• tab I don’t know when exactly it started. I think I might have been this way before I was changed, but I can’t really remember then. But somehow something in me is different. I can’t put a finger on it, but I can sense it.
    tab It might have begun when I had to skip cheerleading practice for three days after I bruised my knee. I think that was it. Sure, I was there on the sidelines, cheering them on and passing out Gatorade, but my heart wasn’t in it. I was too nervous.
    tab That day I had checked out a book from the library. Not a magazine, not even something with a cute or trendy cover. It was Kafka. It was sacrilege.
    tab I had been reading it during classes, saying that I needed to go to the bathroom just so I could read for three minutes. When I got to cheerleading practice, I had taken extra time in the locker room to sneak in a few more pages. I was irrationally worried, as if they could see the ink on my fingers every time they glanced in my direction.
    tab But I should explain who ‘they’ are. No, I mean ‘we’. I can’t say they, because I am one of them. I was one of them.
    tab We are the Ashleys. Everyone knows us. The ASB is entirely composed of us, and there are several of us holding offices in every high school class. We lead Key Club and Interact, and we organize the school dances. We travel in packs of two or three and all of us have blond highlights and orange tans. There is still one girl on the cheer squad who is not an Ashley, but they…we… are working on converting her.
    tab But I am afraid. Before, I never had thoughts like these. I didn’t really have any thoughts. I don’t think I am even a real Ashley anymore. What will people call me? What will they say?
    tab The next day in school I am insecure. I have been working extra hard to make sure that I fit in. I don’t know what will happen if they detect me. I know that they could find out if they wanted, so I gave them no reason to try. I remember that from being an Ashley, the feeling that the others were different, dangerous.
    tab “Ashley?” I look up. It was Ashley who had spoken.
    tab “Oh hi Ashley!” I say, making sure that my voice is gratingly shrill.
    tab She grins and links arms with me, but not in a friendly way. Her grip is tight and forceful and soon she has led me to a secluded corner of the commons.
    tab “Ashley,” she says behind her terse, immovable grin (well…more of a grimace), “I thought we agreed to wear flip-flops today.”
    tab I glance at my feet. Ballet flats with bows.
    tab “Oh, I’m sorry,” I say, unsure of how falsely cheery to make my voice, “I guess I didn’t…”
    tab “You didn’t get the text message, did you?” says Ashley.
    tab “I guess not.” My voice is no longer piercingly high.
    tab “And what about the party on Saturday?”
    tab “I’ll be there.”
    tab “It’ll be at Ashley’s house again.”
    tab I catch myself before blurting out ‘which one.’ I remember, each Ashley has a slightly different pronunciation of her name, but I can’t hear those anymore.
    tab Ashley hands me a pair of flip-flops, and I obediently hand over my ballet flats, avoiding her gaze. This is how the Ashleys work, they (and I am fairly certain that I can no longer say we) are like a pack, and Ashley is the alpha.
    tab She turns to walk away, but then does a double take.
    tab “Ashley,” she says to me, “why aren’t you chewing gum?”
    tab “I must have forgotten.”
    tab She gave me a stern glance, and I think I saw her eyes glint pink before she walked away.
    tab I then realize how ludicrous my excuse had been. Ashleys don’t forget. They do not think. They do not need to remember to chew gum.
    I run to the bathroom to make sure that everything else is perfect. It is. I am sure now. My hair is layered and straightened, my bangs swept to the left side. My lip gloss is immaculate, as is my mascara. I am layering two tank tops and have a short denim skirt on, and my flip-flops are the exact bright pink of my inner tank top. I practice my vacuous stare, and I can’t find any flaws with it.
    tab But Ashley had known, I could tell. She knows now that I am conscious, that I have awakened and I am beginning to think on my own. It scares her a little, I believe. Such a thing has never happened to her before me. Once you become an Ashley, you stay an Ashley.
    tab In my classes I begin to notice something that I have never noticed before. I suddenly want to listen to what the teacher is lecturing about. The giggling of the other Ashleys begins to annoy me, and I can’t stand the fact that they are constantly text messaging each other. Do they not notice that the teacher can see them?
    tab I can see the other students getting irritated. This is new to me; somehow I have never really noticed that there were other students. Every giggle is incredibly inane, and the scrape of their flip-flops on the tile is loud and grating. I grimace and try to take notes. I have never done that before.
    tab I can see Ashley gazing at me. Her look is mildly threatening (after all, what is an Ashley without solidarity among her companions?) but at this point I can tell that she is mostly just curious about me.
    tab I wondered if she is conscious too, if she has been manipulating the other Ashleys to do what she wants. There is no way to tell, but the way she stares at me is different from the other Ashleys. It is sharper, more penetrating, as if she can see into my head and is startled to find a brain there.
    tab She knows I am looking at her, but she does not look away.

    tab The plan that day was to go to the movie theater and see a scary movie, but I decide to stay home. What a thrilling feeling, to decide something.
    Besides, I know what will happen if I go. We will all order sodas and popcorn but no one will eat or drink much. Someone will spill something and the minute a monster jumps out we will put our well-rehearsed, high-pitched scream of terror into practice.
    tab This does not appeal to me.
    tab Instead, I do my homework. I have never done it before, so it is a little bit exciting. I realize just how much I have missed in the classes that I used to text and giggle through, but working is invigorating.
    tab Instead of using the internet to update my profile on Myspace, I opt instead to do something really daring. Something that is completely taboo to the Ashleys. I watch anime. I enjoy it. I relish it. Every subtitled word is freedom.

    tab Saturday arrives before too long (after all, it was only Wednesday when I had checked out the book), and I know it is a particularly important day. We are going to change the final cheerleader to complete Ashley-hood. I am frightened. I do not remember how this process takes place, and I am scared of messing something up and being detected by all of the Ashleys.
    tab But it is midnight already and the change hasn’t been done yet.
    tab Instead we have painted our nails, and now we are playing truth or dare.
    tab The alpha-Ashley asks “truth or dare?” and I respond “truth.” Immediately I recognize this as a mistake. She is glaring at me. If there was ever a doubt in my mind as to whether she knew that I had changed, it was gone.
    tab “What would you do if you found out that one of us was not an Ashley?”
    tab This is a test. I know it is a test. Ashley is staring at me intently, and with a grin on her face that says “I have you trapped.” Remarkably, the other Ashleys seem not to notice, however the unchanged girl is slightly perturbed.
    tab “I…” this had better be the correct answer, “I would change her back.”
    tab The other Ashleys giggle, but that is just an automatic response to noise. The alpha smiles at me and asks me another question.
    tab “And what if that can’t be done?”
    tab “I already answered a question, it’s my turn now,” I say, and for the rest of the evening I answer ‘dare.’
    tab The next day we go to the mall to change the non-Ashley that is with us. She suspects nothing (possibly because of all the nail polish fumes) but I am suspicious. There is something foreboding at the mall. The children at the candy store all stare at us, and through the mist that emanates from Hot Topic I can see the red eyes of goth kids blinking at us.
    tab They fear us. They are taking refuge there. As we walk into Hollister, I somehow wish that I could join them.
    tab A few minutes are spent under the pretense of shopping. Somehow all of the plaid shorts and polo shirts look the same to me. All equally hideous. I buy a pair of shorts, just in case.
    tab The Ashley who is working as cashier that day obediently hands a dressing room key to the alpha, and we all flock down the hall on her left.
    They all instinctively form a crowd around the farthest dressing room door, which the alpha opens.
    tab Inside the room is enormous. We all fit inside, and there are a great many of us. They all kneel before the thing that sits on the bench in the back of the room, but I do not realize what it is for a moment.
    tab Once I do I start for the door, but it is locked. I can’t get out.
    tab I look up at the figure that everyone else is groveling before. She is the Ashley exemplified. Her highlights practically glitter, the sound of her flip-flops is more like the sound of a medium-sized explosion, and her tan seems almost to have a life of its own.
    tab And I know who she is.
    tab She is the Über-Ashley. Somehow it feels wrong to kneel before her, so I stand and let her stare piercingly at me.
    tab “You were a particularly hard change, you know,” she says in a voice that was a thousand times more strident than any Ashley I had ever known, “I took you on as a challenge. You used to be a punk, and a smart one at that.”
    tab “Then why did you do this to me?” I demand, half crying for my lost identity.
    tab “I told you,” she says, “I wanted a challenge. You were the most un-Ashley of anyone I had ever seen. But the more Ashleys I create, the more power I have. I wanted to see if I was ready to take on challenges beyond the high school. And for a while, I really had hoped that I was successful. Yet here you stand. I know that you watched four episodes of Death Note on Thursday, and that you are reading Kafka in your spare time. And now I need to know what went wrong. I need to change you back.”
    tab “No! I can’t be like that again. I hate pink and giggling and talking during class. I want to think for myself!”
    tab “That’s what they all say,” and here she smiles, “but you know how quickly those sentiments will pass. Soon you will forget that they even existed.”
    tab But I know how to think now. I have an advantage.
    tab “Let me tell you what I think about you Ashleys,” I say triumphantly. I grab the alpha Ashley’s purchases and throw them out of the dressing room.
    tab “That is what I think!”
    tab She immediately screams and, just as I had hoped, opens the door to retrieve her expensive clothing. I dash through the door before it closes, and I can hear the shrill war cry of the enraged Über-Ashley.
    tab I run for my life, but I can hear the thunderous sound of the flip-flops behind me, so I pull over racks of clothing behind me, hoping to trip them.
    tab I think it worked, but I do not look back to see. I run across the mall, leaping over a fake plant, and find myself in a place that I have not been inside for years.
    tab I look behind me. The Ashleys are stalking outside, enraged by my escape. The Über-Ashley cannot leaver her temple, but she can send minions. Fortunately, even her minions cannot enter Hot Topic.
    tab “We missed you,” says the cashier, who is heavily tattooed and pierced.
    tab He insists that I put some decent clothes on, and I happily agree. I select a t-shirt from the rack, but opt to keep my flip-flops, which are surprisingly comfortable. He begins to play a heavy metal CD to scare away the Ashleys. They scream and run from the sound.
    tab I breathe in deeply and smile, “It’s good to be home.”