It started with singing. I heard a sweet voice floating from downstairs and steadily migrating upstairs. I groggily blinked my eyes open in time to see Angélique come into the room.

“Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai…

Je te plumerai la tte

Je te plumerai la tte

Et la tte… et la tte

Alouette, Alouette…

O-o-o-o-oh”

I quickly rolled over and flopped face down into the pillow. “Not funny Angélique, hear me? Non… not funny,” I mumbled into the pillow. Her spirits were high and she put her hand on my back, playfully shaking me awake.

“Its time to get up lil’ Alouette, the church bells will ring in two hours.”

“Speak French later, let me sleep now.”

Angélique pulled the covers back and they fluttered off like a parachute. I scrunched my knees up to my chest to guard against the sudden chill. Doing so made my diaper crinkle loudly and I cringed as last night came up into memory. I felt a hand being placed against my diaper. I immediately shot forward.

“Abuse abuse!” I yelled and looked back at Angélique.

“It’s a good thing I listened to Jeanne. We’d have lake pee in here if I hadn’t.”

I stared at her a little apprehensively for a moment. She pointed at my diapered butt. I turned over and patted at the front of it with my hand.

“Oh jesus it’s wet,” I said barely believing what my hand was feeling. My voice also cracked a little with that whiney sobby tone. Angélique nodded.

She took my hand and led me to the bathroom, starting the tub. She then left me to my own devices. I removed my clothes and took off the wet diaper, balling it up with the plastic pants and leaving it in a soggy pile by the door. I got in the tub and just floated a minute staring at the ceiling.

“Alouette… who are you?” I asked the ceiling. It hurt inside … I was already starting to think of Anthony as a separate person… I mean think about it, he’d left and somehow, I hadn’t. Was someone else being Anthony? Was some joker wearing me like a suit off in Paris right now? The thought was hideous.

“Alouette… who are you?” I asked again. My mind made up other answers. Maybe a girl had switched bodies with me. I had hers, now she had mine. That was possible. Or maybe it was like a bad episode of a sci-fi TV show, and I’d hit split infinity and broken into two people. One being the regular me, the other… being my polar opposite?

Actually scratch all that, it all sounded insane. Under the same guidelines I could really just be some 15-year-old girl who got drunk so often she developed fake memories that by chance coincided with a visiting student. In any case, none of it mattered, what did matter was the here and now. Right now, I am a girl. Right now, I can’t change or ignore that. Right now I have no friends, and know no one to believe me. I wanted to cry again.

I washed myself with the same unfamiliar care. I was just going to take basic care of this body, because I didn’t expect to use it very long. This was a temporary shell for my consciousness, and it would never take over. I toweled off once more, with the same awkwardness of wet hair. I found Angélique in my room laying out clothes on the bed.

“Let’s get you in your underclothes then work on your hair before you try on this dress. Hopefully it fits; I used to wear it to church when I was your age. Brings back a lot of memories actually.”

Angélique had laid out a black dress with white trim. I froze, what the HELL was that doing on the bed? Didn’t I just get some new, relatively boyish clothes yesterday?

“Wow bath not go so well? You look mad.”

Angélique walked up to me and took the ends of the towel to tussle my hair. I was still not amused. She handed me an undershirt and pair of panties, which I put on, but then she stopped at the dress and grabbed a brush.

“I think it might be nice if we try doing something with that hair, rather then just letting it lay flat.”

She began brushing my hair, but it kind of tugged my head back. I swatted her hand away.

“Stop that! It hurts!”

Angélique put her hands on her hips. “You’ve probably never brushed it in your life, and somehow I doubt you conditioned it in the bathroom, its going to be a little rough getting out the tangles at first.”

“Leave it alone, it’ll dry and be fine straight,” I said as I started to turn away. Angélique grabbed my shoulder and started to try and brush my hair as I resisted.

“This… *brush brush* won’t… *brush brush* take but a… *brush brush* moment.”

“Get the hell away from my hair!” I yelled twisting and turning as my head was pulled back every time the brush ran through my wet hair. Eventually she gave up and threw the brush on the bed.

“I give up, finish your hair yourself!”

I stood with my arms crossed and smiled. Seems I’d won a little battle and she was going to leave my hair be. She moved to get the dress, my smile fled. *Ding* round two.

“No! Non! Not wearing a dress!” I made a break for the door once again, but her hand was like that of a cat on a running mouse.

“Stop it! Must you resist everything I try to do for you? What’s wrong with this dress? Why do you hate dressing up like a girl so much?”

“Non non! Leave me alone!”

Angélique let out a controlled scream and stormed out of my room, slamming the door behind her.

“That was completely unfair!” I said aloud to myself. “Why couldn’t I be the one to leave?” I went over and plopped down on the bed.

I sat grumpy for a little while. Angélique was being so pushy. Take a bath. Comb your hair. Wear a dress. What the hell was she trying to do, train me to be a girl? What would I do afterwards, get some practice with her on making curtsies? I laid down staring up at the ceiling once again. I noticed the dress was lying next to me. I pushed it on the floor.

After I’d calmed down I went out of my room to find Angélique. She was in her room, with the door cracked open a little. I’d never seen her room, so I approached the door quietly.

Her room was very rustic looking and filled with wooden, antique looking furniture. She had a large bed with four tall bed posts and a canopy. In one corner was a make-up table with oval mirror, she was seated in front of it doing her own hair. She saw me peering at her from the crack of the door in the reflection of the mirror.

She didn’t turn to me, “Do whatever you want; I don’t care how you look. You’re going to church in that underwear if that’s how it has to be.”

She sounded angry. Angry, and also a little hurt at the same time. I left her to finish with her hair. I wandered back into my room, feeling a little guilty. She was really mad. All because I was making anything she wanted to do for me a chore.

I reviewed everything that had happened. She wanted me to take a bath, which was because I’d had a wet diaper (which was probably still lying on the bathroom floor). Then she’d wanted to brush my hair. I looked over in the mirror… it was a mess, so maybe that wasn’t uncalled for either. But… she had also wanted me to wear a dress.

I looked at the black dress lying in a pile on the floor and picked it up. “Only a girl would wear such a thing…” I said coldly.

My own use of the word “girl” rang in my ears. I looked at the dress again and then stepped over to the mirror. Staring at me was a blonde haired GIRL, her hair was a bit tangled, still not quite dry… her green uncertain eyes, always looking at themselves as if not to trust what they saw. There was no doubt; there was a girl in the mirror, at least by physical appearance. There may be a boy inside, but there was a girl outside. That’s what Angélique had to go on. She still didn’t believe or have the remotest thought that I was a boy, so she was trying to do what she could to take care of a girl… because that’s what she thought me to be.

Maybe I was being unfair to Angélique. I could see why she was angry now. She understood that I didn’t usually do these things, and that I needed help to get them done, and she wanted to help. I of course, finding them offensive and like a little stab at my male integrity, shoved them rudely back in her face.

I let out a deep sigh and went back to the bed. I sat down and picked up the brush, and tried brushing out my hair.