"It should be in your records as Annalise Summernd," I expined. "But you're welcome to call me Lisa for short. And I'm using she-her pronouns from now on."

  My heart was racing and that muffin I ate a few minutes earlier felt like cold lead in my gut, but I was still doing my best to act calm and casual, like this sort of thing happened all the time. Which it sort of did, like I definitely wasn't the first trans student in the college. I wasn't even the first trans girl in this css.

  On the other hand I didn't have any good expnation as to how I'd changed so completely since the st time anyone else in the room saw me.

  The prof was sitting at his desk now with his ptop open, and he looked confused once again as he stared at his student list. I knew my new name would be there on his css list, and probably all his notes and everything else too. Odds were he was trying to figure out how all that even happened.

  After another second or two he finally shook his head and said, "All right then uh, Lisa. Sorry for calling you out in front of the css. Normally students speak with their profs in private first, so there's no surprises."

  That actually made a lot of sense, and if I'd hatched and started to transition normally I probably would have done just that. I couldn't exactly say that though, so I just nodded once. "Understood. Sorry for disrupting the css."

  Thankfully that was the end of the awkwardness, for now at least. Odds were I'd have to go through it all another half dozen times, with each of my csses and teachers. And probably a few more of my fellow students too.

  Speaking of my cssmates, over the next hour I caught almost all of them staring at me at one time or another. Most were just curious, and a few looked like they were checking me out. One looked almost envious, that was the other trans girl in the room. The two that worried me though were the ones who looked disgusted or hateful. The way they looked at me reminded me of Gwen's parents.

  I remained wary of those two through the rest of the css, even though I mostly tried to focus on the prof. Finally when everyone was packing up I braced myself for confrontation, but it wasn't the bigots who cornered me as soon as I was out in the hall. It was Kinsley, the other trans girl.

  She was actually built kind of simir to my original body, but a lot softer and prettier thanks to HRT. She stared down at me with an intense look in her eyes as she asked, "How? You have to tell me how you did this!"

  "At first I thought maybe it was a wig, make-up, some kind of professional make-over," she added. "But you're actually shorter! You're smaller than you were st week, and that's impossible! And up close I can see all this is real! Your hair, your face, all of it's real! How?!"

  Once again I had to suppress my anxiety as I looked up at her. My mind raced as I struggled for a moment to figure out how to handle the situation. I could have lied, or just walked away, but I was pretty sure I knew what she wanted. She wasn't angry with me, or hateful like those other students. She wanted to know how it happened, because she wanted some of it for herself.

  "I can't talk about it right now Kinsley," I finally responded. "And even if I could, a crowded hallway isn't the pce for it. We can talk ter though, ok? I've got too much going on right now, so give me a day or two? Then we can discuss things."

  She continued staring down at me with that intense look for another few seconds. Then she nodded slowly, "Alright Lisa. Thank you. And I'm sorry for getting all up in your personal space."

  "It's fine," I gave her a friendly smile, "I understand. Anyways I have to get to my next css."

  "Yeah same," Kinsley sighed. She looked me up and down once more, before turning and heading off.

  My second css went about the same as the first one, right down to the awkwardness and having to introduce myself to the teacher. Ms. Ellsworth was more of a bitch about things than Professor Davis, she deadnamed me and misgendered me a couple times before I reminded her of the college's policies on supporting LGBTQ students. After that came the usual curious stares from the other students, but luckily no-one caused me any trouble.

  As soon as I got out of Ellsworth's css I hurried through the crowded halls straight back to the cafeteria, and couldn't help smiling when I spotted my best friend waiting for me just outside the doors.

  "Hey Gwen," I greeted her happily. "How was your morning?"

  She smiled back, "Hi Lisa. Csses were ok, apart from some awkwardness. How about you?"

  "More or less the same," I grimaced.

  I wasn't actually that hungry but we got in line for some food anyways. I ended up grabbing a club sandwich while Gwen picked out a chicken wrap, and we both got bottles of water to drink. I insisted on paying for both of us, then we found somewhere to sit and started comparing notes as we ate.

  "Ellsworth was a bit of a bitch but Professor Davis seemed kind of cool," I said after a bite of my lunch. "It was awkward though. Especially when everyone was staring at me."

  Gwen nodded slowly as she munched on a bite of her wrap. Then she responded, "Both Professor Williams and Lysenko were alright after they got over the shock. And yeah, I know what you mean about the staring."

  "The weird thing was nobody actually doubted me, or even questioned that I was really me," she added. "Like they all seemed to recognize me, even though I look so different now."

  I had a gulp of water then told her, "Same. I really wasn't expecting that. In a way I can kind of see it? Like in the mirror I can see the family resembnce? But I really didn't think anyone else would notice."

  We ended up talking about that for a few minutes, how even Aleyna and other random cssmates I barely knew recognized me. Then I told her about the brief conversation with Kinsley and Gwen just nodded.

  "I had almost the same thing happen in my second css," she said. "Zach was really eager to find out how I did this, or how it happened to me."

  She sighed as she added, "I told him I couldn't talk about it right now, but I promised I'd let him know if that changed."

  I asked, "I take it he's trans? Or an egg?"

  Gwen nodded, "Trans guy. What do you think Lisa, can we do something for them? Zach and Kinsley, maybe other trans students too?"

  "I don't know yet," I grimaced. "I want to. I told Kinsley we'd talk more ter, like in a couple days maybe? It's not safe to reveal the ptop though, or all the other stuff we figured out. I kind of glossed over that in the documentation yesterday, but it sounded like not letting the general public know about this stuff was really important."

  My friend frowned, "There must be something we can do, some way we can help folks."

  I nodded, "We'll do what we can. I just -"

  A buzzing noise from my backpack cut me off, and I quickly fished out my phone in case Chelsea needed help. Sure enough it was a text from Chels, but fortunately she wasn't in any trouble.

  "Hey Lisa," she wrote, "Just checking in. This morning was awkward, lots of difficult questions. Doing ok though, I hope you & Gwen are alright too."

  While I was looking at that a second text came through, with two pictures attached.

  "Check out these x-rays! The first one is my skull, you can actually see the feline ear cavities. That means my brain must have been restructured to accommodate the differences! Pretty cool, right? Second one shows how my spine extends out into my tail & how it fits around my pelvis."

  Sure enough the two images were exactly as she'd described. The first showed a mostly-human skull, but with ear-holes on the top of the head instead of at the sides. And the other one showed the bone structure around the base of her tail, how it was an extension of her spine and everything.

  "Oh shit," I grimaced.

  Gwen looked worried, "What's wrong? Is Chelsea ok?"

  "She seems fine," I grimaced, "But I forgot she's studying health sciences? And of course they wanted to know how a real catgirl worked, so they stuffed her in an x-ray machine."

  "So much for keeping secrets from the general public," I sighed. Then I started tapping out a couple messages to Chelsea.

  "Gd you're ok Chels," I wrote back. "Me and Gwen are alright too."

  Then I added, "Please don't let anyone else examine you though ok? Is it possible to delete the x-rays or something? Didn't we say something about trying to keep this stuff secret?"

  Chelsea's response came back a half minute ter, "Don't worry Lisa! I've stuck to the story we discussed. Magic ntern, genie, 3 wishes. It's cool. Anyways gotta go, see you after css!"

  I sighed as I stuffed my phone back into the side pocket of my backpack, then had another bite of my sandwich.

  Gwen asked, "So what's going on? Is everything going to be ok?"

  "She's telling people a genie did it," I mumbled. "I asked her to try and delete the x-rays but I don't know if that's possible. Or how many people have already seen them. I knew something like this was going to happen, the whole catgirl thing was a mistake."

  My friend frowned, "Well don't panic just yet. Nothing bad's actually happened, right Lisa? I get you're worried, but there's no sense freaking out for no reason."

  I took a deep breath then slowly sighed, "Yeah ok. You're right. With luck whatever's going on with Chelsea at uni will just blow over, and everything will turn out fine."

  "I'm sure it will," Gwen replied with a hopeful smile.

  At least things seemed fairly quiet and stable for the two of us. We got through lunch without any trouble, and after that we had one of our shared csses. So the two of us headed off to Professor Nemeth's room together. She was already in there at her desk, so before we took our usual spots Gwen and I stopped to quietly re-introduce ourselves to the prof.

  Nemeth's eyebrows crept up as she looked back and forth, peering over her gsses at both Gwen and I. Then she asked the question nobody else had asked so far, apart from Kinsley. "How is this possible? What have you two done to yourselves?"

  Fortunately Gwen knew exactly what to say, because I kind of froze up for a moment.

  "Sorry ma'am but that's kind of an inappropriate question," my best friend replied quietly. "The specific details of our transitions count as private medical information."

  Professor Nemeth looked suitably chastised as she apologized, "Of course ah, Gwyneth. I'm sorry, you're right I shouldn't have asked. Why don't you and Lisa take your seats then?"

  I had to suppress a smile as we settled into our usual spots next to each other at the back of the room. I leaned closer to Gwen and whispered, "Good answer. I never would have thought of that one myself."

  She was holding back a smile of her own as she replied, "It's the truth. If we want people to use the right names and pronouns then we need to tell them /that/ we've transitioned. But when it comes to /how/ we transitioned that's personal. And if it retes to anything medical then there's ws protecting our privacy. Nemeth or any other prof who demanded access to those sorts of details could end up fired. Or at least facing some kind of discipline."

  "Good to know," I responded.

  The rest of the css went about the same as the earlier ones, meaning lots of awkward stares from the rest of the students. Except it almost seemed worse this time, maybe because there were two of us. Like when it was just me by myself, I could imagine students assuming I was simply dressed up as a girl for some reason. Like Kinsley said, she originally assumed I was wearing a wig and everything.

  Now it was both me and Gwyneth, and people knew we were best friends, so I was positive they all suspected there was something weird was going on with the two of us. The only question was, did they think we both had some professional make-overs to get into 'girl mode'? Or did they realize there was something even stranger going on.

  Despite all the awkwardness nobody actually confronted either Gwen or myself, so we really didn't have to deal with anything other than the funny looks and the curious staring.

  Then we split up again for our final csses of the day, which went about the same as all the others. And by that time I was almost used to it, so I took the stares in stride and just focused on the important stuff the prof was saying.

  When it was all over Gwen and I met up again by the front entrance, then as we headed outside I asked "How was your st css?"

  "It was fine," my friend replied. "Same as all the others. You?"

  "Yeah me too," I said as I pulled out my phone.

  I sent Chelsea a text to let her know we were done for the day, and asked how her afternoon went. I also asked if she was on her way to pick us up. The front of the campus was a busy spot with people coming and going, so Gwen and I moved a short distance away from the entrance.

  As we were walking she asked, "Do you still want to go talk to your boss about the ptop?"

  "That's the pn," I nodded. Then once we'd stopped I eborated, "I need to know where it came from, where he got it. I'd love to find out about the original owner? Except I'm also worried she might want it back."

  Gwen was about to reply but a couple third-year guys came past us just then, and both of them made a show of slowing down to check us out. For a moment I thought they were actually going to hit on us, but happily the two continued on their way a few seconds ter.

  I watched the guys walk away, then checked my phone again and frowned. "Nothing from Chelsea yet. I figured she'd text back to let me know she's ok, or that she's on her way."

  "Maybe she's driving?" Gwyneth suggested.

  "Maybe," I sighed.

  I couldn't help feeling anxious though, and that feeling only got worse as more minutes ticked past without any word from Chelsea.

  PurpleCatGirl