Carter knew that he was awake, but didn’t want to open his eyes. What time was it? Maybe it was still early and he could get another few hours in before checking in on his sister.

Ugh… the thought still bothered him. He was glad his parents hadn’t gotten them a babysitter for the weekend, but this was the third trip out of state since the school year started. Didn’t they know he needed the weekends to himself and his own friends?

He still needed to know what time it was.

When Carter did open his eyes, however, the first thing he saw was not his bedside alarm clock but his little sister, standing by his bed in her pajamas and holding a large old book. She looked like she had been caught red handed, which wasn’t too far off because her simply being in Carter’s room was a crime.

“Victoria, what are—?”

He coughed, trying to clear his throat, but the movement alerted him to another problem. Hair was falling into his face, his clothes were pulling tightly, and his body was squishing in places where it shouldn’t.

“The hell?!” he cried, sitting up and pulling blankets off.

Victoria opened her mouth to say something but jumped back in surprise when a piercing scream filled the room. Carter clasped a hand over his mouth, still looking over his body.

He had breasts! Big, bouncy balls of fat sticking out of his chest! He had long hair! He was wearing girl’s pajamas! And a quick squeeze of his freakishly hairless legs confirmed that something else very important was missing.

There was a long moment of stillness, as if the slightest movement or breath would be enough to break his fragile mind. Then, Carter turned his had to look at Victoria, who was biting her lip and avoiding his gaze in the way that an eleven-year-old telegraphs “I’m super guilty! This is my fault!”

“What—” Carter winced at the sound of his voice “—what… happened… to me?”

Victoria glanced at him and opened her mouth, before closing it again and putting on a fake smile.

“I thought…” she said, “since mom and dad are gone… you could try being my big sister for the weekend instead of my brother, so I… kind of… cast a spell on you?”

An involuntary snort escaped Carter, causing Victoria to jump. And then he laughed as the ludicrousness of the situation came crashing down on him.

“I’m dreaming,” he said, falling back down onto his pillow, “This is all some sort of fever dream.”

“No it’s not!” Victoria proclaimed, “See this book? It’s my spell book. I have all kinds of magic in here. And if you want me to change you back on Sunday, then you’ll have to spend the weekend with me, Alisson!”

Then her posture lost some of its boldness as she waited for Carter to respond. She screamed when he lunged forward, quickly losing hold of the book as he jerked it out of her hands. Once she realized he wasn’t trying to tackle her, she looked away and balled her hands into fists.

Carter flipped open the book to several different pages, but while the markings inside looked like some kind of alphabet there certainly wasn’t anything resembling English. There were faded illustrations, but they were completely unrecognizable.

“This is all nothing!” he cried.

“To you,” Victoria growled, reaching forward, “Now give it back.”

Carter held the book out of her reach, demanding, “Where did you get this anyway? How did you pay for it? Why do you have it?”

Victoria huffed and began to explain: “Remember last year? The big week-long fifth grade camping trip?”

“No?”

Victoria crossed her arms and gave him a dark look.

“Well, one day I went off the trail, and I found these big rocks with a light coming through the holes. I squeezed in and found this little cave where the book was. I’ve been practicing since then.”

“There’s nothing in here. How can you possibly—?”

“Just because you can’t read it doesn’t mean I can’t! The book says that only the owner can read it, and it says that I’m the owner because I found it.”

“That’s…” Carter trailed off. He had wanted to call it stupid, but with every new moment it was getting harder and harder to disbelieve her.

And if she could do this, what else was she capable of?

He instead asked, “What do you want from me?”

Victoria’s eyes seemed to light up.

“If you want me to break the spell on Sunday, you’ll have to act like my big sister Allison until then.”

“No, absolutely not!”

She faltered for a moment, but then stepped forward and pointed a finger at him.

“Yes you will,” she said, “Or I’ll… I’ll turn you into a doll! Or make it so you can only talk like a cat.”

“And how are you going to do that without your magic book?”

Victoria’s eyes widened, but she stuttered out, “I’ve already memorized enough spells to use if you don’t listen to me. I don’t even need the book.”

Carter glared at her. He wanted nothing more than to call bullshit, but he didn’t know anything about magic.

“Fine,” he finally said, “But I’m not giving you this book back and I’m not going to be called ‘Allison.’ Got that?”

Victoria’s shoulders drooped, but then she took a deep breath and replied, “Fine, whatever. Just go take a shower already. And don’t worry about your clothes. They’ll transform to fit your body.”

Carter wanted nothing more than to ask how that worked, but he pushed it aside for now.

“I’m not taking a shower like this,” he said.

“You can’t be dirty all day! That’s gross. My sister wouldn’t do that!”

“I’m not your sister,” he growled, “And what? You don’t have a spell for that?”

“Oh… yes, I do!”

“Victoria? Victoria, wait!”

Carter tried to chase after his sister as she took off running out of his room, but only managed to fall out of bed and stumble back to his feet. By the time he made it to the kitchen, it was to the sight of her cutting off a small piece of soap from a larger chunk.

“What are you doing? You can’t play with knives.”

Victoria just turned to him with a smirk, the small piece of soap in her open hand. She leaned in and said a few words Carter didn’t understand.

Some sort of flowery smell filled the air as Carter watched the soap in Victoria’s hand vanish, and suddenly he felt like he’d just got done drying off from a long, thorough shower. His skin was dry and clean, and when he ran his hands through his hair it wasn’t the least bit oily.

“There, see? I don’t need the book to cast spells.”

Carter took a step back, half intending to make a dash for the front door and never looking back. What had been a mystery before had suddenly turned very, very real.

After a moment of stillness, Victoria started to shuffle around. Carter didn’t want to take his eyes off her, but also didn’t want to spend the day walking around in what basically amounted to dirty underwear, for how revealing these pajamas were.

“Don’t do anything until I get changed,” he said, slowly turning away and heading back down the hall.

Only after Carter had securely locked his door and confirmed that the damned book was still there did he sit down and breathe freely.

According to Victoria, his clothes would change to match his body. At the very least, it would explain where the pajamas he was already wearing came from.

Groaning, Carter grabbed the shorts by the waist and started to shimmy them down his legs. His smooth, shapely legs. Eww. As soon as they were loose, he let them drop, and when they hit the floor they were the same regular jean shorts he’d worn to bed the night before again.

Even though he’d been looking right at them, he didn’t really see the change. They were just pajama bottoms one second and regular clothes the next. Carter wasn’t even sure he’d be able to pinpoint when they changed if he’d gone through frame by frame with a camera.

A shudder overtook him and he quickly glanced over to the closed blinds. He’d have to be doubly sure that every window in the house was covered.

He kicked the pants over to the wall and moved over to his dresser. He pulled out a pair of boxers, a pair of shorts, and a tee shirt from the closet.

There was no telling how this was going to turn out.

“Fuck.”

It was probably like ripping off a band-aid, he thought: the faster the better. But he peeled off the shirt with an agonizing slowness, trying to focus on anything except the soft fleshy bits on his chest that got pulled around with it.

Carter flung that shirt against the wall too, his eyes stinging from tears.

Taking the panties off made him want to vomit. By the time he’d kicked them away they’d already returned to being boxers, but it didn’t make him feel any better.

As it turned out, the only thing worse than standing around in those clothes was standing naked in the middle of the room.

Without looking down, Carter bent over to pull on a new pair of boxers. They went on fine, but as he stood up it felt wrong. Against his better judgment, he chanced a look down, past the new breasts he was sporting.

“Goddammit,” he swore, closing his eyes tight and wiping away the tears forming.

They could have just been plain, single-colored panties. But they weren’t Maybe it was because of the football pattern of his boxers, but these panties were covered with various pom-poms and stars.

Carter didn’t want to see that anymore. He grabbed the new pair of shorts and slid them on, quickly doing the button and turning to grab his shirt.

“What—oh fuck no!” he cried, looking down at the restrictive denim skirt that had replaced his actual clothes. “What is this bullshit?”

He quickly made to undo the button and rip them off, but gave up and let his arms hang limp. That was just going to happen to all of them, wasn’t it?

Carter pushed his shirt into his face and screamed, using the shirt to wipe away the forming tears. Then he unraveled his shirt and made to put it on.

No sooner had he gotten comfortable than the shirt began to feel tight around his torso. A quick glance down showed that it really hugged his new tighter waist and bigger chest.

There was a small hanging mirror in Carter’s room. It wasn’t enough for him to get a full view of himself, but he could see his face and some of his body. At least, besides the obvious of being a girl, he still looked a lot like himself. More like his mother rather than some twig-thin bond porn star.

It was like some kind of sick Halloween costume.

At the very least, the decal on his shirt was now a surprisingly badass rose-and-thorns motif.

The last thing Carter did was grab a pair of socks. By the time he was back on his feet, they’d already stretched up to his knees and taken on a garish white, pink, and blue argyle pattern.

“Well, I don’t have to look at my legs, at least.”

He pushed the hair out of his face, wishing he had something to tie it back with. Maybe if he were in a better mood he’d ask his sister for one of her headbands, but they were probably too small even for him.

Throwing his old shirt over the webcam just in case, Carter quickly pulled up Skype on his computer and sent out a group message.

Hey everyone—serious computer problems. Wi-fi barely working. I don’t think it’ll be fixed before the weekend is over. Definitely can’t use webcam. Probably can’t play any games. Feeling really pissed right now! If you don’t hear from me, I’ll see some of you on Monday.

By the time the message was fully composed, Carter was practically slamming his hands into the keyboard. All he’d wanted to do this weekend, the only thing he asked for, was to play some damn games and shoot the shit with his friends. And then his fucking sister—

He yanked the spell book from where it was sitting and glared at it, wondering what to do with the damn thing.

The closet? She’d find it easily.

Under the bed? Too obvious; that should have been the first place he’d thought of.

Behind the bookshelf? But then how would he get it out when he needed it again?

He decided that this wasn’t anything worth thinking too hard over. Not with everything else already swimming through his head. He zipped open his backpack and shoved the book in among folders and textbooks.

Would she find it there? Maybe. Or maybe it was hidden really well in plain sight. Either way, the day had barely started and Carter was too exhausted to care.

One last frightened moan escaped his throat, and Carter opened the door to walk out and face the day. He was surprised to find Victoria there, who jumped at Carter’s sudden emergence. Her hand was raised in a curled fist, but pulled close to her body as if uncertain if she was going to knock or not.

“Oh, um… there you ware. Um… actually, that outfit looks… pretty…”

She bit her lip and shrunk down a little under his gaze, but quickly straightened back up and cleared her throat.

“So, first we’re going to look up what movies are playing down at the mall. We’ll get lunch before the movie starts, so you’ll need to bring money for both.”

Carter folded his arms and snorted, a smirk taking over his expression.

“Oh? And how are you planning on getting there?”

“what? You’re going to drive us.”

“Really?”

“Yes!”

“And how am I going to do that, if ‘Allison’ doesn’t have a driver’s license?”

Victoria opened her mouth, though to say something or in surprise it was hard to tell, and then all at once seemed to deflate.

“I… I mean… so what? We’ll just move on to something else then.” She cleared her throat again and stuck her chest out, “Instead, we’re going to move on to playing video games together, and we’ll… order pizza for lunch.”

Without waiting for a rebuttal, she sharply turned and marched off toward the living room.

Video games with his eleven-year-old sister.

Carter rolled his eyes at the thought, but followed.