LITMIR.BIZ

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and because it was Tracy, a whole shopping bag of accessories including scarves that smelled like the Civil War. I’d yet to inhabit an identity where I wanted to wear accessories, but I guess a Touchtone can dream.

      I riffled through the options, but nothing felt right. The stuff that fit was boxy and itchy, made me look like the whale in Moby-Dick. Or wait, is Moby-Dick the name of the whale? I can never remember. Anyway, all the clothes I liked were too tight in the middle, or choked my arms like fabric boa constrictors. I found a big, off-the-shoulder knit sweatshirt with an old-fashioned motorcycle on it. It was cool enough and it didn’t make me feel like a ham. I put on one of Dad’s gym shirts underneath, and a pair of his sweats, which were not made for any woman’s body, let alone mine. It was shaping up to be my best high school fashion debut yet.

      I pushed my boobs into Mom’s largest, most stretched-out jog-bra (now I know how sausage gets made), then jammed my feet into a pair of Drew’s old Converse. As I stood to appraise myself in the mirror, I heard a buoyant, “Helloooo! Guess whooo?” wafting in from the hallway.

      “In here!” Mom yelled to Tracy, while I mouthed Noooo! As if I could stop her.

      “Where’s my favorite Changer-in-waiting?” Tracy said, as her head popped in, followed by two giant mocha Frappuccinos from Starbucks, with extra whipped cream on top.

      “Well hello, gorgeous,” she said casually, acting as if seeing Kim Cruz in the former body of Oryon Small (oh the continued Oryony!) was something she’d expected all along.

      “Don’t even,” I snipped, looking back at myself in the mirror.

      “Your favorite,” she chirped, offering me the drink.

      “Like, two years ago,” I snarled, being a professional brat, as I struggled to untie the knot in the drawstring of my dad’s gray sweats. “Oh good, extra whipped cream. That’ll help.”

      Tracy slurped some white foam through her straw and set my frappe atop Mom’s dresser.

      “Your hair is so shiny. And those lips. Like a film star in the forties.”

      “Right?” Mom chimed in. “I was telling her.”

      I tried to look at my new lips, but my gaze kept dropping to my stomach, my thighs, my boulder boobs.

      “How’s it going?” Tracy asked, 95 percent directed at Mom.

      “So great,” Mom mumbled sarcastically.

      “Well, let’s get this show on the road,” Tracy said, fishing through her purse for the magnetic fob which initiates Y-3. “You applied the emblem?”

      “Nooo,” I moaned. In all my self-loathing, I’d forgotten the damn flesh-branding part of the morning. “At least there will be plenty of real estate to choose from.”

      Mom shot me her “enough” look as she emptied the packet from Changers Central. Out slid the dreaded lipstick tube from hell.

      “I can’t use the fob until the brand is in place,” Tracy reminded us, loving nothing more than following procedure.

      “I got it,” I said, snatching the brander out of my mom’s hands and heading into the bathroom to be by myself. I locked the door behind me, checking twice to make sure the latch was secure.

      I popped off the cap and was planning on just going for it and getting the grisly task done without thinking too much or anticipating the pain of the burn. Only problem was . . . I couldn’t reach the area where the thing is supposed to go on my butt cheek. I put a foot up on the toilet and twisted around, but I could only get the device perpendicular against the skin where it would probably be visible above my waistline. I tried propping up the other leg and reaching for the other cheek—but that one was even less flexible.

      Lovely. Not humiliating at all. I can’t even handle my own business in private.

      “Mom!” I yelled, angry as hell, but it came out in a way that sounded like I was crying. “Can you come in here?”

      I cracked the door, and she slipped in, giving her best accepting and calm “whatever” shrink demeanor. I held out the brander.

      “Do you need help?” she asked.

      “OF COURSE I NEED HELP!”

      “Okay, okay.” She took the tube, holding back every shred of mom-ness in her, which likely wanted to smack my butt as much as brand it. I turned around, pulled down Dad’s sweats. Mom quickly uncapped the weapon of mass excruciation, took a deep breath, which prompted me to take a deep breath, and . . . O-M-JESUS!

      That smell alone, like my own skin getting roasted on a spit. And the pain. Criminy. When I’m a full-grown Changer, my first order of business is going to be joining the Changers Council and decreeing the elimination of the whole bass-ackwards emblem ritual. I mean, what are we? Medieval savages?

      And yet, having my ass flesh seared by my mother in a cramped bathroom was a bounce-house party compared to what going to school was going to be like.

      “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Mom asked.

      “You do it.”

      “I would if I could,” she said, almost wistfully. “Believe me.”

      “I doubt it.”

      She took a deep breath, took her time exhaling, and then: “When you have a child, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.”

      “What if I don’t want to have kids?”

      Before Mom could answer, Tracy asked from the other side of the door, “All good to go?”

      “Just finishing up,” Mom said, giving me the eye and then cracking the door and moving aside so I could get by.

      “Cool beans,” Tracy said, prepping the fob.

      “Cool beans?” I repeated. “So I woke up in a different decade, as well as a different body?”

      Tracy ignored me, pushing her thumb into the top of the gadget, which caused it to beep three times, glow red, and then turn blue. All clear. Mom tried to be helpful and started to hold up my hair to reveal my neck, but I batted her hand away. I wanted to do something on my own.

      I slowly pivoted and turned my back to Tracy, collecting my hair. It was the first time I’d really touched it since waking up, and I noticed immediately how thick it was, and straight, and very, very smooth. It was shampoo-commercial hair. In fact, if a guy were feeling this hair, he’d probably be way into it . . .

      How gross is it I’m thinking that stuff—about myself?

      “Okay, here we go,” Tracy said, brushing aside a few errant strands with her left hand and holding the fob up to the back of my neck with the other. I felt a little buzz, heard a beep, and then a few quick clicks at the base of my neck in the usual area of my Chronicling chip. A vague, distant buzzing sensation seemed to be radiating down my spine. “Finito!”

      “Cool beans,” I muttered, releasing my hair.

      As I swiveled around to face her, Tracy placed both of her hands on me, squeezing my shoulders like she was testing for ripeness. She looked directly into my eyes. I tried to squirm away, but she was determined.

      “What?” I said exasperatedly.

      “I’m so proud of who you’re becoming.”

      “You mean this V?”

      She didn’t say anything, just bored her pupils laserlike into my eyes.

      “You wouldn’t be so proud if you knew what I was thinking inside,” I added.

      “I mean you,” she said quietly. But the moment was lost on me.

      * * *

      After school, Mom made good on her promise (threat?) to take me to the mall. Spoiler alert: shopping

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