This is one of my rare sequels. Quite obviously it’s a sequel to Mousy Trap, well, sort of.
However, it can read as a stand-alone story.

I’m Jane. I don’t fit in. I’m a girl despite what I look like. I’m weird. I’m a tomboy, a terrible one. I’m an outsider.
And that was already before we moved and I had to change schools before my sophomore year in high school.

That’s how I presented myself the first day in the new high school

So we moved to this new town. My parents got new friends at once. So did my twin big brothers, Dick and Harry, and I mean BIG brothers. Think heavy football player. Think stereotypical dumb jock and you had their looks. Strike the ”dumb” part and you had them. I like my brothers. I do. Nonetheless I blame them for what I am. I mean how could a dainty girl avoid getting fucked-up in such a testosterone-laden environment? My only problem with them then was that they wanted to help me. I could have done without their and my parents’ nagging.

Yes, I was a tomboy. A sorry excuse for one. Tall but not really strong. A very good basketball player in my old school though. Not that that would be of any use in my new school. No girls’ basketball team. Play with the boys? I’m a GIRL! I’d never fit in. I could never fit in. The best I could do was blend in. I did my best.

Even if I tried to do my best I was thrown when the background I tried to blend in with changed unexpectedly. The first day in my new school I came dressed as I used to in my old school. I emulated the mainstream male dress there. Here? I stood out as a slob. Well-cared slacks and shirts all around me. Mostly on males, but not exclusively by any means. Skirts and dresses were abundant as well. Then I started to understand what my parents’ and my brothers’ friends had told me. This school was different and it all was due to “Tomboy”. This mythical Tomboy appeared to be in on everything. Student council president, cheerleader, this committee, that committee. From what I had heard she had changed the school completely in a couple of years. If I were to believe the talk the only thing she lacked was a visible halo. It made me puke. I can’t stand goody-two-shoes.

I couldn’t wait to meet this Tomboy. How would she present? Boyish of course but probably not the rough-and-tumble type to judge from the people around me. I didn’t have to wait long. After lunch I had Fashion class. Yes, I told you I was mixed-up didn’t I? I mean I’m a committed tomboy and I’m obsessed by female fashion. I’m so into it, and skilled, that I had been stuffed into the seniors’ class. Tomboy was not at all what I had expected. Why the hell did they call her Tomboy? If anything she was the embodiment of femininity. Strong confident yet graceful. Not like me, a girl but far from feminine.

Tomboy intrigued me so I started to ask around. The more I learnt the more confused I got. I had expected her to be some kind of dictator in training. Instead I found that she worked by “nudging” people. Make them come out of their shells and make a difference. The prime example was the cheerleading squad. She could easily have been the captain but she persuaded a shy girl to take the role and the rest of the squad to go along. Now no one could imagine anyone else as head cheerleader. The closer I looked the more instances of the same pattern I could detect. Tomboy didn’t make things happen, she made people make things happen. She approved of people that made an effort both scholastically and athletically. Apparently she was a basketball fanatic but didn’t play herself (duh, no girls’team).

I learnt that she used to have a boyfriend, the previous student council president, but that they had drifted apart and decided to be just friends in the last summer. Long distance relationships are difficult and Cambridge is far away. Why? I had asked not unreasonably since my new town was only a couple of hours away from Boston and to the north of it. Well, it turned out that I hadn’t got it right. The Cambridge in question was in England, Europe.

I was confused. I found it hard to understand the whole thing. I found it irritating. As it turned out I had got things really wrong. On the Friday it all came to a head. It started innocently by us making sketches of dresses that we might sew. Tomboy looked at mine and complimented me. That wasn’t anything new. She had helped a few times as well. So far so good but then she had to add that she was surprised a boy had such a feeling for dresses. That was it.

I screamed at her: “Shut up Tomboy! I’m NOT a boy, I’m a GIRL!”

And then I ran away.

When I talked to one of the other girls later she told me I had got one thing wrong. I had called her Tomboy.
I: “Why? Everyone calls her that.”
Girl: “No we call her Tom boy.”
I: “That’s what I said. Tomboy.”
Girl: “No, Tom space boy. That’s who he is. People started to call him that as a “clarifying” joke”
I: “He?”
Girl: “Well, legally. Tom used to be this mouse that no one noticed and then one day he came to school dressed as a girl and the student council president noticed him/her. He fell in love with her and the butterfly emerged.”

That was the point where everything tumbled down and I just sat there sobbing when I finally let it all out.

When I got home I got hold of my mother

“Mom, tomorrow we are going to buy me some nice slacks and some classy shirts. I need to get a haircut. Better get a suit as well. And a tie or two. And you can get me those counseling sessions you have been nagging me about.”

And then I shouted to my brothers

“Dick, Harry. Get yourself out here I need to hone my basketball skills. There are tryouts on Monday”

“Why? There’s no girls’ team” was the response.

“Good thing since it makes everything easier.”

“Boys, do as Jane says. Someone has finally opened the closet door” (Mom)

Wide smiles spread over my brothers’ faces and they thundered upstairs to get their stuff.

“Hurry up you lugs. Your little brother has a student council president to seduce!” I called after them.