In this chapter, our hero does some reflecting, and meets a principal character.

Copyright 2020 by Heather Rose Brown

=-=-=

After locking the bathroom door, I walked over to the sink. The black leather shoes clunked, the clothes package whuffed, and my ID card clattered when I dropped them on the counter. I took a hard look at myself in the mirror. The person looking back wasn't muscular, or hairy, or any of the other stuff that gets dumped on you when you hit puberty.

"Could I really get away with this?" I asked my reflection.

The dream I'd had in the car came back to me. I thought again about the time I'd been taken clothes shopping when I was six. The girl I'd met there didn't treat me like a boy. She'd even encouraged me to try on something from the girl's department. Of course, she had looked to be around the same age I'd been. I wasn't sure how the tween-aged kids in my new school were going to react.

"Well," I said as I peeled open the package, "there's a sure fire way of finding out."

A pink plastic bag slipped out, slid across the counter, and bumped against the mirror. Next came a white shirt, a red and blue plaid skirt, and a matching strip of cloth. No pants were to be found anywhere. I flipped over the bag. It had 'Undergarments' written in black, curly letters across the top.

"I guess this counts as part of the uniform," I said before tearing open the bag. I pulled out a long pair of socks, something that looked like a tank top, and some panties. All of them were white, and none of them were especially frilly, but they also didn't look like anything a boy would wear.

Except, maybe, for me.

I thought about some of the times I'd been harassed by other kids for wearing stuff that was 'too girly'. Girls seemed to get to wear whatever they wanted. But if my coat was the wrong style, or my shirt had flowers on it, or my pants were the wrong color, everybody freaked out!

I ran my fingers through my hair as I thought of the most recent incident. It was barely long enough to touch my shoulders, but some idiot had decided to harass me about my hair anyway. I'd already been in a bad mood, and lost my temper, which led to getting into another fight, which led to getting ... expelled.

I swallowed the pain climbing up my throat, and looked at the clothes spread out in front of me. "Dammit," I said in a hoarse whisper. "If this is what I gotta do to keep outta trouble, then let's do it."

=-=-=

I was shivering once I'd stripped everything off, both from nervousness, as well as the cold tiles on my bare feet. I picked up the panties, stepped through the leg holes, and pulled them up over my hips. The material they were made of was thin, and they didn't have a flap in the front. Besides that, they weren't all that different from the underpants I'd been wearing a minute ago.

Except for a tiny white bow in the front, the top was as plain as the panties. It had a stretchy band, which pressed against my ribs, but not in an uncomfortable way. The socks were both silky and cottony. My legs tingled as I slid them up to my knees.

I glanced at the mirror. A sharp pang of guilt ran through me when I saw a girl in her underwear, followed by a mild dose of confusion. "Oh jeez," I said as I looked away. "Dr Zigler's gonna have a field day with this one."

The long-sleeved shirt had rounded collars, but didn't feel much different from any other shirt I'd worn when I put it on. Something about the buttons on the shirt felt backwards, and it took a couple of fumbling attempts before I figured them out. I had picked up the skirt, and was trying to decide which side was the front, when someone knocked on the door.

"Who is it?" I asked as I scrambled to pull on the skirt.

"It's Mrs McCrudger, the school principal," said a deep, yet feminine voice. "Ms Etcherson sent me a message about an issue you may be having with your uniform. May I come in?"

"Hold on a sec," I said as I yanked at the waistband. Once the skirt felt more or less in place, I unlocked and opened the door. "Come on in."

An older woman holding a red backpack smiled at me from the doorway. She gave me a fast up and down look, then said, "Your skirt is a little askew." She stepped in and closed the door. "Would you mind if I helped?" she asked as she leaned the backpack against a wall.

I looked down at my skirt, and realized I had no idea what might be wrong. Not knowing what askew meant probably wasn't doing me any favors. "Actually," I said as I looked back up, "I'd appreciate any help I can get."

My breath caught in my throat when she hooked her thumbs into my waistband. I flashed to a moment when somebody had pulled down my jeans, saying he wanted to see my panties. Fortunately, I'd never been brave enough to wear girl's underthings. At least, not before today.

I froze in place when Ms McCrudger shifted the skirt around my waist. The snap of elastic against my stomach when she let go reminded me to breathe again.

"Are you okay?" she asked while giving me an unreadable look.

"I guess so," I said as I shrugged. "It's just been a long time since anybody helped me get dressed."

"Oh," she said as she took a step back. "I do apologize. I'll let you tuck in your blouse on your own."

It took a quick think before my brain translated blouse into shirt, which I began tucking into my waistband.

While I was busy with that, Ms McCrudger picked the shoes up from the counter. "Here you go," she said as she placed them with a couple of sharp clicks on the tile floor.

"Thanks," I said as I shoved my feet into the shoes. It took some effort pushing against the straps across the top of my feet, but the shoes weren't too bad once I had them on.

The principal frowned, but a smile was lifting a corner of her mouth. "Next time, you may want to undo the buckles before you put on your shoes."

"Oh, ermmm ... sorry 'bout that."

"It's okay," she said as the other corner of her mouth lifted. "Mistakes can become useful experiences, if we learn from them."

I picked up the strip of cloth that was sitting on the counter, held it out to the principal, then said, "Speaking of learning, could ya tell me what this is?"

"Ah," she said, "that's your crossover tie. Just slip it under your collar, cross one end over the other, and press the snaps together."

"Got it," I said, and managed getting it under my collar with no problem. The next part was trickier, and I went cross-eyed trying to see where the snaps were. "Ermmm ... could ya gimme a hand with this?"

Mrs McCrudger smiled and said, "Of course," as she reached for the tie. She did something under my chin, and I felt more than heard something snap closed at the base of my throat.

"That's kinda tight," I said in a stifled voice.

"Sorry about that," she said as she reached under my collar.

After a moment, the tie loosened, and I sighed with relief. "Thank you!"

Mrs McCrudger smiled while adjusting my collar. "Does anything else about your uniform feel uncomfortable?"

I was tempted to say, 'Everything'. Instead, I said, "Well, it does feel different from what I'm used to wearing."

The principal nodded as she said, "It can take some time to get used to wearing a uniform." She picked up the backpack, and held it out to me. "This should be big enough to hold your clothes from home."

"Thanks," I said as I accepted it, then kneeled by the pile of clothes I'd dropped on the floor. When I unzipped the backpack, it fell open, and something heavy in the front pocket smacked against my thigh. I unzipped the pocket, and found a tablet inside. "Somebody forget this?" I asked as I held it up to the principal.

"Actually," Mrs McCrudger said as she bent down, "all students at this school receive one of those." She pressed a button on the side of the tablet, and the face lit up, displaying several rows of icons. "This is the emergency call application," she said as she pointed to a phone icon. "It allows you to reach school security, the police, the fire department, and other emergency services."

I touched the icon, and a window with a bunch of phone numbers opened. "Huh," I said as I scrolled through the numbers. "I guess this could come in handy, but couldn't I just call 911 on my phone if there's an emergency?"

The principal stood up, crossed her arms, and said. "Because of the distraction phone use has caused in the past, all calls to or from devices not linked into the school network are blocked."

"Wait a minute. I can't use my phone? Not even to call my mom?"

She shook her head and said, "We had tried allowing limited phone access outside of classes, but some students found ways of circumventing the call blocking while in class. That's why the current system had been put in place."

Before I could complain about the unfairness of punishing everyone for something probably only a few people knew how to do, the tablet chimed. A small yellow window popped up, which said, [Homeroom period has ended. First period begins in 10 minutes.]

"Uh oh," I said as I began stuffing clothes into the backpack. "Looks like I missed homeroom."

Mrs McCrudger smiled and unfolded her arms. "It's okay. I'll make sure your homeroom teacher knows you'd been at the office, so you're not marked as absent."

Once the floor was clear of clothes, I zipped the backpack closed, grabbed my student ID, and slid it into one of the backpack's side pockets. "I appreciate that," I said as I stood up. "Could ya point me to my next class, so I ain't late for it?"

The principal nodded and tapped the yellow window on my tablet. When another window opened, she pointed to a red dot in the middle of the map being displayed. "This is where you are." She traced her finger along a set of blue arrows as she said, "This is the way you go to get to your next class. The dot will move through the map as you get closer."

"Oh cool," I said while shouldering the backpack. "Thanks!"

"You're very welcome," Mrs McCrudger said as she opened the door. "Take care, and enjoy your first day at Saint Milton's!"