Chapter 24: "How do you plead... ?"

Meredith walked in while all this cajoling was going on. Seeing that quite a few parents were still hesitant to get their feet wet in spite of all their pious platitudes, rather than go to her bedroom to take her clothes off, she decided to make a show of it and tossed her clothes about the living room in the middle of the crowd.

"Gods! That's a relief!" she cried out. "My bra was driving me crazy all day. Does anybody want some tea before they have to leave?"

Lisa came in from the kitchen. "Oh, Meredith ... I'm glad you've arrived. Venera has some great news ... Sunny Acres in Williamsdale is willing that we set up a naturist day-care facility in their resort; their offering the place almost rent-free and they'd even accept the parents at reduced rates on week-ends. Isn't that wonderful?"

Several parents, seeing Meredith, Lisa and her team, all seemingly at ease with their nudity, started to think that, maybe, being naked wasn't that bad, after all. At least three sets of parents were openly discussing stripping down on arrival while two other sets of parents had pensive looks on their faces.

Suppertime was quite a rowdy affair that evening; Beth, Cathy and Joy, with their kids, had stayed for supper because there had still been a lot of planning to accomplish before they were to be ready for the big move. Harold entered the kitchen in the middle of this chaos. He hesitated maybe five seconds on seeing all that naked flesh and then continued as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Even Lisa was unsure whether the hesitation was due to the nudity or to the number of people in the kitchen. Meredith did the honors

"Ladies ... since we're all being so open about everything, allow me to introduce Mark's father, Harold Pettigrew. Before you all jump to conclusions, let me tell you flat out that Harold is neither my husband nor my lover, nor has he ever been so in the past: Mark was conceived through artificial insemination. For those that may not know it, at the present time, Harold is here as Lisa's attorney."

"Harold ... these ladies are some of the parents of Lisa's kids and the central committee in charge of throwing a wrench into the school board's high-handed management policies ... Joy, Beth and Cathy."

"Ladies..."

"Lisa, I won't keep you long ... I just came to tell you two things; one, don't forget that we have court appearance tomorrow at ten..."

"Oh, damn... ! I had forgotten all about it. Will it take long... ? We have things to organize."

"No, I wouldn't think so ... We have to stand in front of the judge and say 'Not guilty'. The judge will then set a trial date and that's it. If all goes well, we'll be back here for lunch."

"Good ... I know that it's important, of course, but that trial seems so far down in my priorities at the moment that I find it hard to give it the attention it needs. What's the second thing?"