One boy is about to learn that he has already passed such an event, and nothing will ever be quite the same…

Brandon awoke and stretched with a satisfied yawn. Definitely, he felt better than he did yesterday. That he was still at St. Luke’s seemed absurd to him. He really felt fine. Indeed, the boy had felt perfectly fine yesterday evening, but both his father and Dr. Windham had insisted that he stay overnight for observation and for some kind of test this morning. He cringed at the thought of another syringe drawing his blood again. They’d already done that to him yesterday, both a standard blood panel and drug tests. He wondered, did they forget to check for some narcotic? But he’d never taken anything not prescribed him by a physician. Despite all his foibles, Brandon prized his mind and enjoyed his intellect, which he regarded as a beautiful gift from God by way of Mom and Dad. He’d never risk that for a cheap thrill or a brief high.

“Good morning, Brandon! Rise and shîne!” a cheerful, young woman wearing white scrubs sang out as she raised the window shades in his room. “I’m Fran, your nurse for the morning shift. I hear you’re Libby and Nate MacDonald’s son?”

“Yeah, they’re my folks,” replied Brandon. He noted how cheerful and perky Nurse Fran was—almost too much so. “Is breakfast soon?”

“Should be,” she confirmed. “Until then, would you want to shower and change into a clean gown?”

“I guess, but I’d rather have my own clothes.”

“Well, I’m sure your mom or dad one will bring you some clothing when they come back on duty.”

“That would be nice,” he conceded. “This gown is all I had to wear since I was brought in yesterday.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Fran told him. “I’m sure someone will bring you something.”

For a moment, Brandon relaxed as he thought that he might be getting a set of his regular clothes. Then he felt a shiver surge through him as cold sweat broke out from his forehead. But surely they wouldn’t bring me a dress, would they? he worried. That wouldn’t be fair!

“Are you alright, Brandon?” Nurse Fran asked him. “You suddenly don’t look so good.”

Kelly slowly began to stir. As she awakened, the cheerleader felt something soft cuddled in her arm. She looked down.

Benny the Bear.

Also, she was wearing her own pink diaphanous nightgown. Kelly glanced over to see her mother curled up and asleep on the sofa in her room. But the girl couldn’t remember Mom coming in, nor putting her nightgown on. Holding Benny was a conditioned reflex for her, though. As anxious as Kelly was to talk to her, she had no idea how long her mother had waited up with her, so the girl decided not to wake her up. No, Kelly had to confess a couple of problems and Mom would need all the rest that she could get.

“Wakey! Wakey, Billy Bro!” Nancy chanted, throwing a pillow at her brother. “Rise and shine, then off we go!” She giggled along with Lauren who had joined into the fray, tossing another pillow.

“Go away!” Billy groaned from underneath the additional pillows. It’s Saturday. Saturdays I sleep in.”

“Not today, Billy Boy!” decreed his sister, tugging at his covers. “You’re coming to the mall with us.”

“No, I’m not,” he contradicted her, holding firmly onto his blanket and bedsheet. “I’m staying right here, Sis. You and Lauren have a nice day. Now go away!”

“Is he always this hard to get out of bed in the morning?” Lauren asked her friend.

“Almost,” confirmed Nancy. “But I have a trick that always works.” She firmed up her grip on the covers.

“No, Sis! Don’t!” warned her brother, clenching the covers tightly to his chest. “I'm not—!”

Nancy yanked her brother's covers away with both hands.

“No…!” Billy yelled as he grabbed a pillow to quickly cover himself.

Lauren screamed.

Nancy gasped.

“What’s going—?” Mrs. Danziger began to ask, but stopped as three red, blushing faces looked back at her.

Brandon had just finished eating breakfast when his mom entered, pushing a wheelchair and tossing him a bundle of textiles. “Good morning!” she greeted him. “How’s my little boy?”

“Mom, I’m not—what are these?”

“Scrubs.”

“What for?”

“So you don’t have to get tested with your backside naked,” his mom informed him. “There’s also slippers and underwear for you. Get dressed quickly, now.”

Well, at least it’s not a dress, he thought as he accepted the scrubs, an actual unisex garment. Brandon had seen both men and women wearing them, physicians, nurses, medical assistants, lab technicians—everyone, really. Even Dad wears them now and then. He sighed in relaxation as he laid the scrubs out on the bed.

Brandon pulled the underwear on under his hospital gown before shedding it. He found that he could pull on the top and bottom of his scrubs as quickly as he might a tee-shirt and blue jeans. After putting the hospital slippers on, his mother pushed the wheelchair right up to him.

“Sit!” she commanded.

“But I can walk, myself, Mom.”

“No, you can’t. Hospital policy requires you to be wheeled since the test is on the third floor.”

“I thought the Med Lab was in the basement.”

“It is. But it’s not that kind of test.”

“Huh? Whaddya mean?”

“You’re going to Psychometrics.”

“Psychometrics?”

“Yes, Psychometrics,” confirmed Brandon’s mother. “Doctor Windham will explain when we get there.”

Catherine Riley-Harrigan began to awaken, stretching herself out on the sofa. Patient yet anxious, Kelly waited until she saw that her mother’s eyes were open.

“Good morning, Mom,” offered Kelly quietly. “I hope you slept alright on that sofa.”

“The nurse offered to bring me a cot,” recalled her mother, sitting upright on the sofa. “But I was afraid of waking you up with the noise.”

“Oh, Mom! You changed my nightgown without waking me up.”

“Actually, you did wake up then.”

“I did? I don’t remember it.”

“As exhausted as you were, that’s not surprising,” acknowledged Catherine with a smile. “Doctor MacDonald said that you’d had a very intense day yesterday.”

“That’s the truth!”

“I guess it must’ve hurt when you didn’t win Homecoming Princess?”

“Actually, I did win.”

“What?”

“I won the vote and named Brandon to be my Knight-Escort, but later I found out he was already here in the hospital,” recounted Kelly. “So I withdrew and gave Freshman Homecoming Princess up to Rhonda Davies. Besides, I could still support the team by cheering instead.”

“But you had dreamed of being your class’s Homecoming Princess,” Catherine tried to console her daughter. “Was Brandon really your only choice?”

“Yes, but I, like, never imagined he’d not even be available for me to ask,” the girl explained. “But he woke up yesterday morning with a panic attack.”

“That’s too bad.”

“I didn’t even find out until, like, after I’d already nominated him as my Knight-Escort,” continued Kelly. “They offered me a chance to name someone else, but I couldn’t think of anyone.”

“Not even the other boy you mentioned when we talked Thursday evening?”

“You mean Billy Danziger?”

“I think that’s his name, yes.”

“He was absent from homeroom yesterday, too,” noted Kelly. “Besides, you might also recall what I told you—he doesn’t care anything about school traditions.”

“Well, I’m sorry you felt you had to give that up,” said Catherine, unsure how to console her in this situation.

“It’s okay, Mom,” Kelly assured her. “Besides, I like being a cheerleader, so letting Rhonda have Freshman Homecoming Princess, like, helped to spread more school spirit around. At some schools, the cheerleaders aren’t even eligible for homecoming titles, so just winning the vote was honor enough.”

Catherine saw that her daughter was consoling herself reasonably well. Still, giving the title up after wanting it so much couldn’t have been easy for Kelly. But Catherine respected her reasoning and felt good because her daughter had chosen to share an honor that she’d won with another.

“That was both kind and honorable,” approved Catherine. “And then you risked yourself trying to protect Abby. Even though I’m upset at your injury, I’m proud that in the heat of the moment, you’d act from your heart to benefit another.”

“Mom, please!” Kelly objected, blushing nervously. “I’m not nearly so perfect as you may believe. I’ve got some heavy issues to spill this morning.”

“Like what?” her mother asked.

“Let’s start with the easy one,” began Kelly. “Where’s Caitlin?”

“She was invited to a slumber party with a few friends. I took advantage of that to stay overnight with you.”

“I was hoping to talk to her this morning.”

“What about?”

“I’ve not been a very good sister to her lately,” confessed Kelly. “I owe her an apology—a really big one—and more than a few hugs.”

“I felt that your relationship with her was strained somehow and she’s hurting because of it,” her mother observed. “Your little sister worships the ground you walk on.”

“I’m sorry, Mom,” apologized Kelly, somewhat tearfully. “I’ve been such a bitch to her. I’ve been regarding Caitlin’s attention as inconvenient when all she wants is to spend time with me.”

“She looks up to you as her big sister just as you did Maureen.”

“Mom, I still look up to Maureen.”

“Then just remember that with Caitlin,” Catherine advised her daughter.

“I should, like, take her to the mall to kinda re-start our relationship.”

“She’d like that,” Kelly’s mother approved. “Anything to let her know she’s still important to you.”

Kelly remained silent a moment. She looked her mother in the eye while wondering which issue to raise next. The girl took a deep breath and sighed. “Mom, the collision at the game was not the only reason Doctor MacDonald had me stay overnight. He referred me to Doctor Windham. She’s a psychiatrist.”

“Whatever for?”

Kelly paused again, tears flowing. “Alcohol, Mom,” she confessed. “Doctor MacDonald caught me drinking.”

“Oh, honey!” Catherine intoned, sounding at once both disappointed and caring. “I was afraid you might be. I thought I smelled it on your breath Thursday afternoon, but I wasn’t sure.”

“But why didn’t you say anything to me about it?” wondered Kelly.

“Again, I wasn’t sure,” her mother emphasized. “And what have your daddy and I taught you about accusations?”

“Never to accuse without evidence.”

“I had only a passing suspicion of alcohol then,” explained her mother. “But I knew for a fact you were upset over Brandon. Dealing with that first made better sense to me at the time.”

“I’m sorry I’ve been drinking, Mom.”

“So for how long?”

“Off and on for a few weeks.”

“Let me rephrase that,” Catherine thought aloud. “I mean, when did you start?”

“It was, like, the next to last week in August,” Kelly admitted. “Before school started. That’s one reason why—I was getting worried about going to school this year.”

“I don’t quite understand, sweetie,” her mother stated. “School’s never bothered you before and your grades have always been good. You’ve always enjoyed going.”

“But now the stakes are higher—like, a whole lot higher, Mom,” explained Kelly. “College and career—it all depends on what I do now. My grades are good, even very good, but now they gotta be excellent, like, perfect. It’s like I’m not allowed to make any mistakes from here on out.”

“Oh, honey! It won’t be so bad,” her mother assured her. “I remember thinking the same thing when I started high school. But you’ll be alright. Most of that pressure we put on ourselves, anyway, and you will learn how to deal with it. Just know it’s not worth getting drunk over and risking the bright future in front of you.”

“Doctor MacDonald kinda said the same thing to me.”

“Of course he did!” Catherine reminded her daughter. “Everyone who cares about you will give you the same advice.” She hugged Kelly more firmly. “Remember that Doctor MacDonald and Libby have watched you grow up along with Sheila and Brandon. You mean almost as much to them as their own children. I’m thankful that Nate caught you and referred you to someone who could help.”

Nancy and Lauren listened to the water spraying down on Billy, the droplets bouncing off the translucent shower door, sounding like the patter of raindrops against a windowpane. So Lauren carefully pushed open the bathroom door and Nancy quietly crept in, holding a matching set of a white satin camisole and panty in hand. Quickly, she exchanged the lingerie for her brother’s undershirt and shorts that he had placed on the bathroom counter. The two young women struggled to suppress their giggling long enough to escape Billy’s range of hearing.

Patricia Danziger saw her daughter and friend sitting at the bottom of the staircase, congratulating themselves in laughter. “What have you girls done to Billy now?”

”Nothing really, Mom,” said Nancy, handing her the underwear. “We just left him more appropriate underthings for our shopping trip today.” Lauren’s restrained giggles sputtered forth again and Nancy joined in.

Patricia took the underwear from her daughter and took but a moment to figure out what was happening. “Please, Nancy, tell me you didn’t!”

“Now Mom, Billy himself called me to ask for my help with this,” her daughter explained. “Lauren came along to help out. She’s done this for her little brother as well.”

“You mentioned something about it yesterday, but didn’t discuss any details,” her mother noted. “So maybe now would be a good—”

“Môm…!” came a cry from upstairs.

Once again, Lauren and Nancy broke into laughter. But this time, Mrs. Danziger joined in as well.

“Good morning, Brandon!” Dr. Windham greeted him, more cheerily than he felt was called for. Still, he didn’t want to appear rude. Sometimes, he had to concentrate to be polite and such a fanciful mood, when expressed to excess, could make it difficult. Nonetheless, his manners had improved somewhat since the previous year.

“Good morning, Doctor Windham,” he returned the greeting. “This doesn’t look like a medical lab.”

“That’s because it’s a different kind of lab,” explained the psychiatrist. “It’s a psychometrics lab. We’re set up in here for the kind of tests I need to give you.”

Brandon glanced around and noted a variety of test booklets, answer sheets, and a cylindrical box of sharpened pencils. There were also a desktop and laptop computers set up at a few desks. He also noticed a machine in the corner that looked identical to one he’d seen teachers use to score tests at school. There were also a number of what appeared to be briefcases, suitcases, and sample cases along the back wall of the room.

A young blond-haired, blue-eyed woman, barely five feet tall (152 cm), entered the room from a side door next to a long mirror on the wall. She smiled at Brandon.

“Brandon, this is Doctor Anne Pettigrew,” Dr. Windham introduced her. “She’s our psychometrician. Her job is to administer the tests to you this morning.”

“Hi, Brandon!” Dr. Pettigrew extended him her hand, which he accepted, but then addressed Dr. Windham.

“You’re not doing it?” Brandon asked her, just a little apprehensive at the unexpected development.

“No. Doctor Pettigrew will give you the tests and I’ll interpret them with her assistance,” the psychiatrist explained. “She’s the expert on the tests you’ll be taking this morning.”

“What kind of tests?” the boy asked.

Dr. Windham nodded to her colleague, who began to answer. “The first is the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. It’s an I-Q test.”

“But I’ve already had an I-Q test,” objected Brandon. “They gave it to us at school.”

“Yes, we got your scores for the Stanford-Binet from your guidance counselor at your school,” injected Dr. Windham. “That’s a different I-Q test. But we need the scores from the Wechsler’s set of subtests for you. From those we can tell if we need more in-depth testing.”

“We’re also giving you another test, the Bem Sex-Role Inventory,” added Dr. Pettigrew.

“Why?” Brandon asked, becoming more anxious as the amount of testing he’d need grew.

“Because I asked for it,” declared Dr. Windham. “I’d like to test my intuition about that problem you have with those girls at your school.”

“And what would that be?” Brandon pressed the issue with her.

“I’d prefer to see your test results first,” pled Dr. Windham. “I’d rather not mention it at all if I’m wrong.”

“Mom, I have another secret to tell you,” said Kelly. “And it’s even worse than my drinking. I couldn’t even tell Doctor Windham about it.”

Catherine could think of only one situation worse than Kelly’s drinking. “You’re—you’re not pregnant, are you?”

“Don’t I wish!” Kelly replied, looking out wistfully into space, as if she hoped that might be so. “If I were pregnant, I could be happy for the baby. No, it’s, like, really, really bad, Mommy. I’m so, so sorry and so very ashamed of it and I’m afraid you’ll be ashamed of me, too.”

Catherine again moved to embrace her daughter, at least to the extent possible in a hospital bed. “Honey, no matter what it is, I still love you.”

“You might not after I tell you.”

“Kelly, how could you think that?”

“Mom, I’m really, really bad,” the girl sobbed. “I think—I think I’m a lesbian.”