“Kurtis, can you come down here?” Kurtis heard in an Alexa announcement. Mom was always making these announcements instead of coming to his room to talk to him. But Kurtis knew there wasn't any advantage to ignoring the message. She would just message again. She wanted him and he had to come.

Kurtis got off of his bed where he was watching TV. Getting off his bed wasn't as easy as it had previously been a year ago. Ever since losing his job and having to return to his parent's house, Kurtis had become depressed and gained a great deal of weight. Before his job loss, he was only a little above weight at 195 pounds, but since moving in with his parents, Kurtis had ballooned up to 268 pounds.

Kurtis had determined he wouldn't let his weight get over 275 pounds, but at some point, he had also determined not to become over 250 pounds. Thus, Kurtis didn't have much of a track record when it came to this sort of thing. Regardless, he got off his bed and trudged to where his mother was summoning him. He assumed she would be in the kitchen or the living room. It didn't matter, since one needs to pass the living room to get to the kitchen regardless.

Kurtis didn't like being bothered. Not that he could complain. This was his parent's house. Kurtis shared the house with his mom, dad, and two sisters, Delaney and Samantha. Kurtis was the oldest at twenty-six-years old. Samantha was the middle child at nineteen. Delaney was the baby at ten. There was a wide separation in the siblings' age. Mom never explained why there was such a difference. Maybe there wasn't any reason for it at all.

In the kitchen, Kurtis saw both his mother and Samantha. Kurtis didn't want to sound too surly. He put a semi-smile on his face as he asked, “Yes, Mom, what would you like?”

“I'm not going to beat around the bush. Kurtis, we have a problem, and you can help us a great deal.”

"OK?”

“As you know Samantha was going to be a counselor at the Happy Land Day Camp this year.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Delaney and a bunch of her friends were going to go to the sleep-away camp with Samantha as their counselor.”

Kurtis didn't like that mom mentioned that Samantha was supposed to be the counselor.

“I'm sure they will have loads of fun.”

“But Samantha can't go.”

“She can't?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don't want to go into it. She just can't do it. It's something that can't be helped.”

“Is she OK?”

“She'll be fine.”

“But, what does this have to do with me?”

“I want you to take her place.”

“Take her place?”

“Yeah.”

“At camp, with a bunch of girls?”

“Yeah.”

“I can't do that.”

“Why not?”

“I'm looking for a job.”

“You can wait until the summer is over. No one hires during the summer anyway.”

“It's a girls' camp.”

“It's not a girls' camp, it's unisex.”

“I mean all the campers in her group are girls. I'm not a woman. It'll look strange for me to lead them.”

“No, I'll fix that.”

“Look at me, I can't be a camp counselor for a bunch of girls.”

“Someone has to, it's too late to find anyone else. You know if you don't do it, all the girls will be disappointed.”

“I would if I could, but I can't.”

“No, Samantha can't. You just don't want to.”

“It's too embarrassing. I'm an old man. They'll think...You know what they will think.”

“They won't think that. I have a plan.”

“What?”

“I'll use IT to make everyone treat you like Samantha.”

Kurtis knew what mom was referring to. They could use the orb to change reality. Kurtis didn't know why they didn't use the orb to get him a job. It wasn't fair. There wasn't any use in arguing with mom. She wasn't going to use the orb to help him. She insisted that he do it for himself. Kurtis couldn't use the stone himself, only women (and girls) could use it.

“Wouldn't it be simpler to use the orb to simply fix Samantha's problem...whatever it is?”

“No, this is the best way.”

“Why?”

“It just is.”

“What do you mean 'treat me like Samantha? Everyone will treat me like I'm a woman and I'll have to wear woman's clothes?”

“No, of course not. You will be the same as you always have been, just you will be expected to be the camp counselor. Samantha doesn't want to be a man any more than you want to be a woman. The orb is a trait swapper, it doesn't make things up out of whole cloth.”