With a title like this, it shouldn’t be a surprise that I was inspired by a recent blog post (Ecc. 1:9)

As in all single-sex schools the boarding school I went to faced the problem when setting up the annual school play that most plays usually have both male AND female parts.

I and the rest of us in Drama class waited for the Drama teacher to allocate the parts. I surreptitiously loosened my tie. I hated my school uniform and in particular that noose.

….
“and finally for the leading lady, the sexy seductress Veronica, I want Peter.”

WHAT? NO!!! She can’t do that to me!

For the 9.846.764th time I cursed the intoxicated driver that had crashed into my parents’ car. This was all HER fault.

My father had mercifully been killed instantly. My mother, like her very promising acting career, had been cut short. She had lost both her legs. We had been devastated. On top on the personal loss our future had been bleak to say the least. Fortunately my mother had had a fall-back prepared. She was a qualified teacher. Even more fortunately she got a very good job. The only problem was that it was at an all-girls school on an island beyond beyond. No school suitable for a teenage boy for hundreds of miles. So my mother had insisted that the school pay for a boarding school for me. A good one.

I was not happy at all but I also realised that this was the best available alternative. I agreed. I was not prepared for what awaited me.

I won’t deny that the change was a chock to me. The first week I cried every night. I can’t deny that the school was excellent but I was used to a normal school. You know with a mix. A mix of boys and girls. A mix of people both rich and less rich (no actually poor people lived where we used to live, but anyway). No dress code. Fairly relaxed rules. What I got was a monoculture. Strict rules including school uniform (with that d****d tie), severely enforced. Actually, I could live with that. The real problem was my fellow students. I was not comfortable at all among the offspring of the rich and powerful. I did not fit in. I was left out in the cold.

So, I cried for one week and then another and then I decided to “fake it until you make it”. My mother really had been a rapidly rising acting star and whether by nature or nurture it had rubbed off on me. I started to blend in. I was surprised how good I was at it. I started to be accepted. I got friends. I became the archetypal student, the very model of the school’s students. Maybe I overdid it a bit but that is normal when trimming in a new system.

Now the Drama teacher threatened to destroy all my work. How could I live down getting the role of Veronica, the femme fatale?

“NO! I won’t do it” I exclaimed.
Drama teacher: “Sorry Peter, but I need someone that just oozes feminine sexuality and I’m afraid that you are the only student that can pull that off.”

Worse and worse!

“NO!”

I got up and started to walk away.

“Peter, come back!”

Oh no, she used THAT voice. I knew better than to defy her when she used THAT voice. I whipped around and walked back to the Drama teacher whose "presence" in no way was diminshed by sitting in a wheelchair. If I hadn’t been so upset I wouldn’t have flicked my school uniform skirt in that extra flirty way that I had acquired over the last month. Mum and I REALLY should have looked at the boarding school clause more carefully.

“But Mum, there are 486 girls in this school, why …”

Damn it. Even when whining I sounded sultry!