I knew I could build a trebuchet. They were simple; they just had to be huge to do any good. The counterweight had to be enormous in order to lift the... payload against the leverage. And the counterweight had to move through as long a drop as possible, to let gravity accelerate everything enough for the payload to go flying.The recreations at the European castles had pivot points 20 or 30 feet up in the air. The counterweight could easily be a couple of tons, and the launcher end could be 30 or. My mom, on the other hand, not so much. Val asked to go alone with my mom to pick up the stuff. While dad and I finished our looking around rather quickly the ladies took a lot longer. While we sat and waited, I started getting nervous, wondering what was taking so long. And I was afraid of what the answer would be."Will, I think we need to talk." My dad said as soon as I started to take a sip of my raspberry lemonade.Guessing the topic of what he wanted to talk about I took my time drinking. My parents had married withoutthe consent of their family members. My father passed away when I wasstill to be born so, I never saw him. My mom who is a very arrogantlady refused to seek help of the relatives and by herself has beentaking care of the family.Instead, my mom and several of other single mothers, who were liberalthinkers, had formed a sort of organization, which for practicalreasons lived in the same colony. The organization had also founded aschool where I studied.My family. Right on BNN, was the announcement. Anyone who has not been notified, and is currently listed as a female, should report to their doctor to start the transformation if they so choose. I had not gotten any notification, which meant that I would be a female from now on no matter how I dressed! Any hope I ever had of going back to my male self was gone! "You heard." I spun around and saw my parents standing there. I nodded my head yes and started to cry. "Don't cry honey. You're very pretty and.