[Colne, Lancashire 3rd January]

“How much farther,” complained Taylor as she looked out at the grey skies and lashing rain.

She'd sat stony-faced ever since they'd left Manchester Airport more than an hour earlier.

“Not much longer,” said her father who was driving their rental car.

“Do you know where we are going?”

“Sort of. I have directions from the end of the freeway which is in less than a mile.”

They were driving along the M65 in an easterly direction. Taylor pulled her thin jacket tighter around her body. She’d dressed for somewhere a lot warmer before leaving their home near Buffalo, NY.

“Did you pack your winter things?” asked her father.

“Not real winter things, but this is just cold.”

He smiled. The damp climate was very different to what they were used to. Cold, yes but not cold and damp.

“We shall have to get you something appropriate to wear before I leave.”

Taylor remained impassive. She was determined to hate every microsecond of her time in this horrible place and to return to her homeland at the very earliest opportunity.

---

"Here we are," said her father as he pulled up outside a by her standards, a positively tiny house. It was just one of many on a terrace. The front garden was taken up by two parking spaces one of which was occupied by an equally small car.

“Welcome to Gulag No 34,” muttered Taylor. The house was numbered ‘34’.

“It isn’t a gulag but if you really want to experience one then I’m sure that it could be arranged…” joked her father.

She just glared out of the window. The heavy rain of earlier had relented and was now just a fine drizzle that was making patterns on the windscreen which was only briefly cleared by the intermittent sweep of the wipers.

Taylor was way out of her comfort zone and therefore very, very unhappy. Her life until now had been built around always being in control and getting her own way even if it meant throwing a few tantrums along the way. Her brushes with the law and authority had long been erased from her memory.

“Come on Taylor, get your things and we can get inside out of this rain,” said her father.

She clearly didn’t want to but slowly, she moved. As they unloaded her two large cases from the back of the tiny rental car, the front door to No 34 opened. A woman stood there waiting for them. She was smiling but she didn’t offer to help Taylor. That piqued her right from the outset. She was asking herself questions such as, ‘who was this woman? Why didn’t she help? Couldn’t she help me? and ‘can’t she see that I’m struggling?’

“Hello Helena. Nice to see you again,” said her father.

“Hi Ed, I see you brought the rain with you then?” said the woman.

“Sorry about that. It wasn’t by design I can assure you.”

She laughed.
“Get yourself inside and we can shut the wet outside.”

Taylor was left on the doorstep with her two large suitcases. It was clear that she was on her own and this strange woman was not going to help her.

With a final heave, she got the largest and heaviest of the cases inside the house. She could hear voices coming from the rear of the house.

Then another voice came from upstairs.
“Were you born in a barn? Can someone shut that door?”

Taylor was surprised to hear that someone else was in the building and that the voice was soft but clearly that of a male.

She did as the voice wanted and closed the front door. Right away, the house felt a little warmer. By her standards, it was still well below her comfort level. Anything below 70F inside in winter was for her the depths of the Antarctic. 75F was bearable in her opinion.

Taylor left her luggage in the small entrance hall and went in search of the voices. She found them in a small… no make that minuscule kitchen.

“Taylor darling, this is Helena. Helena Bridges. She will be looking after you while you are here,” said her father.

“That won’t be for long,” said a defiant Taylor.

Her father chuckled.

“Take a seat and read this,” he said while still smiling.

“What’s this?”

“Read it and all will be revealed.”

She sat down and picked up the document. The first words told her a lot.

“The last will and testament of Bradley John Robert Phillips”

“Are you about to pass?” she asked not wanting to read any farther.

“Me?” he laughed.
“Not at all or at least that is what my doctors told me at my annual physical last month. Why don’t you carry on reading? I’m sure that it will be enlightening.”

Reluctantly, she carried on reading. What she read astonished her.

“There is no mention of me or any descendants. Why?”

“I can see that at least some of the things that you learned at those expensive schools that kicked you out on your ass has stuck.”

Taylor glared at her father.

“What is means Taylor darling is that I’ve cut you out of my will entirely. You get nothing… nada… zilch… nowt in the event of me passing before you are twenty-five. It means that you will have to stand on your own two feet from now in. You hinted at divorcing me but too late, I’m doing that to you. This is your last chance saloon. Make it work, get your act together and actually make something of your life… something that does not hang off my coattails and I’ll tear this up. Do I make myself clear?”

Taylor managed to nod her head.

“Taylor, as I said, Helena will be your legal guardian while you are here. She is not inclined to put up with even a little of the nonsense you have managed to dream up since your mother passed. Helena is the sister of David Bridges, my CTO. I met him when he was at doing his masters at MIT and persuaded him to come and work for me. It was David who suggested sending you here in the first place. It was only after meeting Helena at the beginning of last month, did I finally agree to the plan.”

“And I get no fucking say in the matter!”

“Language young lady,” said Helena.
“I will have none of that in this house.”

“Good. Then I’ll leave,” said Taylor defiantly.

“Care to explain how you will survive? You have no cash. You phone won’t work here and I have your passport. Don’t think about trying to turn a trick. That business is generally controlled by some very nasty people and besides, you’d hardly find any custom around here,” said her father.

“Ok. You win for the time being, but this is not the life I have come to expect.”

“That’s the whole point. You need to experience the lives that normal people have. Going to a new school in a new country will be a big change for you. If you come out the other end then you will be a better person and better equipped to make your own way in the world just like I did.”

“Not if I can help it,” muttered Taylor.

“We shall see shan’t we Helena.”

Taylor’s father left her a little later. No one had moved her cases and she was not going to do it. They had staff at home that did the housekeeping and cooking. Taylor had come to expect that sort of service and she wasn’t going to change. Her father knew that she had a rude awakening ahead of her and wanted to be well out of earshot when that happened.

He headed for the South Yorkshire town of Rotherham. He had meetings with several suppliers lined up for the next week with several of the small companies that supplied his business. The first was the next morning. He was going to be close by if he received the almost inevitable call from Helena.

---

Back in Colne, Helena showed Taylor to her room.
“This is tiny. My closet back home is bigger than this!” complained Taylor.

“This is yours. Make the most of it.”

“Where’s my bathroom?”

“At the end of the landing. There is just the one in the house so don’t linger very long.”

Taylor returned a glare. Helena took her chance to lay down a few rules.
“The world in this house does not, and will not revolve around you.”

Just then some music interrupted their conversation.
“That is my son Danny.”

A look of hatred appeared on her face.

Danny was in her mind a ‘pretty boy’. Well, he was wearing a dress and had lipstick on his face.

“Mum! Thea please?”

This time, his voice wasn't male at all. Just what she needed, having to place second fiddle to a gay boy.
He smiled at Taylor.
“Thea is short for Dorothea which was my great grandmother’s name. She was very active in the fight to get the vote for women a hundred years ago.”

He looked to be about her age but there was something that didn't look right. Then she saw it. On the desk that he was sitting at was a book on advanced calculus. She thought back to a visit that she'd made to one of her former school friend's home in Albany, NY over the Veterans Day Weekend two years before. The friend's brother was studying at a local school for a Master's degree. That very same book was in his room. She’d seen it when they’d ‘made out’ at the party that the friend threw that weekend. That had been one of her more memorable sexual encounters even if she was underage at the time.

He might be a ‘Pretty Boy’, but he was probably even brighter than her. She wasn’t used to not being the most intelligent person around. At most of the multitude of the schools she'd attended, she'd been top of the class with ease. With it being easy, she got bored and that was when she started playing up but she would never admit to any of that.

---

After a few days, Taylor began to understand that she was going to live a very different life from before. The house was tiny when compared to what she was used to. She’d have to do ‘chores’ which in her opinion was something that only poor people did. If she wanted some money to buy things then she’d have to do the extra ‘chores’ that Helena told not asked her to do. As her legal guardian, Helena was not going to stand for any nonsense. A few lashing of Helena’s tongue soon made it clear that acting up was not going to cut any ice with her.

Taylor was a very picky eater and that cut no ice in the Bridges house. You ate what was offered or you went hungry. She’d protested for more than a day until a lack of food combined with the lack of any local currency finally persuaded her to eat the food that Helena put in front of her.

The food was nothing like what her father's chef prepared just for her. The McDonalds and the KFC restaurants that she’d seen on the way from the airport needed money which she didn’t have plus she didn’t have any way of reaching them. As for taking the bus! Her first thought was to call her father and ask for a Hazmat suit but deep down, she knew that wasn’t going to fly.

Her penance for picking at her food was to do the washing up. Back home, Taylor had put the dirty dishes into a dishwasher. Someone else would operate it and put everything away afterwards. Here, there wasn’t a dishwasher, just a sink. There weren’t even any gloves to protect her hands.

“Those nails will have to come off before school on Monday,” said Helena.

Taylor turned and glared at Helena. She didn’t react at all. Helena was not going to bend to her will anytime soon.

Taylor complained about the damage the water and the detergent would do to her hands but those complaints fell on deaf ears. She did the washing up and Danny/Thea wiped them clean and put them away. She noticed that she/he needed no prompting. He/she was clearly well trained.

The thought of becoming like that made her shiver.

“Are you cold?” asked Thea.

Taylor was cold. The whole house was like a chiller but both Helena and Thea were wearing thick sweaters. To Taylor, sweaters were for wearing outside in cold weather and were removed as soon as you came indoors.

“I’m frozen,” said Taylor.

“Didn’t you bring a sweatshirt or something?”

“My home is warm even in the coldest winter.”

“You will get used to it,” came a voice from the kitchen door.
“You just need to get used to our way of living. Not everyone has a limitless source of funds young lady. Heating costs money. When you have some and pay your share then I’ll turn up the heat. Do you understand that?”

Taylor shook her head.

“We both know that this move is a big change for you but as your father made clear, it is here or that school for delinquents in the heat of Arizona or was it, New Mexico?” said Helena.

For a moment, Taylor almost said ‘bring it on!’ but refrained.

---

After breakfast, the next morning which was most certainly not up to her 'refined' standards but at least the orange juice was not from concentrate and the bread to her surprise, tasted of something, so Taylor's grumbling was minimal.

“As today is Saturday, why don’t you and Thea go into town. She can show you around the shops and where things are. Tomorrow, we need to go over your school plan. We need to decide which year to put you in.”

“We?”

Helena smiled.
“Didn’t your father tell you that I’m the Head Teacher of the School?”

Taylor's world had just crashed and burned… Again.

“Don’t worry my dear, we are used to bright students. Thea is one of our brightest. She’ll be taking her International Baccalaureate next month. She has a place at Cambridge to read Particle Physics lined up for next September. If what your reports say are true, you are just as gifted as she is.”

It took a few seconds to grasp what Helena had just said. While she was grappling with that Helena added,
“This is your chance not to be bored at school. All the reports that I have seen indicate that you were bored with the lessons and as a result, you played up and became very disruptive. Why not take up the challenge and work with Thea? She needs a challenge academically which was part of the reason that I agreed with your father about you coming here.”

Taylor was trapped and there seemed no way out of it until the summer. Then she’d be eighteen and could leave.

Helena took the chance with Taylor's silence.
“On Monday, Thea will take you to school. I have to be there early as it is the first day of term. Thea will show you the ropes. We have a learning area setup for people like the two of you.”

“You mean ‘Special Needs’? I’m not mentally retarded. You just said that I’m not.”

“Special Needs, as you call it also applies to those who are gifted. There is a dedicated teacher for those like you and Thea thanks to the funding from an Educational Charity. Your lessons will be designed to be challenging. If they aren’t then I’m sure that you will make your opinions widely known.”

Taylor knew what was being implied by that remark.

“Some lessons will be taken with the mainstream Year 12 students. These include games and art.”

“Games?”

“You call it ‘Sports’. Everyone has to take part.”

Taylor’s bottom lip curled down. Helena laughed.
“That won’t get you anywhere my girl. This term, your choice is between hockey or cross country. Given your build, then I think that cross country will be right up your street.”

In Taylor's mind life was looking bleaker and bleaker by the minute.

Just then, Thea poked her head around the door.
“Taylors uniform for tomorrow is ready. I pressed the jacket because it looked a bit crumpled.”

The mention of the word ‘uniform’ sent yet another wave of horrors down her spine. None of the private schools that she’d gone to had insisted that uniforms be worn once you got to the 10th grade.

---

Thea helped Taylor remove the expensive nail extensions later that evening. Taylor was determined not to do it herself. What surprised her was just how delicate Thea’s hands were. If anything, they were more feminine than hers and that made her question her very own femininity for the first time since her breasts started to grow.

While the dastardly deed was being done, she decided to ask Thea about herself.

“When did you come out? From what you mom said when we were introduced, it was a fairly recent thing?”

Thea nodded her head.
“Mum knew that I was moving towards coming out. She thought that I was going to do it next summer but the school put on an event just before Christmas. I recited part of the speech from Henry the Fifth part 1. This is where the King addresses his men before the battle of Agincourt.”

“So?”

Thea smiled.
“It ends like this.”
She stopped removing the glue from one of Taylor's nails.

“And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.”

She giggled.
“Then I added one line.”

“Henceforth, I will be known as Thea and shall be your queen.”

It slowly dawned on Taylor how it must have been.
“Was that to the whole school?”

“And to lots of parents. It got a great laugh. Afterwards, people started asking me if I was serious. I said yes. A few days later, Mum sent out an email to all the students and their parents explaining what had happened. I’ll find out tomorrow how well that went down.”

“Are you saying that you have not been to school as Thea before?”

“Yes. It will be a baptism for both of us. For me as Thea and for you as the new Yank in town.”

“Are you afraid of reprisals? You know from bullies and the jocks?”

Thea laughed.
“Jocks? Oh… you mean the braindead numbskulls who play what you call football?”

Taylor was a bit shocked not only by Thea’s response but the directness of her question.

"We don't have Jocks here. Sport, at our school is not like it is across the pond. As for the bullies… Well, it helps having the head as a mother and with you at my side, no one will dare touch me."

"Most of the boys will be hitting on you, and all the girls will be wanting to scratch your eyes out."

“Eh?”

“Taylor… To put it bluntly you are stunningly beautiful. Plus… you have a brain unlike most other girls. From what Mum has told me, very few of them are anywhere near you when it comes to brains. Sure, some of those that have a decent brain won't dare show it because of peer fear. Not being part of the 'in crowd' is just disasterous for them. They'd get shunned on social media and to them, that is a fate worse than death."

Taylor looked a but confused so Thea added,
"With you being an outsider, they won't know how to judge you other than your stunning looks. Being in the 'brainiacs' class limits their chances of getting under your skin and you under theirs. I think that they'll try to ignore you. As long as you don't get into cat fights with them you will be fine."

"How do you know all this?" asked Taylor.

"I looked on at them for years wishing to be part of their group but I began to see how they worked. Play ball and you are allowed to be part of the group. Say something that is out of line, and you get shunned. I put it all down to insecurity. Mind you, the boys are just as bad but in a different way."

Taylor's prospects just got a lot bleaker. Thea seemed so sensible and almost adult like in her behaviour.

[to be continued]