But there was a problem. I hadn't said it to Katherine, but I was worried at how feminine I looked: what with my tight pants and my glistening, though uncolored fingernails, it was only a matter of time, I feared, before someone mistook me for a girl.
I guess the people who saw me most often, my classmates, didn't notice because the changes to my appearance came so gradually, like my lengthening, softening hair. My fingernails too were lengthening since Melanie insisted that I must neve clip them but only file them, and I think the stuff she had me putting on them to strengthen them also made them grow faster. Anyway, I couldn't keep up with the file, so, like Topsy and my hair, they just grew.
My classmates never said anything, though when we stood around before or after class talking, I thought some of them were kind of, you know, giving me appraising glances. When this happened I would sometimes break into a nervous sweat and my knees would tremble.