What Would You Do?
Part One
A Cerridwen Solo Special

The air conditioned studio was a relief from the relentless Floridian sun. I was sure before the day was over I would either be tanned or sunburned. And given my porcelain complexion I was hedging my bets I would be sunburned. Anyway that's just the price one pays for beauty. Anyway, as I made my way into the air conditioned studio I stopped and smiled toward the cameraman and offered him a perfectly demure wave. He responded by pushing the camera a little closer and I responded to this by pulling down my eyelid and sticking my tongue out. A jester I'd picked up from watching one to many hours of anime.

He only chuckled and I winked and then I followed the rest of the group as we made our way up the concrete steps. Well I'd skipped up the concrete steps. I was kind of on cloud nine right now, I'd been given the once in a lifetime chance to appear on national television. You see my family and I had taken a trip down to Florida following our return from Scotland. And well, one of the highlights of the trip had been for me to spend the day wandering around the grounds of Universal Studios. 

While mom and dad did things normal moms and dads do when their teenage daughters want to be left alone. I don't think mom was too worried about me, I think she was more worried about the staff having to deal with me than anything. Dad, at this point I think nothing really could bother him. He'd already lived through enough, I mean he'd handled the shock of his teenage son becoming his teenage daughter well enough. Not only that he'd handled the shock of his now teenage daughter bringing home her first boyfriend who later turned out to be gender fluid. 

Anyway while I was touring the park, a staffer from one of the live Nickelodeon shows, a young woman who appeared to be in her late twenties, with short blonde hair that barely reached the collar of her polo shirt walked up to me and wanted to know if I wanted to be on television. I said yes without giving it a second thought. She said great and then told me where to be at a certain time and well I'd followed her instructions to the letter.

Anyway that had all been thirty minutes ago. I was now seated on a concrete bench, sitting in total darkness, surrounded by around one hundred people I never met in my life, our eyes were all glued toward the stage down below. The first thing I noticed was on the left side of the studio there seemed to be two strange looking contraptions. One was a chair that was surrounded by pies, each pie was held in place by an arm. The thing kind of reminded me of a catapult with the pies being the rocks and I guess the person who was seated in the chair was the target. The chair looked like it could be raised or lowered with the aid of a food pump. Above the chair was clear,  a plastic bucket with a paper crown wrapped around the middle. A cord of white nylon rope seemed to be attached to the bottom of the bucket.

A few feet from that was another contraption that was just as strange. It kind of looked like a shower stall only with a spinning office chair mounted in the middle and what appeared to a dozen black hoses sticking out from all sides, the hoses seemed to be pointing downward toward whoever must be spinning around. 

Across from those two odd contraptions there was this massive wall, the one was dotted with all manner of drawers and painted on each drawer was a number.  It kind of made me wonder what kind of show this was.

Then the lights dimmed and a hushed silence fell over the crowds and from somewhere in the back a woman dressed in a form fitting, sparkling, red dress with black heels came out and waved toward the crowd. My first thought she was a little overdressed, and my second thought was maybe she was just bimbo the studio hired to increase their viewership. After all, I'm told that sex sells. 

“Good afternoon!” The hostess called out. “I'm Poppy Bell! And you guys are watching the rebooted edition of Nickelodeon's famous 'What Would You Do?' were normal people and put them crazy, often insane situations and ask them that all important question 'What would  you do?' so let get started shall we!”

The crow roared to life and the shouts of a hundred so people eager to get their fifteen minutes of fame filled the air around me. Poppy's eyes sparkled and she even twitched a little and for a moment I was sure she had snorted a few lines of the worlds finest cocaine before coming out on stage.

“Okay! I'm going to start our show off by saying I need a brave volunteer to meet me down on stage!” She said smiling as she rushed up the concrete stairs. I felt a little smirk forming on my face, this should be good. I could not wait to see what poor sap she pulled from the crowd. Of course my amusement soon turned to terror as I noticed Poppy was coming toward me.

“Hey!” She said tapping me on the shoulder. “You look bored. And nobody should be bored on my  television show! Come on down, I think I found my first volunteer!” She said as she reached down and wrapped her hand around my hand. She then yanked me up and pulled me down the steps till we reached the bottom stage.

“Okay! So first can you tell me your name?” Poppy said as she placed a black microphone in my face.

I blushed and shifted my eyes around before saying.

“Cerridwen Circe Whitethorn.” I said blushing a little. Well, this was something.

“Okay Karen!” She Poppy said , smiling. “It good to have you on the show! Now I'm sure your wondering what I'm going to have you do, well, what drew me in was your fashion! I mean your rocking the Hot-Topic Gothic girl look!” 

“Sorry, it's Cerridwen, keh-rund-when..” I said, sounding my name out. “Sorry it's a funny name, it's Welsh.” I said blushing a little. I then closed my eyes as behind the crowd started to make an 'Ooooooo' sound. Goddess I hated that sound. 

Poppy then blinked and turned around and for a moment her fake smile dropped  and I swear I saw the flames of hell flicking in her eyes as she parted her lips and showed her teeth. It only lasted a moment before she was back to her cheerful old self.

“Oh sorry! Cerridwen!” She said, spitting her words out like one spits out a wad of used chewing gum. “Anyway, Cerridwen.” She added. “Like I say, I'm totally digging the outfit. I mean, you're rocking the Hot-Topic Gothic look right now girlfriend. Why don't you give our cameraman a little spin.” While that might have sounded like a request I could tell by the tone and force of her voice it was more like a command. Mom sometimes does the same thing to me.

Blushing a little, I spun around. You could say I'd dressed extremely feminine that day. Now, I'm transgender, and you would think extremely feminine would come almost as natural to me as swimming comes to ducks or fish. But that is not true, at least in my case. I had my days of being extremely feminine and some days of being a tomboy. Gender like everything I found in life is just a label people like to slap on things. Anyway enough of my ramblings about gender and stuff. 

Like I said before, I was dressed in an extremely feminine manner that day, a pleated ruffled mini skirt,  and a black spaghetti strap shirt, my shoulder length raven black hair that had allowed it to hang down. A light purple headband accented my hair. And finally black, lace up boots. All brought from the local Hot-Topic using my Hot Topic Reward Card to get some sweet deals. Add in an in-store special and for an added bonus my cousin who works there tossed in her employment discount. And somehow I got a discount because it was my birthday month and an outfit that normally would have cost around one hundred and twenty dollars had been mine for around sixty six dollars, a saving of almost fifty four dollars. 

Mom was pleased and according to her I was learning to shop and that was a skill that would go a long way when I had a teenage girl of my own some twenty or so years down the road. Anyway as I spun around I gave the same camera man a wink. Yes, I was feeling a little sassy that day, I'd decided to wear my new lacy back bra and matching black lacy panties. Also brought from Hot Topic! 

“Adorable!” Poppy said smirking a little as she peered toward me.

“So. Cerridwen..before we start our little game, tell me a little about yourself.” She said, peering toward me with a look that made my blood run cold. 

“I'm Cerridwen Circe Whitethorn, I'm sixteen, I attend Benton Academy, I'm on the varsity cheerleading squad.” I said blushing as I noticed the cameraman was zooming in a little more. “I'm a Junior at Benton Academy too! And I'm kind of into horror, like I know it's cheesy and stuff but I really do enjoy the Fear Street stories. Even though they always seem to end with somebody getting killed off. I think R.L Stine is more creative than Steven King when it comes to teenage horror.” I said blushing a little.

Poppy nodded her head and smiled a little. 

“Okay Cerridwen since your a cheerleader, what would you say if I told you, that in a few seconds one of the staffers will take you backstage and get you changed into a cute cheerleading uniform, you know, pleated skirt, shell top and all that good stuff and then your going to come out here and do a little cheer. And then.” She turned around and peered at the audience.

“You the audience are going to vote on how well Cerridwen cheers! If you think she did an amazing job then Cerridwen I'm going to give you a token and at the end of the show you can go over and select a box from the Wall of Stuff. You might win a gift Visa, you might win a shirt, you might win a travel tote! Heck you might get nothing at all! But if the audience does not think you cheered well enough or thinks your cheer was lackluster then I'm going to send you to the Pie Pod.” Poppy said, smirking a little.

At this point I noticed the cameraman was zooming the camera a little closer to me. Inwardly I heaved a sigh and took a deep breath. If I said no, it would make me look like a total chicken if I said yes, well I'll make a fool of myself.

“Going to need an answer Cerridwen dear or else I'll have to find somebody a lot braver than you! Poppy said in a teasing tone of voice 

“I'll do it!” I said, taking a deep breath. 

“A little louder honey.” Poppy said.

“I said I'll do it!” I said as I peered toward the camera.

“Wonderful! Well get you dressed up as the perfect little cheerleader and in the meantime I'll be looking for a brave volunteer to feed a saltwater alligator and somebody to drive a monster truck into downtown traffic! All this and more after a quick commercial break!”

To be  Continued.