The bus was, like usual, mostly empty.  No new faces on it.  But that wasn't very surprising, in-and-of itself; I was one of the first stops.  I sat down, and Jennifer took a seat further away from me, presumably not wanting to talk to me again.  She slipped on some headphones, and started listening to some music.

I just sat in silence.  I wouldn't call myself anti-technology, but I'm definitely behind, even as a teenager.  I have a Facebook account only in essence, having a grand total of zero posts (nor even sending a friend request, for that matter, though I did have some).  Titter?  Nope.  Tumblr?  No.  Instagram?  Nope.  Snapchat?  No way.  I enjoyed listening to music, but, unlike some people, I didn't feel that I had to spend every quiet second drowning out the outside world and shutting everything out.  I just enjoyed the silence, I guess.

We arrived at school.  I got of the bus, and walked to my classroom.  I once heard my dad tell me a story, where, when he was a kid, they actually had more than one class.  They actualy learned things, like history, and English, and science.  That sounded interesting.  He said most of it was a waste of time, but I don't care.  It'd be more exciting than spending all day doing vitrually the same thing; teambuilding activities, then lessons on the Grand Revolution, followed by "patriotic" messages about how if our country was continus to prosper, the Chosen Man of the community would have to dedicate all his time to making babies.  'Why do this?' I thought.  'Why waste all this time and money turning everyone into women, just so we can have one guy, who's the only one who can make babies?'  Though I thought it, I never dared voice my opinions, or risk certain improsonement in "reconditioning camp," as it was rather euphamistically called.  These thoughts passing through my head, I entered the classroom, sat down, opened up The Lords of Discipline, and began to read.  I was, like usual, the first person in the classroom, most people preferring to socialize.  After a couple of pages, I heard someone else come into the room.  I waited to finish my paragraph, and then looked up to see who it was.

"Hey," Jessica said, smiling at me.

"Hi," I responded, beginning to look back at my book.

"What are you reading?" she asked.

"It's called 'The Lords of Discipline,'" I said, pointing at the cover, "by Pat Conroy."

"Oh," she said.  "I've never heard of it.  What's it about?"

"Well," I said, "I'm not very far in to it, but I'll give you a summary."

I noticed, then, that she was still standing, though she soon sat down in the seat next to me.

"So, the main guy in the book, Will McLean, goes to this school in South Carolina called the Carolina Military Institute.  He says the first year's always tough, but some friends help him along the way.  He meets Tradd St. Croix, who's from a very wealthy and inlfuential Charlestonian family.  But Tradd's not much of an army guy; he's really just there to prove his dad wron.  Another friend it 'Pig.'"

"Pig?" she laughed.

"Well, that's his nickname.  Anyway, he's this huge tough guy.  His last friend is Mark.  Will's already graduated from the school, but came back to give some speech to the new 'plebes,' as they call their freshmen.  He's also there to make sure the school's first black kid isn't bullied."

"Why would that be a problem?" she asked.

"This book is set in a time when segregation was still taking place."

A blank look registered on her face.

"Black people were treated differently."

"Why?"

"Because people were racist.  It's just how they were."

The classroom was beginning to fill with more people.  I wanted to finnish this conversation.

"Anyway, Will's there to make sure he's not bullied.  But while Will's heading home from dinner at Tradd's family's house, he meets this mysterious girl, who refuses to tell him her name, but keeps ranting about how he's an 'outsider,' who shouldn't be parking on her street.  In the end, he finds out that her name's Annie Kate, and she's just being mean with him as a way to get to talk to him."

"What next?" Jessica asked.

"Well, I don't know," I said, almost exasperated.  "I'm just over 60 pages in."

"Oh," she said.

I looked around; the classroom was nearly full.  That meant that class was starting within the next minute or so.  Just then it dawned on me that Mrs. O'Leary had set the desks in groups of five.  I had just chosen a random group, in the back middle of the classroom.  Being more observant than I was, all of my group sat with me.  All of it, that is, except Hannah.

As the bell rang, and Hannah ran inside, gasping for air.

"Any later, Mrs. King," Mrs. O'Leary said, "And you'll be locked out."

Being locked out was a bad thing, or so we've been told.  Supposedly, you'll never be seen or heard from again.  I sat there, silently wondering what they did to you.  I began to stare off into space, formulating improbable scenarios of tall dark figures in black hoods chasing after me with scythes, or some machine that shredded anyone in the hall to pieces.  Suddenly, I noticed something.

Something seemed a bit off.

I glanced out the winow: the cars were all stopped, not moving.  I looked around the classroom: it was as if someone had taken a picture, and put us in it: a boy in the corner caught mid-sneeze; Mrs. O'Leary was smack in the middle of screaming something, and the rest of the class was standing.  I looked back at Mrs. O'Leary, and noticed she was pointing at me.  'Darn it!' I thought.  I had zoned out in the middle of the Pledge to the New Country.  But that wasn't my main concern right now.  I stood up.

This was crazy.  Everything-and I mean everything-was frozen.

And I was chosen.  I was the man - the one man - seleted for The Turnover.

"I wondered how long they'll stay frozen," I said, to on one in particular.

I looked around some more.  Jessica was wearing a cute t-shirt, and some jeans just a little tighter than yesterday's.  Hannah had on a tight tank-top, and yet another pair of utra-skinny, skin tight jeans.

"Dear lord," I said, continuing to talk to myself.  "Look's like she was poured in to those things!"

I continued surveying the people around me.  Stephanie had on a cute dress.  It was yellow, and was roughly knee length.  Then, I looked over at Nataline.  She was wearing some skinny jeans and some high-heel boots.  The boots had a three-inch heel.  That would make her 6'1" tall, compared to my 5'7".

Suddenly, a thought entered my head.

I slowly sauntered closer to Nataline.  I reached out and touched her arm, and then quickly pulled away.  Nothing.  I placed my arm on her shoulder, and tried shaking her.  She stood still, not moving.

At six inches taller than me, her nose was at the top of my head.  Those heels made her legs even longer, and her hips were around my mid-stomach.  Then a thought entered my head: 'I wonder how she'd look without that jacket on.'

She'd said yesterday she wore a D-cup.  I just couldn't picture it with her jacket on.  I reached up, and started unzipping her jacket.  Suddenly, I froze.  What if she-no, what if everyone-unfreezes.  In the middle of me checking out Nataline.  I just cast the thought aside and hoped it wouldn't happen.

I was nearly halfway done: I had finishd unzipping her jacket.  Underneath, she wore a simple, tight white tank top, and a black bra that I could see though the tight fabric.  The problem was that her arm was stood straight up, in the Bellamy Salute that the country had adopted after the Revolution.  I pulled half of her jacket off of her lowered arm, but her other arm was too far away: it was extended nearly 7' up in the air.

Deciding with reslution that I was going to see her jacketless, I clambered up on to a desk, and began pulling.  It was all going smoothly, until it got caught around her wrist.  After pulling a little too forcefully, I lost my balance, and went toppling straight towards her.  As I looked were I was falling, I couldn't have chosen a better spot.  My face went straight into her lucious breasts.  I noted, strangely, that while the rest of her body was rock-solid, her breasts remained bouncy and full.  I quickly found that result to be universal after a quick jab at Hannah's chest.

Though I had fallen, I had held on to the jacket, and managed to pull it off.  Without her stupid jacket on, she actually looked pretty good.  Actually, scratch that.  She looked really good.  I was going to investigate her body further, until I noticed a vague humming noise.  It sounded like it was coming from the hallway.  I walked out to the hallway, following the noise.  I searched all over for the noise, but I couldn't seem to find it.  I checked the pool and gym (which were both unfortunately empty at the time), the band room, and even the janitor's closet, or as it was titled, "housekeeping."  I looked around the mobile units, the sports fields, everywhere, or so I thought.  I had never paid it much attention before, but now, I was sure it was the source of the humming noise.

"It" was a tight, steep, dimly-light downward staircase, under one of the school buildings.  Infact, I had never even noticed it before.  I walked down the stairs, and turned the corner at the bottom.  There, directly to the left, was a door, titled "900 Hall," which was strange, because I thought my school only had 8 halls, inlcuding the auditorium as a hall.  I slowly turned the doorknob and looked in.  Inside was a dark room with an extremely dingy looking, boxy old computer-like system.  It all had a very WarGames's NORAD-esque feel to it.  It was all black plastic, and on the screen, in green letters, flashing something.

"Would you like to play a game?" I said, jokingly moking the movie to myself.  When I walked up, I was much less impressed.

"PRESS 'START'" was flashing at me.

I looked around, and eventualy found the start button.

Then, on the screen, the words "SELECT FIVE (5) PEOPLE" showed up on the screen, followed by five long blanks to enter the names.

'Why?' I wondered.  "What for?" I asked outloud, as if the machine would answer me.  'What if it wants five people to kill them?' 'Or,' I thought, thinking back to Nataline, 'make them better looking?'

For no real reason, I just entered the names in my group: STEPHANIE, HANNAH, NATALINE, JESSICA, WILL, and hit enter.  The machine flashed a message at me: "YOU CANNOT CHOOSE YOURSELF"

"Fine," I said.  I typed "JENNIFER."

As soon as I typed that, the machine shut off, and retracted into the wall.  The door closed behind me.  I was trapped in the darkness.  I heard some noises, like smoke machines going off, and then I passed out.

I woke up in a closet.  From the sounds of the outside (and my stomach), it was time for lunch, and I was in the cafeteria.  I stood up, and opened the door: there was a sea of girls.  Everywhere I looked, girls, girls, girls.  There were some other things in noticed: they were all five feet tall.  They all also had the same body, which was ok, but not fantastic.  As I walked out, some girls pointed at me.

"Here's the guy!  Here's the guy!"

Soon, there was a whole heard of girls around me, bouncing around and going "he's the guy!"  From the looks of most girls, their clothes didn't change with them.  Many girl's clothes was hardly holding on to them, but there were on or two freshman girls who's clothes was now too tight.

Looking around, I could see some of the girls I used to know as guys.  I walked up to the girl who was once my friend Mike.

"Hey, man, what's up?"

"Oh, my God!" she said to one of her friends.  "He's talking to me!"

Clearly, they didn't remember me.  I decided to walk off to try and find my sister or my group mates, realizing that those girls were the closest things I had to friends left.

It wasn't too hard to look for them, though, considering that for one of the first times in my life, I loomed over everyone.  I finally found my sister sitting at a table, together with my group.

As I walked up to them, something looked a little off.  It wasn't just that I was used to seeing them bigger.  They seemed... tiny.  I walked up to them.  'God, please tell me they still have their memories.'

"Hey Will," Nataline said.  Her jacket was still off.  It would probably swallow her if she tried to wear it.

"Hey," I said, sitting down next to Jennifer.

I didn't realize quite how small they were until I was sitting next to them.  Even sitting, my head was a good two-to-three inches over their heads.

"God, y'all must be four feet tall!" I said.

"Yeah," Stephanie replied, glumly. "We are."

"And there's nothing we can do to change it," Jennifer said.  "Why us?" she said, almost in tears.

'Nothing, huh?'  I thought to myself.  Deep down in my mind, gears started turning, accessing the memory of a story my father once told me.

"Follow me," I told the girls.