299 Days As a Guy

Chapter 1 - The Night it All Began

My name is Ashley Camper. Among my many talents, I am head girl of the Squatters cheerleading squad, main girl of my delicious boyfriend Cameron's life and it girl of Murrieta Central High. Oh; and yes, I'm a girl. I have been a girl just about all my life - as I hope that's been stated clearly by my numerous high school titles. My best girl friend confidents; they are all girls too. I have four of those in total - including myself. Just like me they have always been girls, right from the moment when their little embryos started bulging with legs and body parts, up until twenty-fifteen, present day.

As girls we have lived happily ever after in our glittering remote fortress called Girl World -discovered and conquered by Cady Heron the all mighty goddess of Mean Girls- far away from the likes of undesirable boys and anything not in the pink colour spectrum. None of us ever really thought of, nor intended to venture beyond the safe walls of our castle of lipstick, high heels, burn books and chick flick slumber parties, into our wild unknown fate in the unpredictable high school world.

At least not until that day; when shizzle got real. But I suppose it had all started that night at that party before that day.

Before that day came, we were your classic sophomore group of girls who sat at their own reserved table in the cafeteria sipping Starbucks through customised candy-stripped straws, and talking over people's lame privet lives while fondling the hair of somewhat desirable sophomore boys. Doesn't his hair look sexy when you push in back? Yes I believe so, we were those girls.
So let us introduce the clique.
Taylor, the girl who earned quite deservingly, the title of best dressed - even though I know that title would have suited me better - along with a million zillion Sports medals. Blair, that one girl that got a cute little convertible as a Christmas pressie long before anyone else could dream of having a car. Well I guess she earned that too; her daddy promised it to her if she would ace her sophomore year exams - which she would have aced either way because when she is not driving us around in her adorable car, she is doing next week's homework - my next week's homework. Kylie; she is probably the sweetest little liar out there, not to mention the prettiest. In her diseased mind, nice girls go well with bad boys, hence her viral obsession with studded dudes with obnoxious British accents.
And then there's me- most defiantly the hottest of the four, but in this case the least relevant. As this isn't a story about me; this is a story about us and what was probably the strangest senior year a clique of sybarite girls ever experienced...

As the end of a perfect summer dawned before our eyes, we drove to the Cullen twins' villa in Blair's cute baby blue convertible, preparing for a life changing night. Every year since freshman year, the Cullen twins decided to end each summer with a bang of confetti and that adorable disco ball that hung on the patio each year for the occasion. And every year they succeeded. You wanted to be invited to their party, and pretty much everybody was, excluding the radical geeks and chess club nerds. Kylie was especially buzzed for it as she had a ever deepening crush on one of those Cullen twins, though I was never certain which one, quite frankly because I could never tell them apart; two boys with deep blue eyes and dark red hair - roamer has it they were kicked out of military school. An aspect which somehow made them all the more appealing to Kylie who had just developed her deformed and diseased weak spot for bad boys with English accesnts.
Anyhow, back to the party- the night before the start of senior year: that was a big night. The Cullens' house party was hot and flaming and gave all our phones temperature warnings.
All the adults in the neighborhood, including the Cullens' parents, had not returned yet from their summer vaycays, so our freedom gave us a wide range of possibilities and widened the range of noise we could make without causing ourselves unnecessary problems.
Everything was amazing until Meredith Gorgan decided to spill the interior of her cup of, whatever disgusting liquid she enjoys drinking, onto Taylor and her 500 dollars worth of Guess dress and they started clawing at each other.
It is against cheerleading squad policy to be truthful about what you think of other members of the squad. However as the head girl I suppose I have the right to state that Meredith is creepy.
Roamer has it, she locks her self in the cubicles in the sanctuary, known otherwise as the girls' bathroom, and practices illuminati. She has a mess of frizzy black hair plastered to her scalp and a matching black wardrobe. I have never been nor do I ever intend to go anywhere nearer to her house, than several streets away. However my trusted sources have told me that she has a collection of voodoo dolls in her room, large enough to to have one to represent each of the girls in our school.
My instincts tell me that her favorite one to poke and fiddle with, wears a pink t-shirt with 'My name is Ashley' written on it.
God knows what she does with those poor voodoo dolls, I mean, God knows...
"EEEEEK!" A piercingly desperate, stomach-churning shriek aroused high above the volume of the roaring speakers. Taylor stood in a puddle of purple liquid with a miniature cess pool of it waterfalling down her white wrap dress. "NOOOO!"
"Don't worry Tay, it's just a little spot-"
"I'm sure no one will notice that it's not supposed to be there-"
"It looks better than before!" Meredith sneered seemingly not feeling the least bit apologetic towards Taylor's dress.
"You!" Taylor shot her a death glare. "You are going to regret this all through senior year- I promise you!"
"You are going to regret this for the rest of your cursed life-" Meredith narrowed her eyes in a threatening stare.
"Go away Meredith we don't want you around us if you're not even willing to fix the harm you have done!" I bellowed seizing her with a condescending look of intimidating superiority. "Scat now, punk!"
"May the worst of luck strike you in a hurricane of dust, misfortune and revenge," was her finishing statement for Taylor, as she narrowed her beady eyes and pointed her bony finger like an evil witch as she disappeared into the crowd. "May your senior year be a cavalcade of disasters, for you are now cursed!"

"What do you think she was talking about?" Taylor asked wearily, when we retreated to the bathroom pursuing our feeble attempts to save her poor Guess - I was disgusted by the fact she even paid attention to Meredith's pointless blabber.
I gave her a reprimanding look which made her sigh, "Never mind..." shoving her dress in the sink.
"Do you mind locking that door, Ky?"
"Would you just look at this. There is no way I can BWR this now." Taylor took the top off a soap dispenser and emptied its whole insides into the sink soup of dress and bubbling foam.
"BWR?"
"Buy, wear and return." She hissed. Ah, so that was the secret story behind Taylor's seemingly backless closet of high-end fashion, which appeared on her at a party and after the occasion was never seen again. "Stop looking at me like that, ladies. I know you have done it before."
"I have a bad feeling about this whole curse thing..." Kylie sat on the bathtub torturing a strand of hair. "I mean this is senior year- it has to be perfect!"
"Don't you start, Ky." I sighed. "Believe me; senior year will be the best year ever...

A ray of insistent sunlight was striking insistently at the corner of my eye. However somehow it didn't in the least annoy me; I knew that it brought forth the long awaited moment of truth - the first morning back. "Ahh- senior year already is the best year ever!"
My morning voice appeared croaky and masculine- the best sign that it was a good night. I let out a rejoiced sigh and sat right up in my bed. Cameron was asleep next to me. I was dangerously close to waking him up with a kiss, We will be late for school darling. I immediately thought the best of it, realizing that dreamy line wouldn't sound good said in a croaky man-voice, and that morning my vocal cords were playing tricks on me. And boy was it lucky I didn't wake him up.
I took my phone from the custom made Moschino phone stand and quietly snuck out of bed tiptoeing to the bathroom. Click, I locked the door behind myself.
I turned to the mirror, ready to liberate my lush bush of locks from the nightly bun. Instead I liberated a gasp. A scream was creeping up to my throat- and not the kind you emit when you see the reflection of a bed hair horror movie. I remembered Cameron was asleep on the other side of that door. I swallowed it down, as it defused into a million tiny little breaths which cued up at my throat, trying to come out all at once. My phone rang.
"Yes?" I answered in a quivering voice.
"Ash!"
"Ky? Tay? Blair?"
I threw another brief look at the mirror in horrified despair. This must be a nightmare; I must be asleep.
"Girls?" I wailed.
"You may mean guys!" A deep voice sounded from the phone.
"What the hell is going on?" I shrieked.
"I don't know... I woke up like this!"
"So did I."
"Me too!"
"Guys... Do you all have... it?" Kylie of course was the one to utter the question that was churning in all of our minds.
"I'm afraid to check."
"...Yes! It's there! Ew-"
"What the hell is going on?"
"It's the curse." I muttered gravely as I ended the call, letting my phoning hand fall limply to my side. And there was my reflection again. It stood before me in the mirror, looking me straight in the eyes, with the sort of terror on my face as though I was looking at myself with an overnight break out of acne.
But the image that plastered it's self in the golden frame of my bathroom mirror, was in fact far beyond a case of bad zits. It was male. It was masculine. I was - a guy.

I was a guy.
Once the shock began to slowly cool away, I decided that life has to go on. I have to endure the smashing effects of this curse - however long they may last.
I have to walk into school with my chin high and a battle-ready look on my face, and the least I can do is survive this one day.
With my new decision made up in my new masculine mind, I quietly tip toed back into my room.
The alarm clock showed 7:58, morning. Cameron was still fast asleep in my bed, his head cocked slightly to the side and his hair lightly stroking his closed eyelids. He looked so cute.
I despised Meredith for taking away my biological right to kiss him - he would never want to kiss me again so long as I was trapped inside this awkward male body. He had always made it very clear that he is not gay.
What now?
As a guy I would need something to wear. My gaze fell upon the creased pile of last night's clothes, which lay tortured and tired on the floor by Cameron's side of the bed. I'm sorry darling, I thought, every good boyfriend has to make sacrifices - and a beautiful damsel in distress, inside a guy's body, needs you to make this one for her. With that inaudible statement, I tiptoed over to his bed side and proceeded to pluck up his creased t-shirt and shorts. I suppose he will be going to school naked. Tough - desperate times call for desperate measures.
Just then a caught a glimpse of the alarm clock on my bedside table; 8:00 was flashing red and white on its screen. No.
Like an instant fire call, my morning alarm sounded, it's shill metallic drill piercing my ear drums.
Cameron started tossing and turning in my bed. He was waking up.