"I really am going to be getting in a bunch of fights," he said.

Mom got back on the phone and talked to Mrs. Hunt about what had happened to me. I didn't want to hear that so I went back to my room. Dad followed me as far as my door, but I shook my head at him and closed it with him standing in the hall. "Audrey?" he asked through the door.

"I'm okay, Daddy," I said, realizing as I said it that had come out sounding awfully girly. I sat on the bed and put Myron, my plush duck in my lap.

"You sure?" he asked again.

"I'm fine, Dad," I said, trying to sound more like my old self.

"We'll be in the kitchen if you need us," he said, and I heard him move away.

I didn't want Mom telling Mrs. Hunt that I was a girl now because then she would tell Pete. But I couldn't ask Mom not to tell because it had probably already gone all around the ranch community, and Pete was going to find out sooner or later.

Lots of people already knew, my aunt and cousin in the beauty shop were practically news central for our little valley plus several of the hands had been told, and they had wives and kids. Then there were the people at the school in Rosa Morena who probably told friends in Presley. I might as well have gone on one of those stupid afternoon talk shows.

"I don't want Pete to stop being my friend just because I'm not a stupid boy," I told the duck. I didn't cry about it, though I did sniff a bit. I put Myron back on the bed and blew my nose on a piece of tissue. I stared at the walls of my room. I really was going to have to change things around, but I had no idea what the walls of girl's room should look like.

I bent over and put Baby Audrey's arms around Myron's neck so it looked like they were cuddling. "Best friends forever and don't you forget it," I told them. Then I left my room and went down the hall to listen and see if Mom was through talking to Mrs. Hunt.

#

Mom and Dad decided they would go with me to visit the Hunts who had just returned from their last-minute summer vacation. Nothing was said about it, but we all knew they were going along as moral support while I introduced the new me to my best friend since pre-school, Pete Hunt. Pete would probably decide I had cooties now, but I thought I could deal with that.

It seemed silly to take a car to drive barely over a mile to the little community where the Hunts lived. Just off actual ranch property and more than two miles outside the town of Presley, Clark Township consisted of forty-four homes and a gas station/convenience store arranged on three streets paralleling the highway and two that crossed it. Half the homes had an acre or more of land attached, and the Hunts owned one of those.

Joe and Dinah Hunt, Pete's parents, had their own mini-ranch on six acres toward the back of the subdivision. They boarded and trained horses there, and Joe worked on the Fordyce ranch as horse trainer, too. Pete was the youngest of their kids and the last one living at home. His next older sister, Kendra, had married right out of high school and lived in Rosa Moreno.

I remembered that Kendra was going to have a baby around Christmas, and Pete would be an uncle for the third time. According to the doctors, I might eventually be able to have babies, too. No guarantees, my body was sort of a one-off, and no one knew for sure. What would it be like to be pregnant, to have a baby, to be a mother?

No clue, and it was making me uncomfortable to think about it. I'd have to have at least one operation to make it possible, and that was definitely unpleasant to think about. I'd better not mention any of this to Pete, I decided.

We pulled right into the driveway at Pete's house, Dad stopping the car behind the small motorhome the Hunt's had taken on vacation. I let my parents get out first, hesitating more than a little. When I did get out of the car, I paused to smooth my skirt. Mom looked at me with a small smile, but Dad twitched. I could understand that as I felt kind of the same way.

Our big sedan was between me and the Hunt house, and I couldn't see over it, but I heard Dad say, "Here comes Pete."

I touched my fingers to both of my earrings, I'm not sure why. Mom started around the front of the car, and I followed her, realizing as I did that last week, I would have gone the other direction, running to meet Pete without grown-ups in the way.

"Audie! Audie!" I could hear Pete shouting. Then he asked, "Where's Audie?" just as I stepped where I could see him over the hood. And he could see me.

"Hi, Pete," I said. "It's me, Audrey."

Mom and Dad moved away but stayed close. Pete stared. He had on sneakers, blue jeans and a green Sea World t-shirt with a picture of an orca on it. His dark brown hair stood up in various directions, and he had a long red scratch on his left arm. His blue eyes were big as saucers, and I could see the green and gold flecks in them.

He opened his mouth and closed it again. He turned and looked back at his house, where his mom and dad were standing near the door. He said, "You're not playing a joke on me, are you?"

I shook my head. "No. This is me. I'm -uh- I'm a girl. I didn't know, no one knew but the doctors -uh- found out. And…." I gestured at myself. "So…."

"Jeez! Audie, I'm sorry," Pete said. He bit his lip. I realized that I could see his freckles too. Usually, his tan was dark enough to hide them, but he'd kind of… turned pale under the tan or something.

"I'm okay," I said. I took a step toward him, and he backed up half a step at the same time, so I stopped. "It's not your fault."

He made a face I can't describe. It looked like it hurt. "I'm sorry for you, Audie," he said. His voice kind of caught in his throat.

I shook my head. "I'm not mad about it now," I told him. "Oh, boy, I was mad on Friday, though." I laughed a bit, trying to make it not sound like a giggle.

Pete grinned, a sick little grin, but it made him look more like himself. "I bet you were." He shook his head. "I can't imagine. Uh, it's not contagious, is it?"

"You mean do I have cooties?" I said, grinning a bit myself.

He blinked. "I guess you do, huh?" he said, smiling now.

"Sure, I've got girl cooties, I guess. But it's not contagious. I've just always been a girl." I shrugged.

Mom and Dad had moved further away and were talking with the Hunts up on their porch. Pete's dog, Shoog, another black-and-white but mostly white cattle dog, came up and nosed his hand, and Pete knelt beside the animal. Shoog looked at me, wagging his tail, while Pete ruffled his ears.

Pete shook his head. "That ain't right. I've seen you when we went skinny-dipping in the cattle tank." He made it sound a little like an accusation.

I squatted down, letting my skirt touch my shoes. I stuck out a hand and said, "Shoog," and the dog ambled on over to let me pet him, too. "Gossip has puppies," I said. "Are they yours, Shooger?" He wagged his whole body in reply, and I laughed.

"Girls don't have…" Pete began.

"Inside," I said. "I've always been a girl inside, I just didn't know it. It -uh- it didn't show."

Pete moved his head like he was watching a fly. He opened his mouth and closed it again. If he kept being a doofus, I just knew I was going to start laughing at him. "Did it hurt?" he finally asked.

I looked at him, then had to grab Shoog's collar when the dog lay down and stuck his nose under my skirt. "No, Shoog!" I told the dog, then asked Pete, "Did what hurt?"

"When they uh…" From pale, he went kind of red.

"When they looked inside? They used a machine like sonar. It tickled a little."

"No, I meant… Did…." He shook his head and didn't ask it.

I could guess what he wanted to know, but I wasn't going to answer. Shoog tried again to look under my skirt. "No!" I said, using a knuckle to rap him on his hard head.

Pete picked up a piece of Eucalyptus bark and stood to throw it. "Get it, Shoog!" he said, and the dog bounded off to fetch.

I stood, too. I kept my feet together, and I smoothed my skirt again. I smiled at Pete, and he swallowed something. "Audie," he said but stopped.

"Can you call me Audrey now?" I asked him.

"Jesus," he said.

"Audrey," I repeated.

"Audrey," he whispered.

Shoog came back with the piece of bark, but instead of giving it to Pete, he brought it to me. It was an odd shape and I threw it awkwardly toward the far corner of the front yard. "Get it, Shoogy!" I said.

We watched the dog chase the wobbly piece of bark across the grass. Pete looked at me, and slowly his expression changed. He smiled. "I guess this explains why you've always thrown like a girl," he said.

"I do not!" I protested. "It's a funny-shaped piece of wood!"

Pete shook his head. "It only makes sense. If you're a girl, any time you throw something, you'll be throwing like a girl."

"Hmpf," I said, but I smiled too. If he was teasing me, he couldn't be that upset about it.

This time Shoog took the makeshift toy to Pete but growled when his master tried to take it away. "Drop it," Pete ordered. Wagging his tail like a weed-whacker, the dog obeyed. Pete scooped it up and flung it down the sideyard. Shoog took off.

We stood there looking at each other for a bit. Pete gestured at what I was wearing. "You're not going to dress like that all the time, are you?"

I glanced down at my dress. "Uh, no. I'm just… Uh, girls have to wear skirts to our new school, and I'm -uh- trying to get used to the idea?"

He nodded. "You look nice," he said.

Wow. "Thanks," I said.

He stared off into the distance, looking toward Palm Springs and the desert hills. "This is gonna suck," he said.

"Uh?"

He sighed. "We're starting a new school, we'll be the youngest, smallest kids there, and my best friend is gonna be wearing a dress. Suck City." He shook his head.

I felt warm all over. I wanted to hug him. "We're still friends?"

"'Course." He seemed surprised I would ask. "If you lost an arm or a leg, or one of us moved away, we'd still be friends, wouldn't we? You ain't dead, just… different." He sighed again. "I'm gonna be getting into a lot of fights."

"You hold them still, Pete, and I'll kick 'em in the nuts," I offered.

We both laughed. "It's a plan," Pete said. "But you're going to wreck your pretty shoes." We laughed some more.

Shoog hadn't come back, and we could see him down in the taller grass of the sideyard, biting the stick of bark into smaller and smaller pieces. We started toward the house.

I was still giggling, but Pete looked thoughtful. We stopped on the porch, the adults had already gone inside.

"You're my friend who's a girl," he said to me. "But you're not my girlfriend, okay?"

I rolled my eyes and made a kissy face at him. "Not yet," I said.

"Argh! I'm serious Audie… Audrey! Mom is going to tease me about that, you know she is, and Dad will be just as bad."

I thought about that. Dinah Hunt was known as a great kidder, and Mr. Hunt had a cowboy sense of humor; the kind that thinks someone going ass over ears off a bronco is funny. "So no holding hands?" I asked seriously, reaching for his.

"Jeez, Audrey! Audie! Audrey! No holding hands!" He jerked his arm away but saw I was grinning at him and relaxed a bit. "You're as bad as Mom!" he accused.

I tried to look as if that hurt my feelings. "We're still going to the carnival together next month, aren't we?" I asked with a quiver in my voice. "It's going to be on your birthday this year." The weekend before Halloween was a big thing in our little farming area — fall harvest, nice weather, hayrides, and square dances.

Pete waved his arms around. "Everyone goes to the carnival!"

"So it's a date," I said.

He held a finger up. "It's not a date! We're too young to date."

I tried to look thoughtful. "Maybe next year," I mused.

He glared at me. "Cut it out, Audrey," he finally said.

"Okay," I agreed. I felt happy to hear him use my name.

We sat on the porch in the wooden glider Pete's grandfather had made. He sat at the right end, and I sat in the middle but didn't crowd him. I smoothed my skirt and kept my feet together on the bar below the bench.

Despite my growth spurt over the summer, Pete had had one, too, and was still taller than me because he was most of a year older. Pete used his longer legs to put the glider in motion, and we sailed back and forth with the springs creaking.

"The kids at school… some of them… are probably going to be mean to you. I really am going to be getting in a bunch of fights," he said.

"We already have a plan for that," I commented.

He shook his head. "Only trashy girls get in fights with boys. You can take care of any girls that give you trouble, but leave assholes like Roy Chunderhead to me." Roy was a bully from Presley a grade ahead of us. His real last name was Churchfield, and he was twice Pete's size, though not as big as Moose.

"You'll get hurt," I said.

"Don't worry about me. If any guy hurts you, Audrey... I—will—break—bones." Pete sounded really mean when he said that.

I remembered what his Dad did for a living. The Hunts were tough, even by ranch people measures. We didn't say anything for a while, and the glider moved back and forth.

He looked sideways at me and smiled. "Who would have thought you would be so pretty," he said.

I tossed my head and looked down at my lap, the long hair of my wig falling around my face. Pete made a noise, and I looked up. He was still smiling. He put his hand out between us. I put mine in his, and he closed it around my fingers.

"M-maybe I am your girlfriend?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said. "But don't tell anyone until we're in high school. Ya wanna see my eagle feather?"

"Maybe later," I said.

He stood up and pulled on my hand, and I stood too. "C'mon, it's in my room, it's really cool," he said. "The eagle in the bird show at Sea World dropped it, and the trainer said I could have it." He let go of my hand and opened the door for me.

I walked through, but I said, "I don't think I can go into your bedroom anymore, Pete."

He stopped, halfway through the door. We could hear the adults talking somewhere else in the house. "Huh," he said. "Well, come on, we can sneak in this time, and pretend we didn't think of it." He headed off toward his room, and I followed, giggling.