Well, I hadn't been planning on adding to Madam Martinique's Finishing School, but there were a number of people who seemed to be hoping for more, so I decided to give this story another go. In Part 2, our main character discovers why there seem to be as many girls as boys in an all-boys school and learns a bit more about what makes his new school unique.

Madam Martinique's Finishing School - Part 2
Copyright 2007 by Heather Rose Brown

Beams of afternoon sunlight slanted through the narrow windows built into the steel doors at the far end of the hall. Even though I could barely see the head mistress's shoes because her dark gray dress was so long, I could hear the heels of her shoes clicking on the polished floorboards as we walked towards the doors. Something told me the riding crop she carried should seem scary, but she held it more like a fairy godmother's wand rather than something you planned to smack someone with.

A cool breeze brought the sweet smell of fallen leaves as we walked out through the doors. Feeling my sisters skirt fluttering around my knees was a little odd, but not really in a bad way. I nearly jumped out of her shiny black shoes when a bell started clanging.

"Ack! We set off an alarm or somethin'?"

Madam Martinique shook her head and smiled. "No, that was just the end of class bell."

Once the bell was quiet, the ivy covered brick building we were walking towards seemed to vibrate with the sound of hundreds of muffled voices. A minute or so later, the doors closest to us swung open, and kids who looked around my age started pouring out. With everyone rushing to get out the doors, there was no way we could get in, so we stopped about ten feet away from the entrance. As I watched the crowd flow around and past us, I noticed something I hadn't been expecting.

I shouted to be heard over the noise all around us. "Do you let both boys and girls in this school?"

The head mistress shouted back. "That's not an easy question to answer." It wasn't as if everyone just got quiet when she shouted, but the noise did go down enough for her to continue in a more normal voice. "What I can say for certain is the parents of all our students believed they had boys who would be better if they were treated as girls."

I took a more careful look around. There seemed to be as many girls as there were boys. "You mean ... all these girls are really boys?"

A crowd had been growing around us as we talked, and a few of them giggled after I asked that question. One of the gigglers turned out to be a boy with long blond hair pulled back into a low ponytail. At least, he dressed like a boy and mostly looked like one, but the way he talked and acted seemed a little girlish.

Still giggling, he took a step towards Madam Martinique and asked, "Mind if I answer that question?"

The head mistress smiled at him as she slipped the riding crop into the long sleeve wrapped tightly around her forearm. There was a no-nonsense tone to her voice that was firm without being harsh. "You're welcome to share your insights, Tod. I trust you've been here long enough to explain things in a concise and mature fashion."

Tod's giggles faded at the word "mature", but there was still a grin stretched across his face as he turned to me. "There's some of us who identify as boys even when dressed like girls, but most of the girls are just that: girls."

I thought back to what my mother had told me this morning. "But ... I thought this was an all-boys school."

Tod's managed to hold onto his smile, but a bit of sadness crept into it. "Well, I'm pretty sure everyone going to school here were brought by parents who thought they had boys that needed to be turned into girls. What some of the parents didn't realize is they really had girls."

The more I thought through that explanation, the more confused I felt. "How could the parents not know they had girls?"

His forehead wrinkled up and he seemed to be deep in thought for a minute before he answered. "Some of us are ... transgendered."

"Trans-who-what-ered?"

"Ms. Shepherd will be able to explain it better when you take her class, but basically it mean some of the boys who come to this school like dressing or acting like girls, while others are boys one the outside, but feel like girls on the inside."

The idea of being transgendered hit a raw nerve. It was almost too much to take in. Madam Martinique seemed to notice how much that little piece of information had blown me away, and came to my rescue. "You did a very good job with your explanation, but I think it's about time I took our newest student to the commissary."

The sadness on Tod's face slipped away. "Oh wow! Is she the one you said was gonna be my roomie?"

I didn't think the head mistress could stand any straighter, but somehow, she did. "That's 'going to', not 'gonna', and ... well, I suppose I could let the rest go for now, except for the 'she' part. We haven't established any pronoun preference, or even a name for that matter." The strict school teacher was gone and there was a gentleness in Madam Martinique's smile as she looked to me. "Would you like to be known by the name your mother mentioned in the admission interview?"

I winced just thinking of the name. Willamina sounded so prissy and ... stupid! "Well, the name she gave is pretty close to William, which is my real name. I really don't like the name she made up for me this morning and my real name ... well, I only got called that when somebody was mad at me. I'd really like to be called Billie, if it's all the same."

The head mistress pulled a small notepad from a pocket in her skirt, flipped through pages of neat, tight handwriting, then dug a pencil from a pocket on the other side and began writing. A couple of second later she looked up and asked. "Would that be spelled B-i-l-l-y or B-i-l-l-i-e?"

I felt just a sliver of panic at having to make a choice. "Umm, would the second one be okay? That's the way I've always spelled it."

She nodded and wrote what seemed to be more than just my name. "Of course. It's your identity. Nobody gets to decide who you are but you. As far as your gender goes, would you prefer to be known as a boy, a girl, or some other identity?"

"Some other identity? What else is there besides boy or girl?"

Madam Martinique peeked over the top of her notepad. Her soft, grey eyes seemed to reach into the deepest parts of me. "There's many other ways one might choose to identify one's gender. Androgynous, meaning combining male and female to varying degrees, is one of the more popular. A-sexual, or avoiding identifying with either gender, is another popular alternative."

My brain felt like it was about to short out when I tried to make sense of that. "Errr ... would it be okay if I stuck with being a boy for now? It's the only thing I really know how to be."

She looked back down at the notepad and started writing again. "Of course. Just remember, this isn't going to be chiseled in stone. If you decide to change your mind later, that will be your choice to make." After taking a lot longer than I thought would be needed to write down "boy", she slipped the pad and pencil in a skirt pocket while looking up at Tod. "To answer your question, yes, Billie is going to be your room mate. Would you be available to help us carry his clothes back from the commissary?"

I'm pretty sure the top of his head would have fallen off if he managed to grin any wider. "Oh yeah, sure!"

The head mistress glanced at me. "Would you mind if she joined us?"

"She?" I was seriously feeling dizzy at that moment. "You mean Tod's a girl?"

Tod's chuckle was light and playful. "Yep! You can tell by looking at my tag."

I took a close look at what she was pointing to on the name tag pinned to her shirt. It was a tiny silver pin shaped like a circle attached to a plus sign. "Sorry, I don't know what that is."

"Don't worry. They're something else you'll learn about in Ms. Shepherd's class. This is a tag pin, and this one means I'm a girl."

"I know this is probably a stupid question, but how does a pin make you a girl?"

Madam Martinique rested a hand on my shoulder. "That's not a stupid question at all, dear. No honest question is stupid. The pins don't make anyone a boy or a girl. They just allow others to get a better idea of how you'd like to identify yourself. Does that answer your question?"

"I ... I guess it does. And no, I don't mind if she joins us." I turned to look at Tod and and found myself grinning as I realized I really meant what I said. Even though she was a boy who was a girl that dressed like a boy, all that confusing stuff didn't mean all that much. the really important part, that she seemed like a nice, friendly person, shone through everything else.

The head mistress patted my shoulder. "That's good to hear. I had a feeling the two of you would hit it off splendidly. Well, I think we've dallied enough here. Shall we move on before the commissary closes for the day?" Without waiting for an answer, she climbed the short flight of steps and held open one of the doors leading into the new building.

Without warning, Tod took my hand, then gave it a quick squeeze and smiled before letting go and bouncing up the steps. Feeling totally dazed with plans for escape crashing into growing curiosity about this school and the people in it, I somehow managed to make it up the steps without tripping or falling and followed my room mate (and maybe friend?) into the building.