Changing At The Beach, A Morality Tale free porn video

Changing at the Beach, A Morality Tale "Hey Kevin," said Andy, "get a load of this." He gestured to a prominent yellow sign mounted next to the entrance of the cluttered little shop we had followed his brother into. My eyes grew wide as I read, WARNING Theft is a crime, this isn't a game. Steal from us and you won't be the same. If your life is pleasant, then pay with haste, or return the item so you don't get erased. Without swift restoration, you should know the winds of change will surely blow. "Wow," I said. "This makes no sense. What does it even mean?" "It means don't shoplift," came a woman's voice from the direction of the till. Andy and I glanced toward the counter behind which an attractive woman in her twenties stood. She looked a bit like a hippie from the seventies with her tie dyed t-shirt, beaded headband, and long, frizzy hair. She actually wore one of those necklaces with a round peace sign. "We don't have cameras here and we don't call the police." Her voice seemed to ring with a mysterious authority. "No one escapes the consequences if they take something without paying." She looked smug. She was definitely not one of those peace and love kind of hippies. I glanced at Andy and recognized the look on his face. As we made our way farther into the shop I heard him mutter under his breath, "Challenge accepted." "I don't think that's a good idea," I whispered. "If you get us in trouble for stealing, Matt will never lend us his wheels." His eyes narrowed. "Matt can stick his wheels up his ass." The fact that we were such losers that we needed Matthew to take us to the beach was a sore point. At seventeen we had our drivers licenses, but Matt had the car. "At least he was good enough to put his plans on hold and bring us down here. And he did give us a couple hours to do our thing." "Sure, a couple hours," Andy snorted. "How generous. Like it would have killed him to let us spend an entire day at the beach. If I had my own car, he'd probably still stick us with a curfew or something." His brother had not only refused to lend him the car but had cut our day short. Something had come up and he didn't want to pick us up later. I glanced around at chaotic, overstuffed displays of costume jewelry and said, "So what exactly will stealing prove?" "It proves that it's not up to him to save me." When Andy had insisted that we could find our own way home, hitchhiking if necessary, Matt had said that Andy was going to get himself into serious trouble one day and he needed to protect him. That was the wrong thing to say. "Anyway," He said waving at a display, "this stuff is a bunch of cheap junk." "Isn't that kind of the point?" I said. "It ain't worth it. If you're caught, won't you just be proving him right?" "I'm not going to get caught," he said in a low voice that broadcast his simmering rage. Earlier, when his brother had found us outside the changing rooms and insisted that it was almost time to go, Andy had been livid. We'd intended to go swimming later, but Matthew's changed plans had put a kibosh on that. Andy had railed about how he was being treated like a child. Matthew and Andrew Jensen had moved into a foster home down the street from my house ten years earlier. Matt seemed pretty well-adjusted but Andy was twitchy. Still, Andy and I had been born only a few weeks apart, so we became friends. He didn't talk much about his life in foster care and I didn't push it. I was merely the forgotten kid in a large family, so I didn't have a lot of real problems of my own. Matthew now had his own place and was trying to get custody of his brother who was only a year away from aging out of the system. Still, it was a nice gesture. I put Andy's ingratitude down to the fact that he suffered from a bottomless need to prove himself and took every put-down, real or imagined, as a test of his manhood. I glanced down an aisle where I caught a glimpse of Matt looking at a display of souvenirs. I whispered to Andy, "Listen, I know you're pissed, but, thanks to your ingenious scheme, you've got a phone full pics of some pretty hot babes getting changed, not to mention that amazing shot of the girl who lost her bikini top. Isn't that enough desperado stuff for one day?" He gave me a smirk. "Not nearly enough. Swimming trunks make shitty underwear and we wore ours for nothing. Matt needs to learn that he can't just change the rules to suit himself or treat me like a kid. He's not my mom." "So you're saying you want to get caught just to teach him a lesson?" "Of course not, dumbass. I said I wasn't getting caught. I'm not stupid. I have better ways of schooling him." I wasn't as disappointed as Andy about not going swimming. While he was almost six feet tall and fairly athletic with roguish good looks, I was a short, chunky carrot-top who looked anything but sexy without a shirt. While Andy had had his share of girlfriends, which relationships tended to end badly, if not violently, the ladies had yet to discover my charms. I wasn't going to help my cause any by stripping down to my bathing suit and showing off my pale, freckly, flabbiness. Nor did I like taking my glasses off to swim. That would leave me too blind to admire the girls from afar. "Okay, guys." Matt stepped into view and waved us toward the door. "Time to go. I've got things to do and places to be." As we came up behind his brother, Andy showed me a rather striking necklace of iridescent stones that he'd swiped from one of the displays. I hadn't seen him do it. Before we reached the door he'd slipped it into his brother's back pocket without him even noticing. That was impressive and it must have shown on my face because he looked rather pleased with himself. As we headed out, I noticed the woman at the till watching us with a grim expression. My eyes locked with hers and she pointed at something. Seemingly of its own accord, my gaze slid over and landed on the sign. That last line stood out ...the winds of change will surely blow. A chill ran up my spine. We were halfway down the boardwalk when I grabbed Andy's arm. "Hey, what gives?" he said as he pulled his arm from my grasp. "I think we should take that necklace back." He looked at me as if I had lost my mind. Maybe I had. "And let that lunatic bitch with her crazy sign have the last laugh? Not a chance." "There's something weird going on. Can't you feel it?" "You're a total sucker, you know that? Some dinky little store full of cheap touristy shit can't afford cameras so they come up with a goofball sign with a nonsense verse. Hell, if that bitch hadn't told us what it was supposed to mean, we wouldn't have had the first clue. Really, what were they expecting? " "Okay," I said, "I suppose you have a point, but that woman looked straight at me when we left the shop. She knows." "That doesn't prove anything. More likely she thinks you're the guilty one. Anyway, so what if she does know? She said they don't call the cops. Even if she was lying through her teeth, we're just going to get into the car and leave and there's nothing she can do about it." "Unless she somehow knows who we are and tells the cops. I've never been in trouble with the law before." Andy glanced over at his brother who had stopped, apparently wondering what the holdup was. "Well, you're not gonna be in trouble this time either." As we entered the parking lot, I felt another shiver ran up my back. "This doesn't feel right," I said. "Even if nothing comes of it, I don't like being an accessory to a crime." He snorted. "Really? Some crime! A cheap bit of costume jewelry. They'll definitely give us life for that." "It doesn't matter. It's the principle. And there's something about that sign that gives me the heebie-jeebies." "Who cares about the stupid sign. Stop being a baby!" Anger rose up in me. "You're the one who's being a baby, a baby girl that can't admit when she's wrong!" Andy was getting hot under the collar too. "If I'm a baby girl, what does that make you? I'm not the chicken who's afraid of some stupid verse. Watch out," he said in a girly voice, "or the winds of chaaange will get you!" Before I could say anything more, I noticed Andy's brother returning from the car carrying the bag with our beach towels. "Hey," I said, "Marie is coming back." "Sure," said Andy, "he's probably pissed at us for making him wait again." "I don't think so," I said, "he's brought the bag." When he reached us, Marie said, "Okay guys, maybe I was a bit hasty. It's a beautiful day. The sun is out. We have a beach right here, so why don't we go swimming?" Andy looked incredulous. "What about all those big plans that couldn't wait? Were you just bullshitting us? I expected Marie to get angry, but instead, he said, "Chill little brother. Life's too short. Let's go enjoy the beach and have a good time." He looked at Andy with a sad, regretful expression. "Our lives have kind of sucked up till now, but I think things are going to change." Andy clearly didn't know what to make of that. He looked torn as if he was disappointed that we weren't getting out of Dodge. He glanced at the beach and then at me. He had called me a chicken and plainly didn't care to look like one himself. "Okay," he said, "let's do it." As we made our way across the crowded beach, a sense of wrongness came over me that I couldn't shake. I glanced at Andy and said, "You can think what you want, but something ain't right." Andy watched his tall, muscular brother, Marie Rose, move through the crowd ahead of us looking for a clear spot and said, "Yeah, I'm beginning to see what you mean. Something definitely feels wrong. I just can't figure out what it is." Marie found a clear spot and set the bag down, pulled a beach blanket out and laid it on the sand. "I bet if we return that necklace this weirdness will go away," I said. "Stop being an asshole. I'm not listening to any more about that." Andy yanked his T-shirt off with an angry motion and said, "I don't know about you, but I'm going swimming." "All right," said Marie as he opened the bag, "put your clothes and stuff in here." I angrily pulled off my clothes and shoes and stuffed everything into the bag, though I left my glasses on for the moment. I liked being able to see. I started to tell Andy what an idiot he was being but the words didn't come. Andy's nineteen-year-old brother had kicked off his sandals and loose pants revealing smooth, hairless, feminine legs and rounded hips clad in a black string bikini bottom that was totally flat where his genitals should have been. The toenails on his dainty little feet were ruby red. Instead of towering over both of us, he was now shorter than I was. Both Andy's and my eyes grew wide and our mouths dropped open. I was beginning to understand what the verse on that sign had meant. Marie looked at us both in puzzlement. "Hey, guys, what's the matter? Are you going to stare or go swimming?" He pulled his loose shirt over his head, revealing a thin waist with a flat, smooth stomach and a matching bikini top over well-proportioned breasts. Once the shirt was off she shook her shiny, auburn mane until it flowed down her back and dropped the shirt into the bag. A very attractive twentysomething woman, with an angelic face, now stood checking the ruby red nails on one of her petite hands. She was wearing the necklace Andy had stolen. Andy and I looked each at each other in mute shock. Andy's 'brother' flashed us a bright smile and said, in a silky voice a full octave above what it had been, "You two can follow me in any time." With a wave of a willowy arm, she trotted toward the water, giving us a truly enchanting view. I turned to Andy and said, "You might as well delete the pictures. Your brother is hotter than any of those girls." "Is that supposed to be funny?" he snarled. "Hell no! I'm not feeling very funny right now." "This is fucking insane," said Andy. "That bitch must've slipped us some acid somehow. That just isn't possible. Maybe there's a hidden camera somewhere and they went all David Copperfield on us. I bet Marie is hiding somewhere. I don't know how he switched places with that girl but it's the only thing that makes any sense!" A strange calm had settled over me. "Do you really believe that? I know illusionists have pulled off some pretty amazing shit, but I can't seem to make myself deny what I just saw, no matter how hard I try. Something inside is telling me it's all real and I can't stop myself from believing it." Andy seemed to calm down, himself, as he said, "Yeah. I know what you mean. I want to believe it's fake, but I can't somehow. It's like something won't let me. I should be jumping out of my skin and screaming my head off, but I'm all calm. It's scaring me shitless, but I'm still calm. This is totally weird." He turned to me with a bewildered look I'd never seen on him before. "Whatever's causing this has us by the balls. What the hell are we supposed to do now?" "What I've been saying all along. We need to return that necklace sooner rather than later." Andy turned and watched his 'brother' swimming out into deeper water. "That won't be easy." He turned back to me. "You think that witch or mad scientist, or whatever she's supposed to be, will turn my brother back if we do that?" "I hope so, but that may not be our only problem. If your brother was turned into a girl, even though he didn't even know about what you did, what's going to happen to us?" His eyes grew round. "You think that psycho hippie is going to turn us into hot chicks too?" "I think," I said in a voice that was calmer then I felt, "that she isn't going to let us off that easy." "Meaning what?" I watched Andy's 'brother,' rise up from the water with her shapely body glistening and flip her hair back from her lovely face. "Marie's innocent. You're the one who stole and I didn't stop you. There are worse things to be turned into than a sexy girl." "Shit, shit, shiiiiiit!" said Andy. "We need to get Marie to give up that necklace, though I have no idea how it ended up around her... ah his, neck." "I've been thinking about that," I said as I pulled off my glasses in preparation for hitting the water. She... He seems to think sh... he's always been a girl and the necklace is hers." I gave Andy an intense look. "Does Marie Rose not seem to you like a good name for a girl like that, while not so much for a guy?" "But her... his name has always been Marie Rose." "And that isn't weird?" He looked thoughtful. "Now that you mention it, what's weird is that I never realized it wasn't a guy's name. How could that be?" "Because, I suspect, it wasn't her name before we visited that shop." "I don't remember a different one." "Neither do I, but we just watched your sis... brother transform before our very eyes and she obviously has no idea that she was ever any different." "Well dammit, if that bitch is messing with our heads, what chance do we have to fix this?" "I don't know but we need to stay sharp. We can't lose focus and we can't let ourselves to forget who we are." I turned to Andy in mock salute, almost dropping my glasses in the process, and said, "State your full name, private." He got into the spirit and snapped to attention stating, "Andrew Martin Jensen." "Good, we'll save rank and serial number for later. Now my turn. My name is Kevin Linnaeus Wilson." Andy looked incredulous. "Your middle name is Linnaeus? You never told me..." "I had a great uncle with that name. You try and keep a short list of names when you've had as many kids as my parents have. Anyway, we've got more important things to worry about. State your name again so we can verify." "Okay. It's Amanda May Jensen." No change. That was a relief. "And my name is Candice Leah Jensen. So now that we've established that, let's hit the water and see if we can convince your sister to give up that cute necklace." As we started toward the shore, Mandy said, "It's kind of neat that we have the same last name. I wonder why I never thought of that before." "Focus, Mandy," I said. "We're going to have to stay on mission if we want to save ourselves and get your sister restored." The thought of focus caused me to notice that I could see everything with perfect clarity. That seemed wrong but I didn't know why. "Hey," said Andy, "What's with the kiddy glasses. Did you find them somewhere?" I looked down and saw that I was holding a child-sized pair of purple, heart-shaped sunglasses. "I guess I must've. With all this bizarre crap going on I didn't even notice picking them up." I didn't have time to clean up the beach so I tossed the cheap bit of plastic aside. Just before we plunged into the water, Mandy suddenly stopped. As my feet splashed the edge of the waves, I turned and said, "Now what?" "I just realized something," he said. "And what the hell is that?" "Marie is twenty-three years old. I'm pretty sure she was younger before. It's a bit fuzzy. What is clear is a memory of her having custody of me for years. This might not be such a bad deal after all." I shook my head. "Maybe that sounds good to you, but I'm still just the middle of thirteen kids. Besides, our condition is a moving target. Do you really think that this is how we end up?" "What d'ya mean?" "Do I have to keep, like, spelling it out? We're both guilty as hell. What's happening is punishment. We could turn into anything. We could end up as fat old ladies with osteoporosis and adult diapers, or we could be transformed into illegal immigrants unable to speak English. We could be changed into different things and not even be able to talk to each other. That would sooo not help our cause." Mandy's eyes actually started to tear up in a way very unbecoming for a tall, athletic guy. "That would be awful," he said. "Oh Candy, I don't want us to be separated!" "For God's sake, snap out of it! This isn't you. You're the outlaw, the cool man-of-action, remember? If you don't want anything like that to happen we need to get that necklace, like, pronto." "Okay. Cool! Let's do it." We headed into the water scanning around for Mandy's sister amongst the crowds of other swimmers. We thought we spotted her and started making our way through the water in that direction. The next few minutes were frustrating as we kept thinking we were homing in on her only to find that she was either gone or we had locked on to the wrong girl. "Oh Poo!" said Mandy. "Where did she go?" I glanced back the way we had come from and thought I spotted someone who looked like her walking along the shore in the direction of our blanket. "Well fudge," I said. "We missed her in the crowd. We should go back." "Okay," said Mandy in an oddly high voice. As we came out of the water and I brushed the hair out of my face, it occurred to me to wonder where our body hair had gone, but something else came to my attention. Mandy and I were the same height. The last time I had checked, he was several inches taller than me. Had I gotten taller or was he shorter? "What's wrong?" said Mandy. "How tall are you?" I asked. "Five foot four inches. Why?" "That's totally how tall I am. You were, like, taller before, weren't you?" "Oh my God! You're right," he said in a voice that sounded even higher. I was as tall as Maria before, five foot five, I think. Darn this hair." He brushed some wet strands out of his eyes. "Focus Mandy," I said. That's when I noticed it. "These are girl's bathing suits!" We were both wearing matching one-piece swimsuits with stringy straps that looped over our shoulders and crisscrossed our bare backs. The only difference was that Mandy's was pink and mine purple. He looked down at himself and then at me with dismay. "Maybe that's what that witch is trying to do, not just change us, but totally humiliate us." I shook my head. "I don't know what that hippie chick is, but she's no witch. I bet Marie remembers a totally different life now and I also bet that if we went home we'd find that the world has, like, totally rearranged itself to fit those memories. That feels more like a force of nature to me." Mandy frowned. "A force of nature with morals?" "Yeah, there seems to be a moral agenda here." I really didn't want to pursue that line of thought to its logical conclusion, so I said, "We can't fight it. Resistance is, like, so futile. We need to follow the rules. That means returning what you stole." He looked at the people around us enjoying a day at the beach, oblivious to what was happening in their midst. He tried to cover himself with his arms. "This is sooo embarrassing. Any moment now, someone's gonna notice us in these girly suits and everyone'll start pointing and laughing." I looked at him in his pink swimsuit and glanced down at my purple one. We looked ridiculous. We were the wrong shape for this kind of swimwear, though not as wrong as we should be. While I could see bulges at our groins, they seemed a bit small. Did we have breasts? I resisted the urge to touch myself. The best thing we could do was ignore this and get back to what we were doing. I started down the beach. "Come on. Forget it. Let's do what needs to be done before it's too late." Mandy scurried up next to me and said, "What do you mean 'too late?'" "I think whatever's happening is, like, not done yet, but there must be a time limit to this. We need to return that thing while we still can." Mandy was looking teary-eyed again. "I'm sooo sorry. This is totally my fault." I turned and hugged him, which felt like the most natural thing in the world just then. "Don't worry, we'll fix this. I love you. Besties forever!" "I totally love you too, Candy. Besties forever!" said Mandy as she hugged me back. I noticed then that my skin, instead of its usual freckly pastiness, was the same smooth darker shade as Mandy's. My arms looked nice and thin too. I glanced down at myself. My belly had flattened out like hers and my boobs were nicely proportioned. I was slim and willowy just like Mandy. I couldn't help being pleased about that as we headed up the beach. We were a couple of hot sixteen... fifteen-year-olds dressed for attention. Mandy turned to me and said, "Uh, Candy." "Yeah?" "I think we're, like, totally girls." Mandy's voice rose in pitch at the end of her sentence. "Yeah. I kinda noticed that," I answered in the same odd upspeak. "We're like sooo totally girls. I guess there isn't any doubt which direction these changes are going." "Yeah, seriously. Like, I'm sorry." "It's okay. We'll fix it." We met a pair of cute boys, who gave us the eye as we passed and I noticed Mandy flashing a bright smile and putting a sway in her step. I found myself doing the same. "It's weird that I don't feel gay right now," I said. "Yeah, I'm just so totally glad they noticed us," said Mandy as she brushed away some strands that were blowing across her face. She turned to me. "Do you think I'm pretty?" I looked at her. Her eyes looked bigger and it wasn't just the eyeliner and mascara. They were either bigger or the rest of her face was smaller, which was easy to believe considering that little button nose of hers. With that wavy auburn hair blowing around that face, she looked more than cute. "Yeah, I think you're sooo totally hot." Her full lips formed a wide smile. "Thanks! I think you're just too hot yourself." "Like, I don't think we should be doing this." My inflection made it sound like a question. I brushed some windblown red hair from my face. "Besides, we need to cut our hair. It would be, like, easier and stuff." By her expression, I could tell that Mandy hated that idea just as much as I did the moment I said it. I decided not to mention that we'd both had close-cropped hair earlier that day. Try as I might, I couldn't force myself to not love my hair. I just totally loved it, even if it was a total pain just then. As urgent as getting the necklace was, Mandy and I weren't making a straight line back to Maria. We were strolling at an easy pace, winding our way through the crowd. I was trying to figure out why I was having such a hard time holding on to a sense of urgency when Mandy said, "This is fun. I don't remember when I ever had so much fun and was so happy. I feel so, like, warm and... and bubbly inside, like I totally want this day to never end." I took a deep breath to object and then let it out without a word. Why should I fight it? Mandy had not had a great life so why shouldn't she enjoy this. That's what I told myself, though I knew that I was having an awesome time too. "It's not so totally clear or anything," she said, "but I do remember what it was like to be a guy, even what it felt like to have boy parts, you know, down there. But it feels kind of, like... totally normal to have girl parts, so why shouldn't I just, like, go with it, right?" I giggled. "We could totally walk into the girl's changing room and see everything without even sneaking." A guilty look crossed her face. I knew she was thinking about the pictures. "It's alright," I said. "It wouldn't be, like, the same or anything if we went in there now. It would be like what we used to feel when we went into the boy's room." It was true, the idea of seeing other girls naked didn't do a thing for me, but the thought of going into the boy's changing room made me kind of giddy and then, as I thought about it, a little scared. We would be totally vulnerable in there. Mandy smiled shyly. "I have lots of new memories that go with my new self." "Yeah, so do I. It's kind of weird." "I remember shaving my legs, and my underarms too." "Yeah," I said, "and, like, doing my eyebrows and makeup. It's so much work being a girl!" Mandy's voice lowered. "I remember using a tampon." "Oh eeew!" I said. "That's, like, totally nasty!" I tried to repress a memory of blood and messiness. "Yeah, I know, right?" said Mandy. "It's gross but it doesn't bother me much. It's the price of being so fabulous." We giggled. I held up a hand to show slightly chipped purple nail polish that matched my bathing suit. "I also remember, like, doing these and my toes too." "So do I." Mandy held up her hands to show pink nail polish. "I remember that we, like, brought the bottles with us when we went shopping for new bathing suits so they would totally match the polish." "That's so cool!" we said in unison. For the rest of our walk, we threw ourselves into the roles that these strange circumstances had thrust upon us and enjoyed gazing at and showing off for the cute guys while admiring and sometimes critiquing the girls. I hoped when this was over and we had gotten our lives back, that we would be able to keep these memories. Mandy needed this. As our stroll neared its end, I steeled myself for what we needed to do. I so didn't want to do this because I was enjoying myself so much, but I knew it was the magic, or whatever it was, controlling my mind. I needed to fight this for Mandy's sake. My BFF was counting on me to be strong. We found Marie reclining with a thick novel on a folding chair, wearing a loose flowery robe over her bikini along with sunglasses. A cooler sat on the sand next to the bag. I wondered where all that stuff had come from when an image entered my head of us helping to carry it here. I shook my head to drive out the false memory. She looked up from her book and smiled. "So did you two have a good swim?" "Yeah, totally," I said. "We were just wondering if..." "Oh dear," said Marie. "Look at your hair! You both need some help with that don't you?" "Well, we..." "Yeah," said Mandy. "It, like, dried fast and now it's blowing all over." I frowned at Mandy. It was time to man up. That thought almost ruined my resolve since staying serious was hard to when I felt so giggly. Before I could say anything, Marie grabbed a bag and was up like a whirlwind fussing with our hair, brushing and arranging it until it was neat and pulled back from our faces with rhinestone barrettes. I knew I needed to say something but I was enjoying it all too much. She held up a hand mirror to show us the results and I just couldn't stop myself from squealing with delight along with Mandy. I was so trilled. Marie had done such an amazing job! I caught a glimpse of something else in the mirror and reached up and touched my earlobes and then looked at Mandy. Sure enough, she had a silver stud on each ear too. Pleasure flooded through me. We looked so cute. I was really getting scared at how little I wanted to fight this. With the courage born of fear, I asked, "Could we, like, um... Couldweborrowyournecklace? Please,please,please!" My voice squeaked with nervousness. She stood up straight and looked at me with surprise. Had she gotten taller? I knew I was almost a full five feet. "Well," said Marie as she tapped the necklace, "this isn't a toy, you know." Not a toy? Did she think we were kids? We were nearly thirteen. Practically teenagers. I glanced over at Mandy and she was staring up at Marie with a strange expression, a combination of awe and adoration or something like that. I started to think that it was all up to me when she said, "I just wanna wear it for a little while. You look so totally gorgeous in it and I kinda wanted to know how it feels." It was so obvious that she might've added, "to be like you." I didn't blame her. That seemed to melt Marie and, before I knew it, she was undoing the bracelet and placing it around Mandy's neck. "There," she said. "Now you're the gorgeous one." Mandy looked down at her feet and flushed with pleasure. "Just remember to bring it back safe and sound." A wide grin grew on her face as she said, "K, we will." "All right," she said as reached for her novel. "You children have fun." I was too excited to get annoyed about being called a child. Now we could take that necklace back and fix this. We stepped into our brightly colored flip-flops that matched our bathing suits and made a beeline for the shop. I felt so giddy that I put my arm through Mandy's and gushed, "That was just, like, sooo totally brilliant. I'm just, like, totally jealous of your super brain right now!" "Uh-huh." She stared at her feet as we walked. "Hey," I said, "what's wrong?" "Nothing." I was afraid to ask any more questions. We were going in the right direction and that's what mattered. Mandy stopped and said, "Oh look at her!" She pointed at a stunning, athletic looking girl with smooth skin so dark it was almost totally black and gorgeous braided hair filled with colorful beads. I couldn't help myself. "OMG! She looks so cool!" "Yeah," said Mandy, "like an African Princess. The boy me would've thought she was a total fox, but he would've totally missed how completely majestic she is. I wish I could be like that, so cool and mature. And look at her!" She pointed at another dark exotically beautiful girl in a string bikini. "Yeah," I said, "I wish I could..." I whirled on Mandy. "Hey, what are you doing? We don't have forever to get that back." Mandy deflated. "I suppose." With my arms still through Mandy's, I pulled her in the direction of the shop. Then, halfway down the boardwalk, Mandy stopped again, this time so abruptly that she almost pulled me off my feet. "What is it now?" I asked as I let go and faced her. She put her hand on the necklace and said, "Are you really sure you, like, wanna go back to the way we were before?" "Are you crazy? We're two cute girls with fabulous hair, dressed in matching swimwear. Doesn't that, like, bother you? I said that last part as much to convince myself as her. "No," she said without any hesitation. "I love our hair and I totally love how our outfits match." Honestly, that's exactly how I felt, but I knew that I shouldn't. "Don't you see how wrong this is? It's the magic or whatever. The real us would never have been caught dead looking this cute." She kept fingering the necklace as she said, "Who is the real us anyway?" "Big super cool boys of at least thirteen, maybe even fourteen. You were the nasty boy who took all those embarrassing pictures, like that one of that poor girl's top coming right off." "You can't even, like, remember how old we were. How do you know we were better off." "Because it's how we're totally supposed to be!" "I don't like who I'm supposed to be. I keep getting new memories of a different life and I like it so much better. I wasn't nice before. I was mean and horrible and I hated myself. I don't get why you were even friends with me." I was wondering that myself. "What about Marie? She didn't do anything to deserve having her life, like, rewritten and stuff." She looked guilty now. "M-maybe not, but she doesn't remember that other life and she's all happy now and she's totally gorgeous. She might have looked all calm and stuff before but she wasn't happier or anything." "Haven't you noticed?" I said. "These new memories keep, like, totally changing. If we don't return that thing, who knows how we'll end up?" She continued to look torn and then finally said, "Okay, I s'pose you're right. This is all my fault and I'm so, so sorry. I totally have no right to force this on you and Marie." I hugged her. "You totally won't regret this. Today is, like, the first day of the rest of your life. You'll see." As we entered the shop I couldn't help noticing that bright yellow sign. One line read: Steal from us and you won't be the same. How true that was, but the damage so far could have been worse. We had only lost a few years, still being a good ten years old. We were still Candice and Amanda Jensen and we were going to totally fix this! The shop looked bigger than I remembered and the woman behind the counter also seemed bigger. She set down her book and said, "Well if it ain't Andrew and Kevin." We looked at each other in confusion. Then it occurred to me that she might have mixed us up with someone else. We did have longer hair. "No, we're..." "Mandy and Candy. I know who you are." She glanced at the necklace." I see you brought back my merch. Are you going to return it and get your lives back?" "Yes, mam." This towering figure before us filled me with awe and my reply came out in an even higher, squeakier voice than I expected. "Groovy." She turned her fiery gaze on Mandy. "So let's have it." Mandy looked like a chipmunk in the headlights as she reached her shaking hands behind her neck to unclasp the necklace and then seemed to freeze. The woman glared down at her. "So are you just going to stand there or are you going to hand it over?" Mandy looked so frightened that she seemed to shrink. Then, with a sob, she said, "I'm so, so sorry," and turned and bolted out the door. "Mandy!" I called. "What are you doing?" Before I could say another word, she'd rounded the corner and was gone. The woman turned to me and said, "I don't think she wants her old life back. Oh well," she shook her head with apparent resignation, "that happens a lot." "You did this to a bunch of people?" "Don't blame me. I just work here. Still, a lot of people steal. If they steal from us, they're given a new perspective and another chance to get things right. Aren't a few minor changes worth it for that?" "I didn't do anything bad." She leaned over the counter with a knowing grin. "That's right, you did nothing. I felt myself shrinking beneath her glare and looked down at my feet. I fought back tears as I said in a tiny voice, "I'm sorry." "That doesn't cut it, kid. Do you know what happens if you keep doing nothing?" I glanced at that door. "I've gotta make her bring it back!" As I ran out as fast as my flip-flops would allow, I heard her voice behind me, "You better hurry. There isn't much time." I looked around but didn't see any sign of Mandy. She couldn't have disappeared into the crowd that quickly. I figured she must have gone into one of the shops. A need to pee was becoming impossible to ignore, however, so I ran toward a hanging sign that said RESTROOMS and dashed into the girl's room. Inside, I found Mandy washing her hands at the sink. She looked at me and I glared at her and said, "Stay there," and hurried into an open stall. I quickly peeled off my swimsuit, dropped it around my ankles, sat down and listened to the tinkling sound as I felt the relief of the easing pressure. While I wiped myself, I worried that Mandy might have run off again. I hastily pulled my bathing suit back on and rushed out of the stall. She was still there looking like she was waiting for a lecture from her mom. The necklace looked larger now and seemed to shine more iridescently than ever as it hung halfway down her chest. "Okay," I said. "Why'd you run away?" "I dunno." She stared at her feet. "Do so! Tell me." "Cuz that lady was scary and I needed to pee real bad." "K. Why else?" I just knew there was a why else. "Cuz I didn't wanna be that big sad, yucky boy anymore." "So you wanna be a little squirt instead? That's, like, totally stupid. How many times..." A wave of tingly dizziness washed over me and I almost fell over. I close my eyes until it passes. I see that Mandy fell down and is getting up again. "Where's the necklace?" I ask. Mandy looks down at herself and we search the floor all around but there's no sign of it. "Well poopy!" I say, "Now what are we s'posed to do?" Mandy shrugs but doesn't look sad. I know why. I point at her and say, "Don't think you're off the hook. We're just going to have to totally march back to that shop and tell the lady what happened so she can fix us anyway." Her eyes start to tear up. What a crybaby! "I don't wanna go back to that shop. I'm scared of it." I go to grab her arm to drag her to the door when I notice that we're both wearing matching charm bracelets. "Hey look!" I say. We ooh and awe at all the petty charms we have. We each have a kitten and a bunny and a pony and a heart and a snowflake and a little baby deer and a flower and a teapot and a turtle and a bell and a butterfly and, best of all, a cute little princess in a pretty dress. Then Mandy says, "You got sparkly earrings and a headband with kitty ears!" I look at Mandy and say, "You do too!" We run to the mirror to check ourselves out. The counter seems awfully high, but we can easily see ourselves. We both have dangly, glittery plastic earrings and sparkling headbands with kitty ears. We're just the cutest ever! That's when I see it. Mandy notices it too and we both stare in wonder at two identical six... five-year-old girls. We turn to each other and say in unison, "We're totally twins!" We scream and hug each other until I realize what we're supposed to be doing and push Mandy away. "This is wrong," I say. "No it's not," says Mandy. "It's totally perfect." "It's not s'posed to be perfect." "What more can that lady do to us?" "Seriously? I remember us being always twins, but I can also remember us being prepub... pwepu... almost gwown guwls. We wew even biggow befow that. I think we wew even boys befow. We'w changing all the time. All, all, all the time! We need ta get that lady ta fix us!" Mandy's face crinkles up and she sticks out her bottom lip. "I dun wonna be fixed! We'w pwetty and we have cute bwacelets and eawings and kitty eaws and we can play and have fun in the watow. You wanna weck it! You'w just a dumb stoopid head." She kicks off her flip-flops and runs to the door. I try to run after her but I trip on my flip-flops and fall. It hurts. I only cry a little. I get back up and kick off my flip-flops and run after her. I see her disappear in the crowd. I run after her. I can run fast. "Stoopid dumb head Mandy," I think because I'm smarter than her. I look for her a long time. Then I see her in the water. "I bet she wuined her spawkly kitty eaws," I grumble. I'm smart so I take mine off and leave it on the sand. I get there and see she has taken her kitty ears off too. She has a blue inflatable tube. It has yellow flowers all over it. I want it. "Wew did you get that?" I point at the blue tube with yellow flowers on it. "Found it." She frowns at me and says, "I din steal it. It was on the beach." "Okay. I think we'w asposta do somethin." I think as hard as I can. I'm smart. "Oh yeah. We need ta go 'n talk ta the scawy lady. She frowns harder. "No! I dun like haw. She's mean." "But we hafta. She needs ta fix us." Something bad will happen if she doesn't fix us. "Wanna play?" I want to play. The tube is pretty. "Ok!" It's very important that I play with the tube because it has yellow flowers on it. I jump down in the water. I don't need the lady to fix me. I have a sister and a pretty tube to play with. I'm going to play with it lots and lots. We yell and splash and take turns on the tube because it sinks when we both get on. We're too big for it together. We giggle because it's funny. We say the tube is baby size because babies are littler than we are. I tell Mandy, "We'w big guwls. We'w bettow than dumb little babies cuz we'w smawt and we can swim and play with tubes and babies can't play with tubes." We giggle some more. We see a mommy carrying a baby and Mandy whispers in my ear, "We don't need ta be caweed." "Yeah," I say. "We'w big." We giggle more. After a while, Mandy looks around and says, "We bin pwaying a wong time. Find Mommy?" I think about it because I'm smart. I miss Mommy. I say, "Yes! We find Mommy!" We get out of the water. We put our kitty ears on. We look for Mommy. We walk far. We can't find her. I look at Mandy. I talk. "What way is she?" She's scared. She talks. "I dunno." We look and see the shops. I point. I talk. "Mabee ovow thew." We come to a wood floor. All the shops are here. We don't see Mommy. We're scared. We hug. We cry. We want Mommy. We are hugging and crying. A lady with beads on her head finds us. I'm scared of her. She talks. "What are you two doing here? You're much too young to be without pirentil sopirvishon." She talks with big words. We want Mommy. Mandy puts her thumb in her mouth. She looks at the lady. She wants Mommy. I'm scared. I want Mommy. I talk. "Hi." She talks. "Hi there." I talk. "My name Candace Jensen." I point at Mandy. "Huw name 'manda. We live a' five-fouw-thwee Wegwess Woad. What yow name?" She smiles. I'm scared. I want Mommy. She talks. "I'm Tina. I see your mother koached you well in this reealaty." I let her hold my hand. Mandy lets her. We walk. She talks. "You two didn't do so well as boys. Let's see how you do as girls." She looks at Mandy. "No more shoplifting, right?" We can't lift a shop. Mandy talks. "Ooh-kay!" Her hair is short and soft. Her kitty ears look funny. I giggle. She giggles because I giggled. We giggle. It's funny. We want Mommy. The lady talks more. "I'm glad you didn't reetern my murchindise. You're both speshel now and have an opertoonitee to make a difrinse in this werold. Espeshelee you, Candice. So look after your sister." We giggle. The lady talks funny. We want Mommy. We see Mommy. We're happy. She runs to us. I'm smart. She's crying. We're not scared. She talks to lady. "Oh thank you, thank you! You fownd them. I turn my back on them for one moamint and they disipeir." Lady smiles. "You can't take your eyes off them for a sekind at this age. They'll just wondir off." Lady lets us go. We run to Mommy. We say, "Mama! Mama!" Mommy smiles at us. Joy, joy, joy. I hug leg. Mandy hugs leg. Mommy talks more to lady. I feel crinkly pooffiness between my legs. Lady says something. Mandy and me hug Mommy's legs more. We say, "Mama! They talk more. I want Mommy to pick me up. Mandy wants Mommy to pick her up. We want it, we want it. They stop talking. Mommy picks us up. Mommy grunts. We're big. Mommy walks with us. Mommy talks to us with nice-nice-voice. Mandy and me are happy. I like Mommy's pretty necklace. We get to where Mommy sits and looks at book-with-no-pictures. Mommy puts Mandy and me on blanket. I pee. Make pooffiness warm. I tell Mommy, "Ma-ma wuwupeepee bogobobu." Mandy giggles. She smells. I giggle. Mommy talks to us with nice-nice-voice. Mommy makes us lay down. We get new pooffiness. Nice-man comes. Nice-man talks to Mommy. I love him. Mandy and me say, "Da-da." They talk with nice-nice-voices. Mommy picks up Mandy. Mommy puts Mandy in little-wheels. Mommy picks me up. I grab pretty on Mommy's neck. Mommy slaps my hand. I cry. Mandy cries. Mommy puts me in little-wheels. Mandy and me are in little-wheels. Mommy pushes us to big-blue-car. Mommy takes us out of little-wheels. Mommy puts us in sittings. Mommy pulls flat-arms that snap-for-safe. Mandy and me are in big-blue-car. Mommy and Daddy are in front. We move with noise and things go by. We stop. Mommy gets us. Mommy carries us to door. Home. Mandy and me are empty. Mommy and Daddy talk. Mandy and me cry. Mommy talks with nice-nice-voice. Mandy and me cry. Mommy takes us to big-comfy. Mommy sits. Mandy and me cry. Mommy opens her front. I see the big-softs on Mommy. They give warm-good. Mommy puts a suckle in my mouth. Mommy puts a suckle in Mandy's mouth. Warm-good fills my mouth. Warm-good fills me. Mandy and me are warm-soft-full. Happy, happy, happy. Mandy and me close eyes. Mandy and me slee ...