Fancy Dress day - Chapter 3

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"No," said Ms. Charthers, then lowered her voice. "Look, what's your name? Look, Eddie, I think this is a bit stupid, but if Nigel's making a thing of it, I'm not going to talk him around. If you get changed to show willingness and put some effort into my class, I'm not going to show you up in front of anyone.

OK?"

"OK," said Eddie, still not happy, but seeing that maybe Ms Charthers didn't like Mr Blackwell either. He took the bundle of clothes.

"Get on with it, I don't want to hold up the lesson."

She left him in the musty room. Eddie separated out the clothes. The T-shirt looked just like his normal one, but blue rather than green as it was for a different house. He pulled off the cardigan and blouse and put the T-shirt on. What he thought was a short, black skirt wasn't quite that. It had a divider in the middle but still had pleats, so it was a combination of shorts and a skirt. It had an elasticated waist, so it was easy to put on.

Eddie pulled his shoes and the long socks off, Ms. Charthers hadn't given him any socks, but he knew the girls didn't wear their normal ones in PE. He thought about it, quite a few of the girls didn't wear any socks or wore little ones you couldn't see. He pulled the plimsolls she'd given him on, they were so loose they fell off his feet as soon as he took a step. A quick search of the lost property found him some smaller ones and he pulled them on. He'd rather wear his trainers but didn't want to upset her, or worse, Mr Blackwell.

The plimsolls felt odd without socks, but not too bad. He left Claire's clothes on top of his bag in the corner of the room, hoping no one would think they were lost property, and put them away. One PE group was already in the hall, shouting at each other, he headed outside to the tarmac area they used for tennis, netball, and some other games. The weird shorts felt a bit strange, but not as bad as the skirt did, at least he didn't have to worry about anyone looking up at them if he fell over.

He found Ms. Charthers, she'd already started splitting the girls into smaller groups for their netball games. A few of the girls giggled as he approached.

"All, Eddie, good," she looked him up and down and nodded. "Now, who shall I put you with?"

"Uh, not us!" Sally muttered loudly, pouting her bottom lip out.

Eddie looked down at his feet, hurt that the girl he liked so much was rejecting him. Did she think he was wearing the girl's PE kit because he wanted to? She hadn't been around when Mr. Blackwell had stopped him in the corridor.

"OK, this group," said Ms. Charthers, pointing at the group Sally was in. Eddie gave her a confused look but hurried over to join them when the teacher glared at him.

Eddie couldn't look at Sally as the teacher assigned the remaining girls to the smaller groups. Was he wrong about her? She always seemed so nice. She'd said recently she'd like to have him around to her house, but her mum was funny about who visited. Maybe she'd been stringing him along?

"Right girls," Ms Charthers said loudly, stopped, looked at Eddie, then shook her head and kept going. "Get a ball and choose a court. Split each of your groups into two teams and start your game when I blow my whistle. When I blow again, the swap ends. Go!"

The girls filed down the pitch, breaking off at one of the "courts", which were moveable netball hoops, placed at regular intervals. Sally had grabbed a netball and she spoke first.

"I'll be a team leader. Who wants to be the other one?"

Michelle did, they stepped apart and started choosing team members. Eddie looked at his plimsolls again, he was sure to be picked last. At least in the boy's games, he usually got picked about halfway through the group as he wasn't bad at sport but wasn't in with any of the boys who played all the time.

"Brooke," said Michelle, Brooke jumped over to her friend, smiling.

"Eddie," said Sally with a smile.

Eddie looked up, more confused than ever. Sally beckoned him over while Michelle picked again. Eddie didn't have a chance to talk to Sally until they'd made all their picks.

"I thought you didn't want me in your group?" He said quietly as they walked to their end of the court.

Sally rolled her eyes. "Reverse psychology," she told him in a tone that said it should be obvious. "Char was never going to put you in my group if I wanted you in it. So I had to make out it would be the worst thing in the world."

She reached out and gave his arm a quick squeeze. "Do you know how to play netball?"

"Uh, no. We've done a bit of basketball."

"OK, try not to get in our way, and watch out for Brooke, she's pretty clumsy."

They grouped together and the girls started discussing who was going to take what position. Eddie was immediately lost. He looked around the group and realized only one of the girls was his size, all of the others were much taller. He knew this was normal, lots of the girls in his year were tall but his mum had said he'd catch up over time. It didn't make it any less daunting in a game where height was an advantage. Michelle's group all seemed to be tall, apart from Sara, who was short but looked like she could break him in two.

"Eddie, you go over there," Sally's finger sketched a circle, "and try and get the ball if they go that way."

Eddie obediently went where Sally had pointed and tried to work out the rules as the game began. Anyone who had the ball had to stand still and pass the ball to one of their teammates. There was something to do with positions that he couldn't work out, but it seemed to cause lots of arguments.

Suddenly, the ball was coming straight at his face. He caught it by reflex, then stood confused for a moment.

"To me, to me!" called Kinza. Eddie threw it, then realized as it left his hands that Kinza was on the other side.

"Sorry!"

Luckily, Kinza missed her shot on goal and Hani got the ball and passed it forward to Sally. The next time it came his way, Sara intercepted at the last moment and barrelled into him as she came to a stop. Eddie felt the wind get knocked out of him, but managed to stay on his feet.

"Are you alright?" Sally asked as a few of the girls argued about whether it was a foul or not.

Eddie nodded, trying to catch his breath. Shook his head when she asked if it was a foul. He didn't want to look like he was a pushover to the other girls. The game continued while he recovered, but the ball stayed near Michelle's goal for most of the rest of the time.

Ms Charthers blew her whistle and they swapped ends, not that it made a lot of difference. Eddie started to get used to how the ball was thrown around and managed to make a couple of good catches and passes, one of which Sally converted into a goal. The team had started to soften to him by the time another whistle sounded and they had to do some shooting exercises.

"You're getting the hang of it," said Sally in a pleased tone as they headed over to the teacher.

"Thanks. It's a lot more, violent than I thought."

"That's just Sara and Michelle, they're a bad combination."

While they stood and listened to what they should do next, Sally caught hold of Eddie's hand, making sure Ms. Charthers couldn't see, and gave it a quick squeeze. Eddie barely heard what they were being told to do, all of his concentration was on her soft touch.

He blundered through the shooting exercises, getting corrected for being wrong on every turn he took. Several of the girls laughed at him when he tried to use one hand to shoot at the basket instead of two, it was hard to do the exact opposite of what he'd been taught in basketball.

More running around and more practice games followed. Eddie was puffed out when the lesson finished, his chest still a little sore from Sara banging into him. Ms Charthers gave him the job of collecting the balls up and taking them inside, they were stored just outside the teacher's office.

There was no one in the office, so Eddie slipped through to the lost property area. No one had touched his things and he quickly changed back into Claire's uniform, then tried to remember where the teacher had got the PE clothes from. It took a little while to find what he thought were the right places.

Outside he could hear the rest of the pupils in his year filing out for break time. He paused until it had gone quiet, not wanting to bump into Craig or one of the other bullies. One break, then one lesson to go. He could get through this.

Ms. Charthers came into the office as he was leaving through it. She looked into the lost property area and saw he'd put the clothes away, giving him an approving nod.

"I don't think you're quite ready for the school netball team yet," she said with a smile.

"Definitely not!" Eddie agreed.

"Get a move on," she whispered. "Nigel's coming, and someone hit him in the head with a tennis ball, so he's not in the best of moods."

"Thanks," Eddie whispered back, jumping for the door.

Mr. Blackwell wasn't in the corridor, but Sally was, leaning against the wall in her sparkly Union Jack dress.

"Oh, uh, hi," said Eddie, coming to a halt. "I, I need to get out of here, Blac-knot's got it in for me today."

Sally pushed herself off the wall and they headed for the exit. Eddie heard Mr. Blackwell stomping up the corridor just as they reached the door and yanked it open quickly. They walked companionably to the main building.

"I'll be glad when today's over," said Eddie with feeling.

"I think it's been really good," said Sally, giving him a smile. She was even taller than in PE as she was wearing chunky shoes with a tall, blocky heels, something that wouldn't be allowed any other day at school.

"Well, you would, you look amazing in that dress, whereas I look stupid in this," Eddie picked at the skirt.

"You look very cute," said Sally with a broader smile. "Was your mum OK with you wearing that? Mine really didn't like this," she stroked her hand down the close-fitting dress and Eddie almost fell over his own feet.

"Uh, Mum doesn't know. I forgot it was Children in Need Day today," he filled her in on his morning.

"Oh, that's really cool of Claire," said Sally. "So, you two hang out quite a lot, don't you."

"Yeah," Eddie nodded. "We're cousins, so we see each other loads. It's kind of like having a sister, but, I dunno, I get on better with her than I do with my brother."

"Oh, you're cousins?" Sally looked surprised and relieved. "You're not..." She faded off.

"Not what?"

"It doesn't matter," they came up to the side of the main building and Sally noticed one of the benches surrounding it was free and pointed. "Let's grab that one."

Eddie sat on the bench, remembering to smooth the skirt under his legs as he sat down, which Sally also did, although her dress was so tight it wasn't really necessary. She looked through her bag as they chatted about their families. She pulled a hairbrush out from the depths.

"Your cousins are in Portugal? That must be cool, do you see them on holiday?"

"Yeah, we usually go over at Easter," Sally beckoned him closer. "Just hold still a minute, let me sort out your hair."

She ran her brush through Eddie's hair, getting him to move around occasionally so she could reach all of it. First through normally, then underneath the longer parts, twisting the brush. After a minute, she sat back and regarded him.

"OK, that's much better. That's been annoying me all day. No, don't mess it up."

Eddie had reached up to feel his hair but put his hand down as she spoke. "Uh, thanks, I guess." The bell rang. Sally reached out and gave his arm another quick squeeze. "Only one lesson to go," said Eddie with satisfaction. "Yeah, I guess," Sally sounded a bit disappointed.

They trooped up a flight of stairs to the room where they had Humanities. Sally split off to sit with Freeya, and Eddie went to sit with Tom, who he knew wouldn't give him any grief.

Ms. Waters bustled in and laid her notes out on the table in front of the board, reminding herself where they'd got to in the previous lesson.

"Well now, what wonderful costumes you all have," she said by way of introduction. "It's nice to see we're all raising money today."

"Not Edwina, Miss, she doesn't have a costume on!" Craig called out. Karen and a couple of his friends sniggered from the back of the class.

Ms. Waters looked around the class in mild confusion.

"He means me, Ms. Waters," said Eddie in a flat voice as her eyes reached him, he waved a little, the cuff of the cardigan half covering his hand.

"Ah!" Ms. Waters looked at Eddie for a few seconds, taking in both his clothes and his expression.

"Edwina's been a naughty girl, forgetting her costume," put in Karen, rather more weakly.

Ms. Waters gave a snort, looked down, and closed her notebook. She looked up, her eyes glowing. "Well, let's have a brief change of topic. Craig, Karen, can you join me at the front, please."

There was some subdued sniggering as chairs scraped back and the two pupils joined their teacher. Craig tried to swagger, but Eddie could tell he wasn't feeling as confident as he was trying to make out. Ms. Waters arranged for them to look out at the class.

"So, basic gender identity signs. Craig here is a?" Craig looked at their teacher in confusion. "What's your costume?" Ms. Waters asked more quietly. Craig looked down at his jeans, heavy metal t-shirt, and ripped shirt as if it was obvious. "I'm... I'm a rebel, Miss."

"Ah, generic rebel without a cause, eh? I see Blue jeans and a blue shirt, do you like blue?" Craig nodded. "Manly color, do you think?" Another more confident nod.

"Hmm," Ms. Waters passed on to Karen, who was dressed in a pink cheerleader's dress, with a white face and very dark patches under her eyes.

"Zombie cheerleader," said Karen proudly. "Except I've lost my pom-pom."

"What a shame, was it pink too?" Ms. Waters sounded innocent, but Eddie suspected this was a trap.

"Yeah, pink and fluffy. I think I left it in PE."

"So, can either of you answer me, why you are wearing such strange colors?"

Both Craig and Karen gave their teacher confused looks.

"I say again, why, Craig, are you wearing blue, a girl's color? And Karen, if you wish to look feminine, why are you wearing pink, traditionally a boy's color?"

Confusion rippled through the class, apart from Sally, who was looking smug.

"But, it's not?" Craig now sounded quite unsure.

"Can anyone tell me when pink started to become seen as a girl's color?" Ms. Waters looked out at the class, sure she wasn't going to receive an answer from the pupils standing next to her. Sally's hand immediately went up. "1940s!"

Ms Waters nodded. "Close enough. Before the Second World War, boys often wore pink, a watered-down red, the most masculine of colors. Blue would not have been seen as particularly manly. Going back further, men of the court, that is, very wealthy men, landowners, would be wearing tights and breeches, they wouldn't be seen dead in trousers." She smiled at Craig and made as if to pull at the leg of his jeans. "You don't have any tights on under there, do you, Craig?"

"No!" sniggers came up from the room as Craig backed away from his teacher.

"And when rich boys were young, they would often be wearing dresses until, well, not much younger than you all are," her eyes are almost dancing with amusement as she turned to Craig again. "Any dresses when you were a baby? No? Sadly, not rich enough?" Ms. Waters waited a moment for his answer, her head cocked. "Now, you think dresses are only for girls, yes?"

"Yes!" Craig felt on firmer ground now.

"Well, your great-great-great-great-great grandfathers, and you had many of them, were bound to have worn dresses when they were young, at least some of them. Now, we can tell it didn't hold them back in the manliness department, can't we?"

"Um, What?" Craig looked very lost again, and from her vague look, Karen had stopped listening and was just waiting for this strange conversation to end.

"Well, you're here, aren't you young man? If you thought wearing a dress or skirt for a while somehow permanently made you a girl, your great-to-the-uppity grandfathers wouldn't have met your similarly great-to-the-uppity grandmothers and made sweet love, would they? Hmm? And you would not exist." There were general groans from the class at the idea of very elderly couples being intimate.

Craig stared at his teacher, not quite sure what was going on.