Chapter 2

Friday morning I woke up bright and early, just in time to return to school. Mum had said it would be a bit silly returning for just one day, but I had insisted that I wanted to get back as soon as I could.

I picked out my clothing, showing Kittybot my selections, I'm sure her programming was not sophisticated enough to appreciate what was going on, but it gave me someone to talk to. I decided to go for a school skirt. Girls were allowed to wear trousers, but I wanted to be clear that I was not the boy Alex any more, I was the girl, Lexi. Wearing a skirt was a bit odd though, as I felt very exposed.

Once dressed, I loaded my school bag an over the shoulder book bag. I decided to take Kittybot with me to share in my first day back, so I took her downstairs with me to breakfast. I munched a small portion of cereal and then followed Dad out to his car. When I slipped Kittybot into my bag, she poked her head out of the gap in the top to see what was going on. Dad drove me to school and then walked with me to the administrative building. It was still pretty early and there were only a few students about making their way to their classrooms. Dad escorted me into the office with a smile. I saw that the school secretary Mrs Donnal was in, and she scowled at me as I entered, being one of those people that just seems to hate everyone.

"Caught one of the little blighters up to no good already, Mr Jones?" she spat, eyeing me with disgust.

"Actually, this is my daughter. She's just finished going through MORFS and I'm just here to fill in the relevant paperwork," he said.

When she stiffened, looking even angrier, I remembered she had a particular dislike for MORFS students. She reached into a desk drawer, pulled out a form and threw it across the desk at my father.

"Fill that out!" she glowered.

He began filling in the form, so I decided to sit down for a bit since it might take some time, Mrs Donnal spent most of the time glaring at me. I grinned at her, exposing the full glory of my teeth, which caused her mouth to open in shock, but then she turned away, giving me only the occasional fearful glance.

While we waited, the head teacher, a friendly grey haired woman called Mrs Thomas wandered in, "Good Morning, Anne," she said. Then, seeing my father, "Oh, good morning Peter, what brings you here?"

"Just getting my daughter checked in," he said with a warm smile.

"I could have sworn you had a son," she replied.

"Yes, I did till MORFS changed him. Lexi, say hello to Mrs Thomas."

"Hello Miss," I said with a smile, remembering to keep my teeth hidden.

"Well you have changed since I last saw you. How are you doing, dear?"

"I'm doing well."

Mrs Thomas nodded to herself and gave me a smile. She was a nice lady, stern when she needed to be, but usually very nice. She seemed to take my assertion that I was doing well at face value, not badgering me because she thought I was putting on a brave face. She was one of those people who was very difficult to lie to, and she would likely have known if I had been pretending.

"Good, good. Well, I must get down to things. This school is not going to run itself," she said as she headed into her office with a wave.

Dad finished up the forms, and Mrs Donnal inspected them, seemingly looking for anything she could use to get rid of me. She didn't find anything, so just waved us off, "You can go. This is all OK," she said.

Dad thanked her and escorted me out, "What an unpleasant woman she is," he said to me with a sigh. "Anyway, you'd best be off to class. Do you want me to walk you there?"

"No, I can manage," I said

"OK Lexi, I'll see you at home. Oh, before I forget who is your house teacher?"

"Mr Roberts."

"Ah, Jim. I'll let him know you're back so he isn't surprised. Have a lovely day, Sweetheart."

"I'll try, Dad."

We hugged and then I trotted off towards my classroom while he headed up to the staff room.

As I made my way across campus I noticed I was getting quite a few looks from the boys. I wasn't sure I liked that. But at least none of them were calling me names or pushing me or tripping me up as often happened. I climbed up to the first floor of the maths building and went into my classroom. There were a couple of people in already, but not many. They all turned to stare at me. I wandered over to my usual seat and put my bag on the desk, opening it to play with Kittybot. I didn't get her out though I didn't want the rest of them to see her in case they decided to take her.

I petted her gently and then as more and more people turned up, sent her to sleep and closed my bag putting it out of the way. I had designed Kittybot to be tough and able to withstand punishment if it did get stolen, and it also had a tracking device built in that I could use to find her. Still, I didn't want her taken away while she was so new to the world, as it might damage her slowly evolving mental state.

I was getting more curious looks and my more sensitive ears could pick out a lot of, "Who's the new kid?" type conversations.

Eventually a group of girls walked over towards me. My heart soared. Perhaps they were going to be friends with me. I smiled my best smile mindful of my teeth as they stopped in front of my desk.

The leader, a girl named Tara eyed me up and down. "Who are you, what are you doing sitting in Lardo's seat?"

Not the best start, with them insulting the old me, but I decided to try and rise above it. "I'm Lexi, Lexi Jones."

"Jones..." said Tara, "That was the name of creepy fatso who sat here before. You're him, aren't you!"

"Jemma saw this girl with that kid's father earlier. She thought he was perving with the students as he hugged this one," said one of the girls.

"I used to be Alex Jones." I shrugged, still smiling not letting her get a rise out of me.

"What no tears?" spat Tara, "You like being turned into a girl or something? You perv!"

I looked at her thoughtfully, since she was being very confrontational. She was usually a bit abrasive and bossy, but it was as if she'd decided my change was a personal affront.

"I don't really like it, but there is not much I can do about it. Might as well just get on with things," I said. Her face darkened with anger. I wasn't really sure what it was about me that made her so angry at me.

She seemed about to shout at me some more, but the teacher came in. Mr Roberts was an energetic man dressed in a rugby top and track suit bottoms. He was one of the nicer teachers with a wicked sense of humour, his blue eyes seemed to sparkle with amusement. He was also a PE teacher, but rather than being on some sort of power trip, he wanted everyone to enjoy themselves. He was a nice guy and a good teacher. He was our house teacher and took our class registration as well as some of the subjects that didn't match up with other teaching faculties.

"Good morning, class," he said, "Now a quick announcement. Sitting at the back there is Lexi Jones, who just returned after being out with MORFS. She used to be Alex Jones, and I hope you all welcome her back and help her as she adjusts to her changes. Stand up, Miss Jones."

I stood and smiled. Most people gave me grins or blank looks. Tara had an ugly sneer.

"She's not a real girl, only a pretend one!" shouted Tara.

"Tara, none of that! I'll not have that sort of bigotry in my classroom," said Mr Roberts in a calm low voice.

"But... ," started Tara.

"No buts."

"She wasn't even... ," she said angrily.

"Outside, now! I'll talk to you after we are through!"

"What! That's not..."

"Keep this up and I'll keep you after school!"

Tara argued no more. Her face set in an angry scowl, she shot me a venom-filled glance, then walked out the door. I wondered what her problem was, realizing maybe she was one of those Pures I had seen about the place, though I couldn't recall her bullying any morfed kids before.

'Come to think of it, doesn't she have a cousin that's a hybrid she seems to be on good terms with?' I thought to myself.

I shrugged, and listened to Mr Roberts talk about a school play that was on. The bell rang and I headed off to lessons, getting a dirty look from Tara. As I passed her on the way out she tried to trip me, but I was too far away.

So far things didn't seem to be going to plan. Still, it was early days yet it was unrealistic to imagine I could turn up and suddenly have loads of friends. So far I seemed to have acquired a new enemy, which was a little unfortunate. I pushed my worries to the side and got on with the school day, looking forward to break time when I would be able to socialise a bit. Normally come break time I used to hide away in the library, but this time I was hopeful that I would be able to meet people out and about.

I was out like a shot when the bell went, practically skipping over to the main areas of congregation near the snack machines. I looked around wondering how I could go about attracting a friend. I stood in the main hall trying to look open searched around for people my own age who I might befriend. I failed to attract a friend, though instead I managed to attract an enemy. Tara stormed up to me. She wasn't a large girl but everyone seemed much bigger than me now, so she frightened me a little and I backed against the wall.

"You little cow! You got me in trouble with Roberts! I'm going to beat your perv body black and blue!" she said.

I puffed myself up to my full height, "It's hardly my fault! Why are you being so mean to me anyway? I never did anything to you."

She slapped me across the face. "Ow!" I cried.

One of the teachers doing the rounds heard my cry and came over, "What's going on here!" she asked, eyeing Tara.

"She hit me!" I said.

"She called my cousin an animal freak!" said Tara.

"No I didn't!" I shot back.

"She's a nasty bigot!" shot Tara.

"That's just silly. I'm a hybrid, too!" I said, rubbing my face.

Tara looked surprised, then annoyed, "She's lying!"

"No I'm not," I said and flicked my wings so they showed under my shirt, "I've got wings and everything."

The teacher was now looking at Tara with an annoyed frown, "Plus, she is the daughter of a teacher I know fairly well. He told me about his new hybrid daughter in the staff room earlier on. You're coming with me. We'll discuss this little stunt with Mrs Thomas!"

She dragged a scowling Tara off. After that incident I didn't feel like hanging around the snack machines and made my way over to the library to spend the rest of my time in my usual hiding place.

I slumped into a chair, and checking around, got Kittybot out on the table and then began doing some homework. I watched her to make sure Kittybot was smart enough not to fall off the table, then looked around. Two girls from my year whose names I didn't know were sitting nearby, chatting away. One was a cat hybrid, and the other was a bat hybrid,. I thought about trying to talk to them until they were joined by three sixth form girls. One was normal sized but had large scythe shaped wings and was covered in feathers. I was slightly envious of her large probably flight capable wings. My pretty if stubby black wings were not much use. The other two girls were huge, at least in comparison to me. One was a tall, partial lizard hybrid with brown hair and dark eyes. The other was an enormous girl with purple hair and golden eyes. While the first of the large girls must have been maybe six feet tall, the other must have been seven or eight feet tall. Even normal people would seem small next to her, and I barely came up to her waist. I felt too intimidated to go over, so I went back to my work.

"Oh my, what's that," said a voice to my left.

I turned to see Miss Gordon standing at my table, looking at Kittybot. Miss Gordon was the librarian and a nice lady. She made sure no funny business happened in the library. Anyone that tried regretted it for the rest of their days. It was one of the reasons this was such a great sanctuary.

"Oh, it's my little robot. I call her Kittybot," I told the slim brown haired woman.

She tried to pet Kittybot, who responded by running away and hiding in my pencil case.

"She's a little shy," I said with a grin.

"How marvelous. There is a boy called Alex who comes here often, who was interested in robots and made some little wheeled ones. He'd be very envious of this little contraption," she said with a smile.

"Oh, that's me," I grinned at her, "I went through MORFS last week and now I'm called Lexi. I finished Kittybot last night."

"Well it certainly seems lifelike," said Miss Gordon with a smile.

Then the bell went. I packed away my things. Scooped up Kittybot and put her in my bag. I said goodbye to Miss Gordon and ran off to my next lesson. It was science. Which was interesting enough, though I had to content with Tara staring at me all through it. About halfway through something odd happened. My vision went weird and I saw all sorts of rainbow sheens around the place, emanating from the walls and out of some of the containers. It had happened once before but it hadn't been this intense before. I stared about in wonder at the strange patterns I could see. Then as suddenly as it had started, it stopped, and I was back to seeing normally. I shook my head and went back to concentrating on the lesson.