Lead Shoes-9

Chapter 9

My grounding was for the rest of the summer.

Mom, didn’t come down hard, hard on me but there were extra chores. Like raking up the lawn and scrubbing the floor with the swiffer. And there was her taking me with her to the bar but not like the times I usually got to go but I got to be stationed behind the dishwasher they had for the bar glasses and I got to clean all of them…plus wash and polish the tables.

All the while getting little lectures by people that agreed with Mom that I will never, ever do something like that again without having someone there for back up.

Yeesh.

But it’s not all bad being grounded and all.

I get “furloughs” though when my CP acts up on really bad days and there’s my therapy sessions that got increased to twice a week to deal with my issues. Mainly the way my hormones are effecting me and my moods and the stuff that I went through at home. The hormones are having a definite effect. Okay maybe the physical stuff’s small time right now like my skin getting nicer and my hair getting better and my skin clearing up some and the start of breast buds…oh…sore and itchy…lots.

Oh and electrolysis hurts like a mother effer. But Mom’s bought the stuff and she’s got her hairdressing degree.

But it’s like getting the T blocked while the other stuff is kicking in’s been like having a valve inside opened up and the stuff I’ve been naturally bottling up because I had to…has been bubbling out of my.

Nightmares, yeah a few.

Usually me being the girl me and it’s stuff with Dad finding out and having a freak out. Sometimes it’s me meeting my Mom and there’s I think a fight between us over her leaving me and…like some dreams I don’t remember them all the way but I wake up crying.

And Mom, my REAL Mom not my birth mother is there when I’m crying so much it makes me hurt, like not just my emotional stuff but that crying till your stomach hurts kind of crying.

Sucks hard doing that in the Dr.’s office in my sessions.

God I know it’s helping and I know that I need to fix my stuff going on with me but there’s times it’s like having an emotional root canal.

Mom did let me go to Sammi’s slumber party. Becky’s nice and she’s got this sort of hard deal with her being short, with lots of freckles and long brown hair and eyes and sort of shy. Becky actually sort of reminds me of like a human deer or doe just so cute and shy. The glasses really help.

Jinx, or Jianne-Ming? But she legally changed her first name to fit in more. She’s Laotian? From Laos I hope that’s right and she’s a refugee adopted kid and she’s never really lost the sort of thick accent I like her because she’s just cute as heck and giggles a lot and she does this big inhale “Oh…” when something surprises her or she finds cool.

We watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer season one which I’ve never seen before and this really cool movie called “Heathers” that I really want a copy of. We ate chips and junk food and we ate KFC since Sammi won’t eat beef.

Hindu…sacred cows.

You want to know why they don’t kill the cows? Milk…milk makes yogurt, cheese and butter, as well as just being milk and the uhm stuff gets burned for heat. I mean it kind of makes sense really. And the way we do things in North America must seem a little nuts to the rest of the world.

It’s really kind of messed up that Sammi works at a burger joint though right?

But her folks aren’t supportive of her transitioning. So she lives with her disrespectful sister.

Yeah…eastern Cultures are really strict ad messed up. Her sister’s on the outs for marrying someone she actually loved and not who they told her to.

No, can’t have a girl think for herself right?

Yeah mini-rant, Sammi’s my best girl I get pissy when people aren’t cool with her and that kinda extends to her sister too.

Any way that’s sort of the in between stuff really.

See today’s the big day.

That big scary first day of school.

That big scary first day of a New School as a Girl….oh yeah the size of the butterflies I’m having the Caps are deserved.

Mom’s been absolutely awesome the last three days. I’ve been so spoiled and plucked and polished and literally sunk into Mom’s biggest tricks of being a girl and honestly it’s been overpowerfully wonderful.

Mom’s gotten all it’s so new for me and excited and scared for me. It’s a bit suffocating but at the same time this is huge for both of us and she’s never had her own child to go through this with and I’ve never really had someone really this emotionally invested.

Wow, I’m starting to think like my doctors.

So I’m actually getting dropped off by Mom and I hope I look good. I’ve been swimming with Sammi at the YWCA and even doing some stuff with the weights and stuff too. I’ve got a lot of problems doing stuff but they’ve got great people there to help spot me and I’m nor going to make a bloody mess out of myself on a stationary bike. As a result I’ve gotten rid of that lower body wheelchair weight or eighteen pounds of it.

Actually the bike is a torture machine. The way my leg are especially at the knees that range of motion is painful. But my physic says the muscles there are conditionally weakened in key places and the bike will stretch out the overly tight ones and built up the ones that I need to try to build up.

Mom also got me a whole bunch of these really cool boots too. She got the idea from some TG fiction story but basically My new boots are high wedge heeled boots with enough slope to fit my feet really well but the best part is that they are calf high with all these buckles like ten of them that go up the length of the sheath/sheaf? Anyway I can buckle them so they’re secure and then adjust them through the day as I need to.

And they look so badassed too, very biker and cool I even have a pair of faux alligator ones and these red ones that she had one of the car shot guys she knows dip the buckles in like this white pearl enameling stuff.

I’m wearing those right now with my black tights and one of my favorite t-shirt dresses in gray over that with a sort of tribal graphic unicorn design up one side of it. Not too girly but girl.

I’m not one of those TG story characters that goes poof! You’re becoming a girl! Love pink!, Love boys! Become super stupid giggly cutesy and happy.

Yes I do like pink, I think it has it’s place in my life but I’m not a fan of wearing it a lot. White, pink, yellow with my spilling tendencies are nightmare colors really.

So to me looking just like the everyday normal teen girl as much as I can is exactly what I want. Trust me it’s enough just being a girl.

But my big shout out to girly is my make-up not a lot but after all that time with Mom who is really good at it I’ve gotten to be really good at it even with all the shakes and everything. I look good and not overly done like a lot of others girls. And my scent, I’m wearing this bubble-gum scented teen perfume just a bit of it but it goes with both my peach scented shampoo and my baby powder deodorant.

Seriously like Mom says, you can feel really pretty just by getting that scent down. I have a lot of bangles because they’re cheap and I like them and they’re something I’ve always loved. I’ve a unicorn pendant on a neck chain that’s sorta like a brooch and it was a present from Sammi and Becky and Jinx and I’m also collecting unicorns…just, I’ve always liked them. Not because it’s cliché girly but because I was little and I saw this movie “The Last Unicorn.” and I was stuck, hooked, whatever but I was never allowed any of “that foolishness.”

My brace crutches though are my new pride though. I can’t hide them any more than my chair so I wrapped them in black hockey tape and put like stickers like you’d get for a scrapbook or for binders and stuff on them and up around the brace cuff I’ve got all these cool charms for charm bracelets super-glued on.

My shoulder bag that’s computer bag! Mom got me a new laptop!…Yay! (Okay it’s an MTG but who friggin cares!) and my purse and I get my backpack on too both are actually pretty nice and stuff and give Mom a big hug and a kiss before heading to the steps to meet with Sammi and Becky and Jinx. She squeezes a little hard and takes a bunch of pictures before and after the girls get there.

“Mom…”

“I just want stuff for today Kayla, this is a big day.”

“Okay, I get it but can we be a little uhm…more cool?”

“Okay…more cool it is.”

She doesn’t really spaz that much and she takes off her jacket when she gets out of the van showing off her tattoos and stuff. Mom is actually pretty cool compared to some of the frumpy mom’s out there and stuff and I didn’t have to take the bus…which would’ve been the “short.” bus and stuff. I’m so not taking my chair to school until I have my license and can take the van.

Oh, Canadian school is so different from home. We get up the steps and I take them instead of the ramp and we head inside. There’s security guys there but no gate, there’s not checking table for guns and stuff, they don’t check your ID’s and there’s no metal detectors.

And if that wasn’t a trip the student body is. Home back in the states there’s a lot of private schools. I mean it there is. Anyone who can afford it sends their kids to a “good” school. And a lot of those kids are white. Here there’s at least half the student body are white kids. Or the varying degree of white kids, here if you’re French, Italian, Jewish, Greek, Russian ect you’re white. But half the rest of the student body is really mixed with a about half the kids being Middle-eastern or Hindu, and the Seik? With another large chunk of varying Asians and the rest being black but not like African-American black but there’s like real African black here and Caribbean too and the rest is rounded out with like Hispanic kids and a few others.

My old school wasn’t anything like this. And it’s a lot busier here in the halls and there is security camera’s here and but there’s TV monitors well flat screens up high with the schools A.V. club and the Media club doing the announcements and stuff like TV show.

There’s a big stink already over the new school policy of them turning on a cell-phone blocker during class hours unless you’re outside or in the cafeteria. And a internet filter here at school on the wireless.

We had lots of cell stuff at the school I went to and even the teachers where really spending a lot of time on theirs. But we never had wireless. So it’s all cool, plus there’s cameras in the classrooms now too.

I’m filling out my paperwork with the girls having all the other stuff already handled by Mom and the courts and stuff ahead of now. This is that getting your schedule picked and classes picked for the year. We lucked out and we’re all in the same homeroom together and that’s what we’re basically doing for the first too periods of the day picking classes and trying to fit them into the scheduling schematic that’s like algebra or something.

It’s like this they have 6 class periods in a day called slots, but you have 7 slots for the semester which you could take as all classes or 6 classes/courses and one study period. Now each course is taught in a certain slot number so say you’re taking university prep math at the grade ten level it’s slot 2, so it fills all the number 2 slots on your sheet. Oh and it’s not the second class of the day either it’s just the time on that given day of the week that the teacher for that class is teaching that subject…?

Yeah makes no sense to me either and then there’s the days system. There’s days 1 through 6 and there’s no sense to that either. There’s only five days in the week and the “days” sure don’t match the days of the week either.

I’m staring at my paper and look at Becky. “How can Monday be day six?”

She just shrugs. “I think they’re just trying to mess with us.”

Jinx is just staring too looking mournful. “I no understan, this wrong…right?”

Sammi’s nodding. “I had no idea that this was going to be this stupid?”

Will comes over and joins us and smiles at me. “Hey got your classes picked yet?”

“No….” I look at him. “I soooo don’t get this you Canadians are nuts.”

“What’s so hard to get?”

“Uhm everything.”

“Naw, it’s easy you pick the classes you want according to the list of slots they’re in and arrange them around so you have them the way that you want.”

“Huh?”

“It’s university prep stuff. You have to get used to scheduling your classes so this gives you the chance to pick what classes you want to go where. I mean you’re only limited by the electives you’re taking.”

“Huh?”

“Okay, Art, Wood shop are gimmie classes, they’re stuff you want to take or not. Math, English the academics you need for university are electives. You have to have them and since you have to have them the you have to make the rest of it work around them.”

“It’s still confusing.”

“It’s life prep. You have to do stuff you don’t want to do like work in real life and then have the rest of your life revolve around work. This is prep for that.”

“It’s still retarded.”

“So’s most of life but my schedule works out that I have my main stuff where I want it and my free periods are lining up to where I get it at the end of my day three times in the week.”

“Meaning?”

“I can leave like an hour early?”

“Huh?”

“Here you sign out at the office and as long as you have parental approval or are over sixteen you can leave the grounds.”

“I don’t have to stay in study hall for my free period?”

“Nope, they’ll even let you audit another class in that slot if the teacher’s good with it.”

“Oh there’s so much here that’s different.”

We go from the first two periods to ten ‘o clock break then two more classes that we spend in the office area getting our stuff registered and going through the scheduling thing with the office staff or the guidance staff and a lot of waiting. Will’s funny and keeps me laughing and introduces me around and apparently I’m…

“Hey…yeah, you’re the crazy McDonald’s girl!”

And I’m not being treated like too much of a crazy spaz. And apparently I’m outed already as I’m approached by some of the LGBT kids and welcomed. Shown their booklet of stuff for the years and meetings and their website.

There’s a few holy rollers at school that gave me the eyeball and Sammi and a bunch of other kids too but they were just content to pass out and tape up their leaflets.

I didn’t get spit on or told I’m going to burn in hell once today.

There’s some of the prep squad that gave me some looks and those retards are there too at one point. The lead creep is named Kevin Ashton and he’s got his own little group of morons and stuff but he doesn’t seem to run the place here either. Actually there’s a good divide here of Kevin and people like him that are the Canadian version of “Good ol boys” and the regular student body. And it’s not even like he’s a skinhead or just some racist it’s like…it’s like he’s pretty well off and so’s the rest of them and it’s like they seem to think that it gives them a license to be assholes.

There’s a lot of the jock and jockette popular set are minorities. Asian hotty being a cheerleader is still a cheerleader and that dark handsome guy that’s captain of the school’s varsity baseball team and looks like the younger brother of the Dr. guy from the TV show “Heroes”…is named Jamir. And apparently it’s not cool to make Harold and Kumar jokes and stuff about people.

It’s that whole private school mentality that Ashton and his bunch have but in public school.

I mention it at lunch in the cafeteria while munching on the salad I got. Will’s mumble munching at us nodding his head and one of his friends a guy called Vince… (Think half black Vin Diesel…ow…) nods as he’s eating. “That makes sense, a lot of them are from the nicer parts of this end of town. They’ve got that gated community stank on them. In my old school we called them either The Labels or the Hillfriggers. Because they’re all about the trends and the name brand stuff.”

I laugh with some of the others at that but mostly when Will and Vince start this skit where they’re doing voice overs of what they might be saying.

It’s really nice to be fitting in.

It’s so different here, the way I’m getting treated, the people, even the food here’s decent.

That‘s another thing too healthy foods. It‘s only $4.00 unlimited salad bar….it’s smart too. Dressing is separate and costs so you are less tempted to buy it and the school has banned the sale of canned soda and energy drinks. The pop machines are still here but carry the bottled water and juices from those companies now. It’s all new this year I guess but I really think it’s a good idea. I was a serious pop junkie back home but Mom barely has it in the house.

It’s just so different here.

The last two periods after lunch are the welcoming assembly and basically a pep rally from the sports teams and the clubs? No really they actually have some kids from the clubs that are sports related given time to talk about the stuff that’s cool in their clubs.

Some of it sounds cool like the gamers club? I’ve played a lot of video games and having school teams for “Call of Duty” and “Halo” actually sounds cool ad so does the fact they have school versus school Wii sports tournaments too.

Glee club well hello have you seen the show? It’s changed glee clubs all over the place but so has band changed and there’s even clubs for dancing, like street dancing and stuff. I’ve heard of “So you think you can dance.” but apparently there’s a Canadian version and two of last years senior students in dance club got pretty far in it.

I want to go to school here.

Four times I went to the bathroom here and nothing, well I get asked about how I got the effect I’m using with my eyeliner and if I could show her but nothing freaky. I did get some looks from some of the kids but nothing was said, and no one was treating me like crap.

Or Sammi too, actually she I think gets more grief over her being Indian than trans and it’s the older fashion asshattery. I don’t here a lot of the kids batting around the terrorist slurs here. “Paki, Rag-head, Push button for dry-cleaning.” and of course “Apu”

Jamir actually made her blush and smile giving some of the butt-heads the two-fisted middle fingers but he put his hands together like he was praying and did the Indian shopkeeper voice saying. “Fuck you, come again.”

It was an interesting day. I end up calling Mom saying that I’ve got a lift home and Will takes me home…

I’m on the back of his BMX street bike. He’s got my arm braces set across his handlebars and I’ve my bag over my shoulder and my backpack on my back and I’m standing on those steel bar foot things he’s got for tricks on his back axle/wheel and I’m leaning against his back hugging and holding on while he drives me home.

It’s so nice.

The wind, the freedom that I feel doing this and feeling the way my hair and my dress moves…

It’s just fun.

I’m just doing something teenaged girls do right?

It feels so right.

It feels so right when Will walks me to my door and kisses me on the cheek and almost…almost my mouth too…He either teased, or chickened out but it was a really nice kiss on the cheek too.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah…uhm…definitely…thanks for the ride home…it was fun.”

“Yeah, it was…but I always have fun when I’m with you Kayla.” He smiles and leaves and I’m just standing there watching him go and I don’t even feel my CP at all right now. I’m not even leaning on my brace-crutches.

And right now in this moment.

I feel completely normal.