The Torres would come by to pick Danny up for school. While most of the bullies that he had dealt with were safely locked away in juvenile detention, Dex the Rex, their ringleader, was still around. He had been able to escape justice since his father was Chief of Police and had shielded his son from prosecution. Danny hadn’t seen Dex since the attack almost a year before, but why take chances?

Mrs. Torre did not mind taking Danny to school in the morning. They lived nearby and she approved of her daughter Vanessa dating him. Both Danny and Vanessa were highly gifted and the potential that he offered for her daughter was a mother’s dream. Mrs. Torre had regarded Danny’s occasional crossdressed concerts simply as some harmless fun instigated by her daughter’s persistent silly streak. In fact, she considered it to be part of what made him so charming. Her ex-husband would never have understood why Danny had been so willing to dress up like a girl for Vanessa.

“G’morning, Danny!” Vanessa addressed him, opening the door to the back seat of their four-door sedan.

“G’morning ’Nessa!” Danny responded as their lips pursed for one another’s benefit. They kissed.

“You two behave yourselves back there!” Mrs. Torre remarked, slightly raising her voice.

“Yeah, you two!” seconded Erica, seated next to her mother. “No misbehavior!”

“How well do you behave as a miss? Huh?” Vanessa retorted to her sister. Danny giggled at her well-played witticism.

Erica chose to respond by sticking out her tongue at her sister. Vanessa replied in kind and Danny took the occasion to initiate a French kiss with his girlfriend.

“Mom!” Erica exclaimed. “They’re French kissing! Playin’ tonsil hockey!”

“You started it, Erica!” Vanessa pled to her sister’s charge.

“Please girls!” Mrs. Torre injected. “Keep it civil! All of you! And that includes you, Danny!”

“You mean you’re including him as a girl?” Erica then quipped giggling to her Mom.

“He has been a cutie on occasion!” Mrs. Torre observed with a wry smile.

Danny broke out into a cold sweat even as he began to blush. Their talk about his experiences en femme always embarassed him.

“Yeah!” Danny lamented. “Please, don’t remind me!”

“But you’re so cute when you dress up!” Erica affirmed, although teasing him. “I’d like to see you let ‘Danielle’ come out to play again sometime.”

About a year earlier, an anonymous benefactor had offered to buy uniforms for the school orchestra. Katy Jo, the concertmistress then, had tried to push Danny out of the orchestra, since she wanted to lead an all-girl orchestra. So she had changed the name Daniel to Danielle and revised his choice of garments on the order forms. So the day before the Autumn Concert he received a uniform of a matching skirt and blazer with gold trim, elegant black and white blouses, and a pair of high-heeled pumps with ankle straps. And it all came inside a sturdy black suit carrier personalized with an engraved brass nameplate.

“I should have called up Mis’ess Jacques and asked her to send my ‘uniform’ back immediately,” he surmised, “instead of going along with such an embarassing ploy.”

Danny felt quite hurt when he discovered that he had received a girl’s uniform, but Vanessa was especially miffed, since she regarded Katy Jo as an egotistical princess. Suspecting Katy Jo’s nefarious role in the mix-up, Vanessa suggested that he could get back at her by actually wearing the uniform. Essentially ignoring his objections, Vanessa prevailed on him to participate. So Vanessa and Erica spent that evening showing him how to dress up as an elegant young lady. By the time the sisters had finished working with him, Danny had become the very cute “Danielle.” Even though he had difficulty believing that he could appear as an attractive young woman, he looked so unlike himself, that he figured he could get away with dressing up as a girl for the concert. So Danny agreed to go through with it, although his misgivings had remained.

“But you got back at Katy Jo doing it,” Vanessa reminded him. “She finally understood she couldn’t drive you out of the orchestra. Besides, you proved yourself a better violinist than she was, anyway.”

Their music teacher and conductor, Mrs. Jacques had been simply livid about the affair. When she discovered what Katy Jo had done, Mrs. Jacque kicked her out of the orchestra and made Danny the concertmaster.

“Except that then she sent Dex’s gang after me,” Danny recounted. “It was just the excuse they’d been wanting. I’m lucky to be playing again.”

Katy Jo’s brother, Bryce, and boyfriend, Chuck, were both in Dex’s gang. She had asked them to attack Danny. So, they had ambushed him using pipes of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plumbing as weapons, deriding him as a “sissy” and a “queer.” They had put him in the hospital with severe injuries and destroyed his violin as well.

“But they’re gone, now,” Vanessa confirmed. “Katy Jo and Dex the Rex and his gang were all expelled from school. All the guys but Dex are in Juvenile Hall, and he’s been keeping a low profile ever since.”

“But he’s still around and eventually he’ll show himself again.”

“He can’t touch you. You’ve got a restraining order against Dex,” Mrs. Torre said, raising that issue.

“So what?” Danny observed. “His father’s Chief of Police. That was the real problem to start with. No one would touch him because of his dad. And they still won’t. Until Dex is locked up, I’m still worried.”

Danny massaged his left forearm and wrist, as always when reminded of the beating he’d endured almost a year ago. Vanessa held him closer to herself.

“I’m sorry we brought it up, Danny,” Vanessa whispered into his ear. “And I’m sorry for what they did to you. But now you need to move on. You overcame what they did and won. They can’t hurt you anymore.”

Tears were welling up in Danny’s eyes. His memory of the lingering pain and fear had not faded. He recalled the feeling of bandages and splints, and the months of effort needed to retrain his delicate fingers and stiffened joints. Worst of all, even with all her praise and support, despite all her hugs and kisses, regardless of all her smiles and laughter holding hands, and all the comfort of her tears flowing with his own, Danny did not feel worthy of his belovèd ’Nessa.

“Why did they hate me so much?” he asked her. “All I did was to play the violin. How could that be so wrong?”

A long silence followed. Vanessa kissed Danny on the cheek. She could taste the salt in his tears. Her left arm dropped from around his shoulder to his waist and she gently held onto his right hand with her own.

“I love your music,” she assured him, “and I love you.”

Danny kissed her cheek in return. “I love you, too, ’Nessa.”

They sat quietly as Mrs. Torre continued driving them to school.

Vanessa met Bonnie in the girls’ restroom after arriving at school.

“How’s the music search going?” Bonnie asked her.

“Erica’s helping me locate a rock band and we’ll be performing along with them if I can get a soloist to play the Saint-Saëns. I asked Danny if he would—”

“No!” Bonnie gasped in disbelief. “You didn’t! Did you?”

“Yes!” Vanessa answered giggling. “Danny has an electric violin and I’m hoping he’ll let ‘Danielle’ play it!”

“Omigosh!” Bonnie giggled. “Danielle’s coming back?”

“I’m working on it,” Vanessa confirmed. “I know that she can handle the solo for our Hallowe’en party.”

“Danny’s so cute when he’s her!” Bonnie observed. “I can’t even believe he’s a boy when he’s dressed like that! And he—she—whoever—is so much fun to be around. I’d like to see him—her—again. She—he’s so the life of the party! I just wish more boys would try it—dressing up—I mean.”

“Have you tried talking your boyfriend into it?” Vanessa asked her friend.

“I’ve thought about it,” Bonnie replied. “But Geoffrey’d be a hard sell. I’ve not been able to think up any reason for him to try on a dress.”

Both girls giggled.

“Hmm? Maybe I can help you think of something,” mused Vanessa. “Have you guys picked out costumes for the Hallowe’en party yet?”

“No,” Bonnie replied. “We haven’t had a chance to talk about it so far. Whatcha have in mind?”

“Nothing specific,” Vanessa said, “but the plan is for you first to pick two women characters who are known as a couple or work together, like Xena and Gabrielle, Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie, or even sisters, say, Mary Kate and Ashley Olson. That’ll force the issue. And it prob’ly won’t matter which of the pair either of you choose. You can even give him first choice and he’s still stuck with being a girl!”

“That would be so unfair to Geoff!” Bonnie remarked, giggling once again. “I can’t wait to try it!”

“Now it’s important to make him dress up a time or two to practice before the party,” Vanessa explained, “especially if he’ll have to walk in heels. If you’re lucky, you can get him to do it again after the party!”

Bonnie squealed in delight as she imagined Geoffrey appearing en femme. “I’ve got to try something really cute for him,” she said. “Think we could go as characters from Sailor Moon or the Power Puff Girls?”

“That’d be so sweet!” Vanessa declared. “You might even get another boy caught up in the theme!”

Danny sat quietly at his desk in homeroom, once again looking over Danse Macabre. ’Nessa had been forthcoming about its difficulty. It had a lot of double stops, but maybe not as simple as he’d hoped. But there was still time to work it out. Or maybe to back out? No, he couldn’t do that.

Could he play this or not?

Maybe he should talk with Dr. Beecham about it?

He couldn’t call Dr. Beecham’s office during homeroom. Ms. Ferguson didn’t allow it. Texting was okay, but they weren’t set up for SMS at his office. He could try calling between classes but sometimes it took more than the ten-minute break even to get through.

He could text Mom!

“Hi Mom! Need appt w/Dr. Beecham ASAP. U call his ofc?”

Danny did not expect to wait very long. Mom would call the doctor’s office just as soon as she got the message. About five minutes later his cellphone beeped and he pushed the button under the screen menu.

“Danny! Appt today 4:30 pm. Txt/call confirm?”

“Mom! Confirmed. Call U back w/ride/details.”

With that, the bell sounded for the end of homeroom and Danny was off to class with everyone else.