby to watch you as you leave?” Amanda said. “Judith and Zoe are in the next block over, so stick with them. They’ll find you a convenient bush and stand guard while you change.”

It worked much as planned, except they had security patrolling the grounds and we bumped into a couple of them just seconds after I came out from behind the bush.

Back in my room – a single fortunately – I couldn’t help changing back into the skirt and top. The reflection in the mirror looked more girl than boy and left me with a warm feeling. I slept in Amanda’s things, which felt right somehow.

The following morning I woke early and showered before any of the other boys staying in my block had a chance to comment on my hair and toenails. At breakfast I gave Amanda her bag back and Zoe offered me a different one in return.

“We thought you might want to change before this evening’s late night get together. Judith found a place behind our block where you can do so without being disturbed, and it’ll be easier if you look like one of us when you turn up. We’re doing it at ours tonight, and our matron’s a bit strict by comparison, so make sure you get your girl on before you turn up.”

This rabbit hole was getting deeper by the minute. Still, nothing had gone wrong so far...

I dropped the bag off in my room before heading to class, arriving just a minute or two late. Peter wasn’t bothered and waved me over to join the others.

Collaborative writing today. Names out of a hat. Three trios and a couple of pairs. I was matched up with Gillian and one of the Sarahs (B I think) and topics out of a different hat. Contemporary topics this time. We ended up with ’My Best Friend’s Birthday’ which we started off by pooling stories from parties we’d been too, and trying to make it a funny. I didn’t have much to add in the planning phase since the few parties I’d attended ended up with me as the butt of the jokes, and not of the sort which made for funny stories.

I did have a fair sense of the ridiculous though, and was able to take their ideas and stretch them beyond all reasonable limits. We read it back to the group as a sort of radio play, with me providing a dry commentary and Gill and Sarah taking on a half dozen roles each, hamming up the voices and having us all in stitches. I know, not very professional corpsing at your own jokes, but this was a writing class not an acting one.

It gave Peter an idea for the following day and he dismissed us early with an assignment to look into screenwriting, which he planned to give us as our focus.

Archery was surprisingly fun. I ended up with a girl’s bow as I didn’t have the strength to pull even the lightest of the boys’ weapons. What I lacked in brute force, I made up for in finesse though, and once I had the feel of the equipment, most of my arrows ended up within the yellow bit (gold, our instructor insisted) with the rest going in the red.

One or two of the girls had done something of the sort before, but even they couldn’t keep up with me.

Before tea I checked out the contents of Zoe’s bag, finding a cute summer dress with puff sleeves and more sandals. She’d also packed a tin of hairspray, apparently guessing that I’d wash the body out of my newly trimmed hair.

She’d also left me a seriously cute nightdress.

The nighty I tucked beneath my pillow. The rest came with me.

Dressmaking had us all working on sewing machines. A totally new experience for me but, once I had the hang of it, so much quicker and neater. By the end of the session, twelve dresses looked well on the way to completion.

Judith and Zoe stood guard while I changed behind their block, then Zoe did something magic with my hair before taking me by the hand.

“You there, where do you think you’re going?” The voice came from a formidably built woman.

“To our room,” Judith replied, skirting the edge of incivility.

“I don’t recognise you,” she said to me. “Who are you?”

I softened my voice as much as I could, though given she sounded a lot like a man herself, I’m not sure she’d have been in a position to pass judgement. “Gwen, Miss.” I didn’t need to push the quaver in my voice.

“I don’t recognise you.”

“No Miss, I’m staying in one of the other halls.”

“Which one?”

“Er...” I pointed vaguely towards where the rest of the girls were staying.

Amanda rescued me at that point, appearing at the head of the rest of our little troupe, announcing the name of the residence which hadn’t registered with me.

“And what are you lot doing here?”

“I invited them for a bedtime drink,” Judith said.

“Bedtime drink, eh? And what exactly would I find if I were to come looking in your room right now, young lady?”

“Er, well it’s a bit of a mess I’m afraid, but... Oh the drinks? Tea, hot chocolate, milk. If you look, you’ll see everyone’s brought a mug. Almost everyone.” She glowered at me.

“I’m sorry Judith, I didn’t think.”

“Hmph,” the old harridan spouted. “See you don’t make too much noise, and you need to be out by...”

“Eleven-thirty,” Judith said before the old woman could set an earlier time. “Yes miss, we will.”

The focus of conversation for the evening was screenplays. None of us had written one and they looked to be something of a novel challenge. The focus on me was bling. They tried me with rings and bracelets, necklaces and god knows what. They even pierced my ears before I could figure out what they were about. It didn’t really hurt, and when they left me with a pair of almost invisible silicone studs, I couldn’t even find any reason to object. Through most of the evening they tried me with different earrings until I settled on a pair I really liked – jade coloured enamel dragons.

We chose not to push our luck and left five minutes ahead of curfew, after the girls had reclaimed their jewellery and I had my invisible plastic studs in my ears. Zoe threw me my bag of clothes just as we were all ready.

The two Sarahs followed me to my secluded changing spot and waited for me to change my appearance before we parted ways.

That night I slept in a Hello Kitty tee shirt nightdress and floral boy cut knickers. I wasn’t that generously endowed and they had enough stretch in them to accommodate me comfortably.

The following day was a near repeat of the one before. Bags exchanged at the breakfast table, teams and topics chosen from a hat and me teamed up with Gretch and Judith to produce a ghost story. I suggested writing about the mysterious grey bearded stranger I’d encountered a couple of times since our arrival, thinking, if nothing else, that Peter might offer some clues as to who he might be. Neither of my partners had heard of him, but liked the idea of Merlin’s ghost haunting the mound. We brought the piece up to date by making our main character a victim of cyber bullying, and opened the play with her sitting and crying at the top of the mound.

Through several encounters and the old ghost’s encouragement, she changed from being isolated, desperate and on the verge of suicide to someone who has enough confidence to stand up for herself, and against her peers.

In the closing scene, as the bullies are led away to be dealt with by the police, the young girl asks her teacher who the old man was and is told there is no such man on staff.

A bit derivative perhaps, but difficult to do more in a day with a topic only given at the beginning of the session.

We left the screenplays with Peter to read over during the evening.

“I liked yours particularly,” he said to Gretch, Judith and me, “especially that you leave it to the audience to decide who the grey bearded man is. I mean no real surprise there. I imagine it’s supposed to be Merlin. You know there’s a story about his spirit or ghost or something haunting the mound. The appearance people give him isn’t far off how you depicted him here.”

“How was ours different,” I asked. I don’t really believe in the supernatural, so I wasn’t ready to accept I’d met the old wizard.

“Let’s see. Long grey hair, long grey beard, long grey robes, tall with a gentle demeanour. You put me in mind of Gandalf, but I suppose that is what’s been described. Why do you ask?”

“No reason. Just intrigued that we managed to recreate a local legend without meaning to.”

Gretch and Judith exchanged glances. Sometimes the girls’ capacity for noticing subtle details could be annoying. I didn’t really want to tell them what had been happening to me because I could guess their reaction, however, I knew that nothing short of the truth would pass muster.

Archery had been moved into a larger field which challenged my shooting to the limit. The weak bow meant I had to aim high just to reach the target. Judging the angle right proved difficult with small variations producing large changes to where the arrow landed. I still managed to keep most of the arrows in line with the gold, but enough landed above and below where I was aiming to mean I was landing most within the blue with a few drifting into the black and white. I managed to tighten my grouping with time and my last few ends were all within the blue.

The other girls found the whole session frustrating. I suggested picking out a reference point along the arc of the bow and aiming for consistency in draw length, which helped some of them get a little better, but I think I was the only person there who felt I’d improved by the end of the session.

Over dinner I was given the third degree by Judith and Gretchen with the others joining in as I revealed my experiences. They wanted me to report the creepy old bugger to the headmaster, or at least to Peter, but I insisted there was nothing to report. The old bugger, as they’d called him, had been anything but creepy. He’d kept a respectable distance – well maybe not the second time – and he’d not been intimidating in any way, just the opposite if anything. On both occasions I’d felt uplifted by his words, and he’d even inspired my story about the Questing Beast.

In the end I persuaded them to leave it alone, but only on the understanding that I was to tell them the next time I saw him. I didn’t mind that. If they could confirm his existence to me, that would help me keep a hold on reality, and if they thought he was a danger, I’d allow myself to be led by them.

Dressmaking saw the girls’ outfits completed enough for them to try on. There was a little adjustment necessary in a few cases, but for the most part they looked stunning, very much the part and quite delighted with the results. Just the lengthy, fiddly decorating to do.

Halfway through the session, Jenny brought out a length of shimmering blue green material. It was cool and so smooth to the touch.

“This must have cost a fortune,” I said.”

“Within budget. Alright, Gwen, remember what I said about measure twice, cut once?”

“My dad says the same when it comes to DIY.”

“Okay, well you cut out your patterns a couple of days ago. Are you sure they’re right?”

“I am, but I’ll check them again.”

“Good girl.”

I’m not sure if she noticed, but it gave me a warm fuzzy. I took out my notes, had Stacey measure me one last time – everything checked – then translated those measurements into all the different shapes we were going to cut out. It didn’t take long, but we were thorough and nothing needed redoing. I brought the different pieces to the table.

“Alright, gather round everyone. We don’t want to pin anything because the holes won’t heal completely, which is why I had you cut out the patterns on this stuff. It has a very light adhesive on the back, like you find on post-its.

“Let me help you position the patterns so we have the grain of the material falling right. I’ll show you what I mean, then you can all have a go.

“Once we have all the patterns in place, you can all take turns with my sharpest scissors and cut all the shapes out. We may not get much further than that today apart from practicing your hand stitching on the cut offs. Tomorrow is all hands on deck. There will be times when you’re between jobs and you can work on decorating your own dresses, but you drop what you’re doing to get back to this when you’re needed, clear?”

We were clear. The placing of the patterns was done with more precision than I could easily follow, and the cutting was nerve wracking. Fortunately there was only one accident and that was on a small piece that was easy enough to recreate on a spare bit of material.

Hand stitching the fine silk using thinner needles and finer thread meant using smaller stitches which took longer and showed up even the slightest carelessness. We were determined though, and had our skills up to scratch in time to start stitching pieces together. By the end of the session my dress still looked like a lot of bits, but some of them were attached to others with the stitching meeting Jenny’s high standards.

The late-night gabble took place in Helen and Gillian’s. Same routine of changing outside Judith and Zoe’s block. I thought I noticed a few sneaky glances passing back and forth between them, which made me nervous, but we reached the room without incident.

We were too tired to say much after the hours of close needlework, but apparently not tired enough for me to avoid lessons in make-up and sorting out my hair. With all the precision work I’d been doing in dress making, it didn’t take long to pick up on the subtleties that made make-up work or not. The final results were too good just to wipe off and I hadn’t encountered anyone else in my block getting back as late as I had, so I figured I’d take a chance and leave it on.

Judith and Zoe still had that conspiratorial look as they handed me my bag of clothes and led me out to the changing area.

They weren’t my jeans. I mean they were stretchy so they fit, but they weren’t mine. In the darkness I had no idea what they looked like on me. Not that I had much choice since the alternative was the skirt and strappy top I’d been lent for the evening. The tee shirt wasn’t mine either. It smelt of Zoe’s perfume. Again it fit well enough and again I couldn’t see any details. I could feel what I thought had to be sequins, not that I had much experience with such things. The shoes were mine, but instead of my socks, I had knee-high, sheer stockings which felt weird. For one thing the shoes felt too big.

I emerged from my hiding place to be confronted with a camera flash. Judith and Zoe ran off giggling before I could say anything leaving me with a nervous walk back to my dorm, fortunately without unwelcome encounters.

My phone buzzed and the WhatsApp group we’d created for us girls popped up with a photograph of a not unattractive young girl in tight jeans with a sequinned ‘Girl Power’ tee shirt. The caption read ‘Gwen heading home’. It took a moment to realise that the girl was me. A quick check in the mirror showed the same girl. Make-up, skinny jeans, pink tee shirt, hair subtly styled. It took an effort to see the old me in there.

I texted Zoe, ‘Need my jeans.’

The reply came back, ‘Left them round Helen and Gill’s. No response from them. Think they went to bed.’

‘What am I going to wear in the morning?”

‘You looked really cute in that skirt and top.’

Not helpful.

‘Only one pair of jeans, remember?’

‘Oh shit! Sorry, didn’t think.’

Well duh.

‘Will try the other girls in their block.’

Then a few minutes later.

‘Sorry, no joy. Try again in the morning.’

Nothing much to do but go to bed. Zoe had included some wipes in her packing so I could deal with the make-up before hunting out Hello Kitty.

I slept well. I had done ever since that first night in Amanda’s clothes. Morning came early enough to get me into the shower before anyone else roused. That dealt with the last of the make-up and took the shape out of my hair. It did nothing for the toenails though which earned me an odd look from the one guy I passed on the way back to my room.

I messaged Zoe, ‘?’

She sent back, ‘Zzzz!’

I pulled Gill and Helen’s details from the group membership and sent them, ‘Zoe left my one pair of jeans round yours last night. Can you get them to me?’

The reply from Gillian a few minutes later, ‘We’ve looked everywhere. Can’t find them. Soz.’

So this was getting better and better.

My least worst option was Zoe’s tight jeans. They didn’t look right with my underwear, so I switched to the previous night’s boy cuts. The whole lot felt good but didn’t look that masculine, even with one of my tee shirts. Still, it was the best I could do under the circumstances. Breakfast was calling to me and there were some greater priorities than looking like a pillock. The shirt didn’t look right, but the alternatives were girl power pink or the strappy top. The strappy top was at least a plain white, and it felt less like I was trying to hide something. I went with it. Go big or go home.

Lance couldn’t keep from laughing the moment he laid eyes on me, not that he tried much. His cronies joined in, since that’s what cronies do.

The girls looked upset, Zoe in particular, but I gave them all a smile and sat down with my breakfast.

“It was all going to come out on Saturday anyway, wasn’t it?”

“That wouldn’t have been so bad,” Amanda said. “No time to do anything about it. As it is, they could send us home early. Maybe Peter will get in trouble for encouraging it.”

Zoe handed me a bag similar to the one she’d given me the previous night. “We switched bags. Put your shoes in this one. Gill and Helen didn’t think to look in the bag.”

“Thanks.” I carried on eating. If someone was going to kick me out, I was going to go on a full stomach.

I was nearly done when Peter approached our table. He looked worried.

“The headmaster wants to see us. All of us.”

“Do I have time to change?”

“He sounded rather impatient, so let’s go with no.”

“Are we in trouble?” Zoe asked.

“That remains to be seen. May I suggest complete candour?”

We nodded and collected our things, following Peter into a different part of the school where a rather stern looking older gentleman sat behind a large desk. He was talking to his computer where Mum and Dad’s concerned faces looked back out. Shaky images, both using their phones.

“Peter,” the head greeted his staff member first, “ladies,” then his gaze fell on me, evidently not intending to include me in the previous grouping, “and Gavin, I believe.”

“Yes sir,” I said, aware that I was the only one of us who had responded. “May I speak first? Hopefully try to clear a few things up?”

“I would certainly be grateful if you would.”

I’d been trying to put things together in my mind all the way up here. I took a breath and began.

“I suppose it started with my competition entry,” I said. “I wrote a story called Knight in White Satin.”

“Like the Moody Blues song?” asked a voice from the computer.

“Hi Dad. Hi Mum. Yeah, kind of, but not quite. This is knight, K-N-I-G-H-T, but the song did give me the mental nudge for the story idea. Mum, Dad, I never wanted you to find out quite like this, but I’m guessing it’s a little late to pretend nothing happened.”

I went on to outline the story. The headmaster looked oddly at Peter who said, “It really is one of the best pieces of fiction I’ve read in all my years doing this job, even without the transgender element which is told with remarkable insight and sensitivity.”

I reclaimed the narrative. “Mr Ambrose was very open and understanding right from the start. I could tell from how he spoke he suspected I was talking about myself, but he left me room to deny or confirm, or even ignore his suggestion. He was very sensitive about the subject, sir. I know it’s a teacher’s job to be these days, but Mr Ambrose handled it better than any teacher I’ve met, including my English teacher, Mrs Meredith, who has always been pretty cool about the whole thing.”

From the camera wobble I could see Mum had just sat down with a bit of a thump. Dad was holding it together, but I could tell he was bursting with questions.

“When Peter – that’s Mr Ambrose; he’s been encouraging us to use his first name this week – introduced us as a group, it just turned out there was a Stacey in the group – you know the sitcom Gavin and Stacey?” Sometimes you have to be obvious with adults. I’m not sure the head had heard of it. Anyway I mentioned all the issues we each had with our names at school and Peter’s suggestion that, just for the week we could reinvent ourselves if we wanted. When it came to me, I mention both my slip of the tongue and my attempted recovery. Too little and too late since the girls were quick to pick up on my Freudian slap (literally what my dad calls it). We got to the point where I agreed I’d prefer to be Gwen when it was just our little group and Gawain otherwise. It didn’t make much difference to the numpties as they’d pick on me regardless.

The headmaster wanted to know which numpties. I was reluctant to name anyone but Peter mentioned having noticed Lance and his gang picking on me.

“The girls kind of adopted me into their temporary sisterhood...”

“She’s a natural sir,” Judith chipped in then subsided into a mumbled, “Well I’m only saying” when everyone turned and gave her a look.

“When it came down to extra curricular activities, I wanted to have a go at the archery, which they all seemed pretty keen on, then they got all excited over medical costume design...”

“That’s the one your wife runs, isn’t it?” the head asked Peter who nodded and turned back to me, encouraging me to continue.

“I wasn’t that interested in anything else, and Mum’s always told me it doesn’t matter what you do as long as you’re with friends.” Mum offered up a wane smile. “I’m not sure it’s quite that simple because you need the common ground to make a friend. Empathy, understanding, interest. Then when you have those, whatever you choose to do together ends up being fun because you have this unspoken mutual commitment to whatever it is.

“Anyway, it’s meant that I’ve been spending pretty much all my time during the day with these twelve wonderful people. We eat together, we work together and we play together, whether it’s shooting arrows at a target or sewing medieval costumes, so when we got to the end of the day on Monday, one of the girls suggested getting together in one of the shared rooms for a hot chocolate and a chat before bed.”

“Nothing wrong with that as far as we could tell,” Zoe piped up, “as long as we kept the noise down and kept to the eleven-thirty curfew.”

The head nodded cautiously.

“Only we didn’t want Gwen to be left out. We knew there was a ban on boys in girl’s rooms, but by then I suppose we all looked on him, or her, as just another one of us girls. We knew it wasn’t the same as sneaking someone like, say, Lance in, but at the same time we knew the school wouldn’t agree with us and you’d object on principle. ‘It would send the wrong kind of message,’ sort of thing or, ‘it would set a precedent that could be too easily exploited.’ Am I right, sir.”

“Of course you’re right, young lady. The rules are there for a reason.”

“And with respect sir, the reason doesn’t apply in Gwen’s case. She’s as much a girl as the rest of us, except for having that thing between her legs.”

“So anyway,” Amanda took over before Zoe could dig herself too deep, “my dad always told me it’s easier to get forgiveness than to get permission, so we smuggled her in, got her to change into some of our clothes in case the house matron should stick her head in, and went ahead and had our late night chat.

“I could say Gwen was a perfect gentleman, but that wouldn’t be quite right, but she was a perfect lady.”

“Anyway, the girls wanted me to join in with them. We knew what the school rules were, but we also had a pretty good idea why that particular one was in place. I know we disregarded the letter of the law, sir, but we were careful to keep to its spirit. The girls were only trying not to exclude me from that one last activity of the day. They didn’t mean any harm by it, and I certainly had no intention of taking advantage.”

“I’ll take that under advisement. Now are we any closer to understanding what this is about?” he waved at my clothing.

“Nearly there sir. After Monday, the girls started bringing me a bag of clothes I could change into so I’d be a more convincing girl going in and out of their rooms. While I was with them, my clothing would be hidden away in a bag, then I’d find some quiet corner to change in on my way back to my room.

“Last night, a few of the girls decided to pull a prank and switch bags so I only had Zoe’s jeans to change into, except they didn’t realise I only bought the one pair of jeans with me.”

“Oh Gavin!” Mum murmured.

“I prefer to travel light. I have changes of socks, underwear and tee shirts for a week but I didn’t think I’d need a spare pair of jeans.

“Anyway, for a number of silly little reasons, my friends couldn’t find my things before breakfast, so I put on Zoe’s jeans. I tried them with one of my tee shirts, but I didn’t look right, like I was pretending everything was alright when it obviously wasn’t. My alternatives from the clothes the girls had given me were a shocking pink tee shirt with Girl Power picked out in black sequins, or this. I kind of liked this the best so... here I am.

“We really didn’t mean any harm, sir, and Mr and Mrs Ambrose knew nothing about what we were doing last thing at night. We’re sorry we disregarded your rules, only would you have understood if we’d come to you and asked?”

The headmaster’s expression had softened quite considerably during the telling. He looked from me to the pleading expressions on all the girls’ faces, then to Peter whose look of worry had been replaced by one of mild amusement and admiration. Mum and Dad looked like the wind had been knocked well and truly out of their sails, but what remained was the usual exasperation and love.

“Mr and Mrs Llewelyn, what would you like me to do?”

“I don’t really know,” Dad said, speaking for Mum too as he usually did. “Gavin?”

“I’d really like to finish the week Dad, with my friends. It’s been really good. Mr Ambrose is a great teacher and I’m learning a ton of stuff, from the girls too. And I’ve made some really great friends.”

Mum let out a sob, but it was happy crying.

“Well I’ve no objection to that, but I want a family video conference this evening. We’ve a few things we need to discuss that I’m not sure will wait for the weekend.”

“Okay Dad.” I’d thought about Daddy, but maybe it was too soon for that.

“That is, of course, if it’s agreeable to you, Mr Cavendish.”

Of course the head of a prestigious school like Marlborough would come from a prestigious family.

“I’ve no objection, but with a few changes. Firstly, no more late night gatherings.”

“Yes sir,” the girls and I agreed demurely.

Mr Cavendish struggled to hide his smile, giving Peter an opening.

“Actually sir, I’ve been thinking about that. Jenny and I could chaperone a short gathering in one of the student’s common rooms after the costume design sessions. It wouldn’t be much trouble and we’d be glad to do it.”

“Very well, I’m prepared to accept that. The second condition is, with Mr and Mrs Llewelyn’ permission, I don’t think this neither one thing nor the other is particularly good for you Gavin, so for the rest of the week I want you to commit to being either Gavin, or Gawain I think you said, didn’t you? Or Gwen.”

I looked towards the computer screen, begging for understanding.

Dad was first to reply. With a catch in his voice he said, “Whatever you want son, er no, sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

“It’s alright Daddy,” I said, feeling it was now no longer too soon.

“That feels like a decision then. I’m sure you girls will be able to supply your friend with what she needs?”

They were all smiles and nods and excitedly almost jumping up and down.

“I’ll have to sort out some alternate accommodation for the rest of the week. You won’t be able to stay in the boys dorm and the same objection applies to your being in with the girls.”

“Jenny and I have a spare room sir,” Peter offered.

“Thirdly, we have a few scholarships to hand out at this school. Gwen, I’d like you to seriously consider accepting one.”

“Er, I don’t know what to say, sir. At the risk of sounding rude, may I ask why?”

“At the risk of giving you an inflated view of yourself, I can’t recall the last time any young person conducted themselves with the sort of dignity, honesty and consideration for your friends as you did just now. You are just the sort of pupil I would wish to see at Marlborough. You also seem to have impressed my head of English and that’s not an easy thing to do.

“Now go on, I’ve wasted enough of your morning. Go and be exceptional, all of you.”

We were too excited to work, and Peter recognised that. “Take half an hour,” he said. “Gwen, I doubt you’ll have much to do, but I’d like you to pack up your things. Girls, perhaps you would hunt through your wardrobes and pick out some clothes you wouldn’t mind lending your friend for the rest of this week. Once you’ve managed to get all this... whatever this is out of your system, come back here and we’ll see what we can salvage of the morning.”

We didn’t need telling twice. The girls more or less heralded me out of the classroom and towards my dorm, keeping up an excited prattle along the way. Apparently I looked divine the way I was, except I really needed a different pair of shoes. Did I prefer trainers, because Gretch had a gorgeous pair with pink highlights. Zoe suggested a pair of flats which were pretty open at the top, and would look amazing as long as I was wearing the sheer knee highs she’d left me last night. I paused long enough to show her I was. The rest of the way they suggested different outfits they had. I remembered most of them and agreed to the majority of their suggestions, except the sheer amount of clothing they were coming up with would give me a half dozen changes a day for the time we had left. I didn’t mind being a clothes horse, but I really didn’t know when I would find the time to change.

We reached my dorm and I pealed off, suggesting I’d meet them at the top of the mound when they were ready.

I really didn’t have a lot to pack. Tee shirts, socks, pants, some worn, others not. Toothbrush, toothpaste, shower gel and shampoo into the wash bag, wash bag into my shoulder bag and I was ready. Mum’s tablet and my phone were in a small rucksack I kept with me all the time. One last hunt around the room uncovered a rebel sock which I incarcerated with the rest of my used clothing, then I stripped the bed which uncovered the nightdress that I’d tucked under the pillow and forgotten about. Ten minutes all in and the room was as bare as I’d found it.

The walk up to the top of the mound felt different. The strappy top left my arms and shoulders exposed to the cool breeze and the way the jeans and knee highs stretched and flexed over my skin felt delicious. I felt invigorated and filled with more pleasure at being alive than I had in... forever.

I found a bench and sat to enjoy the view. I hadn’t been there long when I heard a twig snap behind me. I sighed and steeled myself for whatever was to come. It wasn’t as if any of my friends would try sneaking up on me, not after their last attempt at a prank had gone so wrong.

“So I was right, you really are a poofta.”

Lance of course.

“Shouldn’t you be in a lesson right now?” I asked without turning.

“Toilet break. You planning on squealing on me again?”

“No, not that I’ve squealed on anyone since I came here.”

He came around into my field of vision, his face heavy with rage. “So you’re a sodding liar and a poofta,” he growled.”

I sighed again. “That word was invented by a bigot for use by other bigots. It doesn’t bother me because it says more about you for using it than anything. As for the rest, if you and your mates are daft enough to follow me and mine for a whole lunchtime, then hang about long enough for our teacher to see you, then I can’t help you. Believe what you want, it makes no difference to me.”

“It will when me and my mates catch up with you and show you exactly what we think of you.”

“That’s up to you, but bruises and even broken bones will heal. I suspect expulsion from a fancy school like this and a criminal record for assault is likely to follow you around for a lot longer.”

“And you say you don’t squeal,” he sneered.

“I said I haven’t yet, and that’s because you haven’t done anything to deserve it. Physical assault’s a different matter, especially when it’s a gang of you against just little old me.

“Look, you have an issue with me, that’s obvious. We could talk it through, maybe reach an understanding. You know most conflict happens because people don’t take the time to see things from each other’s point of view.”

“What would you know about it?”

“You don’t think I’ve had people objecting to my existence before now?”

“You go around pretending to be a girl, what do you expect?”

“This is the first time I’ve ever done anything of the sort, and it wasn’t entirely my idea.”

“Yeah, right!”

“Ask any of my friends, they’ll tell you the same. It seems I get picked on whether I try to be what you expect me to be or I decide to be who I feel I am inside, so tell me why should I care what you think?”

That silenced him.

“You should be getting back to class if you don’t want your teacher yelling at you.”

He checked his watch and turned away down the path.

“You want to talk it through, just say. My friends and I will be happy to listen to what upsets you about me and respond.”

He grunted and ran off.

“That was admirably handled,” another familiar voice said from behind me. No surprise that I hadn’t heard him approach.

“Are you the actual Merlin?” I asked.

He chuckled and, like Lance before him, stepped into my field of view. His face was a mess of laughter lines. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s unlikely that anyone could survive fifteen hundred years.”

“And you don’t believe in ghosts?”

“I don’t have enough evidence to decide either way.”

“A true empiricist,” he chuckled. “Well, I shall leave you to gather more evidence, Gwen. Once again, that was well done. Neither Gavin nor Gawain would have faired so well, I feel.”

He vanished like a whisper on the wind.

“Who were you talking to?” Aly asked. She stood at the head of a procession of all my friends, each carrying a substantial bag.

“Merlin’s ghost,” I said since I’d promised I’d tell them the next time he approached me. “I’m only here till the weekend, what am I going to do with all this stuff, and what are you lot going to wear if you lend me all your things? I only have the one pair of jeans, you know. I don’t think you can all wear them at the same time.”

They giggled appreciatively.

“We figured you should have a choice,” Aly said. “We all kind of over packed.”

“So you’re offloading all the rubbish you don’t want on me?”

“Something like that,” Judith said. “Why did we have to come up here, it’s such a hike.”

“You should wear sensible shoes then,” I said looking at her espadrilles. They had to have three inch block heels

“Speaking of which,” Zoe said and dug in her bag for the promised pair of flats.

I slipped out of my trainers and put them on. The soles were thin enough to feel individual stones on the path, but they were lighter and cooler and looked so much better.

“Thanks,” I said. “They’re just right.”

“We should get back to class,” Myfanwy said. “Were you serious about talking to the creepy old man?”

“Once again, not creepy. He stood as far away as Gretch is right now, well out of threatening range.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Mainly how I handled Lance.”

“Lance was here?” Now Amanda really was concerned. “I mean, there’s a real creep. We should tell Peter.”

“We shouldn’t,” I said. “He’s a bit of a dick, but he’s not done anything to earn any more trouble from us.”

“If you’re sure.”

I was.

“How come we didn’t see him on the way up?” Gillian asked.

“He probably used the stairs” I said.

“Stairs? There’s stairs?” Judith said. “Why didn’t we use the stairs?”

“We could have,” Zoe said. “We passed then a few times. You know, near the grotto.”

“Oh yes. They looked kind of steep.”

“We can try them on the way down,” Stacey said. “Probably easier going down and we should be getting back to class.”

Quicker definitely, easier not so much, at least not for Judith and her heels. We made it back to class by ten thirty to find Peter out in the common area with a bunch of comfy chairs arranged in a rough circle and a kettle boiling on the side.

“Tea, coffee, chocolate?” he asked as we turned up.

“How did you know we were coming?” Sarah J asked. “And tea please, milk and no sugar.”

“You’re not exactly quiet you know? I heard you when you came into the building.”

We added our own drinks requests and settled into the seats, piling all our bags in one corner.

He handed out mugs of steaming goodness and settled into the one unoccupied seat, close enough for me to smell his coffee. Ugh! Not a fan.

“So, I read through all your screenplays. I already knew I liked them from yesterday’s performances, but I have a few technical comments to make. Before I get into them, I want to remind you all that this is a discussion, so if there’s anything you disagree with, let me know and I’ll be happy to tell you why you’re wrong.”

Dad joke, obligatory polite laughter, then into the meat of the morning. We all became so involved in the give and take that we almost missed lunch. My grumbling stomach alerted us with a few minutes to spare.

“It’s a bit hot for jeans, don’t you think?” Gretch asked.

I’d been about to help clear up the mugs, but I had been feeling more uncomfortable as the morning had warmed up. Gretch held up a skater skirt and a pair of sandals with more of a heel than I’d tried up until now.

I followed her into the ladies and changed into the cooler clothes. She messed with my hair a little. Not for the first time I was glad I’d fought my parents to keep it long. I mean not into conflicts, me, but some things are worth fighting for.

She handed me a make-up case and I added a bit of eye liner and lipstick. Not much, just enough to take away any doubt that there was a boy here.

Everyone was ready and nodding happily at my minor transformation. Even Peter gave me an approving if slightly astonished smile.

He hovered nearby while we served ourselves and settled into our seats, but no-one seemed to bat an eye at the new girl on the block, so he left us to our chatting and our food. Mine looked alarmingly big now that I was fully into the girl thing, but I was hungry and made relatively short work of it all.

We’d just about finished when Lance and his entourage loomed. Peter looked ready to intervene, but I shook my head at him across the room then turned to my nemesis.

“We understand you’re doing archery this week,” he said.

“Yes,” I answered. “What about it?”

“We’d like to propose a competition. Us lot against you. Top scorers get to choose who goes to Saturday’s dance with them.”

I looked at the girls who all shrugged and nodded.

“Okay, you’re on,” I smiled. So was this a pulling the pig tails of the girl you fancied sort of thing? “We’ll have a word with the instructor this afternoon and set it up. You okay with a handicap if he thinks it’s fair?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Okay, see you in the field tomorrow.”

“What are you doing,” Amanda hissed in my ear loud enough to tickle.

“Playing a hunch,” I whispered back loud enough for everyone on our table to hear.

“So we have women’s intuition now, do we?” Judith asked.

“I don’t know about you, but I reckon I’m girl enough to qualify.”

A few of the girls snorted.

“Well, you definitely found your inner bitch, girl.” Judith sounded impressed.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I...”

“Don’t you dare ruin it with an apology,” she said. “Come on, we should get back to class.”

Peter was ready with our drinks when we arrived back. “I have a confession,” he said. “This morning’s distraction messed with my planning. What I had in mind for today was going to have kept you busy for the whole day. I had planned to give you feedback on the screenplays in written form for you to read for yourselves. This morning’s discussion was worth doing, I hope you’ll agree, but I’m struggling to figure out what to do next.”

“Couldn’t we do this morning’s bit of what you had planned then finish it off tomorrow morning?” Stacey asked.

“We could, if I didn’t already have tomorrow’s activity planned out. It’ll be our last day, so I have something special in mind.”

“What is it?” Amanda got the question in first. “Maybe we can do something in preparation.”

“I’m afraid not.” Peter smiled ruefully. “I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise.”

“What were we going to do today?” I asked. “Maybe we can do something similar but shorter.”

He shook his head. “It wouldn’t work. It’s like we’ve done a few times already. Planning in the morning then putting it together in the afternoon.”

“Could we go through our competition entries?” Aly suggested. “I mean, I know I asked about this before and you said some of us might not be happy about sharing, but maybe those of us who don’t mind?”

“These are all great ideas,” Peter said shaking his head again, “but for reasons I can’t go into right now, even that’s not an option. We need something short that you can do without much planning.”

“So pick a topic and get us all to write something on it,” Myfanwy said. “Call it a flash writing challenge or something.”

“Okay, but what topic?”

“I have a couple of ideas,” I said.

“So?” Peter said. “Don’t keep us in suspense.”

“Well, I think Myfanwy has the right idea. I did a few writing challenges a while back that had to be seven hundred and fifty words or less. It’s quite a challenge writing a complete story and being so concise.”

The girls were nodding.

“Or we could up the ante even more and write a leet piece.”

“A what?” Myfanwy wanted to know.

“Leet speak among hackers back in the early days of the Internet. To confuse word recognition programs, people used to substitute numbers for letters. Ones for i’s or l’s, zeroes for o’s and so on. I don’t know why they didn’t just go all numbers with elite which would be three one one seven three – three being a kind of backwards e and seven being a capital t with one of its bars missing. They changed the word around though so it became leet – apostrophe optional, and maybe misspelling it to further confuse the word scanners. A leet challenge in writing is to write a story that is exactly one thousand three hundred and thirty-seven words long.”

The girls looked around the room and shook their heads. “Nah,” was the considered opinion delivered in unison.

“Seven hundred and fifty words or less is going to be enough of a challenge, “ Gillian said. “What topic though?”

“Yeah, two choices. Either we put our names into a hat and pick someone at random, then each of us gets to set the challenge for the other person.”

“Still doesn’t help any of us pick a subject,” Sarah B said.

“Well I was thinking maybe knowing who you were setting the challenge for might trick something off. The other idea is we each come up with a random topic. One word or a short phrase. A colour maybe, or a season, or whatever random piece of nonsense comes to you first, then we put them in a hat and draw one at random.”

“What if you pick your own?” Judith asked.

“Peter writes a different number on each of thirteen pieces of paper and hands them out at random. Once we’ve written our topic, we fold the paper and remember our number. When we pick, we make sure we pick someone else’s number.”

“And if the last person to pick has only her number left?”

“She takes a piece of paper from anyone in the room and that person gets the last one in the hat.”

“Or we could just hand our piece of paper to the person on the left,” Sarah J said.

“That would be like Gwen’s first idea where we set a challenge for one particular person, only there’s no randomness.”

“I like Gwen’s idea,” Peter said, already writing numbers on pieces of paper. “I’m going to include myself in this challenge, and can I make one more stipulation? Keep it light? I don’t want to pick up a piece of paper that says Nazi politics in the early nineteen thirties or something like that. This week is supposed to be fun, and I hope it has been so far.”

A chorus of yeses met that comment.

“One last thing. You email me your pieces when you’re done and I read them all out. You get to score your five favourites, and I’ll trust you not to vote for yourselves. The winner gets a prize.”

That got everyone excited. Nothing like a little competition to get people going.

As the afternoon wore on I couldn’t help smiling at the number of exasperated mutterings going on about me. When you’re used to writing lengthy stories, condensing something meaningful down to just a few hundred words becomes nearly impossible. Nearly, but not quite.

It was painful stripping away all those delightful turns of phrase that came to me as I wrote, but the trick was to cut and paste them into a second document where I could resurrect them if I decided to rewrite the piece. I doubted I would. My random topic had been ‘Take that back’ which I’m guessing was intended to be about an argument gone too far, but I chose to make it about a sad, lonely man working in a cube farm. He shared a first initial and surname with one of the girls working in the secretarial pool and at Christmas they ended up with each other’s Secret Santa gifts, which he discovered when he opened his present to find it contained some very sexy lingerie. All his co-workers told him he should take it back to the organiser, which he eventually did despite secretly wanting to keep it. The organiser hadn’t wanted to get involved but gave him the secretary’s name so he could sort it out himself. When he finally found her and showed her the gift that had been meant for her, she was disappointed because she’d been delighted with the inductive phone charger she’d received.

“We don’t have to swap you know,” he’d said.

“Are you sure you don’t mind?” she asked in return.

“Of course not,” he said. “These probably would look better on me than you anyway.”

At which she glowered at him and said, “You take that back.”

I got a few chuckles and a few votes for it. I suspect most people guessed it was mine given the vague gender bending aspect, but I’ll be the first to admit it wasn’t my best piece of work.

Peter’s ranked higher than mine – higher than most of ours as it happened, showing he wasn’t just a teacher but had mad skills in writing to back him up. He graciously ceded the crown to Judith though, who wrote a truly hysterical piece based on ‘a comedy of errors.’ She didn’t base it at all on Shakespeare, but wove a fantastic story of one small mistake leading to progressively greater ones until it climaxed with all of us holding our sides for the pain of laughing. She didn’t quite win everyone’s top vote, but twelve out of fourteen was a pretty good showing.

We finished in time for me to do a quick change before archery. If the previous few days were anything to go by, the temperatures would be dropping before we were done, so I chose a longer skirt and tight-fitting long-sleeved top. I didn’t want any frills or bows getting caught up in the bowstring.

Our instructor tried me on a heavier bow which gave me better accuracy over long distance but tired me out more quickly. He was happy to run the competition the following day and suggested I use the lighter bow for short distances and switch to the heavier poundage for the long targets. Apparently, there weren’t any rules against switching equipment.

He stopped me ten minutes before our usual time.

“Sorry,” he said. “Mr Cavendish asked me to remind you to call your parents.”

He was right and I hadn’t really thought about it all day. I headed to the top of the mound and used my phone to call through to Dad.

He was home early, which is kind of unusual for Dad. He and Mum were sitting together on our living room couch, holding hands. Dad had a glass of scotch to hand. Mum stroked his arm and smiled encouragement at him. She preferred to let him take the lead and only chip in if he missed something she thought was important.

“We’re here to listen, sweetheart,” Dad said. Not a term of endearment he’d used with me for quite a while, but it was a good start.

“Okay,” I said nervously. “Firstly, I didn’t plan for any of this, and I’m sorry you had to find out the way you did.”

“Don’t worry about us, darling,” Mum said. “We just want to make sure you’re alright.”

A lot had been said in the headmaster’s office, but the story started earlier. I told them about how I’d figured things out, the first clues being when I’d started writing stories with main characters discovering in a number of different ways that they would be better off as a girl.

“I guess it was my subconscious telling me what I’d started noticing elsewhere, that I didn’t really get along with boys. I’ve never been interested in sports, and the way guys always are with each other, isn’t the way I feel I want to be around people. I see a couple of girls walking down the street smiling and chatting and I think, ‘Why can’t I have that?’”

“You could always get yourself a girlfriend,” Dad said, which earned him a punch in the arm from Mum.

I smiled. “I think Mum gets it. The way things are between a boy and a girl in a relationship are different from two girls being friends. No commitment to exclusivity for one thing, no expectation of there being anything deeper than just friendship. I don’t know, am I making sense?”

“You are to me, sweetie,” Mum said. “I’ll explain it to your dad later.”

“What about the clothes?” Dad asked. “I mean, you look so different.”

“I’ll admit I love the clothes, Dad, but it’s not about putting on a dress, except that it helps me to feel more comfortable, more sort of the me that’s been screwed up inside all this time. It’s about how other people see me, and wearing a skirt helps them see the me inside. Most of them anyway. There are always going to be people who have a problem with me, but they seem to have that problem whether I’m trying to be a guy or a girl. If this week’s taught me anything, it’s that I’m better off being what works for me, because nothing’s going to change the way the arseholes react. Sorry about the language.

“The thing that’s been worrying me the most is the way this is going to affect the people I care about, by which I mean you two especially.”

“Don’t worry about us, sweetheart,” there was that word again. Dad was trying really hard. “We just want what’s best for you, which brings us to a number of things.

“First and foremost, I’m guessing this is a thing now, and that you don’t plan to go back to being our son when you get home.”

“I’m not sure I could if I tried, Dad.”

“We’re not asking you to. Your Mum will get you a few things today, just to tide you over until you can go shopping. Second, we need to do this right, which means getting you to talk to someone who knows about this sort of thing. There’s no provision for this within the NHS anymore, but there are a few private clinics. It’ll cost a bit, but that just means cheaper holidays for a while, plus there’s the bonus that we won’t have a waiting list. Are you okay if I book you in for an evaluation session with a specialist?”

“Sure. I’d prefer a lady if you you can arrange it, Daddy. I get a sense it’ll be easier talking about these sorts of things woman to woman.”

“Okay, I’m sure we can arrange that. I think it would be a good time to talk to an endocrinologist as well. Your Mum and I have been a little worried about your, er...”

“My small stature and the way I seem to be eating all the time. I agree. If there is anything else going on with me it would be better to know before I talk to the other doctor about what other drugs I might want to take.”

“Er...”

“I’m kind of little and skinny, Dad. It works for me because it means I can pass more easily as a girl right now, but there’s always a chance my body’s gearing up for a change, and I’d like to make sure that doesn’t happen if I can help it.”

“Okay, we’ll talk more on that after you’ve seen the doctors.”

“Fine by me.”

“The last thing for now is Mr Cavendish’s generous offer of a scholarship to go to Marlborough. We want to know what your feelings are on that. Bear in mind none of the friends you’ve made this week will be joining you.”

“I realise that, Dad. I do like it here, and if I’m going to be living as a girl from here on, it’ll be easier doing it here than somewhere everyone knows me.”

“Don’t you have a a number of boys from Marlborough who already know about you.”

“Yeah, but I’m kind of handling it, at least I hope I am.”

“You won’t have us to come home to at the end of the day.”

“You’ll always be on the other end of a video call, and Mr and Mrs Ambrose have done pretty well this week.”

“Okay. We don’t have to make up our minds definitively on that until you get home, but at least we have your feeling on the matter.

“One thing to go away with. I get that we did you no favours naming you Gavin. We had our reasons, so I won’t apologise. If you’re going to be out daughter from now on, you’re going to need a new name. I know you’ve been going by Gwen, but that feels like just a variation on Gavin, so if there’s any other name you’d prefer, give it some thought, eh?”

“Thanks Dad, Mum. I will. My stomach’s telling me it’s dinner time, so I should probably go. Love you loads.”

“Love you too sweetie. See you in a few days.”

I disconnected the call and sat quietly trying to take in all they’d said. I’d never expected them to be so understanding. I got the hint they were struggling to come to terms with it, but they were winning.

“Gwendolyn is a fine name for a future queen,” my familiar elderly stalker said quietly over my shoulder.

“I do kind of like it,” I said with a smile, “but I don’t see how I can become queen. We already have a royal family in England.”

“I’m talking about Albion, young lady. You are destined to become queen of Albion.”

“Isn’t that just a different name for our country?”

“England is named for the Angles who invaded this country around the time Arthur sat on the throne at Camelot. England’s current king is descended from those people.

“Arthur was named the once and future king, but in order for him to return, he needs a kingdom to return to. You have Celtic blood in you, and the time is drawing near for Albion to rise again. Gwendolyn has a number of translations, but one of them is circle of white. The circle of Arthur’s round table, the white of Albion. You know it was named for the chalk cliffs at Dover?”

“I didn’t, but it makes sense.”

“Your time approaches, Gwendolyn. You won’t understand just yet, but you will soon. Be patient just a little longer.”

I stood and turned to face him, but he was gone again. My stomach growled, so I set about dealing with more urgent matters.