Chapter 8

The four teens ate lunch on the patio, even though it had gotten very warm. Eleanor and Win ate inside, and Penny was reluctant to eat with Win when she was naked. When he saw her start to dress, Bert quickly stopped her and asked Erma to serve them outside.

It was evident that Lisa was suffering in the heat. She wore loose shorts and a baggy top, but that was quite a bit in the August heat. Bert was sensitive to her extreme body-shyness, but he could also tell that she needed relief from the heat.

"Lisa, I hate to see you suffering in the heat like that. Tell you what. I'll go inside and do some surfing while you three go for a swim. I'll make sure no one else comes out here, and you send someone to get me when it's OK for me to come out."

"But I didn't bring a suit!" Lisa objected.

"That's the point," Cassie said. "No suits."

"No! No! I couldn't," Lisa insisted, quite upset.

"Lisa," Bert said softly, "we're talking about you getting naked with just your two best friends. Now, you're a bright girl. You know that you could end up naked at school any time. Think of this as an experiment. You need to find out how bad it really is for you. I think you know that you won't really kill yourself if you're selected."

"I don't know that at all!" she said tearfully, but Bert detected less than certainty in her voice. She looked back and forth between her two naked friends, then at Bert "You'd really go inside just so I could undress?"

"Hey, the pool is here all the time. See that stuff over there? That's a bubble that goes over it when it gets cold. I can swim year around."

"But you'll miss a chance to see Penny," Lisa said with a welcome hint of mischief.

"And you, and Cassie, too. But hey! We're all practicing here. Some of us are just starting at a different place," Bert said. He got up and headed for the house, calling back "Let me know when I can come out."

Bert circulated around to everyone in the house to tell them what he hoped would happen and to ask them to stay away from the patio. Then he headed straight for the shower in his suite.

He found himself wondering why Lisa was so heavy. Nowadays, a person almost had to work at it to be significantly overweight. So many unhealthy foods had been forced off of the market or taxed so heavily as to be unaffordable. All kinds of effective medicines and supplements were available to control weight. He had determined when Lisa first arrived that he would not mention her weight to her, and he would stick with that.

When he logged into a NiS-related chat room, he soon discovered the buzz about the new website set up for Molly's friend Curt. Several kids mentioned chatting with Curt or Molly until the wee hours the previous night. He settled in for some serious chatting.

Out at the pool, Cassie and Penny had failed to talk Lisa out of a single piece of clothing. Logic, begging, and even anger had all proven fruitless. Finally, as if they had arranged it, they both stood up, and Penny found her clothes.

"What are you doing?" Lisa demanded.

"Well, if we're not going to swim, we might as well go home," Cassie pouted. "I wanted to check out Bert's body some more, too. Oh, well! I'll see it next week at school, I guess."

"You two can still swim!" Lisa objected.

"Do you think we could enjoy ourselves with you sitting here sweating?" Penny asked as she pulled on her panties.

"Then I'll go home by myself," Lisa said.

"Nope. We're pals. We do things together," Cassie declared.

Lisa knew it was a pressure tactic, but she could not help but be touched. Truthfully, she wanted to shed her clothes and be like her friends. There was just this huge fear weighing on her. There was another fear, though, that weighed just as heavily. She did not think she deserved these two as friends, and she was afraid she would lose them. If that happened, she would have absolutely nothing, in her mind.

In the battle of fears, her need for companionship won out. Rushing as fast as she could before her determination vanished, she got up and headed to the pool, throwing off clothes as she went. Stopping briefly to take off her sandals, she pushed off her shorts and panties before she had gone two more steps.

The feeling of the air on her never-before-exposed skin was terrifying, and she had to keep telling herself that losing her friends was even worse. She got her blouse off as she staggered toward the pool, but her heavy-duty bra had four hooks in the back, and she was having trouble reaching them.

She almost peed on the pool deck from fright when she felt hands unfastening the bra for her. Fortunately, Cassie said behind her "Lisa, I am so proud of you," and Lisa was able to calm her pounding heart a little. She was still naked outside, something that she had never done before. She had the brief, incongruous thought that this must be what having agoraphobia is like. As quickly as she could, she stepped into the pool and moved to deeper water so her breasts were covered.

Cassie and Penny acted like normal teens horsing around in the pool. They were noisy and they splashed a lot, and little by little, Lisa entered in with them. The next crisis didn't come until the other two suggested they get out for a while. Lisa was frightened all over again, but the others bracketed her and held her hands. She felt like she was being babied, but she needed it, and she was grateful to them for it.

Twice more they went into the pool. It had been well over an hour since Bert went inside, and Cassie suggested they should let him come out. Lisa panicked, but Cassie assured her "I'll get you something to put on for a while. Your clothes need to be freshened up."

Cassie picked up Lisa's clothes and headed for the house, throwing Lisa into a panic. She literally screamed at Cassie to bring her clothes back. Cassie had meant no harm, she just forgot how frightened of exposure her friend was.

"Oh, Lisa, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you. Here. Just promise not to put them on. They really do need to be washed and dried. I'll come back with something for you. Don't worry. OK." Lisa gave a tearful nod and did not try to dress.

When Cassie was directed to Bert's room, she arrived in time to hear him getting the news about Molly being on TV again. He hurriedly checked the broadcast time, then told his sister to "Give 'em Hell." Cassie stifled her awe at the opulence of his suite, and together she and Bert found some shorts and a huge Tee that should satisfy Lisa's need for covering.

When Bert was allowed out to the patio again, he invited the girls to stay for dinner and watch Molly on TV with him. Eleanor had to get involved with one of the mother's, but she thought it was a good idea. She was very proud of the way Bert was treating the girls.

All of the girls were in awe of Bert's suite, where they went to watch the show. Eleanor would have liked Bert's support herself, but she knew it was better to be with Win. There was the matter of the picnic looming on the next day. Lisa had been troubled all day by being the only one clothed among the four, but the others did not seem to treat her any differently.

Lisa's parents had refused to watch the original broadcast, but she thought maybe that since this was on a major network, they might at least watch. She doubted that it would change their minds. What she did not know was that just before Cassie came to his suite in the afternoon, Bert had told Molly about Lisa. Molly had told him she was proud of him for trying to help and that there might be a solution for kids like Lisa in the near future.

Less than an hour before air time, Carmen, Jason's head of research, called Molly and Curt into a small conference room. "We have thousands of internal communications that we 'obtained' from the Naked in School main offices."

"How did you get those?" Molly asked.

"Let's just call it our own version of the Freedom of Information Act," Carmen replied. "In fact, I want you to use the Act as the reason you have this information, in case you use any of it on the air and its origin is questioned."

Carmen looked at the two for a moment, then explained "Like many agencies, NiS contracts with GSA for all office support services. Friday morning, a team of GSA specialists needed to do an onsite systems security audit." It took the teens microseconds to understand who the GSA team really was.

"But we can't go through all of this, get made up, and still be on the air on schedule," Molly protested.

"No, you can't," Carmen agreed, "but that's the advantage of us sending the feed to Fox. They have no idea what is going on in our studio. We have four large screens set up in your line of sight. We will have people looking up anything that might be useful and putting it on screen for you. Do you think you can watch the screens and still keep up with the discussion."

"Make that my job," Curt said. "I am used to keeping track of lots of things at once. I will signal Molly which screen has what I think she needs it and let her do the talking."

"We have to be careful about how you two split the air time," Carmen cautioned. "Remember, Curt, they only wanted you. I think you were right that they were afraid of Molly."

"Let me be the encyclopedia girl," Molly suggested. "Curt, you carry the brunt of the conversation, and I'll stick in facts and figures when they will do the most good. Carmen, could we arrange some sort of signaling device between us? I don't think we should hold hands on-screen."

"Right. We'll come up with something. As a matter of fact, Jason would like to have Ms. Arragon sitting between you, at least for the first part of the show."

Curt spoke up. "My guess is that they will use two attacks. First, they will try again to make it a matter of simply being against nudity."

"We agree," Carmen said. "We've been doing 'war games' all afternoon, trying to guess what you will be up against. What else do you think they will do?"

"They will try to claim there are no casualties."

"Exactly. Here's what we have to attack that with..." Carmen showed them some eye-popping internal NiS communications that had already been prepared for display during the show.

"One other thing," Curt added. "I think they might try to attack us on age, lack of experience, lack of academic credentials, etc."

"How do you think you could fight that?" Carmen asked.

"We have to keep hammering on the human rights violations issue," he answered.

Molly added her thought. "If we can show that the position on rights of teens in other areas conflicts with NiS, we could counter their arguments."

The discussion continued while make-up was being done, and the relative calm of final preparation for broadcast was a relief.

It was quite a move by Jason to put Porter between the teens as the show opened, and she was definitely impressed. Coming from the opposite end of the political spectrum as she did, she had always viewed him pretty much as the devil incarnate. The honorable move he had made after using her did not fit her impression of him at all. It did not make her any more receptive to his politics, but she did determine to be as even-handed and neutral as possible in her coverage of the NiS scandal. And her reporter's instincts told her that it was definitely shaping up to be a scandal.

There had not been any time to strategize about how to treat Porter, so Curt just acted on impulse when the moderator opened with "Mr. Valez, tell us how the whole naked interview broadcast got started."

"Actually, Ms. Porter Arragon started the whole thing, so I will let her describe it from her viewpoint."

"Thank you, Curt," Porter said before the moderator could interrupt. "I came to the Valez house on Thursday morning to interview Curt about his leaving his school and giving up his quarterback position to avoid the Program. He, uh, slammed the door in my face."

"Is that right, Curt," the moderator asked, following Porter's lead and using his first name.

"Well, I very, uh, firmly told her that there would be no interview. Her previous coverage of my transfer had been very, um, critical. She used the usual criticism of anyone who opposed the Program."

"Oh, and what is that usual criticism?" the moderator asked. At that point, the two experts had not been introduced, so the ten minutes or so before the first commercial break was spent recounting the events of Thursday, up through Friday morning.

Of the two guest experts, one was predictable: a professor of psychology from an Ivy League school. The other was a bit of a surprise, a lawyer with the ACLU.

The professor, a man, made a prophet out of Curt, starting right in as if the teens' objections were based on outmoded modesty. He talked for a while about the need to free teenagers from the irrational fear of exposing their bodies. Then he made the statement "It is well known that sexual repression can lead to neuroses later in life, and can prevent people from reaching their potential."

After that statement, Molly was fairly vibrating in her chair. Before she spoke, though, she remembered that Curt should be the lead. He said "I am surprised that the professor would come on this show having not seen the broadcast in question. We thought we made..."

At that moment, the professor started talking loudly over Curt. By prior arrangement, Jason's producer cut the feed to the network, blacking out the segment of the screen showing the teens. With a grin, Jason's producer put the network producer on speaker so everyone could hear her yelling for them to get back on line. "You'd better take a commercial and straighten out that idiot professor if you want the kids back," Jason's producer said. "Did you think we were joking about the rules?"

After the usual apology for technical difficulties and a short extra commercial, the obviously shaken moderator said "Mr. Valez, I believe you were speaking when we lost the feed. Would you care to continue?"

"I was just pointing out that we did everything we could to make it clear that fear of nudity was not the issue. Molly has a comment on the professor's statement."

"It is NOT well known that sexual repression can have the effects the professor mentioned. Only a small group of radical psychologists hold those views. There have been no credible double-blind, peer-group studies to validate his assertions. No studies of sufficient quality for the major psychological or psychiatric journals have been done."

While Molly had been speaking, the professor tried to butt in again. It took barely a second before the panicky producer blanked him from the screen. When Molly was done, the professor's image re-appeared, looking almost apoplectic. "Is that correct, Professor?" the moderator asked, "that there have been no such studies."

"That is a flat out lie!" the professor shrieked. "I myself have done three such studies."

To almost everyone's surprise, it was the moderator who asked "And where were your studied published?"

"It is preposterous for a mere high school student to question what the best minds in psychology and education have spent so many years developing. She cannot possibly understand the complex psychological principles involved."

There was a very small pause and Molly jumped in. "I guess the professor's non-answer answers the question. There are no credible studies," Molly said tersely.

Sensing an impasse, the moderator introduced Ms. Langford, the ACLU lawyer. "Ms. Langford, in the original broadcast, these young people objected to the Naked in School Program as a violation of human rights. How do you respond to that?"

"First of all," Langford answered, "as an attorney, I would be remiss if I did not advise these two to turn themselves in to the authorities."

She paused just the slightest bit, and Curt jumped in quickly. "That would be difficult," he said with a chuckle, "since no authority has anything on which to hold us. What do you suggest we turn ourselves in for?"

Her face flushing at being laughed at by the young man, Langford stammered just a bit while saying "The Program was going to obtain warrants for your arrest."

"As an attorney," Curt shot back, "and a supposed defender of constitutional rights, what would be the basis for those warrants?"

"Well, you made false statements about an important government program," Langford replied.

Molly took the next shot. "Even supposing the statements were false, which they were not, what law was violated? Were we not protected by the free speech guarantees of the Constitution? Do not opposition politicians knowingly make false statements about government programs they do not like on a regular basis? Are any of them ever prosecuted?"

Just like the professor earlier, Langford could do nothing but sidestep. "The Program was developed for the benefit of you and all the other teens. Why would you want to destroy it?"

"That is the wrong question, Ms. Langfor," Molly snapped. "The real question is why was the ACLU not all over the Program, trying to destroy it from the very beginning. Why are you not defending the Constitutional right to privacy and the right to freedom from illegal search and seizure of teenagers? Do we not qualify for the basic Constitutional rights?"

"Of necessity, some rights are not appropriate for younger people," Langford said.

"Then explain this," Molly said. "With support from the ACLU, thirteen-year-old girls obtained the right to an unrestricted abortion with no requirement for parental notification. That same girl, though, cannot refuse to let high school boys fondle her sex organs. How is that just?"

"Abortion is no longer an issue with modern means of pregnancy prevention," was all Langford could answer.

"Does that mean that human rights have changed since the shot?" Curt asked. "Or just that the ACLU's position has changed?"

For several more minutes, the teens pushed and Langford danced, never addressing the questions posed. With a third of the hour remaining, the moderator said "During the original broadcast, certain claims were made about harm to teenagers attributed to the Program, including breakdowns and suicides. Professor, Ms. Langford, would either of you care to comment on those claims."

"Of course, that website is nothing but propaganda," the professor asserted. "Nothing like that would be allowed to happen."

"Those claims are libelous," Langford stated. "They alone are reason enough for these two to be arrested."

At that point, some statistics were flashed up on the screens in Jason's studio that could not be seen by the national audience. Curt was going to let Molly deliver them, but he decided to interject from one of the other screens.

"Do you know what the primary responsibilities of the Program's Enforcement Division are?" he asked rhetorically. "They strip students who are reluctant to disrobe for the Program. They capture any who manage to escape from the school grounds. They pick up from their homes students who try to skip days while in the Program. Their biggest responsibility, though, is to pay off the families of students harmed by the Program. They buy the silence of these families to protect the propaganda that no one is hurt by the Program.

"That's preposterous!" the professor objected. "You can't prove that!"

"Last year," Molly went on as if she had not heard the objection, "The Program spent $94 million in payouts to 1143 different families to buy their silence. That is from the Program's own accounting records."

"That is not public information," Langford objected.

"Well, thank you for verifying it's accuracy, Ms. Langford," Curt said with a smile. "I guess I missed the repeal of the Freedom of Information Act."

"There is no reason why any young person should be so afraid to expose themselves that they would contemplate suicide," the professor exclaimed, diverting attention from the numbers.

"And you claim to be a psychologist?" Molly said sarcastically. "There can be any number of reasons. Right now, my brother is trying to help a girl who has sworn that she will kill herself if selected for the Program. Her reason is her weight."

Molly's statement was disingenuous. Bert had told her that Lisa's determination to kill herself seemed to be wavering. Nevertheless, Molly said what she did to shake up Lisa's parents, if they were watching. She also thought it could have a big impact on some other parents who did not understand the depth of their children's objections.

The rest of the broadcast deteriorated into the typical shouting match of such shows, except that Curt and Molly chose to mostly just watch. Jason's producer decided not to cut the feed again.

About two minutes after Molly mentioned Lisa's situation, while the show was still on, the phone rang at the Parkhurst residence. Darryl had left and Maidchen answered. At first, the hysterical babbling from the other end was indecipherable, but Maidchen finally figured out that it was Lisa's mother.