Ricky turned and saw the Headmaster looking at him over the top of his half-moon glasses.
“Sir?”
“My study, now, please, young man.”
Ricky went.
Howard closed the door.
Ricky stood in front of the desk, wondering what he had been caught at this time. The head was writing on something.
“Just a moment.”
Ricky looked out of the window, and saw Sally and Kayla outside by the art rooms. They were having a heated discussion by the look of it. Kayla had her back to the window, but he could tell it was she. No one else had the long, almost white blonde hair, like her.
The headmaster looked up.
“You’re young Kyle Manning’s friend, aren’t you?”
“Yes sir.”
“Good. He’s calling me in a few minutes, and he asked for you to be here.”
Mike looked out of the window, noticing that the girls were still there. The phone rang. The head answered it, spoke briefly and handed it over to Ricky.
“Hi Ricky, it’s Kyle. How are you mate?”
Ricky stared out of the window. Kayla was standing there, in full view of everyone. He’d been wrong, hideously wrong!
“Hi Kyle. Shit man, am I pleased to hear from you! How’s it going?”
“Good. It’s very different. I have to work hard, as the syllabus isn’t the same. So I have to keep in contact with the school. How’s Kayla?”
“She’s fine. I’m looking out the window at her as we speak.”
“Cool. I spoke to her last night. I hear she’s gone soft on Pete Groves.”
“Yeah, shows very poor taste, if you ask me. Shit, Kyle, she could be your sister!”
“Really?”
“Yeah. She’s very like you. I even thought she was you for a moment.”
“No? You dick. She’s a girl, Bozo, or hadn’t you noticed?”
“I noticed, I just thought….” Ricky tailed off. What did he think?
He watched as Sally and Kayla walked into the art room, arm-in-arm, as always.
“Shit man, you went so fast. I really miss you, when are you coming back?”
“Not sure, after the end of term, I suppose.”
“What are the babes like?”
“Blonde,” Kyle said, and Ricky heard his distinctive chuckle.
“Take care, and be good. Thanks for calling, man.”
“Yeah, you too. Bye.”
Ricky handed the phone back to Mr Granger.
“Thank you sir.”
“You’re welcome. Now, aren’t you late?”
“Sir!” Ricky took off at a run.
Amanda Jenner, model, actress and Howard Granger’s niece, handed the long blonde wig to Sally in the empty art room. She then returned the clothes she had been wearing, slipping her own back on.
“So, what is this all about?”
“Can’t tell you, but it’s very important. I’ll tell you when it’s all over.”
Amanda chuckled.
“I’ve heard of practical jokes, but this is weird.”
“Thanks, you have no idea how important this is.”
“Okay, see you.”
Kayla came out of the small office, from which she had called the Headmaster’s study. She got dressed silently.
“Well?” Sally asked.
“I think he bought it.”
“Think?”
“It’s hard to be sure. He told me everything, his suspicions and everything.”
“Then he did, thank fuck for that!”
“We’ve got to be so careful,” said Kayla.
“You particularly. Your accent slipped, that’s what got him going!”
“Have you any idea how hard it is to speak your own language with a foreign accent?”
“I know, kid, but you have to keep it going!”
“Besides, he caught me with my guard down.”
Sally noticed that Kayla was even speaking with the accent at that moment.
They walked out together, on looking up; Ricky’s pale face was evident, looking at them from the science block.
“We got him!”
Yeah, but for how long?” asked Kayla.
The weeks shot past. Ricky had gone all quiet after the head’s intervention. The conspirators knew it was a matter of time before he became suspicious again, but it had bought them some time.
Kayla had become engrossed with her studies, her Swedish language lessons with her grandmother and her relationship with Pete. Interspersed with this were various social events and shopping trips with her new girlfriends. Kayla’s feet hardly touched the ground, as she found a completely different life opened up for her.
As time went on, her ‘English’ improved, allowing her to drop the outrageous accent to an easier one, and cutting the number of mistakes she had to make deliberately. The strange fact was, with all the Swedish she used inside Ingrid’s house, she was able to think in Swedish as fast as in English, and the accent became more natural and permanent. When she tried to speak English without it, she found it very hard. This helped in her campaign to confuse Ricky.
Howard and Jake had another meeting and, with Ingrid’s help, a fresh avenue of attack was developed.
10.
Kayla didn’t want to wake up. She felt very groggy, slightly nauseous and in pain. However, as she kept trying to slip back into the peaceful blackness of sleep, someone kept trying to wake her up.
Dimly her mind reminded her of why it was important she wake up, but part of her wanted to stay asleep. However, the nasty person who was persistently shaking her gently wasn’t going away, so she reluctantly forced herself to wake up.
Opening her eyes took an extreme effort, and she instantly shut them again as the light was bright.
“Hello Kayla, welcome back,” said a voice.
She opened her eyes and focussed on the face that swam into her distorted vision.
With the blue medical cap and gown, it took her a while to recognise Mr Sweeney.
“We’re all done, but I need you to listen to me for a while. Do you remember where you are?”
Kayla frowned, as she thought for a moment. Her mind was like cold treacle, but she nodded.
“The Garden Clinic.”
“Good, can you remember who I am?”
“Mr Sweeney.”
“Excellent. You will be going back to your room now, I will let you sleep for a while, then I’ll tell you all about it. But don’t worry, there’s no doubt that you are a girl!”
Kayla lay back on the trolley as it was pushed back to her room. She was asleep before she got there and woke up sometime later.
Her mother was sitting in an armchair, reading a magazine. The curtains were pulled and the lights were quite low. Kayla had no idea of the time.
She had come to the clinic on the previous evening, as a result of her appointment with Mr Sweeney that very morning. The appointment had been a bit of a shock to Kayla, who’d expected an experience similar to the previous one.
However, Mr Sweeney had been quite concerned at the results of the scans that had been undertaken during his time away.
“You, young lady are very complex. I want to get in there as quickly as possible, to sort you out. Now, this is important, have you experienced any pain or discomfort over the last few weeks?”
“Actually, yes. Not pain as such, but certainly discomfort.”
“Go on.”
“Well, here, in my lower tummy, I have felt sort of pressure and a kind of bloated feeling. Some mornings it feels like I needed the toilet, but even after I’d been, the feeling was still there.”
“Any bleeding?”
“I don’t think so.”
Mr Sweeney examined her, noting the slightly larger breasts and further reduction of what she’d thought were male genitalia. In fact, she found wearing the breast forms quite uncomfortable now, as her own breasts, although still small, were sufficiently large to add to the pressure in her bra.
Mr Sweeney showed her the results of the MRI scan. It meant little to her, but it was odd seeing slices of her body in cross section. He pointed out several anomalies.