Chapter Two: Fourteen girls grabbing balls

I tried to hold on to that thought as I made my way to my first class – PE, or physical exercise. Yes, English schools let you drop out of this at sixteen but I wasn’t working to school rules but those set by The Organisation and the Dacres and for some reason one or other had decreed that I was going to play sport as a girl. Of course, my new school held that rugby, soccer or even hockey just weren’t ladylike enough. I was about to open my school girl sporting career by playing my first ever game of netball.

Netball, for the uninitiated, is played by two teams of seven, each member of which is allocated to a specific area of the court, which she (and it is a she, mens’ netball is about as popular as mens’ embroidery classes) is not allowed to leave.

No one is allowed to tackle – it’s a completely non-contact sport – but that doesn’t matter because you aren’t allowed to keep the ball once you’ve got it either, you have to pass almost immediately or it counts as a foul. At either end of the court is a hoop, set considerably lower than a basketball hoop, into which you make ladylike throws from a short distance to score a goal. Slam-dunks are not allowed. Netball is also habitually played in little pleated gym skirts and matching T-shirts like the ones I had in my bag.

Netball teams do not usually have names the way American high school teams do, but for some strange reason the school had overturned that tradition, so now our school team was the St Blasius of Cappadocia Academy Tigercats. Fortunately I wasn’t going to make the team; I’d seen the uniforms and they looked like they’d been designed by a cheerleader on a sugar high.

I was already going red as I wended my way down the corridor, keeping a careful eye out for any boys sneaking up on my butt. I was just about to go into a girls’ changing room. Regardless of what I looked like, I defy anyone to spend a lifetime as a man and then feel relaxed about that. Add in the fact that I was really twenty-one and it just felt inappropriate. Maddy, the only person I knew in the whole place, unless being groped counts as an introduction, had abandoned me, having given up sport the year before. So much for my native guide! Still, she had promised to meet me in the library later.

“Who are you?” blared a leathery, angry looking woman of maybe forty as I came through the changing room door. On top of the thoughts I’d just been having this was almost enough to make me turn and run.

“I er um”

“New girl?”
“I, um”

“Don’t say ‘um’. I detest people saying ‘um’? Are you any good at netball?”

“I er”

“Don’t say ‘er’ either. You must know if you’re any good or not. Just don’t be one of those deferential girls. ‘Oh, I don’t know Mrs Davidson, I don’t like to admit to being good, people might not like me. In fact I don’t even like to get sweaty in case it puts the boys off’ “ She rolled her eyes exasperatedly “So are you any good or not?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never played.”

“Oh. What have you played?”
“Soccer.”

“God help us. Right you’re with Kirsty’s team. Try not to commit too many fouls.”

Kirsty was presumably the tall girl now making a ‘don’t panic’ face at me from behind the woman’s shoulder.

“Hi, there...?”

“April.”

“Hi there, April. As you haven’t played before I’ll put you in defence. All you have to do is try to catch any balls going by and pass them to someone else on our team. We’re red today, so don’t forget to grab an armband.” She leaned close and whispered “Don’t worry about Mrs Davidson. She just likes to keep people on their toes.”

And with that she began to strip off. I was in a room full of healthy teenage girls unconcernedly taking their clothes off and you know what? Nothing. Alright, not nothing, twenty-one years as a heterosexual male doesn’t go away all at once, but between embarrassment, a deep desire not to be anything like the boys from the corridor and having had my system flooded with massive doses of female hormones for months it wasn’t a problem.

Sadly I realised that it wasn’t inappropriate for me to be in a girls’ locker room at all. I really was a girl and a pretty one too. My knickers lay snug and flat over my pubic mound, my full breasts invited the gaze of the passerby, my hips and bottom curved enticingly. I wasn’t even the tallest girl in the room, or the heaviest built. Nobody could tell I wasn’t born this way. I was going to be the ravishee, not the ravisher. My new role in life was as a girlfriend, wife and arrgh!

I shook myself. There was no sense getting maudlin. I’d known for a while now there was no escape from my female status, and I’d promised myself to be the one thing no Organisation, no brainwashing, threat or blackmail could ever take away from me. I was going to be a good person, to give friendship and love, whether I received it or not. I was going to be nice to people, make the world a better place and the first step to that was to get changed, get out there and stop moping. Go Tigercats!

Besides, I reminded myself as we filed out to the netball court, there were far worse things I could be. Better a girl than one of the Grope Patrol!

Minutes into the game I was starting to realise that there might be more reasons than being ladylike for the rules of netball. I wasn’t Dolly Parton but I was quite buxom enough that – sports bra or not – I, well, wobbled. Not just up top either, my bottom was trying to join in the fun, though not quite as urgently.

On top of this, although I’d brought a sports bra to school, I hadn’t changed my knickers. This meant that every time I jumped too high or too fast to try to intercept the ball I risked giving everyone watching an eyeful of my purple satin underwear. That included the spectators. I hadn’t known that quite so many boys would develop an interest in watching netball on sunny mornings. Vincent Dacre didn’t appear to be among them. I wasn’t sure whether that was good, because it meant at least I wasn’t going to be married to a lech or bad because it meant he wasn’t unable to resist my charms. Or maybe it was neither and he had class?

In the meantime I was on display for the edification of a lounging, laughing, occasionally leering audience and I was getting hot and bothered. I tried to ignore it and with an ever so slightly unladylike jump managed to score from way back. The cries of surprise and congratulation from my team mates were good to hear – I’d missed feeling like a success.

Unfortunately they were almost drowned out by the whoops and whistles from the audience. I flushed scarlet. No wonder girls did better in single sex education. I couldn’t do a thing without an appreciative and disrespectful commentary. In this case one that was openly debating whether the colour of my knickers was a sign of sexual repression!

“Clear off you lot!” shouted Kirsty. “We’re trying to play sports here.”

“Sport is for guys. Go and have some babies.”

I gaped. I couldn’t believe someone had actually said that. From the look on Kirsty’s face neither could she. And worse, it had had the desired effect. It had shut her up, leaving her speechless and open mouthed. Me too. That was when I realised; sexist put downs don’t have to be something a guy believes as long as he learns that they work.

“You! Head’s office. Now!” Mrs Davidson was heading straight for the offender and he blenched and turned away without another word leaving us to get on with the game under the gaze of an at least a moderately quieter crowd of lecherous youths.

The whole thing had had an effect on me though. I could still throw but when it came to jumping, for the rest of the game the most I could bring myself to do was a little knees-together bunny hop. Mind you, I noticed that I wasn’t alone in that; clearly I’d discovered a hidden reason as to how the rules and tactics of netball had evolved in the first place.
Still, I wasn’t too bad at it, better than average, I thought, a thought that was confirmed at the end of the game as Mrs Davidson came up to me.

“New girl. April. You lost it for a while there but overall I was impressed. If you can keep your thoughts off what the boys think of you, you might shape up. We’re one short for the next game so I’m going to put you on the reserves. You should get at least part of a game. Practice is tomorrow afternoon at four – don’t be late.”
She walked away leaving me speechless as three thoughts hit me simultaneously

Oh my God, that is so unfair. It’s not like I asked the boys to distract me!

Oh my God, I’m on a school team!

Oh my God, I’m going to have to wear that stupid uniform!