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I was a girl. I’d always been a girl. I’d always dressed like a girl. But then I went to school and they told me I was a boy.

Skirting the Dress Code, by Karin Bishop

Part 2

Chapter 3: Inappropriate Attire

Attire that shows or displays undergarments; inadequately covers chest/breasts, midriff, buttocks or thighs; displays obscene, sexual, drug or alcohol related messages; or displays gang-related symbolism.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Laurie?” Rachel asked, echoing my mother.

“Absolutely, Rach. How can you even ask?”

We were lying on the bed in her room a few days before school started.

“I just don’t want …you know, any hassles for you …”

“Thanks, sweetie, but I’m going to get hassled; you know that.”

“Yeah …” She idly twirled her iPod phones around her finger. “I’m really into live and let live, you know? But you …you’re sticking your head in the lion’s mouth.”

“A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do!”

Rachel rolled her green eyes. “Geez, she’s going all macho on me!”

“So are you going to still be my friend?” I asked.

“Are you serious?” She shook her head. “No way! Ick! I’d rather eat a toad!”

“Or kiss a boy?” I teased.

“Not fair!” she giggled. Then she sighed. “You know, being a seventh-grade lesbian at an all-girls’ school should be heaven, but I’m gonna miss you so much …”

“Not my fault you’re so religious.”

She rolled her eyes again. “Not me: it’s Mom that’s the zealot! Maybe she thinks St. Mary’s gonna make a straight out of me.”

“Not gonna happen,” I grinned. “And besides, you can always tell her you were a lesbian before you were old enough to sin.”

“Yeah, like that’s gonna go over well my first day!”

“Yeah. First day …” I thought about my own first day with some nerves I tried to keep hidden from Rachel. To get my mind off the subject, I said, “Just promise me you won’t fall in love the first day. Or the second.”

“I make no promises!” she grinned. “Wait! Yes, I do! If you promise me that you …” She frowned and suddenly turned serious. “Promise me you won’t take chances? Don’t be a martyr, don’t be Miss Matthew Shepard, or whatever? Please?”

“I promise,” I said, and we hugged.

I really love this girl and we’re there for each other …and yet we’re not, because we’re going to be in separate schools for the first time in seven years. Mom said it really is for the best in the long run; we were inseparable for the last few years and she said we need to establish our own identities and meet new people and make friends. And I hate it when Mom’s right but she pretty much always is so it’s just not worth walking around hating it.

Between the two of us, Rach and I put together my first couple of weeks of wardrobe. Usually I dress more girly than her; she has way more jeans and rather boring tops than I do. She says if she ever went on a girly-girl date, she’d borrow something lacy from me. And then she giggles. Lace is just not her!

Mom and I had many discussions and a few shopping trips, including The Big One. Subtitled, for The Little Two. In other words, she said, “There’s no point in starting in camis and at some nebulous point in the future, moving into bras. You’re going to be needing one any day now; might as well get started and you can get used to it before school starts. That way it won’t be such a distraction for you.”

So we went to Macy’s, and hand-in-hand, happily met with a bra fitter for my very first bra. My nipples were, in fact, budding, and I was getting the start of mounding under each one. I was ecstatic, and loved it when the fitter said I was ‘blossoming’. I walked out of there and immediately realized that Mom was right—yet again!—because I kept moving this way and that way, exploring the new feeling of restriction and support. I would have been marked as a such a newbie if I’d started school and then started wearing a bra! At least we knew it was adjusted right, and next we went shopping for matching bra and panty sets. All in all, a wonderful mother-daughter day!

I was determined that I would not wear a single scrap of boy’s clothing, not that I had any. I know some girls wore boys’ Levis and things, cargo pants and whatnot, but not this girl! For my first day, I wore black Mary Jane skimmers and straight girls’ jeans with rose appliqués on the butt and just a little bit of a low waist. I wore a turquoise layer top with capped sleeves that had an ivory lace ‘undershirt’ at the bodice. And a light blue bra and panty set. I chose my silver jewelry; small hoop earrings in my pierced ears and a thin necklace and ring, as well as several ‘jellies’, such as LiveStrong and Breast Cancer Awareness—I am my mother’s daughter, after all!—and a colored string friendship bracelet that Rachel also wore. And a thin silver tank watch, a birthday gift from Mom’s friend Veronica. Not expensive but trés chic!

My hair was parted on the side and swept back over my forehead and held with a silver comb. I sprayed my favorite, Narcisse, and walked through the cloud. My soft brown purse and my new purple book bag full of supplies and …gulp! …I was ready to go to school.

Chapter 4: Inappropriate Attire

Clothing which is sexually suggestive, extremely brief/excessively tight, low-cut exposing the breasts or bra, strapless, off the shoulder, exposing the midriff, including: tank tops, muscle shirts, undershirts, shorts, and skirts that expose the buttocks, or which do not cover undergarments is not permitted.

There was a problem with my schedule even before I showed up. My original Social Studies teacher, Mr. Abrams, had a problem with me, with the existence of somebody like me. Pure and simple. And, apparently, he ‘would be speaking with’ the other teachers, but there was a last-minute shuffle and Mom had been sent an email that my Social Studies teacher had been changed.

But the first half of my day went very smoothly. Mom dropped me off; we had a Meaningful Look between us and I closed the door, feeling like Seventh Grade Girl. I knew I had to be strong; I knew I was going to get an unbelievable bunch of bad stuff hurled at me and dumped on me. But it was the price to pay to be allowed to be myself.

Amy Swanson, from home school, was waiting for me at the top of the school’s main steps.

“Hey there, you!” she grinned.

I said, “Amy, it means the world to me that you’re here. Now—and I mean this in the nicest possible way—leave, okay? It’s not safe for you.”

“Oh, screw that.”

“No, seriously, Amy. We’re both starting fresh here. I’m going to cause problems for you.”

“I don’t care. You’re my friend.”

“Amy, I will always love you for that. But, seriously, seriously, seriously! Until these kids …I mean this for your own good. Please pretend you don’t know me until …I don’t know. A month from now, maybe? Or we know everything’s cool? Until then, you don’t know me!”

I had to do it; her face creased to where I thought she might cry, but she nodded and turned away. Amy and Tricia from my home school were the only ones at Franklin. I just thought it was better to not complicate their lives.

I went through the halls knowing that girls were checking me out …and boys were checking me out. I rather liked that. Even though my interest in boys was a pretty recent development, after all my testing with the doctors, there was no question that I was a heterosexual female and had no guilt about being interested in boys …like the tall one with the dark curly hair leaning against the lockers to my left …

Franklin was trying a new schedule which had everybody groaning, whether it was deserved or not. The announcement and parents’ complaints had actually been in the local paper. There were now six ‘academic’ periods and one ‘athletic’ period, either boys’ or girls’ PE. The high school that Franklin fed into had a very strong athletic reputation—lots of state championships—and so the middle schools like Franklin were putting a new emphasis on ‘preparing tomorrow’s sports stars’, as the paper put it. So they were modeling what sports they offered after the high school’s schedule. So, if you were on a sports team or a cheerleader, you took PE as your seventh period and stayed after school for practice until five. Study Hall could be any of the other six periods. For non-athletes, PE could be at any time of the day. Since I was excused from any kind of PE—although Mom was insisting that I do something athletic to make up for it outside of school—I would have Study Hall, which I thought was wonderful because I could get a lot of homework done, maybe all of it!

As excited as I was to start public school, the whole ‘periods’ thing was new to me and a little daunting. In our Home School, things were more integrated, to use Ms. Rosen’s word. First of all, she had a bit of age-range of our twelve students, and would have one age group working on something, reading or discussion, while she was hands-on with another group. But the integration was in subject matter; we’d be doing History—like Ancient Greece, for example—and she’d tell us about the ‘phalanx’, the way the army would form attack groups. That would get us into a bit of English, discussing how ‘phalanx’ came from the word for ‘finger’, which plural is ‘phalanges’, with both terms used in modern English for finger and foot bones which would lead us into Biology.

It made sense to me, the way things all blended into one another because there are so many connections, ideas and subjects going in all sorts of directions, and it was great to learn it all, how everything connected. We didn’t know things weren’t taught that way in public schools, but we did know that our school was top-rated, and had received several commendations and awards for academic excellence. Rachel had heard somewhere that Ms. Rosen’s students usually tested two grade levels above their actual grade; the only schools comparable were the old-style parochial schools like St. Mary’s—which was why she was sent there instead of Franklin …plus, her mother is very Catholic! But my mother and I agreed—and, yeah, my Specialists pushed—that I get ‘broader socialization in my gender role’ in a public school.

Although the idea of one concentrated period of one subject was going to be alien. Plus, I was nervous about what was going to happen when my name was called …

First period, English with Mrs. Montgomery. No problems; she took roll ‘in her head’, as I think of it, looking at the list and her eyes roaming the class and checking off. So no pronouncements of anything, no names. Maybe as long as the number of students’ names and desks filled matched, maybe? Anyway, I was just another new girl in class …well, we were all new girls—I mean the girls, obviously—and after the first tense few minutes, it was nice to just get on with the lesson.

And it turned out to be writing; she said she’d give us twenty minutes to write about ‘what I did this summer’ and it wasn’t about length and there wouldn’t be a grade for it—there was some cheers at that—but she wanted an idea of how we wrote, and we’d compare it to the end of class, in June, and have fun seeing how we’d improved. I understood her definition of fun but there were some grumbles. We wrote, she called ‘five minutes’ and then ‘time!’ and then she passed out curriculum sheets and we went over them and that was English.

Second period, Social Studies with Mr. Sanchez. He called out last names; ‘Tilden?—Here, sir’ and we were done. I did hear some snickers at having added ‘sir’, but no big deal; it was the same thing as English, I was just another girl. And I was happy. It turned out second period was considered ‘Home Room’. I would have thought it would have been the first class of the day but I guess they made it second period to allow kids that overslept to make it into school, because there was a group of announcements from an overhead speaker that started by leading us in the Pledge of Allegiance, standing at our desks with our hands over our hearts. We sat, listened to the announcements, and Social Studies began.

I hadn’t really known the concept of ‘social studies’ since everything we’d done with Ms. Rosen sort of dealt with studying our society. Mom had explained it to me, and so it made a kind of sense, but seemed odd to focus on one area without relating it to others. Mr. Sanchez said we’d have fun because we were going to start with The Sixties. That actually got some cheers—apparently public middle school kids are pretty vocal!—and he made some jokes about hippies and The Beatles and it sounds like fun. But The Sixties came after The Fifties; I hope he tells about what led into The Sixties so we can see the flow of …well, the social connections. I suspended any judgement because I have to learn how they teach in middle school and Mr. Sanchez seems pretty cool.

There was a ten-minute break and then on to third, which was Math with Miss Inouye. No roll, no names, no nothing. Just, ‘Turn to page eleven’ and we were off.

I never had a problem with the subject, and the problems from page eleven were already familiar to me. I flipped to the last chapters in the book to see where we’d be in June, as Mrs. Montgomery had said about our writing skills. Nope, still covered ratios and percentages. Ah, good; starting Algebra, although just hinting at Probability, which Ms. Rosen had gone into, and was fascinating to me.

Still, I shouldn’t be Little Miss Know-It-All and get too relaxed thinking the class will be a breeze, or I could get blindsided. I paid attention to Miss Inouye and also loved her necklace, although my brain went into estimating how many stones were linked, and the ratio of small stones alternating with larger stones.

And I’ll have to watch out that my mind doesn’t wander too much, but these concentrated periods of one subject are so long!

Fourth was my Study Hall, in place of PE. And the way the Universe works, it was Mr. Abrams that ran it, the teacher that had refused to teach me Social Studies. He glared at me. I got out my English and Social Studies books and began to read. I looked up and he was still glaring. Since I had been notified that he had objected to me in his class, I figured it was time to get things sorted out. I closed my books and went up to his desk.

“Mr. Abrams?” I asked.

“Yes?” he said without any inflection.

“Um …I noticed you looking at me. Do you have …is there something …”

He looked at the other students, bent over their books or fighting sleep. Still, he edged back and spoke quietly but reluctantly. “You …are a disruption. To my class.”

“I don’t mean to be, sir. I know that my situation is a little unusual and I appreciate …your situation. But …I’m …just a girl, Mr. Abrams.”

“No, you are not. That’s the point. I’ve seen your file.”

“Regardless of what you …” I sighed. Keeping my voice low and leaning in, I said, “Mr. Abrams, I have been a girl since the day I was born. The doctor that delivered me made a mistake. It’s being corrected, but it’s still there right now on the documents. That’s all it took; one man’s mistake. And so I have this silly …thing on my file. But I am a girl.”

He stared dispassionately. “The file is not wrong. You’re a boy. And you should stop …doing that …” He waved his hand at me.

“I’m sorry, sir?”

“Stop wearing girls’ clothes. It’s a sin.”

“Mr. Abrams, I can’t …I can’t discuss sin with you. I’m only a seventh grade girl.”

“Boy.”

“Girl, sir. Really. It’s not a game, it’s not for fun, it’s not …whatever you think it is. I really don’t want to cause any disruptions, or disturbances, or anything like that. I just want to attend school and …” I shrugged. “And learn, you know?”

He looked at me for a very long time. “You …” He frowned. I think he was actually looking at me close-up for the first time. And he was seeing a girl, like any other girl, like hundreds of girls he’d seen. Because I was so absolutely sincere in my statement—and appearance—that I was a girl, it shook his certainty.

“Yes, Mr. Abrams?” I asked simply.

He continued frowning. “I will …” He was searching for something to say. “I will take this under advisement. But I will be watching you.”

I noticed he didn’t say my name. I nodded and said, “Yes, sir,” and went back to my seat.

Then, lunch. I sat at a table of new kids—New Kids?—so we weren’t really ostracized; we weren’t anything at this point.

Fine with me!

I saw Amy, and Tricia across the room, and we met eyes but I shook my head. Amy gave me a sad smile; Tricia gave me a grateful look that I wasn’t indicating that I knew her. I smiled at them, nodded once, and attended to my meal.

Fifth period, Science with Mr. DeLauro. He called out last names and seemed to look at me longer than anybody else, but it could have been my imagination.

Life Science, actually, and we were going to start with cells. A good place to start, I thought; I remembered struggling with which was ‘meiosis’ and which was ‘mitosis’ until I got it straight and …it looked like that would be later in the semester. Fine; it’s all good, just pay attention, Laurie!

Sixth period, Home Economics with Mrs. Boynton. Well, we were all girls, there, right? Should be no problems, right? But …somebody had said something to somebody along the line, because several of the girls gave me a wide variety of looks, and not of the ‘another new girl’ variety. And of course it was there, in what I thought would be my only safe haven—because there were no boys—that I got flak.

“Mrs. Boynton, ma’am?” one girl put her hand up and then pointed at me. “I think that’s a boy, ma’am. He shouldn’t be here.”

“Calm down, Jennifer,” Mrs. Boynton said with a tired air. “I have it on good authority …” She paused for those words to take effect. “That there are only girls in this room. Are we clear on that, Jennifer?”

“But …”

“Are we clear on that, Jennifer?”

The girl was stunned and then nodded. “Yes, Mrs. Boynton.”

This didn’t prevent Mrs. Boynton from giving me ‘A Look’. I tucked my head down to the list of supplies and got through the class.

After class, I took a moment and went up to her. “Mrs. Boynton, I …well, thank you.”

“Uh …Miss Tilden.” She looked down at her records and then glanced at the door; the last girl left and we were alone for a precious minute. “Laurie, you are a very unusual …student.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She looked at me for a moment. Then, to my surprise, she smiled. “I appreciate that you want to keep things quiet and get on with things. That’s fine with me, too.”

I nodded. “Mrs. Boynton, I didn’t ask to be the way I am; and the doctors are correcting things. I’m …” I shrugged. “I’m just a girl that wants to learn Home Economics.”

She chuckled. “Come now, Laurie; no girl wants to learn Home Economics!”

I grinned at her. “Mrs. Boynton, my mother is a wonderfully capable woman. But a cook …not so much! What I learn in here I can put to good use right away!”

She was still laughing when I left the room.

I felt buoyed by her reaction and it carried me to my last class, French with Miss Walker. More kids had been talking about me because I got more looks, but Miss Walker simply said, “La classe, faites l'attention, s'il vous plaît!” and took us all in hand. Fortunately nobody seemed to know French so we were all in the deep end together and I was forgotten.

However, walking to the parking lot, I was aware of little flurries and eddies of muffled conversations that were obviously about me. I boarded my bus and a rather bored, dumpy boy had to sit next to me; I was grateful that he had no interest in or knowledge of me.

Chapter 5: Appropriate Attire

Undergarments and midriff (front and back) must be covered at all times.

My second day …well, it was a change. I wore a purple-and-violet plaid shirt, shirred at the neck and cap sleeves and hem, and a black cami under it. I wore tight-but-stretchy gray denim jeans and black ballet flats. Nothing was too tight or revealing or flirty. But it was nicely put-together (thank you Rachel for the shirt!) and I felt comfortable.

The change came from the other students. Word had spread somehow that there was ‘a boy pretending to be a girl’ or ‘a boy having a sex change’ or ‘a totally gay boy’ around. The funny thing was, on two occasions, girls told me the rumor, never dreaming that it was me they were gossiping about! While it was possible there was someone else like me, I assumed they meant me, but I was happy just to be included in their gossip circles. That’s so important to girls!

The flip side to the school-wide rumor was the kids in my actual classes began to treat me as if I were just another girl. Some of them, anyway. Others who had been too embarrassed to look yesterday now felt emboldened and looked at me openly. Usually they frowned because I know what they expected to see—an obvious boy stuffed into girls’ clothes. And what they actually saw was …a girl. Pretty, too, although that would be bragging. So it kind of messed them up, just as I’d noticed Mr. Abrams’ uncertainty the day before. Today, as well, he watched me but I thought his conviction was weakening.

And, of course, by lunchtime somebody had written ‘FAG’ on my locker with a Sharpie. I swung by the office on the way and mentioned it to Mrs. Danby, the principal’s secretary. Her jaw tightened and she nodded. Then she tried a brave smile and said, “Neanderthals. Well, don’t fret, sweetie. I’ve been hearing good things about you.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Teachers’ lounge. Ordinarily what’s said in there stays in there, but it would be pointless to deny that you were the number one topic of conversation. All I can tell you is that there are some that have prejudices and there always will be, you know?”

“Yes, ma’am. I understand that. I don’t mean to challenge anybody’s prejudices, only to go about my business and hope that I can give them the opportunity to get to know me.”

She smiled. “That’s what I like about that particular home school you came from; the students have always been quite articulate and mature. Some home schools …” She rolled her eyes. “Like they were living in the jungle!”

We chuckled together about that, and Mrs. Danby said, “You’re missing lunch, so move along now. Oh, and for what it’s worth, Laurie, your teachers spoke highly of you.”

“They did? Thank you, Mrs. Danby,” I smiled and went to lunch.

I thought about the graffiti on my locker and saw the custodian down the hall, shoving a rolling bucket and broom into a storage closet. I walked up to him; his dark green shirt had a patch that said ‘Vlad’.

“Excuse me, sir?” I asked.

“Yes?” he answered with an extra-long ‘s’ sound.

“Somebody wrote on my locker with a Sharpie. I was told to report it to Mrs. Danby and I just did. I wondered, are you the person that would have to remove the graffiti?”

“Yes, me,” he said.

I said, “You’re Vlad?”

He nodded. “Vladimir.” He said it as ‘Vla-dee-mear’.

“I’m sorry that you have the extra work. Do you want to come see?”

“What about lunch?” He meant mine.

“I brought a snack; I’m okay, thanks. Um, Vlad—or should I call you Vladimir?”

He stopped. “Why so friendly? I am janitor.”

“Custodian,” I smiled. “Says so on your shirt. But the other side says Vlad. What would you like me to call you?”

He eyed me as if he suspected a trick. With a small grunt, he said, “I would like Vladimir.”

I smiled. “I’m Laurie, Vladimir.” I pronounced it as he had, held out my hand and he shook it reluctantly.

We came to my locker and he read the scrawl with distaste. All he said was, “Why?”

I said, “Vladimir, I’m sorry this happened, but it probably won’t be the only time. That’s why I wanted us to meet. You see, some people have a problem with me. I’m a girl, duh!” I half-giggled. “But my school records say I’m a boy.” He frowned and I went on. “It’s just a mistake but until it’s cleared up it’s confusing for some people. Most kids know that I’m a girl, but some just …” I looked at the locker and sighed. “Some just are full of hate.”

“I know about hate,” he said softly. Then he nodded. “Very well, Laurie-who-is-not-a-boy, I will remove.”

“Wait. Um …I don’t want this to get into some game where you take it off and they mark it up and you take it off again. That’s work you shouldn’t have to do. Unless the principal orders me to use some other locker, this one is going to be a target for the haters. Is there some, I don’t know …some treatment or plastic sheet or something that can go on the locker so the writing doesn’t stick? Or peels off? Or anything like that?”

To my surprise, he grinned. “Yes. Anti-Stick. Too expensive, school says, but I have spray can to try out. So you and I together, we will try out. Maybe we convince school Anti-Stick for everybody?”

I grinned back. “Cool! I’m glad we met, Vladimir.”

“Me, too. Tomorrow, Anti-Stick. Go eat lunch, Laurie.”

I don’t know if I’d call Vladimir a friend yet, but he was grinning as I left.

There was a commotion in the cafeteria; two guys from rival gangs, according to the girls at the table I sat at, with their buddies—their ‘homies’, I guess—flocking to stand behind them. I knew of gangs in high school, but in middle school? They were probably eighth graders, and I wondered if these were real gangs or the younger brothers of gangers. Maybe they thought they had to be tough like their big brothers, but it looked kind of silly—the gang posturing and things with their hands and fingers—on fourteen-year-old boys. But they seemed serious.

Everybody was done eating lunch; I grabbed an apple and a muffin, besides the granola bar I had with me. The same girls that were accepting of me yesterday as a new girl were a little confused, but one of them, Shannon, didn’t seem to mind and her smile was genuine. She had absolutely straight blonde hair and a wide forehead and clear blue eyes. She was narrating the confrontation like a badly-dubbed foreign movie, with two ‘boy voices’ with atrocious accents and dialogue all out of place. The table was laughing and I was, too.

We watched the boys circling, flicking hands out now and then as Shannon narrated in that odd, stilted voice dubbed movies used.

“You have naturally wavy hair. I am so jealous!” The boy thumped his chest as she said that.

“It can be yours, my young Latino friend. I suggest a change of conditioner.”

“I prefer Hispanic, mi amigo. Can we not discuss this over a fine dinner?” The boy held his hands out wide.

The second boy held up a warning finger. “I must warn you that I am lactose-intolerant.”

The first boy held his hands wide. “Then no cheese platter. Perhaps Thai or Vietnamese?”

The second boy gestured to the crowd on his side, nodding. “We have a preference for Vietnamese.”

The first boy indicated his crowd. “Yet we find the French influence in their cuisine not to our liking.” He reaised a finger.

The second boy turned to his crowd and laughed. “Ha-ha! Next you would have us add coconut to our every dish.”

“As you add it to your conditioner, as well!” She said this just as the first boy shouted something and they braced for an assault.

At that point a teacher finally showed up with one of the supposedly highly-regarded security guys; maybe they’d been waiting to see if it blew over but it seemed to be escalating and they stepped in.

I couldn’t resist. I took the voice of the adults. As the rent-a-cop waded between the two boys, hands raised and patting the air to calm things down, I said gruffly, “I want an honest opinion. Do these pants make my butt look big?”

The girls around me burst out laughing; Shannon turned and grinned at me and then turned back and added the boys’ lines. “It’s all a matter of how you carry yourself.” The other boy ‘added’, “But that navy blue is quite slimming.”

The teacher said something; I said, “Exactly how many ‘I’s in Mississippi?”

The cop held up his hand to the teacher. “Five.”

The teacher responded and I said, “No, four, but a good guess.”

One of the girls at our table was laughing so hard I thought she was going to choke.

One of the boys protested. Shannon ‘translated’. “No fair, we didn’t get to play!”

The other boy ‘said’, “I was going to say four. Cuatro, actually.”

The boys now pretended to be best friends, smiling at the adults and actually putting arms over each other’s shoulder. Shannon provided, “There are many other rivers we wish to discuss, such as the Mekong and the Seine.”

As the teacher, nodding with his hands on his hips, I said, “And yet the Mississippi is longer than either of them, correct?”

“Very cool,” Shannon said to me in her own voice. Switching to the boys quickly to catch up, she supplied, “Then let us put aside our culinary differences and discuss needlepoint.”

The teacher said something to the officer. I tossed in, “Ah! Finally we can discuss needlepoint.”

For the officer’s response, I supplied, “But I only crochet!”

And the principals all moved apart, commotion over. We all turned back to our table, who were giggling or staring at us as the case may be.

Shannon gave me a knowing look and slurped her juice box straw. “I know you. Um, Tilden, right? You’re in Study Hall with me. What’s Abrams’ problem with you, anyway?”

One of the girls, who had kind of pulled away when I first sat down, had blurted, “They say that she’s a boy.”

I looked at her; she looked away and added, “I heard …something like that.”

I said, “No, you heard right. Not that I am a boy, but you heard that somebody said I was.” I shrugged.

Shannon said, “I’m often taken for Swedish.” The girl stared and Shannon theatrically rolled her eyes. “When it’s so obvious that I’m Norwegian!”

That lightened the mood and the buzzer sounded. We got up and tossed our stuff and Shannon came down the hall with me. “You were pretty good at that improv.”

“Thanks. I’m Laurie, by the way. And I just followed your lead. I thought you were brilliant.”

With an affected, diva-like air, she said, “Yes, I often am.” In a normal voice, she said, “I’m Shannon Fowler. You into improv?”

I shrugged. “I never thought about it one way or another.”

“You should. That was fun. Are you going to, like, try out for the school play or anything?”

“I hadn’t thought about it.” On her look, I said quickly, “I’ve been home schooled until this year. This is all pretty overwhelming to me. Like I’m in a foreign country, just learning my way around.”

In her foreign movie dub voice, Shannon said, “Many find the cultural festivals of the natives to be enlightening.” In her normal voice, she said, “I can’t imagine being stuck in my home the whole day.”

“Oh, it wasn’t at my home; it wasn’t like Mom teaching me or anything. There were twelve of us in the house of the teacher, and she was state-certified and all that.”

“Sounds more like Little House on the Prairie stuff, the little one-room schoolhouse.”

“A bit like that, but we were all closer in age.”

“So what’s your story?” On my look, she rolled her eyes and said, “Of course I know what people are saying about you. And I heard bits of you and Abrams talking.”

“If you heard any of it, that’s pretty much the whole story. My records mistakenly show an M instead of an F. Some people think that’s the beginning and end of it.”

“So you’re transgendered,” she said casually.

“Well …” I sighed and went out on a limb, trusting her intelligence. “I heard that all Norwegians are drunks and liars.”

Shannon simply nodded. “Some are. Some are truthful drunks and some are lying teetotalers. And some neither drink, lie, or play Parcheesi. I get it.”

“You do?”

“Not Springer stuff.” Like an ad for the TV show, she mock-yelled, “I’m trapped in the wrong body!”

“I’m trapped in the wrong bureaucratic body,” I nodded.

“How long have you known?” She stopped at a branch of the corridors.

“I’ve never not known. My mother and father were absolutely certain I was a girl when I was three. I began treatment pretty much from then on.”

“Whoa! That’s unusual, from what I understand. Listen, I gotta run. Wanna talk some more?”

“Sure.”

“Cool!” she called, already moving away. Her voice faded, “I’m gonna be late! I like your jeans, by the way!”

* * *

My Science class was one door down so I was in my seat as the buzzer faded. Mr. DeLauro seemed to stare at me during class, but it didn’t seem to upset our discussion of Geological Periods. In Home Ec, we began with basic cooking ingredients and necessary pots and pans. Mrs. Boynton called on me a couple of times; I got the answers right since I lived alone with Mom and cooked a lot so I have dinner ready when she comes home. Despite what I’d said to Mrs. Boynton, Mom was a good cook, but she’s so busy that I like to help her. So, yeah, I’d buttered up Mrs. Boynton—and isn’t butter involved in cooking? And then French class was bien, and it was time for the bus. I’d taken it that morning but nobody had hassled or even really stared because they were all so tired, or bummed out to be back in school.

A boy in the seat in front of me put his arm on the seat back and turned towards me. “That was pretty funny, what you and Shannon did with the fight at lunch.”

The chubby girl next to me looked blankly at me and then back out the window, pushing her glasses back up her nose. I smiled back at the boy and said, “Thanks.”

“We were sitting at the table next to you, and could hear you. Do you do improv?”

“Shannon asked that, too. Um …I haven’t.”

“You should. I’m Drake, by the way. Drake Russell.”

I paused slightly trying to gauge whether it was a real or fake name. “Laurie Tilden.”

He nodded. “I know; I know. It sounds made up. But it really is my first name. My father’s obsession with English history.”

“Then be glad he didn’t name you ‘Ethelred’.”

His face lit up. “The Unready! I thought that was the funniest name when I was little.”

“It still is, pretty much.”

He frowned. “How the hell do you know about Ethelred?”

“This last year we were talking about the war in Iraq, and about George Bush, and the teacher told us about other rulers who weren’t up to the task of governing and used fear and repression on their own people, thinking it would strengthen their position.” I stopped, realizing that it was a political hot potato. I believed it was the truth, but we’d been discussing it in a historical context last year.

Drake eyed me. “And Ethelred …”

“Ethelred was paying extortion to Danish Vikings but they still would attack. So he thought he could rally the country by rounding up and slaughtering all of the Englishmen who were of Viking descent. Some say And it fractured the country.”

“Huh. I never knew that.”

“Sorry if it sounded like I was on a soapbox or something. It’s just what we discussed in school, you know?”

“Where in the world did you go to school?”

“Trotsky Progressive.” It was a joke I’d overhead. I laughed. “Actually, I was home schooled.”

“So your parents taught you that.”

“Why does everybody think home schooling means your parents teach you in your own home? There were twelve students and a state-certified teacher and we studied at her house. Actually, in a house behind her own. Sort of like pioneer children,” I explained, as I had to Shannon.

He nodded. “You’re right. I had no idea that that was home schooling, too.”

“We weren’t radical or anything. Well, the teacher was pretty worked up about Iraq because she said it was a terrible mistake that our generation is going to have to sort out. So we talked about it in depth.” I shrugged. “As much depth as sixth graders discuss anything.”

Drake grinned at that. “Uh …I also overheard some other stuff …”

“Yeah?” I simply looked at him.

His eyes flicked to the chubby girl and the boy next to him and back to me. “Never mind.”

I appreciated his discretion. “What’s your stop?”

“One-thirty-fifth, by the nursery. You?”

“Two after that. Um …” I calculated the distance, not in terms of my ability to walk it, but if problems should arise. It was okay. “You wanna split the difference? Get off one past and I’ll get off one early and I’ll tell you about ‘some other stuff’?” I held his eyes.

He grinned. “Modern woman, huh? Like splitting the check in a restaurant? Okay, you’re on.”

When we got to his stop, he instinctively started to rise and sat back down, looking sheepish. We got off with kids at the stop after that, and got looks from a couple of them. It was an actual bus stop that the city transit system used, so we stood as the kids took off and then sat on the bench. It was an awkward moment; we were a boy and a girl alone on a park bench, full of seventh-grade thoughts, feelings, and hormones. Drake had hair like strands of dark chocolate and brown eyes. His skin was clear and he seemed like he smiled a lot. He had a good build on him and was almost a full head taller than I was. I sat with my knees together and feet wide apart, in the manner of girls. We didn’t look at each other.

“Drake, um …you were nice to talk with me on the bus and seem like a nice guy and I want to explain about myself.”

“So there is something to explain?”

“Come on; you know you’ve heard stuff.” I turned to him and said, “My doctor made a mistake when I was born and marked down that I was a boy. My parents named me ‘Laurence’. But I was, and am, and always will be, female. My father knew he didn’t have a son and split when I was three. Mom didn’t try to raise me as a girl; I am a girl, and have always lived like and dressed as a girl. When I was eight, I started with doctors at the University and so that’s where I am. By law, nothing can be changed until I’m eighteen. So I’m a girl whose school records still say ‘Laurence, boy’. But I’m not.”

I couldn’t read his face. Then he said, “Actually, they probably say ‘Laurence, male’.” He shrugged. “You managed to talk the school into accepting you as a girl or you’d have been yanked out before first period yesterday.”

“But they can’t correct the birth certificate until I’m eighteen, and all the school records are based on the certificate handed over when first starting public school.”

I waited. He nodded and looked out at the traffic.

“Drake? Um …aren’t you going to say anything?”

He looked at me. “Laurie, don’t take this the wrong way. I am not saying this to be hitting on you. But you are a very pretty girl. Anybody takes one look at you can see that. No way are you a boy.”

“Except in the paperwork,” I nodded.

“Yeah, and people get their rumor mill going and have no idea what they’re talking about …” He looked in the distance. “Last year kids said that I was gay. They said I was seen kissing some guy. And it was true—and completely wrong.” He shrugged. “I have a cousin who’s French; lives in Lyon. Dad and I went to pick him up at the airport and he got off the plane and we all did the two-cheek kissing thing as a greeting. One kid—that’s all it took; one kid!—was there with his folks and saw me and that was it. By the next day, to the whole school, I was gay,” he said, throwing his hands up.

“How terrible! What did you do?”

He grinned. “We were in Social Studies and I persuaded my teacher that it would be nice to have my cousin come in and meet the class. He’s older, by the way, not our age. He teaches high school in Lyon. So he came in and did that, and some idiot asked him about men kissing, and I’m forever thankful to that idiot because Luc set everything straight. And the whole ‘Drake was kissing a guy’ thing went away.”

“I hope the ‘Laurie is a boy’ thing goes away.”

“It will. Just keep looking like you do, and just, you know, being one of the girls, and …” He seemed to be stammering and blushing.

“Drake, because, um …of that nonsense last year, and the nonsense I’m going through right now, maybe after today you shouldn’t act like you know me. I mean, until things quiet down? You know, guilt by association?”

He looked at me and frowned. “Up until that thing with my cousin happened, I never thought about being gay one way or the other. I mean, in my family, we look at it like if somebody’s gay that’s their business, like if somebody is a Yankee fan or somebody likes classical music. You can’t convince them otherwise, and if they’re not hurting you, live and let live. Most people are like that, I think, but there are those few that only work from fear and hatred. But being on the receiving end of hatred kind of opened my eyes. About discrimination, I mean. And, well, I appreciate your offer. And it’s really kind and everything, but …if it’s all the same to you, I don’t mind being associated with you.”

His eyes rather sparkled at that as I looked into them.

“Drake, are you sure? This is a whole new school and your reputation …” I shrugged. “I’ll understand. Really.”

“Then understand this, Laurie.” He stood. “I will walk you home.”

As I rose, I protested, “No, you don’t have to; you’re already past your stop and I’m further, you’ll be miles away from your house.”

“Only about two, I think,” he grinned. “And if I’m going out for sports this year, I’ll need the exercise.”

I gathered my things cradling them to my chest and we began walking. “Really? What sports are you going out for?”

End of Part 2

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