Micharosa

"Another day of school." Mike muttered in disgust, scuffed sneakers scraping on the sidewalk as he shuffled toward the school building. He knew better than to be late, but as long as he had plenty of time before the first bell, he did not want to make it look like he was in any kind of hurry. It was the same classes, day in and day out anyway.

He kicked a pebble and watched it bounce. It was only as it came to a halt that he realized it was no ordinary pebble. It was blue-green and seemed to almost glow in the early morning sunlight. He hurried over to it, but misjudged his foot and kicked it under a hedge. He wanted it so bad.

"Come back here!" Mike grunted, crawling into a small space in the hedge. Where was it? It was so dark in the hedge. He yelped as he suddenly tumbled, head over heels and everything, through the hedge and into a manicured garden. The temperature was warmer and more pleasant than the fall morning he had left behind and he could not shake the feeling he was somewhere else.

As Mike got to his feet, he looked around. His eyes fell on a girl standing there before him in a dress. Not just any dress, but an enormous dress that fell to the grass at her feet and looked elegant, beautiful, too many words that Mike did not even know the meaning of.

"Who are you?" They spoke at once and Mike realized something more about the girl. She looked like him. Almost uncannily so! Same eyebrows, same hazel eyes, same lips, even the same hair. His hair was long for a boy, but short for a girl, yet this girl in her fancy dress had his haircut! "Who are you?" She repeated.

"Mike. Uh, who are you?"

"Princess Micharosa." He snorted as she curtsyed. So dorky! Girls were ridiculous. Wait...

"Did you say princess? Like, as in, an actual?"

"Been one all my life." She giggled and swayed habitually, her dress flowing back and forth. "But frankly, I'm sick of it. It's day in and day out of lessons, lessons, and more lessons." Mike could not help but feel a sense of familiarity.

"So? You're sick of it?"

"I am." She replied. "So I cast a spell to bring someone here to take my place."

"Ok? Wait, a spell?"

"Of course. I just never expected." She looked him up and down. "Never expected a boy! You are a boy, aren't you?"

"Yeah! Duh!" Mike looked over his clothes.

"Strange." She mused. "Still, that would explain your peculiar trousers." She clapped her hands imperiously. "Well, no matter. You've been brought here as my replacement, so shall you be."

"What? Your replacement?"

"Yes." She seemed so sure of herself.

"This has to be some kind of joke, right? I mean, I've never heard of a princess who can use magic. Not in real life."

"I can assure you that I am a real princess and I used real magic to bring you here. To take my place. We'll trade lives."

"I don't want your life." She shrugged.

"Tough. I won't be sending you home. In fact, if you don't agree to my terms, I shall have to summon my guards and you'll live out a miserable, albeit short, life in the dungeons." She smiled slyly. "I might come visit you, but it's unlikely."

"Or?"

"Or," she said, nodding in a dignified manner he never could. "Or we trade clothes, I go back to your world and you become the princess of this land." He sputtered.

"Princess? Me?"

"Yes. A dream come true, I'm sure."

"Yeah, right." He scoffed. "I can't be a princess."

"Sure you can. We look identical. The spell would only have brought you here if we did." She smiled. "So, disrobe and we'll trade clothes."

"But"

"Enough argument." She clearly was not used to anyone resisting her orders. "You will disrobe." She began to weave her fingers in and out of each other in a strange way. Mike shivered and realized that he was naked. Even his underwear lay bunched up and discarded on the grass. He covered himself as memories of casually undressing as if he was in his bedroom washed over him. "There, now we'll just put my dress on you and we'll be set for you to begin your life as a princess.'

"But I can't! I'm a guy!" His fingers tensed around his crotch and the princess laughed.

"Don't worry. All of my, I mean your dresses now. All of your dresses are so wonderfully full and fluffy that no one will ever be able to tell you're not a girl. Just you wait until you see them! Closets upon closets full of dresses, all in exactly our size." She eyed his discarded clothes almost covetously. “No trousers for me.”

"But I don't act like a princess." Why was he putting up with this? He turned back toward the hedge, but there was no sign of how to go back. And how could he when he was naked? He blushed. “I don’t!” He insisted

"Trust me, you will." She rolled her eyes. "I have so many tutors for deportment and all that stuff. They can't strike you, being a princess, so all they can do is make you curtsy or walk around with books on your head over and over and over again." She sighed. "In a few weeks, maybe a month tops, you'll be 100% a princess." She giggled and kissed his cheek. As she pulled away, he realized she now wore his hoodie and jeans and he... he wore the ridiculous floofy dress! Squirming from embarrassment, he felt something soft against his skin. Oh, god. He was even wearing her underwear, a girl’s underwear! "By that point, only thing you won't be able to do like me is magic, but that would only let you bring me back here to make me swap back." She smiled sweetly at him. "Isn’t this great? I truly never dreamed the spell would find a boy who looked like me, but what can you do?"

"But you can't."

"Sure I can. I'm a princess." She grinned impishly. "Tell you what. We'll make a deal. You just try out the princess life for a bit and then I'll come back and we can decide from there."

"How long's a bit?"

"How long do you want?" She shrugged impassively. "Six months? A year?"

"A year?" He exclaimed in disbelief.

"Oh, wow!" The former princess said in delighted surprise that almost sounded genuine. "A year it is. Your choice, not mine!" She turned to leave.

"Hey! That's not what I - come back here! You can't!" He growled. "I'm a princess, aren't I?" She turned and gave him that impish grin.

"That's the spirit, cutie. Only problem is, you're not the princess in charge of me." She vanished and the next thing he knew, he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder.

"There you are, princess." The woman’s voice was severe. Her face, even moreso. "Come. It's time for your lessons."