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

Billy walked quickly around the back of the Technology Building, partly due to the brisk weather, partly because he needed his morning hit, more so today than usually. The sidewalk from the Academic Main Building merged into an apron on one end, the front, and the back of the Technology Building. But his destination was the opposite, grassy end of the building where he usually sought daily morning solitude while enjoying his cannabis.

Today, Billy would have to do things somewhat differently because of how he was dressed. He normally sat down in the grass, his back against the wall while he engaged in his morning ritual. But he realized that if he did, the grass might stain his skirt. He couldn’t quite believe that he was suddenly worried about something like that, but apparently Mom, Sis, and Lauren had trained him well. So he had brought his backpack to use as a cushion for sitting. He also had a bottle of cola in its outside mesh pocket and the usual packet of saltines in his purse.

Billy had cached his marijuana in a glass vial inside a vinyl pouch under a loose decorative cobblestone at the base of the wall. The vial held just enough to fill the bowl of the small brass pipe for every day of the school week. He would meet with his dealer at lunchtime Fridays and refill his stash before the weekend. Thus he never risked taking any of the drug inside the school with him, although he still had it on campus. However, when the police did locker searches, he wouldn’t have to worry. If someone found his stash, there was nothing to connect him directly to it.

So that’s what Billy expected to do today while he skipped his first period class—actually a study hall. He turned the corner from behind the building, but after just a couple of steps on the grass, he realized that the narrow, spiked heels of his pumps were sinking into the soft ground. That was not something that he’d anticipated. It took a slight effort to lift his feet from the ground, but to do so with each step was annoying. It was a little easier, though, since the shoes were strapped to his ankles. He walked along the wall until he came to the loose cobblestone. Sitting down on his backpack, he then retrieved the vial and took the little brass pipe from his purse.

“So, what do you girls think about Brandon joining the junior varsity squad?” Coach San-Giacomo asked her varsity cheerleaders during their class. She had already explained the circumstances, including how long Double Abby’s convalescence would likely take and why Brandon was not only qualified but the only substitute available on short notice. “Astrid, I’d like to offer you the first opportunity to address the issue, since you’d be Brandon’s ‘Big Sister’ throughout all this.”

“Friday night, I asked his older sister Sheila to consider coming back,” replied Astrid. “She promised to think about it over the weekend, but I haven’t talked to her today.”

“I also asked her Friday evening, myself, but she declined,” reported the coach. “She told me, though, that her brother’s better than she is for doing our more difficult moves.”

“Bringing a boy on board would be, like, a major challenge, I think,” opined Astrid. “The big question I have is, can he switch back and forth between being a boy and being a girl? Also, will he really look right as a girl?”

“Have you seen the video of him from Gender-Bender Day?” Carla asked.

“There’s a video?” Astrid inquired.

“Yes,” affirmed Coach Brenda. “I have a copy on my desktop. Come by my office and you can download it. It’s quite—impressive.”

“Coach Brenda,” Colleen Wright spoke up. “May I say something?”

“Yes, Colleen,” Miss San-Giacomo acknowledged her. “Please do.”

“I kinda like the idea of having a boy as a cheerleader,” said Colleen, “but I do think he should dress up with us for weekly fashion days and other special occasions. That’s always been an important part of our team bonding.”

“I know, and I agree with how important that is,” acknowledged the coach. “And Kelly raised that issue when we asked him. But I also don’t want the boy scared away. We do need him and what he can do. Even wearing the uniform won’t be easy for him, so I’m asking the jayvee squad not to push him too far all at once.”

“Exactly what can he do that the jayvee squad needs?” asked Sarah Blackwell.

“He’s about the same size and build as the girl he’s subbing for,” the coach explained. “His gymnastics skills are good enough to step in and take Abby’s place in pyramids and stunts. His previous coach says Brandon’s tumbling skills are excellent.”

The coach paused a moment.

“Any more questions?” Coach Brenda asked. No one else raised other concerns. “So girls, as a group what do you think of Brandon joining the junior varsity squad?”

Her varsity cheerleaders answered with smiles, applause, and cheers.

Billy needed to go into a restroom, not only to relieve himself but also to touch up his appearance. He had smeared some of his lipstick on the stem of his little brass pipe. He felt like he needed to clean the pipe, too.

He approached the restrooms right near the main entrance, but dressed as he was, should he go into the Men’s Room, as usual, or into the Ladies’ Room, since he was presently attired as a girl. Neither seemed correct. But he figured that the Ladies’ Room were the safer choice, since other guys might try to assault him for being crossdressed. Besides, he hoped he could pass as a girl among those who didn’t know him very well.

Quickly glancing around, he didn’t see anyone else nearby at the moment who might be watching him. So, Billy decided and entered the Ladies’ Room.

“I’ve missed my German class two days straight, now,” lamented Brandon to his girlfriend as they worked on their lab assignment together in their Earth Science class.

“You really like your German class, don’t you?” Jenny encouraged him by way of inquiry.

“Yeah,” he affirmed. “It’s a lot of fun. We’re allowed to talk about anything in class, so long as we do it in German.”

“That’s kinda neat,” she agreed. “I feel the same way about my Latin class.”

“I’m sorry you had to miss it on my account.”

“Oh, don’t be! I had already finished my quiz when Kelly texted me. I’m so far ahead of the coursework in there that Doctor Ericson, like, has to give me some outside reading to do, like Latin poetry. It’s so different from English.”

“Cool!” Brandon approved, smiling at her. Then he changed the subject. “So what do you think I should do?”

“About what?”

“About Kelly’s coach asking me to be a cheerleader?”

“It’s up to you, Brandon, because only you can know if you’re ready for something like that,” Jenny reminded her boyfriend. “I know you’re open to it, and like I’ve already said, I’ll support your choice, whatever it is.”

“But don’t you have a preference one way or the other?”

“Yes, I do, but I don’t want to influence your decision.”

“But suppose I want your influence?”

“Do you want to know what I really think?”

“Of course! Why else would I ask you?”

“Well, I think you’re always afraid of being wrong, like it’s the worst thing that anyone could ever do,” Jenny revealed, “We have this saying in Chinese: No mistake—no learning!”

“That’s kinda what Doctor Windham told me Friday,” disclosed Brandon. “She talked about leaving my ‘comfort zone’—and giving myself permission to make mistakes.”

“Yes. It’s also called ‘pushing the envelope,’ like what you did on Gender-Bender Day. It’s not so much leaving your comfort zone as expanding it.”

“But how can I know when it’s okay to do that?”

“Sometimes you don’t, so you hafta take a risk,” she explained. “But then at other times, it’s as easy as taking the next obvious step.”

“Can you give an example?”

“Sure! Remember on the roof Thursday morning? What did I do?”

“You kissed me.”

“Then what did you do?”

“I kissed you back.”

“And how did you know it was okay to kiss me back?”

“Well, it made sense because you already did,” recounted Brandon. “That meant you must’ve wanted to and—oh! It was the next obvious step!”

“See! That wasn’t too hard, was it?”

“I guess not—but how does that help me with the decision I hafta make about becoming a cheerleader?”

“Since you dressed up like a girl for Gender-Bender Day, what’s the next logical step to expand your comfort zone?”

“Dress up again?”

“Yes,” affirmed Jenny, “although you need to for something other than Gender-Bender Day.”

“Like at home?”

“Well, maybe—but I think that’s contracting instead of expanding your comfort zone.”

“So then, you think that joining the cheer squad would be expanding my comfort zone?”

“If you’re ready to show up at school wearing the uniform, it is.”

Billy stood to adjust his pantyhose and then smoothed his skirt before stepping out of the stall. He noticed a couple of girls chatting with each other about boys while touching up their facial cosmetics. This he took as a cue to do the same. Looking in the mirror, he confirmed that he needed to repair a slight smearing of lipstick and lip gloss. Surprisingly, his facial features appeared nearly feminine. No, on close inspection, he was clearly a boy, but he had, in fact, passed as a girl to the two who were touching up their own faces.

Returning the cosmetics to his purse, he noticed the lipstick smeared on the stem of his little brass pipe. He decided that it needed a quick cleaning, so wetting some facial tissue from a dispenser on the sink, he cleaned off his pipe, then used another tissue to polish it to a shine.

“Omigosh, Billie!” Alice Johansson asked. “What are you doing in the girls’ room?”

“Well, I couldn’t go into the boys’ room like this, could I?” Billy retorted. “Besides, there’s not a good mirror like this one in there.”

“I don’t know. It might be interesting to try,” she answered impishly. “You might get a few wolf whistles!”

“Oh! I don’t doubt that at all!”

Alice giggled at her classmate’s predicament, but then kissed him on the cheek. “I’m proud of you for dressing up today. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve made up for Gender-Bender Day. Oh! Cute little pipe!” she observed. “Is that the kind for smoking marijuana?”

Billy was embarrassed to have been caught cleaning his little pipe. “Uh—yeah,” he confessed. “Sorry!”

“Well, don’t let anyone see it,” Alice warned. “You could be, like, expelled just for having it on you!”

“Thanks for the warning,” offered Billy, “but I don’t have any marijuana with me.”

“Still, it’s drug paraphernalia,” she reminded him. “I wouldn’t wanna be caught with it.” With that, Alice finished touching up her face and started out the door.

Billy dried the little brass pipe off with a facial tissue and dropped it in his purse. He then followed Alice out the door and into the main corridor.

Seph Lansing found the email from Ernie Markham amusing. The principal had never heard of anyone making up Gender-Bender Day as if it were an assignment for a course. There was likely more to it than explained in the email. But Ernie liked to challenge students, even those in his homeroom.

Clearly, Ernie wanted to make sure that she knew a boy was attending school en femme today. She hoped that she might encounter him, just to chat about why he felt that he needed to make up Gender-Bender Day. Also, Ernie likely had concerns about possible bullying.

Was this boy, William Danziger, perhaps transgendered? Probably not. Knowing Ernie, crossdressing was being used here to prove a point. She just hoped that this boy was enjoying his adventure and didn't encounter any bullies.

Hmm? Danziger? Dr. Lansing wondered. Any relation to Nancy, the valedictorian of the previous graduating class?

The bell signaling the end of second period rang. Seph always liked to walk the corridors of the school, getting to know her students. She loved running the high school. The atmosphere kept her young.

“Oh, Billie!” Alice addressed her classmate stepping into the hallway. “Did you forget your badge?”

He looked down at his red sweater and saw that he wasn’t wearing his identification. Even worse, he saw Dr. Lansing, about to leave the Main Office and come his way. He certainly didn’t want her to see him not wearing his badge. He set his backpack down on the floor and quickly rummaged through it. But his identification wasn’t there. Of course! Billy then remembered that he had moved it to his purse, so he let the strap slide off his right shoulder and opened it. Tossing the badge’s lanyard over his head, he relaxed a little as the principal walked over to him.

“That’s still not quite compliant, Miss—Miss…?” the stern woman said, pointing to his badge.

“Danziger,” he answered nervously. Billy looked again and saw that, in his haste, he had turned the badge backwards. Fumbling the shoulder strap of his purse in his right hand, he carefully lifted the lanyard up and over his head, then rather awkwardly reversed it and put it back on. “I’m sorry about that Doctor Lansing.”

“You should be wearing your badge properly before you step onto the campus,” cited the principal. “By the way, are you any relation to Nancy Danziger?”

“Yes, ma’am,” confirmed Billy. “She’s my older sister. She started at State University this semester.”

“I hope that we’ll see you begin to give her a run for her money while you’re at West Grove High School,” she encouraged the student. “But you’d best be getting to class.”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you, Doctor Lansing,” he said. Then nervously, Billy tried to step away, unaware that the spiked heel of his left shoe had caught a shoulder strap of his backpack. As a result, he tripped and fell, with most of his purse's contents jumbling out onto the floor.

A shiny object caught Dr. Lansing’s eye.

The little brass pipe.

The principal crouched down and picked it up, shaking her head.

“Miss Danziger, a proper young lady doesn’t carry such things in her purse,” proclaimed Dr. Lansing very disapprovingly. “My office—now! ”

Brenda excitedly activated the Faculty Chat feature of the desktop computer in her office. She wanted Xee to join her for lunch and, she hoped, also invite the principal to join them.

Brenda hoped strongly that they could meet with the principal over lunch and get her approval for a boy to join the junior varsity cheerleaders. But Seph could be very hard to read. The rumor was that she had learned to play poker from her older siblings. No one knew when Seph were bluffing, nor when she were serious. She always wore a straight face until the showdown.

“Sit down!” ordered the principal, ushering Billy into her office, while she stayed in the outer office for a moment. He sat down in a small, metal chair with blue seat and back cushions directly in front of her desk. Then he looked at the nameplate on the corner of her desk:

Janice P Lansing EdD

The cadence of Dr. Lansing’s heels warned Billy as the principal strutting in nearly slammed the door behind her and slapped a manila file down on her desk. A feeling of fear surged through him as Dr. Lansing sat down behind her desk. She opened the file in front of her and leafed through a few pages, before allowing her eyeglasses to hang down from their neckchain. This indeed was the student named in Ernie Markham's memo.

“You present me with quandaries, Billy,” said the principal. “The first is that I’m unsure whether to call you Mister or Miss Danziger.”

“I’m still a boy, ma’am,” he told her casting his eyes downward. “I’m sorry for the confusion.”

“Well, Mister Danziger, I have three questions for you,” declared Dr. Lansing. “First, why are you dressed like a girl? Next, why were you in the Ladies’ Room? Finally, why did you have a marijuana pipe in your purse?”

Billy sighed, crossing both his arms and his legs tightly—and awkwardly. He was less embarrassed about having been caught with the little brass pipe—he was even somewhat proud of that—than he was about sitting in drag before the principal. What was worse, he was already tardy for his Electronics 1 class, which was his favorite subject and the only one that he fully enjoyed in school.

“Well?” she prompted the young crossdresser. “I’m waiting.”

“I came in d-d-drag today b-b-because I didn’t participate in Gender-Bender Day on Wednesday,” stuttered Billy. “Thursday morning, I sorta got dissed by some of my classmates for not doing it. Then Mister Markham kinda suggested I might make up for it by ‘Miss Danziger’ making an appearance. Well, my older sister came back for Homecoming Weekend and she and her roommate and Mom all kinda made me dress up like this for today.”

“Is Nancy your older sister?”

“Yeah,” confirmed Billy. “But it seems like all her teachers that I’ve had, too, gotta tell me how smart and perfect she is and expect me to be the same as her. So maybe if I dress like her I can be, like, smart and perfect, too.”

Janice couldn’t help but recall a few of her own issues from childhood. She certainly understood Billy’s complaint, first as a schoolgirl, now as an educator. Indeed, the plea was of a classic issue, faced invariably by all but the eldest child in a family.

“I’m sorry about that, Billy,” she offered in a more consoling tone. “We all liked Nancy here. She was sort of a ‘golden girl.’ But I also know what it’s like, myself, to follow older siblings to the same schools, even with the same teachers. I got so very tired and frustrated always hearing about how wonderful my older brothers and sisters were.”

“I’ve heard that from several of my teachers. And Mister Markham was like Nancy’s fave, even though I just have him for homeroom.”

“Well again, I’m sorry about that. Our teachers here should not be doing it,” declared Dr. Lansing. She wrote a little note to herself in her agenda to send out a memorandum to all the faculty about the issue. “One more thing about your sister, though—while I can’t divulge any details, I can say that as much as we love her, Nancy was not at all the perfect student. Indeed, she sat right where you are a time or two having to defend her behavior.”

“I guess I feel better knowing that even though she was valedictorian, she still wasn’t perfect.”

“An important part of your character is what you learn from mistakes and how you recover from them,” Dr. Lansing explained. “We like to talk about the ‘teachable moment’ in education and very often a mistake is exactly that, an opportunity to learn something useful.”

“So what am I learning now?”

“Well, let’s look at the other events that occurred, like why were you in the girls’ restroom?”

“I was afraid to go into the guys’ room dressed like this,” admitted Billy. “If I had encountered any other guys in there, at the very least they’d’ve harrassed me verbally, which I could likely handle, but they might’ve become physically hostile, too. So I felt safer going into the Ladies’ Room.”

“Were you alone in there?”

“No, not at first. Then there were a couple of girls when I came out of the stall, but they didn’t even seem to notice me. After they’d left, Alice Johansson came in.”

“How did she react to you being in there?”

“Polite and encouraging. She helped me feel normal to tell the truth. In fact, she warned me I’d forgotten my badge.”

“Any other girl see you in the Ladies’ Room?”

“No one else came in while we were there.”

“Anyone else see you enter or leave the restroom?”

“I’m almost sure no one saw me go in, ’cause I sorta waited until no one else was around,” he recounted. “But I can’t be certain if anyone saw me come out, ’cause as soon as I was out, Alice noticed I wasn’t wearing my badge yet.”

“Alright,” acknowledged Dr. Lansing, setting the little brass pipe down on the desk in front of her. “Next I need to inspect your purse and backpack for other contraband. Let’s start with your purse.”

Billy removed each item from his purse, one at a time. He hadn’t carried too many things in it. To him, the most embarrassing were a pair of pink nylon panties and a tampon. The contents also included tubes of lipstick and lip gloss, mascara and eye liner, a box of eye shadow, a compact with mirror, face powder, and applicator, and a combined comb and hairbrush. He only had a couple of his regular things in the purse, his wallet (a boy’s style, of course) and some kind of metal device in a slim leather case.

“Well, I see that you’re outfitted with most everything a girl needs for an emergency,” observed Dr. Lansing, then, picking up the case with the metal device asked, “What’s this?”

“That’s my multi-tool,” answered Billy as the principal slipped it from its case. By simple examination, she perceived how to open its scissor-like handles and then pivot out the various hidden tools. But next she noted a couple of the attachments with disapproval.

“These are knife-blades!” exclaimed Dr. Lansing. “You shouldn’t have this. This is a weapon, so it’s contraband.”

“No, Doctor Lansing! It’s not a weapon—it’s a tool!” Billy defended himself. “The multi-tool is required equipment for Electronics Lab One. Everyone in class carries a multi-tool. We hafta have it. It was sold to us along with the other lab gear for the course. Wait! I can show you—!”

Billy reached down beside his chair and pulled out from his backpack a three-ringed triptych-style binder. He turned to a manila pocket and took out from it a small sheaf of papers stapled together. “This is the syllabus for Electronics One and Electronics Laboratory One. There’s an equipment list including the multi-tool and another page with a diagram showing the full layout of the multi-tool.”

The boy handed the document over to Dr. Lansing who slipped her eyeglasses back on to peruse them. She quickly verified that the course syllabus and supporting documents confirmed the boy’s claim.

“I apologize to you, Billy,” offered the principal. “I didn’t know this. I need to talk to Mister Kelsoe about it. I certainly can’t call it contraband, since you’re required to have it. Besides, I’m afraid the little brass pipe is trouble enough for you.”

“But what’s wrong with a little pipe?” Billy asked. “I don’t actually have anything in it.”

“It’s drug paraphernalia. This type of pipe is traditional for smoking marijuana. I’m actually supposed to expel you just for having this.”

“But I don’t have any marijuana here,” protested Billy. “I use it for tobacco instead.”

“Young man, let me offer you some advice before you only make things worse for yourself,” said Dr. Lansing. “When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging!”

“Whaddya mean?”

“Under the law, you’re too young to smoke. You can’t legally buy tobacco and you’re not allowed to bring it on campus. It’s contraband, too. So, you’d be no less guilty using the pipe for tobacco than for pot.”

Billy thought about the pack of cigarettes in the outer pocket of his backpack. “Uh—supposing that I have any cigarettes on me?”

“You can quit digging that hole by surrendering them now,” promised Dr. Lansing. “While it’s still serious, the School Board’s guidelines are slightly more lenient for cigarettes and tobacco products than for illegal drugs.”

He picked up his backpack, set it on his lap, and unzipped the outer pocket in which he’d stowed his cigarettes. The frightened student placed them quietly on the principal’s desk. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

“Listen, Billy,” began Dr. Lansing. “The other concern that I have for you is your record shows excessive tardiness and absence, especially from your first period study hall. Why? Is there something wrong with it?”

“I wish I’d taken a real class instead of that. Torkelson—.”

“Mister Torkelson to you!”

“Mister Torkelson seems to go out of his way to be annoying and boring in study hall. His voice is whiney and he seems constantly to get into arguments with students over all kinds of stupid stuff. And he’s always talking about ‘my study hall,’ ‘my study hall,’ ‘my study hall,’” said Billy, emphasizing the repeated phrase with air quotes. “It’s like he’s obsessed with how great he thinks study hall is. But I just can’t study with a guy like him around.”

“That’s too bad,” the principal remarked. “If he’s making you that uncomfortable, it defeats the very purpose of a study hall.”

“So, how much trouble am I in?” Billy inquired nervously. “I mean—?” He looked at Dr. Lansing with pleading eyes.

“Quite a bit,” she replied. “As far as the really bad things, the drug paraphernalia and the cigarettes, this is a first offense. Yet your attendance record shows a growing pattern of irresponsibility.

“By the book, I ought to give you a suspension, which could be from ten days up to the remainder of the semester. Getting caught with the little brass pipe actually puts you in jeopardy of expulsion, which would be permanent. But without any of an actual drug on you like marijuana, I’m inclined to think that’s somehow excessive.”

“So you’re not expelling me, but suspending me?”

“No, I won’t expel you over this,” she assured him. “But I think you need a wake-up call more than punishment, anyway.”

“I’m keeping the cigarettes, but gather up everything to put back in your purse—and the little brass pipe you can have back, too. Just don’t ever bring it to school again!”

“Why are you giving it back?”

“I’m being lenient by disregarding the School Board’s ‘zero-tolerance’ drug policy,” explained Dr. Lansing. “If I keep the pipe and it’s discovered during an inspection or an audit, I’ll be asked why I have it. When I say I confiscated it from a student, they’ll want to know who you are and all the details about what happened and how I handled it. Then in the end, they’ll want to know why I didn’t expel you. And I'm not even looking in your backpack. I should because you could have marijuana in it, but I'll give you a break because you voluntarily disclosed the cigarettes.”

“Ma’am, I’m really sorry about all this.”

“Well, it helps that you didn’t even have any minor disciplinary issues from elementary or middle school,” remarked Dr. Lansing. “You’re a strong candidate for leniency. But while I’m not showing possession of drug paraphernalia on your record, I am noting your jeopardy of a three-day suspension due to excessive tardiness and unexcused absences, a second five-day suspension for entering the Ladies’ Room without authorization, and then one more suspension for the balance of the semester for the possession of cigarettes on campus.”

“Exactly whaddya mean by jeopardy?” Billy asked, nervously.

“Ignoring the drug pipe, those are the penalties that I’m supposed to mete out for your offences according to the School Board’s guidelines. These are more or less severe penalties. Except for violating the ‘zero-tolerance’ policies, I do have some discretion to apply leniency when I think it’s appropriate.

“What you should know about a suspension, though, is that you won’t be allowed to make up missed work. Typically, an until-semester-end suspension typically results in failing grades for all or most courses.

“But instead of giving you three suspensions, I’m about to offer alternatives that mostly avoid them.”

“So, these are lesser punishments?”

“These are alternative, but not necessarily lesser, penalties,” she emphasized. “Also, it may not be up to you alone. I must inform your mother about this, and legally she has the right to choose for you. Also, the School Board could review the case and they have the authority to impose the full penalties specified by their own guidelines.”

“It sounds complicated.”

“It can be,” Dr. Lansing warned him.

“So what are the alternatives?”

“Well, since you claim that Mister Torkelson’s study hall is why you’re tardy or absent from first period so often, your study hall will be replaced with a sort of in-school suspension. That suspension will take place in a substance abuse workshop to help get you to quit smoking and to deal with any related issues. This will also allow you to serve your suspension with minimal impact on your classes.

“But here’s the clincher, Billy,” said Dr. Lansing. “You must dress as a girl until the end of the semester.”

“What?”

“You will dress as a girl for the rest of the semester,” reiterated Dr. Lansing. “Skirts, blouses, dresses, high heels…”

“B-but I—I c-can’t—!” Billy stuttered and stammered, still making his point. Tears began streaming down his cheeks.

“Well, it’s your choice: suspensions until next semester or live in a girl’s world?” Dr. Lansing reminded him. “Besides, you’re dressed as a girl now, so it couldn’t be so bad, could it?”

“But this was just to make up for not doing Gender-Bender Day!” Billy objected. “Just for today!”

“I do understand that, Billy. Yet, I wouldn’t even have imagined such a choice for an alternative penalty,” continued Dr. Lansing. “And you must choose here and now, before you leave this room!”

“Could I call Mom?” he pled. “You said you have to inform her anyway.”

“Is she at work now?”

“No, she shouldn’t’ve left for work yet.”

“By the way, Billy,” said the principal, “before I forget, you have one hour of detention this afternoon for your identity badge infraction. Report here to the Main Office. You will be told where to go then.”

Billy simply sighed as he held back tears. She was throwing the book at him, but slowly, a page at a time.

Dr. Lansing opened the boy’s file again and noted a home telephone number. The Danzigers apparently still had a land-line at home; the home telephone number was distinct from his mother’s work and cellular telephone numbers. She wrote the numbers down in her agenda, then picked up the handset to call.

The President's Counselor leaned back in his own chair. He still preferred to use his own loose-leaf, leather-bound agenda to an electronic database and his desk telephone to the one in his pocket. He only ever called on his cellphone when away from his office.

He opened his agenda to the “Contacts” section under the letter R and found the entry for Riley-Harrigan, Catherine M. When approaching a candidate for vetting, he liked to make the first call himself. He’d let his secretary carry the ball later, but she was new and inexperienced. He could trust her to carry out the mechanics of the process after the nominee agreed to it.

He dialed the code for long distance, then the number for Judge Riley-Harrigan’s office.

“Good morning! You’ve reached the Federal District Court Office,” the secretary-receptionist answered. “This is Esperanza Gutierrez speaking…”

“Good morning to you, too, Miss Gutierrez,” the Counselor returned the greeting. “Is Judge Riley-Harrigan in her chambers?…”

“No, she’s hearing a case right now,” Ms. Gutierrez informed the caller. “Could I take a message?…”

“Please ask her to call me at two-zero-two, five-five-five, two thousand, extension six-two-two, if you would. My name is Ethan MacAlistair. I’m with the Department of Justice, Office of the Federal Judiciary…”

“Very well, Mister MacAlistair. I’ll have her return your call…”

Patricia Danziger hung up the telephone with mixed emotions. She felt guilty, disappointed, angry, giddy, and hopeful all at once. Billy was in serious trouble now, and she couldn’t help believing that the blame fell squarely on her.

The worried mother’s first concern was where her son had acquired a marijuana pipe and whether he had a stash at home. Consulting her wristwatch, she still had half an hour before needing to leave for work. So she climbed the stairs and first went into her own bedroom. From the jewelry box on top of her dresser, Patricia retrieved a small, fancy key. Underneath her vanity was a hidden, locked drawer, which she used the key to unlock. Pulling it out revealed an elegant, red satin box, covered by a matching, hinged lid. She opened the box to uncover a beautifully feminine, matched, white ceramic set of a long rectangular box of joss sticks with a sliding lid, usable as an ashtray for the incense, an old-style refillable lighter, a small canister with a hinged, vacuum-sealing lid assembly, and a bong, all decorated with a Southeast Asian floral motif in pink, blue, and green pastels. Each item was secure in its own shaped niche in a rose pink, satin lining.

Opening the canister, Patricia took in the aroma of the cannabis, still fresh due to the vacuum seal. It was also full and apparently untouched since she had filled it. So her son had not raided her stash. Indeed, she guessed (correctly) that he was even unaware of its existence.

Yet therein lay also the root of her guilt, disappointment, and much of her anger over Billy’s predicament. She herself was an occasional user of cannabis, so she could hardly confront him without hypocrisy, which to her was a far more serious failure of character than enjoying marijuana.

She resealed the canister, closed her box, a cached it away in her secret drawer, then returned the key to her jewelry box. Looking at her wristwatch again, Patricia decided not to try searching Billy’s room now. They’d have a few issues to discuss later and she’d rather offer her son first the chance to volunteer his stash instead of confronting him over it.

Billy had really gotten into trouble, yet the unusual punishment that she had agreed to might offer her a new chance to know her son. As serious as the charges against him were, Dr. Lansing had taken a professional risk not applying zero-tolerance policies to Billy's case. The principal wished to keep him in school was the only reason that felt right to the mother. For this, Patricia would remain grateful to Dr. Lansing.

So Patricia started back down the stairs carrying the weight of the morning’s problems in her heart. Of course, when his principal asked her about Billy’s punishment, she hated the choice that she approved for him, thinking both offered sets of penalties excessive. She took her son’s side of the argument that his use of the Ladies’ Room ought to have been acceptable in this circumstance. Also, she was an advocate of legalizing the use of marijuana and very critical of so-called “zero-tolerance” policies. Yet she was especially disappointed to learn about her son’s frequent tardiness and his skipping classes. He’d always been an exemplary student until now. She certainly agreed that something needed to be done about that.

On the other hand, Patricia thought that Dr. Lansing simply must have a lighter, humorous nature hidden beneath her stark, uncompromising exterior. Her son dressing as a girl for the duration of the semester, even though a punishment, was still funny. Acquiring a girl's wardrobe for him would cost some money, yes. But she hoped more than anything, that Billy could embrace the humor inherent in his predicament as a way out of the deep malaise that he'd suffered in recent months.

Shaking her head as she fought back tears, Mrs. Danziger donned her raincoat, grabbed her purse, and stepped out to face her workday.

Dr. Lansing looked at the boy sitting in front of her desk, considering the sentence that she had imposed on him with his own mother’s full knowledge and consent. Although the principal felt real sympathy for him sitting there in girl’s attire, she had to struggle to contain her own laughter. He’d have to get used to it, since Billy would be coming to school as “Billie” for the duration of the semester. The boy didn’t look too bad in drag. With a little work, he might even look passable as a girl.

“Billy, I know that you’re facing a difficult time until next semester,” the principal tried to console him. “But I’d like you to realize something positive, a real strength in your own character. I received an email from Mister Markham this morning about why you’re crossdressed today. While he may’ve challenged you to make up Gender-Bender Day, you didn’t have to and no one would’ve forced you. But you still accepted the challenge, because I think you believed you needed to for some reason. If you take your punishment with the same courage and resolve that you showed dressing up today, you might find it not so punishing as you fear.”

“Are you saying it won’t be so bad?” Billy asked in a skeptical tone.

“I’m saying it might not bother you so much in a few days as it does now,” she clarified. “And although it’s not why I brought you in here, I’d also like to thank you for bringing certain issues to my attention. The one about comparing students to siblings can be handled simply by sending out a memo. The others that you raised will require some investigation, though.”

“Can I get any special consideration for those?”

“In a way, I’ve already given you special consideration. The in-school suspension during first period gets you out of Mister Torkelson’s study hall. And again, I can’t apply the ‘zero-tolerance’ policy for weapons to the multi-tool because your teacher requires it for the course,” she explained. “Besides, I really do believe that in your hands a knife is not a weapon but a tool.”

“I’m really sorry about all this, Doctor Lansing,” apologized Billy. “I just think having to dress like a girl until next semester is kinda harsh.”

“Well, it’s supposed to be,” the principal reminded him. “But like I said earlier, you need a wake-up call more than punishment. Tardiness and absences were going to catch up with you, anyway.”

“Then, consider me woken-up!” Billy retorted.

Brandon knew that he’d need to talk to her about it, anyway, so while waiting between classes at his girlfriend’s locker, he sent Sheila a text message requesting her to join him and Jenny for lunch.

Jenny and Brandon began walking from her locker toward the staircase to their next class, English.

“Jenny, I asked Sheila to meet us at lunch,” he said. “I need her advice on this. I’m hoping she’ll tell me just why she didn’t continue on the squad again this year. And maybe I can fit into her old uniform, too.”

“That’s right,” acknowledged Jenny. “She’s on the Pompom Squad-Dance Team this year. I would think that anyone would have preferred to be a cheerleader.”

“I did, too, but Kelly pointed out that’s not necessarily so,” Brandon explained. “Apparently, there are other activities and sports many would rather do. Miss San-Giacomo seems in a way almost desperate to get me on the squad.”

Thoughtfully, Jenny paused at the door to the stairwell. “Brandon, what do you really feel in your heart you wanna do about this?”

“If I don’t do it, I’ll always wonder if I could have,” he confessed. “But if I do, I’m afraid that everyone else might react to it, like, I’m crazy. There could be consequences I don’t want.”

“You really enjoyed being a girl for Gender-Bender Day, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” whispered Brandon under his breath.

“Then what went wrong?”

“The next morning, Sheila told me that two guys wanted her to fix them up with her ‘little sister,’” admitted her boyfriend. “I’m not gay, and I don’t want anyone thinking I am. I don't wanna date guys. I’m straight, and I like you.”

“And I like you. Besides, putting on a dress or a skirt doesn’t change who you really are,” she assured him. “But when you did, it told me that you’re not just smart and sweet. You’re interesting, too, and braver than most of your classmates.”

They started down the staircase and since no one else was there at the moment, Brandon intimated his intent. “I do wanna be on the cheer squad but I’m afraid of it going all wrong. I wouldn’t just be dressing as a girl; I’d be, like, a high-profile girl. Do you think I haven’t ever thought about what it’d be like to have a cheerleader for a girlfriend? To think that suddenly I might be seen as that girlfriend seems really weird!”

Suddenly, Brandon felt Jenny’s lips pressed against his as he yielded to her embrace. “Just so long as you’re mine, you can be my boyfriend or my girlfriend or both,” she promised him. “I don’t want you to get away from me!”

Kelly stood next to the door of her classroom for Freshman English, as Brandon and Jenny walked up.

“Hi, guys!” Kelly greeted them. “Are you feeling any better, Brandon?”

“Yeah, I think so,” he assessed his own condition. “Thanks for helping me out with Nurse Mansour. And getting Jenny to come was really thoughtful.”

“Well, even if we're never anything more in this life, Brandon, we've always been friends, so we'll always be friends,” declared Kelly. “And Jenny, because you're Brandon's friend, you've become mine as well.”

“Thank you, Kelly!” Jenny offered and then reached out and embraced Brandon and Kelly together with her in a group hug. “Our circle will grow as we bring others in.”

“Kelly, can you join us for lunch today?” Brandon asked. “I've asked Sheila to come so we can talk about cheerleading.”

“Sure, I can join you for that,” promised Kelly. “But try to get a table in a corner where we can watch who comes by. Not everyone needs to know about this yet.”

The bell rang to signal the end of break and the threesome streamed into their English class.