Chapter 9

At Friday morning’s swim practice, the coach spent the first hour having the team doing wind sprints and then began organizing the team relays for the various events and ran several relay heats for the kids to get the timings of their starting dives down pat.

Today Roger had remembered to bring a snack with him; he was eating an energy bar as he entered his home room classroom about ten minutes late.

“Any announcements?” he whispered to Ayame.

“Just about the swim meet tonight,” she answered. “You really wanted to know if there was anything about the Program, right?” she grinned at him.

“How’d you guess?” he winked back at her.

Throughout the morning’s class changes, the twins saw that the mood of the students had become very relaxed and the few students participating in the Program were walking openly visible to people outside of their shielding groups; it was clear that many of the kids in those groups had become fast friends because many were holding hands, despite the rules about “public displays of affection.”

At lunch, the twins’ table was once again sought out by the Program kids having lunch that period.

“Hi, guys,” Cynthia said as a few naked kids arrived at their table. “I guess we’re the magnet for the naked ones. I’ll bet you can’t wait for this day to be over.”

“No shit,” Dennis said. “I’m finally a little more relaxed about the nudity, but, hell, a sudden noise and I’m still jumping out of my skin. I just hope nothing happens so I can get outta here in one piece today.”

“How are you feeling today, Sandra?” Roger asked.

“Yeah, that Valium is a wonder drug. I’m soooo spaced out. Mom says that she thinks the dose was too much but I don’t give a damn. The only problem is I can’t concentrate and have no idea what’s happening in my classes.”

Melanie looked concerned. “Sandra, that’s not good! Will you be able to stop taking that after today?”

“Oh, yeah. But Mom said she wants me to go for counseling for a little while longer. She’s afraid I might get PTSD over this week. You know, that post-something stress.”

Tony, one of the other boys who had been quiet the last few days, spoke.

“Yeah, traumatic. Definitely. This was traumatic for me. I was really shy; that’s why my folks thought the Program would be good for me. It wasn’t. I just hate this walking around naked. I still don’t see the point. I don’t need to jerk off in class. I’m glad I didn’t have to put on a show for anyone or let perverts play with my body, like that would teach me about sexuality? Seeing naked girls is nice but I’m embarrassed for them. I’m just so glad this shit is about over and I’ll never have to worry about it again. Melanie, I’ll bet you’re glad you stayed with it, right?”

“Yeah, I guess. I was so freaked on Wednesday! Thanks, everyone, for supporting me to get past these last two days. And I did make a few good friends too, people who I know care for me and about how I feel. That’s the only good thing I got from this experience.”

Ayame spoke then. “Cindy, tell them what you heard about that other school.”

“Oh, right. Last night my brother and Ayame were talking about not knowing anything about how the Program runs in other places. Our psych teacher said she’s heard stories about kids having bad experiences but when I tried to search on the web, there was nothing.”

“Yeah,” Dennis said, “I looked too. Someone on one site said that the feds shut down all those discussions, but I don’t see how they could do that.”

Cynthia went on, “I did find a girl on Facepage and had to prove who I was to her. Then I was able to find out a little about her school. They seem to have the Program running there without doing a lot of humiliating stuff but she said that other schools she’s heard about encourage big-time humiliation in the Program. I wish there were a way to know more so we know if our school is like any others.”

“I wonder if the teachers know any more,” mused Melanie.

“Yeah, like they would tell us anything,” Tony said in disgust.

“Well, some of them—one anyway—seemed to be open about not liking some Program stuff,” Roger said. “She said they have to follow the fed’s Program curriculum, so maybe if they don’t, they could get in trouble.”

“So I wonder what’ll happen to the kids who got picked this week who didn’t participate,” Melanie said. “There were supposed to be 24 kids. There are six here and I’ve seen three more, maybe four...”

Dennis put in, “There are ten in all.”

“Okay, so ten. That means fourteen refused,” she continued.

Roger laughed. “Yeah, and two of them are sitting right here with you guys. I heard that two of the others are Marine family kids and their dads are getting transferred, so they’re withdrawing from school early to move to their new homes. I wonder what the story is with the others, somehow they found a way to refuse too,” he finished.

Soon the lunch period ended and the group wished each other good luck to the end of the school day.

“I doubt anyone plans to come to tonight’s swim meet,” Roger said. “I don’t think you’d want to have to be naked one minute longer than you need to, right?”

He got a hearty agreement from everyone.

After school, the team members needed to check in with the swimming coach, so Roger stopped by the pool before he went home. Since this match was just a scrimmage between three schools, its results wouldn’t count in school standings, but the coach stressed that the team still needed to put out their best effort and swim as if the meet counted. He went over the final lineups and then sent the students home.

Later, the entire Denison family went to the swimming meet and a number of their parents’ friends attended too. Roger’s team did fairly well on the boys’ side, winning top places in most individual categories but they were weaker in the relays because of two early-start disqualifications. However, their strong individual performances helped in the overall point totals and they won the meet, but by only five points. The girls’ team also took their first place, but by a wider margin.

After the meet, Cynthia was talking to Roger about what she and Ayame had discovered about several of the “missing” Program students from that week.

“We were talking to some kids from Central Hills. They don’t have the Program there and I heard that a few kids, four of them, transferred there from our school. One girl works in their office and heard them talking about switching schools to avoid the Program.”

“Well, that’s interesting. I guess Central Hills will probably be starting the Program after the summer, so I wonder if they’ll have anywhere else to run away to then,” Roger said. “I’d hate to uproot myself to switch schools over something dumb like that. It’s been bad enough having to go to six schools while we were growing up whenever Dad got a new assignment.”

“Maybe they won’t have the Program there at all. I think that it’s a private school. Somewhere I heard that only public schools are covered by the Program’s Social Awareness law.”

“You’re right,” Roger said. “I heard that too. Well, to avoid doing the Program, looks like you need to be from a military family or have enough money to pay for school. What a great way to show equality for us kids, right? Some can get out easily and others not.”

It was Saturday morning and the Denisons were getting ready for the formation on the base where the twins would be recognized. Sgt Denison had already left early to prepare, and now the rest of the family was ready to leave.

Soon they arrived near the parade grounds and parked. An MP officer checked their IDs and told them to go to a tent set up near the entrance to the seating area.

“Ladies, sir, I was told that you’re the guests of the general. The officer in the tent there will show you where to go.”

They were taken to a section of the viewing stands; it contained about thirty seats and was centered on and elevated above the seating area and overlooked the field. It was surrounded by a low wooden railing.

“Mrs Denison, Miss and Mr Denison, you and your guest may sit here. General Markus will be here in about ten minutes,” the officer said. “The general will want Miss and Mr Denison to sit with him in those seats right there just before the review begins. The band will play the National Anthem, I’m sure that you know the proper way to salute with your right hand over your heart. Then the general will give a brief speech and the two of you will stand next to him as the troops pass. You salute the colors when they pass, hand over heart. Then each passing unit will present arms as they pass; the general will salute them but as civilians, it’s perfectly appropriate to acknowledge that salute with an upraised hand-wave.”

Soon Markus appeared and greeted the Denisons.

“I’m honored to meet you folks,” he said. “Master Gunney Denison is one of the most respected men under my command and I know how proud of you two he’s been. You both bring very great honor to the entire Marine Corps family with your accomplishments and we’re so pleased we can honor and recognize you today.”

“Thank you, sir.” the twins chorused.

Soon the ceremony began with the command sergeant major calling the troop formations to attention. Then the National Anthem was played and the general spoke briefly about some of the Pendleton units’ recent accomplishments, the deployments, and reassigned units. Then he turned to the Denison twins, had them stand by his side, and spoke about their judo championships and gave a brief history of the Denison family’s Marine career and their work in community services. Then it was time for the troops to pass in review.

After the formation was over, General Markus sat in one of the seats and asked the twins to sit too.

“So I understand you two were the leaders in the school’s anti-Program movement,” he looked at them sharply.

“Yes, sir, we were, kind of,” Cynthia said. “It felt so wrong, so improper, against all of our values. We were supported in believing that by your order, too, sir. So thank you for backing us students in all the ways you’ve done.”

“Yes, all of my command staff felt that this was taking psycho-social theories way too far and threatened family morality and thus would interfere with Marine discipline. It looks like this feeling is shared by other commanders in all the armed services too and we assume that we’ll prevail against any civilian challenges. I want to thank you for the way you took the lead in starting the organizing of the students in the resistance.”

Roger spoke. “Actually, sir, it almost happened by itself. I think we were just the catalyst. Col Mosby had that meeting with the students and the resistance kind of took off from there; the kids from civilian families were our biggest supporters and picked up the tactics we had planned and just ran with them.”

“You don’t say! That’s interesting, and very reassuring too. Or maybe it was a way to simply oppose authority?” he asked with a grin.