Chapter 11

There were four new students at school on Monday morning, one of them in her Homeroom. Sammi still felt a little tired from her trip; it wasn't like she'd had any time off, after all, and so when a strange girl sat next to her in Homeroom, she didn't pay attention.

"Class," Mrs. Connolly, the Homeroom teacher said, "welcome Grace Hayward. Grace has transferred here from the East Valley schools for this term. Stand up, please, Grace."

The new girl stood up for a moment. She was thin with blonde hair pulled back in a pair of pigtails. The boys looked at her appreciatively, some of the girls glared at her, others just nodded; they'd get to know her later.

"I'm Sammi White, by the way, that's short for Samantha," Sammi said when Grace sat down. "What classes are you taking?"

"Pleased to meet you." Grace looked at her course list. "I've got History, English, Calculus, Sex Ed, Physics 2, and, um, Gym; I got out of Civics this term."

"Sounds like mine," Sammi said. Mrs. Connolly was passing out the Special Announcements, notices that were specific to each student, so talking was still allowed. "Are you part of the Term Switch Program I've heard about?"

Grace nodded. "I thought I'd try it so I could meet new kids."

"I've been thinking about it, too." Sammi looked around. "Not that there's anything wrong with the kids here, I've just been curious what the program is like."

"You get a list of schools, and foster homes that are nearby where you can stay," Grace said. "You might want to go to one particular school, but if there isn't a foster home nearby, you can't. I wanted to go to the school at Hydro because I know some of the kids who go there, but there weren't any foster homes close enough to let me do that."

"Ah. That's good to know. I was thinking of one particular school, but I hadn't even thought of where I'd stay."

"Well you have to. They won't--" She stopped as Mrs. Connolly finished handing out the Special Announcements and cleared her throat.

"There will be no swimming today, they're still working on the pool. The drainage system has some clogs in it and they expect it'll be fixed by class time tomorrow. During lunch you'll have to take your lunch outside; they were refinishing the floor in the cafeteria and it isn't dry yet." She looked at the list in front of her. "That's all I have right now." She sat at her desk and began working through the lesson plans for her classes.

Sammi glanced at the clock. "Well. I was kind of looking forward to swimming."

"Me, too," Grace said, picking at her hair. "Oh well."

Most of the classes that day were just routine: here are the books, here's what we'll be covering, and here's your first assignment. Sex Ed was 'get acquainted' day; they weren't learning anything new, they were finding their seats and getting back into the routine of having sex every day.

Sammi drew Doug Harley as her partner. She wondered why she always seemed to start out each term with him as her partner. Still, he was nice and solid, and he held her when she came; she wished more boys did that. The second time they did it she got to be on top, and he kept staring at her sex as she rode up and down his delicious hardness.

"Why do guys do that?" she asked him afterwards when she was brushing her hair out. She'd really bounced around on him, throwing her hair all over the place. Now it was a real mess that was requiring a lot of work to straighten out.

"Do what?"

"Stare at my sex when I'm on top? Every guy I know does that." She finished with her hair and stood up to pull on her panties. As she did so she noticed his gaze was riveted on her pussy.

Doug shrugged. "I kind of like watching it go in."

"Huh. I suppose. Sometimes I wish I could do that."

"You'd have to bend double," he said.

"Yeah, that's a bummer. Is it really that interesting to look at?"

"It's a... guy thing," Doug said finally, looking away as she pulled her skirt up. "It's kind of neat, that's all."

"But..." Sammi saw his expression and stopped. This had to be one of those puzzling things about guys. She'd noticed that in the pool, too. They'd see a girl's body every day, and still stare when she got undressed. She'd talked it over with the other girls, and they'd all noticed the same thing.

Grace showed up for tennis practice after school. After warm-ups she and Sammi ended up playing each other. After a couple of minutes Sammi decided the girl was more enthusiastic than good. She had fantastic reflexes and strong wrists, but her footwork was a mess. She was always getting wrong-footed, and twice she actually tripped and fell down.

The last time she threw her racquet down in disgust. "I'm always doing that," she said, as she picked up her racquet and swung it savagely at nothing.

Mrs. Gresham had been watching from the sidelines. "Your first step is clean," she said. "It's your second step that's causing the problem." Mrs. Gresham walked around her. "Let's try something. Sammi, hit a few directly at her."

Sammi shrugged and did so. Grace hit every one of them back. She might be clumsy and get tangled in her own feet, but there was nothing wrong with her reflexes, or the power in her wrists. Those returns had come in hard.

"I think we'll try you two at doubles," Mrs. Gresham said at last. "Grace, you play up, Sammi will play back. Terry, you and Bill come over here and hit a few to the girls."

At first Sammi scrambled to cover behind Grace, but after the first few volleys she ignored everything hit to the other girl except to the girl's backhand. As practice went on Sammi began to see what Mrs. Gresham had seen right away. She was still weak with her backhand, but with Grace on her left that didn't matter. And since Grace didn't have to cover the entire court she began to gain confidence and hit the ball with authority. Soon they were winning points against the boys.

"So where are you staying?" Sammi asked as they dressed after their showers. Grace had a cute little body with small, well-rounded breasts, and a bottom that all of the guys kept looking at.

"I'm staying with this older couple named the Maxens. All of their kids are grown and have moved out, and they volunteered to be foster parents for school." She dug through her book bag, finally pulling out a piece of paper. "I can describe how to get there, I just can't tell you the address." She handed Sammi the paper.

"This is two trolley stops after mine," Sammi said after glancing at the paper. "I know them. Their youngest was the same age as my older sister."

"Good. I wasn't sure which trolley to take."

"C'mon," Sammi said when she'd finished dressing, "I can help you sort it out. Our trolley system has its quirks. It was the first one built, and everything they did wrong here they made sure not to repeat with the others. Basically you have to know the color codes."

They walked down to the trolley stop. "The green cars are the Expresses," Sammi said. "They'll take you to the end of the line. They stop here, but the next stop is the end of the Valley. The red cars are the locals that make every stop."

Naturally the first cars they saw were blue. "These go cross-valley," Sammi said. "You know there are two lines in the valley." Grace nodded. "Well, besides the trolley lines up each side of the valley, there are four cross lines, one at each end, and two in the middle. The blue cars run a circuit. The ones with the white bands, these, are for the lower valley. When you go a couple of more stops up the valley you'll see cars with yellow bands. Those are for the upper valley."

"Which ones go to Hydro?"

"That's in the upper valley. If I wanted to go to Hydro I'd take a cross valley trolley to the south side trolley, and then a local north from there. It shouldn't take you more than two hours to get to Hydro if you catch the trolleys just right."

"I'd have to let them know I was coming, of course."

"Yeah, and I wouldn't recommend doing it on a school night. There's just not enough time after school to get there and get home."

A string of red cars turned the corner down the valley from them. "This is the one we want," Sammi said, "but read the sign on front. 'Local' means just that. The red cars without the word 'local' on front aren't taking passengers. They're just going somewhere else where they need cars."

When she got home she found a message from Stan asking her out on the following Monday night. She called him right away, and was slightly surprised to find him home. "I thought you'd have training or something."

"Well, I do, but I don't have to be at the gym for another 30 minutes. I was just fixing myself something to eat."

"Ah, well, don't let me interrupt that. What did you have in mind for Thursday night?"

"They're showing The Drew House Mystery at the playhouse in Midtown, and I thought you might like to see it. We'd have dinner beforehand, of course."

"Monday night?"

"Well, that's the only evening I have off from training."

"Yeah, me, too." Did she want Stan as a boyfriend? She'd think about that later. She didn't have that many boys asking her out, and she wasn't going to turn one down. "I'd love to go. I love plays."

"Curtain time is 7:45, so how about I pick you up at 5:30?"

"That'll be perfect."

"I'll see you then."

She hung up feeling happy. She wanted to tell someone, but her mother was still at work, her father had left a note that he was next door--she'd seen him and Mr. Roberts assembling a trellis--and Sam was off somewhere with Anna. She thought of calling one of her friends, but decided this was something that could wait until school the next day.

She breezed through her morning classes without much of chance to tell anyone. But during lunch she couldn't hold it back. "I met a guy during the Center Cup," she said as she and her friends settled at an outdoors table. "He was in the Ranger competition. Anyway, he asked me out next Monday night."

"Have we met him?" Suzy asked. "I don't know of anybody in school who's in the Ranger program."

"He goes to another school," Sammi said. "He's taking me to a play in Midtown."

"The Drew House Mystery?" Maryjean asked at once. "I saw that this last weekend. It's a great play. I haven't laughed that hard in ages. I've seen every play in Midtown in the last two years. I've decided I want to be an actress."

"You should talk to my Mom," Sammi said. "She used to act, now she produces movies and TV shows."

"Do you think I could?" Maryjean asked eagerly. "I wasn't sure if she was too busy."

"I'll ask her and let you know." Sammi poked at the pudding on her tray. "Does anybody know what this stuff is?"

"Last term it was the 'mystery veggie'," Suzy said. "Now we have 'mystery pudding'."

"It's their version of tapioca pudding," Jenny said. "I overheard the cooks talking about it during study hall."

"I didn't even know we had tapioca plants or whatever they make this from," Maryjean said. "And what's this stuff on top? It can't be whipped cream." She took a taste, made a face and put her spoon down quickly. "I'll pass."

"So how well do you know this guy, Sammi?" Suzy asked.

"We roomed together in Center." Sammi smiled apologetically. "I like him, I was just wondering if he's good boyfriend material."

"You're looking for someone you'll see every day, aren't you?" Maryjean asked. "Trouble is, most of the boys around school are taken."

"Not all of them," Suzy said, "just the ones worth a second look."

"Do you think this guy might be worth seeing a few more times?" Suzy asked.

"A few more times. We had fun in Center, but we'll see how it goes."

"Well, good luck," Maryjean said.

After lunch Jenny drew her to one side. "Got a question," she said quietly as they walked back inside.

"Oh? About what?"

"Kissing."

Sammi looked at her cousin. "Kissing?"

"Today in Sex Ed class the boy kept trying to kiss me. And I really wanted to kiss him back, but... but I thought the only person you kissed was your boyfriend. Well, and your parents."

Sammi tried not to laugh. "Try to have sex with a boy and not kiss him. It's instinctive or something. Look, if you kiss someone in Sex Ed class, everyone knows it's just part of what happens in class. Now if you drag a boy into a corner in the hall and kiss him there, then his girlfriend has a gripe."

"If you say so," Jenny said, though she sounded doubtful.

"It's part of getting turned on, and its part of sex. I know you don't believe me, but it is."

Jenny nodded slowly. "Yeah, I can see that. I really couldn't help it. Jack Prior was my partner in class today, and I couldn't help myself. Kissing him was so hot I practically came right then, and Swanee, his girlfriend, was on the bed beside ours and she didn't think anything of it. When I asked her afterwards she seemed surprised at the whole idea. She told me that it's just sex, it's not like we're in love or something.

"Now if boys would want to kiss me after he's cum in my mouth..."

"Boys seem to have a thing about that," Sammi said. "That's one of the nice things about a condom. During class they'll kiss us between the legs, but I think it's only because they know they didn't leave any of their cum in there."

"Boys are weird," Jenny said. "Some days I think the only thing they're good for is having sex. Mom says I'll grow out of that attitude, but sometimes I wonder."

"Yeah, they're good to snuggle with, too," Sammi said. "Anything else?"

"No. I was just nervous that I'd done something wrong."

The next day Mr. Hood put a picture of a couple on the screen at the front of the room. "We're only going to try this position once," he said as everyone undressed. "The girl gets on her hands and knees and the guy gets above and behind her."

"Girls," Mrs. Miller added, "it's important that you stay on your elbows. You'll see why as we go on."

"Guys, you'll have to crouch a bit. And you can keep your balance by bracing yourself on the girl's back or shoulders."

"We'll try this position just once," Mrs. Miller repeated. "After that you're free to do it whatever way you want. You'll see why we started with this as the week goes on."

Sammi's partner was Rob Johnson, a boy she had last been with the year before because he was always in another class. He was thin, with a long face, dark hair, including some on his chest, and a cock that curved slightly to the right. She liked being with him, both in and out of Sex Ed class. It was just too bad he and Sandra Winston seemed to be a permanent pair.

"What do you think?" Rob asked as Sammi stroked his cock. "It looks... awkward." He was playing with her breasts, pinching her nipples into long, dark, tight pieces of flesh.

"I wonder how many times we'll use this position," Sammi said. She smiled as Rob moved his attention down between her legs. He followed the traditional pattern: grab the girl's boobs, and follow it with a dive between her legs. She'd have to talk to Sandra about him learning more places on a girl's body.

"Maybe if the guy's standing and the girl's on a bed or couch or something," Rob said.

Sammi closed her eyes, smiling as he rubbed around her clit. He did know what he was doing there, his touch was soft, but just firm enough to make her want more.

His lips descended on her nipples, sucking gently and pulling back, drawing her out. Sammi revised her opinion of his lovemaking habits. She'd have to say nice things to Sandra. Obviously she'd taught him well.

He continued sucking and rubbing until she stopped stroking him. She was breathing in gasps and was pushing forward with her hips, trying to get even more contact. Instead Rob pulled back and opened a condom packet.

Sammi had to come back to herself long enough to get on her hands and knees. She felt the bed shift as Rob squatted behind her. He rubbed his length up and down the inside of her thighs. He took so long to actually put it in that she was whimpering in frustration. But finally, finally(!) she felt him at her entrance. He rubbed back and forth before finally pushing into her.