“What do you mean?” Kyle asked, stepping off the toilet. It left him standing behind her, his chest against her back in the small space.

  “I’m usually the girl with the toilet paper trailing behind her on her way out of the bathroom,” Claire explained with a wry twist of her lips.

  “Yeah well, she’s walking out with my date under her heel,” Jill said with disgust. “Kind of like Magda with Ted under her thumb.”

  “Maybe,” Kyle commented. “But I can’t think of a guy more deserving of Magda than Ted. God, what an arrogant ass he turned out to be.”

  “Yeah,” Claire agreed. “And I thought I had bad taste.”

  “Thank you very much,” Kyle said with amusement and Claire flushed.

  “I meant other than you, of course,” she amended. “Most of the guys I’ve dated—aside from you—have been total turds like Ted.”

  “Thank you very much for pointing out what bad taste I have,” Jill said shortly.

  “Oh, that’s not what I meant,” Claire said quickly.

  “Yeah. He had me fooled, too, Jill,” Kyle assured her.

  Slightly mollified, Jill sighed and gestured Claire out of the way. “Back up. I’ll go get the other picture. God! Why couldn’t it have been your picture she walked out with?”

  “Well I’m glad it was Brad,” Claire countered, backing into the small bit of space between the toilet and the side wall to leave room for Kyle and Jill to juggle around and get the stall door open. “I’m already Brad Cruise.”

  “Hardly,” Jill snorted, managing to struggle her way out of the booth.

  Claire frowned as the stall door swung closed on her back, then turned to Kyle to ask, “What does she mean, ‘hardly’?”

  Kyle hesitated, his expression pained.

  Jill’s voice came from the stall next door. “You’re only half changed.”

  Claire’s head jerked sideways at the announcement and then she tugged the stall door open and hurried to the mirror over the sink to peer at her reflection.

  “Oh my God,” Claire breathed with horror. Some of the features staring back at her were her own. She was looking at her green eyes and her little turned-up nose, but they rested above Brad Cruise’s mouth and chin with the five o’clock shadow. Her hair was a strange mix of short light brown hair and long red waves, and her body…well…it was a mishmash of Brad and Claire. She had the jacket and pants from his suit, but the pants ended above her knees and she also had boobs. They didn’t go well with the bulge between her legs that was his “package.”

  “This is a nightmare,” she breathed, no longer caring which picture it was so long as it was a whole somebody. She could not leave the bathroom looking like this, and while she could turn back to herself without a picture, she would be naked.

  “It’s all right,” Kyle murmured, slipping out of the stall to pat her back as he met her gaze in the mirror. “We’ll fix it with the other picture.”

  “Oh dear.”

  Claire turned sharply toward the stalls as Jill came out with the remaining picture in hand. “Oh dear, what?”

  “Nothing. It’ll be fine,” Jill said quickly, suddenly picking at the picture, then she paused and said, “Oh no.”

  “Oh no? Don’t say ‘oh no.’” Claire started forward to take the picture, but Jill suddenly frowned at her as if just realizing she was out of the stall.

  “What are you doing?” she cried. “Get back in the stall! Someone could see you.” Holding the picture out of Claire’s reach, she grabbed her with her free hand and wrestled her into the stall, then slammed the door behind them and sighed.

  “Jill?” Kyle asked from the other side of the door and she grimaced, then opened the door again and waved him in. She waited until they were all situated in their original places again before locking the stall door once more.

  “Tell me,” Claire ordered grimly.

  Jill sighed, then held out the snapshot. Claire snatched it from her hand, peered down and nearly bit off her own tongue. The picture had landed facedown on a wad of gum. The girl who had used the stall must have stepped on it because it had really been worked into the picture. When Jill had tried to pick it away, the image itself had ripped off the photo backing.

  “Hell,” Kyle muttered.

  “It will be all right,” Jill assured them both as she turned to the door. “Wait here.”

  “Wait here?” Claire grabbed at her arm with alarm. “Where are you going?”

  “The corner store is only a couple minutes away. I’ll get a fan magazine with a picture of Brad in it and be right back,” she assured her.

  “Brad? What about her? Do you have another picture of her?” Kyle asked with concern.

  “No. Unfortunately, we only took the one snapshot,” Jill admitted and Kyle turned back to Claire.

  “Can you do it without the picture?”

  “No,” she said on a sigh.

  “Have you tried?” Kyle asked and Claire smiled faintly, thinking he sounded just like his sister earlier that day when she’d been coaxing her to be Brad Cruise.

  “She can turn back into herself, but she’ll end up naked without a picture to look at,” Jill announced.

  “Naked?” Kyle’s gaze flickered over her in such a way she thought he might be picturing her that way. And might not necessarily think it was a bad thing.

  “What time is it?” Claire asked suddenly.

  “I don’t know. Why?” Jill asked with confusion.

  “I was just wondering how much of this double date from hell I’ve spent in the bathroom,” she admitted, and Kyle, who had glanced at his wristwatch, now let it drop to his side without telling the time. That long, she thought with a sigh.

  “Look, you two wait here and I’ll go get a magazine at the store,” Jill repeated.

  “No. Enough of this nonsense,” Kyle said. “She’s not turning back into Brad. She’s supposed to be Claire now.”

  “Well she isn’t Claire now, and surely a full Brad is better than a Brad with boobs for getting her out of here?” Jill pointed out. “We can leave, then I’ll take her home and she can change into herself and put on the dress and come back to finish the date with you.”

  While the twins continued to argue, Claire peered down at herself with a frown, recalling the incident on the dance floor when she’d accidentally made her boobs grow and then shrink. Could she do it again? Squeezing her eyes closed, she concentrated on making them go away and leaving her flat-chested.

  “Oh man that is so awesome!”

  Claire blinked her eyes open at Jill’s words and peered down to find her chest flat.

  “Can you make them grow?” Jill asked curiously.

  “I believe she did on the dance floor tonight,” Kyle said dryly, and Claire felt herself flush.

  “It was an accident,” she admitted.

  “Do you know how cool this is?” Jill asked with disbelief. “A boob job without silicone or surgery. Oh Kyle, can I get zapped, too?”

  “Jill!” Claire cried, staring at her with disbelief.

  “No,” Kyle said firmly at the same time.

  Jill chose to respond to Kyle’s answer, asking a plaintive “Why not?”

  “We don’t know what side effects there are,” he said as if explaining things to a child. “There could be all sorts of repercussions to this kind of molecular alteration. Her cells are now unstable, they might—”

  When he paused abruptly, Claire finished what he was reluctant to say. “They might yet break apart altogether and leave me a puddle of goo.”

  They were all silent for a minute, then Jill asked, “You’re kidding, right?”

  Kyle reached out to caress Claire’s cheek, then cleared his throat and changed the subject. “You did that without a picture. Do you think you could change yourself back to yourself in a dress without a picture?”

  Claire hesitated, not at all certain she could manage the trick. Her boobs were…well…her boobs. But he was talking about the whole body.

  “Never mind,” Kyle said suddenly. “I don’t want you to do too much shifting until we’re sure that it doesn’t cause the cells to destabilize further.”

  “You mean her switching back and forth tonight might have been dangerous?” Jill asked with dismay.

  Claire frowned at the possibility. It was something she hadn’t considered.

  “I don’t know,” Kyle admitted. “This is all new ground and I’m not sure what could happen. Nothing has happened to the animals so far, but they’ve only been changing color, not shifting their shapes.”

  Jill looked briefly stricken that this favor Claire had done her might have been dangerous and harmful, then she shook her head. “That’s it then, switch back to yourself.”

  “I’ll be naked,” Claire pointed out with alarm.

  “You can wear Kyle’s suit jacket,” Jill suggested.

  “I am not walking out of here wearing nothing but Kyle’s suit jacket,” Claire said emphatically.

  Kyle cleared his throat and said, “I’m afraid there are only two choices here…No, three,” he corrected himself.

  “Which are?” Claire asked warily, sure she wouldn’t like any of them.

  “One: you and I can stay here and wait while Jill drives home and fetches you some clothes.”

  Claire grimaced at the suggestion. Too many embarrassing situations could come out of that. They were two men in a women’s washroom, after all. Well, one and a half men, she supposed.

  “Two: you can leave here as you are,” Kyle continued, but his expression suggested this wasn’t really an option at all. Having seen herself, Claire had to agree, so she didn’t even bother to comment. Instead, she prompted, “Or?”

  “Or, three: you can change back to yourself and leave here naked with my jacket on,” he finished with a shrug.

  “No offense,” Claire said unhappily. “But those options all suck.”

  Turning away, she leaned her head against the cool metal of the stall wall and tried to think of something herself.

  “What?” Jill asked when Claire suddenly stiffened. “You have an idea?”

  “Maybe. What if you went and got one of the phoebuses and I shifted into one of the teachers. I could leave here, then we could go get another present-day photo of me and—” She paused at the thunderous expressions on the faces of both Lockharts. They looked furious that she would even suggest the extra shift. “Never mind. Okay, Kyle give me your jacket.”

  All three of them were forced to shift and bend and juggle about to allow him to remove the suit coat, and then to do so again as she donned it. They were all hot and sweaty and relieved when it was done.

  “Okay, shift,” Jill instructed once Claire had the jacket on over her Brad/Claire body.

  Claire closed her eyes and concentrated on being herself.

  “Honest to God, Claire. You’re the only woman I know who could make a man’s jacket look sexy.”

  Claire blinked her eyes open at Jill’s words.

  “Am I me?” she asked, glancing down at herself, eyebrows rising at just how short the jacket was on her. Dear God, she wasn’t going to be bending over any time soon.

  “Oh yeah, you’re you,” Kyle said huskily, and Claire flushed under his admiring glance.

  “Oh please,” Jill said. “Let’s get out of here. I can smell the hormones starting to ooze out of the two of you. And while I love you both, I’d rather not think of either of you naked doing the wild thing, especially not together.” She ended her comment with a delicate little shudder of distaste that made both Claire and Kyle grimace.

  “Go check and be sure the hall is empty first, Jill,” Kyle suggested.

  “Oh right. Be right back.” She had barely slid from the stall when Kyle turned Claire into his arms and covered her mouth with his.

  Claire gasped in surprise at the abrupt action and Kyle took advantage of her open mouth and thrust his tongue inside.

  “Oh God!” Jill’s exclamation drew them apart. “Can’t you at least wait until you get her to the car?”

  Claire flushed as they turned to face Kyle’s sister, and Jill shook her head.

  “The coast is clear if you want to leave. Or the two of you could just do it right here in the girls’ bathroom and get it over with. Honestly!” Turning, she stomped back to the door muttering, “He waits forever to finally ask her out, then he’s all over her. Mr. Octopus. Hands everywhere. It really is the quiet ones you have to watch.”

  Biting her lip, Claire hurried after Jill, aware that Kyle was at her back. She could feel his gaze traveling over the back of her bare legs and was grateful the jacket covered at least her behind.

  “Damn,” Kyle muttered several moments later as they stared at the third exit door they’d approached since leaving the washroom. This, like the two before it, was chained shut.

  “The door by the gymnasium must be the only one they left open tonight,” Jill suggested.

  “They should have a second door unlocked in case of fire,” Kyle said with a frown.

  “Maybe they do, on the other side of the gym,” Claire suggested.

  Both Kyle and Jill peered at her, their gazes sliding over her skimpy wear. They had managed to avoid being seen so far. The first door they had tried had been the only one with any real risk of being seen. The last two were down halls no one had any real business being down, including themselves under normal circumstances.

  “The gym bisects this end of the school,” Kyle pointed out. “The only way to get to the other side is through the gym.”

  “Or across the stage,” Claire said.

  Kyle blinked. “I forgot about the stage,” he acknowledged. The small gymnasium was used for plays as well as sports, or had been when they’d attended Murphy High.

  “It’s curtained off tonight.” Jill began to grin. “We can sneak across it to the other side and slip out unseen.”

  “Okay.” Kyle took an arm of each of them and turned back the way they’d come.

  Luck seemed to be on their side, and they reached the door to the back of the stage unseen. All three of them sighed with relief as they slipped into the dark alcove at the foot of the stairs leading onstage…until the door closed, leaving them in utter blackness.

  “I can’t see a thing,” Jill complained in a whisper, her hand grabbing at Claire’s arm.

  “Just wait here a minute until our eyes adjust,” Kyle suggested. They waited several minutes, listening to someone giving a speech in the gymnasium itself. From the alcove, the voice was really just a low incomprehensible drone occasionally punctuated by clapping or laughter from the reunion attendees, but it was soothing in its tenor.

  “Okay,” Kyle said after several useless moments had passed and their vision didn’t improve. “I guess this is as good as it gets. I’ll lead the way. Claire, you take my hand. Jill, you hold on to Claire.”

  Claire almost protested that she couldn’t hold the jacket closed if both her hands were occupied, but then let the matter drop. After all, it was so dark, no one would be able to see if the coat hung open. She’d just retrieve her hand before they slipped out through the door on the opposite side.

  Kyle moved very slowly up the stairs to the stage. Claire followed just as slowly, carefully feeling out each step as she drew Jill behind her. Once on the stage itself, it was less difficult; the flat floor was easier to negotiate. It was also easier to hear the speech being given on the other side of the curtain up here, though Claire was too tense to listen as she blindly followed Kyle’s firm hand.

  Claire never considered that there might be anything on the stage itself to trip them up. Presumably, Kyle didn’t either, for he moved a bit more quickly as they crossed the floor, trading caution for speed. When he suddenly came to a halt with a grunt of surprise, Claire crashed into his back, then stumbled to the side, their handhold briefly broken. Before she could tumble to the stage floor to alert those beyond the curtains that someone was onstage, she crashed into Kyle and his hands closed around her waist, steadying her.

  “Sorry,” Claire whispered, relaxing against him.

  “What happened?” Jill hissed, tightening her hold on her hand.

  “We ran into something.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know,” Claire whispered.

  “Who is that?” a baritone voice asked over her head and Claire stiffened. That wasn’t Kyle’s voice. The hands around her tightened as if sensing she would try to break free, and Claire began to struggle in earnest, then stilled and blinked as she realized it was growing lighter…Fast.

  “I give you your Prom King and Prom Queen from 19—” The voice died mid-year and Claire whirled around as the hands holding her suddenly dropped away.

  “Oh God,” Claire heard Jill breathe as the stage lights suddenly went on, blinding them to the sight of the people staring at them…but highlighting them on the stage.

  “You’re not Claire!”

  Claire’s hands had gone up to shield her eyes the minute the lights blinked on. Now she turned her head toward that startled comment from Kyle and saw him almost off the stage with Magda by the hand. The blond was wearing a long red robe over her dress and a tiara on her head. She also had a furious expression on her face that said she wasn’t pleased.

  “Claire?”

  She glanced over her shoulder at the man who had caught her when she’d stumbled and found herself staring at Jack McCarthy, the football player she’d dated in high school. He, too, wore a robe over his suit, but his head was topped by a crown.

  Prom King and Prom Queen, Claire recalled the speaker saying. Magda and Jack had been the Prom King and Prom Queen the year they’d all graduated. Obviously they’d been waiting back here in their robes and crowns to be presented to their cograduates. Kyle must have stumbled into one of them, and the moment their hands had broken apart, confusion had set in. He’d ended up dragging Magda offstage, and she’d ended in Jack’s arms.

  The silence that had gripped the gymnasium suddenly gave way to the roar of shouts and clapping. It was so loud, Claire almost didn’t hear Jill’s shout. She did however, notice the way she was trying to pull the lapels of Kyle’s suit coat closed over her nakedness.