I’ve looked up the definition of the word ‘accident’, and according to the information I’ve found, it goes as follows:
An undesirable or unfortunate event that occurs unintentionally and usually results in harm, injury, damage, loss, casualty or mishap.
I can’t honestly say what follows was entirely accidental because it had been planned–I just didn’t know that at the time. However, it was what followed the part that had been planned, which is really what I define as accidental.
Whatever, it’s the nearest thing I can think of that can possibly explain how I came to be in the predicament I was in, suffering the mishap if you will and looking back, the memories of that holiday leave me with a certain warm fuzziness, but that’s not how it felt at the time…
Edited, as always, by the fantastic Gabmeister
Somebody once said that this couldn’t happen by accident, but then I suppose that all depends upon the circumstances of the accident doesn’t it?
I’ve looked up the definition of the word ‘accident’, and according to the information I’ve found, it goes as follows:
I can’t honestly say what follows was entirely accidental because it had been planned–I just didn’t know that at the time. However, it was what followed the part that had been planned, which is really what I define as accidental.
Whatever, it’s the nearest thing I can think of that can possibly explain how I came to be in the predicament I was in, suffering the mishap if you will and looking back, the memories of that holiday leave me with a certain warm fuzziness, but that’s not how it felt at the time…
Oh sure, Mum and Dad would be there, but me and three girls?
Gross.
To start with, Jess and I don’t get on particularly well. I think Mum and Dad side with her more often than with me–never mind what happened and I know that she has it easier at school.
You’re probably thinking I’ve got a whopping-great chip on my shoulder aren’t you? Well you’re wrong. You see, Jess and I are alike, but then that’s because we’re brother and sister, but we’re not identical. We’re almost identical heights though, and when she puts on her shoes–which have massively thick soles, she stands a good three inches taller than me. You can imagine how that goes down with the boys at school–my being smaller than my little sister.
To make matters worse, she and her friends are three of the main reasons for the problems I have. She’s forever causing trouble for me or starting it anyway and to find out that her two best friends would be joining us–the same two that are usually in on the ‘jokes’ she plays on me, just put the icing on the cake. However with Aston Park and all those cool rides in the picture, I was prepared to pretend they didn’t exist.
As the school holidays approached, I got this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. All the “they don’t exist” thoughts were dribbling out of my head as the reality of the situation became more apparent.
Why my parents had agreed to let Jessica bring Megan and Christine on holiday with us to Cliffside was a mystery to me. Just thinking about it made me shudder. I mean would they have let me bring my friends–? I don’t think so. In all honesty, I never even thought to ask. Anyway, goodness knows I voiced enough objections about being the only boy among three girls, but Mum and Dad would hear none of it.
“You’ll be fine,” they said.
“But Mum!?” I whined, firstly, going for the easier of the parents to get round and gesticulating to try and get the point across. “It’s only a shed and, you’ve seen the pictures; it’s so small. Where are we all going to sleep?”
I had seen the pictures and although the cabins were called cottages, they were in fact, log cabins, though in truth, the ones we saw looked about the size of one-car garages or rather as I thought more appropriate, sheds.
It appeared that Jessica had similar issues.
“Yes, where will we all sleep, Mum?” she asked, arriving half way through my sentence.
“You’ll see kids. It’ll be fine,” said Dad, ruffling my hair and smiling at Jess.
I hate it when he does that–er, the ruffling bit, not the smiling.
“Anyway,” he continued. “I can’t see what the problem is. It’s not like you’re going to be sharing your room with them, is it? And what’s so wrong with taking a holiday with three hot chicks?” He shrugged and wiggled his eyebrows, I presume to let me know it was cool.
Bless him, my dad does try to be hip with us, using words like ‘cool’, ‘rad’, ‘chicks’ and ‘word’, but I really think he put his foot in it this time. After the ‘hot chicks’ comment, Jess and Mum gave him looks that collectively could have turned milk sour at a hundred yards, probably because an old bloke like Dad calling a bunch of fourteen year-olds hot was a little disturbing.
“Of course,” he added hastily. “Your mother is the only ‘hot chick’ I’ll be looking at.” He flashed her a quick grin, but I could see that didn’t improve his situation.
Worse, for me, the idea that Jessica and her two friends were ‘hot’ just didn’t swing it, I mean, pul-ease. Anyway, I still had it in my head that we’d all be sleeping in one big pile in the middle of a tiny little wooden box.
“So why does Jess get to take her friends?”
“Her friends have invited her horse riding on numerous occasions. It’s only fair we repay the compliment. And anyway, their parents are paying for them.”
“Looking forward to the holidays, Jamie?” my best friend, Andy, asked at school a couple of days later.
“Yeah, like a hole in the head,” I replied with a face like a wet weekend.
“What’s the problem?”
“I told you. We’re going to Banthorpe with Megan and Christine.”
“Not Megan Clarke?” he asked, his eyes widening.
“Yes,” I said, drawing the word out like a bit of bubble gum and adding a very bored tone.
“WOW! You lucky bastard.”
It was my turn to go wide-eyed and I had to ask myself what was going on. My best mate had always been dead against girls getting in on the fun and now they were not only ‘in’ but right ‘in’. He wasn’t helping either as he seemed to think it was a marvellous idea.
“Are you out of your tree?” I asked. “Can you imagine, three girls–giggling all the time?” In my opinion, it was the end of sanity as I knew it.
“I can imagine three girls–” he said with a dreamy expression. “Can’t you?” he asked, giving me a nudge and a look I didn’t fully understand. “I take it Christine is Christine Bates? I mean the Christine Bates.” He seemed to be almost drooling, nodding and blinking rapidly all at the same time; something which I took as some sort of nervous disorder, as more often than not, he had trouble walking and talking simultaneously.
“Yeah? So?” I asked with a casual shrug.
“Jesus, Jamie. Are you gay or something?”
“Oh yeah, sure,” I said nodding then adding, “NOT!!” and furiously shaking my head.
“You must be if you don’t like the possibility of getting to kiss at least one of the three hottest girls this side of the Atlantic–certainly the three hottest girls from our school–and they’re going to be sharing your cottage?”
I hadn’t even given them a second glance or thought that way, let alone considered any kissing. To me they were just giggly and incredibly annoying girls. “It’s a shed, not a cottage,” I said morosely. “Just a minute. What do you mean–three?”
“Well Jessica’s not exactly a bag of spanners now, is she?”
“I’m not going to be kissing Jessica, am I? You’re a sick puppy.”
“Not Jess, dozy. Megan or Christine, duh!” he said then paused as a thoughtful look spread across his face. “Or both. Can’t you just imagine it–snuggled up in a cosy little cottage?” He shook his head slowly, his head bowed. “You lucky, lucky bastard.”
“I hadn’t really thought about it,” I said morosely, thinking that the one person I expected sympathy from was actually showing more than what I considered to be a healthy amount of interest and more pointedly, a very large portion of jealousy as well.
“Well, take it from me–she’s not. You’re just so damned lucky. Can’t I come with you? I mean if Megan and Christine are going, shouldn’t you be allowed to invite me? One more’s not going to make any diff–”
“No!” I said quickly and that was that.
He stomped off, evidently disappointed with me going on holiday with my sister and her two friends and not asking him along. Personally, I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. They were just three stupid giggly girls and what on earth could he see as being good about that?
Of course as the holiday neared, Christine and Megan were often round our house–even more than usual–as the three of them had to make plans and without being obvious, I made sure I got a good look at them to try and see what it was that Andy was so making such a fuss about.
Christine was tall–around five-eight, which was a few inches taller than Jessica and me. She had red hair and her face was covered in freckles. She had really piercing blue eyes, but so far I couldn’t see anything special. There was nothing that I could see that would entice me into kissing her.
Megan on the other hand was fairly short–a bit shorter than me, but only by an inch at most, with short, spiky hair and hazel eyes that always looked like she was up to something mischievous. I liked her–well, I thought her better than Christine as she didn’t seem such a giggly, girly, girl, but I didn’t know what it was about either of them that made Andy go all silly. Anyway, whenever she and Christine were around Jess, all they ever did was giggle and whisper.
They certainly didn’t appeal to me.
What was it that Andy saw I them? I couldn’t fathom it out at all. I must be gay–Oh Lord.
About the only thing positive I came away from that thought with, was realising that the thought of kissing a boy was even less appealing than kissing a girl.
Eeeeeyeeeeew.
When the time arrived, all four of us piled into the back of my Dad’s Renault Espace and began the tedious drive to the coast.
We weren’t even two miles down the road when the trouble started.
All I was doing was playing a video game in the back of the car, when sweet wrappers and other sundry items started bouncing off my head.
“Oy!” I said, yanking the earphones out of my ears. “Bog off.” I nudged the back of Jessica’s seat–the middle one and went back to my game, but more of them came over and I gave her a flick on the ear, which made her squeal.
Mum and Dad gave us a warning, or more to the point–me.
“Wasn’t me. It was Jess. She keeps throwing things at me.”
“Well then don’t antagonise her,” was the reply.
Antagonise? I wasn’t doing anything and before long, whatever it was they were throwing at me, started coming over again, accompanied by more giggles.
I hit the back of Jess’s seat again with my knee.
She turned to look over the back of the seat. “Listen, you little bastard,” she said through clenched teeth. “If you don’t stop that, you’ll be sorry.”
I knew exactly what she’d do too. Well, maybe not exactly, but I had been threatened with that before and okay, I was sorry, but a principal is a principal and I wasn’t going to let her have the last word.
“Huh. With a sister like you, I already am.”
“Mu-um!” she whined. “Jamie keeps kicking my seat.”
Dad muttered something and after an emergency stop that left two long, black stripes on the road and pungent blue tyre smoke in the air, I was the one found guilty.
We made a stop at a roadside café where I pointedly refused to speak to anyone. After being blamed for the commotion in the car that wasn’t my fault, I didn’t think it right. As a result, I got given a burger and fries, not a cheeseburger–which I always had–and a can of orangeade, which everyone knows I hate, instead of cola.
Anyway, I ate the burger, drank the orangeade–but under sufferance. Back in the car, I had a long time to think about things, and figured that what I’d done had definitely not turned out the way I’d hoped. To add insult to injury, when we got back in the car and were all buckled up, Mum gave us all a grilling.
“I don’t want to hear another peep out of any of you. Is that understood?” she demanded. We all nodded silently. “That’s any of you, but especially you, James.”
Whenever my name goes to ‘James’, I know I’m in deep do-dos and this was one of those times.
Dad took the cliff-top route which wound its way, hugging the outer edges of the cliffs as it meandered left, right, up and down, sometimes with no more than a few feet between us and the cliff edge. Further on, we seemed to move inland, climbing as we went and the hills to the north rose sharply from the side of the road giving us the feeling that the huge, green slopes were trying to squeeze us off.
I the meantime of course, Jess was blatantly disregarding what Mum had told us and was periodically looking over the back of her seat and mouthing threats at me, presumably because she got a ticking-off by Mum too.
I knew that if I wanted to go to the park over this holiday, I was going to have to keep out of trouble and about all I did was poke my tongue out at her. It was just pure bad luck that Mum happened to notice me doing it…
“I’ve warned you, young man,” she said in an ominous tone. It was all she needed to say, but it didn’t stop Jess looking over once more with a smug look. Her attitude was really trying my patience and I couldn’t help feeling that my dear sinister was just begging me to do something to her that she’d regret… or should that be that I’d regret? Whatever, I was getting close to that time where I just wanted to do something nasty to her.
We left the sea views, travelling uphill mainly under a thick canopy of trees, which made a welcome respite from the blinding sunshine and stifling heat, however, it wasn’t the stunning sea views we’d read about.
“So much for the view,” Mum said, disappointedly. “It doesn’t look as though we’re going to get much of that round here.”
“Unless you like trees,” Dad said with a grin.
Mum shot him one of her looks.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” said Dad a little nervously–well obviously; we weren’t out of the woods yet.
Some way further up, a sign appeared with horses on, pointing up the road and to the right with ‘Cliffside’ emblazoned beneath. We all breathed a huge sigh of relief, especially Dad. It was about seven o’clock by that time and I think if it had been any further, we would all have been at each other’s throats, but seeing that sign made us all feel rejuvenated.
We turned right into a neatly kept gravelled car park. A large house sat nestled up a short lane in the trees slightly uphill to the left had a sign attached to what was clearly an extension to the main house reading ‘Office’, whilst opposite, spaces had been left for about half a dozen cars marked ‘private’, presumably for staff and the owners.
Dad stopped right outside the office and got out, followed by Mum.
“Jamie. Come with us,” she said.
I could hear the girls giggling as I ‘huffed’ and slid slowly from the car.
“I’m not leaving you in there with the girls,” she said, nodding towards Jess and her friends. “Who knows what you’ll get up to and we would like to be able to drive home in a car that’s in one piece.”
Inside the office, a man who looked like a white-haired Elvis, took Mum and Dad’s particulars.
They talked for what felt like ages and I just leafed through some magazines, finding one that really caught my eye–Aston Park. In the gatefold pamphlet were pictures of the very rides I had been dreaming about since I found out we were coming here and my tummy did that thing like going over a hump-back bridge while goose-bumps rose all over the place.
I was away to the mixer, but then I heard Dad say, “Thank you; we’ll be in touch about the riding. Come on, squirt,” and I hastily put the pamphlet in my pocket to drool over later and did an about turn.
“Enjoy your stay,” said Elvis man.
I was half expecting him to say “Thankyouverymuch in a southern American drawl, so to hear him speaking more like he came from the West Country was a bit of a shock.
We left the office and I found I was very excited, and slowly, with the sound of the gravel under the tyres for effect, we continued our way along the path, moving slowly down the steep slope through the trees, which provided that wonderful resinous scent so evocative of wooded areas where evergreens are present.
The driveway was quite long, taking us more than about three or four minutes to get from the house and office to the ‘cabins’. It was then that we saw what we had rented for our holiday.
The reality of the cabins was far in excess of the pictures–especially ours, since it was substantially bigger than the others.
“Oh wow!” said Mum. “This is much better than I was expecting.”
“I told you,” said Dad, with a smug look.
“Okay, smarty-pants. You can take that look off your face for a start,” she said, slapping his arm.
“What?” he winced.
I couldn’t actually see, but I knew Mum was smiling. I think she liked this place already–as did I. It was kind of like a ranch-house–only slightly smaller, and my imagination was running riot before I’d even got out of the car.
I should imagine Dad was feeling more relieved than anything else, as the ‘cottage’ wasn't what any of us were expecting–at all. It was huge, sitting on a plot with a veranda and a reasonable-sized lawn in front with real-sized rooms too. There was a double for Mum and Dad complete with a veranda, a twin room for Jess and her friends–well actually, there were three beds in there: a bunk bed and a single in a very good-sized room and a small room for me with a window that overlooked some very interesting areas, ripe for exploring.
There was nothing, save the level patch of ground between it and a view of the English Channel. It came complete with everything we could possibly want–including a TV, DVD, decent-sized bathroom–plus an en-suite for Mum and Dad, which meant not having to go into the bathroom after him–phew! There was a well-stocked kitchen–at least as far as the utensils were concerned, a good quality gas stove, fridge and microwave.
The view was truly stunning in the early evening sunlight, which was accented by the sound of the screeches made by wheeling gulls, searching the shore-line for scraps of food.
I dumped my bags in my room and hurtled down the stairs.
“Where are you going?” called Mum. “Go and help unpack the car, young man.”
“But I got my stuff already,” I countered.
“Then you can help the girls.”
“Help them?” I squeaked. They’d given me nothing but grief all the way down here, why on Earth should I help them? “But there’s three of them.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Well, they can help each other.”
“Just go help your sister and her friends, alright?” she said, a dangerous arch to her eyebrows–you know the one. It’s the one when you know that every birthday from that point forth will be one where you wish you’d never been born and don’t even get me started on Christmas. Mum’s suggestion had put paid to any ideas I had for the immediate future with that one look.
The reception I got from Jess and the others was pretty much what I expected; a smugness and definite superiority I just knew spelt trouble. Thank God I wasn’t going to have to spend any serious time with them.
That night, the parents decided to go out after Mum had prepared us pizza and salad. Surprisingly, they were leaving Jessica in charge.
“What?” I exclaimed, thinking that whilst we may well have been twins, I was her big brother–even if only by nineteen minutes and I should have been left in charge.
“You should have thought about that before you started antagonising her in the car on the way here–”
I was about to protest my innocence, but Mum immediately headed that one off at the pass.
“Don’t argue young man and don’t give her any jip, or you definitely won’t be going to Aston Park. Is that clear?”
I knew exactly what that meant. As I said earlier and can’t stress enough, Aston Park had some of the coolest rides anywhere in England. I definitely didn’t want to miss that and knew it was probably best to keep my mouth shut. “Yes Mum.”
Mum kissed me on the cheek and after the door had closed, I thrust my hands in my pockets, huffed and went into my room to get some things together before heading off outside, but while I was rifling through my stuff, there was a sound from out in the hall.
“Jamie?” said Jessica’s voice accompanied by a gentle knocking on the door.
“Go away,” I replied, shaking my head and rolling my eyes.
“Jamie? Come on, we just want to play a game.”
“I’m not stopping you.”
“It’d be so much more fun with all of us.”
“That’s a shame then, isn’t it?” If she thought I was going to spend any time with them, especially after the business in the car, she had another think coming. I hoped the tone of my voice reflected that.
“Mum said, don’t argue or give me any jip.”
“Mum said–” I began, mimicking what she said, but stopped myself mid sentence, as I suddenly realised what would happen. I flew to the door, wrenching it open. “That’s bad–even for you, Jessica.”
She batted her eyelashes and shrugged, turning back towards their room, where I could hear more of that giggling from the other two along with Take That–Yuck! I stomped along behind her, feeling that at the rate it was going, this holiday was just going to get worse and worse.
Entering the girls’ room, a sudden icy tingle of fear traced its way down my spine. They had never bothered me before and yet now they were looking decidedly predatory; almost as if they were big cats, licking their lips in preparation for the main meal: a fresh gazelle–or in this case–me.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Well, perhaps it’s not a exactly a game that we want to play,” said Jessica, evasively.
I looked at her through frowning eyes. “Just what are you saying, Jess?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” she replied, going from looking like a female Dr. Frankenstein, to Dexter’s sister, Dee-Dee as she flounced across the room.
Whoever it was occupying that head of hers, I didn’t like them one bit.
I felt something bad was going to happen as Megan looked at me sort of speculatively and Christine’s stare was worse. Meanwhile, Jessica was over at the chest of drawers. As clothes flew out, that sinking feeling once again rushed at my stomach.
“Here,” Jessica said authoritatively. “Put these on.”
My eyes went as wide as dinner plates as a short denim skirt appeared on the floor in front of me, followed by a pair of black and cerise hooped opaque tights and a ‘T’ top in cerise that matched the colour of the tights.
I became rooted to the spot, my mouth opening and closing like a goldfish, with nothing, not even bubbles coming out. “You’re joking, right?” I asked, eventually.
“Not at all. It’s not like you’re going to wearing them. You’re just going to model them for us to see.”
“Er,” I began, trying to get my head around the logic. If I had to put them on, surely that meant I was going to be wearing them, didn’t it? There was no way I could do that. I looked at Megan, then Christine and finally Jessica, who was standing tapping her foot impatiently.
“No chance, Jess,” I said with a vigorous shake of my head. “Not a hope.”
“No arguing and no jip, remember?” she reminded me.
“I don’t care. I’m not wearing those.”
“I’ll tell Mum.”
“Go ahead. I’m not putting that stuff anywhere near me. Anyway, when Mum said about arguing and giving you jip, this was not what she meant.” I said with a note of authority and defiance.
“And how do you know?” she asked. “Besides, she won’t know this is what we were doing.” She gave me one of those looks. “Will she?”
“What d’you mean?” I asked, that sinking feeling coming back with a vengeance.
“Well, I might say you were being horrible to us,” she said looking at Megan and Christine. “Won’t we, girls? You do want to go to Aston Park, don’t you?”
I looked at the others, who were smirking and that sinking feeling gave way to the knowledge that I was sunk.
Reluctantly, I snatched up the clothes, stormed off into the bathroom and replaced mine with the ones she gave me, grumbling all the while. Slowly, I walked back into their room, feeling more self-conscious and stupid than at any other time in my entire life.
“What have you got on under those tights?” Jessica asked.
“My boxers. What did you think I’d have on?”
“You idiot,” she said, shaking her head and rolling her eyes as her friends giggled. “You can’t wear those under tights.” She turned with a purposeful air and after rummaging in another drawer, pulled out a pair of plain white cotton knickers, which, with a great theatrical gesture, she gave to me.
“This isn’t happening,” I mumbled as I stumped out to the bathroom again.
“Remember, no arguing and no jip, Jamie,” she called out after me in a sing-song, mocking kind of voice, to more giggles from the others.
I closed the bathroom door and started to peel off the tights, my head in a total spin. I knew that if I didn’t do as they said, there was no way I was going to be able to go to Aston Park. At the same time though, I could feel the smooth fabric of the tights against my legs and the strange, but not unpleasant sensation of the skirt. I was surprised to discover that it wasn’t so bad after all. There was no way I was going to tell Jess that though.
Once I put on the knickers, I was in a complete dilemma.
They felt really nice, compared to the feeling of the boxers I was used to wearing; now that scared me. I actually liked the way they felt on me. They were snug, but not overly restrictive and soft too. Coupled with the feeling of the tights that seemed to hug my legs in a way that was not only gently supportive but also reassuringly comfortable–I was totally messed up.
I told myself it shouldn’t be happening, and as I looked in the mirror, I was disgusted with what I saw. Sadly, it wasn’t because I looked like a boy in a skirt and tights, but because it didn’t look as out of place as I thought it should and that was what scared me.
“This isn’t happening,” I muttered again as I gave the tights another pull, feeling the fabric creep up my legs in a way that kind of made me shiver–in a nice way. I shook my head, thinking how none of this should be happening then smoothed down the skirt and went back to the girls’ bedroom.
“That’s better,” Jessica said gleefully, clapping her hands together.
I was really beginning to hate her and snorted my disapproval, which was ignored by the others. They fussed around, tugging here and there to make me look as ‘right’ as possible, then stood back to admire their handiwork, asking me to turn on the spot.
“Not bad, but I think it’s a bit too ordinary,” said Jessica critically. “And we really need to do something about–” she pointed at me and I had no idea what she was talking about. “Those.”
I suddenly realised, looking at them, that up top, I was as flat as a pancake–or rather, two. Whilst theirs weren’t exactly fully formed, they at least had definition. “Oh shit,” I said, knowing what was coming.
“Take the t-shirt off and let’s fix that,” Jessica said.
This was all going too far. I folded my arms and stood firm. “No way,” I told them as assertively as I could, while my head was actually wondering what it would be like to put a bra on. Sometimes I wonder whose side my brain is on.
CLICK!
“You did not just do that,” I said, horrified at the sight of the camera in Jess’s hands.
“Call it insurance,” she said. “Anyway, come on little sister. Don’t go all shy on us now.”
“Little sister?” I squealed, my voice going well into the upper registers quite possibly worrying nearby dogs.
“Have you seen yourself?” she asked.
“Or heard yourself?” added Christine, with a big grin and laughter from Megan.
I blushed to the roots of my hair and wished the ground would open up and swallow me whole.
“Come on, Jamie. You’ve come this far.”
That was of little comfort. I was bewildered and cornered too. I had to do what they wanted or either I wouldn’t get to see those cool rides or worse and I really didn’t want to go there.
“This is it. After this, I’m going back to my room, right?” I told them and it wasn’t a question, it was a statement. The trouble was, they didn’t seem to see it that way and as soon as they had my top off, they put me in a bra, which they stuffed with some socks. That should have been the end of it, but I wound up being given a pair of Jessica’s shoes as well; a pair of wedgy sandals.
“They’re no good,” said Megan critically. “Like, no-one would wear those shoes with those tights.”
“You’re right. Take them off.”
My mood was going downhill rapidly here and I went to go to the bathroom.
“Where are you going?”
“To take these stupid tights off.”
“Why? We’re all girls here.”
Those predatory looks returned, especially from Jess and I plonked myself down on the bed, kicking off the sandals and wriggling my way out of the tights, trying not to pull down or show the knickers in the process.
“Her legs aren’t too bad,” Christine proclaimed. “I expect we can get away without shaving them.”
You have absolutely no idea how much better that made me feel. Despite being dressed like one of my sinister’s friends–or even her, not having to shave my legs, let alone letting one or all of them do it was like music to my ears.
“She needs something else,” said Jess, rubbing her chin thoughtfully then clicked her fingers. “I know; her denim jacket.” She ran out of the room and was back moments later with my jacket.
I put it on.
CLICK! went the camera again.
“You really are pushing it. You know that, don’t you?” I growled, trying to snatch the camera from her. “Give that to me.”
She sidestepped easily and my hand just flew through the air harmlessly.
“Not a hope, kiddo. That’s more insurance.”
Next came the makeup–despite protestations and a fair amount of effort to get away. I ended up being held in place by Jess and Megan, pinned to the chair, sullen and pouting–for all the good it did–silently planning slow, painful deaths for each of them, whilst Chris applied makeup.
They seemed to be taking forever and when I noticed the light outside was fading pretty quickly, I began getting fractious. “Hurry up,” I told them in my no-nonsense voice. “I still want to have a look round outside.” It was about nine and I was determined to get out of there–even if only for a few minutes before the light went altogether.
“I don’t think so,” said Megan. “It’s teeming down.”
I looked out and sure enough the rain was pelting down; too hard to go nosing around, anyway.
“Well thanks very much,” I said, really pissed-off by this time, well, actually more pissed-off at myself than at them. It could have been raining for ages, but I wasn’t paying attention and didn’t hear it because of Gary Barlow and the others wailing away on the CD.
“There’s no need to be like that. Mum said, don’t argue or give me any jip,” Jessica parroted, in an imperious tone that only she can do.
“Which meant, don’t piss you and your friends off, not do everything you say. Now if you don’t mind–” With that, I was about to storm out, when Megan said something.
“What?” I asked, somewhat startled. I didn’t know what she said, but I know what I thought she said and it didn’t sound good.
“I said; two peas in a pod.”
That’s what I thought she said and even Jess did a double take at that one.
“We are not!” she said with more vehemence than I think I have ever heard from her. I thought she was about to throw a temper tantrum. She then turned and looked at me like she was mentally ripping my head off my shoulders.
“Hey hang on,” I said. “Don’t look at me like that. Do you think I want to look like you? I’m your brother and yet you seem to be more interested in making me out to be some sort of pervert who’s only interested in looking more like his sister.
“But you don’t need to, do you? You’re the popular one. You’re the one with all the friends and you’re the one who’s accepted by just about everyone, not me.
“Thanks to you I get ‘girly-boy’ and ‘gay’ comments; the ‘Oh I’m sorry, I thought you were the good-looking one’, or the ‘Here’s the other sister’, or the best one: ‘did you forget your skirt today?’ do you?
“So don’t look at me as if I’m the one in the wrong. I didn’t ask for this, did I? You’re the one who wanted this,” I said, gesturing down my body while fighting to hold back tears. “You’re the one who spent the whole trip here making things difficult for me and what have I done? All I want to do is go to Aston Park and you’re doing your best to make sure that doesn’t happen. Yet I don’t see you not going horse riding with your friends here. Just leave me alone–all of you.”
Jess’s face was as hard as stone, yet in her eyes I could see she knew I was right.
Megan looked like she wished she hadn’t said anything.
“Oh that’s lush,” said Christine, suddenly breaking a very stony silence.
“What?” asked Christine, opening her hands with a shrug “Megan’s right. You do look very much alike. Not completely identical, but it’s obvious you’re twins.”
“I’ve had enough of this,” I said, still getting daggers from Jess.
The next thing we knew, that the rain really came down hard, so hard it was drumming thrash metal on the roof and through the window the droplets appeared to be about the size of small family cars. We all ran downstairs to the lounge with its big bay windows, overlooking the decking. At that point, it was coming down so hard we could barely see the gravel driveway, let alone the cliff edge.
“That’s not rain, that’s a bloody monsoon,” Megan observed.
“Yeah; and look at all that water out there,” Christine added. “It’s like a lake.”
“That’s the English Channel,” said Jess, helpfully.
“Not that,” Christine said, frowning. “There!”
The level ground between us and the cliffs was now a lake, the surface boiling with the falling rain. It looked deep too.
Lightning flashed and the accompanying thunder literally shook the place.
The girls shrieked and immediately huddled together, trembling.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” I said, irritably. “It’s just a bit of thunder and lightning. It’s nothing to be scared of.” I almost believed it too, or would have, had the next clap of thunder and accompanying lightning bolt not coincided with the lights flickering ominously throughout the cottage, then going out, plunging us into an eerie kind of half-light.
The girls shrieked again.
I just stared out of the window. The sound of the rain was so loud, it was impossible to talk over. In fact, torrential didn’t even come close, we thought it was going to pound its way through the roof.
None of us moved as we were too busy concentrating on what was going on outside. If we thought the rain had been coming down hard, it was nothing compared to now. The pounding got louder and we couldn’t even see the lake that had formed outside, which couldn’t have been more than ten feet from the window.
Suddenly, with another flash of lightning and peal of thunder, there seemed to be a kind of rumbling.
“What’s that?” asked Jess, her voice all a-quiver.
I had no idea. I suppose it could have been a distant rolling of thunder, but it felt too close and more to the point, if it had been that distant, why was everything vibrating?
The vibrating was joined with a strange creaking sound, something like an old door in some horror film as it opened. Worse, it was getting louder. With a ‘CRACK!’ and the sound of glass splintering and shattering, the rumbling was joined with a sloughing sound–but from inside.
Christine and Jess dropped to the sofa, but Megan nearly jumped out of her skin, taking an involuntary step forward and clinging tightly to me, her arms locked tightly round my waist.
“I’m scared,” she said, looking up at me.
“I know how you feel,” I replied. “I’m going to see what’s happening. You three stay here.”
“I’m coming with you,” said Megan, releasing her vice-like grip from my waist, only to move it to my left hand, both hands wrapped around my wrist, threatening to cut off all circulation. I didn’t have the time to argue. Megan and I set off slowly down the hallway where the sound of the creaking and sloughing got louder.
As we neared the kitchen, we could hear the sound of furniture being moved. The sloughing sound was more of a rumbling hiss and as we got to the door, we could see a huge brown-coloured mass sliding across the floor, pushing the kitchen table before it.
I opened the door to see more, but it was slammed shut before I could really get an idea of what was happening. I wasn’t sure whether what I’d seen was what I thought it was and although both Megan and I pushed with all our might, we couldn’t budge the door.
“Jamie, look!” Megan exclaimed.
Muddy brown liquid seeped from underneath the kitchen door as we stood there and the creaking and groaning got louder, replaced with splintering sounds that as soon as they started, were cut off.
“We have to get out of here,” I said, grimly.
“But we can’t go outside,” Megan said, shocked.
“Just get the others,” I told her. Her hands, which had re-clamped themselves around my wrist after we’d tried pushing at the kitchen door didn’t relax. I looked at her.
Those hazel eyes, usually so full of mischief, now showed deep fear. I wanted to shout; bark the order to run, but I knew right there that it wouldn’t have the right effect. It would probably frighten Megan even more.
“Look, it’ll be alright. I promise,” I told her gently. “Now, go get Christine and Jess and get out of here as quickly as you can.”
With tear-filled eyes and an almost puppy-dog look of trust, she nodded and her grip relaxed as she backed away slowly.
“Promise?” she asked, her voice quivering.
“I promise.”
I stood in the hallway wondering what it was I was supposed to do when the kitchen door began creaking. Splits appeared in the panels and through those splits, more brown stuff oozed. The door bowed more and the oozing liquid began seeping through, like it was bleeding. I ran for it, just getting out of the way before the door gave one last ear-splitting crack, the house shook violently and the hallway began filling with the viscose liquid.
“GET OUT NOW!!” I yelled, heading for the front door, nearly knocking Megan, Christine and Jess over in the process.
Outside, the rain was coming down so hard, it stung. Megan had taken her now customary place by my side, hanging on to my arm for dear life. Before any thought of what was happening had time to sink in, the wooden structure seemed to keel over backwards, falling flat upon itself like a sodden cardboard box collapsing in the rain, proceeding thereafter to slide across the lawn towards the drive.
“Holy shit!” exclaimed Jess.
The rest of them just stood soaking wet in the rain, calf-deep in water, with their mouths open.
Was there anyone next door? I asked myself, blinking as within seconds, the house we had occupied for all of about three hours, was being pushed towards the cliff’s edge by what had now become apparent as a surging torrent of mud.
“Megan. I need you to get to the office with Jess and Chris. I don’t know if they know what’s happening.”
“What about you?” she asked, her grip tightening.
“I need to check these other cabins.”
“I’m not going without you.”
“Alright then,” I said, looking at Jess. “You two get back to the office as quickly as you can. We’ll check the other cabins.”
“Can’t we all do that?” asked Jess. “I’d feel a lot safer if we were all together.”
“Me too,” echoed Chris.
I knocked on the door to the first cabin and found no-one there. The same for the second, but I got a response upon knocking on the door of the third. Slowly the door opened a few inches and a deeply lined face appeared about two thirds of the way up the door.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Jamie from the cabin at the end. I need you to come outside.”
“Where’s Deirdre?”
“I expect she’s organising the emergency services,” I said, the rain dripping from everywhere that was pointing downwards on me and presuming Deirdre was the owner’s wife. “Look, you’re in terrible danger. Our cabin has already collapsed and is heading towards the edge of the cliffs; it looks like yours may be heading that way too. You have to come with me–quickly.”
“’Ere, Martha. There’s a bunch-a girls here. Says we got to get out–Martha?”
“Yes, please be quick. Your cottage’s already starting to slide. There isn’t much time.”
The old man stepped out of the doorway and despite the driving rain, saw that our cottage was indeed moving.
“Come on Martha,” he said, shuffling back to wherever Martha was.
I was getting progressively more agitated as I watched our cottage being swept towards the cliff edge and gasped as part of the roof slithered over.
“Hurry!” I shouted.
Moments later, the old man led an even slower Martha towards the door and out on the step.
They had just reached the grass when Martha suddenly shrieked.
“Joey,” she cried. “Where’s my Joey?” She turned and battled against the old man to try and get up the stairs.
“Who’s Joey?” I asked the old man.
“It’s the damned cat.”
“Get Martha out of here. I’ll get the cat.”
“But he won’t come to you, love. He won’t even come for me an’ I’ve known it all its flea-bitten life.”
“He’s not ‘flea-bitten’, you daft old codger,” grumbled Martha. “It’s no wonder he won’t even give you house room.”
I ignored the old couple who continued to bicker and turned to Jess and the others.
“Get them up to the office and hurry. I don’t know as this is going to stay put much longer.” I ran into the cottage. I could hear it creaking as the pressure on the back of it increased, knowing too that it wouldn’t be long before it succumbed to the wave of mud that was sliding down the hill.
“Here, Kitty,” I said, making kissing noises. “Here, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty–”
A small “meow” came from behind the sofa and gently, I pulled it away from the wall, coming face to face with a huge ginger Tom cat, that didn’t look in the least bit pleased to see me.
“Come on then,” I said, trying to coax the feline foot-warmer towards me, but all it seemed to want to do was back or run away.
After chasing it round the lounge a couple of times… well, alright, a number of times, I eventually got it cornered, lunged and caught the fur-bag, which earned me a number of scratches on my hands and arms and a rather nasty bite to the finger.
It was just as well I caught it. I could see the cabin’s walls moving and needed to get out damned quick or could end up floating across to France with this flea-bitten rat-bag scratching and biting me the whole way there, or squished beneath its fallen timbers.
“You little shit!” I exclaimed as I stepped out into the rain after another bite. “Oh, gross.” I’d landed in a sea of dark brown muddy water, which I could feel squelching between my toes. The cat struggled even more to get away from me and was making some pretty horrific noises in the process. If anyone heard it over the sound of the weather, they probably would have sworn I was treating him cruelly rather than trying to rescue him. It was obviously a typical cat and didn’t like water one bit.
I looked back along the path where our cabin had been, then back the other way, seeing a veritable river of mud coming towards me. It looked to me like the mudslide had forked, catching our cabin and the one next to it and the three cabins after the one I’d got the cat from.
There was no alternative in my mind. I had to go behind the cabin I’d just come out of and try getting back to the office that way. The cat meanwhile made growling sounds and squirmed as I struggled to keep him safe in my arms, despite the pounding rain.
I stepped around the side of the cabin, trying hard to keep my footing as it didn’t seem to matter whether the mudslide had got to that point or not, the rainwater definitely had and the ground was about as soggy… well, you get the picture.
I felt I was making good progress, too until the little sod in my arms clawed at me again with a terrifying yowl. The dripping ball of pointy bits tore at my flesh as I slithered and slipped in the mud. I tried tightening my grip on him, but he just squirmed and scratched at me harder. After a well placed jab with a needle-sharp claw, I flinched, let go and off he went.
“COME BACK HERE!” I yelled, but of course, that wasn’t going to entice that ball of sharp-bits to me now was it? “Shit!” I exclaimed, stomping my foot and splashing muddy water right up the inside of my leg. I chased after it, knowing that the two old folks whose cat it was would be devastated if I didn’t get it back to them.
I watched the soggy fur-ball as it headed towards the gorse bushes that seemed to fill in behind the drive, ducking under a particularly thick outcrop and disappearing out of sight.
It’s fortunate that I’m as small as I am, otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to scramble under there after it. I wriggled out of my jacket and edged towards the feline monster, making nice noises as far as I was able. It edged back, growling ominously, but I managed to trap it under my jacket.
I crawled out from under the bush covered in mud and I could feel the scratches down the back of my head and neck from the gorse, which seemed to take my mind off the scratches and bites I had already sustained trying to save the ungrateful ginger bastard.
I stood up, rain still coursing down my face, with a two-tone blue bundle in my arms that by this time, was making pretty horrendous-sounding noises and trying its damndest to escape–no change there then.
“Not this time, you little bugger,” I told it.
I looked about me, standing on what amounted to a small promontory with a veritable river of mud rumbling past on either side. It wasn’t looking good as I may well have been safe from the mud’s path, but there was no guarantee it was going to stay that way. The rain was still hacking down and visibility was appalling, but I couldn’t stay where I was. The cat was quieter, although I had to concentrate as every now and again he’d squirm, kick or something to challenge the grip I had on him. I considered jumping across, but the ground was so slippery, I wasn’t sure about that at all.
Suddenly, a tree complete with roots came into view, rolling as the river of muck and goodness-knows-what, carried it towards the cliff edge. I knew this was likely to be my only chance and made ready to leap.
The Gods of good fortune must have been smiling down on me that day as just before I made ready to make the jump, the tree got snagged on something which stopped it.
“Please don’t move, cat,” I whispered to the bundle and took off.
I very nearly slipped off the tree’s trunk as I planted one very muddy and soggy sandal just long enough and secure enough to propel me off the other side to the grass beneath the big house.
I looked back in time to see the tree, free now from whatever had snagged it as it headed down river out of sight. I breathed a huge sigh of relief, blew some of the dripping water from my lips, took a deep breath and headed back to the office.
Inside, there were more people than I was expecting. The first time we’d gone into the office, it had been empty and it didn’t seem as if there was anyone else around, but now, there must have been ten people. Most of them were straining to see out the windows when I arrived.
“What’s going on?” I asked and at that precise moment, the cat squirmed, poking its head from within its denim wrappings. Then it squawked, spat, swiped at me and leapt just as something hit me at about mach six, knocking me about three steps backwards.
“Oh Jamie–Jamie. Thank God you’re alright.”
I blinked a couple of times as rainwater dripped from me and looked at what had hit me–Jess, closely followed by Megan, who for some reason only knew one place to be–on my arm.
“Um–who are you and what have you done with my sister?” I asked–yeah I know, I nabbed that from Harry Potter, but hey, it fitted and it’s rare for me to be so quick off the mark.
“I–I–that is, we were concerned, Jamie. We saw Martha’s cabin slip over the cliff–”
“I know. I only just got out of it in time.”
“I thought that because we didn’t see you coming up the drive, you went with it,” she said, with a distinct catch in her voice as real tears ran down her face.
“It’s okay, Jess. I had to go a different way,” I said and gave her a big hug, while looking daggers at Joey, who was busy trying to lick himself dry. “There was no choice. I couldn’t get up the drive.”
She broke away and slapped me hard on the shoulder.
“Well don’t ever do that again. You scared the crap out of me!” She gave me another hug and by the time she’d finished, the old man and Martha had shuffled across the floor, Martha struggling somewhat with Joey, the cat, who even from where I was, looked most put out and bedraggled–two things I don’t think any cat is particularly happy with.
“Well, Missy,” the old man said, his head bowed. “I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s okay,” I told them, shrugging.
“Pah!” he spat. “Okay? Just okay? You saved our lives is what you did. Thank you seems so ungrateful.”
“Please,” I said, getting very embarrassed. “I’m just glad we got there in time.”
“So are we, pretty lady,” he said, enveloping me in his stout arms and squeezing me hard enough to crush all the breath out of me. “So are we.”
I was happy when a petite blonde lady came across and introduced herself as Deirdre, Frank–the owner’s–wife. “I think that’s enough for now,” she said authoritatively. “These girls are all wet through and could do with some dry clothes.
The idea of dry clothes was a relief for me, especially since what I was wearing was pretty torn up, soaked or just plain covered in mud after my encounters with the mudslide, several gorse bushes and shit-head, the wonder puss.
What I was wearing.
It was the first time I’d really had the time to even think about it.
Since the mudslide had started–or at least, we knew we were right in its path, it had been foot to the floor, ninety miles an hour–until now. Now, I was suddenly very aware of not only what I was wearing, but of how people had been referring to me.
Perhaps part of it was due to being somewhat used to being referred to in the feminine at school. It was water off a duck’s back, but this duck was soggy, wet through and now the water was beginning to penetrate.
The strangest thing was that I wasn’t in the least bit uncomfortable–least not with the clothes. The skirt was just like wearing baggy shorts, the t-shirt was pretty unisex anyway and the undies? Well after a while, you don’t even notice them unless you think about them and I hadn’t had a second to think about them since we first left the cabin.
Of course, now the situation changed, I was acutely aware of my clothing–or rather, Jess’s and also what we would do about later, tomorrow and, oh God, what about Mum and Dad? They were going to have collective apoplexy.
Deirdre led all four of us through a door into the main house. “Leave your shoes by the door,” she said and waited to lead us upstairs to the main bathroom. She left us to get some towels.
“What the hell am I going to do?” I asked.
“Don’t do anything,” Jess advised. “Deirdre’s none the wiser, none of them are. What does it matter?”
“It matters a lot!” I blurted. “I’m not supposed to be wearing a skirt or those sandals and I’m certainly not supposed to be wearing your bra or knickers. What am I going to do?”
We all shut up when Deirdre reappeared with an armload of big, soft, fluffy towels. “I’ll fetch you some clothes,” she said. “I should have something for you to wear by the time you’re clean and dry. My daughter left some stuff here, which might fit Chris and I’m sure I’ve go something for the rest of you.” With that, she turned away and left us to it.
“See?” I hissed.
“See what?” asked Jess.
“Now I’m going to have to wear even more girly clothes.”
“It’s not like you don’t look okay though is it?” Jess observed.
That was a bit of a shock. Just before we went downstairs in the cabin to see the rain, she seemed more upset than pleased. I didn’t know what I was; whether I was pleased that I sort of fitted or displeased because I’m supposed to be a boy, nor did I know whether the worry was more because I did seem to drop into femininity far too easily. “That’s not the point,” I retorted, folding my arms and huffing, more because I think I felt I should have been complaining, than there was anything to really complain about. Yes it’s true I wasn’t being treated like the boy I should have been, but at the same time, there was nothing I could do about the situation. I had to just go with the flow. Something else I couldn’t let on to Jess about.
Jess showered first then I followed suit and when I emerged, handing the bathroom over to Chris and Megan, Jess was in the spare bedroom sifting through a large pile of clothes, mainly sportswear.
She handed me a pair of knickers and offered to help with a bra, for which I was extremely grateful, but when it came to finding other stuff, the choice was a little limited.
The girls tried their best to help out with what to put me in so I wouldn’t attract any unnecessary attention, but it wasn’t working out so well. There was a pair of denim Capri pants, which didn’t accentuate the fact that down below, I had more outer parts than I should have had, but did require me to tuck everything up.
That wasn’t the worst of it.
“You’ll have to shave your legs from your knees down.” Jess said, very matter-of-factly.
“What?” I almost wet myself.
“Look, we tried you in the other stuff, but we don’t have anything to disguise you. You don’t have a choice and will have to wear those Capri pants, but you’ll have to shave your legs.”
“I didn’t before,” I said, somewhat confused.
“You weren’t under such scrutiny then, were you?”
“I’m not under scrutiny now, am I?”
“You will be when we go back downstairs,” she said and as I looked at my sister and the other girls, I couldn’t see the expressions that were there before when they were tormenting me. This time I got the distinct impression they really were trying to help.
“Look, you’re going to have to play this through. It’s mostly our fault and we’ll help as best we can, but you have to play along.”
In the next chapter: Horses for Courses…
I get a crash course in equine maintenance, news crews descend when word gets out and Mum and Dad are stuck with a broken-down car–which I had nothing to do with…
This time, I get a crash course in equine maintenance, news crews descend when word gets out and Mum and Dad are stuck with a broken-down car–which I had nothing to do with…
My thanks to the most beaudacious Gabi for staying up late yesterday to edit this–even though it didn’t matter because she was able to slob out all day today.
“Where are you going?!” I asked, as Jess and Chris were about to leave.
“Downstairs,” Jess replied with a shrug. “You’re alright now. You know what to do.”
I didn’t know what to do. I’d never shaved anything before–not even my face–so I didn’t have a clue and thanks mainly to the shock of Jess’s sudden departure, Megan and I were left standing dumbfounded; looking at one another and then at the empty space left by the other two.
“So much for the help I was promised,” I muttered, sourly.
I shouldn’t have been surprised at Jess. She’d always been that way. She was full of promises, yet rarely managed to come through on any of them. The trouble was, so often I’d tried to be strong and vow never to believe her again, only to find that she did exactly what she said she would, leaving me feeling guilty and in trouble. Then when I did help, she didn’t come through on her promises–which got me in trouble again.
I’m sure that’s why Mum and Dad were the way they were with me. I seemed to attract their attention at the wrong times and I’m, whilst I’m sure Jess wasn’t bright enough to orchestrate things that way; that’s the way fate took them. Nevertheless, more often than not, I was the one on the receiving end.
“Yeah. Looks like it’s just you and me,” said Megan with a sigh.
I wasn’t sure whether the sigh was because she didn’t really want to be stuck with me or whether it was a sigh of resignation–a sort of here we go again. Whatever the reason, she stayed and for that I was profoundly grateful–even though I didn’t want to shave my bloody legs in the first place and would have been happy leaving them exactly the way they were.
“Come on then, whip ‘em off,” she said, rubbing her hands together. “Let’s get those legs smooth.”
Nervously, I dropped the jeans, afraid of showing myself to Megan, but I needn’t have worried because fortunately, the t-shirt I’d been given was fairly long and reached well past my parts, saving any embarrassment. Not that Megan could have seen anything anyway, as it was all tucked away neatly between my legs, with my knickers pulled up as tight as I could without sending my voice into an even higher register or doing permanent damage.
“I’m glad you stayed,” I told her. “I haven’t got a clue.”
“What’s going to happen when you have to shave your face?” she asked as I put the jeans on the toilet lid.
She handed me a can of shaving foam and I gave her a Paddington hard stare, poking my tongue out before lathering my legs and getting ready with the disposable razor.
She giggled and I smiled. Somehow, no matter what Megan said to me, it never seemed spiky.
I drew the razor slowly up one leg.
“Okay, now rinse the razor and get rid of all the hairs,” she instructed. “And not quite so slow next time.”
Dutifully I did as I was told and after a few pulls, followed each time by rinsing the razor and expelling what hairs were there, I figured I’d got the hang of things, but then, it’s never that simple is it?
I managed to nick my ankle, which was surprisingly painful and for such a tiny cut, produced copious quantities of blood.
“Ouch!” I exclaimed.
It reminded me of the scene in Blade: Trinity where Jessica Beil alias Whistler’s daughter, was in the shower. You could actually see blood running down the drain as she sat there, staring into nothingness. Well, that’s almost what it looked like for me too, only I didn’t look anything like Jessica Beil–still don’t.
“Well don’t go down that far,” Megan suggested, with a stern look. “Look, you can see where the hairline is.” She touched my leg just above the ankle and moved her fingers up and down from the hairless area to the slightly less hairless area as she stared into my eyes.
Now that was curious. I wasn’t expecting her to touch me anywhere, least of all on my bare leg and the sensation I got from it was something else. I was actually pleased that I was wearing knickers and my important not-so-soft bits were neatly–albeit painfully–tucked out of sight. I blushed immediately and she snatched her hand back.
“You’ll have to straighten your legs now,” she said after I’d finished the calves and shins. “You’re going to have to do up to just above your knees. It’ll be messy and painful if you don’t straighten your legs.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Well, if you don’t straighten your legs, you’re likely to catch yourself and do more damage than you’ve already caused and if you don’t shave there, the hairs will poke out from under your Capris and that’ll look absolutely awful.”
I rolled my eyes, wondering how I managed to get in so deep so quickly, but stood up, straightened my legs and continued. Despite the straight leg and care I was taking, I still managed to cut behind my right knee. That stung even more than the ankle.
“How do you girls manage to do this without slicing rashers off yourselves every time?” I asked.
“Practice,” she replied with a grin.
“And no loss of body-parts?” I was amazed.
“Your dad doesn’t cut his lips off every time he shaves, does he?”
“What? With an electric razor? I would hope not.”
“Yes, well,” Megan said. “To be honest, it’s not that unusual for us to nick ourselves every now and then. Now, come on; we need to stop that bleeding.”
Personally, I think she was just being kind about the fact that I’d nicked myself, but once the flow of claret had been staunched, it didn’t look too bad and the only cut that actually showed was the one on my ankle.
I was about to head downstairs when Megan stopped me.
“Let’s have a look at you,” she said, her hands on my shoulders and looking me up and down critically. “Hang on a sec.”
To my absolute surprise, she slipped her hands up under my t-shirt to my bra, jiggling things about on both sides before removing them–her hands, I mean.
“Do you always shove your hands up girl’s t-shirts and grapple with their boobs?” I asked, my face red.
“No!“ she exclaimed, her eyes wide. “But anyway, you’re not a girl and those aren’t boobs.”
Did I detect a note of disappointment in her voice?
And was I slightly disappointed too?
That was the second time Megan had touched me and it was in a way that I fervently wished could have been more. I was having all sorts of trouble getting my head round just how different I would have liked it.
Let’s just say that the touch on the leg was nice, but getting my ‘boobs’ adjusted was something else and I wished that they were real, just to see what it would feel like.
I had to stop and think about what I had just thought: it wasn’t me thinking–like Andy would have–what it would be like to cop a feel of a girl’s tits, but what it would feel like to have someone feel my tits.
Oh dear.
I was confused to say the least.
I shouldn’t have been thinking any of this as none of it was supposed to happen. I was supposed to be looking forward to a holiday with a grand day out at Aston Park, riding on the coolest rides in England–amongst other things and continuing to wind my sister up.
Instead, there I was, dressed from head to toe in girl’s clothes, wondering what it would be like for someone to feel me up, getting hot and bothered about one of my sister’s friends, who I wasn’t sure, but felt, was getting just as hot and bothered about me.
Dear, oh dear.
“You alright?” Megan asked.
“I suppose so,” I replied, but I wasn’t sure.
Downstairs, we met Deirdre as she was coming out of the office.
She wasn’t much taller than either Megan or me and was very slight. Kind of weird I thought, because Frank was quite big and burly and must have been over six feet tall. Dad’s about six feet and although I didn’t really pay much attention in the office when we arrived, I think Frank was taller.
The thought of such a small woman with such a big man was quite amusing, but then I thought about Mum, who is only an inch or two taller than Jess and me too, so I suppose that’s how it goes.
She looked me up and down and smiled. “They look good on you.”
“Thanks for letting me wear them.”
“Keep ’em–and the other stuff,” she said. “None of it fits me anymore.”
“You sure?”
“No probs,” she said. “I was hoping that I’d get thin and they’d fit again, but…”
“Oh come on. You’re hardly any bigger than me,” I said, astonished.
“You’re sweet, but look at you. Your bum wouldn’t look big in anything. I envy you your figure.”
The conversation had got to the surreal stage and I found myself feeling proud of my figure, even though I knew I wasn’t a girl. The compliment though struck a chord and when I turned to look at Megan–who was smiling–it just reinforced it.
“Still, you’re young. You’re supposed to have a killer figure.”
Killer figure? If I wasn’t confused before this conversation–which I was–I was bound to be after it–and I was.
“Any word from Mum and Dad?” I asked, clicking my head back into some form of normality.
“The ’phones lines are down, so, no, but you’re welcome to try my mobile.”
“Thanks,” I replied and we waited in the hall while she went to retrieve her ’phone.
For the few moments she was gone, I stood wondering what on earth I was doing. Looking at Megan didn’t help. She was grinning like a Cheshire cat and I didn’t know whether it was because she felt the situation was amusing, or whether there was something else there; something I needed to find out about, but before I had the chance to ask, Deirdre was back.
“I don’t know how you can remember those long numbers,” she said, handing the mobile to me. “I have to add my friends to the contacts list, or I don’t stand a chance.” She laughed and left Megan and I to make our call.
I dialled the number and waited.
“The number you are calling is either switched off or is not receiving a signal,” said a helpful recording at the other end. “To leave a message, please speak after the tone…”
“Hi, Mum, Dad? It’s Jamie. Hope you’re both alright. We’ve had a bit of a mudslide on top of the flooding here; I expect that’s why you’re not back. We’re all okay, but we’re staying with Frank and Deirdre now. I’ll explain it when you get here. Love you.”
I closed the phone.
“Guess we’ll just have to wait.”
“Everything alright?” Deirdre asked, bustling out of the kitchen.
“Either there’s no signal or they’ve turned the phone off,” I said. “I left a message.”
“Do they know the number to call you back?”
“It’ll be on their ’phone,” I replied, handing hers back.
“Really?”
“Yes. It automatically stores the number and you can just select it to call back.”
“Well I never,” the astonished Deirdre replied. “I suspect you do all that ‘texting’ at lightning speed too, don’t you? I have enough trouble just ’phoning people on the damned thing.” She shook her head. “Still it’s a necessary evil when you’re running a business.” She looked at the mobile and then slipped it into the pocket of her pinafore.
“We’ve had a few more people turn up since you went to shower and change. They’ve been caught out by the flash flooding, not to mention the mudslide, so Frank and I decided to let them stay in the office and at least give them somewhere warm and dry to stay. They won’t be going anywhere until it’s cleared. Mum and Dad have been chatting to them all in the office and it was the Devil’s own job to get them out of there. Meanwhile, we ought to eat.”
“D’you need a hand?” I asked, figuring that in my current guise, being in the kitchen with Deirdre would be vastly better than being in amongst all those people.
“Well, you really are the heroine, aren’t you?” she replied, grinning broadly. “Come on in. I can use all the help I can get.”
Once again, I quickly forgot about how I was dressed. I know it sounds a little weird, but when there’s no-one around drawing your attention to it, it’s surprising how speedily you can forget that you’re wearing a stuffed bra and knickers.
However, I couldn’t forget my shaved legs; every time they brushed against each other, I could feel it, and boy, was it distracting. Then again, so was Megan. I was shocked at how she made me feel; the way she made my heart pump faster without doing anything–just being there. What with her and my legs, I was surprised I managed to stay as focussed as I did–which isn’t saying much.
During dinner, I kept as low a profile as possible. Joe and Martha kept giving me grateful looks across the table and I just tried to smile sweetly. Fortunately, Megan sat beside me, which made me feel better and less exposed.
Jess and Chris had found two boys to go all cow-eyed over and were more animated than I had seen in a while, which as luck would have it, distracted the others sufficiently that, aside from the stares, I was pretty much left alone.
While Jess and Chris weren’t talking, Frank, Deirdre, Joe and Martha discussed the new arrivals.
“We can’t just leave them in there,” said Deirdre.
“What do you suggest?” Frank asked.
“We have to at least give them something to drink,” she replied.
“I think they’d appreciate something warm inside them too,” Martha added, accompanied by nods from Joe.
“Alright, alright,” said Frank. “We’ll get something together after we’ve finished here.”
“Good. Do I still have my assistants?”
Megan and I smiled and nodded.
“And I expect our lovesick pair here would be only too pleased to take their two beaus something to eat, wouldn’t they?”
“I’m not lovesick,” Jess argued.
“Cow-eyed?” I offered.
“You can talk–” she retorted, but cut herself short. “I’m not cow-eyed or love-sick.”
“We’re neither cow-eyed nor love-sick,” Christine affirmed.
It all seemed to have been taken in good part and after we’d finished eating, it was straight into high gear since Deirdre and Frank weren’t set up for catering for large numbers and it was a case of everything being done in shifts.
First we had to wash all the stuff we’d used before we could set about dealing with those in the office. So from the time we started–and don’t ask what time that was–till the early hours of the morning, we didn’t stop. By the time it came to turning in for the night, Megan and I were pretty much dead on our feet.
The four of us were shown to a spare bedroom–after a lengthy good night between Chris, Jess and the two boys, whilst the others were all left to try and stay as comfortable as possible in the office.
Our bedroom had a double bed, but there was no way I was getting in with the others–I mean, it’s just not right, is it? I wouldn’t have minded cuddling up with Megan, but well, right there and then, I was just pleased to be getting my head down. I didn’t even bother to strip. I just took off my Capris and slid under the covers of the makeshift bed on the floor. I was asleep in no time.
The next morning, I woke up with someone’s arm draped over my chest and for a while, couldn’t seem to get my bearings. As you can imagine, the events of the previous night were so unexpected that I thought I’d been dreaming. As soon as I opened my eyes however, I realised that it was far from a dream.
I looked to my right and surprise, surprise; guess who had slipped in beside me?
With her eyes closed and the slow rhythm of her breathing, I got a severe case of the collywobbles as I gazed at Megan’s sleeping form and that pretty elfin face. The house was still quiet and I snuggled back down. As I turned over, Megan spooned in behind me, pulling me tight against her with a soft, sweet little moan.
I opened my eyes sometime later only to find myself staring right down the lens of Jess’s camera. Standing behind it with huge grins were Chris and Jess.
“Oy!“ I yelled.
Megan immediately woke and sat bolt upright with a “wassamatter?“.
“Sweet,” said Jess, grinning like a Cheshire cat. “So sweet, don’t you think, Chris?” She raised the camera and took another picture.
“I couldn’t agree more,” said Chris with an equally broad grin. “D’you think we should leave them for a while? I mean, they look so comfortable and–”
“Sweet!“ they chorused, nodding and grinning some more.
“Nah, leave ’em. They’re awake now anyway,” Jess said with a shake of the head.
I checked my watch and discovered it was only just seven; too damned early to consider murder, but a little light maiming would probably have been acceptable.
“You and I are going to have to have a little chat about this,” I said in as much of a warning tone as I could muster.
“Oooooh. Look who like totally woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” Jess said with a giggle and skipped out of the bedroom in true ‘Dee Dee’ fashion, followed closely by Chris saying something about breakfast, which took my mind off throttling either of them.
The idea of murder was shelved–not forgotten. However the idea of maiming…
Downstairs was a hive of activity with Deirdre and Frank in the kitchen in the process of getting breakfast ready for us and those unfortunate enough to have been forced to stay the night in the Cliffside office.
I wanted to help in the kitchen, but before I could offer a preference, I was asked to take a tray of hot drinks and some rounds of toast into the office.
“Thanks,” said a dishevelled-looking woman. “I expect you’re one of the owner’s daughters, aren’t you?”
“Actually, no,” I said. “I’m here on holiday with my family. We were staying in one of the log cabins–sorry ‘cottages’, but it got swept away in a mudslide yesterday during the storm.”
“Oh my God!” she said, her eyes going wide. “I heard about that last night. So you’re the one.”
“I suppose so,” I said with a shrug before I turned and went back into the house.
With the kind of freakish event that occurred yesterday, the mudslide was bound to come up in the conversation quite a lot and I couldn’t entirely avoid it. I didn’t like it though.
Back in the kitchen after about the third run, I was just in time to see Jess and Chris in front of Deirdre, and Jess was not happy.
“We’re supposed to be on holiday,” she said sullenly.
“I know that, Jess, but we could really use your help here.”
Frank looked a little embarrassed and I can’t say as I blame him.
“I think I’ll go tend to the horses,” he said. “Want to help?” he asked Megan, who jumped at the chance. He turned to Jess and Chris. “Perhaps you’d like to come and help when you’ve finished here.”
Jess nodded, but didn’t look happy. “Atta girl,” said Deirdre enthusiastically, placing a plate of hot buttered toast on the tray with several more hot drinks and a freshly filled bowl of sugar. “That’ll have to be the last one, Jamie,” she said. “There isn’t any more until I’ve been to the shops. We were lucky some of those that were here last night decided to take the chance and leave.”
“Right you are,” I replied. “I wondered why I hadn’t seen Jess and Chris’s boyfriends out there.”
“They’ve gone?” asked Jess, incredulous.
“Looks that way,” I said and headed back into the office, only to find a whole lot of new people coming in through the door. Some of them were carrying equipment. I put the tray down on the counter.
“This is it, I’m afraid,” I told them all and was about to leave–sharpish, to avoid any more conversations about last night, but a man in an expensive-looking suit stopped me.
“Do you work here, Miss?”
“No. I’m just helping out. The storm caused a lot of damage, so things aren’t exactly at their best. I’m just lending a hand.”
“Is the owner about?” he asked. “I’d like to talk to him–or her, of course–about the storm.”
“I can get them,” I replied.
As the man with the suit was talking, I could see another man put a camera with a TV news logo on the side up on his shoulder and point it in our direction. I didn’t think it prudent to stay any longer. I beetled off pretty sharpish.
I returned to the kitchen and told Deirdre that the news men were in the office.
“Oh God!” she exclaimed. “You’re not serious are you?”
“‘Fraid so. I got out before they set the cameras rolling.”
“Would you go and get Frank? He’s in the stables with the horses.”
I walked across the yard towards the stables and glanced at my watch. It had gone half past eight and yet there had been no word from Mum and Dad. It was the first time today I’d even thought about them. I wondered what had happened, but more than that, I wondered what would happen when they returned. I wasn’t sure they’d be overjoyed about what had happened to me; that they now had two daughters instead of one–as far as everyone else was concerned anyway.
My heart sank at the thought. I had no choice but to appear to the others the night before as I was. I would have hoped that by today, things would have been put right, but then it occurred to me that even if the cabin hadn’t gone the way it had, how would that have played out?
Firstly, if the cabin hadn’t been squished under all those tons of mud, I wouldn’t have had to parade myself in front of everyone; wouldn’t have been called a heroine and no-one need have been any the wiser.
Secondly, not having been seen by the others wouldn’t have left me facing the dilemma I had currently and now it seemed highly unlikely that even when Mum and Dad got back, I’d be able to just slip back into being Jamie–or rather James, if we stayed here. Too many people thought I was a girl.
I suppose the only good thing was the fact that due to the mudslide, the cabins were unlikely to be rebuilt in time if at all for us to continue our holiday here. That would mean moving on and that gave me hope that I wouldn’t be stuck as ‘Miss’ Jamie Towers for much longer.
I gave Frank the message.
“Oh sh–” he said, covering his mouth and stopping ‘it’ from escaping to join its two friends, ‘S’ and ‘H’. “Sorry. Can you help Megan? You’ll need to walk the horses into the paddock after you’ve finished. I’d best go see what this is all about.”
He disappeared pretty quickly across the yard.
I looked round the stable and saw the horses I was supposed to help groom. My jaw fell open and my eyes were so wide–they looked more like saucers than eyesbut then I saw Megan doubled-over laughing.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“You. You wally.”
“What? I don’t know the first thing about horses. About the only thing I know is which end’s the front, which is the back and which way’s up–oh and I also know that one end bites and the other kicks.”
“They’re not that bad,” she said still laughing. “It’ll be easy. Come on, I’ll show you.”
I knew that girls always seemed to go all gooey over horses–least, my sister did, making it all sound so romantic, but I quickly realised that although the word “HORSE” had been included in the sentence, that’s where any semblance of romanticism ended.
They were HUGE and very scary.
“Holy crap!” I breathed.
“They’re not going to be a problem. Just brush them down, comb out the mane and tail, then when we come to walk them to the paddock, attach a lead rope to the halter and walk away with them. I’d say they’ll no doubt follow, but we’ll take them one at a time each, just in case.”
“You sure?” I asked. I wasn’t.
Valentina was the horse I was drawn to and I approached carefully as she was at least, well, twice my height. She was a dapple grey–like the rocking horses–only much, much bigger. Once close to, she looked so big and powerful compared to any animal I’d ever seen before–well that close to anyway.
I reached up and patted her face.
“Nice horsey,” I said, soothingly, in dire peril of poohing my knickers.
Valentina snickered and nuzzled me as I set about brushing her. She was surprisingly appreciative–according to Megan that is. Valentina made a funny face and wiggled her lips when I so much as touched her. Megan said she enjoyed what I was doing.
“Really?” I asked.
“Oh definitely,” said Jess.
“I didn’t know you were there,” I said with some surprise.
“We’ve done all our chores–or should that be your chores, since you were the one who opted to be the domesticated one.”
“That wasn’t my choice and you know it. Not only that, but you know damned well I’m not domesticated. I was just trying to keep out of the way. Besides, if you hadn’t done this to me in the first place, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“Huh!” Jess muttered and began looking round the stables at the other three horses. Rupert and Megan were getting on famously and I was perfectly happy with Valentina, but Jess had other ideas.
“That’s a nice mare,” she said.
I stopped brushing and looked warily at my sister. “Yes, she is.”
“She’s maybe a bit big for you, don’t you think?”
“She’ll be no smaller for you,” I said, knowing exactly where this was going.
“No, but I am more experienced. Perhaps you should take the chestnut over there.”
“I don’t think so. Valentina wants me to groom her.” That was a bit of a stretch, but she was gentle; making me feel at ease, despite the fact that she probably weighed in at over half a ton.
“Just give me the brush, numbnuts.”
She snatched the brush from my hand and reached up to begin brushing Valentina’s flank, but the horse simply side-stepped out of the way.
Jess moved closer and since Valentina couldn’t go any further, she moved towards Jess, pushing into her, knocking her to the floor and leaving her sitting on her backside in the wood shavings.
“Bastard!” exclaimed Jess and followed that with a few more choice vituperations that turned the air blue and probably did more to alienate her from Valentina than anything else. I’ll give Jess her due though, she wouldn’t give up and tried several more times, but Valentina wasn’t having any of it.
“Have it your way!” she spat and threw the brush on the ground, storming off towards the chestnut mare in one of the other stalls. I poked my head out of Valentina’s stall and hearing the mouthful from Jess, both Chris and Megan looked out of their stalls too, chuckling as Jess stormed past.
I patted Valentina on the shoulder and told her that the nasty woman had gone away and she responded by snickering in what I considered to be an entirely derisive tone–not that Jess didn’t fully deserve it.
Chris was actually the one who confronted Jess about it. “You’re being a bitch, you know that don’t you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
From that point on, Jess was as quiet as a mouse and even pleasant when she did speak. I don’t know what Chris meant when she said what she did, but it sure as hell did the trick.
The brushing and combing were something I found therapeutic, for me and undoubtedly for Valentina and when it was all over, Megan and the others called me, about to lead their horses to the paddock.
“Good girl,” I whispered as I clipped the lead rope on the halter and turned to leave the stable.
I started out across the yard, with a little nervousness, but Valentina just strolled along behind me with the obligatory clip-clop of her hooves.
“Hey, Jamie,” Jess shouted from behind me.
I stopped and turned round. Valentina stopped too, turning her head to see what the noise was. Her head rested on my shoulder as she looked across the yard at Jess standing there with her camera.
“Say cheese,” she called and I reached up to put my hand on Valentina’s nose, just as the flash went off.
“Thanks,” said Jess, looking at me in a way I hadn’t seen before and I turned back towards the paddock with the biggest thing I’d ever seen, strolling along sedately behind me.
Once in the paddock, Megan gave me a really curious look.
“Looks like I’ve got competition,” she observed. “She really does like you.”
I stopped and instantly, Valentina nuzzled me again.
“What?” I asked, reaching almost absently to her face, unclipping the lead rope.
“You’ve made a new friend. I hope you haven’t decided to sleep in the stables with her tonight. I’ll feel awfully left out.”
That was pretty direct. I still wasn’t sure what to think about finding Megan cuddled up with me this morning. I assumed it was because the bed was cramped. Maybe not.
“You’re not serious?”
“Well, from where I’m standing, you two seem pretty tight. Is there going to be room for me?”
I was beginning to get the hang of Megan’s sense of humour. She often said things, but managed to keep a completely straight face, even though she didn’t mean what she said. I was about to answer when Deirdre came out of the kitchen.
“Jamie?” she called.
I left the paddock and went over, leaving Megan giggling.
Valentina followed me back across the stable yard.
Deirdre watched as the huge grey mare sauntered along behind me, stopping when I did. “Your mum has just rung. They’re stuck in Marketford since the car broke down. They’ve had it towed to a garage, but apparently, it doesn’t look good.”
“Oh wow. At least it was nothing to do with me this time. Don’t suppose Dad’s pleased.”
“No. Your mum said he was pretty angry. Apparently, he kicked the car after it ground to a halt in the middle of a large puddle. She said he looked like Basil Fawlty.”
“Who?”
“John Cleese?” she said, puzzled that I didn’t recognise the name immediately. “Monty Python? Fawlty Towers, you know–comedy series on television about that hotel in Torquay?”
“No, sorry,” I said, shaking my head.
“Well anyway, the car’s been towed away, but because of the weather and the time of year, getting a hire car is proving difficult. They should have one later this afternoon, but they’re not sure. Then the signal started to break up–not unusual for round here–but I managed to explain about yesterday and the fact you’re staying with us and they’re alright with that. I hope you are too.”
“I think we’ll be alright, in fact I’m sure we will.”
She raised her finger, her expression questioning. “Er, you are planning on leaving my horse here when you leave, aren’t you?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Might do,” I said and, for the first time, giggled, turning back towards the barn with Valentina right beside me. In the background, I could hear Deirdre laughing as she walked back to the kitchen.
I never expected to like horses as much as I did and once we got over the initial thing with Jess and Valentina, I groomed Valentina until she shone–well, maybe not shone exactly, but as near as. Her tail and mane were combed and she looked like something you’d see on the telly somewhere like Hickstead or Badminton with some bloke or woman in a jacket and hat sitting on her back.
One of the things I liked most of all about being with the horses–apart from the Valentina and Jess thing of course, was the fact that all four of us were in the same place at the same time without so much as a bad word. That had to be a first.
We hadn’t long been in the paddock watching the horses and chatting when we got a call from Frank.
You can imagine how I felt when Frank led us to the office and the TV people were still there? I just wanted to turn around and run away. I could feel myself get cold chills and my palms got all sweaty as the four of us entered.
Inside we found the man with the expensive suit, his crew, Joe and Martha and of course, Deirdre.
“Hi,” said the man in the suit. “My name’s Rich Howarth, I expect you’ve seen me on the TV newscasts. I’ve been hearing a lot about your exploits over the last twenty-four hours. I’d like to have a quick chat with you about it.
“Frank has been kind enough to take me round the property so we could take shots of the damage done and I’ve heard a lot about this place from the others who Frank and Deirdre kindly put up for the night, but your story was the one that really got my attention.”
That was it for me. I did not need this. The television programme he was on was broadcast nationally, so that meant that millions of people all round the country would see me.
Admittedly, the vast majority of those people wouldn’t have known me from Adam–or should that be Eve?–but then I wasn’t worried about them anyway. The people I was worried about were the select few who did know me and would make my life a living hell after they’d seen the programme.
“Would you excuse us a minute?” I asked and signalling to Jess, Megan and Chris, I led them outside.
“I can’t do this,” I said.
“What do you mean? It’s not like he knows about you or he’s going to do anything bad,” said Jess.
“Perhaps not, but what about all the people who are going to watch it?” I asked. “All the kids from school… Mum and Dad?”
“I hadn’t thought about that.”
“I didn’t think you had,” I said and sat down. “What do I do?”
“Go ahead with it,” Megan suggested. “I mean, it’s not like you don’t look like a girl, is it? Who’d think you were anything other than what you look like and you look like a pretty girl?”
“She’s right, Jamie,” said Chris. “I wouldn’t believe it unless I knew.”
“That’s not helping, either of you,” I replied, secretly thrilled to hear me and pretty in the same sentence, then confused for the same reason. “I don’t really want to look like this and once that news report goes out, then what happens?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” said Jess, thoughtfully rubbing her chin. “I’m sorry, Jamie. I never meant for this to happen, but It’s like, got a bit out of control hasn’t it?”
“You can say that again.”
We went back into the office.
“Sorry about that. Nerves,” said Chris, pointing at me.
“Don’t worry”, said Rich. “Lots of people get nervous with a camera and microphone pointed at them; many people–more famous than you–have nervous seizures when parked in front of the cameras.”
They sat us down and the cameraman got himself ready.
Rich turned to the camera. “I’m here at Cliffside; a holiday site for many tourists on top of the cliffs here in the little village of Banthorpe, but last night, the weather brought a surprise none of them were expecting in the shape of a mudslide.” He paused as the camera went from him to us.
“Well, girls,” he said with an oily smile, which made all of us feel somewhat uneasy, “Between you, you managed to save Joe and Martha here.”
“It wasn’t us. It was Jamie,” said Megan. “None of us wanted to leave our cabin and go out in the rain, let alone come back here without her, but Jamie’s quick thinking got us out just before the cabin collapsed. We were just in time for Joe and Martha too.”
They stopped there as the cameraman moved to focus on Joe and Martha, who as always was rubbing Joey’s head as he cautiously eyed the people around him. I wondered whether he was sizing them up for lunch.
“I understand that Deirdre Blake, the co-owner of Cliffside is your daughter,” Rich said.
“Oh yes. We’ve been coming here since the place opened. We get a holiday and get to see Dee–sorry, Deirdre and Frank at the same time. Having the cabin, we can do our own thing while they’re running the business.”
“You were in your cabin when it happened?”
“Yes. We had planned to come up to the house for dinner, but it was raining so heavily, we decided to wait until it cleared up,” said Joe. “But then these four girls knocked on the door and Jamie told us to get out. Martha didn’t have the cat and Jamie went inside to get it, while the other three girls brought us up here.
“Jamie didn’t come back for ages and then we saw the cabin disappear–we think over the cliff’s edge and thought she’d gone with it, but then a few moments later, she appeared with the cat, scratched, muddy and wet, but other than that, she was okay.”
“So, you’re all alive today thanks to Jamie’s efforts?”
“Oh definitely,” Martha confirmed and the others all nodded agreement–even Jess.
“Well,” said Rich, turning to me. “You certainly keep a cool head in a crisis.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know about ‘cool head’, I mean, if I’d known the cabin was so close to going over, I probably wouldn’t have done what I did.”
“But the main thing was, you did and thanks to your heroic efforts, everyone got out of it alive. You are a real heroine.”
I didn’t like the sound of that and tried to play it down. It hadn’t been such a big deal anyway.
“It was all such a spur-of-the-moment thing,” I said, trying to clarify matters. “I didn’t think about it; I just did what needed to be done. I just wanted to make sure everyone was safe.”
“Exactly,” he said, beaming that oily smile at me. “So thanks to young Jamie here, these six people–and the cat are safe and sound. This has been Rich Howarth for South News.” He paused for a second or two; “That’s a rap. Well done everyone. You should see it on this afternoon’s news.”
As soon as it was possible, I left the office and went down to the paddock. Valentina wouldn’t ask questions and I could give her a cuddle while getting everything off my chest–metaphorically speaking that is, stuffing notwithstanding. She wouldn’t say anything, just be there and that’s what I felt I needed.
As soon as I went through the gate, the big grey wandered over to me and put her face in my hands, giving a little snicker as she did.
“You don’t think I’m some kind of hero, do you?”
She snickered.
Fortunately, I don’t speak horse, so whatever she was saying to me, didn’t matter other than it felt nice. I wrapped my arms round her big neck and started to cry.
This is the first time anything has upset me to the degree that I have cried over it. The odd thing is, that all the picking at school about my height, the fact I look like a smaller version of my sister–everything, just seemed to go in one ear and come out the other. Oh sure, I hated it, but it’s never brought me to tears. Here, I was the heroine, the famous life-saver and I was blubbing my heart out.
“It’s alright,” said a whispered voice.
“What!?” I exclaimed wondering if Valentina had learnt to talk and then saw a familiar pair of legs.
“I said, it’s alright,” Megan repeated and put her arms around me, drawing me close and pulling my head towards her neck, the tears running freely down my face as I gave in and put my arms around her and just let it all go.
I can’t describe how it made me feel. Everything was mixed in together: Megan, the girl thing, the boys and girls at school, the thought of Mum and Dad when they see me–just about everything and I just couldn’t stop myself from crying. All I knew was the fact that between Megan and Valentina–who was nuzzling me at the same time as Megan was hugging me–I didn’t want the feeling to end.
However, end it did, mainly because Valentina was making Megan laugh. Actually, it was the fact that I had a long face and Valentina had a long face and neither Megan nor I could keep our faces straight. The mental image of the three of us was just hilarious. I suppose you had to be there, but take it from me, it was a real tonic and I felt drained, but much better after it.
“You alright, Jamie?” asked Jess. For the first time she actually looked concerned; I mean genuinely concerned.
“Yes, thanks. Between Megan and Valentina here, I think I’m okay.”
“Yeah, what is it between you and that horse? It won’t come near anyone else but you.”
“I know. She follows her around like a puppy,” agreed Megan.
“That’s just weird,” said Chris.
“Not my fault if she has such good taste,” I said haughtily, but followed by a chuckle. “Deirdre even asked if I was going to leave her here when we left.”
“You never know, she might follow us home,” said Jess.
“Huh! You wish,” I said. “Where would we put her? I think people might notice, not to mention the apoplectic fit Dad would have.”
“It was just a thought,” she replied, with a shrug.
After a group hug, I felt a lot better and had to excuse myself to give Valentina one of her own. As I walked back to the gate, a voice caught my attention.
“Don’t I get one?”
“Uh?” I swung round and it was Megan.
“I mean, so far, we’ve had three hugs and all of them have been shared. I want one of my own.”
I had to oblige, didn’t I?
Somewhere in the hug, our faces got closer together. I stared into those mischievous eyes and before I knew it, our lips met. I thought my knees were going to give way and almost swooned.
“That’s better,” she said, taking my hand firmly in her own and we turned to go back to the house only to see Frank, who looked most perplexed. He must have seen us canoodling and God only knows what he thought. Well, I suppose it’s pretty obvious what he thought, actually.
Later at the house, we were up in our room–okay, the spare room and all four of us were sitting on the bed.
“He didn’t!” exclaimed Chris. “Really?”
“He did,” said Megan, stifling a giggle.
“Shit!”
“What?” I asked. “We were only kissing.”
“Yes but you’re both girls.”
“I most certainly––” My voice trailed off.
What was I?
Now even I was starting to wonder.
Shit!
Okay, so it’s only a day, but this change of role has had something of a profound effect on me and perhaps I was getting used to the slightly different style of dress, the fact that for once, Jess and I were getting along…
Shit indeed.
Did I like being one of them? I certainly liked the fact that I didn’t have to try too hard around them. That part was nice, but being one of them?
Did I like wearing the clothes and taking on the persona of a girl?–no–wait, I wasn’t taking on the persona. That was something that was already there, something I didn’t change, something I just didn’t even think about.
“I’m not a girl,” I said, my lower lip quivering. “Am I?”
No answers sprang from any of their lips as I looked round.
“It’s not like that, Jamie,” Jess said soothingly, putting her arm round me. “It’s just–” She paused. “Well, you’re not very good at being a boy are you?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“It’s, like, you know, horses for courses. Some people are good at being artists or policemen or musicians and others aren’t. You’re much better at being a girl.”
“So I’m a girl now?” I demanded. “Are you off your trolley?”
“Okay, calm down,” she said. Her expression was serious and I knew she was really giving some thought to this. “How long have you been a girl?”
“Never,” I spat.
“That would be yesterday,” she said, ignore my reply. “Good.” She took a deep breath. “And just how much training have you had in how to act like a girl?”
“None.” I said. “Look, just what are you like, getting at?”
“Simple. You made the transition from male to female with no training; no practice; nothing and yet no-one has even questioned you. No-one has once suggested that you’re even a tomboy, they have just accepted you as a girl. Have you ever had that as a boy?”
I hated to admit it, but she was right.
“No.”
“I rest my case.”
I couldn’t agree. I wasn’t a girl; not physically anyway. At least I wasn’t the last time I looked. So what was she driving at?
“I don’t understand.”
“I said about horses for courses; things that you’re good at, but more than that, things that some people just can’t do, no matter how hard they try.
“You have had to try to be a boy; to fit in. Yet to be a girl, you just have to put on some girl’s clothes and away you go. You walk like a girl, talk like a girl and you even have the mannerisms of a girl. No-one has had to teach you, it’s just that you’re doing what seems to like, come naturally.”
“You’re off your rocker, Jess. Feeble-starkers-bonkers.”
Frank’s voice came from downstairs. “You might want to come and see this, girls.”
Suddenly, my problems were forgotten–albeit temporarily as quick as a flash, we headed downstairs where Joe, Martha and Deirdre were standing or sitting around the TV.
On the screen was the office of Cliffside and Rich was at that moment talking to me.
“Oh–”
“Wow!” the others finished. “You’re on the telly.”
I stared at the boy on the screen–me and wasn’t convinced at that moment that Jess wasn’t right. I didn’t see a boy in girl’s clothes at all, but a female; a girl and dare I say, quite a reasonably good-looking one at that.
I had to get out of there; to go somewhere where I could be alone to think.
No prizes for guessing where I headed.
When I got to the paddock, which was really just a small field bounded by a fence, I walked straight across to the far side. I figured if I was as far as possible from the gate, it’d take them longer to find me.
I went right to the bottom corner of the field to a large sycamore tree, where I sat. Valentina came over and gave me a nuzzle and then stood nearby while I sat with my back against the tree, staring into space, trying to process everything that had happened.
Seeing myself in the mirror wasn’t nearly as shocking as seeing myself on the television and that was something I wasn’t prepared for. It almost cemented Jess’s statement in my head: that I had to try to be a boy and that being a girl was what I really should be–or words to that effect.
I don’t know whether she was just saying that or whether she meant it, but whatever, it gave me considerable cause for concern.
Did I want to be a girl?
Well, right then, it seemed–according to Jess and apparently the others too, that that was the way I fitted in best, but it was a hard thing to take. For all the pratfalls, pitfalls and other negatives associated with my life as a boy, I was used to it. It was all I’d known. The fact that I could pass easily as a girl was not reason enough in my books to actually become a girl.
Then there was the fact that since I became my own alter ego, my relationship with all three girls had changed–fairly dramatically. Jess and I still fought–sort of, but then that’s usual between siblings. Most recently though, we’d found some common ground; some way of being in close proximity without wanting to throttle one another.
The attraction between Megan and I was a shock, as prior to this, she hadn’t given me a second look. We’d not even spoken two words to each other before the business in the cabin and the fact that she just seemed to latch on to me was somewhat unnerving, but not at all unpleasant.
Finally, there was Chris. She was the quiet one of the three; the one who on two occasions now had spoken up in my defence. The last time in the stables was a big shock–almost as big as the shock of Megan being possessive over me and wanting a hug and kiss–oh, that kiss–well, you can see my dilemma.
I suppose on the one hand, right then I had a kind of peace; the knowledge that as I was, things between me and the outside world were cool. I was surrounded by people who appeared to respect me–as me and who hadn’t blamed me for anything. The people around me at that moment knew me as Jamie, a sensible, reliable, helpful girl with a killer figure, which was something I didn’t mind at all–well the sensible and reliable bit anyway.
On the other hand, and here’s the bit that was most difficult for me to contend with, the ‘me’ they knew and respected, wasn’t me. To them I was their heroine, which was a label I didn’t feel at all comfortable with, not least because I wasn’t what they thought I was.
Don’t get me wrong, gaining recognition for something good one does is not a bad thing, but I felt they were blowing it out of all proportion because the real ‘me’ was an awkward boy, constantly at loggerheads with his sister, almost constantly in trouble with his parents and at school–usually through some intervention of Jess’s–and who was pretty unsure of everything he did or said.
I was fairly sure, simply putting on girl’s clothes and pretending to be Jess’s twin sister was not going to change my personality from awkward to confident, but it seemed that was exactly what happened.
I sighed and pulled my knees up under my chin, looking at the sandals that I was wearing. The wedge heels and the narrow straps, the fact that they looked right and were surprisingly comfortable–even having trudged across a very uneven field. They looked and felt like they fitted–well they did fit, but you know what I mean. I really liked the way they looked on my feet and made my feet look.
I ran my hands up my calves–my smooth calves–up to the hems of the Capris I wore, fidgeting with the ‘V’ cut-outs. They didn’t feel wrong either. In fact, it all tied together nicely–co-ordinated.
I sighed again.
I would have thought that being plonked into this situation would have had more of a negative effect on me; have me running round like an idiot screaming and shouting at Jess and her friends for having put me in this position and demanding that I get put back as a boy immediately, but no.
I didn’t have the presence of mind then to consider that it had been less than twenty-four hours–hardly long enough to make an informed decision, but then that’s youth for you isn’t it? Everything at that age is ‘now’. There is no tomorrow, no later even; it’s right there, right then and nothing else matters.
However, something that did matter; something I had neglected in my considerations, was parents.
They had two children Jess and me. One was a girl–that would be Jess and the other, her brother James–that would be me. Right now, or rather, when they finally returned, they would find they actually had two daughters. It might even be right now, if they saw that newscast.
Along with so many others.
I would be dead meat when I got back to school.
Never mind school; I’ll probably be dead meat when Mum and Dad get back.
God alone knew what they were going to think.
I suspected Aston Park would be off.
I hugged my knees, wrapping my arms even tighter around them, rested my head there and just sobbed.
“Jamie?” said a familiar voice.
I looked up and standing before me was Mum.
“I think we need to talk…”
In the next chapter: A Vauxhall Corsa?
Mum and dad get back and although they managed to get a hire car while ours was being fixed, it wasn’t what one could call practical. In fact, it only had room for two-thirds of us–something they weren’t particularly impressed about.
There was something else they weren’t overly impressed about too…
Mum and dad return and although they managed to get a hire car while ours was being fixed, it wasn’t exactly what one could call practical. In fact, it only had room for five of us–something they weren’t particularly impressed about.
There was something else they weren’t overly impressed about too…
I don’t know how long I’d been sitting under that tree, but it must have been a fair old while, because my backside had gone to sleep and was totally numb.
I had been running through various scenarios in my head, going over what was likely to happen when Mum and Dad finally got back; what I was going to say or how I was going to handle the situation–whatever that turned out to be when it happened?
The situation brought to mind a scene from ’The Mask’, when Stanley Ipkiss’s world had just turned to complete shit. Dripping wet, he has an argument with his totally unsympathetic landlady, Mrs. Peenman on the landing. She rants, raves and when he gets into his room, all he can say is “I wish I’d said that.”
There was no way I was going to let that happen to me.
I pretty much knew that my situation–whilst not as hysterically funny as Stanley’s–was still bad and that Mum and Dad were going to have a bloody menagerie, never mind kittens when they came face to face with me in this get-up, so I really needed to decide what to say.
The problem of course, was that my imagination was pretty acute and the least offensive reaction I considered coming from my parents was to be dragged to the house by the ear to explain to all and sundry that no, I wasn’t Jamie–a girl, but James–a boy.
The scenarios went downhill from there and my ear hurt just from thinking about Mum or Dad tweaking it.
Then suddenly there was Mum, large as life, looking down at me as I sat against the tree in my Capris, wedge-heeled sandals and a bra stuffed to make it look like there were breasts under the feminine, pastel-coloured t-shirt–oh, and let’s not forget the shaved legs.
Despite the practice runs and the hypothesising, the clever retorts disappeared out the proverbial window. “Um,” was the sole utterance I could manage.
“Is that the best you can do?” Mum asked, her face and tone unreadable. “After such eloquence on the television, I was expecting a much more practiced and polished speech.”
“You saw that?” I asked, my jaw dropping open.
“We did–and do close your mouth or it’ll wind up full of flies.”
I was dumbstruck. I wasn’t expecting anything so calm from her. I had expected something akin to an epileptic fit at the very least, but she just calmly sat down beside me.
“You look nice,” she said.
Incomprehension was all I felt. I could tell from the tone of her voice and the way she couldn’t look at me when she spoke that she wasn’t comfortable. So if that was the case, why did she say it?
Again could think of nothing to say in response and just sat there staring at my feet.
“Where did you get the clothes?” she enquired; I presumed to break the silence.
“Um, Deirdre gave them to me.”
“That was kind of her.”
I think perhaps we were both a little embarrassed by the situation. I know I was. I could understand how Mum felt, well–sort of anyway. Andy said his mum found a copy of some nudie magazine when she was making his bed one day and went nuts. If Andy’s mother could get angry over him looking at pictures of girls and it wasn’t as if they were explicit pictures either, I can only assume it would be much worse for a mother to find her son dressing as one, which led to a question:
Why was she being so calm about it all?
“I know this time it wasn’t your fault,” she said, as if to read my mind; at least it answered the question of calmness.
“You do?”
“We do–though your sister swears blind it was all your idea.”
I shook my head, vigorously. “It wasn’t, mum, I swear.”
“I know, honey. I know. A little bird told us–a pretty little bird who seems to think the world of you, just as you are–which is confusing, but–” she shrugged. “Each to their own.”
“Megan?”
She nodded. “I must say, your father didn’t take it at all well.” She laughed. “He turned more shades of purple than I knew existed when you popped up on the TV screen.”
I blinked.
“Yes, he wasn’t happy and was going to ground you on the spot. He was even considering sending you to Nan’s.”
“He wouldn’t, would he?” I asked. Then I thought of summer holiday at Nan’s. “He hasn’t, has he? He wouldn’t, would he?”
“No–on all counts. Let’s just say I ’suggested’ we–and by that, I mean, ’I’ spoke to you and the others first.” She patted my leg and smiled.
“Where is dad?” I asked.
“Oh, he went off with Frank to have a look at the damage–you know, man stuff. So while he’s out of the way, why don’t you tell me what happened?”
Having a conversation with Mum, that didn’t involve me getting into trouble was definitely not something I was used to. It wasn’t unheard of, but it was about as rare as hen’s teeth. It was however, something I could easily have got used to.
Nevertheless, I wasn’t in the clear yet. I was still kind of cautious and apprehensive of things degenerating as they’re so apt to do–very quickly. It’s happened that way in the past, but I needed to get the events of the last eighteen hours or so off my chest and just dived in.
“I so didn’t want this–the dressing up I mean, but Jess told me that if I didn’t, she’d make sure I wouldn’t get to go to Aston Park.”
“Why?” Mum queried, clearly taken aback.
“Because she was going to tell you that I was antagonising her and her friends; arguing and giving her jip.”
“That’s ridiculous. I did not give her carte-blanche to make you do anything she wanted. That’s not what I meant at all. I just wanted someone to take responsibility.”
“That’s what I said,” I replied, perking up quite a bit, knowing I was right. “But would you have believed me if I’d said I wasn’t antagonising them and all three of them were telling you I was?”
She looked down and away from me. “Hmm,” she murmured, nodding, though I feared that meant she wouldn’t have believed me.
“The thing was, after they had me all dressed up with makeup and everything, the rain started–like really heavy, thundering and lightning all over the place and before we knew it, the mudslide started.
“Everyone was really scared–especially Megan–who wouldn’t go anywhere without me–and we went down the hall to check out all the noises we were hearing. We could hear it hissing as it moved, but you should have seen it, Mum. It had broken through the windows, crushing things as it started to fill up the kitchen and everything. We could feel the cabin moving and hear it creaking. Once it started to split and squirt through the kitchen door–from the inside, I decided it was time to get out. We never got the chance to get our stuff and I was stuck with what I had on.”
“And what was that?”
“A denim skirt–”
“Not that tiny little thing Jess insists on wearing and which barely hides her knickers?”
“I didn’t know she had more than one. I suppose it must have been.”
Mum shook her head, not looking pleased at all. “What else?”
“White knickers, a bra stuffed with some socks–this one,” I said, plucking at my faux-boobs and getting a bit of a chuckle and a smile from Mum in the process; “A t-shirt, my denim jacket and these sandals.” I lifted one foot and shook it.
Her smile evaporated and I waited for her to say something. She just sat there, silently fuming like I’d seen so many times when I was on the receiving end of one of her ’talks’.
I took a deep breath and continued.
“When we got outside, I told the girls to go back up to the office, but they wouldn’t go without me. Megan had practically welded herself to my arm by now and I knew I wasn’t going anywhere without her, so we all went to the other cabins to check to see if anyone was there.
“We discovered that Joe and Martha–Deirdre’s mum and dad–were still in theirs and had to get them out. Trouble was that took ages–they’re not too quick on their feet and once we had, they realised they’d forgotten the cat.
“I told Jess and the others to get Joe and Martha to the office while I went and got the cat. It was a horrible thing too, all claws and teeth. Wouldn’t take my word that I was trying to help and I got all these scratches and bites.” I raised my arms to show the lacerations Joey had given me.
“After I got back with the cat, Jess was all ‘don’t ever do that again. I thought I’d lost you,’ and stuff, and everyone else was patting me on the back telling me I was a heroine or something. I didn’t even think about what I looked like right then, but of course, when I did think about it, I was too embarrassed by the thought of what they’d say if I suddenly blurted out that I was actually James, since they already appeared to have assumed I was a girl.”
I sat fidgeting with my hands, wondering how Mum was taking all this; wondering whether it sounded believable to her–it didn’t to me. The more I thought about what had happened, the less plausible it sounded.
“I can see why,” she said, looking me over.
I was about to say something, but just glared at her instead.
She looked away. “Just go on with your story.”
That look away spoke volumes. I knew right there that she probably agreed with the others and just didn’t want to say that I did look like a girl; it wasn’t obvious that I was a boy.
“Go on,” she said, giving me a nudge and bringing my meandering mind back from its thoughts.
“Well, after that, Deirdre took us upstairs so we could take a shower and get into dry clothes, which she’d sorted out for us. I told Jess I didn’t know what to do, so they decided I should stay as a girl rather than upset the apple-cart.
“Jess admitted that she and her friends were responsible for the situation I was in and promised to help, starting with helping me pick something suitable out of what Deirdre had provided–which explains this particular ensemble,” I said, gesturing down my body.
“All the other clothes were too flimsy and it would have been too difficult to disguise me, if you know what I mean. It was Jess’s idea that I shave my legs too–at least from just above the knees down and as soon as she said that, she and Chris disappeared downstairs, saying that I was alright, I knew what I was doing and could get on with it.
“But I’d never shaved anything before. I hadn’t a clue what to do, so it was lucky that Megan stayed to help, because as it was I cut myself twice and it could have been much worse.”
“Only twice? I made a hell of a mess the first time I tried shaving my legs,” Mum admitted. “I’d got loo paper up and down my legs when I’d finished to stop the bleeding. I looked like I’d got polka-dot legs!”
We laughed.
“Thanks, but then I did have a good teacher,” I said with a smile. “Anyhow, I tried to stay out of the way after that.”
“Why?”
“Because I was embarrassed that everyone thought I was some sort of heroine. I knew we’d helped Joe and Martha, but I really didn’t do that much. So I decided to lie low and helped out in the kitchen with Megan and Deirdre, getting those who had become stranded–and had taken refuge in the office–something to eat and drink. Jess and Chris were all moony over two boys in the office, so they weren’t much help at all. After that we went to bed. I had a made up bed on the floor and when I woke up I thought it had all been a bad dream, but it wasn’t.”
I deliberately kept Megan’s sleeping with me out of the story. I wasn’t sure how Mum would react to that, even though nothing happened.
“The TV news crew was round a little later and I got cold feet thinking about all the people who would see me dressed like this, but everyone was expecting me to sit there in front of the camera and tell them my story–backed up of course by Joe, Martha and the others and with each word, I felt as if I was never going to get out of this.
“Later I got to help with grooming the horses, which is where I met Valentina. She and I got on right from the start, and when Jess came in and decided she should groom her, Valentina knocked her on her bum–several times. I liked her from the beginning and I think she likes me too.
“In the bedroom later–after we’d walked the horses to the paddock–we were talking about the fact that Frank saw me kissing Megan. I suppose he wasn’t to know I wasn’t a girl–the girls said that I was probably more girl than boy.
“I don’t suppose that felt too good, did it?”
“Well, to be honest, it answered a lot of questions for me. Jess had said that it always seemed as if I had to try to be a boy. She said in the short time I had been pretending to be a girl, I’d passed scrutiny without trying, without any practice or training and that got me thinking.
“A little later I got to see myself on the television. It’s surprising how different we look on that isn’t it? I’d seen myself in the mirror, but this time I got to hear and see myself at the same time and I didn’t see a boy anymore. That’s why I’ve been in the paddock since then trying to work out what I’m supposed to do.”
I started to leak around the eyes again and a lump began growing in my throat. “I never meant for this to happen, Mum; never.”
“Hey. Don’t cry, sweetheart,” she said, wrapping her arms around me and stroking my hair. “I’m very proud of you.”
“You are?” I asked, wiping my eyes and sniffing. “I thought you’d be angry.”
“What you did was truly heroic and I yes, am shall we say ’confused’ about my son becoming my daughter–even if it’s only temporary–but it doesn’t matter, we can get you back to normal in no time.”
“I don’t know if that’s what I want,” I said.
“Why ever not?” Mum asked, obviously startled.
“At first I was thinking that when you and Dad got back, I could go back to being James. Just get some boys’ clothes and away we go, but then I thought about trying to explain why I had been dressed as a girl and couldn’t think of anything plausible that wouldn’t make the situation worse than it already was.
“As it is, it’s likely that some of the kids from school will have seen me on the television and when I go back to school, I’m like, dead meat, but that’s not what’s important. Right now, there are a number of people here that think I’m a girl and I don’t think it’s right to change that. Especially since I’ve had plenty of time to come clean and haven’t.
“These are good people here who are doing their best to look after us and I feel that if I suddenly admit that I’m not what they think I am, they might think that I’ve deliberately tried to trick them. Worse would be how it makes you and Dad look and I don’t want either of you to be embarrassed–although it looks as though Dad’s boat has already sailed as far as that’s concerned.
“What Jess and the others said about the fact that I didn’t have to try to be a girl, makes perfect sense, because I do have to try to fit in as a boy–all the time. Yet everyone here has accepted me like this, Frank, Joe, Martha, Deirdre, Chris, Megan, Rich Howarth, the TV news man–or creep–and especially Valentina.”
“Valentina–didn’t you mention her earlier?”
“Yes. She’s my new friend.”
“I don’t think I remember seeing her. Was she in the office?” Mum asked.
I laughed. “No, silly; I told you, she’s the horse I was grooming. She’s over there. Would you like to meet her?”
I stood up and called to Valentina, who walked straight over to me.
“See?”
Mum’s face was a picture. It was a look of disbelief mixed with wonder as the big dappled grey sauntered on over and immediately put her velvety mouth on my hand. I patted her large grey face and looked into those large, dark and incredibly trusting eyes. “You don’t think I’m weird, do you?” I asked and, as if in direct response, she snickered.
“I don’t believe this,” Mum said very quietly, as she walked up to the huge mare and patted her long neck, shaking her head. “This is unreal.”
I giggled. “Deirdre seems to think I’m going to take her away with me when we go.”
“Why does she think that?”
“You’ll see,” I replied with a knowing giggle.
“Actually, speaking of Deirdre, perhaps we’d better head back to the house. The others will be wondering where we’ve got to by now.”
We started up towards the gate and I glanced over my shoulder.
“See?” I said, gesturing behind me.
Mum turned to see the big mare, quietly plodding along behind us. “Are you sure you’re not encouraging her?”
“Perhaps, but it’s not intentional.”
“She’s just following you of her own accord?”
“Yes. Has been all day.”
“Unreal,” Mum muttered.
I closed the gate to the field behind us, giving Valentina a pat on her nose. “Be a good girl,” I told her.
We walked slowly towards the house and Mum seemed to be thinking.
“You’re happy like that?” she asked.
“Not really,” I told her. “But the fact is, I don’t have anything else to wear and besides, I don’t want people’s impression of me to change–which is the as good a reason as any to stay like this.”
“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with you carrying on like this, Jamie and I know your dad isn’t.”
“But, Mum. I can’t suddenly become a boy, can I?”
“Excuse me?”
I know. The irony of that statement wasn’t lost on me either. However, Mum didn’t seem to see the funny side.
“You know what I mean. Everyone here knows me as Jamie–the girl. What’s going to happen when I turn up as Jamie–the boy?”
She thought for a moment.
We stood outside the kitchen and I was on tenterhooks. I couldn’t believe what I was standing there in anticipation of:
I could probably go on and on about this, but I didn’t want to stay a girl; I just didn’t want to suffer the indignity of being looked at as if I was some kind of pervert.
Having said that, I liked the attention–the positive attention I was getting. Obviously, there were special reasons for this, but at the same time, I’d done good things as a boy too–honest, but at the end of the day, I was still James Powers, royal pain in the arse and any positive things were only ever very short-lived.
“Oh, thank God,” said Deirdre, almost falling out of the kitchen. “I thought I heard you out here.”
Mum and I looked at her.
“What’s happened?” I asked, thinking someone must have died or something.
“There’s a whole bunch of newspaper reporters here to see you, Jamie,” she said.
Almost instantly we set foot into the room, Mum and I were hit by a barrage of camera flashes and shouts: “Jamie, look this way–” “Over here, Jamie–” It seemed endless and I was glad that my celeb status would, hopefully, not last long.
This was so far removed from the orderly television interview and although Rich was a creep–an oily creep–I wasn’t made to feel as if one wrong move and I would be torn limb from limb. Here I felt just that. In fact, I was completely overwhelmed by the situation; the constant shouting, as all at once, the reporters yelled question after question accompanied by the perpetual chattering of camera shutters and the Woomph of their flashes going off.
Mum came to my rescue, stepping forward to take control.
For about the next twenty minutes, she handled the questions, which ranged from how old I was, where we were from, what we were doing in Banthorpe and from there, what we planned to do with the rest of the holiday.
I answered them as best I could–including, of course, a trip to Aston Park–I just had to get that in.
The whole thing was manic and I was so pleased that Mum was with me. If she hadn’t been, I think I would have just fainted or stood there like a gormless guppy, looking just about as intelligent too.
The ’interview’ eventually finished and I know I’d said it was about twenty minutes, but believe me, it felt interminable. Soon enough, the reporters and the photographers all filed out, leaving me feeling drained and very vulnerable for some reason.
“I think we could all do with a cuppa, don’t you?” Deirdre asked, leading us into the kitchen. “That’s one hell of a daughter you have there, Mrs. Powers,” she said.
“You have no idea,” Mum replied. “No idea at all.”
I passed on the tea. “Where are the others?” I asked.
“They’re upstairs in the bedroom,” Deirdre informed me.
Upstairs, the girls were all sitting on the bed.
“Where’ve you been?” Jess asked accusingly.
“Leave her alone,” Megan hissed, threateningly, scooting across the bed to thread her arm though mine and pull me protectively to her.
Her? I wondered. Not one of the others so much as turned a hair at the feminine pronoun being used in reference to me. Secretly, I was just a little thrilled to hear it, but at the same time, I was scared silly.
Was this getting out of hand?
Had it already got out of hand?
Where was it all going to lead?
“You two disgust me,” Jess said angrily. “Bloody lezzies.”
”Bitch!” yelled Megan, who let go of me and dived at Jess.
“Who are you calling bitch?” Jess screeched, pushing Megan off the bed to land with a loud thump on the floor. She got back up and rushed at Jess again, only to get caught mid-flight by Chris.
“Stop it both of you,” I shouted.
“Well get that bloody pervert away from me, then.”
“What the hell’s going on here,” growled Mum. Her face was red and it looked as though she was anything but pleased. “Jessica Alice Powers, would you mind explaining what you just said?”
“Well it’s true. Look at them. It’s sick.”
“And just what’s wrong with Jamie being friends with Megan?”
“Well, it’s like one of my best friends is trying to get off with my sister.”
“Have you heard what you just said?”
“So?”
“Might I remind you, young lady,” she said, looking over her shoulder to ensure there was no-one there, then lowered her voice to a whisper. “You’re the one who started this in the first place.”
“I did not,” Jess said, pouting.
Megan, Chris and I all went wide-eyed and took a sharp intake of breath at this.
“I take it you three don’t agree?”
“No, Mrs. Powers,” Chris said quietly.
“You all feel this way?”
“Yes, Mrs. Powers,” Megan admitted. “We were all involved, but it was Jess’s idea. She was planning it from the moment you said you and Mr. Powers were going out to dinner and would be leaving her in charge.”
“Seems we’ve got to the truth of the situation at last,” Mum said. “I think you owe them an apology, don’t you?”
An almost inaudible sound escaped Jess’s lips as her head bowed. “Sorry.”
“Pardon?” said Mum. “I didn’t hear that.”
“Sorry,” she said again, slightly louder after which, she got off the bed and ran, full-tilt to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.
Chris ran after Jess. “Hey! Wait!” But the bathroom door was tightly locked.
“I’m sorry about that, girls. I had no idea.” She shook her head and turned away, heading back downstairs.
Once Mum was out of earshot, “Girls?” Chris remarked, blinking. “Girls?”
“I know,” replied Megan, looking a little puzzled.
I didn’t know what to think either. Did Mum mean me too? Did she want me to stay as I was? She never did answer me before we came indoors, but I know she was about to say something.
I know I was running hot and cold over being Jamie, the girl, but the fact was, there were some parts about it I definitely enjoyed. However there were other elements–mostly, wondering what the future held–that scared the living crap out of me. It shouldn’t have mattered though, it wasn’t like it was going to be permanent anyway.
Chris returned to the bathroom and tried again and again to get some sort of response from Jess, but eventually gave up knocking and calling through the bathroom door as she got absolutely nothing. She returned to us on the bed and sighed. I knew how she felt.
The three of us were rather subdued, just sitting looking at one another, but saying nothing. Eventually though, the bathroom door opened and Jess came out, but instead of joining us, she just headed downstairs. We heard Deirdre say something, but it was cut short as the kitchen door opened and then shut rapidly.
“I’ll go talk to her,” I said and sloped off downstairs.
I found her–eventually, sitting on a pile of straw in the stables.
“You alright?”
“No I’m bloody not!” she exclaimed. “I thought those girls were my friends.”
“And you thought that they would automatically cover for you, right?”
“That’s right,” she sniffed. “That’s what friends do.”
“But friends shouldn’t put their friends in that position in the first place. You lied Jess and you expected them to lie too.”
“Huh! What d’you know? You’re not even a girl.”
“That’s not what you were saying earlier, is it?” I asked.
Jess looked down. “No,” she said and threw her hands in the air. “Oh, I don’t know.”
“Neither do I.”
She looked at me as if I was mad. “What d’you mean?”
I shrugged. “I actually like parts of being Jamie, the girl.”
“Eeyeeeew. You some sort of pervert?”
“No, I mean––” I dried up, not knowing where to go from there.
Was that the case?
Did I really like being Jamie–meaning the girl?
Well there were things that had happened to Jamie that didn’t happen to James. Conversely, there were things that happened to James that didn’t happen to Jamie too.
I didn’t get into trouble–or hadn’t since I’d been Jamie and nobody thought I was up to something mischievous or that there was an ulterior motive behind anything I did and that was nice.
Being James however, was something I was used to, but did I really want to continue with the groundings, the trouble at school–the name-calling and bullying? I know name-calling shouldn’t be a worry, but if it’s continuous, it does get you down. It means that you have to develop a skin thick enough not to want to go and top yourself or something.
Not only that, but you find that your friends are limited–if you’re lucky enough to have any in the first place–and probably just as confused and ostracised as you are, which no disrespect, generally makes them weird.
I didn’t think I was weird.
All I wanted was to fit in.
As for the bullying, I detest it. I was always being told that I was either gay or girly and behind most of it was Jess. Curiously though, I didn’t blame her for it. She was my sister, my own flesh and blood and I know there’s always going to be rivalry between siblings–or so they say, but looking like I do and having realised how I must have appeared to the majority, I can understand how it had gone on so long.
This transition to Jamie has opened my eyes, but where would it end?
“Oh I don’t know,” I said with a heavy sigh.
There was evidently a lot of not knowing going around.
“You’re serious aren’t you?”
I nodded and it felt like a weight had been lifter from my shoulders. A shock for sure, but it was true. I really didn’t know.
“I am. I really don’t know if I want to be James anymore.” It was hard not to start crying again, but the tears got the better of me.
“Hey! Jamie! Easy,” Jess said, scooting over and putting her arm round me. “But you have to remember that this isn’t something you can just jump into.”
“Why not? I’ve tried it for fourteen years and being a boy doesn’t fit. How much longer do I have to be the boy that doesn’t fit before I can be what I might have been supposed to be all along?”
Did I really just say that?
Silence fell and neither of us could even look at the other for a while.
I felt as if I had overstepped a mark and began getting the impression that things were once again slipping from my grasp. I didn’t know which way to look and why oh why did I choose Jess to say that to? Hadn’t she already got me into enough trouble?
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
Hmm. Thinking before I opened my mouth seemed to be a problem, not just for James, but Jamie too.
“No, I think you’re right,” she replied quietly. “It could explain a lot. I mean, you’re not the same person you were as you are now–if that makes sense. You’re not James at all. I can’t put my finger on what it is, but you’re definitely not the same person.”
“You’re just saying that,” I said, the regret building for having opened my mouth without thinking it through first. “I know you, Jess. Why on earth should I believe you now after everything that’s happened?”
“Because you know I’m right.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
My head was in a whirl. It was like being two people at the same time. There was James–insecure, confused and belittled and Jamie–sure, confident (on the outside) and respected.
In between the two of them was me.
The real me didn’t know which of the two packages I needed to be in and I could almost feel myself being sucked down into a maelstrom of confusion, not knowing whether I would ever be able to reach the surface again. Even if I did, I didn’t know which one of the two of me would win out. I needed to think–again.
“I think maybe you should go and make peace with Megan and Chris. They didn’t deserve to be dropped in it like you did, you know.”
“I know.”
She got up and left the stables.
“Jess,” I called.
She turned.
“Thanks.”
It was my turn to sit quietly in the stable, the spiky straw poking me, but I wasn’t bothered. I could smell the smell of horses and it was strangely intoxicating and calming. I thought of my friend Valentina and wondered whether this was another part of my girly side coming out.
“Dipstick!” I exclaimed, shaking my head and grinning stupidly. “Horse riding isn’t only for girls.”
There was a lot of truth in what I had said and what Jess had said, but wasn’t it all happening a little bit too quickly?
Surely, it would take someone a while to consider something as drastic as changing their gender–wouldn’t it? It really shouldn’t be a snap decision, after all, it’s a life-changing thing and by no means easy.
I didn’t really know much about it. I knew about the differences in plumbing between boys and girls of course, but as to what changing one’s sex entailed, I had no idea. I knew that people referred to ’the operation’, but no more than that.
The more I thought about it though, the less I wanted to go back to being James. It was understandable that I should have felt that way, as Jamie got more respect without even asking for it. She was able to get on with people better than James–even Mum. She was the one who really surprised me because I can’t remember ever having had a conversation like the one I had with her in the paddock.
You can see how it coloured my judgement, can’t you?
Outside, I could hear people talking.
“We won’t be long,” said Frank. “But we desperately need to get those supplies.”
“Do you need any help?” asked Dad.
“No, you’ve offered enough of that already. Let us deal with tonight and we can sort the rest out from there.”
I wondered what on earth was going on.
Sort what out?
Help? What help?
After Deirdre and Frank were out of sight, I tip-toed back across the yard and entered through the kitchen door.
I could hear Mum and Dad talking in the lounge. “I’m not impressed, Jessica; not impressed at all,” Dad was saying. “You let us down.”
“It was just a joke, Dad,” Jess said and I could imagine that pugnacious look on her face. Mum and Dad must have collared Jess after she left the stables. “It wasn’t like I hurt him or anything.”
“You think it’s a joke for your brother to be parading around here and on television in girl’s clothes? Now, go upstairs and don’t come down until we call you. Consider yourself grounded. You need to think about what you’ve done; the lying to your friends and your mum and what you did to Jamie.”
“But Daaaad,”
“Don’t ‘but Dad’ me, young lady. Upstairs, toutes vite.”
“Huh!” she snorted. “Don’t know why we can’t just go home, if I’m grounded. It’d be better than here.”
“Because we can’t. The car’s not big enough for all of us.”
“Not big enough? God what did you get?”
“A Vauxhall Corsa.”
“A Vauxhall Corsa? That’s no bigger than a bloody roller-skate. I’m surprised you can even get in it. Your knees must be up round your ears.”
I could hear Mum snigger, but Dad evidently didn’t see the funny side.
“Don’t use that kind of language, young lady, now upstairs–this instant!.
I ducked out of sight and watched through the crack in the door as Jess raced upstairs, sobbing. I wondered whether I should give her some time for Megan and Chris to calm her down or just go straight up and be there with her, but then Mum and Dad started talking again.
“What are we going to do with Jamie,” Dad asked. “I really don’t like him pretending to be a girl. He’s not a girl you know.”
“I know he’s not, but for once I agree with him.”
“What!?”
“Well, he made a lot of sense in the paddock earlier. I think we may have underestimated him. He’s a thoughtful and intelligent child and I think he’s staying like he is for all the right reasons.”
“How can you say that?”
“Think about it for just a moment, will you?” Mum said patiently. “He’s been trying to make the best of a bad job. He’s been polite and no-one’s said so much as a negative word about him. Plus, he’s thinking about us and the people around him. That’s a first for a start.”
“What about us?” Dad asked. “We know he’s Jamie–our son. It’s the others he’s been lying to.”
“I don’t think he has lied, he’s just been caught up in a difficult situation, one that’s been made no easier by the fact that everyone has automatically been referring to him as ‘she’.”
“Only because he turned up in a bloody mini-skirt.”
“And whose fault was that?”
“Jess’s, but–”
“Precisely.”
“I still don’t understand how you think he’s got our best interests at heart.”
“Men!” Mum exclaimed. “How do you think it will look if all those people find out that Jamie’s a boy and we have been letting him appear as a girl?”
There was silence, but I could almost hear Dad’s internal cogs whirring and grinding away.
“Okay,” he said at last. “But I’m still not happy with it.”
“Neither am I, darling. Nevertheless, for once I think he’s got it right.”
I was completely shocked and stunned. My heart leapt–in a good way–because now, I got to stay as Jamie and didn’t have to worry about James slipping out–if you’ll pardon the term.
I crept upstairs so as not to alert Mum and Dad to the fact I had been ear-wigging their conversation and sat on the bed.
“How are you doing?” I asked of Jess.
“Alright I suppose. I’ve been grounded.”
“You didn’t do too badly, sis. It could have been worse.”
“How could it be worse? We’re on holiday and I’ve been grounded,” she asked, slapping my shoulder. “We can’t even go home.”
“Alright, I’m sorry,” I winced, rubbing my shoulder.
“You shouldn’t be sorry, Jamie,” said Megan. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Okay, okay, okay,” Jess said dramatically. “I’m sorry, alright. God! How many times have I got to say it?”
“As many times as it takes until we believe you,” Chris replied.
All was not sweetness and light in the girls’ camp, apparently.
Mum shouted up the stairs. “Girls? Come down here please.” She sounded serious, so we slowly made our way downstairs–none of us knowing whether we were heading for more trouble.
We were greeted by the four adults in the kitchen.
“Hi–err, girls.” Dad said. He didn’t sound at all comfortable, but I didn’t let on how amused I was at his obvious distress.
“Now sit down and listen, kids. We’re in a bit of a pickle and so are Frank and Deirdre. We’ve got a car, but it’s not going to get us all home from here–even if we wanted it to,” Dad said.
“Why not?” Megan asked.
“Because it’s only a little Corsa–the only thing available. I did try and explain that we had the Renault because we needed the space, not because I like driving something that feels about as responsive as a London bus. The Corsa only seats five and even that’s going to be a squeeze, but there’s nothing we can do about it. It was take what they had or wait–several more days.”
“What’s happened to ours?” I asked.
“Water in the engine,” Dad answered, sourly. “It died when we went through a puddle. Apparently the air intake is under the car.” He rolled his eyes.
Like I knew anything about what any of that meant. “I thought you had to put water in the engine,”
“You do, but in a particular place,” he explained. “This water went where it wasn’t supposed to.”
“So, is our car, like, dead. I mean, really dead?”
“Might as well be,” he muttered with a grimace. “The water has caused the engine to seize solid and the mechanic thinks it might take ten days to two weeks to fix, by the time they’ve got the parts. Anyway, that’s all in hand. Now we don’t have the transport to get us all to the places we had planned to take you to, but we have another plan.”
As we were listening, Megan managed to scoot round pretty much unseen and attach herself to my arm once again. We stood before him like a pair of Siamese twins and when he realised what had happened, it made him look more confused and uncomfortable than ever.
“Errr, yes, well,” he said, blushing slightly. “As I was saying…” he cleared his throat. “We don’t have the resources to go elsewhere. Meanwhile, Frank and Deirdre need help and your mum and I feel that well, if we all chip in, we can help them and they can help us.”
“But what about our holiday?” I asked.
“I understand what you mean, but you won’t miss out. We can fit trips and things in; it’s just that there will be other things to do as well. I’m sure you won’t mind helping with the horses now, will you?”
The thought of getting to see Valentina again did appeal, however, there was something that didn’t quite sit right with me.
“You don’t seem convinced,” Dad observed.
“Where are we all going to sleep?” I asked.
“Now that’s the good bit,” said Dad. “Frank’s got an old caravan. You four will stay in that. It’ll be like camping. Joe and Mildred are going to go back to their own house and we will be staying in the annex.”
“Why can’t we stay with you in the annex?”
“Because it only sleeps two and besides, I thought you’d be up for the challenge.” He had a big grin on his face, but none of us changed our expressions.
“Camping you say?” Jess asked.
“Yes, Jess. Camping. That way, you won’t have to put up with us all the time.”
That bit appealed, but I’m sure the others felt as I did, that the caravan was going to be like a sardine tin and it also appeared that Mum and Dad had definitely jumped into this ’me staying as a girl’ thing with both feet. I wondered what else was up their sleeves.
“Tomorrow, I’ll take you into town for some new clothes,” said Mum.
All of us got pretty excited at that.
Our first job after some sandwiches and cold drinks, was to get the horses back in from the paddock.
I watched from the gate with Deirdre, as Jess, Megan and Chris chased about the field trying desperately to round up the horses, who appeared to think that running away from three girls who were in turn running after them whilst squealing, was a very enjoyable game.
“Looks like Valentina is the ringleader,” I said.
“She certainly is. I suppose we ought to go and help.”
“I think I’d like to try something,” I said and called to Valentina, who came to me like an obedient dog. The other three girls just stood, mouths agape, as the big mare trotted across the intervening space and stood before me, the other three taking her lead and following on behind.
“One day, you’re going to have to tell me how you do that,” said Deirdre.
I didn’t know. It was just that the big grey had taken a shine to me and once she was stood by the gate, the girls plodded over, panting for breath and not at all happy.
“You could have done that sooner,” Chris said sourly.
“But you looked like you were enjoying yourselves so much; I didn’t want to spoil your fun.”
Once the horses had been fed, watered and safely locked away, we headed back to the house and a bit of a clean-up before dinner.
After that, we headed out to where Frank and Dad had put the caravan.
It wasn’t what I thought it would be either. It was more like a small self-contained flat. It had bedrooms, a kitchen and a lounge with a small portable television.
“You can’t get satellite, but it’s not too bad,” said Frank. “What do you think?”
Jess was the first one to speak.
“You mean this is all ours?”
“Yup.”
“It’s wicked,” she said and gave the Elvis look-alike a hug.
After much cleaning and getting in each other’s way, we settled down in our new holiday home–a caravan. It was actually fun. We got on together, well, sort of. Megan and Chris were still a little sore after what Jess had said or done earlier, but they mellowed and so too did Jess. In the end, we slid into our beds, grateful that the day was over.
Although I’d really enjoyed waking up with Megan in the spare room, I was glad to see that the beds were separate and singles. I needed a really good night’s sleep. I wasn’t sure about sharing a room with Jess, but like I said, I needed sleep and being squeezed in a small single bed with Megan didn’t seem to be the way to achieve that.
The next day after breakfast, Mum took us into town.
As soon as we hit a department store, the girls went crazy, making a bee-line for the various dresses, skirts and other feminine apparel. I just mosied along with Mum, wondering what she had in mind for me.
“Aren’t you going to go with your friends?” she asked.
“Um,” I replied, not really sure what to think.
“Well, I think you should. They’re going to be much better at picking out things for you than me, don’t you think?”
I couldn’t argue with that, but I have to say, I’ve never really been a fan of shopping and have certainly never been that close to women’s clothes in a shop before. I didn’t feel particularly comfortable–especially when the subject of underwear came up.
“You’ve got to have some,” said Megan. “What d’you fancy?”
My first thought wasn’t boxers, but the actual act of picking up a pack and looking at the various colours from white through to black and every tone, hue and shade in between, made me nervous.
“I think these,” she said, holding up a pack labelled ’multicoloured cotton panties’.
“Okay,” I said, snatching them away from her and quickly making my way away from that section.
“Wait!” Megan called. “These might be better.”
My goodness; I’d picked a pack and that should have been that, shouldn’t it? I mean, no-one was going to see them anyway, were they?
I plodded back only to find that she’d picked up a pack of nylon tanga-style jobs that were all shiny.
“They’ve got a display pair up there. Look.”
I looked up and unconsciously reached out to touch them.
They felt silky-smooth and sent goose-bumps tingling their way down my back, while I could feel heat radiating from my neck upwards.
“They’re a bit showy, don’t you think?” I suggested, whipping my hand away.
“Hmmm,” she replied, pressing herself up against me.
The heat got more intense. I don’t think I’ve ever blushed quite so much–ever.
“You’re embarrassed.”
“Well Duh!” I replied, turning away from the offending items as quickly as I could and nearly screwing myself into the floor in the process. “They’re… well… they’re…” I couldn’t finish my sentence.
“Maybe,” she sighed, putting them back on the rack. “Spoilsport.”
My heart rate dropped to about one-fifty then and I felt a great deal better, despite the hard stare I was getting from Megan.
“Ooh,” she cooed. “What about these.”
The pair she’d found came on a hanger, but were so small, I’d be surprised if they would have covered anything. Besides which, they were trimmed with delicate lace and completely transparent. Worse, they had nothing but a thin bit of string to go up between the bum cheeks.
This time I went white, followed rapidly by crimson.
Megan giggled and so did Chris and Jess.
“Now you’re just making fun of me, aren’t you?”
“Ah, but it was worth it,” Chris said, giggling some more. “Besides, we owed you one after the horse incident.”
I had been had.
“Come on, prude. Bras,” said Megan, grabbing me by the hand and dragging me like a little doll, round the various stands and racks.
I sighed. This wasn’t nearly as easy as it had been as James. Then I was pretty much given what I needed to wear, had very little say and even less to do with it all. It was so simple.
Now however, it was fully interactive shopping.
I wasn’t sure I liked it at all.
Mum came over and asked how we were getting on.
“She’s a bit negative, Mrs. Powers,” said Chris. “Doesn’t seem particularly interested at all, in fact.”
“Come on, Jamie. There must be stuff here you like.”
I blushed, deep, deep scarlet and they all laughed–again.
“I’ve got something for you,” said Mum, taking me to one side and taking out a bag, which she handed to me.
“You’ll need these if you’re to be able to pass,” she said.
“Pass? What d’you mean, pass?”
“Your breasts, dear.”
I felt like a set of traffic lights, going from one colour to another and back again. When I considered this being a girl thing, it didn’t include any of this stuff and when I opened my bag from Mum, I changed colour yet again.
Inside, were two pieces of jelly-like stuff that looked remarkably like a pair of boobs.
“What do I do with these?” I asked.
“What d’you think?”
“No! Really?”
Mum nodded. “They come with adhesive, so they don’t come off when you’re braless or something comes loose.”
“You mean you have to stick them on?”
“That’s right. Come with me and we’ll sort it out now.”
“Now?”
“Is there a parrot in here?”
“Where?”
“Never mind. Just come in here with me and take off that top and bra.”
I stepped into the cubicle and whipped off my t-shirt and bra, letting the socks fall to the floor.
“Lay down,” Mum said.
I looked about me. The cubicle was about five feet deep and four feet wide. “Where?”
“On the seat. If you have to, put your feet up. You need to be lying down.”
I did as I was told and gasped as my back touched the cold surface of the seat.
“You’ll need to lie still and I’ll fit these so we can get on.”
After about five minutes, I was told to stand up–and boy, did that feel weird.
The forms–as I now know them to be called–were cold when mum first put them on my chest and I could feel them sticking to my skin like heavy plasters, but the real difference was when I stood up. They weren’t big, not like real big Angelina Jolie boobs, but they had more weight than I was expecting.
“They feel weird,” I said, cupping each one in each hand.
“Don’t fuss with them,” Mum said in a business-like tone. “Here; put these back on.”
I put the bra on–with Mum’s help.
“You’re going to have to learn how to do that yourself, sweetheart,” she said.
“I haven’t had much time to practice,” I said defensively.
“Well, you’ll have to learn quickly, won’t you?”
I pouted and slipped on my t-shirt.
The feeling of it all together was–odd I think is the best term. It wasn’t strange–once the bra was on, but there was a kind of pull from my chest.
“Is this what having real breasts is like?” I asked.
“Almost,” she replied.
We rejoined the others and I have to say, I was somewhat abstracted. I’d looked at myself in the mirror after I’d dressed and there was a definite difference between before and after. Any vestiges of boyishness that had been there before had completely vanished and all that was left was pure girl. I didn’t mention it, but I could see that even Mum was shocked.
I didn’t just ’decide’ to leave James behind in that changing room, it just happened. I knew then that Mum wanted me to be as near to a real girl as possible–without calling out a plumber, so to speak.
I didn’t know exactly why she had decided to go down that route, but that was what happened and I figured I’d do the best I could. My new look wasn’t met with universal approval, as Jess began looking at me in a very weird way. I just ignored her and just got on with the job of immersing myself in femininity.
I knew what the girls at school liked to wear. There was no uniform and there were girls wearing all sorts of different styles and whatnot, so I had more than half an idea about what should be going on my body.
So far, I had only panties and the next job was a bra–or two. Mum helped by supplying me with size, since she knew the cup size of my boobs, but it was a slightly stunned Megan, who couldn’t seem to take her eyes off my nice new chest, who helped to choose colours and designs.
After that, we had been left pretty much to our own devices. We were under strict instructions to get things which would be practical except for something nice–should we need it. I can’t even remember what I had taken for James–I don’t suppose it was anything really good, but I decided now was the time to change all that.
I wanted leggings as part of my ’practical’ stuff, but Megan and Chris introduced me to something I hadn’t heard of before–jeggings.
“What?” I asked.
“Jeggings. They’re leggings–sort of, but they’re made to look like skinny jeans.”
I blinked a couple of times as I was shown a pair of blue jeans, which weren’t.
“Wow!” I exclaimed as I stepped from the changing room.
“We’ll have to do something about the shoes though. They’re not exactly right.”
“What’s wrong with them?” I asked.
“You’ll learn,” replied Chris, with a roll of her eyes.
For that ensemble, I ended up with a pair of Converse All-Stars in red and a couple of tops with spaghetti straps–in case I felt brave enough to go without a bra. I went beet red at the prospect of that, but Megan and Chris just laughed and Megan winked.
Jess was severely put out by what was happening.
“How come you’ve got bigger ones than me?” she whined.
“Just lucky I guess,” I replied.
She huffed and stomped off and before I could even think about what had just happened, I was whisked off towards another section–dresses.
“Well, you need something nice and since we don’t have unlimited budget, I suggest we find you something you can wear with the sandals,” said Megan, rubbing her chin, thoughtfully.
Now the sandals were dark brown to begin with, but since they’d been muddied and soaked, they’d gone a lot darker.
“Maybe we could get away with that,” Chris mused and she and Megan disappeared into the myriad racks that stood like bushes in an overgrown garden.
Moments later, they returned with nearly a dozen dresses of one form or another, but my eye was drawn to a blue one. Even as James, I liked blue and this one had an almost iridescent quality about it.
“She has got taste,” said Chris. “Thank God.”
I disappeared into the cubicles to try it on and emerged to gasps.
“What d’you think?” I asked, knowing full well what they thought.
I don’t think I have ever felt as good as I did with Megan and Chris helping, but they really took what they felt was their duty to initiate a ’new’ girl into the delights and intricacies of shopping.
We all changed into one of our new outfits before we left and I got to try out my new jeggings. I still feel that’s a silly word–a bit like ’spork’, totally stupid–but it didn’t detract from how I looked. Even Mum was surprised. Whether that was pleasantly or otherwise, I’m not sure; she was too busy blanching at the cost of re-outfitting four girls, herself and Dad.
I would like to think it was pleasant.
I didn’t really think about Jess much during the course of that shopping expedition, but afterwards, I felt really mean. Chris and Megan had been buzzing around me like bees round a honey-pot, paying little or no attention to what she was doing and she looked like her whole world just collapsed from underneath her.
Mum saw it too and made a special point of giving her, her undivided attention, but it wasn’t the same, I could see that. I could have done something about it, but I didn’t. I was too wrapped up in all this new stuff, the attention I was getting and for Jess it was about to get even worse…
In the next chapter: Aren’t you…?
Emerging from the strip lights and subdued colours of the department store, we stepped into the bright sunlight of the main street, loaded down with bag upon bag of clothing and that’s where it all began…
Emerging from the strip lights and subdued colours of the department store, we stepped into the bright sunlight of the main street, loaded down with bag upon bag of clothing and that’s where it all began…
A big up to Gabi who's done a sterling job with what follows--as always and also a hug to Ang, Kris, Jo and Kirri because they were so very concerned about me, as was Gabs. Thanks ladies.
Are you all sitting comfortably?
Then I shall begin dot... dot... dot...
“Did you see the way they were looking at you in there?” Chris whispered surreptitiously as we stepped into the sunshine.
I was a little confused by her observation. I hadn’t noticed anything. Then again, I was fairly preoccupied with adjusting to the weight on my chest. “What d’you mean? Is there something wrong?” I replied, wondering whether mum had put one or both of my new breasts on upside down or something.
“Nothing at all,” said Megan, tightly hanging on to my arm and grinning up at me, her impish gaze, darting from my eyes to my breasts and back again.
“Then why were they looking at me?” I asked of no-one in particular.
Chris had unwittingly planted the seed of doubt in my head by telling me that people were looking at me. To me, even the slightest glance in my direction was a stare and whilst I should have realised it was just normal behaviour, plus I would probably have been recognisable from my pictures both in the papers and on the television–especially round here, I didn’t. From then on, in my head, it was a case of everybody was staring at me.
I tried to be invisible–to just fade into the scenery–but thanks to what Mum had welded to my chest, that was impossible. My new boobs wobbled most of the time and when they weren’t wobbling, they jiggled. It was most disconcerting, but that wasn’t the worst of it. They were quite a good deal larger than Chris’s, Jess’s or Megan’s and I could tell by Jess’s almost constant scowling, that my suddenly having bigger boobs than her, grated somewhat.
Despite my attempts to disappear into the background, I still felt hundreds–even thousands–of eyes on me, boring into the back of my head, sometimes staring openly, sometimes smiling and even waving, but always there.
“You alright?” Mum asked.
“Not really,” I told her. “People keep staring at me.”
“They’re not staring,” she scoffed.
“Yes they are,” I insisted with controlled patience, stopping and looking her straight in the eye as the others continued on down the road.
“Listen, Jamie. I think you’re over dramatising things a bit. People look at people. I don’t think they’re ‘staring’, I just think you’re unused to your new breasts. I can understand that, but you’re a pretty girl, you’re going to get looked at. It’s one of those things you’ve got to get used to.”
I’ve got to get used to, eh?
How long was she expecting me to stay like this?
She had just referred to me as a girl–and a pretty girl at that. What was she playing at? I thought she was just supposed to be helping me to convince the others of the idea that I wasn’t a boy. If that was her idea of helping, I think it had taken a sharp left turn at ‘enough’, and was heading straight for ‘way, way over the top’.
God alone knew what Dad was going to say about it, never mind the others who were going to see a girl who had suddenly ‘blossomed’–or should that be ‘bosomed’–in the space of a few short hours.
“Probably would have been better if I didn’t have these,” I muttered angrily, pointing at my chest.
“All girls have them,” Mum replied, casually. “You’re no different.”
“Not like these,” I growled. “Look. They’re huge.”
“They’re not huge. They were the smallest ones they make.”
“What was wrong with what I had before?”
“Those? You are joking aren’t you?”
“No,” I assured her–and I wasn’t. What I had before seemed much more the size of Megan’s, Chris’s or Jess’s, so I didn’t feel any different–at least visually. I felt they fitted me and I fitted with them–the girls that was.
“It was obvious they weren’t real,” she stated, folding her arms, tilting her head to one side and looking at me very critically indeed. “Those look much better.”
“And no-one’s going to notice that I went out with mole-hills and came back with mountains?”
She raised an eyebrow threateningly.
“It’s not like I don’t appreciate them, Mum,” I said, backpedalling rapidly. “But don’t you think these are a bit much?”
The threat-value of Mum’s expression increased ten-fold.
“Comparatively speaking, I mean,” I added quickly.
“I think they look much better than screwed up socks that didn’t even seem that convincing in the first place. If you’re going to do something, do it properly. That’s what your dad’s always saying.”
There was no reasoning with her and to make matters worse, she was quoting Dad–as if he had any say in any of this. I scowled and got on with trying to be invisible, crossing my arms over my now ample bosom to try and hide what felt like two family-sized igloos protruding from my ribs. We continued down the road to catch up with Jess and the others.
As we walked, I became increasingly aware of the stares–especially from the boys, who were unashamedly looking at my breasts, no matter how I tried to disguise them. Those horny bastards were staring at them. There was no denying that my boobs were attracting a lot of attention.
“What’s the matter?” asked Megan, linking arms with me.
“Oh, nothing,” I responded.
“Really?” she queried, evidently unconvinced.
“Well, it’s these tits. They’re so huge and everyone keeps looking at me.”
“Oh,” she said off-handedly. “You’ll get used to it. We get it all the time–with or without tits.”
“Yeah, but it’s making me feel so self conscious. I mean, I never thought it would come to this. I thought it would all be over by now.”
“Were you?” she asked. There was a note of disappointment in her voice.
“Well, yeah. I thought since I our holiday was ruined, we’d head somewhere else and I could be James again.”
“Don’t you like being Jamie?”
“It’s not whether I like it or not. It’s just not right.”
“Are you saying that it’s not right because you don’t like it or because it’s what you think other people think?”
I had to stop and think there.
I did like being Jamie, because aside from Jess, no-one told me off, but was that all? It didn’t seem enough to go around pretending to be my sister’s sister instead of her brother.
“I see,” she said.
“You see what? I haven’t answered yet.”
“No, which means you had to think about it and if you have to think about it, there must be things you like. Don’t be embarrassed. I can understand how not getting shouted at or picked on can be appealing, but I think it’s more than that.”
“More?”
She shrugged.
“Are you suggesting I actually like being a girl?” I asked, my eyes going wide; partly by the thought of her seeing that I enjoyed being Jamie and partly because I’d raised my voice and I was afraid someone heard.
“I think so. It comes naturally to you and I think you find it easier than being a boy. You don’t seem to be trying so hard.”
“You’re serious aren’t you?”
“Well, after what we discussed in the bedroom, I mean you, me, Chris and Jess, I think so. Look, you really are very pretty and I’m not just saying that. You’re a bit awkward at the moment, but that’s because you’re not used to the new boobs, but don’t give up yet. It’s only wrong if someone finds out and it’s up to you to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
I tried to ignore the ‘pretty’ comment and suspected that Megan was just being nice. I didn’t suppose she really meant what she said, but it had a curious effect on me.
It made me feel good.
In fact it made me feel very good.
We stopped at a café further down the road. Apparently Mum needed a coffee injection. She confessed that she hadn’t expected a shopping trip with four girls to have been such an experience. I wanted to tell her there were only three girls, but after the conversation followed by her ‘pretty’ comment earlier, I didn’t think it wise.
With soft drinks–or coffee in Mum’s case–and sandwiches all round, we sat at a table and discussed the day’s purchases.
The girl’s first pulled out bikinis, holding each of them up for all to see. Mine was a one-piece, quite nice. It was one of those racing-type swimsuits; all shiny and black with the cutaway back.
“How come mine had to be a one piece?” I asked.
“Because,” Mum said quietly. “You have to have those things covered up.” She paused, looking at me as my mouth began moving, but before the sound could exit, she added; “And before you start, you had to have those things so that a) they would look like breasts and not screwed up socks and b) they wouldn’t disappear down round your waist like the socks would have done as soon as you went swimming and got wet.”
I blushed to the roots of my hair and quickly pulled out the small makeup kits we all got, to try and change the subject, but it was too late. The girls were all giggling–even mum.
Shortly afterwards, Mum went to pay and go to the ladies–though not necessarily in that order. While she was gone, Jess and Chris noticed some boys who were sitting at a table near us. They were comparing notes and Jess had claimed one with short blonde hair.
“You can have him,” said Chris. “I think his mate’s much better.”
“Go on. The old woman’s gone now,” whispered one of the boys, probably unaware that we could hear them.
“Er, I dunno,” another whispered, evidently unsure or unwilling.
“You’re never gonna know if you don’t, are you?”
The next thing I knew, the very one Jess had ‘laid claim’ to, came right up to the table. She immediately went all doe-eyed.
“Hi,” she squeaked.
He smiled briefly and said “hi” back then immediately turned his attention to me. “Er, hi,” he said nervously. “Aren’t you, um, that is, I, er, saw you on the telly, didn’t I?”
I was surprised at my reaction; calm and not in the least self-conscious. “Did you?” I asked, looking directly at him.
“Er,” he said, shuffling even more nervously from one foot to the other and nodding. “Yeah.”
“And?”
“And, like, did you really save all those people?”
“Not really,” I told him, wondering how many ’all’ might have been. “My sister, Jess, Chris and Megan really got the people to safety. I just went in and got the cat.”
“There was a cat too?”
“Ye–es,” I said, wondering whether he actually paid any attention to the reports in either the paper or on the television. Then I realised, he was a typical ‘lad’ and to have expected him to have actually paid attention was asking rather a lot. “A cat named Joey. A right little so-and-so.”
“Right,” he said, nodding again.
I could see right there that he wasn’t really that interested in why I’d been on the television, just that I had. I also noticed that his mates had sidled up to him and were starting to gawp at me over his shoulder, nudging him in the ribs.
“Oy, gerroff!” he exclaimed and his mate mouthed something to him. “Oh, er, yeah.”
He paused.
“Um, like, er…” The sentence sort of drifted into nothing as he shuffled about beside me.
“He wants to know if you’ll go out with him,” his mate supplied, ending with a snort, while the others–except for the guy concerned–laughed into their hands.
I don’t know why, but I felt a serious kick in the shin accompanied by a scowl from Jess and an elbow in the ribs from Megan, who didn’t scowl, but pouted, which in my experience–short as it was–seemed eminently more dangerous.
“Ow! Er–” I began, but it was all cut short.
“I don’t think so,” Mum informed him gently. “I’m afraid we’re only here on holiday and are staying quite a way outside of town–which reminds me, time to go, girls. Grab your things.”
We left the boys and headed back to where we’d parked the car with Jess’s scowls burning a hole in the back of my head and Megan’s pout big enough to sit on.
What had I done?
Back at Cliffside, I went to my room and flopped on the bed, letting the bags scatter around me.
“I hope you’re pleased,” Jess growled from the doorway.
“Pleased? Why would I be pleased? What’s going on? Neither you nor Megan said anything to me after we left the café. What did I do?”
“What did you do?” she asked, her voice going up at least half an octave. “You flirted with that boy in the café even though you knew
I’d called dibs on him and what’s worse, you did it in front of Megan. How d’you think she felt?”
“Flirted? What do you mean, flirted?”
“You know exactly what I mean. The way you looked at him, the way you spoke to him, everything.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Like hell you don’t.”
“I don’t,” I called as Jess stormed off.
I really didn’t understand what I’d done.
I left everything exactly where it was and sloped off outside, heading for the stables and a friendly–if long–face.
The grey mare came straight to me and nuzzled her lips into my neck, which tickled slightly and would have made me giggle if it hadn’t been for the fact that I was feeling so low. I reached round and cuddled back and she snickered very quietly and gently.
“What is it with everyone?” I asked, knowing I wasn’t going to get a response. “I can’t seem to do anything without them thinking I’m going out of my way to hurt them.”
“Perhaps it’s that they feel threatened by you?”
I let go of Valentina’s head and spun round so fast I nearly fell over. I wound up staring into Chris’s eyes. “Threatened?”
“Well, you got the boy Jess was after and I’m not sure what Megan’s up to, but I think she’s pretty hung up on you–has been since the first time she met you. I think that’s because you look like Jess.” She shrugged. “Of course, I’m just guessing.”
“You mean–” I didn’t want to say it, but it made perfect sense. “Megan might be–”
“Gay?” Chris cut in, patting Valentina’s face. She turned back to me and nodded solemnly.
“That wasn’t what I was going to say, but I suppose. Why would she be into me then?”
“Have you looked at yourself?”
“Well, yes of course, but I’m a boy.”
“Not right now you’re not.”
“Look, I may be dressed like this, but underneath I’m still James.”
“Hmm,” she said, looking very sceptical.
“I am!” I exclaimed.
Chris turned away and concentrated on Valentina again. “Whatever, but you could have fooled me. In fact, I think you’ve fooled just about everyone.”
“Just about?” I asked. That seemed to mean that not everyone believed I was a girl and could even mean that some might have known that I wasn’t.
“Well, alright. Everyone–including you.”
“Me? Don’t be silly. I know what I am. This is only a holiday thing.”
“Okay; whatever. Look, I just wanted to tell you that your mum wants to see you before you have a shower and put something nice on. I think we’re all going out to dinner somewhere nice.”
“Oh cool,” I said giving Valentina a quick pat and a kiss. “Looks like I’m going to wear that dress after all.”
Chris looked at me, her brow furrowed.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she replied rolling her eyes and shaking her head.
“Ah there you are,” Mum said.
I was pretty certain what this little chat was going to bring: “Behave yourself,” “don’t argue with Jess and her friends” etc, etc. I got ready for it.
“How are you now?” she asked very gently and with noticeable concern. “Are you getting used to your new er, ‘attributes’?”
I wasn’t ready for that at all. It was like the ‘chat’ we had in the paddock, I wasn’t prepared for that either.
“They’re alright I suppose. They’re a lot to get used to, but as Megan pointed out, I’ll just have to get used to being looked at.”
“How are the girls taking your change?”
“Megan’s not speaking to me after what happened in the café,” I told her. “And Jess is absolutely livid that I should have flirted with the boy she’d laid claim to, but it wasn’t like that, honest, Mum. I wasn’t flirting. I mean, per–lease. I’m a boy for God’s sake.”
Mum looked at me a bit strangely then, but shook it off.
“That kind of rivalry is always happening between friends and especially siblings when potential boy or girlfriends come into view. It would happen even if the boy had been a girl and you’d all been boys.”
“So…” I began, trying to get my head round that last bit. “It would have happened no matter what?”
“Probably,” she replied. “Now, in light of the friction between you, Jess and Megan, I’d like you to come and get your hair and makeup done here,” she told me, without the least trace of anything resembling a stern talking to.
“Why? Do I have to wear makeup?” I whinged.
“Of course you do. You might be able to get away without it during the day, but you’re not going out in your nice new dress without it and I want to do it because I don’t want your sister or the others turning you into something I’m not happy with.”
“She, I mean ‘they’ wouldn’t,” I assured her.
“Oh no?” That famous rise of the eyebrow told me she didn’t believe me. “Look what happened last time.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
“So I need you to go and shower and change. Come back quickly so I can do your hair and makeup.”
“Okay,” I said and gave Mum a hug and a kiss. “Thanks, Mum.”
“I really am very proud of you, you know.” She smiled at me and then turned me to face the door, patted me a couple of times on the bum and said, “Now, hurry along there and make sure you wear clean underwear.”
“Yes, Mum,” I called as I left. I felt a warm fuzzy feeling all the way down to the pit of my stomach and couldn’t help grinning–probably quite stupidly.
When I got to the caravan, I saw that the door to the shower was open and jumped in, locking it behind me.
“Who’s in the bathroom?” Jess shouted. “I bagsed it first.”
“Tough titties, sis. I wasn’t here when you did that, was I?”
“Ooooh! I HATE you!”
“Can’t hear you!” I called over the top of the sound of the shower as the hot water ran over my body; cascading over my boobs and dripping off the very slightly raised nipples. I could have watched it for hours, but the banging on the door was enough to bring me out of my reverie.
“Come on, we’ve all got to use it you know.”
“Pass me a towel and you can have it,” I called back.
There was the sound of scampering feet disappearing then as quickly as they disappeared, they got louder as they approached and were followed by a polite knocking on the door.
“Jamie?”
I opened up and poked my head round to see Chris’s face beaming at me.
“Quickly, before Jess comes back,” she whispered conspirationally.
I wrapped the towel round me–just like I’d seen Mum do thousands of times before and was out before you could say Jack Robinson.
“Wow! They really do look real,” Chris said as she closed the door. I looked down. The towel had covered everything and cleavage was clearly visible. I hoiked the towel up a bit further to cover them properly and blushed.
“Oops!” I said, but thought Chris was right. You could hardly see the join between me and the boobs. They must have been expensive.
Moments later when I was drying myself off and admiring my new and very realistic tits in the mirror, I heard Jess go past.
“Isn’t he finished yet?” she grumbled. “There’ll be no hot water left. Jamie!!.”
“Wassup?” I asked, poking my head out of my room.
“You’re out?”
“Looks that way.”
“Then who’s in the shower?”
“Chris.”
“That’s just brrrr-illiant!” she muttered as she stormed off back to her room, slamming the door behind her and continuing to mutter and grumble.
I chuckled to myself as it’s usually her who’s hogging the bathroom at home and can spend untold amounts of time there. This was a bit of payback.
I took the dress out of the bag and off the hanger, laying it neatly on the bed. The material was kind of satin-like, smooth and soft to the touch. A strange shiver ran up my spine as I prepared to put it on. I’d already tried it on briefly in the shop, but this was for real. In the shop, it felt surreal.
Did I really want to go through with this?
Could I really go through with this?
After the conversations earlier with Mum and Megan, I felt about as able as I was ever going to be. I actually felt kind of excited to be going out dressed up. I hardly ever got to do that at home, for the simple reason that all I had were a couple of pairs of trousers which I wore for school and a pair which were for best–“Weddings and funerals”, as Dad said.
To go with those, I basically had school shirts, sweatshirts, jumpers or t-shirts–provided they were clean and not torn or had any kind of slogan emblazoned across either the front or rear. There didn’t seem much point in anything else as Mum and Dad reckoned I’d grow out of nice things too quickly.
Apparently, that wasn’t the case with me.
So, my wardrobe consisted of casuals: the aforementioned tops and a pair of trousers to make them ‘smart’ casuals. I can remember Jess having a new dress pretty much for each special occasion–not that there were that many of them–while I made do with what I had. Mind you, Dad’s stuff wasn’t so different, though he did own a couple of suits, but I didn’t feel left out in any way.
When you come to think about it though, this clothes thing is a real downer for a lot of blokes. Shoes come basically in two colours–brown or black, unless they’re sports shoes, in which case, they can be pretty much any colour. Trousers aren’t that much better, although you could add blue, beige and grey to those; when you think of the variety women have to choose from, I think men’s clothes suck.
Anyway, after my conversation with Megan, I knew I was in a very privileged position; one where I could sample the entire lifestyle–well, okay, maybe not entire lifestyle exactly, but I could certainly live life as a female for a short while, which is something many crave, yet for one reason or another cannot have. There were still things I was afraid of, but they were all well up the road and for the time being, I had made my mind up to go with the flow; to let what is, be and meet what was to come when it arrived.
I think what made me change my mind was the addition of the boobs. Up until then, I could take the falsies off and have some ‘James’ time, but after they’d been fixed to my chest, Jamie had to be there all the time, James was gone and it was just a case of getting used to it. However, I don’t suppose I’d have arrived at that conclusion without Megan’s help.
Sitting there on the bed, absently stroking the soft cotton fabric of the dress, eyes unfocussed as I considered everything, I reached down for one of the bags of things that Mum had bought me at the shops and took out the pack of knickers. I read the label.
The clear cellophane wrapper clearly showed five pairs of knickers, each neatly rolled to display a tiny bow in the centre of the waistband. Each pair was a different colour, which made me laugh; an ironic kind of laugh, because prior to then, if I’d been caught messing with either Mum’s or Jess’s underwear, I’d have got myself into more trouble than I’d have known what to do with and if I’d have asked for some of my own, God only knows what would have happened.
This time I was being positively encouraged in fact, told to wear them. I was being encouraged to wear things that before I wouldn’t have been allowed to be seen dead in. The colours were lemon yellow, pale pink, mint green, baby blue and lavender, and that meant that at least three of the five colours alone would have been a complete no-no. I opened the pack and drew out the baby blue ones, since it occurred to me that those would go with the dress and laughed again.
Was I actually giving thought to matching underwear to outerwear?
I unrolled the small garment and nearly died on the spot, my face becoming flushed as sweat beaded on my forehead.
“Megan!” I called and waited, but there was no answer.
I continued to look at the undergarment, feeling the colour drain from my face.
“Megan!!”
After a few moments, no doubt debating whether she was talking to me or not, she arrived. “What d’you want?”
She walked up to the bed, silent, looking.
“You know, those breasts aren’t bad looking at all,” she said. “And with a little makeup round the edges–maybe a little rouge on the nips, they’d look totally real.”
“It’s not the tits,” I said quietly. I held up the underwear and I’m sure my face was white.
“Very nice, now what’s the problem?”
“Which way round do these go?” I asked in a very small voice.
“Well, duh!” she admonished and snatched them from my hands.
“See?”
There was a short pause–which I expected.
“OhmyGod!”
“I know.”
“Are you going to wear them–er it?”
“I have to. I don’t have anything else and Mum was fairly positive about me wearing clean underwear.”
She looked at me, holding the pale blue thong before her and moving it around. Then her mouth widened into a very big grin. “You are going to wear them aren’t you?”
“What’s the matter?” asked Chris, coming in, her hair bedraggled and a brush stuck in it, which she was feverishly trying to pull back out. She looked me up and down. “They really do look good you know.”
I ignored her remark, my issue with the thong my current problem. The idea of modesty, having my false tits on display to my friends didn’t seem to be a particularly high priority.
“Nothing,” said Megan, her face turning instantly innocent as she quickly hid the blue ‘thing’ behind her.
“Don’t give me that,” Chris admonished. “I know you too well. What’s going on?”
“Alright…” Megan said, dramatically producing the blue thong thing, dangling it before her friend.
Chris’s eyes went wide. “Wow. Does your mum know you bought these?”
I shook my head. “It just said panties on the label and anyway,” I said with a shrug. “She paid for them.”
“But you are going to wear it aren’t you?”
I nodded.
“Wow!” she said with some awe. “I’d be hard pressed to get what I’ve got covered by that. I don’t know how you’re going to cover that!”
“What?!!” I spluttered, having neglected to realise I wasn’t just topless, I was completely naked and on display to both Megan and Chris, both of whom were looking on inquisitively. “Oh,” I said, blushing furiously and doing my best to close my legs whilst surreptitiously tucking the offending appendage between them, out of sight and, I hoped, out of mind.
“Hey,” said Megan poking around at the thong. “The gusset here is like a little pocket. D’you think you can get your um, wassname in there?”
I looked and blushed more, snatching the thong from Megan and telling them to bugger off.
“I was only trying to help,” Megan said with massive a pout.
“Some people are never grateful,” said Chris sagely, turning before she left the room and flashing me a wink.
“Oh shit!” I sighed, idly toying with underpants that seemed no bigger than a postage stamp. I stood up, holding them up against me and Chris was right, it did seem a little optimistic that I would fit all of me inside and looking at what appeared to be a tiny little pocket to fit my bits in seemed idiotically hopeful.
But I gave it a go.
Trouble was, the thought of putting something on that I’d only seen busty page three models in the tabloids wearing, gave me hot flushes and an unseemly amount of interest from the very item I was hoping would stay small–if you know what I mean.
It took some time, but I managed to get myself under control–although ‘how’ is not the important part. The sensation of the material sliding between my bum cheeks and right up to my–well, you get the picture–was a little weird, but I kept going. I figured that if so many wear them, how bad can they be?
Eventually I managed not only to keep ‘wossname’ under control, but also got it tucked–barely, but tucked–neatly away and I stood before the mirror.
“Holy crap!” I wheezed.
“Figured them out–” Megan asked as she breezed into my room and froze, her jaw hovering just a fraction of an inch above the floor. “Fuck me!”
I couldn’t help giggling. My immediate thought was “yes please”, but I kept that to myself. However, more amusing was the fact that it was the first time I had heard her swear and with the look on her face, her eyes out on stalks as she looked at me in nothing but a baby blue thong, I got the most amazing rush. “You like?” I asked, batting my eyelashes, turning and looking slightly over one shoulder and making a half-hearted attempt to cover my breasts.
“Like? Like?” She didn’t answer but ran, leapt and virtually wrapped herself around me, gluing her mouth to mine and never mind tonsil hockey, I wondered whether she could tell what I had for breakfast. I can tell you that that thong was not the most comfortable of things to wear during that little exchange.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“We-ell, I don’t know,” she said. “You were flirting with that boy in the café, weren’t you?”
“I wasn’t, honest. I wouldn’t even know how to flirt, you should know that.”
“Maybe, but don’t do it again.”
With that, she glued herself to my lips again.
“Um,” I struggled, breathlessly. “Can you help me with my dress, please?”
Within minutes, my breasts were encased in their brassiere and I was gently pulling my new dress up my legs, over my hips and then slipping my arms through the narrow straps, turning to allow Megan to pull up the zip.
The dress fairly clung to all the right places and made me look as though I had a much more feminine figure than I actually did. It was close fitting to the hips whereupon it flaired slightly to the hem, which ended about four inches above the knee.
“What d’you think?” I asked, twirling to the left and right before the mirror.
The dress was shorter than I had remembered, but it wasn’t so short that I was in danger of displaying my undercarriage to all and sundry. I felt a little giddy actually; not from the twirling, but because I could feel the way the soft material brushed whisper-like across my thighs as I moved and when I spun, the skirt flaired out and it felt amazing. Yes, amazing or better still, electrifying.
“I’m speechless,” Megan said huskily.
“I take it that’s good?”
“Oh, it’s good alright,” she said shaking her head. “How are you feeling?”
“Wicked,” I replied, grinning from ear to ear. “I’m really looking forward to this.”
“Do you want help with makeup and stuff?”
“Thanks, but Mum wants to do it.”
“She does?” She seemed surprised.
“Yeah, well, she says she can’t trust Jess and we didn’t think you were talking to me, so she offered. Anyway, look upon it as a surprise.”
She clapped her hands together gleefully. “I like surprises!” she said and reached up and grabbed me for one last knee-trembling kiss.
On the way back to Mum, I couldn’t help wondering what Dad would think of all this. I was fairly certain he’d go white when he saw me in that dress. It wasn’t as if it was revealing or anything, but it was after all, a dress.
Mum was very business-like when I got back to their room.
“I thought I told you to be quick,” she said.
“I’m sorry. I had a bit of trouble.”
“Everything alright?”
Oh, fine.” I replied, resisting the urge to pick at the thong and deciding that to tell her about it would probably not be wise. She wouldn’t even let Jess wear thongs and heaven alone knows what she’d have thought about me wearing them.
“I wish we’d got you a haircut,” she said, pulling my hair this way and that.
“Ow, easy,” I whined.
“Well, I have to try and make a silk purse out of this sow’s ear.”
“Don’t sugar-coat it eh, Mum. Just go right ahead and say what you mean.”
“You know what I mean. Anyway, it’s no good. There’s no way I’m going to be able to do anything with this. Go change back into your casuals, we’re going out.”
“But Mum,” I whined. “We can’t cut it. I’m trying to grow it.”
“Not today you’re not. Now scram.”
That’s my Mum all over. Once she gets an idea in her head, that’s it. Not Dad, me, Jess–anyone can stop her and I was yanked up by the wrist and almost dragged outside and shoved towards the caravan.
“What are you doing back here and what’s happened to your hair?” Megan asked, immediately smoothing it this way and that to try and bring some semblance of order to the mop on my head.
“Mum’s got this idea that we’re going to the hairdressers.”
“Ooh,” she enthused. “Can I come?”
“I don’t know. You’d best ask Mum.”
Moments later with me in my jeggings and a t-shirt, all four of us headed out towards the car.
“What are you all doing here?” Mum asked.
“If Jamie’s going to have her hair done, we should be there,” Jess announced pointedly.
“But–”
“Oh Muuuuuum.”
“Alright. Get in.”
The five of us clambered into the car and Mum drove like our lives depended upon it. There wasn’t a sound from any of us as we sat there, Jess, who’d bagged shotgun in the front and the rest of us, huddled together holding each other’s hands as we sped towards town.
“Does she always drive like that?” Chris asked as we got out in the car park.
“Not usually.”
We walked into the salon; a place called ‘Simon’ and we were told to sit down while Mum spoke to the receptionist. Both of them were quietly talking and every now and then, one, other or both of them would look over at me. I felt like I was being sized up for an auction or something.
Mum came and sat next to me, took out her mobile and called Dad.
“We might be a little later than I’d hoped… No, we’re at Simon’s, the hairdressers… No it’s perfectly alright… Jamie will not come back looking like a dog’s dinner. I’ll see you shortly.”
The five of us waited until eventually, the woman that Simon was attending left.
“Would you like to come over,” lisped the short, dark-haired man who was the salon’s namesake. “Don’t I know you?” he asked, his fingertips resting gently on his chin. “No, don’t tell me; I never forget a face.”
I looked at him as he fussed round me with the gown.
“I know I know you from somewhere,” he said, actually looking somewhat exasperated.
“It might have been from the television.”
“No, I’d have remembered that.”
“Newspapers?”
“Possibly. Oh well,” he said as he picked up a comb and his scissors. “I’m sure it will come to me. Now, then young lady, what can we do for you today?”
“Well, I really wish I could have hair like my sister. I’m trying to grow it,” I told him looking at him in the mirror.
He turned. “Which one’s–ah yes.” He turned and looked back at me, his face straight. “I’m afraid I don’t cut hair any longer.”
I stared at his reflection and his face showed not the tiniest amount of mirth, yet on mine, numerous emotions and thought patterns flickered across until finally I got it.
“Oh ha, ha, ha,” I congratulated him and his mouth turned upwards in a huge grin.
“The old ones are the best,” he said. “Now, I think your short-haired friend has the best cut, but yours should be slightly different. Maybe we could give you a heavier fringe?”
“Sounds okay to me. I’ll leave it to you.”
“Well, I’d like to put in some colour,” he said, looking round at Mum.
“Much as I’d love to see that, maybe another time. We have to get back to Cliffside.”
“That’s it!” Simon said with a huge grin. “You’re that girl aren’t you? You know, the one they’ve called the Cliffside Heroine.”
I blushed.
“Well, well, well. Someone really famous in my salon at last.”
Within forty minutes, I had been shampooed, cut, styled and blown dry. Like Megan’s cut, mine was a bit of a pixie cut, where the fringe swept across my left eye. “What d’you think?” I asked, feeling like a million quid.
“Blimey,” said Jess. “You look just like that girl off Bourne–er, what’s her name?”
“Styles,” said Chris. “Julia Styles.”
“Wow, yeah.” agreed Megan. “The hair’s not the same, but I never noticed it before. You do look like her.”
Mum beamed at me. “See? Much better.”
“Make sure you bring her back, won’t you, Mrs. Powers. The colouring’s on me.”
“Thank you, Simon,” I said and gave him a hug. Boy could he blush too–even more than me.
Back in the car and we were all pretty animated with the coming events planned for the evening. None of us girls knew what was happening and if they did, none of them were letting on. Even Jess was turned round for most of the trip back so that we could all four of us chat.
“Er, excuse me, ladies,” Mum said, as she made a left turn. “But we don’t have that much time now, so I’m going to have to ask for your assistance in helping to get Jamie ready. Can I count on it?”
“No problems, Mum,” said Jess. “Chris is about the best with nails, so maybe she can do that while Megan or I can do her toes?”
“Sounds like a plan,” Mum agreed and within minutes, we were pulling up into the car park of Cliffside.
We piled into the caravan and the whole place was a complete buzz of excitement and I was the centre of attention. It was odd, but odd in a really nice way. I’d never had so much attention that wasn’t something to do with having done something wrong, or having been dropped in the brown, smelly stuff by someone else–or being picked on. Jess was in a strange mood too. She seemed to be taking all of what was going on in surprisingly good part and I was just waiting for the real Jess to show through.
I’d just got back into my dress and sprayed under my arms with some antiperspirant when Mum turned up.
“Come on then girls, let’s get to it.”
Mum concentrated on my eyebrows–which I wished she hadn’t. Each one of those innocuous little hairs brought tears to my eyes as she began yanking them out.
“Stop being such a girl,” she said.
Despite my pain, I couldn’t help but laugh.
Mum, Jess, Chris and Megan whistled round me like a collective tornado with brushes, powders, liquids, creams and Christ knows what else being applied here, there and everywhere.
Soon we were all finished and ready to trundle back to the main house. I was just about to leave and Megan was getting impatient, but Jess was hanging back. I wondered if this was the time that I found out what was really on her mind.
She spoke briefly to Megan who gave me a kiss on the cheek and meekly disappeared, leaving Jess and I alone.
“This is where you start the threats I suppose,” I said.
“No,” she replied.
“Then what’s going on, Jess. A leopard doesn’t change her spots you know.”
“It’s just that I’ve been getting really jealous of you.”
“Jealous? Me? Why?” I was gobsmacked.
“Because my friends weren’t happy about the idea of you being here and now they talk to you more than they do to me.”
I could see that being a bone of contention. “You want me to push them away?”
“No,” she said quickly. “Of course not. It’s just that when I looked at what you were doing, I realised how brave you were being. Mum seems to have taken this very seriously and I thought that any moment you were going to back out.”
The thought had crossed my mind on several occasions.
“But you didn’t. Here you are looking every inch a girl and you’re not are you?”
I didn’t answer, not that I had to. It was a rhetorical question apparently.
“You could have caused heaps of trouble and yet you’ve kept going no matter what’s been thrown at you and I have to admit, I really like Jamie. I can see what the others see in you and I know why they like you.”
I was starting to get a lump in my throat.
“The truth is I wish you really were my sister, not my brother. I think he has issues and even though you must have so many more than him right now, you’re still really jolly.”
The tears were brimming.
“Some of the things I’ve said and done make me feel a complete bitch. I mean, I’ve had fourteen years to get used to being me and in the same length of time, I think you’re only just getting used to it and that’s only because of this. God knows what Mum’s doing, but I don’t think it’s wrong. If you do go back to being James, don’t think I won’t still feel like this either. I’ve seen a side of you I think more should see.”
She paused and the lump in my throat was about fit to burst.
“Jamie, I love you and I’m really sorry for everything that I’ve done. Can you forgive me?”
I just broke at that point. In fourteen years, Jess has never once apologised to me like that. In fact, I’d be hard-pressed to think of a time that she’s said sorry and meant it. Right there in that room in the caravan, the tears flowed and all I wanted to do was hug my little sister and cry on her shoulder.
“Yes. Yes of course I can.”
In the next chapter: Dinner: Dad gets to see me for the first time and let’s just say it’s not quite as smooth sailing as we would have liked.
Dad gets to see me for the first time and let’s just say it’s not quite as smooth sailing as we would have liked.
“Oh God, look at the state of you,” Jess said as she dabbed the tears away from my face. “It’s no good. We’re going to have to do something about that or Mum’ll go bonkers.”
“I’m sorry,” I told her, sniffing back the tears.
“What are you apologising to me for?”
“I don’t know,” I sighed. “I’ve just got so wrapped up in all this, I don’t know which way’s up.”
“I can understand that. It must be heaps to take in.”
“You can say that again.”
Jess deftly removed the smears and smudges of makeup crying had created and while I sat still, she zipped across each of my eyelids with the liner pencil and redid other bits that had been mutilated during my blub session.
“Thanks Jess,” I said when she’d finished. “You might want to touch up your own makeup too before we go back. I think you’ve been doing a little crying of your own.”
She smiled a bit ruefully. “Can you blame me? It’s not easy suddenly finding out that your brother is really your sister in disguise, is it?”
“I wouldn’t put it quite like that,” I replied, shocked that Jess should suddenly get it into her head that I was going to be Jamie permanently. I didn’t want to burst her bubble, but I knew I wasn’t going to stay like this.
“Oh come on. How would you put it then? Seems to me you’ve slipped into this ’Jamie’ personality a little too easily to just drop it and go back to being James. Let’s face it, you’re happier than I’ve ever seen you despite–or perhaps because of the fact that you’re in a dress and strappy sandals; your hair’s definitely not a boy’s cut and I’ll bet you’re going back to have Simon colour it too. What’s more, your legs are shaved, your finger and toenails match your dress and your face is covered in makeup. Hellloooo?”
I couldn’t argue with that. I wanted to, but I couldn’t think of a single thing to challenge her point of view.
Despite the fact that I had been dressing in girl’s clothes and assuming the persona of ’Jamie’ for no more than a few days, I did feel comfortable that way. Possibly more disturbing was the fact that I was becoming more comfortable with it with each passing moment.
Oh dear.
I sat down heavily, my head in my hands.
“You alright, sis?”
Sis? It seemed as far as Jess was concerned, this was a done deal.
“No.”
“What’s wrong?”
“This is all so quick. A couple of days ago, I was James; pain in the arse brother that you avoided at all costs and now look at me.”
“I know. You’re quite the Cinderella, aren’t you?”
“That’s not what I mean. At first I only agreed to keep this up because no-one knew any different and here we are just days later and not only am I more girl now than I am boy, but it seems like everyone is expecting me to stay like this.”
“You mean you don’t want to?”
“No!” I replied, emphatically, standing back up very quickly and nearly toppling over.
“Oh.”
There was no denying there was disappointment on Jess’s face.
“Of course I don’t. You don’t think I’m stupid enough to think that everything’s going to stay like this do you? I mean, this is one thing, but once the holiday’s over, what d’you thinks’ going to happen?”
“I’m sorry, I just thought…”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, turning to the mirror just to check myself over one last time before going back to the Annexe.
Looking in the reflective glass at the image staring back, I saw nothing strange. I thought I’d have felt alien, wrong or something; certainly not as accepting of the new image as I did. It seemed to verify and further substantiate what Jess had said and I wondered whether I would see James returning after the holiday.
The fact was, I really liked the new image; the haircut that Simon had given me was superb and once the colour was in too…
Then there was the makeup–the smoky eyes, soft pink lips and the slight trace of blush on the cheeks, all capped by the blue nail varnish, which seemed to tie everything together. It really did make me wonder whether I should have been female all along, and that nature had played a cruel joke on me.
As Jess appeared beside me in the mirror, I noticed the resemblance–and it was much more than just a family likeness. Our faces were the same shape, the shape of our eyebrows–now that Mum had plucked mine–and the colour of our eyes. Despite being made up differently, there was no denying we were twins.
“It’s a bit scary isn’t it?” Jess observed. “Apart from the boobs, that is.”
I nodded.
“Go on,” she whispered. “Go and let me finish up here. I’ll see you back with the others.”
I gave Jess a quick hug. “Thanks, sis,” I said and as I pulled away, I couldn’t help noticing that her eyes were tearing up again.
I covered the short distance between the caravan and the house, resisting the urge to pluck the thin gusset of my thong out from between the cheeks of my bum.
“I will get used to these,” I muttered.
I couldn’t help feeling confused. Part of me felt like I ought to have been upset by the fact we looked so much alike, and if not that then definitely by Jess referring to me as her sister disguised as her brother.
However, as odd as it may seem, I wasn’t upset by either. I couldn’t actually find it within me to get upset about it, though I don’t know why. I suppose should have, shouldn’t I?
Having seen the two of us side-by-side in the mirror, I could see why the kids at school treated me the way they did. We were like two peas in a pod, which was exactly what Chris or Megan had said–something that actually upset Jess and at the time, me too.
Yet this startling revelation succeeded not in causing anguish, but quite the reverse; it gave me a sense of pride–can you believe that? Add to that the fact that Jess had apologised–even more of an eye-opener, I can tell you–and it was with a profound feeling of confusion that I stepped into the annexe.
“Where’s Jess?” Mum asked, looking me over. “And why have you been messing with your makeup?”
She was taking another mouthful of coffee when I answered.
“Jess apologised to me for being a bitch and both of us got a bit tearful. Afterwards, our faces were a mess, so she redid mine then sent me back here while she redid hers.”
Mum spluttered, sending the majority of her coffee over the table. “Shit! She did what?!” She stood up too quickly, trying to avoid the drips and upset the remainder of her coffee in the process.
“Redid my makeup.”
“Before that?”
“She apologised.”
Mum sat down heavily on the chair, her coffee heading swiftly towards the edge of the table and her.
“I can’t believe this,” she said. “I leave you alone for five minutes and look what happens.”
This was beginning to feel a little more familiar. Something happens, I’m close by, so it’s my fault. Oh well.
“Um, your coffee?”
“Bugger!” she exclaimed and jumped up, grabbing a cloth from the draining board and mopping furiously at the spillage.
“I thought you’d be pleased,” I said, disappointed that Jess and I finally getting along wasn’t met with the enthusiasm I thought it ought to have.
“So where is she now?” she asked, rinsing and wringing the cloth out before returning to the table to mop up the last remnants.
“Finishing her makeup. She’ll be over in a minute. Where’s Dad?”
“He’s taking a shower and will be out shortly,” she replied, still mopping up the sticky coffee. “Please don’t do that again.”
“Sorry,” I said, beating a hasty retreat, shaking my head and wondering what I had to do not to be blamed for every little thing.
I wandered into their lounge where Chris and Megan were waiting.
“Where’s Jess,” Chris asked.
“Fixing her makeup,” I replied, flopping on the chair.
“You alright?” asked Megan.
“Not really. I’m a little confused, but I’m sure it’ll pass.”
Dad sauntered down from the bathroom upstairs in his usual fashion, doing up his shirt and humming tunelessly as he did so. “Evening girls,” he said in a sing-song voice.
“Evening Mr. Powers,” Megan and Chris intoned, almost in unison.
“Hi Dad,” I said.
The footsteps stopped about half way down the hall between the lounge and kitchen and then began coming back towards us. His head appeared, peering round the doorway, scanning the room before resting on me.
“Jamie? Is that really you?” he asked, his eyes going wide.
“In the flesh,” I answered with a slight smile, unable to read his expression.
“Holy shit!!!” he gasped, immediately covering his mouth with his hand after realising what he’d said.
Was that a good, ’holy shit’, or bad one? It didn’t sound particularly good to me. Was he just shocked at seeing me that way or was it worse? Was it disgust perhaps? I couldn’t tell.
What I did know was that he was the one who wasn’t into this ’cross-dressed’ thing at all. In fact, if his facial expressions and body language were anything to go by, it was entirely likely that he was disgusted or even repulsed seeing me in my outfit.
His lips tightened and thinned noticeably in a form of grimace before he shook his head solemnly, leaving us to head back to the kitchen without saying another word.
We all looked at one another, afraid to speak, but just from their expressions I could tell that Chris and Megan were of the same opinion as I: Dad didn’t appear to be happy with what he saw.
I moved towards the kitchen, hearing his and Mum’s voices as I neared.
“What the hell have you done to Jamie?” he demanded.
“Nothing,” Mum replied.
“Nothing? Nothing?,” he demanded, his voice getting louder. “You call that nothing?”
I stayed in the hall slightly back from the doorway and out of their line of sight, but not out of earshot. It’s a bad habit I know, but at the end of the day, they were talking about me and I needed to hear it–well, that’s my excuse anyway.
“Shh!” Mum admonished. “The girls can hear you; maybe even Frank and Deirdre.”
“Sod them!” he replied angrily. “I’m more concerned about what you’ve done to Jamie.”
“I thought we went through all this last night,” she replied pleasantly. “Jamie is staying ’en-femme’ to avoid any unpleasant questions.”
“On what?” he asked. “And what sort of questions?” He sounded incredulous.
“It’s ’en-femme’, not ’on’ and it means as a woman.”
Her reasonable tone sounded dangerous to me, but then it got more business-like.
“You didn’t hear a single word I said last night, did you?” she stated.
I was disappointed that I couldn’t see Dad’s face to see whether he recognised that tone of voice as I did. It meant danger with a capital ‘D’. I know I would have been off down the hall pretty damn quick if that tone had been levelled at me.
There was a slight pause before Dad made any kind of answer. Perhaps he did spot the danger signals.
“I did hear what you said, but I never agreed to any of it. I’ve had a chance to think about it now and I don’t like it.”
“What you mean is that you didn’t listen. You may have heard, but none of it sank in, did it? Now you’ve seen Jamie and suddenly you remember what I was talking about. Well, it’s a bit bloody late now, don’t you think? You should have told me before all the clothes and the hair-do. You didn’t even say anything when I phoned you from the hairdressers, did you?”
“I did say something and you told me you weren’t going to do him up like a dog’s dinner, which is exactly what you did.” he stated, accusingly. “Now look at him. He looks so… so… effeminate.”
“Firstly, I did not ‘do her up like a dog’s dinner’. I have merely allowed her to dress in a style similar to the way the rest of the girls are dressed, nothing more,” she stated primly. “And what’s more, the word is not ‘effeminate’, but ’feminine’ and extremely pretty.”
“Whatever,” Dad spat, obviously not keen on being corrected. “He doesn’t even look like our son anymore. He looks like a girl. It’s not right and it’s stopping; right now!”
“Firstly, of course she looks like a girl. She’s supposed to look like a girl and secondly…”
They didn’t stop there.
Mum argued for and Dad definitely supplied an impassioned argument against.
I think from what I was hearing that Mum was right. Dad rarely listens to any of us. The number of times he’s said “yes dear” to something Mum’s told him and then sworn blind later that she didn’t tell him, is beyond counting.
It appeared as if what she’d said to him about me was no different.
Of course, had he listened to her and not just heard the ‘blah… blah… blah…’, it might have made a difference and this situation may not have gone as far as it did.
Right then though, my focus on Mum and Dad’s argument waned as I started to feel woozy. My head was spinning and their voices sounded as though they were coming from the other end of a long tunnel. Waves of nausea swept over me and I had to lean against the hall wall in order to stay upright.
I don’t know whether it was panic, or whether I was actually ill, but I considered what was going to happen if Dad got his way: Suddenly Jamie would disappear and a rather effeminate-looking boy would take her place. I was sure to be asked questions and the whole sorry episode would come out into the open; out where everyone could see and that would have been news.
I could see it in my mind’s eye; newspaper headlines pointing vitriolic fingers:
“… Parents blamed for young boy’s feminisation…”
My heart sank and with the churning in my stomach, I felt as though I was just about to hit the deck. I just couldn’t seem to do anything. Another wave of nausea swept through me, making me feel as if I was being tossed around indiscriminately on stormy seas, rising and falling, pitching and yawing and stopping me from being able to either think straight or stand straight, with the added delight of impending vomit.
I didn’t feel well at all.
“…this is not up for debate, Gail,” I heard Dad say. “You seem to be taking a great deal of pleasure in feminising our son and I’m buggered if I’m going to let you carry on with it…”
Their voices rose, louder and louder; their shouts more frequent, but at the same time, they sounded to me like they were down that deep, dark tunnel as I became more abstracted, finding my focus slipping as the hallway began spinning, or at least to oscillate; hurtling part way round in one direction then rocking before hurtling back the other.
Meanwhile, the argument continued until I could take no more.
I stumbled into the kitchen. “Stop it, both of you. Just stop, please!” I shouted.
Mum and Dad stopped dead in their tracks and slowly turned to face me.
“If I want to be a girl, I will be a girl and there is nothing either of you can do about it. Right now, I want to stay this way because admitting to Frank, Deirdre and everyone else that I’m not what they think I am is too embarrassing.”
“You’re a boy,” Dad argued, his eyes wide; probably with the shock of me actually standing up for myself, or perhaps simply because I wanted to stay the way I was. “You shouldn’t have been dressed like that in the first place.”
“Maybe, but that’s not what happened, is it? The opposite is actually what happened. Everyone thinks I’m a girl and that’s how I need to stay–at least for the time being.”
“No,” Dad said frowning. “I won’t have my son parading round like a little tart.”
“Derek!” Mum exploded, shocked by Dad’s tone and choice of adjective.
I didn’t have the energy to react to being called a tart or the suggestion that I was ’parading’, although I really wanted to. All I could do was stand my ground; make sure Dad understood that changing back was–to my mind–the wrong thing to do.
“You don’t have to like it, Dad. This is my decision to make, not yours. I think if we change things now, it’ll only make matters worse.”
“Listen James. I’m your father and you are a fourteen year-old boy. Decisions about how you appear in public are mine to make, whether you like it or not.”
“Then why did you wait until now to make this one?” I asked. “You don’t seem to have paid any attention up until now.”
“How dare you,” he growled, raising his hand.
“Derek! Don’t you dare either.” Mum’s face hardened noticeably. “You might want to remember that we make the decisions around here not just you.” She sat back down at the table, picked up the empty coffee cup and groaned, plonking it back on the table and looking up at Dad.
“Don’t you think Jamie has a point? If we make her change back, don’t you think that will attract attention?”
“So?”
“Well what will people think?”
“It’s got bugger-all to do with them. James is our son, not our daughter and that’s all there is to it.”
“Right; so the newspapers, television and radio stations that have all met Jamie won’t be in the least bit surprised. They’re not going to start asking questions, pointing fingers and producing articles about what we did with our son are they?”
Dad just stood there, his mouth agape.
“This isn’t one of those things where you can just change your mind as and when you please, you know. This is the situation and as much as neither of us like what’s happening, we can’t change that. It’s not just the effect it’s having on Jamie, it’s the effect it would have on all of us, Frank and Deirdre included.”
“But––”
“–But nothing, Derek. How many times have you come home complaining that the powers that be don’t know what they’re talking about? How many times have you been disgusted with their lack of understanding of the ’domino principle’ I think you called it. You said you can’t just do this or do that without affecting other things that are already there?
“Now here you are, doing exactly the same thing. You think it would be better for Jamie to disappear and for James to return and everything go back to normal. In an ideal world, that would be the way to go. I and I’m sure James would be right behind you, but this isn’t an ideal world is it?
“This situation’s a real mess. Everything’s tightly intertwined with everything else; knotted together and even if we did unpick this bit, the rest will still be there. It’s not just Jamie or what we think about what he’s doing, but everyone else that have become involved too, like the press or Frank and Deirdre for instance.
“They don’t know James, they only know Jamie–as does everyone else outside our family circle. Frank and Deirdre would probably understand what happened, but the press won’t and who d’you think they’re going to blame?”
Dad muttered something and stormed off, not looking very happy–at all.
Mum let out an explosive breath. “Fuck me that was tiring!” she exclaimed, her head falling forwards into her hands.
“Thanks, Mum,” I said, going round behind her and putting my hand on her shoulder.
“Yes, well don’t get too comfortable,” she said curtly, shrugging away from my touch.
I yanked my hand back like it had just been burnt and tears started to form. She wasn’t being the nice Mum that spoke to me in the paddock, but it almost felt like she was going to accompany that last sentence with “now get out of my sight”.
I made a bee-line for the door, leaving Mum at the table.
“Jamie?”
I didn’t stop to find out what she was going to say, but just pelted down the hallway and into the lounge.
“Hey, there you are,” said Megan, jumping up and running over to me.
I shrugged her off and dropped on chair, pulling my knees up and pushing my face into them, while the others sat or stood, looking wide-eyed at me.
“What’s the matter?” Jess asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, the tears beginning to run down my cheeks. “Mum and Dad just had a ginormous argument and it’s all my fault.”
That was it; the tears ran like rivers, taking my makeup with them–again.
I looked up to see Mum standing at the door. She looked at the three girls and with a simple motion of her head, sent them out and just continued to stand there and look at me.
For some reason, I felt angry. “What?!” I demanded. “Haven’t you ever seen a girl cry before?”
That was Mum’s turn to go wide-eyed and she came to the chair and knelt down in front of it.
“Girl?”
I felt a little silly–well, more than a little actually. Was that a Freudian slip? Was I admitting something; something that Jess and the others had seen all along?
“Oops.”
“No, it’s alright. I’m sorry about back there. I was angry with your father and, to a certain extent, you too. Mind you, I can see what you mean. I’m just a little surprised it’s happened so quickly. I mean it has only been a couple of days, hasn’t it?”
“God, Mum. What’s happening to me?”
Mum looked at me a little strangely and then gave me a cuddle, talking to me as she held me tight.
“I’m not sure, but I don’t think this is something we should rush into,” she said quietly.
“Rush into? Rush into what?”
“Jamie staying around.”
“I don’t want that. I told you. I was talking about all the bloody crying. I can’t seem to stop.”
“Don’t worry about it. Let’s just say I’ll keep Dad off his high horse for the time being. We’ll have to look at what happens after the holiday, after the holiday. Deal?”
I wasn’t sure what she meant, but I figured that anything that prevented arguments and feuds like we’d just been through couldn’t be a bad thing. “Deal.”
She lifted my chin with a curled finger. “What are we going to do with you?” she asked and drew me to her, wrapping her arms around me and making “there, there,” noises as I cried–again.
I’ll tell you what; this bloody emotional stuff doesn’t half take it out of you. By the time I’d finished blubbing, I was knackered.
“Right now, you look a complete state and it looks as though we’re going to be late. Trust your father to start an argument right at the wrong time.”
I stood up and we hugged again.
“It’ll be alright,” she said and with that, went to leave the room.
“Er, exactly where are we going?” I asked, as she was half way through the door.
“It’s a surprise,” Mum replied quickly. “So, just be patient. I have to go get ready.”
Her exit was almost immediately followed by Chris, Megan and Jess filing in.
“What the hell’s going on?” Jess demanded.
“Oh nothing.”
“Don’t ’oh nothing’ me, sis; spill.”
“Dad wanted me to go back to being James and I didn’t want to.”
“Wow,” said Chris. “Does that mean you’re staying as Jamie–like forever?”
“What?! No. No, er, definitely not. It’s just for the holiday. There are too many people involved to stop just like that.”
I was pushed on a chair as Jess got started on fixing my face. “So what about the bit with Mum?” she asked.
“Oh, that,” I said, trying to be evasive. The bit about being Jamie after the holiday was over was a bit of a shock. Mum could see something either I didn’t want to admit or didn’t see. Whatever it was, she didn’t seem particularly shocked by it. “She was just telling me it was just like Dad to start an argument at precisely the wrong time. I’m fine now. I was a little scared for you lot to come back in here and see me though.”
“Scared?” asked Chris. “Why?”
I shrugged. “I thought you’d laugh at me for being such a mess.”
“Are you kidding? You mustn’t be scared of us. We’re your friends.”
“Too right,” added Jess. “You’re one of us now.”
With that, all three of them wrapped their arms round me and I was enveloped in a wave of love. I know it sounds all ’warm and fuzzy’ or better still, ’sweet and sickly’, which even I found made me feel nauseous again it was so damned sweet, but right then and there, it was exactly what I needed.
“Come on then, Sis. Time for your makeover.”
Jess set to work and between the three girls my makeup was reapplied amidst some good-natured ribbing and a lot of ego-massaging. Ten minutes later, I was ready to present to Mum and Dad.
“Your Mum- and Dad-ships. May I present…” Jess said grandiosely and held her hand out and just as I walked in through the door, she announced, “Jamie.” She came and stood next to me, one arm draped about my shoulders.
Mum shook her head with a wry smile, while Dad just gawped at me.
“Come on, Derek,” said Mum.
“But… but… but…” he mumbled, doing a very good impersonation of a motorboat.
“Yes, dear; I know. They could easily be sisters.”
Dad’s face was a picture. We all laughed and he looked suitably sheepish.
I understood why he fought so hard for me to be me and not a strange facsimile of a girl but, bless him, as Mum often said, ‘he’s a brilliant engineer, but not much cop on the people front.’
“Er, before we go,” he said. “I have some bad news.”
You could have heard a pin drop as all five of us turned to face him.
“While I was upstairs, I got a phone call,” he said, his face serious.
“What is it?” asked Mum. “What’s happened?”
“You’re not going to like this, Gail,” he replied, looking at her. “I have to go back to work.”
“No!” Mum exclaimed.
“I’m afraid so. There’s nothing I can do about it. I had a right old go at Jeff, the boss, I can tell you, but the upshot is, I either go back in tomorrow or I lose my job.”
“They can’t do that,” Jess almost shrieked. “Can they?”
“Not really, but there are ways around the law,” Dad said.
Mum’s face had gone from being one of eager anticipation–well she knew where we were going, unlike the rest of us girls–to a bleak and stony expression.
“Derek, this has got to stop. This is the first holiday we’ve had together since you joined that bloody company. Every time you even make a noise about a holiday, something happens and we either have to cancel or the kids and I wind up at Nan’s–without you. This is just absolutely appalling.
“I know, I know,” he said softly. “I’m no happier about it than you are.” He turned to me. “Jamie, I’m sorry. I’ve been insensitive and I wish I’d have installed that filter between brain and mouth. I shouldn’t have said what I said. I’m proud of you; more than you can possibly know.”
“Please, Dad,” I said embarrassed. “You’ll make my makeup run–again.”
“Yeah, Dad,” said Jess. “I’ve already had to fix it twice.”
“And I did it the first time,” Mum said.
He laughed and then we all did.
“Look, I’m really sorry, but I’m going to have to go back to work and try and sort out this problem. If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to come back.”
“But you don’t think you will, do you?”
He didn’t say anything, but reading between the lines, I’m sure Mum knew what he was thinking.
Silence descended and no-one knew quite where to look or what to say. Finally Dad was the one to break it.
“Hey, come on. We’ve still got tonight. Something tells me this is going to be a bit special, so come on; ten-to-two faces and let’s go have ourselves a really good time, shall we?”
We gathered at Deirdre and Frank’s front door and when they came out, it was with very relieved looks.
“We thought you weren’t coming.”
“We nearly didn’t. Our ’heroine’ has just proved she’s human and not a superhero,” said Mum, giving me a sly wink.
“Oh?” Deirdre queried. “She’s alright now, I hope.”
“Oh yes. Perfectly.”
“That’s okay then.”
We walked towards our respective cars without even thinking, but thankfully, Mum’s head was switched on. I think the rest of us were still reeling after Dad’s announcement.
“Someone’s going to have to go with Frank and Deirdre,” she said, turning to face our hosts. “That’s if you wouldn’t mind. The Corsa’s too small for all of us.”
“Of course not, there’s plenty of room in our old jalopy.”
I elected to be the one who travelled with Frank and Deirdre, rather than have the embarrassment of having to have Mum or Dad ’volunteer’ one of us.
“I’m going with Jamie,” said Megan.
“Well, you’re not leaving us behind,” said Jess, grabbing Chris and almost hauling her towards Frank’s Mitsubishi Shogun.
“What’s going on?” asked Dad. Where are they all going?”
“They’ve elected to go with Jamie,” Mum informed him.
“They’ve what? What even Jess?”
“Even Jess. Never mind. I’ll explain it on the way.”
We left Mum and Dad bickering about his work, the weather and just about everything else as we climbed into the Shogun.
“So where are we going?” Jess asked.
“You’ll see,” Deirdre replied as Frank started to pull out of the drive.
The fact that we were all dolled up and didn’t know where we were going just added to the excitement and I for one was pretty tense with wondering what the adults had in store for us.
“So are you all ready for some work tomorrow?” asked Deirdre.
“Don’t know; what you got planned?” I asked.
“Well, the horses need grooming and the stables cleaning. Are you up for it?”
“Definitely,” we said in unison.
I was even more excited by that than the up-coming event. The thought of seeing Valentina was too much of a pull.
“Good,” Deirdre said. “If you’re lucky, we might even get to go for a ride in the afternoon.”
“Oh wow!”
“If you finish in time, that is.”
“We will,” we assured in unison.
Shortly afterwards, we pulled into a car park and got out into the balmy evening air and waited for Mum and Dad to finish parking the Corsa.
“It’s this way,” Frank said, leading off as Deirdre linked her arm through his.
We followed to a large building and were greeted at the door by a man with a clipboard and one of those headphone/microphone things on his head.
“We’ve been expecting you,” he said. “Right this way please. You’re only just in time.”
Then without even looking away from us he added, “They’re just on their way.”
All of us looked at one another as we were led down a long corridor, as the clipboard wielding man kept talking and we never knew whether he was talking to us or to someone in the ether. However, it wasn’t long before we arrived at a couple of rooms, where us girls were whisked into protective gowns and accosted with little brushes. We presumed that Mum, Dad, Frank and Deirdre were getting similar treatment in the next room.
“Just a teeny weeny bit of makeup,” said a very effeminate man, whose name was Noá«l. Although he had us all giggling, he flatly refused tell us what this was all in aid of. Moments later, when our makeup had been applied, we were whisked back out and down another corridor where we rejoined Mum, Dad, Deirdre and Frank in an area where there was a large round, smoke-glass table surrounded by comfortable chairs and sofas.
We were asked to wait. “I won’t be a mo’,” the man with the clip-board said before hurrying off.
Frank didn’t look too pleased having had the makeup treatment. He kept muttering things like, “I’m not a bloody poof,” and the like, while Deirdre kept nudging him in the ribs and telling him to “shush”.
“Everyone has to have it to stop shiny bits affecting the cameras,” she told him.
He didn’t think it was particularly appropriate, huffing, folding his arms and continuing to mutter.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “What is this?”
“It’ll all be explained shortly, I expect,” Mum replied. “Just be patient.”
That was the second time she’d said that. There was something afoot and I was sure I wasn’t going to like it.
Mum and Dad whispered to Deirdre and Frank and the rest of us mostly just looked at the floor as there seemed to be a hush over the place that none of the adults with us wanted to break. All in all, although it was only what turned out to be a few minutes, it was a pretty scary few minutes.
“Would you like to come this way, please,” said the clip-board man, leading us towards a large pair of doors, where a group of people clipped little mics to our clothes, tucking the radio boxes into some rather embarrassing places I can tell you. Once that was done, clipboard man held the door for us and ushered us in.
If I thought the hall was scary, this part was worse. There was a woman talking from behind some screens and she seemed to be addressing a number of people. It sounded a lot like someone taking assembly at school.
’Oh my God,’ I thought, feeling the colour drain from my face. The others looked around equally apprehensive.
“Finally, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce four girls who have gone above and beyond, risking their very lives to save people from that freak mudslide. So without further ado…” said the woman on the stage.
I looked at Jess and the others and all of them had that ’oh, no…’ look on their faces. I knew I was no different and before any of us had the chance to run, the clip-board man was there, practically shoving us towards a stage, where several men with headphones were manoeuvring large studio cameras around, one of which swung round and pointed at us, following us across what appeared to be an acre of space between where we were and a woman, who smiled and clapped as we approached.
Looking to my left, there was what appeared to be terrace after terrace of seats, all of which were filled with people, who appeared to be applauding us with some enthusiasm.
I recognised the woman as Sheila Bright, a well-known talk-show host, but the simple act of walking across that stage, made my knees turn to jelly.
“Firstly, welcome to the show,” she said amiably. “I understand this was a bit of a surprise for some of you.”
“Huh! You can say that again,” Dad muttered, which actually lightened the load on me. I know I shouldn’t take comfort in the discomfort of others, but just knowing that I was as surprised as Dad–even though it was for a different reason–made me feel a lot better.
The rest of the interview was pretty good. After a while, I didn’t even notice the audience. The lights on the stage and the subdued lighting over the audience, made it feel a lot more convivial and most of the time, I didn’t even notice they were there.
“So I understand from the reports that it was you, Jess that got Joe and Martha to safety,” Sheila probed.
“Well, yes,” Jess replied. “But only because Jamie told us what to do. I think we’d have been trapped in our cabin if it hadn’t been for her.”
“So what was Jamie doing while you were getting Martha and Joe back to the house?”
“Getting the cat,” said Megan.
The audience chuckled at that.
“A cat?”
“Well, yes,” I replied. “Martha wouldn’t go unless she had the cat.”
Sheila obviously saw my discomfort at the mention of the cat. “That’s not all is it?”
I looked a little sheepish. “No. Joe warned me about Joey–the cat, calling him a ’flea-bitten rat-bag’.”
More laughs.
“Well, he didn’t seem to appreciate being rescued and sank his claws and teeth into me quite a few times before I got back to the house.”
Again, the audience laughed.
“But I assume you got him to a very grateful Martha?”
“Yes.”
Sheila wrapped things up with a few words to Frank, Deirdre, Mum and Dad, who all expressed how proud they were of us and the audience gave us a hearty round of applause.
At the end of it all, I felt about a hundred feet tall. Jess and the girls made me feel every inch one of their best friends and as for Frank and Deirdre, they made me–well, all of us really–feel like we were family. I didn’t think I was ever going to come down from the cloud I was busy floating on.
Dinner was just as good as the television studios. It was a real restaurant, not some burger or pizza joint, but a real, sit-down-and-be-waited-on job. It was also the first time we had ever been in one quite like that–as a family anyway.
The buzz I think all of us experienced being on a show like that, seemed to spill over to the meal and quite honestly, it was the best thing I had ever eaten and must have cost a fortune.
Frank looked a lot more comfortable since they’d removed the ’silly bloody makeup’ as he put it and kept looking as us girls strangely. It was as if we’d saved his life or something.
“Cliffside’s more than just a holiday park,” he said. “It’s been our home and represents everything we have. We’ve put all our savings and then some into it and had it not been for you people, we would not only have lost the cabins, but Dee’s mum and dad too.
“On top of that, you’ve provided us with much-needed exposure that has put us well and truly on the map. We’ve had more phone calls over the last two days from people wanting to stay with us–thanks to the Cliffside Heroine–than we’ve ever had before. Now if we can just put into operation the ideas that Derek and I have had, I think we can not only recoup our losses, but set ourselves up for the future too.”
He stood up.
“I’d like to propose a toast in thanks to you all,” he said, picking up and raising his glass. “To new beginnings,” he added and we all stood up, raised our glasses and intoned, “New beginnings.”
We sat back down again, well, all except Frank.
Seeing him just standing there, his glass in his hand was something that confused us all as the burble of excited chatter died away and all eyes rested upon the white-haired man stood before us.
“Go on,” said Deirdre, nudging him with her elbow.
“Alright,” he said, looking down at his wife. He cleared his throat.
“Derek,” he said, clearing his throat again, more to cover the fact that he was feeling uncomfortable than because it actually needed clearing. “We heard about work and we also know that you’re not happy about it. I’d just like to express that without you and your skills, I don’t think we’d have managed to get as far as we have. With any luck, we should be up and running again before the end of the season.” He stared at his napkin on the table for a few moments. “Well, what I’m trying to say is, if you want a job, we’d be happy to have you here. It’s not a big place, but it’s big enough for all of us and I know how your girls love the horses and–” His words just seemed to taper off into oblivion as he stood looking expectantly at Dad.
“I don’t know what to say,” Dad replied–a bit misty-eyed too if I wasn’t much mistaken.
I could see Mum’s face too and knew what she was going to suggest he did, but she was sensible enough to let him make up his own mind.
“I’d like nothing more than to just drop everything, but I know, as I’m sure you do, it’s not that simple. Funnily enough, my family gave me a big object lesson earlier about how simple things aren’t. This may seem like I’m trying to avoid an answer, but can I think about it? I don’t want to jump into anything just yet.”
“Of course,” Frank beamed, sitting down, raising his glass and saying, “Cheers!”
We all raised our glasses, smiling and chorusing with our own response of cheers.
The rest of the dinner was just a complete buzz of excited chatter and expectation, but there in the midst of it was sadness too.
“That means that if your Dad says yes to Frank, that’ll mean we won’t ever see either of you again,” said Chris.
“Don’t be silly. You’d be welcome anytime, I’m sure. Isn’t that right Jamie?”
“Oh yes–both of you.”
It seemed to allay their fears, but I knew we’d have to wait and see about that.
I couldn’t help thinking how appropriate it all was.
Whether I stayed as Jamie or not, I hoped that this was going to be the beginning of something good.
If Dad accepted Frank’s offer, that would mean I’d never have to miss Valentina or anything else about this place. Dad would never have to worry about holidays and his work calling him back half way through his one and only break in over six years, but more importantly, no longer was I going to be the one that everyone picked on, that everyone blamed. It would be a new beginning and who could have guessed it would take a mudslide to do it?
In the next chapter: Valentina
We were promised a ride on the horses–if we finished in time. This was to provide more excitement than I thought I could handle…
We were promised a ride on the horses–if we finished in time. This was to provide more excitement than I ever thought I could handle…
With heartfelt thanks to Gabi for all the hard work she’s put in editing these chapters–thanks girly.
On the way home from the restaurant, I have to admit to being a little distracted.
Every time I thought about being at Cliffside as Jamie–with all the love and respect I was getting–I could only feel a sense of loathing towards the other me and his life.
I knew it would mean starting afresh, starting a new school, but Jamie could do that. James was much more introverted–in every way much less outgoing and in my opinion, it was doubtful that Jamie would have any trouble whatsoever.
“I said, what d’you reckon?” asked Megan, irritably.
“What?”
“Weren’t you listening to anything I said?” she demanded.
“I’m sorry. I was miles away,” I said, smiling apologetically and whilst it was dark in the back of the Shogun, I was sure I saw a frown on Megan’s face and that wasn’t good. “What was it you said?”
“Doesn’t matter,” she muttered, shaking her head. “You’re obviously not interested. You’ve obviously got much more interesting things to think about.”
I tried to get her to tell me what was troubling her, but without success. I didn’t get another peep out of her.
When we got out of the cars back at Cliffside, she simply went straight to Mum, Dad, Frank and Deirdre. She said, “Goodnight and thanks for a really nice evening,” stuck her nose in the air and strode past me as if I wasn’t there at all.
Chris, looking more than a little bemused by Megan’s behaviour, bid us a hurried “goodnight” and followed after her, leaving the four adults, Jess and myself, standing outside on the driveway in the twilight.
“We’d best leave you all to it. You will at least consider my offer, won’t you?” Frank asked, before taking Deirdre’s hand to lead her into the house.
“I will, Frank, and thanks for everything.”
With everyone else gone, Mum, Dad, Jess and I, stood in awkward silence for a few moments.
“I’m going to be leaving really early in the morning,” Dad said, breaking the silence. “So I’ll say goodbye now.”
“You’re not taking Frank’s job offer then?” Jess asked.
“I haven’t decided and even if I had, I still have to go to work tomorrow or I might lose more than a few hours pay.”
She threw her arms round him and hugged him. “It would be nice if you did take it. I mean, we’d get to see an awful lot more of you, but whatever you choose,” she told him and let go, standing back.
I stayed where I was for a moment before almost launching myself at him, teary-eyed and hugging him as tight as I could. “I’m sorry for everything, Dad and I hope you can finish in time to come back.”
He didn’t respond for what felt like ages, but then I felt his arms squeeze, tighter and tighter, holding me close and it was one of the nicest feelings I’d felt for a long time.
“So do I, Squirt. So do I.”
The next day things were a tad strained.
For a start I had a dream during the night and whilst most of it is a bit fuzzy, the gist was that I was at school, standing very close to another boy. That was a little disturbing as I wasn’t dressed as Jamie, but as James.
I was trembling and I could feel the tears beginning to trace those irregular patterns down my cheeks as he stood gazing directly at me. He wasn’t going to hit me, he was trying to comfort me and all I wanted to do was to hold him, or rather, for him to hold me.
“Why do you keep on pretending?” he asked. “You’re not a boy are you?”
I didn’t answer, just shrugged and looked up at him.
“So why don’t you just come clean and be what you really are. You know, I knew you weren’t really a boy right from the start. You’re way too pretty.”
With that, he bent to kiss me and as his face got closer my head began spinning like a top.
“I’m not a girl,” I kept telling myself. “I am a boy.”
The thought of Megan came to mind and that first kiss I shared with her; that kiss so chaste and yet at the same time, so powerful. That was what I wanted wasn’t it? Not a kiss with that… that… boy?
Just then, I didn’t know.
I didn’t even know his name, although I knew I knew him and the feeling of the closeness; the anticipation of our lips meeting, soft and gentle…
I wanted to feel him take me in his arms and hold me tight, but most importantly, to kiss me.
I woke up at that point, feeling scared–very scared, my whole body trembling and not in a good way either.
Lying there with the sound of the early morning birdsong for company, I wondered whether that nightmare had been more than a dream; whether it was a portent of what would become of me, but it couldn’t have been.
Awake and rapidly regaining my faculties, the thought of kissing that boy made me feel physically sick to my stomach.
I got up and put on some clothes, trying to shake off the thought of my wanting to kiss another boy, before pulling a clean thong up my legs and tucking what little I had away as best I could.
Was it getting smaller?
I pulled the thong back down again and it did seem smaller.
I thought so anyway.
Was just pretending to be a girl causing me to change sex–?
That couldn’t be the case could it––?
Were it that easy, there would be no reason for transsexuals to have ’the operation’, would there? God, if that’s all there was to it, there would be some pretty freaked-out people about; especially those who weren’t expecting it. I giggled to myself as I thought of a boy having to wear his sister’s pyjamas for some reason and waking up the next morning sans willy.
What I was considering seemed so absurd, but my willy really did seem smaller and I had to have another look.
Pulling it out from between my legs, I peered at it inquisitively. I couldn’t really tell whether it was smaller or not. Probably not actually. I must have just been imagining things.
It couldn’t have got any smaller could it?
I tucked it away again, finished dressing then crept out of the caravan and tip-toed along to the main house, letting myself into the kitchen quietly.
“You’re up early,” Deirdre observed.
I froze, wondering what to say. I couldn’t tell Deirdre about the dream, could I? That would have given the game away. I thought quickly and came up with something I thought would explain my early arrival.
“I know. I was just excited at the prospect of getting to see Valentina again today and, well, you know, hopeful that Dad will take the job.”
I lied–well not entirely. I was excited about getting to see Valentina again and I was excited about the possibility of Dad taking Frank’s offer.
“I shouldn’t get your hopes up too high. He hasn’t agreed yet, has he?” she pointed out as she slapped several rashers of bacon on the grill pan and slid it under the grill.
“I know,” I said resignedly, sitting at the table.
I was well into my breakfast and feeling much better when the girls arrived. The dream I decided, was just that–a dream. There’s never anything to them is there? It was possible that it was simply a result of appearing to everyone as a girl and aren’t girls expected to have boyfriends?
Anyway, it wasn’t real and by the second rasher of bacon, a slice of toast and some of Deirdre’s excellent tea, I’d put it behind me.
“Morning,” I said brightly.
My enthusiasm wasn’t exactly reciprocated; all I got was a couple of yawn-stifled “mornin’” kind of replies from Jess and Chris, but not a peep out of Megan.
“You alright?” I asked her.
“Fine!” she replied, curtly.
I blinked and kept my mouth shut from that point on. I just hoped that some explanation would come out pretty soon as the longer Megan remained silent, the more I wanted to know what it was that was eating her.
“You ready?” Deirdre asked once Jess had finished the last of her mug of tea.
“And waiting,” I responded, eagerly. The others didn’t seem to be as enthusiastic and with another chorus of mutters, muffled by yawns and stretches, we followed Deirdre outside.
Once we got to the stables, I went straight to Valentina–which was no real surprise, only this time, the black looks, cold shoulder treatment and mutters of disapproval came from Megan.
What had I done or said to make her so awful to me?
She made me feel as if I was with a completely different person than the one at the TV studios and restaurant. I couldn’t understand it at all.
I went and picked up some hay to take into the stall and she was there, bashing my shoulder with hers as we passed one another. I know I’m a boy and I’m supposed to shrug that sort of thing off, but I’m not exactly meaty and it actually hurt.
“What’s going on?” I asked, but just at that moment, Deirdre came in and Megan just turned away, bashing me yet again. I took my bundle of hay and did what was necessary, my anger and frustration rising. I mean I wouldn’t have minded had it not been for the fact that a few hours ago, she was practically swearing undying love and now she didn’t appear to be able to stand the sight of me.
“Yes,” said Deirdre, looking concerned. “What is going on?”
“Nothing,” I answered quickly, hoping that a flat denial might head off any further questions that could prevent us from going out on the horses.
“Good,” she responded in a business-like manner. “I wouldn’t like to think I couldn’t trust you to behave yourselves while we’re out.”
“You mean we’re going out?”
She nodded.
“On the horses?” I pressed.
“No,” she said, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. “I’ve got us pogo sticks. Yes of course on the horses.” She looked at each of us, as by then, Chris and Jess had come out of their stables and were standing with Megan and I. “You’re not wearing boots or shoes with heels–which I would recommend, but since we’re not going to be doing anything flamboyant, you should be fine–but remember to be careful.”
“But Jamie’s never been on a horse,” said Megan, who got a sharp dig in the ribs from Chris for her trouble.
“OW!”
“I thought your parents said you all rode horses. Oh well, never mind. We’re just going to take them for a gentle walk–for the most part anyway. I’m sure Valentina will be perfectly alright with Jamie.”
Now many of you may feel that Valentina, being so big, would not have been the wisest choice and believe me, I was scared silly at the thought of getting on her back–it being so far up and all–but as Deirdre said, since she had taken such a shine to me, it was likely she’d be no bother.
Nevertheless, the others weren’t so pleased at the prospect of a pedestrian pace and showed their displeasure, scowling at me as Deirdre helped me up into the saddle, grabbing my ankle as I slipped and looked as though I was going to go straight over the other side–much to their amusement.
I’ll tell you one thing: once I was on, it looked a hell of a lot further down than it did looking up!
With the others mounted, we headed out of the yard, the sun beating down and the horses’ hooves crunching in the gravel. Just before we got to the road, Deirdre made a sharp right into the trees along a narrow path. She moved aside and allowed the girls and I to pass and Valentina immediately took point, with Deirdre bringing up the rear.
We rode the horses at a walk through what looked like something out of Robin Hood or something, heading away from Cliffside in glorious dappled shade that after a few hundred yards began sloping downwards. I have to say though; my image of the woods was slightly marred by the almost constant giggling coming from behind me.
“Don’t stick your elbows out, just relax,” Deirdre said from the back of the line. “Remember, heels down and grip with your knees.”
This brought forth peals of laughter and calls of, “Oh why did you tell her,” and “It was better when she looked like a spastic,” from the girls.
I had no idea what I looked like until then and once I did, I understood why Jess and the others had been laughing so much.
“Stop that!!” I yelled, turning and giving them my best Paddington hard stare, which just made them laugh harder. Even Deirdre was trying to stifle a laugh.
For what seemed like ages, we plodded through the trees, winding this way and that, the ground getting steeper as we went until the trees parted and we sat upon our mounts, overlooking a huge expanse of grass that just seemed to roll on for ever.
“The beach is just down at the bottom there,” Deirdre said, pointing her finger at a speck in the distance. It’s pretty safe round here, so if you want to give your horses a run, feel free, but please be careful. ”
I’d been happy enough plodding, but as soon as Jess kicked her heels into the flanks of her horse and streaked off down the hill with a delighted squeal, Chris and Megan followed suit, hurtling after her–squealing equally as loud.
Only trouble was, Valentina got the idea what they were doing was fun–all that screaming and laughing and before Deirdre or I could do anything to stop her, she was flying along with me bouncing painfully up and down in the saddle, yelling at her to stop as I pulled on the reins, doing my best to sound authoritative and failing miserably.
The feeling was akin to going really quickly down Bostal hill on my mountain bike. It’s a very rough and very steep path that heads down from Truleigh Hill; a favourite haunt for BMX and mountain bike riders–though unsurprisingly, some don’t make it all the way to the bottom, or if they do, they’re rarely attached to the bike or the right way up when they get there.
However, the moment I started thinking ’mountain bike’ and stood up in the stirrups, things got a lot easier. Her movements were not entirely unlike those of the bike and all I had to do was keep my knees slightly bent and welded to her ribs, keep balanced and hang on.
I got the hang of that bit and thereafter, I was surprised at how easy it was, although much of that was probably down to the fact that Valentina liked me and was making it fairly uncomplicated.
After a little while of hurtling round the huge field, I noticed that Deirdre had not joined us and was sat on her horse, looking out over the sea. I cantered back up the hill to Deirdre.
“You alright?” I asked.
“I’m fine thank you. I usually come here to think and just get away from it all. There’s been a lot happening and I needed to be on my own.”
“But you aren’t on your own. We’re here.”
“Not all the time. Mostly you’ve been horsing around down the bottom of the hill.” She looked at me, her expression probing. “You sure you’ve never ridden before?” she asked.
“First time,” I said, the grin threatening to split my face in half.
She shook her head. “You really are going to tell me how you do that.”
“If I knew, I would,” I told her with a giggle.
“Well don’t go getting overconfident will you?”
“I won’t,” I assured her and kicking Valentina’s flanks with my heels, we headed back down the hill, the wind in my hair and the sun on my face.
I swear I could have stayed on that horse all damned day. It was the most exciting thing I’d ever done. Hurtling across the grass, feeling Valentina bunch and stretch as she covered the ground between us and the girls effortlessly, was so exhilarating that I didn’t even think about the safety aspect, I just wanted to carry on doing what I was doing.
The girls were a long way galloping around, so I decided to try and catch up with them, which appeared to be a simply to let Valentina go for it. Once again, with the wind in my face and the feeling of a live animal under me was just so intoxicating.
I eventually caught them as they pulled up to rest.
“Wow!” I gasped. “I can’t imagine why I haven’t tried this before.”
“You’re doing really well,” said Chris. “Better than expected–much.”
“Yeah,” Jess echoed. “Nice one.”
“Huh!” Megan snorted. “You call that doing well? Elbows sticking out like wings; it’s a wonder he didn’t take off. That’s not doing well.”
“Megan!” said Jess. “That was uncalled for. It’s her first time, give her a break.”
“What? He’s been on a horse for five minutes and already he thinks he’s the Lone Ranger.”
“I never said that,” I replied, noticing that Megan had reverted to calling me a ‘he’. God, she must have been really pissed-off with me.
“That’s what you’re thinking though isn’t it?” she said. “Just like you think you’re all that with your big fake boobs and everyone thinking you’re so goody-goody.”
Jess and Chris gasped, cringing and looking wide-eyed at their companion while I felt that almost ubiquitous lump in my throat; that seemingly ever-present prelude to the tears.
“Look Megan, I don’t know what I’ve done, but I surely didn’t deserve that.”
“That’s right,” said Jess. “What’s got into you?”
“What do you care? He’s your brother and you’re bound to protect him aren’t you? Never mind that he’s just as big a shit as any other boy–regardless of what he looks like.”
With that, she wheeled her horse round and took off, leaving the three of us staring at her; mouths agape, totally dumbfounded.
I couldn’t let this go on any longer. I hadn’t asked for any of this and whilst there were aspects that appealed to me about being Jamie, this wasn’t something of my choosing; not something I was doing for me and she knew that. For her to suddenly do a complete one-eighty and get all bitchy was completely uncalled for.
I took off after her, thumping my heels into Valentina’s flanks and getting a rather startled whinny from her as she reared up and bolted.
I was alright to begin with. To me, it was like riding a bike. Once you got the hang, you didn’t even think about it. Anyway, I’d done fine up till then and the only thing on my mind was trying to talk to Megan and straighten things out, but almost instantly, things began going pear-shaped.
Valentina went off like the clappers and it was all I could do to hang on. Suddenly the exhilaration I felt beforehand was now plain, simple panic, as whatever I took to being a gallop before was nothing compared to what the big grey mare was doing right then. She was going so fast I couldn’t keep my balance and then everything seemed to slow down–at least that’s how it felt.
I could feel myself slipping as I was being thrown around and as much as I tried to remember to grip with my knees, my heels down, the rattling I was getting on Valentina’s back just didn’t lend itself to clarity of thought.
I felt my left foot slip through the stirrup and with nothing to brace myself on that side, I began sliding round. Each time I tried with all my strength to right myself, she bunched and stretched, launching herself forward in pursuit of Megan and I slipped back to where I came from, only further.
I could see Deirdre through the blur, as she started down the slope towards me–at least I think that’s what I saw and I also think I saw Megan looking behind her at the idiot sticking out sideways from Valentina’s flanks.
My hands were sore and beginning to cramp from trying to grip the reins with all my might; my thighs and calf muscles not far behind. I thought by being a keen cyclist, I would have no problem with the ‘heels down, grip with the knees’ thing, but it seems that however much you use your muscles, using them a different way puts strains on you wouldn’t necessarily expect.
I could feel my fingertips becoming numb and could see how white my knuckles were as I hung on for what felt like hours, swinging and constantly bashing against Valentina’s ribs and shoulder. How I had managed to hang on as long as I had was a mystery.
Then it happened.
I felt the leather reins slipping from my grasp and I redoubled my efforts to hang on until Valentina decided it was time to stop, but I couldn’t and let go, seeing the last fraction of an inch, flapping about in mid air–not between my fingers as it should have been.
If I thought the last bit was in slow motion, the next bit felt like ’stop motion’ and from the corner of my eye, I could see the long strands of Valentina’s mane as it rose and fell with her movements, strong enough for me to grip on to and hopefully right myself, but it was just fractionally out of reach.
Wheeling my arms, I tried with one last ditch effort to grab something else, anything to prevent me from falling off and it was at that point that I realised that I hadn’t completely lost contact.
My foot remained through the stirrup and as I fell, I got a severe jerk on my foot as the stirrup strap pulled taught and my entire weight was suddenly hanging from my ankle, jerked with every movement Valentina made. My face contorted with the sudden rush of pain and I felt my body twist. Suddenly, I was looking back at Jess and Chris who were trying to catch up.
I could see the looks of concern and fear that were obvious on their faces as they shouted something, but I couldn’t make out whether it was at each other, Megan, Deirdre or me.
It was a weird sensation–one I wouldn’t recommend–especially since it was accompanied by a blinding flash of light, which occurred about the same time as my head hit the ground.
After that, everything went black.
The first thing I noticed when I came to was there was no pain. There was some discomfort, but it wasn’t pain.
There was no grass either. In fact, there was none of that horse-cum-hay-cum-straw-cum-sea smell I remembered. That had all been replaced by one of antiseptic. I knew that smell after so many bumps and grazes on my knees, but what was it doing here?
I moved my hand, noticing almost immediately the taught skin across its back and something hard underneath.
I opened my eyes to find myself in what appeared to be a hospital room. I raised my hand and saw tubes coming from needles poked in under sticking plaster. In the background, I heard the sound of soft-soled shoes squeak, squeak, squeaking as they passed my door and as I continued to think and to listen, I noticed many more.
The only other place I had known that squeaking sound to happen with such regularity was in a library.
Well, the bed, the tubes, the smell–ah yes, the smell. Libraries didn’t have that smell. They smelt kind of papery, leathery and like furniture polish, not like this and anyway, how many libraries had beds in?
Yep; it certainly looked like a hospital room. At least that explained that bit, however, where was everyone?
I was trying to figure out the passage of the time, but found that although I could remember the accident and everything before it, I had no idea how long ago that had been. To me it seemed like it had just happened and that there had been no break at all between the accident and when I woke up.
I knew there must have been some time since it happened, because of the lack of people around me. Even if they only allowed family in to visit, Jess was missing and I’m sure Mum would have pitched up at some point. With tubes sticking out here and there, she was sure to have been worried and probably would have stayed far longer than the doctors thought she ought.
It kind of pointed to the possibility that I may have been there for some time–some considerable time. I felt very lonely at that moment and pulled the covers up, fighting back sniffles.
If where and how I found myself right then wasn’t bad enough, as I pulled on the sheet, I discovered that my boobs had been removed. I felt a distinct feeling of regret; a profound sense of loss.
I know it sounds ridiculous to hope that trained doctors and nurses wouldn’t have noticed that the two rubber blobs stuck to my chest weren’t real, but that’s what I did, just for a moment anyway, wishing they had left them where they were and that I could have said goodbye to Jamie the way I wanted to, in my own time.
However, gone they were and I was left feeling pretty despondent. I pulled the bed clothes up even further, trying to hide from…whoever–whatever, but trying nonetheless.
I was surprised–no, shocked at how I felt about giving up being Jamie. I imagined that she would just slip away like James did, I mean, she’d only been around for a week, hadn’t she? I imagined too, how all the old James-isms would return and I’d have to say goodbye to the treatment I’d begun getting used to as well.
God that was sooo depressing.
A nurse walked into the room with the almost obligatory squeaky shoes.
I have a theory about them: They are worn for two reasons. The first is plain comfort and the second is so they can’t sneak up on patients unawares. They can be heard coming along an entire corridor, so people get fair warning that they’re on their way.
The thought made me giggle–out loud too.
The nurse gave a bit of a start.
“Oh,” she said, her eyebrows raised and her eyes wide. “I’m sorry I wasn’t expecting… Um, I’d better get the doctor.”
I grinned and she smiled back as she did an about turn and headed out, the tempo of the squeaks doubling.
A thought occurred to me.
I had giggled.
I know; so what?
But it was a giggle, not a laugh.
James laughed–often too hard at things that weren’t that funny and it dawned on me there and then, that giggling was natural for me, laughing like a bloke wasn’t. Oh sure, I laughed, but when things weren’t particularly funny or just something a bit private to chuckle over, I giggled.
A few moments later, the doctor came in.
She was nice and I noticed how when she saw me, she seemed a little surprised.
“How are you?” she asked with a smile.
“A bit confused and upset,” I answered. “Where’s my mum?”
“Ah,” she replied, nodding sagely. “There was always a risk of you coming to before she got back. What say we get some tests and things out of the way first; then I can go give her a ring and we can have a bit of a chat? There’s quite a lot to talk about, you know.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“I’m afraid I can’t say–not without your parents here. They made me agree to wait.”
“So you’re not going to tell me?”
“Er,” she said rubbing her chin and looking heavenwards. Then after a pause, she shook her head and said, “No,” quite emphatically.
I giggled again and smiled, feeling a little better as this doctor really had a way of putting me at my ease. Nevertheless, I still had no idea how long I’d been there or what they’d done.
I just had to wait.
After the doctor had gone, my mind went back to the fact I had giggled–twice.
Why?
Because, that was pure Jamie.
James would never have giggled. He was very cautious not to give the other boys–or girls for that matter–any reason to pick on him. James giggling was totally out of the question.
That development was a real revelation. To me, it meant that the reason being Jamie came so easy was because I was Jamie.
James just wasn’t me at all.
James was a pain all the time. I felt that trying to do things the way others expected was difficult and as I’ve said many times, being Jamie was easy on me.
I realised that I hadn’t actually been taking on the affectations of a girl to be Jamie at all, but dropping what I had been doing to be James, which proved to me that it was James who was the imposter; the charade.
I WAS Jamie and I’d never felt better.
The question now was how I went about telling everyone that I wasn’t James, that I was Jamie and wanted to stay that way.
Oh I knew that they’d try and talk me out of it. I knew they’d try and tell me that it had only been a week; too short a time to have made a decision that would affect the rest of my life, yet I knew Jamie was who I was and I couldn’t wait to tell everyone.
The excitement rose, feeling like I was on the back of Valentina again with the wind in my face and the sensation of her bunching and stretching as she flew across the ground. I felt the butterflies fluttering about inside, that feeling like going over a roller-coaster, turning my insides up-side down.
I spent the next forty minutes just staring at the ceiling, but then a familiar voice came at me like a bullet.
“Jamie, Jamie, we thought we’d lost you!” shrieked Jess, landing on the side of the bed and engulfing me in a hug.
“Careful there Jess,” Mum said cautioning Jess not to be quite so exuberant. She came over and gave me a hug too. “How are you?”
“I’m fine–least I think I am. There was some doctor in here a while ago and she seemed to think there was a lot to talk about, but she wouldn’t because you and Dad weren’t here. So now you are; why am I here?”
“That was a nasty accident you had on–or rather off–Valentina. You got kicked pretty badly.”
“Kicked?” I asked. “I thought I just bumped my head.”
“Well, stomped on would be more accurate,” Jess clarified. “At first, yes, it was just a bump.” She looked very serious suddenly. “But when your foot came free of the stirrup, you rolled under her hooves and got stomped.”
“Wow. I never knew.”
“Probably just as well.”
Both Mum and Jess had serious expressions and I figured it was just the pain of reliving that accident with Valentina. I was glad I wasn’t awake when it happened. Getting clonked on the old noodle was bad enough.
“So how long have I been here, because I have no idea whatsoever?”
When I came to think about it, I didn’t know where I was and I sort of thought that I was at our local hospital, but then if that was the case, why hadn’t the girls come to see me?
Mum looked like she was about to answer at least about the time thing, but the door opened and in walked Dad.
“Wotcha, Squirt,” he said, his big beaming grin lighting up his face. “We thought you were gone for good.”
“Derek!” Mum said brusquely.
“Ah!” said Dad, blushing furiously and turning to Mum. “You haven’t told–” he said covering his mouth–badly and pointing repeatedly in my direction. “Have you?”
Mum rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“Told me?” I quizzed, screwing my face up. “Told me what? I’m not stupid you know. I might have had a bump on the head, but I haven’t lost all my faculties.”
“Sorry sweetheart,” he replied apologetically.
“Derek!” Mum hissed.
So what was going on? There was something these people weren’t telling me and where were Megan and Chris?
Before either of us could get anything out, in walked the doctor whom I’d seen briefly earlier.
“Mr and Mrs Powers. Thank you so much for coming so quickly.”
“Thank you for getting back to us.”
“No problem. Would you mind coming with me. I have some questions for you.”
“Certainly, doctor,” Dad replied. “Jess, you don’t mind staying here do you?”
“I’ll be fine, Dad,” she told him with a sigh.
“Remember what we talked about?”
“Yessss, Mu-uum,” she said, closing her eyes, her face downcast.
While they were gone, Jess filled me in on what happened to Chris and Megan.
“They had to go home,” she said. “Megan was beside herself. She’s blamed herself for what happened to you.”
“It wasn’t her fault. It was me,” I said, sounding shocked.
“That’s what Mum said too–after Deirdre told her what had happened. Mum told Megan not to be so silly and to stop being so selfish, that it wasn’t your fault that things were happening.”
“So why was she being such a bitch?”
“She knew if Dad took Frank’s job offer that you’d have to stop seeing her–well, you would have, wouldn’t you?”
“Yeah, but–”
“Yeah, well, she decided she’d make it easy for you to hate her.”
“But I didn’t hate her, I mean I don’t–I couldn’t.”
“I know and so does she. Your chasing her on Valentina sort of proved that, which is why she blamed herself.”
“So is she; I mean, are they going to come and see me?”
“I don’t think they can get time off.”
“Oh.”
I was disappointed. I would have thought that either one or the other, if not both would at least have popped in to say hello or something.
“So what else is new?” I asked.
Jess looked thoughtful and I wondered whether that was likely to encroach upon one of those subjects she and Mum had talked about. I wondered too whether I should tell her what I had decided, but before I could say anything, Mum, Dad and the doctor returned.
“Hi, Squirt,” Dad said quickly, which probably meant he felt uncomfortable.
“Is someone going to tell me what’s happening?”
“Okay,” said the doctor. “You were admitted nearly seven weeks ago–”
“Seven weeks?” I demanded. “What the hell’s been going on?”
“I’ll get to that–IF you’ll let me finish.”
“Sorry.”
“That’s alright. Seven weeks ago–give or take anyway, you were brought in unconscious with head injuries and one other injury where, as your sister told you, you’d been trampled by a horse.”
“Stomped,” I corrected. “By Valentina.”
“Right. Well, when we examined you, we discovered that the damage was pretty severe–severe enough to warrant surgery. It was then we discovered that it was likely you had undescended testes.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that your testicles hadn’t dropped from inside your abdominal cavity into your scrotum. When we investigated further, we discovered that you didn’t have any at all.”
I was shocked to say the least.
“We did some exploratory ’keyhole’ surgery and discovered that not only did you not have testes, but you did have something else we weren’t expecting: a complete set of female reproductive organs–underdeveloped, but there nonetheless.”
“You mean, I’ve got girly bits inside me?”
“Well, I wasn’t going to put it quite like that, but that’s approximately what it amounts to, yes.”
“So I’m a girl?”
“Mostly, yes.”
I thought about this and tried to let it sink in, but I couldn’t quite get my head round it.
“What does that mean?”
“Well, owing to the damage the horse caused, we were either going to have to operate and remove your penis or repair it–as far as we could. We could have tried the repair, but you probably weren’t going to be able to use it for sexual relations afterwards. So we spoke to your parents about the likelihood of your internal organs developing and the dangers and–”
“You made me into a girl?”
“Yes. We started you on HRT to try and kick start your apparently dormant reproductive organs and with the surgery, we performed, you should start developing as you should have done to begin with in no time. The preliminary results are very encouraging. You won’t even have to use a stent either, as the plumbing has just been a case of rerouting, not reassignment.”
“Stent?” I asked.
“It’s a sort of torpedo-shaped thing in a variety of sizes to stretch your–” she must have seen my look of bewilderment. “Never mind, you won’t need them anyway,” she said.
I looked at Jess, who shrugged and Mum tried to look away.
“This issue of your innards may also explain why you didn’t hit puberty and I suspect there have been other things that you have been worried about that hadn’t happened or had happened as well–”
“Such as?” I asked.
“Emotions can run quite high in a girl of your age for instance, but hopefully, we caught you in time and can set you off down the right track from here. The final thing is that due to the medical condition we found you in, there was obviously a mistake back down the line and as a result, we have been able to correct your birth certificate from male to female, which should counteract any suggestion that you’re anything but a girl.”
“So you turned me into a girl?” I asked again, but it was just my mouth making sounds.
At that instant, I couldn’t stop the tears. They just flooded out and as soon as I began to cry, Mum sat beside me, trying to console me.
“We knew it was going to be hard on you–” she said soothingly.
“Hard?” I asked. “It’s not hard, it’s fantastic!”
“What?” she asked, sitting up straight, looking at me wide-eyed and shocked. “I thought–”
“That I didn’t want to stay a girl? That I wanted to go back to being James? No way. There’s a reason I found being Jamie so easy–I was supposed to be Jamie all along, that’s why. I knew it.”
“So you don’t mind?”
“Mind? I’ve been trying to work out how I was going to tell you that I wasn’t going back to being James practically since I woke up. It’s brilliant news.”
“You mean you’re not upset?”
“Far from it,” I said, the smile widening as Jess leapt at me again and engulfed me with more hugs and tears of her own.
“I only wish more people this sort of thing happens to would take it so well,” said the doctor.
My bits were all but healed and very odd. I’d never seen a girl’s bits before and this was something of a revelation.
“How am I supposed to pee?” I asked when the doctor came to examine me and remove my catheter.
“You sit down.”
“Ah, right. Got it.”
It may seem like teaching your granny to suck eggs, but don’t forget I’d never had to do any of that stuff before.
Standing in front of a mirror later, I can’t say as I was overly impressed. There was little to see–especially in the breast area. I guessed I’d have to wait till I got home before I could examine myself properly, but what I did see in that area was that my own breasts had begun to stick out a little more and were sort of conical with rather sensitive nipples.
Very sensitive.
I considered them and concluded that they were going to take some getting used to.
A few days later, I was ready to go home.
I had assumed that because Dad had been visiting regularly with Mum and Jess, we’d moved back to our area and I’d been transferred to our local hospital. I knew the holiday was long since over and while I never got to go to Aston Park, it had given me something I never knew I wanted, as well as managing to bring Jess and I together in a way I never thought possible.
“You ready, Squirt?” Dad asked.
“I think so,” I replied, scanning the room for anything I may have left–not that there was much in the first place.
“I just wanted to say goodbye,” said a familiar voice and I turned to see the doctor. “You will come back and see me if you have any problems, won’t you?”
I had developed quite a soft spot for her. I know I should have been outraged at losing my masculinity and being turned into a girl, but let’s face it, there wasn’t much there in the first place now was there? Not only that, the discovery that I should have been a girl all along was for me, and that’s what I’d become was just the icing on the cake.
“I will and thanks.”
We hugged and the doctor shook Dad’s hand. I was sure Dad gave her a look–a look of resignation. I’m not sure he viewed the prospect of two daughters with quite the enthusiasm I thought he should have.
Outside, things didn’t look at all familiar.
“Where are we?” I asked, giving Dad the evil eye. “Is there something you haven’t told me?”
“Just wait,” he said, cryptically.
We drove for about twenty minutes and I began seeing things I thought I recognised, but due my time in hospital and the bang on the head, I couldn’t quite work out whether what I was seeing was from our home town or from holiday.
The further we went, the less I recognised and in the end I confronted Dad.
“Okay, this is not the way home. At first I thought it was the bump on the head, but now I’m sure of it. This is not the way home.”
“It is now,” Dad replied, the grin on his face unmistakable.
“You took Frank’s offer?”
“I did. I had a blazing row with the boss of my old job and told him to stuff it. Our first holiday in God knows how long and when I got there, I discovered the problem could have been fixed by anyone and then when I put that right, I got the phone call from your mum to tell me you’d had an accident and the boss said I was just trying to wriggle out of my responsibilities. I realised then that you, Jess and Mum were my responsibilities and told him to stick his job up his arse–but don’t tell Mum I told you that.”
That was another one of those things that made me giggle and Dad turned to me and grinned some more.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Dad so happy. The money’s a lot less than he’s used to, but he says that Mum was all for the move. He said that she had never said anything before, but wasn’t happy with the amount of time he spent away from home and I can’t say I disagree.
Jess and I were both enrolled at a new school and whilst we don’t get to see Chris or Megan, we’re still friends. I managed to smooth things over with Megan–by email of course–and finally she accepted that my accident wasn’t her fault. Once I explained that medically it was the best thing that could have happened as it could have been dangerous, that was enough for her to calm down.
For once, Jess and I were on equal footings at school. Our being ’almost’ identical twins stood us in good stead, with the Cliffside Heroine thing getting us in with all the right people. It’s the first time I’ve been to school and not been bullied, made fun of or anything. In fact, I’m quite popular actually.
We got new jobs too, which are fantastic. We got to work in the stables with Valentina and the other horses at the weekends with Deirdre, Frank, Mum and Dad and now the new cabins have been built, plumbed and wired, the place is ready to go. Thanks largely to the media exposure I got after the mudslide thing, they’re fully booked–despite the season coming to an end soon.
Just as a final surprise, the weekend before Jess and I started our new school, Mum and Dad took us to Aston Park. Thanks to having been in the papers, we got preferential treatment, which meant not having to queue. Jess was nearly sick on one of the rides, but being about as stubborn as a mule, she managed not to actually hurl, although she did get off at the other end as white as a sheet.
And, just to iron out whether the HRT worked, I had my first period about six months after getting home, which shocked and confused the hell out of me–and one or two members of the family too. No wonder I’d been bitchy for the week beforehand.
I don’t think Jess realised what the medical stuff actually meant and I know Dad didn’t, but there it was, large as life and twice as bad as anything that had happened before–including the accident, but that’s just one more thing I’ve got to look forward to–sorry, get used to.
Just as a final thought: I still find it hard to believe the whole thing was due to accidents. Okay, I said it was an accident at the beginning of this little tale, but instead, it was actually a series of three.
The first happened before I was born and the other two happened during the holiday, which just goes to illustrate the fact that sometimes the universe does use some pretty weird methods to straighten out its problems, doesn’t it?