Chapter 8: When Patti Met Wendy

A dark haired girl came running when the nun called her name. She had hair so dark it looked to be black, and her skin was so pale I instantly thought of how I must have looked when Ann had found me passed out on the kitchen floor.

"Wendy, this is Patricia," said the nun. "It looks like you two have a lot in common."

I looked at Wendy and thought, not likely. She was about 5 foot 5 and still had baby fat on her. She did have bigger boobs, but that could have been from the extra weight. Her face looked pleasant enough, even taking the shiny braces into account.

"Wendy is here on a special gifted students program," the nun explained. "That's why I had you placed in her dorm room. Both of you seem inclined towards the more difficult courses."

"Wendy, Patricia is starting the year late, and we are counting on you to help her catch up on what she has missed."

I could see the polite smile on Wendy's face but felt no warmth behind it. I suppose that if it had been me, I wouldn't be too thrilled hearing I was going to have to baby-sit the new kid on the block.

"Well, I'll leave you two to get acquainted," said the nun and promptly left.

"I'm sorry they forced this on you, Wendy," I said. "I didn't ask for somebody to hold my hand. I guess they think we're helpless without them."

Wendy actually laughed.

"Clueless is more like it," she said. "I can give you a tour of the school after supper if you like, show you where your classes are."

"Now that would be helpful," I said. "Nearly as helpful as pointing out the cafeteria and a place to have a bath."

"Food I can point you to. Actually, all you need to do is follow me. It's my one weakness, but a bath? Only if you're sick. Don't you know that lying in warm water leads to temptation of the flesh?"

She said it so seriously I thought I had been hooked up with a religious zealot. Then she couldn't hold it in any longer and burst out laughing. "You should see the look on your face," she said. "Priceless! But it's true about the baths. Injuries only."

"You really had me going there for a minute," I said. "All that stuff about temptation of the flesh."

"Yeah," she sighed. "As if having a bath will tempt the flesh. I swear that Saturday confessions are nothing but girls confessing to adultery. There's not much else they can do in this prison that could be considered a sin."

"Adultery?" I asked. "How's that possible?"

"Are you sure you're really a Catholic?" Wendy asked.

"Kind of lapsed," I said hoping that would avoid further questions.

"Well, you won't stay lapsed here," said Wendy. "First period is religion, confession every Saturday and Mass every Sunday. But in answer to your question, masturbation is one of the serious sins and falls under the Adultery clause."

I spoke before I thought. Something I was going to have to watch in the future. "How can anything that brings that much pleasure be a sin?"

Wendy turned beet red. "I wouldn't know about that."

I instantly clued in. "So," I said quickly, "I take it that your visits to the confessional are really quick. You just tell the priest about how much dope you smoked through the week and how many bottles of sacramental wine you managed to swipe and drink."

She laughed again. Wendy had a very pleasant laugh. I sat down at the end of my bed so that I didn't have to be looking down at her all the time.

"Ooops," she said. "No sitting or lying on the beds except for sleep and only at night. That might lead to temptation as well!" She was smiling as she said it.

"I guess this means my only place of refuge left then is the shower and the toilet," I said laughing.

She laughed with me. "Nah, if you listen carefully at night, you'll hear all kinds of sinning going on!"

We slowly walked to the community area. I hadn't noticed before that there were some regular chairs there as well. We sat down.

"So, what do I call you?" asked Wendy. "Patricia is so formal."

"I know," I replied. "My folks call me Patti, and the only friend I had used to call me Pete."

"That's cool!" she said. "Do you mind if I call you Pete?" For a shy girl, she was fairly brimming with words. I mentioned this to her. She sighed and slumped a bit in her chair.

"I usually am very shy," she said. "I don't turn 14 until the end of the month. Most of the kids at the last school I was at ignored me because learning comes so easy to me. I can tell you a dozen different ways to say 'browner' and at least 50 different ways to say fat."

I felt for her. "You're not fat, Wendy," I said softly. "You're cuddly, and the sad part is that you'll probably lose that cuddliness in a couple of years."

"From your lips to God's ear," she said.

"Oh, I'm sure She's listening," I replied, and the look of shock on her face was a true Kodak Moment.

"Do you believe that, too?" she asked. "Of course we can't ever say it out loud, but there are a lot of people who believe God is both male and female." For the next hour, we discussed the philosophy of what God was and if God still paid attention to what was happening on Earth.

I finally ended the discussion stating that I knew for sure that God was still alive and that She had a wicked sense of humor. "Maybe one day I'll tell you how I know," I said.

That seemed to satisfy her and then I started asking about the rest of the inmates.

Wendy explained that most were in the visiting hall with their friends or parents.

"Why aren't you down there?" I asked.

"My folks have a dairy farm north of Delhi, it's a long drive for them," she said. "I've got four older brothers, and the youngest is 25. I don't think they expected to have another child, I think they were looking forward to getting out and being on their own, and then I appeared. I know I was an accident. It's not that they don't love me, but with the farm and all, I doubt that I'll see them at all before the end of the semester."

"You sure aren't an accident, Wendy," I said. "You just came later because the time for smart girls to do some good in the world is just starting. If you had come earlier, you wouldn't have the opportunities you're going to get."

"You think?" she asked, a hopeful smile on her face.

"I know it!"

The bell for supper rang once, and Wendy explained the bell system to me. "The first bell is a five minute warning. It'll ring twice when it is actually time to eat, so we might as well get a move on now."

The food was better than what I had been subjected to at the hospital and having had my share of exotic foods in my former life; this kind of regular standard fare would suit me fine. I steered Wendy away from the buns and suggested fruit instead.

I'd noticed she had become withdrawn as we entered the cafeteria and I could see where the nun had concluded Wendy was a shy girl. One on one with someone like me, she blossomed, but in the company of others, her supposed peers, she became a wallflower.

The school itself, while big in size, was small compared to my first high school. Physically huge and imposing, it housed only 600 students, and over half of these were daughters of rich families. As I took in the information that Wendy whispered to me, I realized why meals weren't an orchestrated affair with the pomp and ceremony of heavy-duty prayers.

It was easy to see the class structure of the school - the social classes that is. Some of the girls carried themselves with an attitude that reeked money, wearing uniforms tailored to enhance their developing bodies, but still within the dress code, or obviously expensive casual clothes. I learned that some had come from across the country, their families impressed by the school's impressive reputation, even if their offspring weren't of the same caliber academically. Others were more like Wendy and me, here on one kind of scholarship or another, or from families who were going without to ensure their daughter had the best education they could afford.

The rich girls had real rooms, sharing two to a room - even those in grade nine, while the plebs had to make do in the dorms. It didn't impress me. I had known rich bastards, and good people who had nothing, and remembered with amusement the stock market crash of the late seventies that took those rich people by surprise. Overextended on credit with risky investments, they were left penniless when their loans were called in - and then it happened again in the 90's with the dot-com crash! And the scandals of cooked books and creative accounting just added grief to their woe!

Nah, they could stuff their snobby attitudes - I didn't need them as 'friends.' I had a goal, which was to do as well as I possibly could, and I was beginning to look forward to being here watching the culture of the 70's in the body of a 14-year-old girl and with the mind of a 45-year-old man.

After we ate, and I ate sparingly, determined to keep the slim figure I had inherited, Wendy and I went for a tour of the school and the grounds.

The halls were neat and clean as were the lockers. No graffiti here. I looked into the different classrooms I would be in and was surprised to see how few desks occupied the large rooms. I could see why St. Ursula's turned out such good students. There'd be little chance of staying inconspicuous in a small class size and teachers would know their students and their progress by heart.

After the tour of the school, we hit the grounds. There was a large football size field with a paved track around it. It made me realize that nowhere in the options had there been a phys-ed class. I asked Wendy about it.

"Physical fitness is not worthy of a credit," she said and went on to explain that after the last class of the day, the girls were expected to take an optional hour either in some sport or visiting the retired nuns who lived in the cloistered convent which stood next to the grand chapel. It was one of those 'character-building' things they imposed on the students 'for their own good.'

"And which option do you choose?" I asked her, knowing full well this option was anything but.

"I've been visiting with the old nuns," Wendy said dejectedly. "Look at me, do I look like the athletic type?"

I stopped and looked her over with a critical eye. "I guess that depends on the sports available," I said.

"There's not a lot of sports for girls here," she said. "Europe has all kinds, but all we have is field hockey, volleyball, basketball and track."

"Field hockey?" I asked.

"Yeah, if they can find enough girls willing to have their shins smashed."

Ouch... I could feel the pain of that. "Well, you could certainly play volleyball," I said to her.

"Yeah, as if," she snorted.

"I take it you don't know how," I ventured.

"It's not just that," she said. "After practice, we're expected to shower in the gym."

"And..."

Wendy blushed that bright crimson again. "I don't do naked well in front of other people."

I laughed which only got her mad. "You of all people should understand that!" she said.

I had to think for a moment before I clued in. "Oh, you mean because I've got no tits?"

"Well, I wouldn't have put it quite that bluntly," she said blushing.

"Oh? Are you one of those prissy girls who calls them breasts or mammaries?" I asked with a smirk.

"No! I just don't think of them like that. I call them boobies if you must know!" she retorted.

I was laughing with genuine glee - Wendy showed her emotions so easily. I realized that the entire time we had been talking we had been walking around the track. I think we were on our second lap and it felt good not being tired or winded. "So, unless you want to spend the next three years visiting old nuns, how about you and I learn to play volleyball? Then we can get naked in the showers afterwards!"

"You are so nasty!" said Wendy with a big smile.

We continued walking for another hour. I looked at the high wall that surrounded the entire property. It was covered with vines and shrubs but it was pretty clear that there would be no easy way over these walls. There were a total of three gates to the entire place, which covered about six acres of land. There was a service gate at the rear for deliveries, the main front gate which was far enough from the school so anyone thinking of sneaking out would be easily seen and the one for the chapel which remained closed most of the time according to Wendy.

While we had been walking, Wendy had given me her impressions of the teachers. Most of them were nuns, but there were a few regular teachers as well. It did sound like they were well qualified though and I looked forward to the morning.

As we returned to the dorm, I asked Wendy which bunk was hers and she said she was directly across from me. She had chosen that one so that she could change into her nightgown in privacy. She was still teased about it by the other girls, especially the ones who had developed early and liked to flaunt their bodies.

"Fuck 'em." I said which had Wendy giggling all the way back.

Wendy had been right though. Quite a few caustic remarks were thrown in her direction as she went into the bathroom to change. I didn't care one way or another; the wardrobe provided more than enough privacy for me to slip out of my clothes and into my pajamas. I hadn't bothered to pack nightgowns since they would be more of a hindrance on those nights I needed to scratch my itch.

Wendy came out, still blushing, wearing what could only be kindly described as a grandmother's flannel nightgown. I went in to brush my teeth and take a leak and when I came out, I started my 100 count on my hair. I had already planned to save my makeup for weekends when I might have visitors, and didn't see much need for it during the week when all that would be around would be other girls. As I brushed my hair, I noticed Wendy glancing at me every now and then.

In my first life, I wouldn't have given a girl like Wendy a second look. She was obviously a smart girl, but without a sexy figure, she would be overlooked by both boys and men. But I had been honest with her when I said she was cuddly. Looking at her from my older point of view, I realized I had missed out on a lot of great girls when I had been younger. Cuddly was really nice.