Katie slowed the car as we went to turn into the lot at the school. Across the street a small group of protesters was protesting, claiming that I was an abomination to God, and I was startled to see that the group was led by none other than Mrs. Paskly. Katie and I looked at each other.

“What in the hell?” She said, pulling the car into a parking spot. I refused to let Mrs. Paskly win, and wrote her off as a slight nuisance. I could live knowing that she would just be standing there, freezing her rear end off while I stayed inside the nice warm school building. I took a deep breath and opened the door, feeling the cold air invade the car that had warmed up nicely in the time it had taken us to get from the house to the school. I felt the goosebumps rise on my legs as I gracefully extracted my self from the car. My skirt fell back to my knees and my pink peacoat kept my upper body warm. Katie and I joined hands as we walked into the school, our black loafers making very little sound on the dry blacktop. I was not looking forward to making this walk in the snow, with my feet either getting soaked or having to switch from snow boots to my shoes for inside. Katie and I wore similar skirts, both a black plaid, and knee length. Under my peacoat, I had on a black turtleneck sweater, and I could see the top of Katie’s baby pink turtleneck sweater poking out of the neck line of her jacket. We walked into the school and Officer Mullin stepped out of his office.

“Did Paskly try anything?” He asked. I looked at him.

“You mean other than defamation, no. She’s just mad because her own antics cost her career and she hasn’t phased me in the least.” I said, while adding in my head ‘closed minded bitch.’

“There are some units on the way to deal with her, we checked and they don’t have a permit to be protesting, regardless where they are doing it. You girls run to class.” Mullin said. That made sense in my head as you had to have a permit for any type of protest inside the city limits. Katie and I walked into the hallway that ran down the side of the commons, when Katie looked at me with a confused look on her face.

“What was Officer Mullin talking about with the permit?” She asked.

"To protest anything inside the city limits, you need go apply for a permit." I said. "They cost about twenty bucks and they usually don't deny the permit unless there is just cause. Apparently, Paskly and her group never applied for one." We walked into our first period classroom. Several students were already there and a group of girls came over to us.

"Morgan, we are with you 100% if you need anything, just ask." Jessica said. "We think you are very brave for finding your true self and also, welcome to the 'fairer sex'" Jessica said, giving me a wink. The five minute warning bell sounded so we all shuffled off to our seats. I had noticed that Katie and I both were dressed nicer than any of the other girls and with the exception of Ashleigh the only girls in skirts. Ashleigh's mom refused to allow her daughter to wear pants, and it was rumored that she had some way of enforcing that rule. No one knew what that was, but for the time that I had known her, she had, to my knowledge not taken a P.E. Course in the three years that she had been at the school. I sat down at my desk which was right behind Katie’s desk and waited on the tardy bell to ring. I pulled my text book for the class and reached up to playfully tug on Katie’s ponytail. I then felt a tug on my own pony tail… I turned to look at Elizabeth who was sitting behind me. She had a huge grin on her face.

“I saw you do it to Katie and thought that turn about was fair play.” She said. Kaite had turned to see me looking at Elizabeth.

“Did you tug on Morgan’s pony tail, Lizzy?” Katie asked, using the nickname of everyone in the class for Elizabeth. She didn’t mind as most everyone in the school called her Lizzy. Lizzy giggled like a little girl that had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

“Yep.” She beamed. It had to be a bad day before you could catch Lizzy not smiling. Mrs Snyder came into the room and sat her stuff on her desk. She examined the room and shrugged, taking a sip of coffee out of her mug. Two minutes later the tardy bell rang.

“Good Morning everybody.” Mrs. Snyder said. She received a variety of mumbled good mornings back in response. She went on to talk about the research project that was due at the end of the school year, some scant six months away. I had an idea on what I was going to do mine on, but everything had to be approved by Mrs. Snyder. I would have more than enough information in short time on laws affecting transgendered people and the reasoning behind those laws, as well as the way that some of them could be changed.

The bell rang signaling the end of first period so Katie and I got up and went to our next class which was US History. Katie and I sat side by side in this class, and we both dug out our text books as well as the notebooks that were dedicated to the class and smiled at each other. Right after Mr. Anderson had started class, the PA broke into his lecture on the Civil War.

“Mr. Anderson?” Came the voice of someone in the office.

“Yes?” he said.

“Could you please send Katie Richardson and Morgan Smith down to the office, and have them bring their stuff with them, please?” Katie and I glanced at each other and looked at Mr. Anderson.

“They are on their way.” Mr. Anderson said. Most of the room was speculating that we were in trouble. Katie and I gathered our things and dropped them in our bags.

“Thank you.” Katie and I stood and walked into the hallway.

“What’s going on?” Katie asked me as we walked toward one of the stair cases to go downstairs to the main office.

“I have no idea, but I bet it has something to do with James Petry or Mrs. Paskly.” I said, pushing open the door at the top of the stair case.