Monday morning dawned cold and grey. Taylor, was beginning to think that the skies over Colne, were going to be that colour forever.

“At least it isn’t raining,” said Thea as they prepared breakfast for themselves.

Taylor was still finding the ways of this house very strange. Nothing was like what she’d been used to… EVER!

“Is it always going to be like this?” asked Taylor.

“Like what?”

Taylor was about to reply but didn’t.

“Does your uniform fit?” asked Thea changing the subject.

“This skirt is just… just awful. Who wears pleats in this day and age?”

Thea couldn’t stop herself from laughing.
“What’s so funny?”

“Oh… just that the last London ready to wear fashion week had pleated skirts and dresses all over the place. Many of the designs were floor length as well."

Thea continued.
“I guess that you are more used to those tight stretchy ones that went out of fashion a couple of years ago?”

“I stopped wearing skirts like this when I went to High School. We all wore leggings or shorts in summer.”

Once again, Thea laughed.
“I can just see mum’s reaction if you walked into school wearing shorts.”
She saw a light go on in Taylors eyes.
“Don’t even think about it. Mum’s punishment knows no bounds when it comes to school rules. You are in the last chance saloon remember.”

“Ok, miss goody two shoes. Isn’t it time to go?”

"You need to do the washing up first. We have ten minutes before the bus, and the stop is just over the road."

Taylor audibly groaned.
“Don’t worry it will be my turn tomorrow.”

Taylor began to clear the table but her body language told Thea that she wasn’t happy. At least now, she didn’t have the expensive nail extensions to worry about.

---

If Taylor was used to being stared at on her first day at a new school, then the looks that she received from her new school ‘mates’ were on a different level. She got the distinct impression that they all considered her to be beneath them.

Thea, on the other hand, was welcomed into the sisterhood. It was as if she'd only been gone for a day. That left Taylor very confused.

That level of confusion only increased when Thea led her into a big hall where almost the school were gathered. On a stage at the front, she saw Mrs Bridges standing front and centre. A row of what were appeared to be the teachers were seated to either side of her.

“This is the start of term assembly,” whispered Thea.

For a few minutes, Taylor relaxed as Mrs Bridges went through a series of boring announcements. Then she said,

“I’d like to welcome a new student into our ranks. Taylor, please make yourself known.”

Suddenly everyone was staring at her. She felt about an inch tall.

"Taylor is visiting us from the USA for the rest of the academic year. Please make her welcome during her time here. I know that we would all want to make a good impression on her."

Taylor went red in the face. She wanted to flee because of the embarrassment, but Thea had a firm grip of her arm. She glared at Thea, who just shook her head.

Taylor relaxed and let Thea escort her to her first class.

That class turned out to be advanced calculus. Taylor had not done a lot of the work that was required for the course thanks to her very intermittent schooling over the past two years. Thea and other two boys helped her to complete the assignments.

“Don’t worry Mr Greenwood,” said Thea to the teacher.
“I’ll help Taylor catch up over this week.”

It didn’t help Taylor’s demeanour that the other two ‘brainboxes’ were more interested in the subject than her. Thea was ok because they knew her from before she'd come out as a transsexual. The two boys, Stewart and Ritchie just ignored her. They clearly thought that she was just a dumb blonde from the USA.

By the end of the first day, Stewart and Ritchie had decided that she was not worth interacting with because of her surly nature plus, she was so far behind them in almost all subjects that helping her would interfere with their studies. Thea tried her best to get some sort of interaction going, but they simply refused to talk to Taylor.

This unnerved Taylor who was not used to not being the centre of attention. Thea saw her growing frustration and tried to support her, but it didn't have much success.

In the last lesson of the first day, History, Stewart let his reason for ignoring her. He'd watched some of the TV series, '90210' when laid up with a broken leg the previous year. Taylor had seen one episode before dismissing it as bland rubbish. She began to understand their reactions to her. Taylor didn't like it but she'd have to live with it until she could escape.

---

When they got back to Thea’s home, Taylor dashed upstairs to her bedroom and slammed the door shut behind her. In her opinion, the day had been a disaster from start to finish.

She failed to notice that Thea had followed her and had sat on the bed beside her.

Before she realised it, Thea had kissed her lightly on the lips. Taylor recoiled more out of surprise than horror.

“Shhhhh Taylor. You have had a hard day.”

Taylor’s eyes went skyward as if to say, ‘talk about the obvious’.

“I think that you managed it very well.”

Then Thea took her face in her hands and this time it was a serious kiss. Slowly Taylor relaxed and began to respond.

“What was that for?” asked Taylor when they finally broke apart.

“Do I need a reason to kiss you? You were in a mess after the abysmal behaviour of the others today. You needed a diversion hopefully, a pleasant one.”

Taylor could not answer. Thea was right, her mind was in a mess.

“Why don’t you go and fix your makeup and then come downstairs. We have to prepare dinner before Mum gets home .”

Taylor had never made a meal other than a sandwich in her life. Her father employed people to cook and clean for them and… this was not in her plan for life.

The parting words of her father had somehow stuck in her mind.

---

Taylor sat on her bed for more than twenty minutes trying to work out what had happened that day. She failed mostly because she was unable to concentrate on anything for more than a few seconds at a time.

Eventually, she stood up and looked at herself in the mirror. She looked horrible. For someone who prided herself on how perfect she looked all the time, this was just more new ground for her. Ground that she feared might open up beneath her feet at any moment.

After brushing her hair and noticing that her roots needed doing, she applied some pale lip gloss and went downstairs. Thea was busy in the kitchen. For a moment, she almost didn’t go and offer to help, but a pang of guilt pierced her heart and went to help.

“Can I help?” she asked.

Thea smiled.
“We are having leftovers so there is not much to do.”

Once again, she felt lost until she saw the remains of the joint of beef that they’d had the previous day sitting on the table. Back home, the ‘leftovers’ would have been given to the dogs. Not for the first time, she both hated, and admired Thea and her mother.

“You could lay the table when I’ve done with the beef,” suggested Thea.

Taylor stood back and admired how professional Thea seemed to be in her work. She sliced the beef perfectly after sharpening the knife. Taylor had led a very sheltered, pampered and privileged life. This was real and it was not some movie. Her fathers’ words came back to her. All her previous very expensive and private schools had people on hand to do the cooking and even the laundry. She’d been well and truly thrown in at the deep end yet Thea and everyone else just seemed to get on with life and do their best to improve their lot.

Her father’s words came back to her.
‘This is your last chance to get to grips with your life. Only then can you decide on your path in life.’
‘If this was ‘life’ then it was not for her and it was up to her to get out of it’, she said to herself. Then she looked at Thea working away with zero complaint. Now she felt a pang of guilt.

“Can you show me how to sharpen the knife?”

Thea looked at her and smiled.

“Perhaps on Wednesday or Thursday? Tomorrow we are having mince[1]. You can peel the spuds tomorrow.”

“Spuds?”

“Potatoes.”

“Ok.”

Taylor set the table as best as she could and wondered what to do next. Thea was busy at the hob frying something.

“What can I do now?”

Thea smiled and turned to her.
“There is a book called ‘Engineering Maths’ on the bookshelf in my room. The section on Laplace Transforms will help you tomorrow.”

Taylor groaned. She’d hoped not to have any homework on her first day but then she remembered what had happened in their first lesson of the day.

“Ok but…?”

“About me kissing you earlier?”

She nodded.
“That is between us. You needed something to focus your mind on something other than the school day, and that was all I could think of.”

“Is that it then?”

It was Thea’s turn to go a bit red in the face.
Taylor moved and this time, kissed Thea.

“Now we are even,” said Taylor when they broke apart.
She disappeared upstairs before Thea could react.

Thea had gotten under her skin unlike any one in her life and that included her mother. Thea was treating her as an equal and that was unsettling. To have someone in her life like that was strange but she vowed to herself to do her best to live up to her father’s hopes for her at least until it was time to break for the summer. The alternative of the school in the desert southwest was ever present in her mind.

---

[Easter Time]
Taylor spoke to her father every week but only about how she was doing at school. He knew that her personal life was strictly off limits, not that she’d dated much back in the USA. All the boys who had tried to date her only lasted one or at most two dates because she was intellectually so far ahead of them that she was soon bored with their talk about sports and going to college. Things were different here. She was the one who had to catch up and at first, she had resented it but with the help of Thea she was soon holding her own with the other ‘brainboxes’ in the class.

Taylor gradually loosened up and began to enjoy life in England. Being amongst others who were on the same plane as her academically began to pay off. The rebel was being tamed but Taylor continued to pretend on the calls to her father that she hated every minute of it.

His phone calls to Mrs Bridges told a very different story. Her reports from school were better than he could have ever hoped for.

Taylor was very circumspect about her relationship with Thea on the calls to her father., but Helena assured him that she was aware that they were becoming close, and would crack down on it if it started to interfere with their studies.

Taylor’s father surprised her with an unannounced visit for the Easter weekend.

“I’ve booked us a hotel in Edinburgh for three nights,” he announced.

Taylor looked at Thea.
“What about Thea and Helena?”

“Thea and I are going to York on at least one of the days,” said Helena.
“I promised her last October that we’d go. We had planned on going then but Thea got a bad cold. That was before Taylor became our guest but it will work.”

Taylor suspected some collusion between the adults but decided not to fight it… this time.

“You will be back in time for our trip to Jodrell Bank[2] next Thursday, won’t you?” asked Helena.

Taylor looked at her father as if to say please?

He smiled.
“I would not miss it for the world,” he replied.

Thea and Taylor had been talking about going for weeks ever since a Professor from Manchester University had visited them and given them a Physics and History lesson about Radio Astronomy.

[Four days later]
“How was Edinburgh?” asked Thea as she helped Taylor unload the car that her father had rented for the week.

“Not what I expected. Some wonderful architecture and great views from the top of Arthurs Seat.”

While the two adults talked downstairs, Thea and Taylor went upstairs.

“I want to give you this,” said Thea as she handed Taylor a small box wrapped in paper.
“Happy birthday for last Friday.”

It had been her eighteenth birthday while she was in Edinburgh with her father. They’d spent the day out of the city walking along the coast near a small fishing village called St Abbs. Then he’d treated her to her first legal drink that evening as they dined looking out onto Princes Street. To be treated as an adult was both liberating and worrying for Taylor.

It was liberating because she could now make decisions for herself. Worrying because at least she had begun to understand how much of her adolescence she had wasted by playing up all the time.

Taylor… or rather the old Taylor would have objected but the new and improved on went with the flow especially as her father was spending money on her which included a new dress for the occasion.

Taylor’s mind returned to the here and now. Someone other than her father was giving her something without asking questions. This was another new experience for her in recent years.

“May I?” asked Taylor as she gingerly held the box.
“It isn’t much but Mum helped me buy it.”

She opened the package as if it was made of red hot metal. Inside the wrapping, there was a small box that from the writing on the top, contained an item of Jewellery.

It contained a small necklace with a St Christophers’ medallion attached.

“Life is a journey is it not?” said Thea.
“and this is to keep you safe.”

Taylor, much to her surprise, welled up. A tear formed in the corners of her eyes.

“Thank you.”

Then and for the first time since that first day at school, she kissed Thea. This time it was a proper kiss that went on for several minutes.

Both of them were slightly breathless when they broke apart.

“Thank you for the gift. Will you put it on for me please?”

Thea grinned as she placed the chain around Taylors neck and did up the clasp.

“Are we good?” asked Thea.

“Good? We are more than good,” replied Taylor.
She backed that up with another kiss.

“Are you ok with me being a boy under all this?”

“Darling,” said Taylor quietly,
“Despite my initial reservations I have realised that you are more feminine than ninety percent of genetic women, and yes, I’m ok with everything apart from your hair. It needs seeing to as you well know.”

Helena had been on at Thea to get her hair done for weeks.
“We’ll get ours done before we go back to school,” said Taylor firmly.

They kissed each other again before fixing their faces and going downstairs.

---

[June that year]

“How did that go?” Thea asked Taylor as she emerged from her last ‘A-Level’ exam.

“Easy and you damm well know it. You were all done and gone after eighty minutes.”

“Good. Now we can forget school.”

“Until September…?”

“When is your father flying in?”

“The day after tomorrow. Why?”

“Then we have tomorrow to ourselves.”

Taylor smiled.
“And?”

“If the weather looks good then why don’t we head over to the Coast and take a picnic?”
“Just the two of us? We can take the train up to the South Lakes.”

Taylor hesitated.

“We are both adults now, aren’t we?”

“I don’t know.”

Thea took Taylors hand in hers. Now that their exams were over Thea wanted to go public with their relationship.

Taylor stiffened up for a second. Then she relaxed. This was becoming a bit of a habit with her and Thea.

“We should try to do something for your father when he arrives,” suggested Thea a little later.

“What do you suggest?”
“After telling them about us?”

“I suspect that your mom knows already,” said Taylor as they walked past her office. They could see Helena sitting at her desk. She was smiling.”

“Do you think that he has told your dad?”

“I think not. She was very clear that what I did while I was here was for here and that I was to tell my father what was appropriate.”

“My mum is a wonderful woman.”

Taylor grinned.
“She has to be to have put up with you before you came out.”

“Eh?”

“When you were laid up with that bad cold, she told me how much of a pain in the ass you had been before you told the world. She was fearful that you were getting a bit schitzo, then you gave that speech to the whole school. She was so proud of you for that and especially the way you did it. She showed me the video. Hearing your words was impressive but seeing how you did it… that was pure class.”

“Yeah. Things did get a bit easier after that.”
“Which was what you intended wasn’t it?”

“Something like that.”

Taylor and Thea walked along in silence for a bit.
“We aren’t all that different, are we?” said Taylor.

“Errrr. Have you only just come to that conclusion. I knew it from our first day at school. That’s why I made my move that night. You had a lot of people wanting to date you but you repelled all boarders, didn’t you?”

“I did but that wasn’t because of you. At first, I was looking for a way to escape and get back home. Then you wore me down and I accepted that I was here for the duration. Then you sort of grew on me as an equal.”

“And now?”

“I think that is it time to show our cards…”

---

Taylor’s father arrived after a long overnight flight from South Africa. Despite his tiredness, he was pleased to see the new Taylor.

“Are you done being a rebel rouser?” he asked.

“I am and that is mainly down to Thea.”

Her father smiled.
“That’s what I hoped would happen.”

Taylor looked over at Thea and smiled. Her father noticed this.

“I take it that there is something else that you want to tell me?”

“Thea and I are a couple. If our exams go ok and if you can afford the fees, I have a place on the same course at Cambridge as she does.”

He smiled and looked at Helena.
“Were you aware of all this scheming?”

“I was, and I was honoured to support Taylors application,” said Helena smiling.

“And their relationship?”

Helena looked at the two young adults.
“I was aware that there was an attraction between them, but they didn’t let it get in the way of their exams. If I had felt that it was then I would have acted but they didn’t.”

Taylors father looked at her with a serious face.
“It appears that my grand scheme to get you to face up to the world worked even better than I had hoped.”

“I hated Thea for being brainer than me and that I had to do the washing up and the cooking and everything. I wanted to head for the exit but I had no money so I had to stay. Thea goaded me into trying to beat her in everything. That was so different to all those crap private schools that you sent me to. Those places were only interested in turning out potential Ivy League grads who’d find a nice rich lawyer to marry and carry on the cycle.”

“And you rebelled…”

“As you said Father, this was my last chance. After a while, I understood that it was just that and I took it. Without Thea and Helena, I would be in that awful place in Arizona right now. I have an equal in my life for the first time since mom died.”

Her father took her hand and smiled.
“Then I’d better start getting your student visa and everything else sorted out for September then?”

Taylor looked at her father and then at Thea.
“Dad, Thea and I want to get married first.”

Silence fell over the room.
Helena sat back and smiled.

“I take it that you are good with all this?” asked Taylors father.
“I am. After a few weeks of sparring between them, I have seen these two, grow as young adults. Before Taylor came here Thea was a bit of a lost soul. They are clearly devoted to each other and yes I do approve of their relationship.”

“Then we should all go out and celebrate. I mean somewhere a bit special. Why don’t you all go and get ready while I sort out our transport,” said Helena.

She smiled and pulled out her phone. The two young women looked at each other. Helena nodded her head. They got up and headed upstairs.

---

“Where are we going?” Taylor asked, half an hour later.

“Somewhere not too far. I know that you have to be back for school tomorrow. We are going to a place in the Pennines called Appleby. It is only an hour or so from here,” said Helena.

Taylor showed her relief. Geography was and never would be her strong point.

---

[later that night at dinner]

Now that Taylor and Thea were legally adults in the UK, they shared a bottle of wine with the adults. For Taylor, it felt like it was her coming of age. She’d had a drink a dinner with her father at Easter but this was far more public in her opinion.

“There is something that you should all know,” said Taylors father while they waited for their main course.
“I am in the process of selling my business in the US. I am going to invest in a foundry in Halifax. Something like this has been on the cards for a while now. Last week, I had an offer that really was too good to refuse. The place that I’m buying is a specialist in their area but have lacked the investment needed to move forward. They have been a supplier to my company for five years now so I know the business pretty well.”

“What?” exclaimed Taylor a few seconds later.
“Canada? Nova Scotia is in the middle of nowhere!”

Thea and Helena laughed.
“I think your father means, Halifax, Yorkshire. An hour or so by car from here.”

Taylor went red in the face but soon saw the funny side of her goof. Less than a year ago, she would have reacted very differently. She had finally found a place to fit in. The Bad Girl had made good.

[1] mince in the UK means ‘ground’ meat in the USA.
[2] https://www.jodrellbank.net/