I had worked from home all day in case I’d have to go to my children’s school urgently so when the school bus stopped on the street I could see my son running to our house, sweep up the door and dash up the stairs with his modest skirt flapping and tears ruining his makeup. Then I heard his bedroom door bang shut.
I turned to my daughter who had traversed the distance to the house in a more leisurely pace.
”The experiment was not a success?”
”You could say that.”
Being a lone mother raising two kids is not easy, especially when you try to continue your own career. At least we didn’t want for money. That was one of the reasons I had accepted the promotion that required me to move to a new town. Not that the move itself was bad in any way. The town was much nicer than I had expected and the local high school excellent. However, it wasn’t easy for my children to move to a new school. You’d expect that it would have been toughest for my daughter who started her senior year in completely new environment without her old friends. Not at all. Eve has a knack of making a place for herself whatever the circumstances. She was soon one of the popular girls. Cheerleader and all that. The boys buzzed around her as flies around sugar. She had the very handsome student council president in her sights.
The problem was my son. A sophomore he didn’t fit in at all. No friends, not noticed by the teachers, no sporting achievements, no nothing. He wasn’t bullied. It was much, much worse than that. He was completely ignored. Ignored by his fellow students, ignored by the teachers, ignored by other staff. Tom actually wanted to be bullied. At least someone would have cared even if it was in a negative way. His sister was not really a help. She’s two years older and a girl. They didn’t move in the same circles. Eve likes her brother in an absentminded way but to tell the truth she’s rather self-centred.
At first Tom’s problems surprised me because he’s really a fun and bright kid and in his old school with his old friends there never was a problem. I admit he’s not jock material but apart from that he has so much to offer. The only thing is that in this new environment he completely shut down. He raised walls around himself. He sent out vibes telling others to keep away. A mouse would be more noticeable. Tom was aware of all that but even when he tried to do something about it he failed. And now half-way through the semester the pattern was so set that it would take something really spectacular to break through. That’s why he came up with this scheme. He decided to go to school dressed as a girl.
I thought it was a stupid idea. Eve thought it was a stupid idea. Tom won. He persuaded us it couldn’t get worse (well, I wasn’t convinced but I did give in). He planned it all very carefully. He got Eve to help him with makeup and what clothes to get. He was adamant that he didn’t want to be over-the-top. That wasn’t his style. A modish sophomore girl. Nice blouse, elegant skirt, pantyhose, shoes with a moderate heel. He even got Eve to spend hours helping him with movements and manners. I? I had to cough up the money and it was also I who got him an appointment at my salon early in the morning of the experiment.
“What happened? Did they bully him already in the bus?” I asked my daughter
“No, there was no reaction there”
“So it was when you got to school that it all began?”
“No, the only people to speak to him before class was the vice principal and the student council president. Those two know EVERYONE in school and thought Tom was a new student.”
“So when did it start?”
“Mom, you don’t understand! It was much worse than that”
“Eh?”
“They STILL completely ignored him!”
Oh my! I was about to go up to console my poor boy when the door-bell rang. When I opened the door the very handsome student council president stood there with a goofy smile and a bunch of roses. That was the final straw. I knew that Eve had been working to snare him for months but why did he have to come THIS day of all days!
“I’ll get Eve for you”
“Excuse me Ms Wilson, but I’m here for your other ... child.”
Oh my!
I called upstairs
“Tom, come down at once. Don’t change. Just come down”
Then I saw Eve in the doorway. I had forgotten all about her. In her face I saw how devastated she was.
Then she forced a smile and gave a thumbs-up sign.
This is one of my rare sequels. Quite obviously it’s a sequel to Mousy Trap, well, sort of.
However, it can read as a stand-alone story.
I’m Jane. I don’t fit in. I’m a girl despite what I look like. I’m weird. I’m a tomboy, a terrible one. I’m an outsider.
And that was already before we moved and I had to change schools before my sophomore year in high school.
That’s how I presented myself the first day in the new high school
So we moved to this new town. My parents got new friends at once. So did my twin big brothers, Dick and Harry, and I mean BIG brothers. Think heavy football player. Think stereotypical dumb jock and you had their looks. Strike the ”dumb” part and you had them. I like my brothers. I do. Nonetheless I blame them for what I am. I mean how could a dainty girl avoid getting fucked-up in such a testosterone-laden environment? My only problem with them then was that they wanted to help me. I could have done without their and my parents’ nagging.
Yes, I was a tomboy. A sorry excuse for one. Tall but not really strong. A very good basketball player in my old school though. Not that that would be of any use in my new school. No girls’ basketball team. Play with the boys? I’m a GIRL! I’d never fit in. I could never fit in. The best I could do was blend in. I did my best.
Even if I tried to do my best I was thrown when the background I tried to blend in with changed unexpectedly. The first day in my new school I came dressed as I used to in my old school. I emulated the mainstream male dress there. Here? I stood out as a slob. Well-cared slacks and shirts all around me. Mostly on males, but not exclusively by any means. Skirts and dresses were abundant as well. Then I started to understand what my parents’ and my brothers’ friends had told me. This school was different and it all was due to “Tomboy”. This mythical Tomboy appeared to be in on everything. Student council president, cheerleader, this committee, that committee. From what I had heard she had changed the school completely in a couple of years. If I were to believe the talk the only thing she lacked was a visible halo. It made me puke. I can’t stand goody-two-shoes.
I couldn’t wait to meet this Tomboy. How would she present? Boyish of course but probably not the rough-and-tumble type to judge from the people around me. I didn’t have to wait long. After lunch I had Fashion class. Yes, I told you I was mixed-up didn’t I? I mean I’m a committed tomboy and I’m obsessed by female fashion. I’m so into it, and skilled, that I had been stuffed into the seniors’ class. Tomboy was not at all what I had expected. Why the hell did they call her Tomboy? If anything she was the embodiment of femininity. Strong confident yet graceful. Not like me, a girl but far from feminine.
Tomboy intrigued me so I started to ask around. The more I learnt the more confused I got. I had expected her to be some kind of dictator in training. Instead I found that she worked by “nudging” people. Make them come out of their shells and make a difference. The prime example was the cheerleading squad. She could easily have been the captain but she persuaded a shy girl to take the role and the rest of the squad to go along. Now no one could imagine anyone else as head cheerleader. The closer I looked the more instances of the same pattern I could detect. Tomboy didn’t make things happen, she made people make things happen. She approved of people that made an effort both scholastically and athletically. Apparently she was a basketball fanatic but didn’t play herself (duh, no girls’team).
I learnt that she used to have a boyfriend, the previous student council president, but that they had drifted apart and decided to be just friends in the last summer. Long distance relationships are difficult and Cambridge is far away. Why? I had asked not unreasonably since my new town was only a couple of hours away from Boston and to the north of it. Well, it turned out that I hadn’t got it right. The Cambridge in question was in England, Europe.
I was confused. I found it hard to understand the whole thing. I found it irritating. As it turned out I had got things really wrong. On the Friday it all came to a head. It started innocently by us making sketches of dresses that we might sew. Tomboy looked at mine and complimented me. That wasn’t anything new. She had helped a few times as well. So far so good but then she had to add that she was surprised a boy had such a feeling for dresses. That was it.
I screamed at her: “Shut up Tomboy! I’m NOT a boy, I’m a GIRL!”
And then I ran away.
When I talked to one of the other girls later she told me I had got one thing wrong. I had called her Tomboy.
I: “Why? Everyone calls her that.”
Girl: “No we call her Tom boy.”
I: “That’s what I said. Tomboy.”
Girl: “No, Tom space boy. That’s who he is. People started to call him that as a “clarifying” joke”
I: “He?”
Girl: “Well, legally. Tom used to be this mouse that no one noticed and then one day he came to school dressed as a girl and the student council president noticed him/her. He fell in love with her and the butterfly emerged.”
That was the point where everything tumbled down and I just sat there sobbing when I finally let it all out.
When I got home I got hold of my mother
“Mom, tomorrow we are going to buy me some nice slacks and some classy shirts. I need to get a haircut. Better get a suit as well. And a tie or two. And you can get me those counseling sessions you have been nagging me about.”
And then I shouted to my brothers
“Dick, Harry. Get yourself out here I need to hone my basketball skills. There are tryouts on Monday”
“Why? There’s no girls’ team” was the response.
“Good thing since it makes everything easier.”
“Boys, do as Jane says. Someone has finally opened the closet door” (Mom)
Wide smiles spread over my brothers’ faces and they thundered upstairs to get their stuff.
“Hurry up you lugs. Your little brother has a student council president to seduce!” I called after them.
This is the third and last of three connected stories begun in ”Mousy Trap”.
I was riding my bike along the creek close to our new house. I really wished that I could get a new bicycle but Father had this rule that for anything non-essential, but that he approved of, I had to pay half. That was about the only thing that had remained the same since that drunk driver had smashed into the driver’s side of my parents’ car. My mother passed away minutes later. Both Father and I had been devastated. I had never been close to Father but we drifted further apart. We tried to go on but at last we both realized that we couldn’t stay in that town. Too much reminded us of HER.
We moved to a new place. New town, new house, new job for Father, new school for me. I was a bit nervous about starting a new high school as a sophomore in a few days. Not that I had had many friends in my old school but not knowing anybody was a bit daunting.
Recently I had prioritized a new computer. I could have waited for another two years until Father had decided it was essential for me to have a new computer but I had wanted the better performance now so I was stuck with this old bike. I was riding on a path along the creek. The creek was struggling to perform its duty to lead away the water from the heavy rainfall the last days. In front I could see that a pond had emerged where a culvert under a road had insufficient capacity. A boy, around 6 I guessed, was playing alone there. I don’t know exactly how it happened but there he suddenly was in the water being dragged to the culvert that now was below surface. I managed to get to him in time and up on land. Now the difficult part started. How to calm him down, how to make sure that he’d be more aware of risks in the future and how to handle those while at the same time not crushing his sense of adventure, curiosity and all that. I think I sat there for almost an hour talking with the boy. I have to admit it made me feel better as well. Perhaps for the first time since I lost Mum I felt good.
My problem was not only losing Mum. I had come out to her only a few days before the accident and she had handled my revelation that I’m really a girl and not a boy very well. I had been reluctant to tell Father but Mum had persuaded me. We had planned to do that the night of the accident. Now – there was no way I’d approach Father about this. He hurt too much. I couldn’t add this as well. Besides, as I said we weren’t really that close.
My new high school surprised me. People were friendly even to a new kid. Politeness and respect among people. Both ways between teachers and students. No graffiti, no vandalism. Most amazing of all there were practically no bullying. I soon learned it something to do with the former and present student council presidents. Strangely enough they were known as Tom Boy and Jane Girl. Not Tomboy and Janegirl. Jane Girl was nominally a girl named Jane but in real life was very masculine and the star of the basketball team. Not captain, he preferred to make room for others to develop, as had Tom Boy. Everyone told me how great he was and how much the school owed to him and Tom Boy.
Keeping a low profile was easy, I thought. I didn’t want to be bothered and signaled that and people respected that. I didn’t want to get involved in anything. I had enough problems as it was. My grief for Mum was eating at me. At times I thought to come out to Father only to reject the idea a few minutes later. I was not a happy camper. Not that it was obvious to other people. I did fairly well in school. I didn’t cause any problems. I participated in sports and other activities to the minimum expected. I became the perfect mouse.
However, mice can get into everywhere and be unnoticed. One day I overheard a girl that had some problem. I realized I could help her and did so without anyone noticing. It felt good, just like with the little boy at the creek. Every now and then occasions like that turned up. On one occasion a poor kid who had had his bike stolen somehow found himself the unexpected owner of my old bike at a bargain price. I had managed to save up for half a new bike and since Father approved that I got a new bike... As I said, I acted on those occasions, always making sure no one suspected me. I wanted no one to intrude on MY problems.
One lunch break nearing Christmas I was surprised to notice that my privacy at the small table I usually had to myself was invaded by Jane Girl. I asked him what he wanted. I was shocked by the answer
“I intend to groom you”
Was the school hero some kind of pedophile?
“Got your attention didn’t I?”
He smiled and continued
“I intend to groom you to be the next student council president”
I was shocked. Why me? He couldn’t have chosen anyone worse for the job. And the arrogance to think that the position was his to give away!
Half an hour later he had convinced me. He had got me to realize that the present state of the school wasn’t a given and could deteriorate quickly without “Maintenance”. Jane Girl was happy that the real heavy work had been done by Tom Boy but there was continuous work needed. People that had to be nudged a bit to realize their potential, teachers that needed to be reminded not to abuse students and so on and on. The Principal was an ally but that was not enough. Tom Boy and Jane Girl had shown how much of a difference the student council president could make. Jane Girl was worried about who would come after her.
I had wondered “why me?” It turned out he had observed the incident at the creek, especially the talk I had with the boy where I hadn’t tried to quash his spirit. He had also noted that the day after there was a grid over the culvert opening. My innocent pleasures at school hadn’t gone unnoticed either. How naive I had been to believe that! And then he gave me the final shock
“There is another thing. If I’m right I’d like you to be my date at the prom.”
“I have to clear that with Father.”
That night at home I entered Father’s study with trepidation. As usual he was sitting there reading a newspaper in dead-tree format. He seldom lowered the newspaper even when speaking with me.
“Father, I have been asked to the Prom”
“O tempora, O mores. When I was your age it was the boys who asked the girls. Who is the lucky girl?”
“It’s the student council president”
“Funny, I thought that was a boy”
“He is, Father. I will have to get a prom dress”
For once Father lowered the newspaper and looked VERY carefully at me. Then he raised the paper again.
“I’ll pay half”