by (AJ) Eric

I probably shouldn’t even try this. I think I know less about girls’ schools and teen girls in general than your average politician knows about honesty and trust— mostly what I’ve read in stories like this one. (Bru’s original West Peak story, “The Only Boy in School”, was tagged Real World. This one isn’t.)

I thought I had a gimmick good enough for about a 500-word riff on Bru’s story. But when my protagonist got to West Peak, the ideas kept coming — something that doesn’t happen often to me these days.

So here it is. Bru has OKed it, so I’m posting this with a minimum of lead time and content editing, since having it appear while Bru’s original is still on the front page seems highly desirable. If you find any egregious errors in my facts, please let me know.

My parents really know how to hurt a guy. I’m Camille “Butch” Getzler, or at least I was when I graduated from middle school. I was proud to be known as one of the two or three meanest tomboys in the school, and I put one of them on the floor within a week of her showing up.

The other one, Chris Taine, and I were more evenly matched: we had fun trying to pin each other during wrestling practice. It was a lot easier for us to beat most of the boys in our weight bracket in the matches and tournaments during our eighth-grade season than it was to get an edge on each other, and we ended up as friends and allies.

Anyway, near the end of our eighth-grade year, Chris and I, along with four guys, got suspended for a week after a free-for-all in the lunch room. Chris and her family decided to relocate to another town, and Mom and Dad decided that they’d had enough of my brutish ways.

They told me that even if I got all A’s in high school as I did in middle school, I still wouldn’t be credible in future job interviews and college applications unless I could present a reasonably refined feminine image when I had to. I thought their ideas were about 40 years behind the times — hey, women get to wear pants to work these days — but they were the adults in the room. (Did that make me the elephant?)

Anyway, they decided they had a solution and almost the next thing I knew, I was starting ninth grade — the “freshgirl” year — at the West Peak Academy for Young Ladies, the girliest school in the state.

It wasn’t what it used to be — a whole lot of T-girls were going there along with the wealthier superfemmes and wannabes from the middle schools in the region.

And in fact, there were a lot fewer of those GGs than there used to be. After all, the chief feature of the school — like most all-girl academies —had been to provide a first-rate education without the distractions and disruptions that hormone-crazed boys could cause. Now that so many anatomically-male students were enrolled, a lot of girls’ parents didn’t think it was safe for their precious daughters anymore.

Administrators assured them that the T-girl types had been thoroughly vetted in pre-enrollment interviews to winnow out any who weren’t firmly committed to girlhood, and that in any case most of them were already on female hormones and couldn’t molest their daughters even if they’d wanted to — which they wouldn’t.

(The hormone part, as I quickly learned, wasn’t exactly true. It was illegal to start boys on hormones at that age, and not all of those kids were even on T-blockers yet. But the school did an expert job in eliminating the ones who didn’t belong, and another four were caught and removed in the first six weeks of classes.)

I’m way off the subject here. (And I know better; English comp was one of West Peak’s most important academic subjects.)

Anyway, it would have been easy for me to get myself thrown out. I’m sure that getting rid of the hair extensions that I’d been fitted with and then getting into a fistfight with one of the (many) stuck-up girls — genetic and otherwise — who looked down on me would have been more than enough to do the job.

But I’d already decided to go along with the plan. For one thing, a couple of wealthy and eccentric relatives had “bet” me large sums of money that I couldn’t do it; if they followed through I’d have more than half a million dollars free and clear of parental restrictions when I turned 18.

For another, I was stubborn or naive enough to take that old warhorse of a motto — “there’s nothing a girl can’t do” — fully to heart.

And the truth was that I’d been doing more play-acting to support that “Butch” nickname than people knew. Not that I was any girlier than I presented; short hair, unpierced ears, no makeup, and boy clothes were certainly my honest choice, with no desire at all to do otherwise.

(I guess I need to bring it up somewhere, since “Butch” does have sexual connotations. I really hadn’t figured out which way I swung; I ended up kissing several girls and several boys and let people draw whatever conclusions they wanted to.)

But a lot of my swagger and bullying was a put-on. (As was true, I’m pretty sure now, with most of the boys I admired and emulated.)

So I decided to take it as a personal challenge to see if I could fake girly behavior as well as I did my previous image.

The femme curriculum was intense: I had to learn to sit, stand, talk, walk, dress, fawn, mince, flirt, vamp, and even giggle. (The exam on that last one might have been the weirdest thing I’d ever experienced.)

We also got instruction on How a Girl Gets Her Way without resorting to fights and wrestling moves: sad and wistful expressions, wide-eyed innocent-sounding leading questions, mopes and moues, tears on cue, and the most efficient ways to whine. All of which meant that the teachers and administrators at West Peak were mostly immune to those ploys, except for a couple of male teachers who apparently couldn’t help themselves.

Fashion was extremely important; unlike some of the deportment classes, it was a requirement in all eight semesters. By our senior, sorry, Lady year, we knew what to wear to make the impression we wanted or needed to put across: the difference that even an inch in skirt length could make, fabric choices, ways to disguise a less feminine physique — some of the T-girls needed that more than I did, but I was maintaining as muscular a build as I dared and had some needs in that department as well.

We also learned which of the clothes that had been hyped to us in the previous three years’ fashion classes were now so out of style that no self-respecting teen would be caught dead in them. To someone starting from ground zero as I did, that could get pretty bewildering; there didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it.

Makeup was equally critical, and we learned more there than I’d have thought was possible to know. (Which showed my ignorance, of course. We found out that it takes years to get qualified as a cosmetologist, so there’s obviously a lot that one needs to learn.) As with fashion, the impression that we want to put across has a lot to do with the choices we make. And as with fashion, a less feminine-looking face can be improved somewhat.

Most of us were ambivalent about the training in hair and nails, because the final exam for the juniors consisted of doing the freshgirls’ hair. The newbies who got the C students — or worse, since some of the practitioners couldn’t seem to make their hands do what the brain told them — started the summer with ongoing bad hair days until it got long enough to be repaired professionally. It was especially tough on the T-girls whose self-assurance in their appearance needed even more boosting than the rest of us, though most of us teen girls had confidence issues.

(And on the other side, botching the hair of the daughter of a corporate president or a politician could be hazardous to one’s future prospects after graduation: those people remembered, and networked.)

Catfights were strongly discouraged as unworthy of a West Peak lady, even to the point of possible expulsion. I don’t think there were more than three or four during my four years there. Though nobody got expelled, at least a couple of the participants decided to transfer elsewhere. (And no, none of the fights involved me. Scratching and clawing didn’t appeal to me at all.)

There were rumors of other encounters outside of class time, but no one showed up with visible and unexplained bruises or scratches, not even in the locker room. So either the stories were overblown or the participants were putting their makeup training to good use.

All that said, self-defense was one of our required courses; among other things, we learned the best ways to immobilize a male attacker, including a practical use for stiletto heels. Our dance training — more about that later — would prove to be helpful if an encounter reached the point of kicking a man in the groin. (One more reason the T-girls among us were looking forward to surgery when they graduated.)

Ballet had been a requirement at West Peak for much of the academy’s history. In my soph year, modern dance was added as an alternative, and a lot of the students welcomed the new option, me included. It was just as strenuous, but there are important moves in ballet that not everyone can do even after constant practice. Not that modern dance was simple or easy, but that was less of a problem.

And when it came time to perform, there were a lot of us for whom a tutu was very unflattering. We avoided that embarrassment on the modern dance side. On the other hand, a lot of girls, T and otherwise, thought of a tutu as the ultimate in girly attire, and wouldn’t miss it for the world no matter how chunky it made their legs look.

Academics at West Peak were just as intense, even more so in some ways. We had to take everything that was in the standard educational requirements, and almost all of what we got was at a more advanced level than the state demanded.

English — grammar, reading comprehension and composition — was treated as the most important subject. But history (world, U.S. and feminist), social studies and math weren’t neglected. In fact, more than half the Lady class was taking calculus — though the deportment teachers were adamant that we should never mention that in any context that didn’t absolutely require it. (And when on a date, never correct a boy’s math.)

There were a number of science courses. Chemistry and biology were the most popular, though to the disgust of many, a year of physics was required first, and the physics teacher, who looked old enough to have dated Archimedes, seemed to do her best to keep things as dull and boring as possible.

Biology, on the other hand, was exciting, thanks in large part to a teacher who not only made it interesting but also was as good-looking as any male movie star one could name. A lot of the class would have enjoyed practicing human biology on him, even the ones who weren’t really into men.

Anyway, I continued to breeze through the academics, though acing every course turned out to be impossible; they graded hard, especially that physics teacher.

I wound up doing better on the femme side than I’d feared, if not quite well enough to keep my overall grade-point average in the high threes as I’d have liked. I started calling myself Cam Melion (get it?), though most of the students stuck with Cammie, or more often Getzler.

But no matter how good my acting job was, I couldn’t fool myself. As the years went on, I was feeling more and more dubious about this whole concept. It clearly wasn’t as alien to the rest of the girls, including the T-girls, as it was to me: it seemed to me that they weren’t starting from scratch when it came to feminine behavior and Getting Your Way, as I was.

Sports helped, especially field hockey, as a means of channeling my aggression. And I certainly wasn’t the only one at West Peak who had issues there. We were fielding the most physical team in the league, though our style didn’t necessarily translate to winning. The most intense hitters were probably the Ts among the freshgirls, especially the ones who weren’t on blockers yet.

Yes, they let Ts play; it seems that state laws said that if a school didn’t have a boys’ team, it had to go coed. The only exceptions were track and tennis, where international standards were in effect that limited testosterone levels, and even there, almost all of the T-girls got legal eventually. But when it came to spring sports most of us gravitated to softball, which wasn’t restricted. I wasn’t that good on defense; I usually ended up in right field or at second base. But I could hit better than most of the other players, and I wasn’t bad at running the bases.

In keeping with the academy’s femininity standards, we wore culottes for field hockey, and for softball, they’d gotten somebody to make us the miniskirted unis worn in the film A League of Their Own, and in the All American Girls’ Professional Baseball League of the 1940s that it was based upon. For basketball, we all wore matching ponytails and hair ribbons, but we weren’t the only school that did that. They threatened to make us put tassels on our sneakers, but even the T-girls wouldn’t go there.

There was no shortage of cheerleaders and pompon girls at our games; in fact, there were frequently more of them than there were spectators, who stayed away in droves, as the saying goes. Watching losing teams like ours isn’t many girls’ idea of a fun afternoon, and there weren’t any boys on hand for them to attract (or distract); the school made it really difficult for guys to get on campus.

But I’m getting way off the subject (again). The summer after my junior year, I made a big decision and started taking male hormones. I smuggled some into the dorm when we all came back that fall, though not quite enough to take every day during the school year. Anyway, though my hips weren’t going to get any narrower, my body fat started to redistribute, and I started really needing those clothes we’d learned about that disguised one’s physique.

By the end, it was getting really difficult to conceal the changes. I avoided changing clothes for sports and dance by having a plaster cast placed on my left foot. I’ll never tell who it was that helped me out there. But I will say that the male medical specialists who occasionally came by the school were generally more susceptible to Get Your Way stratagems than any of the regular staff, though trying to get more male hormones that way would have spoiled the effect. And yes, I saw the irony in using girly behavior to contribute to a decidedly non-girly result.

While my face hadn’t developed more than peach-fuzz and a really thin mustache, it was still enough by the end of February to require shaving it two or three times in a school day in order to avoid embarrassing questions.

Final exams in the Lady year are in March, in order to give the T-girls time to get their SRS operations and recover somewhat before the graduating ceremonies in May. Seeing the demand, a well-respected surgeon had moved into our town, though many of the kids still opted for Colorado, Thailand or Canada.

And I was gone too, getting phalloplasty and breast reduction. It wasn’t exactly legal, with only limited psychiatric time and practically no real-life test. In fact, I was precisely the kind of patient the rules were established to prohibit. But I squeezed through somehow, in part by using all that money I was getting for graduating from West Peak to grease the scales, or however that expression goes.

My change wasn’t official yet; the state law that had been passed to give the T-girls of West Peak immediate female status and a new birth certificate didn’t apply to me going the other way, or so the guy in the attorney general’s office informed me when I applied.

But it didn’t matter much. Though there’d been some grousing from the school’s board of trustees at first, the fact remained that I’d passed all the courses and even made the honor roll my last two years. Depriving me of a diploma wasn’t an option and making me get it in secret or in the mail would raise more questions than it answered.

So when we all took the stage for the graduation ceremony, I was wearing a guy’s suit and tie and a boy’s haircut under my cap and gown, and I was identified to the assembly as Cameron Getzler — thus becoming the second boy ever to graduate from the West Peak Academy for Young Ladies.

The first guy to do it, taking note of my lack of legal male status when it happened, still claims to be the only one. But just about everyone who saw me graduate wouldn’t agree.

And especially not the ones who saw me at the graduation ball that evening. Chris Taine had left her family and returned to town when she turned 18, and we hit it off again right away. Still as feisty as ever, but a lot prettier now, and more than willing to dress up when the occasion called for it. Her gown that night ranked up there with the best ones I’d seen in my four years of fashion classes, and she filled it out perfectly.

Best of all, she was really pleased to see me as a guy. She’d reached the conclusion that she’d had a crush on me from way back, and since her orientation turned out to be totally heterosexual, my life change made things a lot easier for her.

My parents hadn’t exactly taken all of this in stride, but they hadn’t disinherited me — not yet, at least. At least one of the relatives who’d paid me big bucks to graduate from West Peak was also pretty upset. But he had to acknowledge that I was no longer the misfit and hoodlum-in-training that he’d been trying to forestall.

And I had to admit that Mom was right in at least one respect. I’d gotten a scholarship to the upscale university that I’d been aiming for: my SAT scores were over the roof, and my core course GPA was in the A-minus range. But since I was still Camille at the time I was interviewed, I might never have gotten through that last important step successfully without West Peak’s unique training.

by (AJ) Eric

So we were supposed to restore sanity to government here after Trump, his successors and all their lackeys imploded.

Then the aliens invaded.

If you believe what they’re telling us, a Veil opened up in this part of our galaxy and suddenly all sorts of creatures from our myths and old scriptures have forced their way in, and their races of Good Guys are selflessly saving us from the more obviously evil ones like dragons and demons and harpies and giant spiders and so on and so forth.

A couple of problems there. One is that they get to define who the Good Guys are: trolls are evil; succubi aren’t. The other is that there’s an unfortunate similarity here to the old story about the traveling glass repairman who sends a gang of kids ahead of him to throw rocks through windows and assure him of some business. None of those monsters seem to have shown up until our new “friends” were here to take them on, to our great relief. I guess we’ll see about the repair bill.

The aliens in ultimate charge bear suspicious resemblance to the old pantheons of gods and goddesses here on Earth. Maybe it’s just because the new leader of the Free World — that’s me, I guess, at least for now — read a lot of “classic” science fiction a long time back. But I can’t help thinking about Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light, where the invaders set themselves up that way as the gods of old as part of the Shock-and-Awe thing that kept them in control.

They’re talking about magic. Another of those SF writers, Arthur C. Clarke, noted an even longer time ago that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. So I suppose it doesn’t really matter whether I believe it’s supernatural or not.

What I do know is that an immense number of our family members — wives, children, siblings — seem to have been replaced by aliens who belong to these new races, who try to convince us that they’re the same people as the ones they replaced. Are they even people, as opposed to constructs of some sort? They’re certainly not human, as we understand the term.

Some of them take the form of the humans they’re trying to replace, but they generally can’t hold it for more than a day or so. At least, it doesn’t seem as though they can. If they’ve succeeded, I guess we wouldn’t be able to tell them apart from the originals, since they’ve imprinted the memories of our loved ones, unless they’re seen using nonhuman powers.

It’s weird and somewhat disconcerting that all the crazies and paranoids suddenly seem to have had the right idea. The “you will not replace us” chant from Charlottesville some years back really seems cogent here and now. Scary.

But perhaps even more worrisome: for well over a century, we’ve been hearing absurd claims that loyal American citizens outside of our mainstream are really just waiting for the word from somebody elsewhere (who might not even exist) — a Masonic Grand Master, the Pope, the Elders of Zion, some Muslim leader like the Ayatollah or a sheikh somewhere in Arabia — to rise up and try to take us over. Suddenly it seems really plausible that this self-styled demigoddess from Canada who calls herself an empress can do precisely that, with hundreds of thousands if not millions of nonhumans in households and workplaces all across America.

We can take some of these fake family members to remote sites and try to take them apart and find out what they really are. At least, we could do that until their attack forces found them and stopped us.

We can attempt to disrupt them. Apparently one of our clandestine agencies sent someone to try and assassinate their empress at a public appearance alongside a human celebrity who’s upset that we’re not treating these “family members” as the humans they claim to be. It went as badly as I would have expected if I’d known about it: not only did she turn out to be bulletproof but she or her minions extracted whatever information the agent had and then turned him into a walking advertisement for their side.

I honestly don’t know whether or not I’d have tried to stop it if I’d known about it in advance. On the one hand, if it succeeded it’d be a Pearl Harbor incident for them, and whoever took command there would start that takeover we’ve been fearing. On the other, waiting for the ax to drop isn’t any more rewarding.

Anyway, after they toyed with things and people at Langley — to demonstrate how easily they could terminate everyone and everything there if they had a notion to — they’ve offered to negotiate.

Trouble is, we were on the other side of this kind of thing back when we had the tech superiority, and the Native Americans ended up in reservations on worthless land, with our side casually breaking promises whenever we felt so inclined.

I can’t help wondering if this government is going to end up on some farmed-out land on the Great Plains, with a replica White House and Capitol building, demonstrating to nonhuman tourists how the government used to run the country, while people like me, after we’re turned out of office, are working at souvenir shops on the highway, selling American flags and native artifacts mostly imported from Southeast Asia.

One thing in favor of our stalling this further: we’re hearing that these god-types have factions that are on the verge of fighting each other. Apparently up in Ottawa the one who calls himself Zeus started throwing thunderbolts around, violating their rule of not getting directly involved with us lowlifes. The second-level aliens who really are dealing with us, like this alleged empress, seem to think that may lead to open warfare up in their version of Asgard or Olympus or wherever they’re hanging out — far enough away from us that collateral damage isn’t much of a concern.

That could be good news: it doesn’t seem likely that they’ll all kill each other off, but they probably won’t be inclined to worry about us while it’s happening. If they do think of us, it’ll be because one side or another gets desperate enough to think we can be of value to them somehow. We’ll cross — or burn — that bridge if we come to it, but it might give us the leverage to make them take all their nonhumans away and bring our loved ones back if they’re still alive.

OK, there are other factors here that need to be considered. They apparently have some kind of machine that can turn humans into some of these alien races: elves, animal-human hybrids, pixies, heaven knows what else. It seems that they even provided some of those machines to a multinational role-playing game company, something which later got the company sanctioned as an enemy of humanity.

It’s our impression that the versions that the machines create are more powerful than the ones that infested our families: the creatures we took away generally couldn’t stop us, but the ones sent to rescue them —and to destroy our research on them — were more capable, either stronger or with much better “magic” technology.

Their “empress” is one of the ones who used the machines; she seems to have started out as a human play-tester in Vancouver B.C., though after her transition in the machine she eventually got herself adopted by one of the ruling “goddesses” and promoted into the leadership role. Some of our people think the reason that active hostilities haven’t commenced is that she has a soft spot for humanity, as a former member.

She and her cohorts are saying that leaders here like me simply have a blind determination to stay in power, and that we are demonizing nonhumans who aren’t actually invaders but loved ones who were transformed through no fault of their own. Self-serving as that assertion may be for them, let’s acknowledge the possibility that the aliens are telling the truth: that these fake family members really used to be the humans that they say they are, but they had ancestry in those other forms and it’s suddenly showing through, just in time for this confrontation.

The trouble is that it still doesn’t tell us that their alien counterparts can’t use their “magic” tech to take them over when the aliens are ready. I mean, they’ve taken over our own human agents when they’ve felt they needed to; it ought to be much easier for them to control the fae and wolf-men and shapeshifters now in our midst.

And that’s even worse. Say your spouse or your daughter suddenly sprouts elf ears, picks up a carving knife from the kitchen and comes after you. And say you have a loaded gun in the house and can grab it before she can strike. Are you ready to shoot and kill her if that’s the only way you can save yourself? I don’t know whether I could, or what kind of shape I’d be in mentally afterwards if I did.

So I guess we need to accept their invitation to negotiate, and hope that we’re not signing our death warrant, or at least a license to shove us under a convenient rug somewhere so that they can deal with our (or their) “changed” relatives instead.

Actually, now that we have our Constitution back, it’s up to our Congress to ratify any treaty we come up with. A century ago they wouldn’t join the League of Nations. They thought we’d be giving up our sovereignty if we gave up any rights to act unilaterally on issues like war and peace. Our side had won World War I. Whatever we come up with here is likely to be even less friendly.

But if the alternative is to go to war against them, I certainly don’t like our chances. We do outnumber them, but this whole continent is bring run by descendants of invaders who were greatly outnumbered. I’ve heard that Pizarro took over the Incan Empire with 300 soldiers. He captured and killed their emperor. If these invaders decide to turn their mind control on leaders like me, that may be an even worse fate.

If I’m remembering that Zelazny book right, the people did prevail over those so-called gods, but only because one of them took our side, and then left us for his version of Nirvana after we won. We should be so lucky.

by (AJ) Eric

There are manufactured superstars, and then there are Disney manufactured superstars. Which may explain why my daughters, ages 11 and 8, were here with me on this pleasant summer Sunday evening at the outdoor Santa Barbara Bowl for a 5pm concert, watching “Bonnie Bright” perform. More accurately, we were seeing and listening to Corey Glynn, the 14-year old who portrayed her in three Junior High Cheerleader movies, on phonograph records and in concerts like this one.

The girls, who’d wanted so badly to come, were yelling and cheering. Marcie was wearing Bonnie’s signature red hairband in her blonde hair, Adrienne, the younger of the two, had gone all out in a Disney-authorized store-bought copy of Bonnie’s cheerleader uniform. She’d hoped that we’d go the extra step and spray her dark hair blonde like Bonnie’s, but we hadn’t been willing to go quite that far.

And there was no question that the performers were in the good form and seemingly good spirits you’d expect from seasoned young talent. Onstage with “Bonnie” were her backup singers and dancers, who were costumed as the rest of the Lincoln Junior High cheer squad in white long-sleeved sweaters, shorts and short skirts. The dozen or so band members in the orchestra pit were equally capable.

I’d been a little concerned, since this was the last concert of Bonnie’s national tour and a delayed one at that. She’d taken an unscheduled ten-day break, reportedly because of vocal fatigue, less than a month ago. The report also mentioned that Corey had insisted on giving Bonnie’s fans the fully live performance they paid for: no pre-recorded vocals being lip-synched, not even during the more strenuous dance numbers — unlike some other singer/dancer types touring here in 1981.

Adults in the audience could tell, at least on the songs we’d heard (and heard, and heard) before, that things were on the up-and-up: the vocals sounded a bit more breathless and, well, un-canned, than a studio version would have been, and even a bit lower-pitched.

Now we’d reached what figured to be the very last number, the single released during the tour: an onward-and-upward song called “Life Is Whatever You Want It to Be.”

…A wish on a star, a trip to the moon
It’s all up to you and you’re calling the tune
Oh you know that life is whatever you want it to be…

All of the Bonnie singles had been in that upbeat mode, though it wasn’t a limitation of the performer, as she’d made clear by including some ballads and even a couple of folk tunes in a more subdued middle section of the concert, mostly perched on a barstool-type seat in the center of the front stage area, accompanied only by her own acoustic guitar.

She’d looked attractive in a deep blue, knee-length dress for that part of the show, more mature than she did in the tween-age cheerleading outfits — a short-sleeved red one at the start; the white pullover afterward. It wasn’t until she got up to leave the stage and change clothes for the last part of the show that you realized that she really didn’t have the figure to make a gown like that look credible on her; even having just turned 14, she showed little sign of adolescence.

Anyway, here in the finale, they were pulling out all the proverbial stops, to the point of taking advantage of the outdoor venue to shoot off fireworks. Bonnie even turned some cartwheels while proceeding from one side of the stage to the other during the brass fanfare that made up the instrumental bridge to the song. She’d been running and jumping throughout the cheerleading numbers, but until then had left all the acrobatics and gymnastics to her dance crew.

And then it was over. The cheering, as you’d expect from an audience consisting largely of preteen girls, was loud, enthusiastic, vocal, high-pitched and persistent.

Bonnie, or Corey, re-identified the other performers as they got their individual applause, took their bows and left the stage: first the three boy dancers, then five girls, followed by her three backup girl singers, who’d been part of the cheer crew during the bigger numbers but had remained on stage to sing while the dancers were backstage. They’d also sung a few hits from old Disney films during Bonnie’s two offstage costume changes.

Finally, after the curtain calls were done, she took the stage for an encore. Oddly, she’d taken off the white cheerleader skirt, fully exposing the red shorts underneath.

Since she’d done all her hits during the show, I think none of us in the audience, except perhaps those who had seen the show earlier in the tour, knew quite what to expect. It turned out to be “When You Wish Upon a Star”:

“…Like a bolt our of the blue
Fate steps in and sees you through
When you wish upon a star your dreams come true”

The old song got appreciative applause that seemed to come more from the parents than the kids.

But what came next was in equal parts unexpected and perplexing.

Corey — and though the voice wasn’t any different, it was clearly Corey and not Bonnie — spoke.

“I’m afraid that some wishes and dreams don’t come true. This will be my last concert ever as Bonnie Bright.”

Murmurs and words of protest came from the audience.

“Please hear me out,” Corey continued. “The folks at Disney, who gave me this chance two years ago and have stood by me the whole time, mostly don’t know this story. And since Bonnie belongs to them and not me, it’s very possible she’ll continue with someone else playing the role. In fact, I’d recommend that they give the part to Vanessa Colton, one of my backing vocalists.”

Corey smiled a bit. “We had a number planned where she’d come out with a wig and makeup that matched mine, and we’d do a duet. We really did look alike and her voice is a lot like mine was on the albums. But we were writing the song ourselves and never got all the lyrics to work.

“Anyway, here’s why I can’t do it any longer. I’ve been getting older, as all kids do. But along with that, I’ve been sort of getting thicker. My face is thicker than it used to be., My upper arms and body are thicker too.

“And so is my voice. I was straining to hit some of the higher notes in my songs, and during the time we were off we had to transpose a lot of them down a little so that I could keep singing them.

“The problem unfortunately is one for which there’s no easy fix. You see, although I may wish it weren’t so, I’m really a boy.”

And with that, Corey unpinned the straight blonde wig and stood there with brown hair in a typical boy cut.

We hadn’t had reason until now to notice that when Bonnie had gotten back into cheerleader mode for the last section of the show, she’d been wearing much less lip color and eye shadow than earlier. And since she’d been flat-chested even in her cheer sweater — a pullover that matched the ones worn by the rest of the performers, including the boys — Corey now probably looked a little more like a boy than a girl, even in the red short-shorts.

Corey continued. “Not much of a boy, I guess, or I wouldn’t have passed the musical audition and the screen test that originally got me this part. Actually, the Disney people wouldn’t have tested me at all. My parents sent them a tape they had made for me as a boy singer and we never heard from them, but there was one that my cousin made where I was part of her girl band that got me a callback. I think I’ve always fit in better with girls than boys.”

None of us in the crowd seemed to know quite how to react. There were boos and shouts of “Fraud!”; somebody tried to start a chant of “Shame, Shame, Shame!” but there weren’t many participants. I realized afterward that there were surprisingly few shouts of “Faggot” or “Pervert”; after all, any adults that were so inclined would have had to explain to their children what the words meant.

Some kids, especially the youngest, were frightened and crying. Adrienne, my eight-year old, was one of them. It made me think of the famous story about small children traumatized by seeing the detached heads of Mickey Mouse and other cartoon characters in a backstage costume-changing area at Disneyland.

Actually, Adrienne told me the next day after a night of troubled sleep that it was the transformation that scared her — after all, she’d been wearing the same uniform as Bonnie. Did that mean she was in danger of turning into a boy too?

I think most of us including the older kids had already known or figured out that Corey in real life didn’t look exactly like Bonnie. Some would even have seen pictures of a female Corey as a curly-haired brunette, though not very many photos like that had appeared in print or on television. It seemed that the people at Disney made her stay costumed as Bonnie even while coming and going from her concerts and appearances, and had done effective work in having her attend Hollywood and record-related events as Bonnie rather than Corey. I guess that at her age there weren’t any dates or wild parties to attract photographers and produce unauthorized candid shots.

Corey picked up the guitar again, apparently planning to do a second encore. But there’d been a massive move toward the exits by audience members after his announcement. Between the parents that didn’t want any more exposure to this weird creature onstage, the ones figuring that it’d be easier to calm their kids down somewhere other than here, and the kids who were urging their parents to get them away from this hateful person who had abused their trust, the tumult was considerable.

We stayed, even though it meant that people were climbing over us to get to the aisles. Maybe I was just too stunned to take it all in. With Adrienne in tears and Marcie having angrily pulled off her Bonnie Bright headband, I doubt that either of them cared what Corey was going to do next, and it wasn’t as though there were any hits left from Bonnie’s albums that needed singing.

Or maybe it was just my stubborn streak coming through. I suppose I’ve always thought that I can’t get my money’s worth unless I stay for an entire show. I’ve suffered through some awfully bad movies rather than leave early.

A local newspaper columnist said later that week that she’d stuck around because she was expecting Corey to say that it was all a hoax or a practical joke. I had trouble believing anyone could have felt that way, given the tone and the degree of sincerity in Corey’s voice. Then again, we’re talking about an actor here, and someone young enough to do something stupid because of a dare or something. Maybe the columnist had a point. But that didn’t happen; this was for real.

In any case, Corey stood at center stage, patiently strumming two or three guitar chords while waiting for things to quiet down. Finally, with perhaps eighty people left in the house, he started to sing:

The sun is fading away
It’s the end of the day
As the June light turns to moonlight
I’ll be on my way.

Just one song and I’ll go
Don’t hide the tears that don’t show
As the June light turns to moonlight
I’ll be on my way.

To where the winds don’t blow
And golden rivers flow
This way I will go

They were right, I was wrong
True love didn’t last long
As the June light turns to moonlight
I’ll be on my way.

I’ll be on my way.

With no instrumental bridge or repeat of the verse, the song wasn’t much more than a minute long. And then Corey Glynn walked off the stage to utter silence. I don’t believe any of us ever saw him again.

Many thanks to my beta readers, Leslie Moore and Dawn Natelle.

————————————
Notes on the music:

I’ll Be On My Way was recorded in 1963 by Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas and written by Lennon-McCartney. (It never appeared on a Beatles studio album, though it turned up in the 1990s on one called Live from the BBC, long after this story takes place.) I’ve made one change in the lyrics; they actually read “just one kiss and I’ll go”.

I'm not sure how Corey got hold of the song; I'm guessing that one or both of Corey's parents had been big fans of the British Invasion groups and still had the old 45s around. In the U.S., the song was the flip side of a minor hit, "From a Window", which charted in mid-1964.

Life Is Whatever You Want It To Be was written in England by John Carter and his wife Gill Shakespeare. It was released in 1975 by a U.K. studio group called the First Class (which had a hit called Beach Baby a year or two earlier), with noted session singer Tony Burrows on lead vocal. It never charted, but apparently got radio airplay there.

The song started out as a commercial written by Carter for a car, the Vauxhall Chevette, and it’s been speculated that the tune’s familiarity in that context led to its failure as a pop song. Since that wouldn’t have been a problem for a U.S. audience and the song, with a couple of lyrics changes, seems to me to be a great fit for a young singer or group, I’ve postulated that someone from Disney heard it over there and chose it for a “Bonnie Bright” single,

When You Wish Upon a Star, of course, first appeared in Walt Disney’s Pinocchio (1940), sung by Cliff Edwards as Jiminy Cricket. It was written by Leigh Hartline and Ned Washington.

All three songs can be found on YouTube: I'll Be On My Way,
Life is Whatever You Want It to Be,
When You Wish Upon a Star.

———
I’ve been informed that at one crucial point Disney’s Hannah Montana removes her blonde wig at the end of a concert and reveals herself to be dark-haired Miley Stewart. My lead character here was obviously inspired by the existence of Disney’s Lizzie McGuire and Hannah Montana (though I never saw either show), but I was unaware of that scene when I originally included that action in an unfinished longer story in 2011 that led to this one.

I'm aware of three definitions for a shaggy-dog story: an elaborate set-up leading to a deliberately disappointing punchline, a tale that leads to a particularly contrived or desperate play on words, and a story that features talking animals. There are no non-human talking creatures of any kind in this story.

It took Colin Thorpe, regional investigator for Her Majesty's environmental affairs bureau, more than an hour to get from his office to the building or buildings that he was looking for. The site was accessible from a small spur off a regular road, but it couldn't be seen from the roadway, and Thorpe actually drove past it on the main road and had to turn around.

The address seemed to belong to a small house of no particular distinction, the only one on the edge of a lake of no great size, almost a pond. The anonymous tip that had sent Thorpe there -- something about secret animal projects undertaken by a rogue scientist -- had seemed unlikely when he had set on his way. But forest shadows surrounded the place, and no laboratory could be seen from the front of the house, making him wonder whether there might be some truth to it after all.

The records that he'd found on file indicated that Herbert G. Morrow was a doctor twice over, with an advanced degree in biology from a small university in France and a D.V.M. acquired in Edinburgh. His small independent laboratory in the north of England was fully licensed for the experiments that he performed. There shouldn't have been any trouble.

And indeed there wasn't, as the dark-haired, slightly corpulent bureaucrat made his way to the front door, introduced himself to the man who answered, and was readily invited inside.

If Morrow actually was a mad scientist, Thorpe noted, one certainly couldn't tell by appearance: no beady eyes, deathly pallor, evil grin, stooped posture, or snarling voice; not even any sign of the contempt that certified intellectuals tended to show at times for mere public servants. Morrow seemed a pleasant enough man, about 175 cm tall -- five feet nine in the old money -- few if any extra kilos on his frame, brown hair with no sign of gray yet, a clear voice with no trace of a foreign accent.

The lack of a laboratory in view turned out to be easily explained. An islet in the center of the lake, cleared of vegetation, held a functional-looking building, accessible by a foot bridge between the upstairs level of Morrow's home and a door at a similar height in the building there. Morrow showed no hesitation about leading Thorpe across.

"As you'll see, Inspector, there's nothing here for you to be concerned about. Hybridization is a perfectly normal area of research now that DNA splicing is so common. Even if there were a problem, with our working area within the lake here and everything at this remote location, the rest of the country is doubly isolated from any risk of contamination. This bridge can be disconnected in seconds."

Inspector Thorpe passed by the room where the molecular slicing and dicing took place and proceeded directly to the one in which the animals were kept. There were more than a dozen cages of varying sizes, with animals, birds and fishes -- sometimes one, sometimes several -- clearly visible in each of them.

"You take care of this all by yourself?" Thorpe asked.

"I have someone come in and clean the place four days a week, but I do all the scientific and veterinary work. As you can see, there are cameras mounted all over this room, and there are remote alarms as well. So if anything untoward happens to an animal while I'm not here, I can observe it from the house and rush right over."

"I don't see any large animals here: horses, lions, elephants, jungle cats. Where do you keep them?"

"I don't have the facilities for them, so we don't grow anything larger than Princess here." Morrow pointed to a brown dog, about the size of a basset hound, with unusually long fur. "I've inserted genes from a sea otter to give her that heavy coat. It tamps down rather neatly when she has a bath."

"And here?"

"The larger animal is a fairly ordinary badger, save for the fluorescent green fur -- we spliced in some material from glowing bacteria and from a couple of lizard species. The smaller one is a skunk; we imported the genetic material from Canada. We've managed not only to neutralize its foul odor but to have it emit a pleasing pine scent. They share the cage, after all, and we don't need any stinking badgers."

Thorpe moved on to an aquarium.

"Most of what I do here is pure research, but very occasionally we get visitors who are looking for commercial applications," Morrow said. "Japanese koi, of course, are colorful in their own right without any help from me. But a representative of an American company asked me to look into creating one that incorporated its trademark, preferably in flashing neon. They called it a "swoosh". I'm not nearly there; the best I've done so far is that white, rather vague "U" shape over the gills of the dark orange one. But I'm going to work with a few more generations before I give up."

"Do you get much of that?" Thorpe inquired.

"Not really, and most of what I do get asked for isn't practical even for me. An agency was in about a year ago to show me an old American beer advert. They wanted three frog varieties that could each croak a syllable from the brand name. I told them no."

Morrow described the rest of the fauna as Thorpe wandered around the room. The fink -- a ferret-mink combination -- looked fairly normal, though its pelt looked surprisingly ratty, in both senses of the word. Two shredgehogs -- spiny treeshrews -- were chasing each other through some greenery; Thorpe mused that actually catching one might prove a bit uncomfortable.

Some small, silvery salt-water fishes could be seen in a tank near the center of the room. "Tiny tuna have lots of advantages over the giant ones," the scientist told Thorpe. "Less mercury poisoning, for one thing, since they're not at the top of the food chain. I'm trying to modify them to excrete what's left. Less waste, if you don't happen to be a giant food processing company packing each fish into hundreds of little tins. Best of all, no giant nets are needed to catch them, so no dolphins get trapped."

No matter how unusual the creatures were, every one that he saw seemed to be living in clean conditions and in remarkably good health. Thorpe speculated that the genetic modifications that Morrow had made included some that improved their resistance to harmful viruses and bacteria.

"That's true, to a limited extent," Morrow explained, "and I naturally choose the healthiest specimens I can find to work with initially. But you're only looking at the winners, so to speak, of our rigged genetic lottery. Most of the losers don't make it past birth, and the remains of the rest are disposed of under the established protocols so that everything remains safe."

Finally Thorpe came to a very large birdcage in a part of the room that had been partially screened by a freestanding shelf unit with food and equipment for the animals. In marked contrast to all the others, the animal inside, if it could even be categorized as such, seemed unrecognizable. Thorpe could discern the tail feathers and extendable wings of a raptor and the black-and-white head and sharp red beak of a seabird. But this creature moved on four legs, which seemed to be partially covered by ragged curly white fur or hair. The wings looked powerful, but the torso was too large and anything but aerodynamic; it was clear that the ungainly thing would never fly.

At the moment it looked as though it would even have trouble walking. It was lying on its side, and its diaphragm was moving so that one could tell that it was breathing, But it didn't take a specialist to see that it was in poor health -- Thorpe wondered what the chances were that it would see tomorrow. He looked at Morrow for an explanation.

"I've had good fortune, as you've seen, combining animals with animals -- even widely variant ones -- birds with birds, fish with fish. And moving a few extraneous genes into an intact fertilized egg, wherever they come from, won't interfere with a creature's lifestyle, if it can make it alive through the birth process.

"This one's different. I had combined two birds' egg tissue genetically, and then, totally unexpectedly, I received clone tissue from Dolly the Sheep herself -- or at least one of her "descendants", so to speak, a clone of a clone of a clone -- and tried to incorporate it here, since the bird egg was all I had to work with at that moment. To my great surprise, the result was viable.

"And the situation here is not as desperate as it looks. It's suffering from something like bird flu -- a strain that's not contagious to humans, I hasten to add. But it's a relatively mild case, probably because sheep are immune, and I don't expect the problem to last for more than another day or so."

Thorpe shook his head. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to cite you after all."

Morrow looked at him sharply. "What for?"

Thorpe told him, "It's clear that you've made an ill eagle-ewe-tern."

(Not sure whether it's a mitigating factor or not, but I've had this punchline taking up space in my mind for around fifty years, since the days of Alexander the Grape -- the answer to the riddle "who's purple and conquered the world?" My thanks to Steph (Cyclist), who beta-read an earlier version of this five years ago.)

A different take on a well-known classic tale.

by (AJ) Eric

Hoxa was annoyed.

A wealthy merchant was visiting King Lycomedes -- somebody said it had something to do with trading privileges between their island realm of Skyros and some of the states on the Greek mainland, whatever that meant -- and all the young girls in and around the palace had been invited to join them outside the main hall at noon, where the merchant would be handing out gifts. There weren't many details, but word had spread quickly that he had set aside a chest full of precious jewelry for the occasion.

Somehow Hoxa hadn't realized that when they said "all the girls", they didn't just mean classy, prettily-dressed eight-year olds like her, the daughter of the commander of the king's host. Just about every preadolescent female in the palace who could walk was here, from the seamstress's three-year old daughter to the snooty eleven- and twelve-year olds who hung out with the king's two youngest daughters, Thea and Deidamia.

It might have been even worse, Hoxa guessed. The princesses already had their gifts, and were standing in the back next to their royal parents, alongside the merchant, resplendent in his own finery, and a lean, richly-dressed younger man who might have been his bodyguard.

But instead of handing gifts to each of the girls, the merchant had taken the jewelry chest and poured out its contents onto the center of one long table, and they'd all been told to help themselves. That worked out nicely for the older and bigger girls -- and, Hoxa noticed, for a red-headed nine-year old near one end of the loot who was beating off contenders for her new gold-and-emerald necklace and matching ring with her fists. But it left the rest of the younger and smaller girls, including Hoxa herself, unable to get near the middle of the table, let alone pick up anything of their own.

Then, near the edge of the jewelry, she saw an equalizer. Somebody had left a sword there. All she needed to do, she decided, was to snake in for half a second, grab it and then use it to, uh, persuade the bigger girls to get out of the way and leave their new riches behind. She figured she wouldn't have to gash them up very badly before they caught on, and if she shared the jewels -- she hated that idea, but you do what you have to -- with the others who'd been left out, the adults, who seemed content to let things proceed, probably wouldn't interfere.

Hoxa picked her moment, flashed inside and grabbed the sword. It was longer and heavier than she'd expected, and she wondered if she'd be able to wield it at all.

She didn't have a chance to find out. Faster than she'd have believed possible, the lean man had crossed the open area, reached the table and grabbed her in one hand and the sword in the other. He grinned. "You're coming with us, my boy."

Boy? Hoxa prided herself on quick thinking, but couldn't make any sense out of that.

"Your plan worked, Odysseus," the merchant called out. He turned and addressed the king. "If the oracle is true, he's going to become our greatest warrior and make us unstoppable when he's older and we're at war with Troy."

"Remember that when you trade with us," Lycomedes replied with a smile. He turned to his daughters. "I'd heard a rumor some years back that a young mother in another kingdom, concerned about a prophecy that her infant son would die in battle, sent him to us to be raised as a girl, in hopes of avoiding that fate. But the gods don't get fooled easily, and when Kokalos here told me his story, I told him he could go ahead and try to find him."

Kokalos continued. "It was Odysseus's idea that if we put a sword out along with lots of jewelry, the boy would grab the sword and we'd learn who he was. It seems to have worked."

Hoxa looked around. The man -- Odysseus? -- had let go of her hand, though his arm was loosely around her shoulders. With her knowledge of the area and her smaller size, she might be able to break away and hide before any of them could stop her.

She knew they had made a mistake. Boys and men exercised and competed in the nude, and it was easy for her to see that parts of their bodies were different from hers. So she couldn't have been the boy they were looking for, if he even existed.

Still, she found a lot in favor of going along. "Our greatest warrior" sounded a lot more interesting than anything in store for her here in Skyros. Her illustrious father didn't pay much attention to her and didn't even see her that often. As a warrior himself, Hoxa decided, he ought to welcome her being trained to follow in his footsteps, even in a foreign land. He and Hoxa's stepmother -- her mother had died giving birth to her -- had always kept her well fed and decently clothed, but they devoted most of their attention to her small half-siblings, especially their two-year old son. Hoxa wondered, melodramatically, if they'd even notice she was gone.

True, Odysseus and the others were bound to discover soon enough that she wasn't a boy, though she hoped it wouldn't happen until they were off the island. But if they decided not to train her, Hoxa had heard stories about woman warriors called Amazons. Perhaps these people knew where they lived and could send her away for training with them.

And if not -- well, there must be a lot more jewels where that chest came from. Still wearing her pretty clothes, Hoxa accompanied Kokalos, Odysseus and their retinue out of the palace and away toward adventure.

(A thank-you to my beta readers, Holly Hart and A.A.)

In which a mystery of long standing is solved, mewling writers and chirping critics battle for the last laugh, and one storyteller discovers that there are worse fates for satire and its practitioners than closing on Saturday night...

Mark Twain rather famously ordered violent consequences for anyone who found a moral in "Huckleberry Finn." As a pacifist, I can't promise the same, but where this small tale is concerned, I think he had the right idea. The only moral I'd offer from this one: If your Muse hands you something this lame, throw it back.

Readers are cautioned that the similarity of some of the critic characters' comments here to those seen on actual online stories is emphatically not intended to infer that the authors of those stories in any way resemble the saurians depicted below. Or, as Samantha Michelle used to say in her story disclaimers, "if you see yourself, get a new mirror."

Seasons didn't make a whole lot of difference in this part of North America 65 million years ago. The weather was warm; ferns, flowering plants and semi-tropical forests were abundant, and here on the western shores of the large inland sea that broke up the continent, local fauna could feed themselves without undue stress. In fact, with midday so warm and conditions so pleasant, predator and prey found themselves interacting at the Gathering Place without a trace of rancor.

"Hey, Don. I see you posted a new story online yesterday." Triceratops looked up from her laptop and greeted the larger, duck-billed creature lumbering up from the shore.

Trachodon (well, Edmontosaurus really, but he hadn't changed the name online -- he considered a familiar byline more important than correct nomenclature) finished swallowing the plants he'd wrestled out of the seashore. "Yes, but I don't know why I bother any more, from the reaction I'm getting."

"What's the problem? I haven't read it yet, but it looks good to me -- catchy header, plenty of reads for a story that hasn't been up even a full day yet, some favorable comments..."

"Yeah, Cera, but check out the one from that annoying character Shrew: 'It's really an effective story emotionally, but you've botched the chronology pretty badly: your main character goes from hatchling to young adult in just one year.'"

Ornithomimus craned her ostrichlike neck and got her head into conversational range. "I think the natives are getting restless. Did you see what Shark said about the one I posted last month? 'Solid story, but your take on the KGB Lizard is totally misguided. Don't use a famous character if you're not going to make him behave the way he's supposed to.' I mean, who does he think he is, Duckbill Hartrosaurus?"

"That's Hadrosaurus, Mimi," Triceratops countered. "And I haven't seen him around here in ages."

Trachodon sighed. "But what do you expect from Shark? That's what he does. And it sure beats his complaints about grammar and word usage. At least he's keeping those private these days, where authors can ignore them and move along."

Ankylosaurus noisily abandoned his desk and the ancient iMac where he'd been working -- stealth isn't a strong suit for Sherman tank-sized saurians -- and joined the discussion. "How about that post from C. Turtle last Monday? She's telling the world that I've traumatized my lead character to the point where there's no way she can escape from the trap the way she's supposed to in the next chapter."

"So prove her wrong," Triceratops offered.

"Is it really worth the trouble? I've a mind just to leave things where they are until folks who think they know more about your characters than you do find something better to do than sit at their computer screens and bitch."

"But Anky, some of us really want to know how that story comes out," Triceratops whined as she turned her horned head slightly toward the oval-plated giant. She couldn't turn it very far.

"Hey, Cera. Are you on their side?" Ornithomimus asked. "What about that lowlife who asked you if Saurian was your first language?"

"You mean that old fossil Coelecanth? Nobody pays any attention to him -- certainly not me."

"Still, if we all demanded some respect by pulling our stories..."

"Why spoil things for the more appreciative readers just because there are some rotten figs on the proverbial tree? Besides, I like having my stories out there. Folks tell me they're among the best on the site." Triceratops may have had something of an ego, but she couldn't, after all, help being big-headed.

And her point of view probably would have prevailed. But you can't tell a late-Cretaceous dinosaur tale without Tyrannosaurus Rex forcing his way onto the scene. And T-Rex wasn't happy. His latest story had been out there for almost a week without a single comment, and if there's one thing a mover and (especially) shaker like that can't stand, it's being ignored.

"I'm leaving the site," he announced. "And you're all going with me."

And since standing up to T-Rex is decidedly hazardous to one's good health and future, they accompanied him off the story site and out of the Gathering Place by the sea. Their stories were removed, their computers turned off for good, and Cera, Mimi, Don, Anky and the others followed T-Rex on a march away from the waters and far away toward the western horizon.

================================

"...and that's how the dinosaurs disappeared. A pity to think that if they'd just paid attention to some good online advice they might still be with us today."

The trio stood by the diorama at the natural history museum. "Oh, come on, Uncle Leo," said the towheaded seven-year old in the dark shorts and T-Rex T-shirt. "Dinosaurs didn't have computers."

"True, Jimmy, we haven't discovered any." Leo wasn't especially tall, though he certainly had a height advantage over his companions. At middle age, his severely receding hair, mustache and goatee were still dark, and if he weighed a few -- or a few dozen -- more pounds than he should have, he nevertheless seemed to be in reasonably good physical shape. "But that's not surprising. Remember, it's been millions of years. Metal and glass and plastic don't leave bones behind like these dinosaurs did -- they biodegrade and disintegrate into nothing but dust and sand."

Nine-year old Bobby had darker hair, jeans and a Science Camp sweatshirt. "That doesn't make any sense. Some dinosaurs had brains the size of a walnut. There's no way they could write stories on a computer."

"I didn't say they were good stories."

"And how would they write them? None of the dinosaurs I've seen have hands or fingers. Only a few of them even have toes. How are they supposed to use a keyboard -- or even a pencil?"

"Good questions," Leo told him approvingly. "But remember that computers get faster and more sophisticated every couple of years. So if you think back all those millions of years, computers would have been very slow back then -- so slow that if a dinosaur attached a giant keyboard -- about fifty feet long and ten feet wide -- and then put down its hoof on one letter at a time, you'd have the speed just about right. Instead of words per minute, you'd count minutes per word."

The two boys looked at each other. "None of that makes any sense, Uncle Leo."

Leo shook his head and said, almost wistfully, "Everyone's a critic." And then with a barely audible "pop", he vanished.

by (AJ) Eric

On December 16, 1773, roughly 100 insurgents boarded four merchant vessels at Boston Harbor and threw 342 crates of tea overboard, protesting a newly-imposed tax on tea and the English Parliament that had unilaterally ordered it.

Sadly, they probably didn’t encounter a letter like this one in the week or so before the event.

December, 1773

Dear Sons of Liberty:

It has come to our attention that you are planning to protest the new tax on tea by boarding the four ships in Boston Harbor that brought it here and dumping the tea overboard.

Well and good. As one of our leaders said almost a decade ago. “taxation without representation is tyranny.” It is our hope that this action will be memorable, to the point of preventing the English Parliament from persisting in actions such as this, and from interfering with the right of companies originating here in New England to import and sell tea in competition with the East India Company.

We are eager to join you tonight and assist you in destroying the tea. Our only concern is that we have heard that you are planning to disguise yourselves as Mohawk warriors while doing this.

We fully understand the need for disguise. This mission will be considered treasonous by Governor Hutchinson’s colonial government here in Massachusetts Bay, and even though it will be happening under cover of dark, the chance of being identified is significant. (All the more so if, as some suggest, scores of bystanders come out to watch after the protest meeting at Faneuil Hall breaks up.)

However, your choice of disguise concerns us greatly. Indian braves — indeed, Mohawk males in general — are usually bare-skinned above the waist, and often do not wear very much below. Besides being a rather unconvincing choice of outfit for those of us who spend considerably more time indoors handling paperwork than outdoors hunting and gathering, there is a fundamental difficulty here.

Ocean harbors in general tend to be windy and damp, especially at night, even in temperate times of year. But here in the middle of December, it is bound to be bitterly cold as well. Any white man braving these conditions while half-clothed or worse is likely to become seriously ill. I believe that even our red neighbors do not usually make war this time of year, and hardly ever fight after dark.

There is also the question of removing those disguises afterward and re-adopting a normal appearance to avoid suspicion. It cannot have escaped your notice that Mohawk warriors cut their hair in distinctive and dramatic fashion. Any attempt on our part to do the same would lead to disaster later: even those of us who wear powdered wigs during the day are unlikely to plausibly wear them outside of our employment.

War paint may also be a concern: Indians know how to use it and how to remove it afterward. Few if any of us have that experience, and anyone who uses the wrong kind of paint and finds himself unable to remove it when the time comes will most likely have to wait days for it to wear off.

Fortunately, there is an alternative that solves most if not all of these difficulties. We need to disguise ourselves as women instead.

In contrast to the Mohawks, no sane woman in this colony would venture outside in this weather and not be fully clothed — probably covered as completely as they could be, for greatest comfort. And that extends to their head cover: our lack of feminine hair styles would not be visible. As for war paint, many women paint their faces even more extensively than Indian warriors do, albeit not as noticeably. We can do the same.

One additional benefit: it makes the most sense for us to pry open some or all of the wooden crates of tea, to assure that they cannot be recovered from the harbor floor the following day. It may occur to some of us to take a few of the tea leaves home while we await the repeal of the tax. Someone costumed as a Mohawk would have difficulty concealing anything. Fully covered in a woman’s clothes, it would be considerably easier.

And a final point: we have heard people refer to the upcoming endeavor as the Boston Tea Party. Who better than women to take part in such an event?

Respectfully yours,
the Hutchinson Street Irregulars

The Legend of Sir Ant
by (AJ) Eric

“Rise, Sir Ant,” King Arthur said to the small intruder on his dinner plate, having successfully avoided making this a much shorter tale by crushing it with his fork — using his sword would have been unwieldy — during the dubbing process.

The knights had been eating supper when the lone insect started making its way across the table in quest of some morsel of food. It found a small speck of meat on the king’s plate, and probably would have taken it with him if fate, or at least someone at the table, hadn’t intervened.

A knight who’d probably had too much to drink suggested that since the ant was present and being fed at the famed Round Table of King Arthur, it was entitled to knighthood. The king, perhaps somewhat less than sober himself, complied.

Before the newly elevated insect could continue across the table with its prize, someone — nobody was quite sure afterward whether it was a servant or another of the knights — deposited the ant in a small cloth bag along with some sweet candies that figured to keep it happily occupied for a while, and thus prevented it from notifying its relatives, if it had been so inclined, and having them mount an invasion.

That might have been where the story ended, but as it happened, a messenger rushed into the palace before the group had split up for the night. and announced that a dragon had taken up residence in a cave at the other end of the kingdom, urgently requesting that they send some of their number to take care of it.

The following day, a small contingent of knights set out on the quest. With more important threats to Camelot imminent, none of the more fabled knights made the trip. The journey was left to Sir Loin, Sir Ramic, Sir Real and a French pair, Sir Lepont of Avignon and the androgynous Sir Shea la Femme. (Yes, this is one of those stories.) Their leader was Sir Robin of Camelot, whose deeds have been recorded elsewhere in at least two senses of the word. In Sir Robin’s saddlebag was the small cloth sack containing Sir Ant, the final member of their force.

Their destination was a day’s ride away, but the weather was good and the trip was uneventful. The following morning they connected with the townspeople and were led to the cave where the dragon had taken residence.

With Sir Robin doing the planning, it’s not surprising that after they dismounted from their horses, they took up positions well outside the cave. (“Should have brought along Sir Reptitous,” Robin thought.) They could see the dragon standing in the center area of the cavern, doing nothing in particular, but they were safe from any fire breathing it might produce. They removed Sir Ant from the bag and aimed him into the cave.

“Ants can lift many times their own weight,” Robin told the company. “If Sir Ant can flip the dragon onto its side, we’ll have a better chance against it.”

Sir Ant continued to advance. It’s unclear whether it knew the dragon was a threat, but it’s safe to say the dragon had no idea of its presence, at least not until the dragon took a step forward and unknowingly crushed it under its hoof.

Before the other knights could do anything further — not even get back on their horses and “bravely run away, away” — the dragon lumbered out of the cave, took to the air and was never seen again.

Observers have always wondered why it departed.

Did the dragon know it had killed the ant and have a guilty conscience? Unlikely.

Did the dragon fear an army of ants coming to avenge their scout, not knowing that they were all hundreds of miles away? Again, not very likely, especially if it hadn’t noticed the ant in the first place. In any case, since the dragon could fly and the ants couldn’t, it wouldn’t have had much cause for concern.

Did Sir Ant have magic powers and banish the dragon before it died? There doesn’t seem to be any reason to think so, though the possibility exists.

Did the dragon spot the other knights and, like Sir Robin, opt to avoid a confrontation? Possibly. Along the same lines, did it simply decide that if knights were going to come after it — quite possibly a more threatening group of knights than this one — it could find easier pickings elsewhere? The livestock in the area didn’t seem to be unusually desirable, and there wasn’t much in the way of shiny objects for it to collect, so it might have felt inclined to move anyway.

Sir Robin and the others stayed in the town for a few weeks, to be sure the dragon wasn’t in fact coming back, and then left for Camelot. Sadly, there wasn’t enough of Sir Ant left to give it a decent burial.

That should have been the end of the story. But a small religious sect decided to beatify Sir Ant and declare it the patron saint of suicide missions and impossible tasks. Tradition holds that miracles are required to elevate anyone to sainthood. Fortunately, Saint Ant’s devotees tended to be preteen boys, and times when their parents let them stay up late, or eat dessert even if they hadn’t eaten all their vegetables, or go out with their friends when they hadn’t finished all their chores, were deemed to fall into the miracle category.

Things got a little more confusing after that. It was sometimes hard to tell from listening whether people were praying for intervention from Saint Anne or Saint Ant, who were listed consecutively in alphabetical reference materials. (Saint Anthony, next on the list, had more syllables in his name and was safe from that confusion.)

Sadly, there aren’t any relics of St. Ant’s short career, though it’s said that some greedy cleric claimed he could provide a piece of tablecloth from St. Ant’s trip on the Round Table in exchange for a suitable contribution. But it seems unlikely that the Round Table had a tablecloth. (Placemats, maybe.)

And that’s where our tale ends.

THE MONSTER
by (AJ) Eric

Warning: This story scene is not violent or graphic in any way, but the person who tells it is a suicide bomber about to set off a weapon in a crowded hotel lobby. If that makes you want to skip this story, I certainly understand. If you’re willing to hear her out, read on.

Does the One True God delight in irony?

I’m finally dressed as I’ve always wanted to be. I walk from the entry path into the hotel lobby wearing a short-sleeved pale blue top with one scalloped reddish line across the front. The top ends about three inches above my navel. A low-cut pair of navy blue shorts cover less than half my upper legs. Ankle socks and white canvas shoes complete the ensemble. Hoop earrings, a heart necklace and bangle bracelets add to the effect. With raven hair in a high ponytail, smooth olive skin and the makeup I’m wearing, plus the small purse in my left hand, I don’t think anyone would doubt that I’m a Western girl from a Mediterranean country, about 16 or 17 years of age, probably looking for the rest of her family or meeting her boyfriend.

The problem is that to justify my looking like this, I have to die. My superior officers have sent me to this hotel with a bomb and a mission to take as many enemy civilians with me as I can when I explode it and lose my life.

It’s a holiday weekend here, and there are plenty of families around. Some are seated at tables, others on couches and chairs, and a few in the dining area eating snack food, since it’s too late for lunch and too early for supper. A few more are in line at the hotel counter, checking in. So there’ll be lots of people dying with me when I open the purse and flip the switch to set off the weapon.

None of this is unexpected. I volunteered for the suicide squad, asking only to choose my own disguise. They probably thought I was after the Martyr’s Reward in the afterlife.

Actually, I’m somewhat doubtful that if there’s an afterlife, our legends and lore, and perhaps even our scriptures, really know what it’s like. I’m a 24-year old university graduate in sociology, not a mystic or a zealot.

But what I did know was that I wasn’t going to live as a man any longer. Immediate death seems preferable to a full lifetime of that. I’d lost all my relatives, variously to accident, illness and civil war, so there is no one left here to be disappointed at my demise. I’ve never been in a relationship; if I looked fondly at Western women, it was to admire their appearance and clothing choices, not to imagine them in my arms, let alone my bed.

This mission does bother me. When I signed on, I expected to do my damage at a military base or checkpoint, or even an embassy — certainly not at a vacation hotel. But that isn’t my choice to make, and while there doesn’t seem to be anything they could do to me if I did it poorly — dead is dead — I still believe in our cause, and will do the best I can.

It’s time. It appears that I’ll be taking at least 20 people with me. Whether or not there’s an afterlife, I’ll certainly be remembered in this world: the enemy will call me a monster and my side will call me a martyr and an avenger. I’d call myself a woman. And I don’t think any of us will be wrong.