Dreams, Secrets, and Transformations: Beyond the Enchanted Looking Glass

Ch 3 Family

"What are you girls still doing in here?" the young woman standing in the doorway, asked.

"Oh, Ms. Cantor, Brooke took a spill and I was just checking to be sure she was alright." Jennifer offered in a syrupy, sweet southern drawl as she helped Brooke to her feet. "Wouldn't want to lose one of out best cheerleaders before an important home game. Now would we?"

"You okay?" Ms. Cantor asked Brooke, genuinely concerned.

"Yes, ma'am," Brooke nodded. "I-I'm fine."

"Good, then you best be getting changed and on to practice."

Jennifer, already in a cheer uniform, spun on her heels and smiled at Ms. Cantor as she headed for the door. Ms. Cantor watched Jennifer leave the locker room, all to aware of her true personality.  She saw straight through Jennifer, the cheer team captain's act. Wondering what she was really up to she looked back at Brooke.

Brooke, walked over to a locker she somehow knew was hers, unlocked it by entering the correct combination on the second try. She then glanced back at the mirror attached to the wall. She couldn't be sure if it actually did or not, but the glass appeared to shimmer and ripple for a brief moment.

She looked back at Ms. Cantor, who was still eyeing her, and decided she would have to figure things out later.

Brooke turned back to the locker and took out an outfit, which she began to change in to as Ms. Cantor left the room. It was similar to the outfit. Ms. Cantor had on and the very same one Jennifer wore.

Once she had placed the clothes she just took off, into the locker, she pushed the door open and headed down the hallway. Passing two sets of double doors labled as the gym entrance, she exited the building at the end of the hall and merged in with a gaggle of boys in football gear, also headed down the sidewalk.

"Hi, Brooke," one of the boys shyly, yet excitedly greeted her.

She instinctively knew where she was headed and also knew who this guy was. She also instinctively knew they weren't friends and she only knew who he was, because he was on the football team.

"Hi," Brooke replied in a friendly manner as they headed toward the football field, but that was the extent of their interaction.

When she got to the bleachers, she pulled a set of pom poms out of the small gym bag she had brought with her,  then headed over to join several other girl on the side of the field. These girls were in outfits that all matched hers, cheer shirts and skin tight neoprene cheer practice shorts that made it abundanly clear that her crotch was just as flat and physically feminine as all the other girls, but she didn't even notice. To her everything was as it always had been.

A couple of the girls were enthusiasticly practicing a cheer. A third girl was busy putting her hair up in a high ponytail and another was tapping out a message on her phone, her nails, freshly painted to match the colors of her cheer uniform, furiously click-clacking back and forth across the screen. Several other impossibility thin girls with matching high ponytails were headed toward Brooke and the others.

Brooke noticed all these girls, to include herself, had on the same solid white tennis shoes, same colors on their nails, and the same dangly earrings in their ears.

Slipping a scrunchie on one wrist, Brooke began to pull her hair into a high ponytail, to match the others, just as Ms. Cantor approached.

What is going to happen when my dad gets hom-, Brooke began to wonder, but that thought quickly became muddled. Huh? When dad gets home? Why would I think that? My dad's not coming home, he died six years ago.

She couldn't quite put her finger on what it was, but something wasn't quite right. She suddenly felt off, but couldn't explain it.

Brooke shook her head, dismissed the idea, and fell into a cheer formation with the other girls on the field, where they began practicing a cheer that Brooke knew the words and moves to, perfectly.