Announcementcontent warning: dysphoria"Ellie you mentioned something about a theory," mom said to the ravenette tomboy. "Could you please eborate on that? What exactly are you doing, what are you testing?"

  My best friend gnced at me like she wanted to know if it was ok to share that stuff with my mom, so I nodded. I still had a lot of mixed feelings and emotions, and my thoughts were all over the pce on the whole situation. But I figured if mom knew something about the ring then maybe she'd have some answers about how it actually worked.

  Mom had already talked to Mr. Crawford, and from the sound of it he wasn't happy but he wasn't going to yell at my mom about it. I had a feeling I'd get an earful from the guy next time I went in, but honestly it was worth it. Right now this stuff was way more important.

  Now all five of us were sitting together in the living-room. I was in between Ellie and Harper on the sofa, while my sister and mother sat across from us in the two drum chairs that were on either side of the TV.

  After a sip of her co my best friend expined, "It started on Friday afternoon, when Bke accidentally triggered the magical girl transformation. It probably took two or three minutes before she figured out how to reverse it, but instead of returning to her original masc body she ended up like this? Not magical, but a girl version of her normal self? None of us were timing it or anything at the time, but in retrospect it seemed to take another two or three minutes before this non-magical girl form wore off and she was back to her original shape."

  "Then Friday night Bke tried the transformation again in private," Ellie continued. She adjusted her gsses as she checked some of the notes she'd made on her phone st night, "And apparently fifteen minutes in her magical-girl form led to a half hour in this form. Then st night at Harper's pce we all decided to do some more testing, and an hour of magical-girl time led to four hours like this."

  She looked over at my mom and concluded, "So our first theory was the length of time Bke spent in magical-mode influenced how long this mode sted. That was based on how the first three times she was in magical-girl mode were of increasing length? In which case the five minutes she was in that form earlier should have resulted in five to ten minutes in this form. But since she still hasn't changed back yet, that theory is obviously disproven."

  "I see," mom sighed as she pinched the bridge of her nose again. Then she asked, "So what's next? I can see Harper still has his phone out, I take it you're still monitoring the time?"

  Ellie nodded, "Right. Our next guess is rather than the length of time in magical-mode, it just goes by how many times she's used the ring? At first the ratio between the two forms was one to one, then the second time it was two to one, and st night was four to one. So if that pattern holds then this time ought to be eight to one, meaning this form should wear off after forty minutes. That's in..."

  "Another five minutes," Harper spoke up. Then he gave me an apologetic look, "Sorry Bke."

  I already had that cold weight in my gut again, and I could feel the dread starting to build inside too. I tried not to let it get to me though, not yet at least.

  "Thanks Harper," I mumbled. "Not your fault though, no need to apologize."

  Then my best friend asked, "Mrs. Palmer, maybe you can shed some light on all of this? You seem to know about the ring, can you tell us more about it? Like is there some way Bke can control this secondary transformation, so she doesn't have to worry about going back to her original form? Unless she wants to or needs to, I guess?"

  Mom sighed again as she shook her head, "I didn't know it could do this. I honestly didn't know it would even work for a... I didn't know it would work for someone like Bke. I suppose I'd never really considered that possibility."

  "But you do know something about it, right?" I frowned. "You must, you were expecting it. Where did it come from, how did you get it? Do you know how it works?"

  This time mom took a deep breath, then let it out slowly as she shook her head again. "I probably don't know anywhere near as much about it as you're hoping hon. I'm sorry. And for that matter, the things I thought I knew might not even be correct. Or may no longer be relevant anymore, since you've already worn it and used it, and apparently can't take it off."

  Hearing all that only made the rest of us more curious, and maybe a little more suspicious. To my surprise though it was actually Amelia who spoke up next.

  "Mom what the heck is going on?!" my little sister demanded. "The way you're talking makes it sound like you're into some kind of secret conspiracy stuff or something! Seriously, what the heck are you doing with magic rings and mystery phone calls?"

  "Thank you!" Ellie excimed, like she'd been thinking the exact same things but didn't want to ask.

  All that left mom looking really stressed again. She took another deep breath like she was trying to keep calm, and maybe trying to figure out what to say or how to put it. When she did finally respond her voice was kind of quiet, but serious.

  "It's something I've been researching for some time now," mom began. "You kids know I've been doing that home study program, well this is sort of reted."

  She continued in that same quiet serious tone, "As for the ring, I don't know where it originally came from. I don't know if it's some sort of ancient artefact, or if someone made it in modern times. The earliest record of it that I'm aware of is from the nineteen fifties -"

  "No way!" Ellie gasped, and she was suddenly buzzing with excitement.

  My best friend had that intense grin on her face as she half-demanded, "You're talking about that demonic rift thing in the middle of the pacific ocean, right? Where the original magical girls battled monsters and saved the world?! Oh my gosh, do you know who those first magical girls were? Do you know who the pink magical girl was back then, the one with the magic crystal halberd? Oh! Do you know how Bke can manifest that halberd? Is it part of her magical girl persona? Or does it come from some separate artefact?"

  By the time the enthusiastic tomboy was finished, my mom was looking even more surprised and stressed. And I might have been reading too much into it, but I got the impression that maybe some of Ellie's conspiracy stuff was either true, or close enough to to the truth that it left mom a little spooked. Like maybe she didn't expect some of that information to be out there where just anyone could stumble across it online.

  Either way my friend's outburst completely derailed whatever mom was going to say, which was kind of frustrating. So I leaned a little closer to Ellie and asked quietly, "Maybe you could try and dial back the excitement a bit? I think you spooked my mom with all that conspiracy stuff."

  "Right," she grimaced and blushed. "Sorry Mrs. Palmer, I got a bit carried away there."

  Then my sister spoke up again, and from her tone she was getting impatient. She wanted answers as much as the rest of us.

  "Mom I still don't understand how you're involved in all this stuff?" Amelia stated. "Did you know magic was real all along? Do you know any magic, can you do magical stuff? And what about that ring, where'd you even find it? What did you want it for? And who were you yelling at on the phone?"

  Those were all really good questions, and my friends and I all looked towards my mom to see if she'd answer any of them. She was quiet for another couple seconds, and needless to say she looked stressed again. Unfortunately between Ellie's over-enthusiastic conspiracy outburst and all the difficult questions Amelia asked, it seemed like mom changed her mind about saying anything at all.

  She sighed then shook her head, "I'm sorry Amelia, Bke, but I'm not ready to discuss it."

  "A few seconds ago you were telling us how the ring turned up in the nineteen fifties," I pointed out. "Could you at least tell us more about that, about its history?"

  "Not right now," mom stated, and it sounded like she'd made up her mind about that.

  I tried once more, "I feel like we have a right to know. You said yourself it wasn't my fault, right? It's because of whoever you were yelling at on the phone earlier. Now I've been dragged into this stuff, and it -"

  Just then I felt that wave of dizziness come over me. I ended up clenching my eyes shut as I sort of curled up and tried to disappear inside my hoodie. It was no good though, this body was too big. And I knew my long hairy legs were all out on full dispy, since I'd never bothered putting my pants back on earlier.

  I tried to fight back the tears this time, but at least a few slipped out. And both my friends leaned in closer, I felt two sets of arms wrap around and hug me.

  Ellie whispered, "I'm sorry Bke. Remember what I said st night though? You're still a cute girl, no matter what you look like on the outside. And both me and Harper are here for you."

  "Right on," Harper agreed. Then he added softly, "That was about fifty minutes by the way."

  I sniffed a bit then whispered, "Thanks you two."

  They both held me for another few seconds, then when they finally let go my mom was there waiting.

  She leaned forward and gave me another hug, "Bke honey I'm sorry. I had no idea it upset you so much."

  "Thanks mom," I mumbled as I hugged her back. Then I sighed, "I think it's worse now, than it was before? Like I mean, before I knew I was trans? It used to be more of a low-level background thing. But now I know, and it feels that much worse. Especially compared to how happy I am and how much better I feel in girl-me form."

  Ellie commented quietly, "So um, speaking of that? Fifty minutes is ten to one, that's more than we were expecting. But it does sort of fit the second theory."

  Mom and I finally let go of each other. Then as she moved back to her chair she asked, "So what does that mean for Bke?"

  "Give me a moment," my best friend replied as she pulled out her phone. Then she adjusted her gsses before she started doing some math with the calcutor app. As she did that she told me, "It suggests that every time you switch to magical-girl mode, you'll have an exponentially longer time in the normal girl-mode afterwards. And if that ratio keeps growing the way we've seen..."

  She tapped her phone a couple more times then looked at me, "After eleven or twelve more times in magical-girl mode, a single day as a magical girl would result in over a hundred years as a normal girl. Like I said st night, it won't take long before your normal-girl form will st longer than a human lifetime."

  Hearing that helped a lot. It lifted some of that cold weight in my gut, and repced it with some tentatively excited butterflies. Meanwhile Ellie did some more math stuff on her phone, then she frowned slightly.

  "On the other hand I guess I should also mention a warning?" she said. "Like if you do need some guy-mode time, like for work or school or whatever? Next time you change, five minutes in magical girl mode will probably turn into two hours of normal girl mode? Do that a couple more times and you'll hit a point where five minutes as a magical girl will mean twenty-four hours as a normal girl."

  She sighed, "That's the thing with this sort of exponential growth. It's very quickly going to hit a point where you're looking at days, then weeks, months, and finally years, before you'd turn back into a guy."

  That left me frowning again as I thought it through. As much as I wanted to activate it again immediately, if I wasn't careful there'd be a good chance I'd end up stuck in girl-mode and wouldn't be able to go to school tomorrow. Then I might miss my next shift at work. And like she said, eventually I'd hit a point where my original masc body was just gone. Or at least it wouldn't come back for weeks or months. And as much as that excited me, I knew I shouldn't rush into it. I still needed to be my normal self for a little while longer, at least to finish up the st few days of school.

  "You know, there's another thing we never thought to test? But maybe we should have," Harper commented quietly. "Now after hearing all Ellie's math stuff, I'm wondering if maybe it's not a good idea after all."

  Ellie and I shared a look, then my best friend asked "What didn't we test?"

  Harper replied, "What if Bke triggered the magical girl transformation again while she was still in the normal-girl form? Would that even work, or would she have to wait until she's back in this form before the ring will work again?"

  "I don't know," I slowly shook my head. "I kind of assumed the normal-girl shape was like a cool-down period or something? But you're right, I never bothered to test if I could use the ring again in that form."

  Meanwhile Ellie was frowning as she thought it through, "That would definitely throw another variable into our timing predictions. It's possible it wouldn't do anything, but it's just as pusible it'd completely change the rules. For all we know it might even make the transformation permanent or something?"

  My eyebrows crept up as I looked down at the ring once more. And I couldn't even tell if I was excited or anxious about that prospect.

  PurpleCatGirl