Sixth Day (Friday)

Teri

I kind of regretted not getting a ride to school, even from Father. The storm had cleared off, leaving lingering clouds wreathing the peaks and a hard frost. The walk should have warmed me, but I had to tread careful around frozen puddles and patchy ice in the many places no one had gotten to salting. A preview of winter no one was ready for.

And preview or no, below freezing is still below fucking freezing. A hot paper coffee cup was nice on my hands.

It was pretty though, the way my breath fogged in the low sunlight. Droplets on some of the trees, especially the larger piñons, had frozen before dripping, leaving them halfway between jewels and pearls. Even the black ice had an austere beauty.

The purple-n-gold Spirit Day banners being put up above the main entrance—not so much.

The moderate warmth of the Program Office was welcome. So was the sight of Dana already naked. I paused, back against the door, to look at her—the way her body, short and slight, moved with a poise like it was hers by right. Or because it was right for her.

She was stacking her clothes in a bin, and didn’t see me till she turned back to her chair. I liked that smile she gave me, but not the dark shadows around her eyes. I stepped across the room and put down my pack on the chair next to hers, beside the inner door. Today’s hair clip was decorated with a small five-petaled pink flower.

“Morning,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said, almost a wince. “It is.”

“You okay?” I asked.

“Why didn’t you warn me about TV Tropes?” she whined.

Because I thought everyone knew the danger? But then, how long did I lose the first time I dropped into that rabbit warren? —Or if I’m being honest, first several times. Before I could say anything, though, the outer door opened to let in a blast of cold and Mike.

“Hey,” he said.

“Mikester!” Jake called out, and gave him a fist bump as he passed.

“Duuude,” I said to Mike, and he rolled his eyes. I don’t know why he puts up with crap like Jake’s.

“Morning,” Dana said, still not reconciled to the notion.

To her, I said, “It’s just Something You Have To Do Yourself—learn how TV Tropes Ruins Your Life.”

Mike took in her bruised eyes and cackled. “What made you touch the tar-baby?”

“Oh, it is such a tar-baby!” she softly wailed. “It’s awful, but I want to be briar-patched again—I barely scraped the surface.”

“Girl,” I told her, “Nobody can read the whole thing. How’d you get drawn in, anyway?”

“Well, see, I was reading up on this SF series that sounds interesting, Downstar Runner, and one of the top hits was the TV Tropes page.”

The hell it is—it’s like on the second page these days, least on just the name. What the hell search was she running—?

My stomach dropped out. She was searching for me. And she fucking found me. This was her way of telling me. Fuck. It was coming out—she was—

Her eyes widened and the rest of her face went pale. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, so quiet I could barely hear over the rushing in my ears. She reached out and touched the fist resting on my knee. “I didn’t—” then she quickly pulled a zipper across her lips, and mouthed, “Later.”

Mike’s eyes widened slightly—he wasn’t dumb, either. Now it was three. That’s not a secret any more. Fuck fuck fuck.

To him, Dana made a brief shushing gesture with a fractional shake of her head. To his credit, he nodded just as subtly. I didn’t want to give anyone extra credit, though, not just then.

“Anyway,” Dana said at normal conversational volume, “it led on to a bunch of tropes that got me thinking, about The Masquerade and Secret Identities, the various narrative ways of being in closets. Which are, yanno, important to me.”

Because, what, of being gay? I managed not to snarl.

Mike nodded. “You’ve gone out with girlfriends who aren’t out, right?”

Okay, so, like Tara—so fucking what? But then I got it, what Mike was helping her say—Dana was codedly telling me she meant to keep my secret. She hadn’t outed Tara—Tara had herself. And she’d talked about Downstar in a way that didn’t link me to it.

“Right,” she said, “not everyone can come out, and you have to be good with that in others, if you’re queer. And, yanno, not a jerk.”

I swallowed. We had to get off the subject—too fucking dangerous. Step back and think about this. Deep breath. “That’s the truth,” I finally said.

Then I stood and started undressing, not looking at either of them. Rude, yeah, but any more rude than what she’d done?

Mike took it as his cue to wriggle out of his jacket. Dana took it—just as Jackson came up, Alverez at her heels.

“Ms Partlow—while we’re waiting, a question.”

Dana turned around. “Uh? Sure.”

“This map generating program of yours—can you package it as an app? Something others can use?”

Alverez added, “For later weeks.”

Not my fucking problem. I sat down to untie my laces—cold means enclosed shoes, annoying at it is.

“Shouldn’t be too hard,” Dana said. “I’ll have to remove Mike’s elevator constraint, add more robust error trapping. Sanitize the inputs...”

“Excellent,” Jackson said. “We can arrange extra credit for it—call it independent study in computer science, or something.”

Bridger offers independent study? Since when?

Dana said nothing. Even though she wasn’t my problem, I glanced up—she was gazing at Mike’s jacket in her hands, distracted.

“Dana?” Alverez said.

“Huh? Oh. Just thinking about the inputs—how to enter schedules.” Dana shook her head. “The way it’s coded now, it won’t work till the Participants are announced, Monday morning, and to redo it, you’d have to give me the privileges to look up student records, which you probably won’t.”

“Student records are protected personal data, yes,” Jackson said, voice wary. “Why Monday?”

“That’s when the Participant list on the Program website goes up—I scrape their class schedules from there.”

“That information is not on the website.” Jackson’s voice was as cold as this morning’s dawn.

Uh oh. I stood to step out of my jeans, which put me at Dana’s back. Sure, I was pissed at her and it wasn’t like covering her back would help against this sort of attack, but I still owed her.

“Yeah, it is,” Dana said. She took out her tablet, started tapping. “See? Program site—this week’s Participants—tap a name and get basic info—tap Details, and there’s their current class schedule, along with assigned counselor, current discp. act., whatever that means, some other stuff—I had to parse out just the schedule.”

Surely, the way she pushes, she’s had disc(i)p(linary) act(ion)s before. I sure as hell was about to give her one, and I’m way more forgiving than the average authority figure. Well, forgiving to the almost sane.

“That’s protected data,” Jackson said, staring at the display. “Personal data.”

Dana shook her head. “This shows up on the public website—I checked with a browser not logged in to my school account. Thought it was intentional.”

Jackson closed her eyes. “James,” she called out, “we’ve got a problem.”

Skinner looked up from his tablet, set up on Alverez’s desk. “What has Partlow done now?”

“Exposed a security hole.” Jackson showed him Dana’s tablet. “This is available on the school website.”

Skinner glanced at it, then pounced on Dana like an authority prowling for a discp. act. “How’d you get access to this?”

It took Jackson a couple go-rounds to get it through his head that Dana hadn’t hacked anything—that this was out in the open.

“How the hell, excuse my language, did that happen?” Skinner finally asked, with a glance at Alverez. Then he sighed. “I’ll call Azula.”

The sysadmin Skinner was supposed to contact if there were more problems. I hoped Father wasn’t going to get in trouble for this.

The bell rang the start of homeroom, catching all the authoritative types by surprise—especially Alverez.

I sure as hell hoped this wasn’t a sign of how the rest of the day would go.

Dana

“Okay, people, let’s get this show on the road,” Alverez called out, “while the rest of you finish undressing.” Meaning Teri and Mike, both mostly nude, and Chip, just getting started. And possibly also Jake, if the purple and gold body-paint covering his torso counted as not being nude enough.

I started to help Mike, but Alverez started with, “Whistles, anyone?”

Oh, right. I grabbed my baggies instead. Maria had to dig through her purse-pack to find her whistle, and both Marshall and Chip needed consent bracelets. Between this faffing around and the bleary world, I missed what, exactly, he had to say about the cafeteria lunches—though since I bring my own, it didn’t apply to me. (Odd Man Out, my fuzzy brain noted. Was I going to see everything in terms of TV Tropes?)

“Next—relief. Dana and Teri, neither of you took the opportunity yesterday either.”

As if, despite his words, it was in fact an issue. “You said it was optional,” I said.

“It is—but we need to be sure this isn’t a warning sign for deeper issues.”

Teri rolled her eyes, and I couldn’t exactly blame her.

“Personally,” I told him, “I do not find refrigerated classrooms erotic.”

Mike coughed as if covering a laugh, and Maria snickered.

“Um, well. There’s that. I suppose it’s the same for you, Teri?”

I looked at Teri, caught her eye. I knew that certainly wasn’t it for her, or not all of it—and that if she didn’t tell them why, they’d never fix the problems. I glanced at her consent bracelet, then back to her, trying to put meaning in my look.

She frowned—distaste, but whether at the prompt or still angry at me, I couldn’t tell.

“In any case—” Alverez started to say, but Teri spoke up, “Actually, that’s not it.”

“Ah—okay?”

Teri picked her words carefully. “There are ... aspects of the Program that are ... not a turn-on.”

Jake snickered.

She ignored him. “Specifically, the non-consensual requests are a complete turn-off. I’m wearing this for a reason,” and she held up her red bracelet.

Skinner looked at her sharply. “So you equate the Program with rape?”

I chewed my lower lip—surely she knew how to evade that rhetorical trap. But as she’d said: something she had to do for herself.

Teri looked at him steadily. “No. I obey reasonable requests that involve touching me when I do not want it, because I am compelled to. Being forced to allow someone to molest me does not turn me on—it pisses me off. When I am pissed off, I am not aroused.”

I did not grin, as I wanted to, because Skinner and Alverez would see it. I did nod my head firmly. This—this was truth.

Skinner looked skeptical. Alverez was puzzled and uncertain, as if this was outside his training. Jake and Gail looked frankly baffled, Jackson bland, Maria and Marshall thoughtful. Mike nodded agreement, and Chip—well, he was actually looking at Teri, as if for the first time really seeing her.

Alverez recovered after a second. “Let’s come back to that later—we have more things to get through and not much time. The most important being that ‘later’: it’s a good practice at the end of a Program week, especially one where there’s been any sort of trouble, to bring everyone together for a sort of debriefing meeting. So, sixth period, instead of attending the pep rally, come here—”

“What?!” Gail said. “No!”

Huh? —why not have a debriefing?

Alverez was not fazed by this, however. “You have an issue with this?”

“You bet I do—I’m a cheerleader, I have to be at the pep rally. That’s the whole point of cheering.”

Jackson spoke up, “We’ve confirmed your schedule change with Coach Simmons.”

“You don’t understand,” Gail said, “we’ve got a special routine planned.”

“It’s about school spirit,” Jake added. “For tonight’s game. How can the Program be more important than that?”

Teri cleared her throat. “I can show you a certain restroom and ask you the same question in reverse.”

“I didn’t mean it like that!” Jake said. “I’m just saying—”

“In any case,” Alverez began, but the bell ending homeroom drowned out the rest of his sentence.

“You don’t just pull a cheerleader from a pep rally!” Gail countered.

“Especially a naked cheerleader,” Jake added.

“Exactly!”

I wanted to say something, help reach clarity somehow, but I was hampered by not wanting to compromise on this: I really don’t have much use for pep rallies and fixing the Program is important. I mean, obviously it’s important to her—but so was this, to me. This was—

Oh, I realized. This was what Perry was talking about, during Meeting, about it being difficult when emotions run high to speak to that of God in everyone. I needed to reach for clarity—to bare myself, be more open again to the Spirit. I took a slow deep breath, centering.

“Enough,” Skinner growled. Gail glared right back, hands on hips.

Out in the hall, I could hear the rumble of the usual morning crowd, waiting for us.

“Gail,” Alverez said, “you will come here sixth period or receive a third Program demerit. Is that understood?”

She already had two? —from what, I wondered. Had skipping the recitation of the rules been a mistake?

After a moment, she growled but nodded.

The sounds in the hall were resolving into—a chant?

Jake said, “But since I’ve got only one demerit, I can afford to go, right?”

“No, Mr. Lipton,” Jackson said crisply, “you will be marked as skipping class.”

It was a chant: “Naked spirit! Naked spirit! Naked spirit!”

Teri’s eyes widened, and she turned to glance at the door.

My heart tingled, and my hands and feet felt faint. Those words—Teri’s accusations about athletes and their attitudes toward Participants was sounding a whole lot more plausible. That was the chant of people who thought we were their due.

The chanting got louder—loud enough everyone could hear clearly: “Na-ked spir-it! Na-ked spir-it!”

Skinner and Jackson shared a glance and started for the inner door. Skinner stopped in front of it, unhooked his radio and said into it, “Code Two at the Program Office.” Then with another glance at Jackson, he opened the door just enough to slip out without exposing us more than necessary, and she followed him.

“Na-ked spir-it!!”

“What on earth do you think you’re doing!?” he barked. Responses—chanting—more arguments.

“We’ll just stay here for the moment,” Alverez said.

“Got that right,” Maria said.

No, said the still, small voice within. The one I was holding myself open to. We had to go out there—I had to, with the same certainty as speaking in Meeting. Hiding, even behind the protection of due authority, would not shame the oppressor. Only confronting them with their shame would. And that meant meeting them on their own ground.

Dangerous, yes, but necessary. I stood up, put on my pack, and headed for the door.

“Dana?” Mike said from somewhere far away.

“Dana!” Teri said, just as distant but louder. As I reached for the door, Teri caught my wrist. “Oh hell no you don’t—I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you are not going out there.” Her grip didn’t hurt, but it was as solid as steel. I pulled steadily, without tugging, and couldn’t budge a millimeter.

“Dana,” Alverez said in the distance, “let Principal Skinner deal with this.”

It is one of my failings, I think, that in the grip of certainty, I could not speak clearly. The words choked. How to explain to someone without training in non-violent resistance, without a common conceptual framework? What I managed to say was, “If we back down, they never will.” I looked at Teri: her eyes had anger and anxiety—fear for me. “I have to,” I told her.

“Tactics, Dana,” Mike said elsewhere.

Which—yes, a consideration. But the still, small voice still spoke this course.

The door to the hall opened, forcing me to step back or get struck—Jackson looked in, saw me, and said over the hubbub, “Oh no, you don’t.” She quickly stepped in and closed it behind her, muting the noise—Teri pulled me back to give her room. “You are staying right here, Ms Partlow. Is that understood?”

Outside, Skinner was still speaking sharply—alternately ordering people to move and giving out detentions. The chanting had stopped, the moment passed. The still, small voice was silent, leaving me empty. I closed my eyes and nodded. Teri gently pushed me to my chair, and shifted her grip from my wrist to my hand.

I laced my fingers through hers, holding her so hard my arm trembled.

Jackson told us, “All of you will have excused tardies for first period—we’ll tell your teachers it was ‘Program business’. When we let you out of here—” a severe glance in my direction “—you’ll have five minutes to get to class. Any questions?”

I don’t think a one of us looked satisfied. But no one said a word, and she left with Alverez in tow.

I was tired—and not just from lack of sleep. Now I was drained as well. And there was still the rest of the day to get through—after two personal failures even before first period.

No, three: I never did get to bring up the volunteer escorts meeting like I meant to.

It did not feel like the start of a good day.

Mike

A few angry minutes later, Ms Jackson released us into the empty halls. Teri, Dana, and I silently walked and rolled together to our separate English classes. At the intersection, I finally could keep my voice steady and asked Dana, “What were you planning to do?” I’d been so scared, when she stood up and headed for the door.

She licked her lips but her shadowed eyes were steady. “I don’t know exactly what. The prompting of the Spirit was still unfolding. I didn’t know what was out there. I just knew that—like I said, if we gave in, they never would.”

“’Gave in’!” Teri all but exploded. “Going out was giving them exactly what they wanted!”

Dana shook her head. “No, going out and accepting their power over us would give them what they wanted. Going out and speaking truth to power, through actions, would not.”

Teri stared at her a moment, then shook her head—both denial and incomprehension.

“Teri,” I said, and after a heartbeat she looked at me. “My father once said a true pacifist is the most ruthless type of person, because they are first and foremost ruthless with themselves.”

She considered that a moment. “Spirit as in the Holy Spirit?” she asked Dana skeptically.

Dana nodded. “It’s a Quaker thing—I can explain later.”

“Right—later.”

Dana took that as a goodbye—she waved tiredly and headed down the side hall.

“Never a dull moment with us,” I told Teri.

She gave me a disgusted look. “Dull has its moments.” And without another word, she started up the stairs opposite the cross-hall.

My throat tightened. Was she saying no to us—?

I raced to the elevator, but by the time I reached the second floor, she’d disappeared into class. Dang.

I paused a moment outside English to take a steadying breath, a second. Then I pushed the door open and rolled in.

“Glad you could join us, Mike.” Not quite sarcasm, not like some teachers can wield, but I still had to bite back a retort.

“Program business,” I told Ms Alighieri. “Should be listed as excused.”

As she checked her teacher’s station, Gordon called out, “Have fun with your ‘Program business’?”

Oh, yeah, because I totally love having near-riots aimed at me. I shot back, “You know bureaucrats—loads of fun times.” Which got me titters.

“Red tape, eh? Kinky.” Which got him a few more titters.

“Whip me, beat me, make me fill out forms in triplicate.” Outright laughter—ha! Playing off each other, almost like old times.

Ms Alighieri finally found my tardy notice, and marked me as arrived just in time for those five minutes.

As I turned for my usual place near the door, splashes of purple-and-gold caught my eye—Marco, Calvin, and Verity in their varsity letter jackets for School Spirit Day. I glared at them for half a moment, though I’d no way of knowing if any had been downstairs, before backing into my parking space.

Ms Alighieri brought us back to wrapping up the Iliad—yesterday had been the death of Hector. As usual, for the next passage for discussion, she called someone up to the front to read aloud: this time Gordon was given Priam’s pleading Achilles for Hector’s body, and did a surprisingly bad job of it for a self-dramatizing guy—this is poetry, for heaven’s sake, with rhythm and pull and strength. Priam was not a whiner, either—his Manly Tears are calling upon his son’s killer to not cut himself off from human decency. From humanity.

The final lines of the Iliad went to me to read aloud, and I used my best recitation voice, ending with:

... And once they’d heaped the mound
they turned back home to Troy, and gathering once again
they shared a splendid funeral feast in Hector’s honor,
held in the house of Priam, king by the will of Zeus.
And so the Trojans buried Hector breaker of horses.

Gave me a shiver up the spine, that last line.

“Oh my,” a girl whispered, I think Alice.

“You are a very good reader,” Ms Alighieri said. “I should call on you more often.”

“I’ll say,” said Bette. “You measure up quite well.”

I blushed, remembering her measuring tape from Monday. I think they thought it was from the praise. I hoped so.

“Aw, he’s tongue-tied,” Cheryl said.

I stuck my tongue out as far as I could and waggled it at her—which got the laughs I hoped for.

“Thank you, Mike,” Ms Alighieri said, dismissing me from my moment in the limelight. “So what can we make of how the Iliad opens with Achilles and ends with Hector?”

When class ended, Cheryl came over and crouched beside me. “Why do I suspect you’re pretty good with that tongue?” The undertone of her voice made it clear: at giving head.

“I haven’t heard any complaints.”

She smiled flirtatiously. “Too bad giving oral sex isn’t a reasonable request.” Translation: maybe we could get together outside of the Program and I go down her.

I managed to keep my cool. Hey, I don’t get passes made at me all that often. But I played it honest—in a quieter voice, I said, “You’ll have to take a number, I’m afraid.”

“Darn—you should have let us know you’re handing out numbers.” Then she left the room with Alice and Bette.

As if it wasn’t clear I was interested in people. As if I was stand-offish, or something.

There were a lot of letter jackets in the halls, as well as cheerleaders in uniform. Every jacket I saw, I wondered whether they’d been outside the Program Office this morning—whether they had chanted for our naked hides or merely let others do it.

I caught up with Teri and Dana at the corner of the hallway—they were waltzing down the corridor at a pretty good clip.

Literally.

Two naked girls, waltzing without music, swaying back and forth in the middle of the floor, always heading towards math. Teri was leading—it’d’ve been hard for Dana to, what with her face almost between Teri’s breasts, if I understand how dancing works anyway.

It was ridiculous and incredibly cute at the same time. (Okay, and maybe this was just because I knew they’d slept together and not just playing this up, also kinda hot.) A lot of kids stared as they passed, and while there were fewer phones out than yesterday, I still heard shutter sounds.

I rolled up behind them, matched their progress, and started humming “The Blue Danube.” They immediately matched my beat. Together, we arrived at math right as the bell rang.

Teri and Dana pulled apart and—heh—curtsied to each other. They looked at each other a moment—Dana biting her lower lip, still anxious about Teri and her secret authorial identity. Teri didn’t give any hints back, but at least she didn’t read as actively pissed off. Dana silently mouthed “later”—then, looking significantly at Teri, nodded slightly my direction.

Teri’s eyes took in my erection (the result of that kinda hot dance) and smiled. “I do believe it’s my turn.”

To give me relief? My cock twitched, and she smirked.

Dana held the door open for us. As I entered, I immediately told Mr. Falcon, “Relief, please.”

Like a dozen hands immediately rose up—volunteers. Seriously? Where have you kids been all my life?

“Sorry girls,” Teri told them. “Prior arrangement.”

“Aw,” someone pouted.

Any more of that, and I was going to get a swollen head. Instead of just a rock-hard one.

Teri handed off her pack to Dana, made a pad for her knees with her towel, and draped herself over my lap. As her hands slid up and down my cock, making it ache, she whispered, “Just so you know, I may not have Dana’s experience or deft touch...”

“But?” I croaked.

She grinned up at me. “But I do write porn.”

Then she bent down and took me in her mouth—not just the head this time, but a few centimeters of shaft. I gasped. Then her tongue rubbed against the sensitive ridge, under the head. I gripped the arms of my chair. Then she sucked as she pulled back. I gasped again.

I caught a glimpse of Dana, watching us—blue eyes bright, red lips almost smirking. Then I closed my eyes, lost to the sensations. Teri quickly established a rhythm of bobbing, licking, and sucking. This wasn’t like Dana’s drawing me out—this was dragging me straight towards orgasm, yanking me. She touched my balls, started fondling them, and my hips jerked.

And then she started humming. I’ve no words—it was like she flipped a switch and with almost no warning I came, hard, sharp, fast. She sucked until my last dribbles were done.

I panted while Teri stood up and the class whistled. Dana really was smirking. Teri was just plain smug.

And I—I was braindead. Why didn’t I learn my lesson, yesterday, about not taking relief in algebra?

What a day.

Teri

Okay, so I felt just a leetle bit smug that my humjob worked so well. Reading smut and having friends who sleep around in university can help with your sex life—who knew?

As does having lovers who apparently aren’t intimidated by me. Even if one of them, at least, doesn’t know how to leave well enough alone. Which, I knew, wasn’t entirely fair: Dana waited till the end of chemistry, as we waited for the lunchtime halls to clear, to try to talk with me.

She came over after my lab partner, Xavier, left. “Can I apologize yet?” she said softly.

I looked down at her. She does humble well, I had to admit—it went with her Plain-Jane style, somehow. And shadowed eyes. Sitting on my stool, I was even taller than usual—making the top of her head even further lower. “Only if you sit up here,” I said, patting the lab bench.

“Um.” She looked dubious at the height.

I reached down beneath her armpits, and she let me boost her up. I tried not to think about how warm and soft the skin near her breasts was.

“Gah! Cold!” She squirmed on the bench-top, shoving her towel under her bare ass. Cadwallader gave us a hairy eye, but as usual did nothing.

Our eyes were nearly level. Hers were solemn, haunted.

“Boundaries,” I said.

“Boundaries,” she agreed, voice too quiet for the teacher to hear. “Secrets are important. I really do know that. Sometimes my curiosity gets the better of me, and I cross boundaries I shouldn’t. I did, and I am so sorry.”

And she was.

I took a breath, let it out. And nodded—apology accepted.

Dana

Half a boulder rolled off of my rib cage.

“I’m still pissed,” Teri said.

I nodded. “It will take me a while to repair that trust.”

She blinked. “Yes, it will. But I’m willing to let you. I want you to.”

“Which is the important thing.” The boulder rolled the rest of the way off—a time to cast away stones, indeed.

The bell for lunch rang.

“How do you do that? Say what I’m thinking—you a telepath?” With a glance at Cadwallader, she got off her stool—we were being shooed out.

“Not hardly.” I dropped to the floor, jarring my feet, and retrieved my towel. “Just equal parts active listening and constructive empathy.”

“This another Quaker thing?”

“Not exactly—Alternatives to Violence training. Conflict-resolution stuff.” I walked out the door and held it open for her to follow.

She sighed. “Never a dull moment, he says.”

“Not with me around,” Jake agreed from across the hall.

Teri and I looked at each other and laughed.

Mike

The two girls who sit behind me in French, Janet and Izzy—or Jeanette et Isabeau, as they’re known in class—are on the basketball team and cheerleading squad, respectively. Which meant I had a lot of purple-n-gold looking over my shoulder. By the end of class, I was no longer twitching over the colors. Desensitization training works—who knew? Though it helped that they were girls, I think.