Orphan 6

By
Susan Brown
I awoke up with a start.
A bell was ringing loudly in my ear.
‘Wake up girls. Rise and shine, breakfast in half an hour.’

Memories came flooding back. I was in a girl’s orphanage, home or whatever and I was supposed to be, pretending to be a girl and to my disgust, the flimsy nightie had ridden up around my neck in the night. I had a hot flush wondering what would have happened if I had thrown the covers off in the night, showing all my boy bits in all their glory or lack of.

Other girls were gradually waking up and complaining about the early hour and that it was, ‘snot fare!’

I carefully pulled my nightie down and waited for everyone to get up. If I was lucky, they would all go to the bathroom, letting me get up without exposing myself too much.

Trouble was, no one was moving yet.

I looked over at Tracy and even though it was noisy, she was still in the land of nod!

Next to me, I heard curtains being pulled back and I saw Rachel in a dressing gown, looking down as she worked her way across the room towards the bathroom. She looked so sad and I really wanted to speak to her or at least smile some encouragement, but I had to be careful as she was in Coventry and I was not supposed to say or do anything!

Tracy woke up after two of the girls tickled her feet and she screamed as if someone was killing her.

Everyone was now up except me and I saw that there was only had fifteen minutes left before it was time for breakfast. I quickly started to get up, making sure that I was adequately covered up first.

Then at the last moment I just stayed there, too shy or afraid, more like to follow everyone to the bathroom.

When everyone had gone, I quickly pulled the curtains around my bed area, took off my nightie, shivered in the cold and quickly opened the small wardrobe. At the bottom, were some drawers. I pulled open to the top one and saw some under things. I picked out some blue panties and put them on, they were shiny and smooth and they felt quite nice going up my legs.

Luckily, they were a tight fit, so I jammed my boy bits out of the way (that made my eyes water) and pulled them up tight.

Then I saw a matching vest thingy in the same material so I put that on too.

‘This isn’t too bad.’ I thought, ‘who said dressing as a girl was hard, peace of cake really.’

Looking in the wardrobe section, I picked out the first thing I could see; a sky blue cotton dress with sleeves and quickly put in over my head.

‘Great, this will go with my knickers and vest.’

I stopped for a moment and shook my head, not believing what I was saying to myself. My Dad would turn in his grave to see his son Mark going through all this.

Continuing on, and after struggling and wrestling with it for a few minutes, I managed to finally put the dress on; then realising that it had a zip, I cursed the folly of wearing such a thing and contorted my arms around the back to try to do the flaming thing up.

‘Oh hell!’ I shouted.

Just then the curtain was pulled back a bit and Tracy with a grin on her face looked at me with some amusement.

‘Having trouble, kid?’

‘Yes, I can’t reach the blasted zip!’

You must have worn dresses with zips before?’

‘Er, yes, well once anyway, but it was a long time ago and my Mum helped me with it. I normally wore jeans and things.’

‘You were a bit of a tomboy weren’t you? Look turn around and I’ll show you what to do.’

I turned around and Tracy showed me how to lift the dress high enough for me to reach behind, grab hold of the zip and then sort of wiggle a bit as I pulled it up. Look if you are a girl reading this, you know what I mean. If you are a boy; then what are you reading it for anyway?

‘Have you washed yet?’

‘Pardon?’ I said as I final did the flipping zip up.

‘It’s just I didn’t see you there.’

‘Erm…I was getting late and didn’t have time.’

‘Don’t you want a wee? I’m dying for one when I get up.’

Just then I realised that I was desperate to go and started hopping around like a rabbit.

‘Where are my socks?’

‘Bottom drawer; always in the bottom drawer.’

I pulled open the drawer and grabbed the first pair to hand. They were pink but I was in no state to care.

After hastily putting the socks on, I grabbed my shoes from under the bed, slipped them on and ran for the door, rushing past Tina and Sharon who were coming in.

Once in the bathroom ,which was now empty, I looked for the urinals, remembering at the last moment that girls toilets don’t have them and anyway how would I explain standing at one and doing my stuff. I banged open a toilet door, bolted it behind me, turned around pulled down my panties sat down and sighed with relief.

Two minutes later, I was standing washing my hands at the sinks and looking at my hair. It looked like a combine harvester had been to work on it. My brush was on my bedside table and I decided that I should try to sort the mess out before going down to breakfast.

The clock on the wall now said that I had 3 minutes till breakfast; so I wiped my hands on a towel and ran back into the dormitory.

Everyone had gone downstairs so I went over to my bed and picked up my brush. There was a full length mirror on the inside of the door so I went over and brushed my hair into a rough estimate of what it looked like the previous day.

Looking at myself in the mirror wearing the dress, I felt a sort of resentment about what had happened to me. First I loose my parents, why did they have to go and die and leave me in a stupid place like this? Then I am forced to pretend to look like a girl and wear stupid dresses.

I started to sniff and I rubbed my nose on my sleeve.

Then I noticed that my sleeve had some snotty bogies on it and I had to go into the bathroom and wipe it off with a towel.

I wiped my moist eyes as they were leaking a bit for some reason and then went back into the dorm. I made my bed and made sure that Teddy was comfortable as he looked like he had had a rough night, what with being in a new place and everything.

Looking at the clock, I saw that I was now late for breakfast but it didn’t matter as I wasn’t hungry any more. I lay down on my bed and picked up Teddy as I think he needed a cuddle.

This was all too much for me. Who was I kidding? Every time I opened my mouth, I gave myself away. Boys can’t be girls; it’s not natural. I looked like a boy in a dress. Why hadn’t anyone realised yet? Do they all need glasses?

Thoughts kept going around in my mind, doubts, concerns, worries — I was a mess.

The door opened and Rachel came in and walked over to her bed. She sort of smiled at me as she passed and I could see that her eyes were red from crying. I smiled back, not saying anything. Perhaps she wasn’t hungry either.

Then I had a thought. If I talked to Rachel while everyone was at breakfast, I would find out what caused her to be put into Coventry.

Without thinking about it, I went over to her. She was sitting on the bed facing away from me so I went and sat next to her.

‘Hello Rachel, are you OK.’

She looked startled and then glanced around the room, making sure that no one else was around.

‘You mustn’t talk to me; you’ll be in trouble if you do.’

‘Nobody is here and you look as sad as I do at the moment. Why were you put in Coventry?’

‘Because I told tales.’

‘What about?’

‘Tracy.’

‘What about her?’

‘She was being stupid.’

‘Why.’

‘She likes to do things that are dangerous.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘She likes to go out at night and wonder around. All the kids tell her not to and she was caught once by one of the carers walking in the garden after midnight. They just told her off and said that she mustn’t do it again.’

‘What has that got to do with you being in Coventry?’

‘She boasted that she was going to do it again and that she wouldn’t just go into the garden, but she would do it at 2.00am in the morning and she would go to the all night shop at the end of then road to get some sweets.’

‘Is that why you told on her?’

‘Yes; there have been a couple of assaults on girls around here at night and I didn’t want her to get hurt.’

‘Are you sure that she was going to do it or was she just bragging?’

‘No, she never says that she is going to do something and not go ahead and do it. It’s a pride thing with her.’

‘Well she was silly to think of it and I think you were right to tell on her.’

‘You do, do you?’

We both jumped at that and turned around. Tracy, Tina and the rest of the girls were standing there looking very annoyed.

I could see that I was in trouble and felt sick about what else might happen to me now that I had spoken to Rachel and agreed with everything that she had done.

To be continued...

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