Made That Way

by Susan Ketchen

  Mom sighs. “Well. Your time will come too, Honey.”

  “I don’t think so, Mom.”

  “You might be surprised what happens when you start the hormone treatments.”

  This reminds me of the Premarin. I put down my fork. “Mom, I’ve been thinking about that. I’m wondering if I could start right away.”

  The initial look of surprise on Mom’s face is quickly passed by one of pleasure. She is so excited at my request that it’s all I can do not to change my mind. I have to force myself to keep smiling. She leans forward and rubs the back of my hand. “Eager to get into adolescence?” she says.

  I swallow hard and nod, though of course it’s not true. From all I hear and see, adolescence is nothing to look forward to and, in an ideal universe, it would be outlawed. If my cousins are anything to go by, adolescence is nothing less than a long period of temporary insanity. I’m not interested in the estrogen. All I want is to ingest enough mare urine to feel like a boss mare like Electra.

  “We’ll have to check with the pediatrician of course. But won’t it be exciting to have secondary sexual characteristics at last!” She is glowing, almost like Dr. Cleveland when she saw Braveheart coming down the ramp from the transport truck.

  “That’ll be great!” I say, but I can see my mom drawing breath and I know she’s about to launch into one of her favourite educational talks about the joys of human sexual development. I quickly throw another subject-change at her. “Mom, have you heard how Taylor is doing? Is she out of hospital?”

  “I don’t know—I was at work all day. You could phone her later. Now Sweetie, I wonder if you remember what I told you before about what you can expect when—”

  “Can I phone her now, Mom? It’s a good time, because she won’t have gone back to sleep yet.”

  Mom casts a disapproving look into the family room and sighs. “Why not?” she says.

  I take the cordless phone into my room and close the door, partly because I want privacy but also so I don’t have to listen to the argument when my dad comes back to the table.

  Taylor is at home in bed, still groggy but now from Tylenol 3’s.

  “I can see why people become drug addicts,” she says.

  “Really?” I say. “I feel so much better now I’m not taking that stupid growth hormone. I don’t like drugs. Though I’m going to start taking Premarin soon I hope.”

  “I just can’t worry about anything when I’m on this stuff,” says Taylor, apparently not hearing whatever I have to say. “I’m not even worried about dancing. Isn’t that weird? Though Stephanie says to not give up on the idea, she thinks I could still have a career as a lap-dancer.”

  “That’s disgusting,” I say. Though I’m not surprised. Taylor’s older sister is always coming up with shocking ideas.

  “Yeah, probably. But even Stephanie can’t upset me right now. Do you think I’m a junkie?”

  “No way.”

  “One thing I do worry about is what my boyfriend will say about dating an amputee.”

  “You have a boyfriend?” Taylor has never mentioned a boyfriend before. Of course why should she? She is a year older than me and therefore my opinion matters about as much as a flea’s. Likely she wouldn’t be saying anything to me now if the medication wasn’t loosening her lips.

  “Of course I have a boyfriend. He’s away for the summer. His name is Franko. Franko Losino. Isn’t that just the most perfect name?”

  Losino? Before I can stop myself I find myself asking, “Does he have a younger brother named Logan?”

  “Franko mentioned he has a bratty little brother.” She pauses for a long time as the information slowly seeps into her drugged brain. “Oh Sylvia! Do you like him?”

  I don’t know how to answer this question. Sure I like Logan well enough, but not in the way that Taylor is implying. Last year he gave me a piece of gum, and he always seemed to be there at just the right time to distract Amber and Topaz and keep their band of loyal followers from tormenting me. I’ve had two months of freedom from thinking about my life at school, and I’d rather not be thinking about it now.

  Taylor misinterprets the silence. “Ooooh,” she says, “Sylvia has a boyfriend!”

  “I do not. No way. I have a horse. Well, not exactly a horse . . . ”

  “Maybe when you start taking estrogen you’ll be more interested in boys. Maybe you’ll want to trade in the horse and find yourself a really good boyfriend.” Taylor giggles. I don’t think she’s making much sense. Taylor is sounding even sillier than she does when she talks about angels and spirituality.

  “Why would I want to trade in the horse?”

  “I’ll tell you something very private,” says Taylor. “Thinking about boys is even better than thinking about dance. So why wouldn’t it be better than thinking about horses and riding?”

  “Oh I don’t think— ”

  “Don’t you ever think about boys? I mean, I know your ovaries are wrecked from that Turner Syndrome, but don’t you think about how great it would be to have a boyfriend, to have someone who loves you more than anybody else? Someone to hold your hand, to kiss you, don’t you ever think about that stuff? I know I did when I was fourteen.”

  I look around my room at the horse posters, the horse figurines, the horse books, my scuffed riding helmet that I haven’t replaced yet, my freshly polished Ariat Junior Performer paddock boots. “Oh sure,” I lie. “All the time. I just didn’t want to say in case my mom found out. You know how keen she is for me to enter my next developmental phase.”

  “I knew it,” says Taylor. “Stephanie says you’re a eunuch but I knew you weren’t.”

  A yoonick? What is a yoonick? Or have I got the spelling wrong again? Maybe it’s unic? Could a unic be half a unicorn? I’m not going to ask Taylor, not now when she’s treating me almost like an equal. This is not a good time to let her think that I’m a moron, better for her to think I’m stupidly obsessed with boys, even if I’m not. I’m obsessed with horses. And I like being a horse-nut because that puts me in good company with Kansas and Dr. Cleveland.

  “Logan Losino is so cute,” I say.

  And Taylor hangs up before I can tell her about Brooklyn being a hinny.

  Mom and Dad are in the kitchen with the door closed when I get off the phone. They’re having one of their intense discussions which always take a long time and then when they’re done they usually go to their bedroom. So I know I have lots of time to myself on the computer in the family room.

  I Google hinny.

  Just like Tanya told me, hinnies are hybrids. They are a cross between a female donkey and a male horse. There’s lots of really interesting information on Wikipedia, though more about mules which are hybrids of a female horse and a male donkey. Mules are more common because female horses and male donkeys aren’t so fussy about who they mate with, including other species. Female donkeys and male horses are more particular. I like the idea that Brooklyn’s parents were choosy about who they mated with. I think it’s important to have high standards.

  I find some sites that are full of technical information, including facts that Tanya didn’t tell me about, but she’d only ever seen one hinny before in her life so she couldn’t tell me as much as I needed to know. Or maybe I didn’t hear everything she had to say because I was so relieved to hear that hinnies were a horse/donkey hybrid and not a horse/unicorn hybrid.

  We’d studied genetics at school of course, but I can tell from my reading that as usual the teachers have left out some important facts. For example, no one ever told us that it made a difference which parent contributed what chromosome. Mules tend to look more like donkeys because coat colour and texture are passed on by the male donkey. In hinnies, the male horse provides the coat and also the gait, which explains why hinnies appear and move more like horses—except for the ears, which
tend to be long-ish, like Brooklyn’s, though not as long as a donkey’s fortunately.

  Behind me I hear the kitchen door creak open, then my parents whispering as they sneak down to their bedroom. Mom giggles. Their door shuts tight and I am spared hearing any more. I’m glad they’ve made up already, but still.

  Fortunately I am really enjoying myself. I like learning. I like understanding more about Brooklyn. I like being the only person around who owns a hinny. I like it that hinnies have the high intelligence of the donkey and the amenability of a horse. They sound so perfect, and I am so lucky. When I grow up I think I will become a veterinarian who specializes in hinnies.

  I feel all relaxed and happy so I scroll back up to some technical stuff about chromosomes that I skimmed over the first time.

  I swear that my heart stops.

  Because there, right on the screen, is information that totally changes my life.

  Hinnies are missing a chromosome.

  Just like me.

  Hinnies are sterile.

  Just like me.

  There’s nothing wrong with hinnies. No one talks about “hinny syndrome”. Hinnies are perfectly normal and natural.

  And maybe the same thing applies to me. Why not? Maybe there’s nothing wrong with me and I don’t have Turner Syndrome.

  I am a hybrid. I know it in my bones.

  But a hybrid of what?

  And I remember that Stephanie said she thought I was a unic. Half a unicorn.

  I rub my forehead.

  There’s that bump under my skin that I noticed in the hospital. I’m sure it’s bigger now. It’s kind of sore. The more I rub it the more sore it gets.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I am riding, and not on Electra so immediately I suspect I’m dreaming. Sometimes when I ride Electra in a lesson I feel like maybe I’m dreaming, but mostly I notice that I’m working hard and concentrating on what Kansas says about things like my weight being equally distributed on my feet, thighs and seat bones and my shoulders being square, so I don’t have time to think about whether it’s real or not.

  I’m riding a white horse, so possibly I’m riding Kansas’s horse Photon. Then the head turns, and I see I’m riding the grumpy unicorn, though his horn is still missing.

  “I thought you didn’t want me riding you? You said it would be undignified,” I say.

  “Well it is. But sometimes we have to put up with life not going the way we want it to.”

  He plods on. He’s not limping but he’s not very energetic, not like the galloping and jumping dreams I usually have. There’s something I need to ask him, but I can’t think what it is.

  The unicorn says, “And don’t kick me, or try any of that giddy-up nonsense.”

  “Okay,” I say. I can feel his warmth underneath me and the gentle swaying of his movement. Brooklyn probably wouldn’t feel this good, not with his spine sticking up and his ribs poking out.

  Then I remember. “There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m a hybrid,” I tell the unicorn. This was part of it anyway. There’s something else though. My brain feels fuzzy.

  “So you won’t have to go on that Premarin stuff,” says the unicorn.

  “Of course I do. I still want to become a boss mare.”

  He snorts. “That will take more than mare pee.”

  “I know that,” I say. I try not to sound defensive. And I do know. I just don’t know exactly what more I’ll need.

  “And of course there will be the side effects.”

  “Not everyone experiences side effects from medications. And not all side effects are bad. I know someone,” I say, pleased with myself for not mentioning Taylor’s name, “who got pretty blissed-out on morphine and Tylenol 3.”

  “And you’ll grow hair,” says the unicorn.

  “I’ll shave it off, like my mom does.” She has a pink razor she keeps by the bath tub. I could buy my own, but not pink.

  “Well don’t you think that’s stupid?” says the unicorn. “You want secondary sexual characteristics and then you shave them off?”

  This unicorn is like Stephanie on a very bad day.

  “And your sweat will smell,” he continues. “You’ll get acne. And your mammary glands will develop.”

  “I’m going to wake myself up,” I threaten.

  “About time too.”

  “You don’t want me to grow up. You want me to stay a little kid. You’re just like my dad. My mom wants me to go galloping off through the developmental stages and become a full-blown woman as soon as possible, but you and Dad want me to stay as your little girl.”

  “Now you’re cooking,” says the unicorn.

  1

  As soon as I wake up I remember the crucial matter I failed to discuss with the unicorn. I meant to ask exactly what sort of hybrid I was. I’m also puzzling over the roadblocks I keep encountering trying to grow up the way I want to . . . if I want to. I’m not sure I haven’t thought of these issues before, but having spoken about them to the unicorn, they’ve taken on new significance. Now I’ve got some thoughts to hang on to, not like before when it was more like dealing with a slippery bar of soap in the shower.

  It’s Saturday. Dad is making his special oatmeal pancakes. Mom wants to know if I want to go shopping for some back-to-school clothes. “You can’t wear those barn clothes to school. We could go to Fifth Street,” she says smiling in a way she must consider enticing. Mostly it just makes me feel sorry for her. I mean, doesn’t she have a life outside of me and Dad and work?

  I put down my fork, then pick it up again and push a triangle of pancake through a puddle of maple syrup. I have so much on my mind, clothes don’t seem important. Even at the best of times I don’t enjoy shopping for clothes unless they’re for riding. I don’t know what’s fashionable and I don’t know what suits my body. Usually I let my mom take charge because Mom loves fashion, though she doesn’t necessarily know what kids are wearing so she asks the clerks in the store. She likes to take me to the boutique clothing stores on Fifth Street and tends to push me into more adult styles, which is no easy feat given my body-of-an-eight-year-old. So in this sense, Mom is shoving me into adulthood, but on the other hand she’s treating me like a baby who can’t pick out her own clothes. The confusion is enough to put me off my breakfast.

  Dad slips another pancake from the frying pan onto my plate. “What’s the matter, Munchkin? Eat up. You don’t have to go shopping if you don’t want to. I see a Sears catalogue came last week, you can pick out some new clothes from that if you want.”

  I close my eyes, trying to analyze what Dad said, and also prepare myself to get caught in the crossfire over the cost of new school clothes if I don’t quickly change the focus.

  “I’m not looking forward to going back to school, that’s all,” I say.

  “Oh, Honey, why not?” says Mom. “You always do so well. And you’ll have new teachers. It’ll be exciting, won’t it, Tony?”

  “You betcha,” says Dad. He slathers butter on his pancakes and pours syrup until it flows off all sides of the stack. If I did this they’d kill me.

  “Maybe there’ll be new kids to make friends with,” says Mom.

  I shrug. I picture Amber and Topaz and feel sick. All those names they have for me, pygmy chimp being the worst. And here I am, no taller than when I left school in June. I am in desperate need of mare pee.

  “When do I see the pediatrician again?” I say. My parents exchange a startled look. “I mean, what point is there in buying new clothes if I’m going to start taking Premarin and then I begin developing?”

  “Oh I don’t think it will happen that quickly, Honey,” says Mom.

  Dad checks his watch. “Yikes. I’m going to miss my tee time.” He ruffles the top of my head as he bounds from the table. “I’ll let you two girls figure t
his out.”

  “Girls?” says Mom, but he’s already down the hall, out of earshot. She sighs then smiles stiffly. “Oh well. At least this means we’re not stuck with the close-outs and over-stocks from the Sears catalogue.”

  I swallow some pancake. I need to build up my strength. I want to ride Brooklyn today, though apparently this will have to wait until after the shopping trip.

  Mom pats my hand. “We’ll have some fun. I know how important it is for teenagers to feel like they fit in, Honey.”

  I grunt. As though I’d like to fit in with jerks like Amber and Topaz.

  “Connections with peers are very important at this stage of your life,” says Mom.

  I groan inwardly. In a way it’s nice to have a change from the usual puberty lectures, but the teaching tone is the same.

  “It’s much like being in a herd,” says Mom.

  My mom is being so lame but she’s also trying hard. “Okay, Mom. I get it.”

  But there’s something else I understand suddenly. I’ve been thinking about Amber and Topaz as aliens or adversaries, but there is another way of looking at them. Along with me they are members of a herd. Granted, it’s a different herd than the one I belong to with Kansas and Dr. Cleveland, but it’s a herd nonetheless, with dynamics and ebbs and flows of power and influence.

  Now I’m cooking.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I can see the sweat bead up on my mom’s forehead as she cranks the ignition on the car. Getting to town to shop for clothes isn’t important to me, and I’m not keen on the new plan to check in on Taylor on the way either. But Mom is going to drop me at the barn when this is all done, so for that reason I really need the car to start.

  “You can do it, Mom,” I say, encouragingly, the way a good boss mare would.

  “I hope I haven’t flooded the bloody thing.”

  “If you had electronic fuel ignition like Dad has in his SUV this wouldn’t happen.”