//------------------------------//
// Night 3: The Perks of being a Wallflower 
// Story: 8 Magic Nights 
// by The Blue EM2 
//------------------------------//

Tom and Jimmy stood in the centre of Discovery Island and glanced at a map. "Right," Jimmy started, "remember what the agreed plan was?"

"Yes, as we've been over it enough times," Tom sighed in annoyance. "I head to Asia to do the Gorilla Falls Nature Trail, whilst you are in Pandora. Once I am done in Asia, I come over to Pandora and we meet up. From there, we head into Africa for Kilimanjaro Safaris and Festival of the Lion King. That sound good to you?"

Jimmy seemed to be elsewhere. Tom cleared his throat. "Erm Jimmy, does that sound OK to you?" Still no response from Jimmy. Tom cleared his throat. "JAMES THOMAS HOOK, ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING?"

Jimmy jumped and turned to Tom. "Wow," he said. "Sorry, but there's no need to be loud here."

"Well, you weren't paying attention," Tom grumbled. "Honestly, you were like this back at Brentwood, from what I remember. Anyways, this is the plan. I head to Asia to do the Gorilla Falls Nature Trail, whilst you are in Pandora. Once I am done in Asia, I come over to Pandora and we meet up. From there, we head into Africa for Kilimanjaro Safaris and Festival of the Lion King. That sound good to you?"

Jimmy nodded. "Sure thing, Tom." He stopped. "Well, Pandora is to the left, and Asia is to the right. Which means that we split up here. Well, cheerio my UK friend."

"Bye," Tom replied and set off into the crowd of people headed for the Asia section of the park. By this point, the place was pretty busy, and the streets were thronged with people heading to different areas of the park. Tom walked over the bridge and crossed into Asia, the sun beating down upon the park. Kids were either in strollers (or push chairs, as they were called in the UK) or being pulled along by parents who seemed hot and bothered. Tom did appreciate the costs of a Walt Disney World visit, but what he didn't understand was parents planning family holidays of this sort like military operations. Young kids don't work like that, and the sheer number of times he had seen parents flipping out here was well in excess of one hundred. Most of the time, the only crime the kids had committed was being tired, and yet the parents over-reacted. Oh well, c'est la vie.





Tom walked further into Asia, and turned into the Gorilla Falls Nature Trail, next to the Anandapur Theatre, the fictional Asian kingdom that was the setting of most of the Asia portion of Animal Kingdom. Which didn't really explain the fact that Finding Nemo: the Musical was shoved into the land as that was really Australasia, but such exactness was not the case here when there was a property to tie it to. Maybe he was getting more cynical as he aged. Tom didn't really know, as he sighed and looked about. The trail was very quiet at this point, which was good for him as it meant that the animals wouldn't be being frightened off by little demons who were clearly too young for the trail.

After a short walk past some lemurs, more people began to crowd into the trail behind him. And yes, it was at this point Tom felt something was off. His trainers were no longer bouncing forward in the way they had done a moment earlier. He glanced down, and saw to his horror they had come loose. Not only that, the top part with the laces and cover plate had vanished, only to be replaced with one that held it on through friction alone. That's right, Tom now had slip on shoes for some inexplicable reason, but at least his socks were still there.

"Wait, what?" he asked, and only then remembered who he was on holiday with. "Oh, why did I agree to go on holiday with Jimmy?"

His slacks turned a greyish blue and the zip and button vanished, but apart from that nothing happened to them. His shirt turned white, presumably to counteract the heat, but then a sweater appeared on top, coloured in two separate shades of brown. One was considerably lighter than the other, and they alternated on the jumper. The cuffs around the wrists had also gained a texture that reminded Tom of the ones he had worn whilst an RAF air cadet, which was not a fun memory as those jumpers were incredibly itchy.

Tom glanced about to see what was happening around him, only for everybody to be walking straight past him and paying absolutely no attention to what was going on. "That's weird," he said. "Surely somebody's clothes changing would..." he paused, as his voice was starting to rise in pitch, as well a having shifted to an American accent. "Well, there goes my voice for the day. Oh well, better get used to it."

Suddenly, his height began to melt away. Tom dropped from his usual 5 foot 8 inches to little more than 5 feet, and his feet and hands shrank in size. His skin suddenly turned a light green, and freckles appeared under his cheeks. A waterfall of green hair flowed down his back and over his shoulders, and his shoulders themselves began to slide inwards, causing Tom to bite his lip in pain as the bones slid against one another. His eyes darkened slightly, but only slightly, as their usual brown still continued to glow from them.

Then his chest began to tingle, a sensation that Tom struggled to describe despite having experienced it so many times. A few seconds later, his chest grew into a pair of breasts, and his hips suddenly pushed outward. Tom let out a girlish squeal at the suddenness of what was going on, soon to be followed by a rather odd sensation between his legs that confirmed that, for the seventh time running, he had entered womanhood. Finally, she felt something moving about inside her body, and jumped slightly when her butt swelled up slightly, soon joined by her legs.

And then, mercifully, it stopped. Tom glanced about, and went over to the glass to catch her reflection. A girl with light green skin and dark green hair looked back.

"I'm... Wallflower?" she asked, confused. "Well, that means..." she looked behind her, and saw absolutely nobody was paying attention to her. A man suddenly walked into her.

"Oh, sorry, ma'am!" he said. "I didn't see you there!" And he went on his way.

"I've been standing here for at least 10 minutes," Wallflower said sadly. As she glanced about her, she suddenly heard music start up from nowhere, as well as an uncontrollable urge to sing. She sat down by the glass, and sighed as she looked at the nearby plant.





"You don't see me fitting in, 
I'm sitting here alone. 
Right beside my shadow;
Always on my own.

"If I could share my wildest dreams 
Maybe they would see; 
I'm more than just a wallflower. 
There's so much more to me!"

She got to her feet, and dramatically pushed her way through the doors to the indoor area. Still nobody took any notice of her.

"I'm invisible, invisible!
A droplet in the mist; 
Invisible, invisible 
It's like I don't exist!"

She paused, and looked into a tank as a lizard took interest in her briefly, whilst everybody else was staring at the Komodo Dragon.

"Right beneath my picture 
This is what you'll read;
A laundry list of nothings 
Not likely to succeed.

"A yearbook with blank pages 
That no one wants to sign; 
A memory forgotten 
Until the end of time!"

She moved onwards, exiting the building, and walked into the aviary, walking through chains that separated the aviary from the rest of the treck, to prevent birds from just flying off and causing a nuisance over Orlando.

"I'm invisible, invisible!
A droplet in the mist; 
Invisible, invisible 
It's like I don't exist!"

"I'm invisible, invisible!
A droplet in the mist; 
Invisible, invisible 
It's like I don't exist!"





And with that, the music just died away, and Wallflower stood on a suspension bridge, overlooking the tiger enclosure. Hopefully there were no lions and bears (a free cookie if you get that joke!).

"Hey, are you Wallflower?" asked a man on the bridge. He had a kind face, and stepped over to her. "The amateur botanist with a skill for finding odd stones?"

"Erm, yes?" Wallflower replied. She didn't know whether to be more astonished at the fact he knew her name, or that he had even noticed her.

"You wouldn't mind helping to identify some plants?" the man asked, pointing to one just under the bridge.

The pair had a fun time identifying plants for a bit, when suddenly who should come barging up the path but-

"Out of the way! I have children!"

"Oh no," the man sighed. "Wild Karen spotted."

A woman approached with a child (yes, child singular) and stood in front of them. "Can you get out of the way?" she demanded. "My child is very tired and deserves priority access."

"There's plenty of space for you to walk around us," Wallflower pointed out. "The suspension bridge is quite wide."

"How old are you?" the woman asked, out of nowhere.

Wallflower was taken aback. "I fail to see how-"

"So you're a millenial, then!" the woman snapped. "You waste space and take up tickets and queues that should be reserved for parents with children! In fact, only yesterday, somebody in my hotel was screamed at by a teenager because her children were tired. People without children should be banned and people with children should be allowed to skip all the lines at the park!"

There was a moment of shocked silence as the two of them processed what had just been said. Then Wallflower spoke up. "First, I witnessed that incident you refer to yesterday, and that woman and her kids were queue jumping. Second, your logic doesn't make sense."

"Of course it makes sense!" the woman proudly exclaimed. "If there were no childless people in the park, families could enjoy themselves. People have to have children, it's the law!"

"What if they can't, or don't want, to have children?" the man asked her. "That would violate the principle of personal freedom!"

"Also, you were a childless person once," Wallflower pointed out. "And your logic about skipping lines makes no sense as it would result in new lines- of people who had skipped the lines!"

The woman huffed. "Fine," she said. "But remember that you ruined my precious baby's birthday!" And she stormed off.

The child looked at her. "Sorry," he said, looking very embarrassed. "Mom says weird stuff when she's stressed."

"It's not your fault," Wallflower smiled. "Happy birthday nontheless."

The child laughed. "My birthday was a month ago," he replied, and walked on.





Wallflower, having done what she wanted to do, headed back to Pandora, still aware nobody seemed to have noticed she was there. She suddenly saw a girl with blue hair in a white summer dress standing by the exit of Na'vi River Voyage, and went over to her. "So," she said, presuming this woman had once been Jimmy, "how was the boat trip?"

"Oh, it was incredible!" Fiddlesticks replied. "There were glowin' plants, animals, an' music with a shaman of all thin's. And fer you?"

"Animals, trees, some nice folks, and a wild Karen," Wallflower replied. "Err, Fiddle, what do you think is causing us to perpetually change?"

"Ah have no idea," Fiddlesticks replied, moving aside to prevent her dress getting splattered by a nearby waterfall. "Ah just hope Kat's OK. Ah ain't heard nothin' from her."