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

A boy and a girl, siblings, walked up the sidewalk to an unfamiliar house and knocked on the door. The boy greeted the Chinese lady who opened the door. “Good morning, Mis’ess Chang! My name is Brandon and I’m here to walk Jenny to school.”

Mrs. Chang smiled at Brandon. “Yes, she told me you were coming by this morning. But who is with you?”

“This is my sister Sheila, ma’am.”

“Older or younger sister?”

“She’s older than I.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mis’ess Chang,” said the girl smiling and extending her hand, which the lady graciously accepted. Now aware that he had forgotten to do so earlier, Brandon then offered his own hand to Mrs. Chang.

“Jenny ran back to her room for something,” apologized Mrs. Chang for her daughter. “She says that you are very good doing mathematics, Brandon?”

“Yes,” he confirmed. “We’re in our geometry and computer science classes together as well as a few others.”

“I like that you know mathematics well,” Mrs. Chang encouraged him. “Jenny is very impressed with you.”

“I feel better knowing that,” he said. But Brandon did not understand that Mrs. Chang really meant that she herself was impressed with him. Just then, Jenny scampered down the stairs to appear at the door beside her mother. Instead of her usual plain, frumpy style, the girl wore a very pretty electric blue dress with its hem at mid-thigh and teetered atop a pair of three-inch (8 cm) heeled, ankle-strapped black pumps with a small matching purse. Brandon took in the stylish vision, not quite conscious of Jenny’s growing hold over him.

“The boy Brandon is here with his sister to walk to school with you today,” Mrs. Chang informed her daughter. “Do not forget to take your lunch, Jenny.”

“It’s in my backpack,” she assured her. “I’m all ready for school.”

“You pay attention and learn much today, my daughter.” Mrs. Chang then addressed Brandon, “And you must see that Jenny learns her mathematics today.”

“I’ll do my best, ma’am,” promised the boy. “But Jenny is also good at math herself.”

“For you to say so is nice,” said Jenny’s mother with a smile. “You must go now. You cannot be tardy.”

“You have a good day, Mom!” Jenny replied.

“Goodbye!” Brandon called out.

“Happy to meet you, Mis’ess Chang!” Sheila said as they started towards the school. When the threesome was outside the range of Mrs. Chang’s hearing, Sheila told her brother, “I think Mis’ess Chang likes you.”

“My mother likes that I like your brother, Sheila,” clarified Jenny. Then she continued with an impish grin, “Mom thinks he’s a keeper.”

Jenny leaned against Brandon and into his ear whispered, “And I think you are, too.”

Ernest Markham had just finished marking attendance for his homeroom when the desktop computer chimed with a message from the Guidance Office. He needed to send two students to talk with Dr. Van de Meer.

“Kelly, Brandon, Doctor Van de Meer wishes to see both of you right away,” announced Mr. Markham, handing each a hall pass.

Brandon turned and looked at Kelly who sat behind him. “Do you know what this is about?”

“I might,” she answered, “but I can’t be certain until we get there.”

“Get going, you two,” Mr. Markham told them.

Kelly bounded from her seat immediately. Brandon, unsure of what was going on, showed more reticence. He even remained seated until Kelly grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him away from his desk. Deftly, he turned his wrist and forearm inward, breaking her hold.

“You forgot that I’ve had martial arts training as well as gymnastics,” Brandon reminded her. He followed her out of the classroom toward the stairwell at the end of the hallway, where she paused, insisting by her body language that he precede her down the stairs. So he went ahead of her, only to hear her giggling behind him. “You do know what this is about, don’t you?” Brandon accused. “You knew just as soon as Mister Markham mentioned it.”

Kelly looked at him with her best, most mischievous grin. Moreover, Brandon knew that look. Whatever might come next, Kelly would have made sure already that it would be at his expense. “Actually, I knew before he mentioned it,” she admitted.

“Could that be because, whatever it is, you’ve engineered it?”

“What? Moi? ”

“Yes! Toi! ”

“No,” denied Kelly. “Not exactly, anyway.”

“And what do you mean by that?” Brandon asked her with growing anxiety.

“I’m not personally responsible,” explained Kelly. “Your name, like, just happened to match the database search.”

“I just knew it was a mistake to show you how to structure queries,” grumbled Brandon in regret.

Wearing a red sweater over a simple white cotton blouse with a Peter Pan collar, a short blue denim skirt, and a pair of navy pumps, Billy toyed nervously in the back seat of his sister’s car with the small stainless steel pipe inside his purse. His long, usually unruly hair was neatly brushed and held in place by a white hairband. Nancy drove into a section of the high school’s parking lot reserved for visitors. Parking in the visitors’ area felt a little weird to her, as she’d always parked in the students’ lot before. “Here we are!” she announced to her passengers. Nancy and Lauren opened their doors and Billy clambered out of the back seat, trying not to allow the hem of his skirt to fly up. They hadn’t thought to show him how to climb out of the rear seat of a compact car in a skirt while wearing heels.

The two girls escorted him holding either arm as they climbed the stairs to the main entrance. “Are you getting along okay in those heels?” Lauren asked him.

“I guess as well as any guy wearing them could,” he conceded. “I’ll be glad when this is over.”

“Of course, it would already be over if you had done it along with everyone else,” his sister reminded him, “and you wouldn’t be doing it alone.”

“I kinda get that now, Sis.”

“But you’re brave to be going it alone today,” remarked Lauren. Then quite unexpectedly, after they stepped onto the upper landing, she kissed Billie on the cheek.

Brandon and Kelly arrived at the bottom of the stairwell and proceeded to the Guidance Office. Marla Peterson was at her desk waiting for them both. “Doctor Van de Meer and Miss San-Giacomo are waiting for you,” she said. “You can go right in.”

“Who’s Miss San-Giacomo?” Brandon asked.

“Maybe Sheila’s mentioned her to you?” Kelly suggested.

“Not that I can remember.”

“We call her ‘Coach Brenda.’”

“The cheerleading coach?” Brandon asked for clarification.

“That’s her!” Kelly answered, pulling him to the open door of Dr. Van de Meer’s office.

“Come in,” the counselor told them. “Please shut the door behind you, Kelly.” The girl complied after Brandon entered. She joined Coach San-Giacomo on the sofa while he sat alone in the armchair.

“So, Doctor Van de Meer,” Brandon addressed his counselor, “why am I here?”

“I’ll let Miss San-Giacomo tell you since it’s by her request,” Dr. Van de Meer deferred the explanation. “I will remind you of two things, though. First, listen to everything she has to say before asking any questions or making a decision. Next, remember what I told you Thursday: you don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to do. I’ll support your decision either way.”

“So, what do you want, Miss San-Giacomo?” Brandon inquired.

“First, were you at the Homecoming game?” Coach Brenda asked him.

“No, but I watched it with my girlfriend on streaming video,” he replied.

“Why weren’t you at the game?”

“I was in the hospital.”

“I’m sorry,” apologized the coach. “What happened, if I may ask?”

“When I woke up from a nightmare Friday morning, I had a panic attack,” explained Brandon. “I spent Friday and Saturday at Saint Luke’s.” He noticed that Kelly had folded her right arm underneath the sling supporting her left arm and squeezed her knees and ankles together. She looked down at the floor. Brandon understood that Kelly blamed herself for his nightmare and hence the subsequent panic attack.

“No physical illness or injury, then?” Coach Brenda probed further.

“No. Not really,” Brandon dismissed the coach’s concerns. “But my psychiatrist gave me some pills to take if it happens again.”

“We can be thankful for that,” Coach Brenda conceded, “because right now, as things stand, you’re our only qualified candidate.”

“Qualified candidate for what?” Brandon wondered out loud.

“Did you see the accident that happened to Abby Abernathy?” Brenda asked him.

“Yeah,” he replied. “That looked like it was really bad. And Kelly broke her wrist trying to help her.” Kelly blushed as Brandon acknowledged her injury.

“Yes, she did,” affirmed Coach Brenda, “and that makes what I’m about to ask even more important.”

“Well, what is it?” Brandon pressed, as he was becoming not only annoyed but increasingly anxious as the coach had yet to arrive at her point.

“We’d like you to substitute for Abby while she’s unable to cheer,” Miss San-Giacomo admitted. “That would be for at least three months, maybe longer.”

“You want me to be a cheerleader?” Brandon asked in disbelief.

“Yes,” affirmed the coach. “Kelly told me about your skills in gymnastics, so I called your former coach and he confirmed what she’d told me.”

“Did he also tell you why I quit gymnastics?” Brandon asked more as an objection than as an inquiry. He felt somewhat violated that she had called his gymnastics coach without asking first.

“Yes, he did,” replied Coach Brenda. “But he described your tumbling skills, your floor exercises as excellent. Those are what we really need—not the more advanced skills on men’s apparatus that your body never grew enough to compete on.”

“And I vouched for your school spirit,” interjected Kelly. “That’s, like, so important for a cheerleader. And I’ve noticed, too, except for your hospital stay, that you and your friends have come to all the games to cheer and sing along with us. It really means a lot to us on the squad when you do that.”

“Have guys been cheerleaders at West Grove before?” Brandon asked.

“No, they have not,” Dr. Van de Meer replied as she re-entered the discussion. “Coach San-Giacomo asked me to check the school’s history for any precedents. You’d be breaking new ground here, Brandon.”

Brandon took another breath before asking his next question, the one that most worried him. “So do you have a boy’s cheerleading uniform?” he asked Miss San-Giacomo. “I’ve noticed that guys on college cheer squads have their own.”

“No. High schools almost never have boys as cheerleaders,” she replied. “So, you’d be wearing the same uniform as the others.”

“You mean I’d be dressing like a girl?”

“That is the uniform,” the coach confirmed. “We don’t have another available.”

Why does it always seem to come around to this? Brandon wondered. Does absolutely everyone want me to dress like a girl?

“But that’d be just at the games?”

“We’re required to wear our uniforms in school on game days,” remarked Kelly. “You’d hafta wear yours, too. And once a week, we have, like, a ‘fashion day’ when we all wear pretty dresses or nice skirts and blouses. We’d hope you’d, like, dress up with us for that as well.” Coach Brenda nodded to confirm that, indeed, Brandon would be bound by the same everyday requirements and social expectations as the other cheerleaders.

Brandon began to feel queasy and light-headed as he began to understand whither all this was going. “So I’d be going to school in drag twice a week?” he asked, once again more as an objection than a question.

“Actually, during basketball season, it’s more like three times a week,” the coach warned him. “And as junior varsity, you’ll be asked now and then to cheer for a few of the other sports, like soccer, volleyball, lacrosse, and baseball. Cheerleading is a year-round activity.”

“Brandon, you need to consider something else,” Dr. Van de Meer said, raising a new issue. “In our school district cheerleading is not extra-curricular—it’s an actual course. If you decide to do this, we’d transfer you from your alternating study hall and Boys’ Physical Education One to Cheerleading One. You’d receive full academic credit for it and it would also count towards meeting your physical education requirements for graduation. Once you transferred into the course, you’d receive a regular grade for it just as you would for your physical education course.”

“But that would cause other scheduling problems!” objected Brandon. “I like the courses that I already have.”

“No, Brandon!” Kelly retorted. “One reason the database query returned your name was that your study hall and Boys’ Physical Education One meet at the same time as Cheerleading One. We couldn’t ask any student to swap out more than a single class period. That rule disqualified most of the girls who might’ve otherwise been available.”

“Couldn’t you find any girls?”

“In a word, no,” summarized Coach Brenda. “There weren’t too many girls still eligible at this point in the semester. After we checked them out, they were all committed to other sports or activities.”

“Your name only came up because I forgot to limit a query by gender,” admitted Kelly, “but once we knew you were qualified, we had to see if we could interest you in doing it.”

Coach San-Giacomo added, “I know this won’t be easy for you if you agree to it, but I can promise you a real adventure and a lot of fun. The girls on the squad will all support you as best they can. In fact, we’d like you to come this afternoon to meet the other girls on the squad.”

“Is this a joke?” Brandon asked, warily shaking his head. “Kelly’s been pulling pranks on me since kindergarten.”

“Brandon, I’m sorry about all those things. Please don’t turn your back on the team because of what I’ve done in the past,” pled Kelly. “We really need you now. Without a substitute for Double Abby, we’ll hafta do so much more work, like, to change all our stunts and choreography. Teaching you would be, like, so much easier, thanks to your background.”

“And Kelly showed me the video of you from Gender Bender Day,” said Coach Brenda. “I have no doubt that you can convey the femininity expected of a cheerleader. In that video, you were so sweet that I cried. That as a boy, you’d be willing to put yourself in a girl’s place is very touching. I’m hoping that you’d be willing to do it again.”

“I hate that video,” whinged Brandon. “Dressing up for that day was such a mistake. And this just seems like it’s more teasing for doing that. I never should’ve done it.

“I thought it might be fun. And at first it was. Besides, it was intended to boost school spirit,” explained Brandon. “But the next day, Kelly’s friends were chasing me around, trying to get me crossdressed again, telling me that I should be a girl. And they had that video. It was all so embarrassing.”

“I’m so sorry, Brandon!” apologized Kelly. “I didn’t appreciate how you might feel. We actually thought we were helping you.”

Dr. Van de Meer replied, “I did warn you young ladies about that. Just because he’s androgynous enough to pass as a girl doesn’t mean that he wishes to be one. Nor does it even mean that Brandon wishes to define his life by androgyny. How ’bout it, Brandon?”

“Could I have a day or two to think about it?” he asked, feeling flushed and dizzy as a cold sweat erupted from his forehead. “I need to talk to my parents and my shrink.”

“We need a decision by tomorrow morning,” advised Coach San-Giacomo. “Otherwise, I must begin revising choreography and planning new stunts. We’re really under a time constraint here. If the timeline weren’t so tight, I might’ve been able to handle this differently, but I need a substitute on the sideline Friday night and on the field next week.”

“Brandon, are you feeling alright?” Dr. Van de Meer asked him. “Suddenly, you’re not looking so well.”

“I need to see the school nurse, I think,” the boy replied. “And I think I know what’s wrong.”

Dr. Van de Meer opened a desk drawer to get a hall pass out for Brandon. She also withdrew another. “Kelly, you go with him, then to your morning class. Brandon, you have a day to decide. Let me know your answer tomorrow morning. If you’re willing to do it, Miss San-Giacomo and I still have to discuss this with Doctor Lansing. We don’t know how she’ll respond to the idea of a boy on the cheerleading squad. Like I said this would be breaking new ground.”

Brandon stood to accept the hall pass but immediately felt dizzy, so Kelly held an arm to steady him.

“See that Brandon gets down to the Infirmary alright,” Brenda instructed Kelly. “We can’t risk anything else happening to him, too.” The coach opened the door for Kelly to help Brandon out.

“Are you ready, Billie?” Nancy asked her younger “sister.”

“No!”

“Oh, you’ll do fine!” Lauren exhorted him. “Just keep your knees together and no one’ll even notice!”

“This is crazy,” complained Billy. “Gender-Bender Day was wacky enough, but I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

“Oh, quit your whining, ‘Sis’!” Nancy said as she knocked on the door to the classroom that belonged to her favorite high school teacher. The doorknob turned and the door slowly opened.

“Miss Danziger?” Ernest Markham exclaimed happily.

“Mister Markham!” Nancy cried as she reached out to embrace her former teacher. “It’s so good to see you again! I just thought I’d say hello and drop my younger sibling off on my way back to State. And this is Lauren Gallagher, my roommate.”

“Nice to meet you, Mister Markham,” said Lauren shaking hands with her friend’s mentor.

“Likewise, Miss Gallagher!” Mr. Markham returned the greeting. “So, I’m looking at two Miss Danzigers, then?”

“My roommate Lauren and I thought that we’d escort Billie to homeroom today,” said Nancy, indirectly teasing her brother. “She seemed so distraught over missing Gender-Bender Day that she called me for help.”

Billy rolled his eyes and looked away. Did she have to tell him that? Just coming to school in this get-up was embarrassing enough. But she’d be on her way soon, he’d skip class, go home, and that’d be the end of it. He might even score a few points for “coolness” with the right people before the day was out. But mostly, the crossdressed boy just wanted to sneak out to his stash for a quick, morning dose of cannabis.

“I think you did well to consult your sister, Billy,” assessed Mr. Markham. “You’re lucky to have such a person to help you with this.”

“She described her understanding of how to be cool yesterday,” explained Billy. “Somehow, this is supposed to help me learn more about it?”

“Give it a chance, Billie,” teased his sister. “Mister Markham had better tell me that you learned something from it!”

Then quite unexpectedly, Lauren embraced “Billie” and pressed her lips to “hers,” lingering slightly. “Courage, Little Billie!” she said. “I’m looking forward to seeing you again. You really are cute like this.”

“I’m glad to see you again, Mister Markham,” Nancy said hugging him again, “but Lauren and I have to drive back to State for later morning classes.”

“I’m glad to see you, too, Nancy,” he reciprocated. ”You must stop by again when we both can have more time to talk.”

“I will, Mister Markham,” she promised. “I will!”

“Nice to meet you, sir!” Lauren added.

“Goodbye, Lauren!” Billy said. “Goodbye, Sis!”

“Goodbye, Little Sister!” Nancy shouted back as she pushed the door of the stairwell open. Lauren yelled, “See you soon, Billie!” as she followed her friend down the stairs.

“Are you ready, ‘Miss’ Danziger?” Mr. Markham asked his crossdressed student as he gripped the doorknob.

“No!”

“At least he’s willing to think about it,” observed Brenda. “But his face looked white when he left here.”

“I didn’t expect him to consider it at all,” admitted Xenia. “After the teasing and shenanigans Kelly and her friends did after Gender-Bender Day, I thought he’d’ve sprinted back to his homeroom.”

“Well, he looked like he wanted to for a moment,” the coach confirmed with a smile, “but I think Kelly sent him on a subtle guilt trip. Apparently, there’s a long history between her and Brandon.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Kelly told me they’ve been in class together since kindergarten and she’s close to him and his sister. She and Brandon also took their gymnastics together.”

Xenia leaned back in her ergonomic chair. “He couldn’t refuse outright without hurting her,” the counselor deduced. “She knew that.”

“That was what I thought as well.” Brenda paused a moment before asking, “What shenanigans were you talking about?”

“I don’t like to betray my students’ confidence, but I’ll tell you this because it’s relevant and I’m still a little worried about things getting out of hand for Brandon,” began Xenia. “Thursday morning, Kelly and a couple of her friends came in and told me that Brandon were transgendered and that they were going to help him be a girl.”

“Then perhaps asking Brandon to substitute for Abby is not such a good idea?”

“No, it might not be,” agreed the counselor, “but let’s wait until he decides what he wants to do. I also had a little talk with him Thursday morning about letting people take advantage of him. And I told him to look up the meaning of androgyny. He’s a very androgynous kid, although at the end of the day, he’s still a boy.”

“I could see that he’s androgynous and that would certainly help if he agrees to this,” conceded the coach. “But I had no way of knowing that it might already be an issue for him.”

“No, you didn’t,” concurred Xenia. “Not if Kelly omitted telling you, anyway. Brandon did refer to pranks that she’s played in the past.”

“I noticed that,” said Brenda. “She has a wild streak in her and I have no doubt the boy’s wary of getting caught up in another one of her schemes.”

“I advised him very strongly when we talked Thursday that he doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to. And I was referring specifically to Kelly and her friends’ plan to feminize him. So it’s not like he hasn’t been forewarned.”

“I’m not getting a cheerleader out of this, am I?” Brenda sighed in regret.

“I wouldn’t wager money on it. But still, he asked for time to think about it. So, he may be trying to lessen Kelly’s disappointment by appearing to think it over, or—.” The counselor paused a moment.

“Or what?”

“Or he’s really going to do it, but doesn’t want to seem too willing. He’s a boy after all. He at least has to appear reluctant to do it,” Xenia explained to the coach. “I do know him fairly well, though, and whatever his decision, Brandon made it before he left this room.”

Mr. Markham opened the door and ushered “Billie” Danziger into the room. Wolf whistles and catcalls, jeers and laughter greeted the crossdressed student as he came in view of his classmates.

“Omigosh!” Teri Hamilton squealed. “Billy? You’re so—girlie!”

“I don’t believe it!” Rhonda Davies exclaimed before giggling uncontrollably.

“I don’t either,” Billy concurred with her.

“Listen up, everyone!” Mr. Markham announced. “Mister—Miss Danziger has taken up the challenge that I suggested Thursday morning after all.”

“Well, it was my sister’s idea,” Billy tried to excuse himself as he went to his usual seat in the back of the room, dodging missiles of crumpled paper and hands groping at his legs. “Ow!” he yelled when he felt someone pinch his butt. “A few of you guys are more perverted than even I had thought!”

“Oh, Billie! You’re the girl of my dreams!” Dave Hamill teased. Other guys in the homeroom tossed volleys of wadded paper missiles at both Billy and Dave.

“Guys, they’re just clothes!” He defended himself as he finally sat down. “They don’t really mean anything.”

“You’re a queer!” Barry Kingman asserted.

“Mister Kingman! That’s quite enough!” Mr. Markham’s deep baritone voice boomed. “We’ll have no more of that!”

“I think you look nice, Billie,” said Alice Johansson. “You went to a lot of trouble to do it right.”

“My mom, my sister, and her friend did most of it,” explained Billy. “I feel kinda stupid.”

“Try not to, Billy,” Mr. Markham encouraged him. “You’re making up the exercise in group solidarity you skipped Wednesday. You’re a better man for doing it.”

The class chuckled at the remark.

“As my sister said,” recounted Billy, “if I had just done this Wednesday, it would’ve been easier and it would already be over.”

“You should listen to your sister more,” the teacher advised. “She’s really quite smart.”

“How many of you guys are cool enough to do this if it’s not Gender-Bender Day?” Billy challenged.

As another salvo of crumpled paper rained down on Billy Danziger in response from his classmates, Mr. Markham thought that he should send the Principal a short email, just in case the boy encountered more difficulties during the day.

Kelly led Brandon downstairs to the Infirmary. She noticed him hugging the handrail.

“What’s wrong, Brandon?” Kelly asked as she watched him, noticing his deliberately slow, deep breathing.

“Panic attack,” he answered. “It’s what happened when I woke up Friday morning. Doctor Windham gave me pills to take for it. And she showed me how to calm down by controlling my breath.”

“So, you see Doctor Windham, too?”

“Yeah, she diagnosed my panic attack and is treating me for anxiety disorder,” he related. “All that talk about me being a cheerleader kinda triggered another. How d’you know her?”

“Your dad referred me to her after—after—,” she paused. “Brandon, I need you to keep this, like, secret. You promise?”

“Okay.”

“Friday night at the hospital, your dad caught me drinking. That’s why he referred me to Doctor Windham.”

“You have a drinking problem?”

“Well, no—not yet, anyway,” denied Kelly. “And I don’t wanna start one.”

“So, take better care of yourself, Kelly,” Brandon advised her. “I’d hate for you to get into alcohol or drugs. You’re too nice a person to let that happen to you.”

Kelly looked down a moment. She felt embarrassed, but at the same time was encouraged that Brandon would feel concerned for her well-being. “Thanks. Your dad really did me a favor by stopping me. Alcohol isn’t the real problem, anyway. He said I was self-medicating. Doctor Windham is trying to find out what’s really wrong with me.”

“Well, I promise not to tell anyone,” Brandon assured her, “but I need you to lay off all the talk about me being like a girl. That’s why I’m having panic attacks.”

“I’m sorry about that,” apologized Kelly. “It just seems like something inside you wants to be a girl.”

Brandon stopped at the bottom of the stairwell. “Yes, and I’m curious about it, too, but I’m still a guy and mostly happy with that.”

“We thought that you were, like, transgendered and really wanted to be a girl.”

“No, not transgendered,” denied Brandon, “but Doctor Windham says I’m androgynous and should give myself permission to explore my feminine side.”

“Becoming a cheerleader would be a good way for you to do that.”

“I’d rather explore it on my own—at home and in private.”

“No, Brandon,” she contradicted him. “That really won’t help you. It’s time for you to take hold of life! Like, what’s that phrase in Latin?”

“Carpe diem?”

“That’s the one! Carpe diem! Seize the day!” Kelly almost sang out. “When that query returned your name, Brandon, I recommended you to Coach San-Giacomo because I know you have, like, what it takes to be a great cheerleader. And I’m not the only one who thinks so.”

“But it all seems so weird!”

“Earth to Brandon! Half the school thinks you’re weird, anyway. You and I both know that,” Kelly reminded him. “You should go and enjoy who you are. But we think you’re sweet, too. And honest and loyal and kind—more than you know about yourself. And think about Double Abby. When she woke up from her coma yesterday, all that she worried about was if we needed someone to take her place until she could cheer again. But she can’t return until next year at the earliest.”

Brandon felt somewhat guilty thinking about Abby. The poor girl’s injuries were extensive and she’d need up to three months or more to heal. “Are you sure you can’t find another girl to do it?”

“I did the database queries myself—just like you showed me. But the criteria were, like, really limiting. First of all, there was the academic requirement. Then there’s the physical fitness profile and medical eligibility. Then finally, there was a requirement of minimal disruption to schedules. A few girls did meet these requirements, but they had already committed to other activities and didn’t wanna switch to cheerleading.”

“I thought all girls wanted to be cheerleaders.”

“I did, too, but I guess we’re wrong.”

They arrived at the Infirmary. Kelly spoke up again as she was ready to knock on the door. “Please, please consider it fairly. I know it might be difficult, but we really do need you.” She knocked on the nurse’s door and it opened. Kelly ushered Brandon in and seated him in an armchair. “Nurse Mansour, Brandon says he’s having a panic attack.”

“My pills are in my backpack,” said Brandon as he allowed it to slide to the floor. Kelly took his statement as permission to rummage through it to find his medication. In but a few seconds, she extracted a perforated card of a dozen tablets enclosed in transparent plastic blisters with foil backing. An adhesive label with Brandon’s and Dr. Windham’s names and instructions for the alprazolam had been stuck to the back of the card.

“Here they are!” Kelly announced, handing Nurse Mansour the card of pills. “Please be okay, Brandon!” Kelly found her tears welling up. “We really need you!” she entreated as she hugged him.

Brandon did not respond to Kelly’s entreaty. The nurse lifted his arm by the wrist and then let it fall. She took a penlight from the breast pocket of her white smock and pulled back each eyelid in turn to examine his eyes. “He’s passed out now, but he’ll be alright when he comes to.”

Then suddenly, a pang of guilt seemed to hit Kelly in her tummy. She thought about Brandon and his needs for a moment. So, she picked up his smartphone to send a text message.

Jenny was double-checking her quiz in Latin 1 and had concluded it to be perfect. Her knowledge of Latin was well beyond what would be taught in the course, but she still needed the academic credit on her transcript. However, Sigurd “Ziggy” Ericsson, Ed.S., Ph.D., was pleased to have a student like her in class and gave her alternative assignments to challenge her beyond her current knowledge. As she stood to take her quiz forward, she heard and felt the muffled vibration of the cellphone in her purse, so she slung it over her shoulder as she went. It had buzzed but once, so it was likely an email or text message.

Dr. Ericsson accepted Jenny’s quiz, not at all surprised that once again, she was the first to complete it.

“Doctor Ericsson, could I go into the hall for a moment to check my messages?”

“Surely,” he allowed.

So Jenny stepped out into the hallway, withdrew her smartphone, and leaned against the wall. She noted that a message from Brandon was waiting, so she opened it:

Jenny
Brandon panic attack
Plz kum 2 Nrs Ofc
Kelly

Jenny could not hold back the sudden wave of tears. She rushed back inside the classroom. “Doctor Ericsson, could I go to the Nurse’s Office?”

“Surely, but don’t forget to turn in your assignment first,” he reminded her. “Also, I’ll assign you a special reading with questions to answer before you go.”

Jenny nodded her acknowledgement. She slipped back to her desk and gathered her books before returning to her teacher’s desk, where she laid out her three-ring binder. She turned to the tabbed divider for her Latin course and popped the rings open, then handed Dr. Ericsson her completed assignments for both today and tomorrow.

“You give me hope,” he told her. “Firstly, because you enrolled in Latin; next, because you’re so good at it; and then again, because you demand more from the course than the syllabus offers.”

“Well, I love Latin poetry,” confessed Jenny. “When I’m reading it at home, I often feel like dancing to it. I like to do my own choreography for it.”

Dr. Ericsson smiled at his student. “Here’s your next poetry assignment and a hall pass,” he offered her. “I hope everything’s alright for you.”

Jenny rapped on the door of the Infirmary. Kelly opened it and hugged Jenny with her right arm. “We’re glad you’re here. Brandon passed out. He had a panic attack in Doctor Van de Meer’s office.”

“But why?” Jenny asked. “Is he in some kind of trouble?”

“Coach San-Giacomo asked Brandon to join the cheerleading squad,” revealed Kelly. “I think it triggered his panic attack ’cause he’d, like, hafta wear the same uniform.”

“Omigosh! You mean the girls’ uniform?”

“Yes. After all, there’s not, like, a different one for boys,” remarked Kelly. “It’s too bad really. He’d make an excellent cheerleader if he was a girl.”

“I’ll admit he did make a cute girl when he dressed up for Gender-Bender Day,” agreed Jenny, giggling. “It’s what prompted me to make my move on him.”

Kelly felt another pang in her tummy, but this time from disappointment. So many times she had hinted her affection for him, but Brandon had never picked up on it. Yet Jenny had sprung but a single snare and had him. “He did look so cute in that dress! I’m really hoping he’ll agree to join the squad.”

“I’ll encourage him if he seems to be leaning that way,” promised Jenny, “but I’ll still support whatever he decides.”

Jenny and Kelly knelt on either side of the armchair where he had passed out. Nurse Mansour broke an ampoule of smelling salts [(NH₄)₂CO₃] open under his nose. He coughed a couple of times as he came to. “Huh? What happened?” Brandon asked.

You passed out,” the nurse informed him.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he apologized. “Our discussion in Doctor Van de Meer’s office freaked me out.”

“Kelly filled me in on what happened,” the nurse related, inspecting the label on his bottle of medication. “She also fished your meds out of your backpack and called your girlfriend down here to be with you.”

“Thanks for doing that, Kelly,” he offered. “Jenny, thanks for being here.”

“Alright, Brandon,” the nurse continued. “The label is marked for you to take one or two as needed. I’d say that going so far as to pass out means you prob’ly need two.” She handed him a small cup of water and two pills, which he took and drank down.

”Ma’am, I need to call Mom, Dad, or my shrink—,” Brandon began.

“Brandon! I’m surprised at you!” Nurse Mansour interrupted him. “Calling your psychiatrist a ‘shrink’ is quite insulting!”

“But Doctor Windham told me to call her that,” he retorted.

“And she told me the same,” Kelly seconded.

“Well, I still think it’s rude, so you will not refer to her as such in here,” the nurse decreed. “If you must use slang, the preferred term nowadays is psydoc.”

“That makes sense,” conceded Brandon, looking at Jenny, then Kelly. “But I still need to call someone about the panic attack.”

“If you’d like, I could call for you and have one of them contact me here at school. Are your parents’ ’phone numbers in the school database?”

“Yeah, but not Doctor Windham’s,” he answered, accepting his own smartphone back from Kelly.

“I have it, though,” the nurse told him. “I know her well. Quite a few of our students here have seen her from time to time.”

“I never thought of that,” admitted Brandon.

“I hadn’t, either,” added Kelly.

“I wouldn’t expect you to know that,” conceded the nurse.

“It’s logical, though,” observed Jenny. “After all, you’re a school nurse and she’s a specialist in child and adolescent psychiatry.”

“But that’s why I felt stupid,” pled Brandon. “I should have known something that obviously logical.”

“Take it easy, young man! You’re too hard on yourself,” advised the nurse. “Alright, then—I’ll make the calls. Meanwhile, you kids get to your next classes.”

Jenny and Brandon clasped hands together to climb the stairs to up to the top floor for their second period class, Earth Sciences. “Doesn’t holding hands constitute a forbidden public display of affection?” he asked her.

“Is there anyone else around?” she asked in return.

“I don’t think so,” answered Brandon.

“If there’s no else around to watch us,” asserted Jenny, “then by definition, it’s not public.”

“Logical,” agreed Brandon, “but that would also change just as soon as anyone else showed up.”

“Then that means we should take advantage of the situation as we can,” said Jenny pulling Brandon to her and pressing her lips against his. “Are you feeling any better, yet?”

“I think so, but I didn’t expect another panic attack this morning,” he admitted. “Then again, I didn’t expect to be asked to join the cheerleading squad, either.”

Jenny smiled at her boyfriend. “I’m not surprised, though. You’d be a good one.”

“What?” Brandon exclaimed. “You too?”

“Brandon, I’ll support whatever decision you make,” she assured him. “You should appreciate, though, like how well you show the qualities of a good cheerleader. You’d be a good one, even as a boy.”

“If I could do it as a boy, I wouldn’t have a problem with it,” he admitted. “I kinda miss gymnastics. Never did anything with it since I wasn’t growing fast enough for competition. Still, I think I need my shrink’s—my psydoc’s advice about this.”

“Y’know, Brandon, that suggests to me that you might be, like, just a little bit open to this.”

“Y’know, Jenny, I just might be,” he confessed. “But the part of me that’s still frightened of it is bigger, stronger, and louder.”

“Well, don’t give up on yourself. I won’t. I think you just, like, need to trust yourself more.”

“Doctor Windham was telling me the same thing over the weekend.”

“Well, she’s right. Give yourself some credit.”

“But I feel like I’m getting pushed into things I’m not ready for.”

“Still, though, you know if you are or are not,” she reminded him. “Trying new things brings growth. But to recognize when you’re not ready for something also shows growth.”

“Are you sharing this wisdom with me because you’re Chinese, or because you’re Jenny?”

Jenny blushed at the compliment. “If it’s good advice, does the source really matter?”

“Yes,” replied Brandon, “because I may need good advice again and wish to go back to it.”

They reached the top floor and turned the corner towards their science classroom. Once inside, the couple went straight to their lab station. Their teacher, Mr. Danvers, grinned at them as they sat down, acknowledging their status as a fledgling couple.

The African-American man with graying hair leaned back in his huge, wingbacked office chair, munching on a sliver of carrot. The carrot sticks had replaced cigarettes since his wife had prevailed over him to quit smoking. He leaned forward and placed the document that he had just read on the massive desk situated at the southern focus of the elliptical room. The paper was some of the best legal writing that he had ever read. Surprisingly, his brief tenure as editor of his law school’s own journal had prepared him well for such a duty. He’d read samples of legal opinions and articles by everyone on the shortlist for the current judicial vacancy. The staff of the Federal Judiciary had prepared a prospectus for each candidate. Per his request, a weakly adhesive label, bearing only a number, concealed the name of the author on each paper. This arrangement helped him avoid his own personal bias while reading. But now that he had finished reading them, he had settled on his first choice. He peeled the concealing label from the cover of the prospectus to reveal the writer’s name:

The Hon. Catherine Moira Riley-Harrigan, JD.

He smiled.

Yes!

He thought that he had recognized her logic and legal style. And she was not just any Democrat. If he recalled correctly, his predecessor had first appointed her to the Federal bench.

His Republican predecessor.

And that meant that the Republicans in the Senate dare not block her nomination to an appellate seat. That seat on the bench for the Ninth Circuit had been vacant for years. He was almost giddy at the prospect of filling the vacancy.

His office telephone rang, with his secretary’s ringtone. “Yes?…” he asked.

“Your eleven-fifteen is here, sir,…” she announced.

“Send him in, please,…”

A tall Caucasian man with light brown hair, graying at the temples entered the office. He carried a thin, black leather attaché case bearing the official seal of the Department of Justice on its lid.

“Good morning, Counselor,” the African-American greeted him. “How are you today?”

“Good morning, Mister President,” he returned the greeting. “I’m doing well. And yourself?”

“I’m fine today. And I’m ready for you to proceed with an appointment.”

“Whom have you chosen, Mister President?”

“What can you tell me about the Honorable Catherine Moira Riley-Harrigan?”

The counselor took a key from an inside pocket of his suit jacket, unlocked his attaché case, opened it, then leafed through a small stack of printed documents. He withdrew a report about Judge Catherine Moira Riley-Harrigan and read from it. “The American Bar Association rates her as a ‘highly qualified’ candidate. First in her class at the Georgetown School of Law, she’s on the Federal bench eleven years already. Her husband, Brian, is a free-lance corporate lawyer in high demand, specializing in keeping mergers and takeovers compliant with anti-trust law.”

“Any potential for conflict of interest there, counselor?”

“No more so than for any other successful professional couple, Mister President,” he dismissed. “In practice it’s unlikely, although it’s still always possible. I did notice, though, that she’s recused one case so far since it involved the parochial school that one of her daughters attended. She didn’t even want any hint of a conflict of interest.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” the President acknowledged. “You mentioned a daughter. How many children?”

“They have four in all, a son and three daughters. Their oldest is a daughter, Maureen, who’s already followed her mom to Georgetown for her first year of law school. Next is their son, Connor, a freshman at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.”

“He’s a musician?”

“A violinist, Mister President,” he informed him. “And he’s rumoured to be a virtuoso.”

“So talent indeed runs in the family,” remarked the President. “How about their younger daughters?”

“Kelly’s a high school freshman and a junior varsity cheerleader. Friday night, she broke her wrist trying to save another cheerleader from even more serious injuries. Their youngest, Caitlin, is in the fifth grade. Both their younger girls are honor students as well.”

“Irish-Catholic family?”

“Yes. Fairly traditional Roman Catholic values as far as I can tell, sir.”

“Yet they chose to send their children to public schools even though they could afford parochial tuition?” mused the President. “Interesting!” He offered a carrot stick to the counselor, who declined, then took another to munch for himself. “So this one daughter suffered her own injury trying to protect another cheerleader?”

“That’s what the report said, sir.”

“Could you find out a little more about what happened? That they raised a daughter who’d do that sounds like it should reflect well on her parents’ character.”

“I’ll do that, sir.”

“And their oldest daughter is staying in the family business?”

“It looks that way, sir,” replied the counselor. Both men smiled.

“From what I’ve read, Judge Riley-Harrigan has one of the keenest legal minds in the country. Start vetting her as a nominee to the Federal Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit,” the President ordered. “And not just for that seat, Counselor. I also want her on my shortlist the next time a Justice retires from the Supreme Court.”

“Yes, Mister President.”