Wheels and wings. 1

Character List.

Jack Thomas Later AKA Ellie Transvestite/intersexual and keen cyclist.
Amanda Thomas AKA Amie Jack's sister.
Charlotte Dawson Keen girl cyclist and Jack’s soon-to-be girlfriend.
Bob Cycling club captain.
Mr Thomas Weston School games master and keen rugby player.
Billy Davies. Rugby ‘jock’, kind to Jack, he fancies Charlotte.
Marjorie Spencer. Holder of unofficial ‘Prettiest-girl-in-the-school’ title.
Miss Elizabeth Postlethwaite. The English Mistress.
Aunty Olwen Where Jack changes for school and leaves his bike.
Mandy. Olwen’s daughter, Jack’s older cousin.
Mr Griffiths The County solicitor.

CHAPTER 1

“You go carefully now darling. Watch the traffic. I’m off to work now.”

Jack smiled inwardly, ‘his mother liked to fuss but it showed she cared’.

“Yes mum. Don’t I always?”

Jack’s mother sat in her car for a few seconds watching him pedal furiously down the lane and she smiled protectively. Meanwhile, Jack savoured the short steep hill that led away from their cottage followed by a couple of miles of easy cycling along the valley floor before confronting the brief hard climb over the ‘Mynydd bach’. Next, there was a steady ride along a couple of miles of undulating moorland ‘B’ class road before dropping down into the next valley and joining the main ‘A’ road towards the town where his high school sat nestled between the railway station, hospital and river.

All told it was a fairly safe ride of about twelve miles, mostly along quiet lanes and the lightly trafficked, moorland, ‘B’ road. The only tricky section was the short; busy ‘A’ road section that led into town. It was a goodly ride to and from school every day and it provided Jack with some decent exercise especially for the hill climbs.

At fourteen, Jack was already a popular rider in the local ‘Wheelers’ club and he’d won several junior road races in addition to some difficult regional hill-climbing trials.

He could have chosen to take the free bus to school and accompanied his younger sister Amie who, at aged thirteen, was in the year below him at the same school. Instead, Jack cycled both ways for the exercise and training.

For reasons I shall come to, Jack kept his cycling hobby secret from the school. Every morning, when he arrived on the outskirts of the town, he changed from his cycling Lycra then had a quick shower at his Aunty Olwen’s house before finally arriving for school in the regulation school uniform. Aunty Olwen was one of Jack’s three aunties who all had daughters. Consequently Olwen had a soft spot for Jack as the only boy amongst the cousins.

After changing, Jack usually jogged the last half- mile to school at a gentle pace to avoid perspiring. It wouldn’t do to arrive at school stinking of sweat.

There were two reasons why Jack kept his cycling a secret;-

Firstly the school was obsessed with its reputation as a centre of rugby excellence;-

Secondly there was no safe lock-up in the school. The bullies might sabotage his precious bike and it was a good one despite being second hand. His adult friends in the cycling club had located it and helped him to buy it because they were so impressed with his performance.

Jack, although smallish, was also an excellent sprinter with a very high leg cadence that facilitated both running and cycling. His sprint - running speed had already come to the attention of the games master who was a fanatical rugby coach. In fact most of the males in the school were obsessed with rugby despite the school supposedly being a co-educational establishment.

Jack however, despised rugby. He was the smallest in his year and he felt the tackles grievously when he was slammed to the ground by any of the bigger boys. It seemed to Jack that the other boys made a point of trying to tackle him because they stood little chance of injury because they were all bigger and heavier than Jack. It did not help that Jack was somewhat effeminate and after three years at the school he was already singled out for bullying. Nothing too physical though, because any bigger boy seen bullying a smaller boy would tend to be exposed and pilloried by the girls. Jack was grateful for the moderating influence the girls brought to the school culture.

Academically, Jack more than held his own though he usually did only enough to maintain sufficient grades to keep him in the classes he favoured. Those were classes that had fewer rugby ‘jocks’ to bully or annoy him.

By and large therefore, Jack usually kept himself to himself, though when called upon to join study groups, he found himself gravitating to the girls. He found their propensity to share ideas and make consensual decisions a lot more attractive than the boy’s methods. They usually argued and bullied to get their individual ideas accepted; usually to the accompaniment of ridiculing other boys and trying to shout them down. Consequently, Jack avoided the boys at every opportunity but in some lessons there was no escape, namely games periods.

Mr Weston the Gym teacher or games master did little to ameliorate the bullying. In the rugby games he admired Jack’s speed but he was disgusted by Jack’s seeming cowardice in avoiding tackles by getting rid of the ball too soon.

“Why don’t you run with the ball boy? You’ve got the speed. What’s the problem with the occasional tackle?”

“The tackles hurt sir. I’m light and skinny.”

“So why don’t you stay after school and do some training. We’ll soon muscle you up and then you can take a hit. If they can catch you that is. You’d make a first class wing.”

Jack was not impressed by the last seemingly encouraging remark, he knew Mr Weston had a very low opinion of him but he was determined not to be bullied into playing a game he hated and feared. He replied courteously yet without giving his real reasons away.

“Don’t want to sir.”

“Why not?”

Jack was loath to explain why. There were two reasons.

Firstly, Jack’s lack of weight gave him a big advantage when cycling in hill trials and road races.

Secondly, Jack secretly cross-dressed and he could fit into his little sister’s clothes. If he ‘muscled up’ as Mr Weston wanted, he would gain a masculine musculature that he found revolting. The last thing Jack wanted was to look in a mirror whilst cross-dressed and see a weight-lifter frowning back. Jack loved his feminine features and those features included slender arms and legs.

Big muscles and powerful limbs were a particular disadvantage in road races and hill climbs even if it was a benefit for sprints. There were no velodromes or racing tracks near his home so road-racing and time-trials were the most popular activities in the cycling club.

Jack had once tried track racing but he found road racing and long club rides the most enjoyable part of cycling. He had made lasting friendships amongst his own club members and other members of other clubs in the road-race pelotons. The camaraderie of each individual pulling to the front of the peloton to share the burden of pace-making and making the slipstream were elements of sharing that Jack found enjoyable. If, later in the race, the agreement was reached that it was ‘everybody for himself’ to the finishing line and win the race, well; that was what racing was about. Unlike running, there was little barging and shoving amongst cyclists because everybody was brutally aware of the real dangers of a mass crash. The dangers of a genuinely accidental collision were real enough. Consequently, all Jack’s sporting friends were now to be found amongst fellow cyclists and ‘wheelers’.
There were other issues attached to staying after school to work out in the gym. For example, he ended up mixing it with the commuter ‘nine-to-five’ traffic when cycling home and that increased the risks whilst cycling home; particularly in the dark winter nights. The trouble was Jack could not use that as a legitimate excuse to avoid muscle-building after school because the games master would learn of his other sporting interest and the school would consider any ‘defection’ to another sport, tantamount to betrayal.

As to the other issue ... cross-dressing; well, the dangers of revealing his feelings and needs were all too obvious. If others found out, especially amongst the boys, Jack knew his life would be finished in that school.

Jack was too afraid to obtain girls clothes on his own. It was easier and safer to occasionally steal something of Amie’s and squirrel it away into his secret stash.

Finally in answer to Mr Weston’s question ‘Why not?’ he simply repeated that he didn’t like getting hurt in a sort of garbled mumble that left Mr Weston somewhat annoyed.

After that interlude, the games master showed little but contempt for Jack’s reluctance to play rugby for the school. When Jack was forced to play however, the games master muttered darkly whenever Jack showed that spark of sprinting magic when he streaked over the line to make a try. Jack did it rarely though, usually showing such speed only to complete a try or avoid a brutal, bone-crunching tackle. Thus Jack’s school life went with little further incidence of bullying because when he did turn out for the school, they invariably won. Jack’s sprinting speed was becoming legend.

~~ooo000ooo~~