Chapter 11: St. Dunstan's vs. Valencia Valley

The entire Valencia Valley Ladies' College swim team showed up at St. Dunstan's that afternoon, along with about 20 brave supporters. Unlike St. Dunstan's last swim meet, everyone was dressed to welcome the incoming two buses. A stand near the entrance doors offered soft drinks and hot dogs, and a DJ from Buchanan's AV club provided pop tunes. The Buchanan cheerleading squad was there. Someone in the Buchanan school newspaper had managed to put together a pamphlet listing of the competing girls from both teams with a brief bio, with an admittedly low-quality picture on the front showing Debbie ready for the starting gun at Gymnos. Everyone working there were wearing badges, mostly pinned to shirts. Those few who would be nude later had theirs on lanyards hanging around their necks.

After a brief opening speech from Joe, the juniors were escorted in to get changed for the meet, and the others were brought to a classroom near the pool where they could strip down. Two naked teens from Buchanan's swim team guarded the uniforms against theft and provided the girls with a hand towel to sit on, two tickets and a pouch with a lanyard. "This red ticket is your uniform check, the blue is for a drawing we're going to have after the meet."

Lois and her girls were a little overwhelmed by the greeting they received. It seemed a lot nicer than any other time they'd gone on to "foreign" territory. When the juniors marched out into the pool, a cheer rose up. Looking into the stands, they could see their swim club seniors and their 20 friends, the girls of St. Dunstan's and from Buchanan filling the stands, all clapping and having a grand time.

Play-by-play of the meet, provided by a volunteer from Buchanan's AV club, were broadcast out to the parking lot where the boys were lounging. Joe brought out basketballs, and soon a pick-up game erupted in the school yard.

Afterwards, everyone stuck around long enough for another hot dog, some more tunes, some speeches and the drawing, first prize being free tickets to the local movie theatre. The guests were invited back for the cultural festival in the late fall.

And Valencia Valley were assured that Gymnos wouldn't be that scary of a place, when they went there as part of the second tier competition. Lois and her charges weren't as convinced as that.

"But they're far less likely to go for 'female only', don't you think?" she asked of Joe.

"I've seen the layout of the place, and it would be awkward at best." He considered for a minute. "Maybe if you hosted an exhibition game, between our teams and yours? Or came here for one?"

"Are you sure you just don't want to see my girls naked?" Lois joked.

"Lady, I've seen so much naked flesh here over the past three weeks, I think I'm suffering from overload."

On Tuesday, St. Dunstan's returned to Gymnos to support their big sisters. Unlike their first time there, this time they had some expectations of what things would be like. Sure enough, Gymnos pulled out all the stops, especially on the volleyball court. Their squad was very experienced, and skilfully tore Buchanan's defences apart.

Saddened by the loss but happy about the friends they'd made there, the tired teens had no problem getting to sleep that night.

The paper that week carried both stories. Ellen had convinced a female colleague who had the school sports beat to make the ultimate sacrifice for her profession, as long as it was the two of them together.

Slowly over that school year, more and more schools in the city challenged themselves to join the roster of campuses with clothes-free sporting competition until by the summer almost half had routinely nude student populations for at least part of the day. St. Dunstan's and Buchanan, long acknowledged to be the leaders in the program, were designated naturist starting with the next school year — the summer would be used to create privacy fencing around their fields — which meant some staff changes, as not everyone could adapt easily.

Rebecca began dating Kevin, and the two of them spent as many weekends as possible at Sunny Acres with their families and many of their friends from Gymnos and St. Dunstan's.