Thomas Allan Wehl’s silver tongue has got him out of many tight spots. From age thirteen he has finely tuned his skills in conning bartenders to serve him beers to the point that here he is at age fourteen and seven-twelfths quaffing pints and abetting in the delinquency of pretty minor girls. Can her silver tongue get him out of trouble as fast as it’s getting her in to it?

It was my last day of half term and I was bored and wanted to enjoy the sunny early June day in Hessle. I’d done my usual trick of going into the local pub and asking for two pints. The twenty quid note clearly visible to the land lord / bartender on a slow Monday pre-noon lunch splutter. I had my date of birth ready with the year four years prior to the actual one, but as I thought I wasn’t even asked if I was over eighteen. I was likely the first sign of business he’s had, and he probably was the owner desiring to get some money to prime a hopeful lunch rush.

After popping some of the loose coins in the tip jar and sticking the ten spot and two pound coin in my pocket, I took the two beers out to the bar garden, so he’d think the second was for my friend. Yep, as I only shared two long weekends between my Grandma’s in Hessle and my Uncle’s in Elloughton each year, I didn’t have any friends here. I didn’t really have any at home in Helston, or at my boarding school located fairly close to the dead middle of the Yorkshire Moors. In other words, the middle of nowhere.

If you zoomed in on the Yorkshire Moors with likely the highest rez’ zoom of an internet map you’d finally see deer trails with the hamlets Cockayne and Glaisdale. Draw a line between the two. The center of that line, where the map doesn’t even show there to be a dear trail let alone any name for the surrounding area, is more or less where the thirty odd acres of my boarding school is located. Anyway, I was enjoying my last full day of my holiday and planned to drink the beer and hopefully have a great end to my Summer half term.

Seeing nothing happened as I drained the dregs of the second glass I decided to walk to the next pub. See I’d found that it was the second order of two pints that usually didn’t work. That’s no problem in the UK as a few minutes walk and there’s a new pub ready to get its mitts on a twenty quid note. That’s strange too, I mean I’m getting more than thirteen pounds back, but somehow try to pay with four two pound coins a five or even a ten spot and the success rate goes down. I guess they figure only an eighteen-year-old has twenty-pound notes in their wallet.

Perhaps the beer gave me courage, or maybe the girls were bored and wanting to do something before they too return to school tomorrow, but taking a shot to try to pull seemed almost easy. Perhaps some none verbal communication had clued me in sub-consciously that I already had their interest. It likely was all working together for once, and I had rolled a one on my ‘D-100’ saving throw.

“Hey girls you fancy a pint at the lion?” I boldly asked instead of just shyly walking by them both, as they cut out of the lane on my left, turning toward me. The delivery went off without stutter or any sign of being nervous while I pointed behind them up the street a bit where the next pub was. It’s slightly mis-hung sign displayed in faded and gone paint ‘Tne Ped L or ’ with a single lion image in dusty red on a dirty white background, that was likely once bright red on pure white.

The two giggled and looked at each other the brunet’s cheeks gained a slight blush. The blonde though was made of sterner stuff. “Aye, I’m Anne Marie and this’s my friend Melisa. So you’re inviting both of us to the pub? We’ll get kicked out as we’re both fourteen, girl, and the land lord knows me’ Da.”

Well true I was a bit skinny and my near blonde locks brushing my shoulders were close to the max length the school allowed the boys to wear their hair, but I figured perhaps she thought I was eighteen and thus a girl as I was obviously too short, nor carried the bulk, for an eighteen-year-old lad.

“I’m Thomas, a boy.” I added the emphasis because I was nervous and wanted to not be mistaken as a girl. “And I’m fourteen too. Ya’ don’t even have to come inside. I’ll bring the three pints to the garden outside.”

“You really can get beer served from a pub?” Melisa asked nervously. She was a cute brunette, but definitely the wing-lass to Anne Marie’s ace pilot.

“I just finished two pints at the black swan.” I boasted.

“Oh, I can’t do that. My Mum would kill me.” Melisa said, and I thought this was the beginning of when my luck would turn to its usual kind. I concentrated on memorizing their beautiful bodies before they left me alone.

Anne Marie was a willowy blonde with two dimples on her smiling and mischievous face. “Tom boy, you going to get two beers from this pub too then, and bring them outside to us, lass? Melisa you can have a sip of mine, unless she’ll let you share hers.”

Well I hadn’t been shot down, so I took the joke of being referred to as a girl thrice more because she hadn’t shot me down and a little teasing was good to break the ice at the start of a relationship. “Melisa I can get you, your own pint too.” By now we had got to the side beer garden of the pub. It wasn’t as nice as the black swan’s that was a true garden. The lion’s looked like it doubled as overflow parking too, as a stretch of gravel ran up to the two wooden tables that were almost an afterthought beside the fence.

“No, a sip or two is all I want.”

Well that made it easier. I was ordering what I always did so had full confidence it would work. “Tom boy, we’ll save you a seat here then lass.” Anne Marie said jumping up on the table and likely deliberately flashing her knickers beneath her mini skirt before crossing her legs. Seeing me looking, and likely blushing, she winked. “Be careful of the peddler.”

“Peddler?” I asked then saw the pub’s sign with missing letters and laughed at Anne Marie’s joke.

Even with a small lunch crowd inside from the heat, I easily got my two pints from the bar and ensured I didn’t spill any at the two steps before the door that was a bit hard to navigate with the indoor dim lighting change to bright outdoor sunshine. Using my bum to open the door I was heading back. The girls were still there. I must admit, I’d been worried they might have left. Melissa was glancing nervously all over the place, and I was glad I’d left her outside while getting the beers. Crossing the gravel with my own Cheshire cat grin I made to hand one pint to Anne Marie.

“Pop them on the table as if they’re both yours.” She shook her head and I now was thinking could they be working as undercover agents for the police. They both looked fourteen. Melisa could be fifteen maybe, but not eighteen. My paranoid brain though was all ‘this is too good to be true, ergo it isn’t.

After glancing around though Anne Marie picked up the pint and took a draught that let me know she was familiar with drinking. She had to coax her less svelte friend in to drinking. However, after getting her to take the second she then offered mine for drinking too. “Melisa you should take a sip of Tom boys too.”

“Sure Melisa, this is my third, so it is better if we share.” I offered not wanting to appear a skin flint as Anne Marie was sharing hers.

“You don’t mind?”

“Of course, not I’ll share a pint with you any day.” I flirted, and it must have worked as she actually held my hand to steady and control the glass as she daintily sipped several times. Still with her hand over mine holding the glass she pushed the glass toward me.

“Your turn.” Melisa said and as I looked over the glass into her brown eyes taking a deep gulp, I saw the pink lip stick stain on the far side of the glass she’d left on my glass.

“I think I’m jealous. We should take a sip from each other’s glass too.” Anne Marie said twisting her glass then holding her glass out to ward me. She’d uncrossed her legs again and with the slight parting of her legs the black lacey panties were partially visible once more. Needless to say I wasn’t looking at either glass.

As I was initially looking elsewhere than at the glasses, I was just about to take a sip before I realized I had to glance at my glass to ensure I was correctly lining it up to tip it into Anne Marie’s mouth. Her glass on my lips informed me to open my mouth and I was already swallowing before thinking her beer tasted different than mine. Which was odd as I had bought two pints of the same beer. Hers had a slight cherry flavor though.

Even with the three of us sharing both pints I probably drank a good bit more than one of the pints before both glasses being empty. I was happily tipsy where you just have to giggle at everything said.

“You probably should return the glasses to the bar. Mister Hughes hates the glasses being left outside.” Anne Marie told me. The request seemed natural enough that I wondered why I’d never thought to do that before. I did realize that both glasses had multiple pink and red lipstick stains blurred around the rims. That actually made me think they should get back quicker because I wondered if lipstick marks might truly stain the glass if not cleaned off right away.

The bar was empty when I entered. I had to be careful not to fall over when I stumbled on the two steps down just inside the door. The near trip was caused because my eyes weren’t adjusted to the dim interior from being in the bright outdoors, and I’d forgotten nearly stumbling down them last time I entered. It of course brought the bartenders attention fully onto me. Due to that he arrived directly opposite the bar to take the glasses from me as I arrived. “Well if my sobriety test at the door didn’t tell me to cut you off young lady then your obvious make out session with my glassware has. You’ll need to fix your make-up before you go home, or your parents will think you’ve been loose with a boy even if they don’t twig you’ve been drinking.”

“I didn’t… I’m not…” Well there is no way to answer those accusations and not get in more trouble, so I just fled the bar in humiliation.

“Oh, I thought you might bring another couple of pints.” Anne Marie said, as her greeting, which considering I was already flustered didn’t help me in any way. “I was just kidding. You planning on doing anything else today?”

“Just wanted to have some fun before travelling back to school tomorrow afternoon.”

“Oh, we actually have school starting first thing. Must be nice to only have classes in the afternoon. Where do you go?” Melisa inquired.

“Tomorrow afternoon I travel back to Bellmare Moor School. Classes don’t start ‘till Wednesday though.”

“You want to hang at my house?” Anne Marie asked, and after my nod stepped in closer causing me to take a step back and find myself against the picnic tables bench.“We need to fix our lippy and take a mint to mask our breath.” Anne Marie had a green roll of polos out and after popping one in Melisa and my hands had taken one too. I watched as both girls then took out lipstick. Marie’s red and Melisa’s pink and with the whole both stepping in against me for sharing the polos and being against the built-in seat of the picnic table, unless I rudely pushed them I had a frontline seat to watching both girls pucker up to repaint their lips. “Cherry red or candy floss pink?” Marie asked me.

“Anne Marie, remember I told you I am a boy. Could you step back?”

“Tegan, I know you told me you were a tomboy and I will help you with that. I chose red as you didn’t.”

I could taste the cherry flavor that I’d tasted first with Anne Marie’s beer, as she brushed her lipstick against my lips. “Come on pucker up Tegan, like you’re going to get a kiss. In fact, if you let me do this I will give you a kiss.” Well she’d already started, and I realized the whole bartender calling me a lady meant I’d already got lipstick from the whole sharing the same glasses, and I get a kiss. Well it was a no brainer. I puckered up and accepted Tegan as my nickname. I then got a kiss which apparently meant we needed to fix our lipstick again.

Thus, I found myself between Melisa and Anne Marie, arm in arm, heading back up the side street I’d initially seen them coming down. I was escorted toward downtown Hessle, but before leaving the old houses into the commercial center she stopped at a two-story house in a row of several. About an eight-foot length of newly repainted gloss black fence contrasted with both neighbors’ fence that had the time worn faded old black with rust on either side. The gate opened with minimal squeak in to the postage-stamp concrete front yard. Within three steps, and Anne Marie had the front door opened.

Stairs started on the right against the common wall of next doors. The rest of the space to the other neighbor’s common wall was a small living room. Unless you counted the rear of the sofa as the boundary between main hall and then about three-feet narrower living room. A white sheet was stuck into the side of the stairs with thumb tacks. Whether that meant the area under the stairs was a room, cupboard or child’s den I wasn’t sure.

Sitting in an arm chair that poked into the sofa’s marked hallway to the kitchen was a slightly overweight middle aged man in boxers and white vest. A floor standing fan blew toward his slightly sweaty flushed face, and the thinning brown hair seemed to cling to his head. He was watching a tv that was sat on the final piece of living room furniture. A table with that shiny false wood grain laminate top and four thin plastic legs.

“Tegan head up stairs with Melisa. Da, it’s a crisis intervention. I must save Tegan from her tomboy ways.”

“Wait a moment lass and introduce me to your new friend. You should offer her tea too. I am sure the crisis can wait a few minutes and not interrupt polite manners.” He grabbed a pair of trousers I’d failed to note were on the back of the sofa and proceeded to pull them on while I wanted to back up out of the house, but Melisa was right behind me and not letting me escape.

“Tegan, come over here and let me get a good look at you lass. Bet you are a right boy charmer like my Anne Marie.”

So next I’m going to shake hands with Marie’s Dad, who after partially redressing in front of me is calmly stood in unbuckled-belt-unzipped-trousers and vest as if this is not unusual. He ignores my arm and hugs me kissing my cheek. “Nice to meet you Tegan, so you go to Hessle High School too?”

“No sir, Bellmare Moor School.” I took a step back to get out of the hug. Would it be rude to wipe my cheek? I mean what the hell!

“Tegan take a seat. Oh, let me get my shirt off the sofa. It’s just too hot and I wanted to rest after getting off work. So, a private girls’ school. Where is it?” Marie’s dad pulled his shirt on while watching me sit on the sofa.

“It’s north of Malton sir. It is coed too. My sister goes to an all girls. I could never go there.” I mean of course I couldn’t go to a girls’ school. I was a boy. I was also so thankful I’d turned down the other option my parents gave me, an all-boys boarding school. As how could Tegan be attending an all-boys boarding school.

“Melisa are you going to help Anne Marie bring through the tea?” then as Melisa started to head to the rear of the house he added. “Ask Marie to show you where the foldout table is too.”

“I can help too.” I started to get up.

“No sit Tegan, I want to find out about you. When did you move to Hessle?”

“My Grandma has a house on Tranby avenue, sir. So, I’ve visited here for odd weeks all my life.”

“Will you be back for the Summer?”

“Not ‘till November. My parents are currently in Cornwall, but it’s too far to travel for the half-term holidays so I spend those here with my Grandma.”

“Oh, you’re like Anne Marie, one parent Cornish and one from the East Riding of Yorkshire. I wondered if you had moved here from Cornwall. My wife wanted to name our daughter Tegan, but her niece born three months earlier got given their Grandmother’s name and we eventually decided on Anne Marie. Melyonen, my wife, thought her name was not current, and her Mum would never accept us calling her granddaughter Violet.”

I was so glad I hadn’t mentioned sharing my half terms with my Uncle in Elloughton, as with my Grandma being my Mother’s Mum, and my Uncle being my Dad’s younger brother I wouldn’t have a Cornish parent to explain my name. Thank you, Anne Marie, for choosing such an awkward name for me to explain having. I mean can my Dad still be called John Allan if he has been re-patriated a Cornish bloke?

“So do you know Falmouth? That’s where I met Melyonen. Falmouth Docks won a Naval repair contract and to make deadline hired machine specialist up and down the country. I was there for eighteen months.” Marie’s Father told me, and I smiled and nodded and wished I could escape the house. I mean why did she invite me to her house if one of her parents would be there? I hope her Mum isn’t here too.

“I live close to there. I live in Helston, its a few miles away but I’ve visited Falmouth a few times for shopping.” I had been about to say for the second-hand book store, but figured a more generic shopping would sound more like what a girl would say.

“Oh, yes Falmouth has some nice stores. You will have to talk with Melyonen when she gets home. She’ll want to know which stores are still open.”

I had thought I had been so clever too, but I’d royally screwed myself. I was panicking but the girls were arriving one with the foldout table the other with tray and tea service.

“Tegan is the opposite of you, Anne Marie. She lives in Cornwall and visits her Grandma in Hessle. I mean if she lived in Falmouth instead of Helston she would be the exact opposite. Do you remember us visiting Helston? We’ve done it a few times on the trips to Penzance.”

“As soon as she introduced herself as Tegan, I was like Cornwall or Wales, where do you live, and we quickly got onto common Falmouth shops. Sugar or milk for your tea, Tegan?”

“I’m fine thanks.” I meant I didn’t need tea. I really wanted to get out of the house before the Cornish lady of the house got home and found me out as a boy.

“Wow she even drinks her tea black like you, Anne Marie, and her lipstick’s the same colour, cherry red, yes, Tegan?” Melisa inquired. I found myself with a black cup of tea and could only nod having lost my voice as I suddenly realized how bad my situation was. Of course my lipstick’s the same it’s her bloody lipstick.

I can’t even recall what we discussed while the torture of being a guest for tea occurred. I was actually glad for the escape to a girl’s bedroom while her father was downstairs and would likely kill me if he discovers I wasn’t the Cornish princess he thought I was.