Chapter Text
“Alright, Crystals! It’s a straight shot from here to the Seashell Kingdom. We’ll be there before sunrise!” Ruby grinned at her cohort, before turning to look down the long canyon. The stony walls were steep and rapidly darkening, but at the end of the tunnel, the pink sun was setting over the silhouette of their destination- the palace of the Seashell Queen, rightful owner of their prized parcel. Ruby put her hand over her satchel- yep. The tiara was still there.
“I dunno- think we’d better take a break now,” Sapphire said, eyes peering out nervously from behind her thick spectacles.
“Don’t be a coward, Saph.” Emerald nudged her with her hip. “We’ll be able to sleep a lot better in the guest room off the Seashell Palace, right?”
“Well, sure, but the canyon is a bit… dangerous at night, isn’t it?” Saphire muttered. “We might run into a wild dog, or a tarantula, or-“
She was cut off by the thud of heavy paws. A shadow loomed over Ruby.
“Or what?” she asked, oblivious.
The creature behind her grinned, human face splitting open to reveal dozens of sharp feline teeth. “A sphinx.”
“Out of the way!” Gem pulled her legs close to her body. Moments later, her cousins stampeded past her, screaming at the top of their lungs. Dust flurried into the air, and she clutched her book close to her chest, the cheap paper cover crinkling a bit, but protecting the precious pages. She glowered after the boys. Even as they ran down the hill, their excited shrieking rang loud and clear through the summer air. Gem hunched her shoulders up as far as she could go, and kept reading.
Slowly, Ruby turned to face the half woman, half lion, stumbling backwards. “Hello, ma’am,” she said, a false friendly smile plastered across her face. “How can we help you?”
“You could salt and pepper yourselves, for one,” the sphinx drawled. “Or stuff yourselves with carrots and onions. I’m not picky.”
“No way are we doing that!” Emerald shouted. She drew her staff, green crystal glowing with magic. “Surrender to the power of the Great Crystal!” She rushed towards the sphinx, but before she could fire off a single spell, the creature batted her aside with one great paw, sending her to the floor and her staff flying.
“Emmy!” Ruby shouted. Emerald reached out a hand toward her staff, but the sphinx pinned her down easily. Ruby reached for her own staff, the crystal glowing red.
“Uh uh uh,” said the sphinx, unsheathing her claws. “I don’t think you want to fight me. Don’t you know cats play with their food?”
“Wait!” Sapphire hadn’t reached for her staff. Instead, she brandished a thick, leather-bound book, open to an illustration of the creature they faced. “It says here a sphinx has to ask anyone it wants to eat a riddle. If we answer correctly, you have to let Emmy go.”
The sphinx snarled. “Fine. But she has to answer, not either of you.”
Ruby nodded, lowering her staff. “Ask away.”
The sphinx lay down, careful not to crush or release her prey. “Hm, let’s see… what runs but never walks, has a mouth, but never eats, and has a bed, but never sleeps?”
Gem, of course, knew the answer. She’d known the answer was “a river” the first time she read the series, and she sure hadn’t forgotten five rereads later. But she also knew Emerald didn’t know the answer- only Sapphire and Ruby could figure it out. The real challenge of the sphinx’s puzzle was trying to communicate the answer to Emerald without her knowing.
Gem leaned back, staring into the upper boughs of the tree she leaned against. She knew the Crystal Crew better than any of her classmates or cousins, but she didn’t mind. Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald were smart, brave, and never let anyone else tell them what they could or couldn’t do. But most of all, she admired how they stuck together. It didn’t matter that Ruby often said the wrong things, or Sapphire could be a know-it-all, or Emerald tried to solve problems with her fists. They were best friends until the end.
That was how Gem decided she was going to be a wizard one day- the best wizard ever. She’d invent new spells, save the world, and maybe, if she was lucky, make friends with her own Crystal Crew. For now, though, she would just imagine she was a wizard with her own magic staff (hers would be purple), her own special spells (written all by herself, of course), and her own Crystal Crew name. Gem. Maybe it wasn’t the most creative, but she liked it. It felt like it fit. Better than her boy name, at least.
Suddenly, a small body knocked painfully into Gem’s shoulder. “Hey! Ow!” she yelped, slamming her book closed before the intruder could damage it.
“Why aren’t you playing with us?” one of Gem’s cousins demanded.
“I’m reading. Go away Michael,” Gem muttered.
Michael did not go away. Instead, he made a blind grab for her book, tugging at the cover. Gem released it before he could rip it, then regretted it. Her cousins could do a lot worse to a book than tear it a little if she let them have it.
“Ruby Rhinestone and the Great Tiara Heist?” he scoffed, reading the faded print of the cover. “Why are you reading a girl book, Theo?”
“It’s not a girl book. The Crystal Crew series is for everyone- except maybe losers who can’t read,” Gem snapped, a little bit harsher than she intended. She made a snatch for the book, but Michael held it out of the way.
“You didn’t answer his question,” another cousin, Danny, pointed out, hands folded behind his back. “Why aren’t you playing with us?”
“I don’t wanna.”
“Come on, we’re looking for frogs. It’ll be fun!”
Gem bit her lip. “Do I have to?”
“What do you mean, do you have to? We’re not even allowed to catch frogs,” Danny laughed. “We’re doing it ‘cause it’s fun .”
“What are you worried about? Scared of a little mud?” Micheal asked, a mean grin on his face.
“… No,” Gem said slowly. She was rapidly beginning to fear for her book’s safety. She stood up, hoping her superior height would scare off the older boys. “Give me back my book, and leave me alone.”
“But don’t you want to meet Brownie?” Danny said with an irritating grin. He held out his cupped hands. They were caked in mud.
Gem stepped back, pressing against the tree. “No. Nope. Nope. No thanks!” she squeaked.
Danny, unperturbed, opened his hands. A big brown toad sat inside like a handful of thick, lumpy mud. It sat in a suspicious puddle- didn’t toads pee on people when they were picked up?- blinking its dingy golden eyes.
“Oh,” Gem said. Her eyes locked onto the toad, stomach twisting a little. “That’s. Nice. Can I have my book back?”
Danny extended his hand towards Gem, and the frog leapt .
It landed in Gem’s pocket with an audible plop. “Agh!” Gem shrieked. “Get it off, get it-“ she batted at the toad with her hand, unwilling to actually touch the thing. It was already soaking her pocket with its toad fluids, she was sure, and she didn’t want to get them anywhere else.
“Aw, he wants to be friends,” Michael sneered. Gem finally managed to slap her pocket enough for the toad to leap out, tumbling to the dusty ground and making a hasty escape into the grass. “Aw, man. You let him get away.”
Gem snatched back her book, hardly even caring as the cover ripped. “Uncle Elmer!” she screamed, sprinting away from the two boys. Gem had hidden under a tree in the back of the yard, with her cousins all playing by the river, but all the grownups were gathered back by the house, talking about whatever grownups talked about. She singled out Uncle Elmer- the father of the two cousins who had interrupted her- and grabbed his sleeve, tugging hard until he abandoned his beer and brothers.
“Ugh, what is it, Theo?” he growled, looking like he’d rather be getting his teeth extracted than have to deal with her.
“Michael and Danny stole my book, and they caught a toad too!” Gem shouted, arms stretched wide in dismay.
Uncle Elmer crossed his arms. “So?”
“So, it’s not allowed! Tell them to be nice to me! It jumped on me and everything! The toad,” Gem clarified.
“Why don’t you tell them that,” he drawled, already turning back to his beer bottle.
“I did, after! But they still bothered me in the first place! And now my book is ripped and my shirt is all gross.”
Uncle Elmer just laughed. “Aw, Theo, you take things too personally.” He patted her on the head like a dog, and Gem fumed. “Next time, just tell them to stop, and quit being such a girl about everything.”
Gem was still thinking about what he’d said hours later, when the sun had set and her extended family were (thankfully) long gone. She curled up under thick blankets, only her head poking out into the cold night air. “Mom?”
Her mom paused in the doorway, starkly illuminated by the light from the hall. “What is it, Theo?”
“At the family gathering, Uncle Elmer told me not to be such a girl. What does that mean?”
Gem’s mom sighed, stepping back into her room and sitting at the foot of her bed. “Oh, Theo, you know your Uncle Elmer is a little…”
“Mean?” Gem supplied.
“Well, I wasn’t going to say that,” her mom chuckled. “But he thinks that just because you don’t make trouble and like to read, that it makes you a girl. But you don’t have to listen to him. You’ll always be my little boy.” She leaned over, nearly crushing Gem as she kissed her on the forehead.
“But why?” Gem asked.
“Why what, dear?”
“Why will I always be a boy? I don’t act like any of the other boys I know. They all say so.”
“Well-“ Gem’s mom cut off, thinking. “It’s true, you are a little different. But there’s still certain differences between boys and girls. Besides how they act.”
“Like what?” Gem asked.
“Well, their bodies are formed differently,” her mom said.
“How?”
“Um.” Gem sat up, peering at her mom. She seemed embarrassed. “Well, girls have rounder faces, usually, and are smaller. When you’re older, you’ll get a beard and a low voice, and girls won’t. You’ll learn more when you’re older.”
“Oh.” Gem crinkled her nose. Her dad’s beard always scratched her when he kissed her. She hoped she was a mutant, and wouldn’t grow a beard. “Why does me being tall mean I have to like mud?”
“It doesn’t, love, Uncle Elmer was wrong,” her mom sighed. “Goodnight, Theo.”
“Goodnight,” Gem sighed. “But if there are differences between boys and girls why can’t I-“
“Goodnight, Theo,” her mom repeated from the doorway, and closed it behind her. The light abruptly cut out, leaving the room completely dark except for the glowing purple crystal Gem had made for a night light.
Why can’t I be Gem anyway , her mind finished.
Gem rolled over, staring at the far wall. Her mother’s voice drifted down the hall, anxious and not entirely muffled by the thick wooden door. Gem trusted her mom, but… the things she said didn’t make sense. She had said that Uncle Elmer was wrong, that her being quiet and smart didn’t make her a girl, but if that didn’t, why would a deeper voice make her a boy? At least Gem had some degree of control over how she acted. She couldn’t pick her body.
Besides, it wasn’t exactly right. Boys and girls did act differently, because people told them to. When Gem wanted to wear her mom’s jewelry, or learn to dance, her parents told her she couldn’t. Was that because of her body too? Gem huffed. She couldn’t read the books she liked, she couldn’t hate dirt- she couldn’t even just be left alone, just because of how she was born. That wasn’t fair- right? Was it?
No, she decided. No, it wasn’t. If hair color, height, and other physical traits didn’t mean people had to act a certain way, then whether she was a boy or a girl shouldn’t either. In the darkness of her room, Gem made a promise to herself. If her body was what made her a boy, what made it so hard to be herself, then she would be a wizard, like the Crystal Crew, and use magic to solve her problems. She would transform herself into a girl.