Chapter 3

The first day of classes, the moment I walked up to the front door of the high school, I had a decision to make.

"Fresh meat."

"Kinda scrawny."

"She'd look like a zipper if she stuck her tongue out."

His buddy cackled. "She better be careful around them straws they got in the cafeteria. Might get sucked in."

Someone had left the cage door open and two knuckle draggers -- sophomores was my bet -- were looking me over as if I were a picked over spare-rib. I got that prickly adrenaline rush I felt before a swimming meet. There it was a tool to be used. Here it was scary. This sort of encounter hadn't been covered in the orientation tour we'd had.

So, do I hold my head high and ignore them? Or do I call their bluff. I'd flinched, and I'd felt Greg stiffen beside me. They knew they'd struck a nerve, and that's like blood in the water to snarks like that.

The Stick, of course, took over. I gave Greg an eye cock and squeezed his hand to damp down his testosterone. This required a woman's touch, neither fight nor flight. I turned to confront the gruesome twosome, donning my sweet, reasonable look to put them off their guard, even as The Stick reminded me to show no fear, stand tall, keep my shoulders back, and stick out my chest -- what there was of it.

Yuck! I wished I was upwind. They smelled of stale smoke -- both tobacco and weed. Their clothes looked like they'd crawled out of a pile of thrift-shop rejects. The elastic of red paisley boxers ringed the top of one's low-slung, tatty cargoes like a caterpillar. The other wore Haines. It said so right on the waistband of what should have been tighty-whities. The crotch of their trousers was at the level of their knees. I bet inside the school they'd haul their pants up rather than catch a dress-code violation -- underwear was to be worn "under" everything else. Said so right in our orientation papers.

A dress code in a school that has the Naked in School Program? Don't ask me, I'm just a lowly student, freshman at that.

Aided by my latest growth spurt, and their slouches, I could look them right in their bloodshot eyes before slowly scanning each of them from head to toe and back up again, making sure to let my gaze linger below their waists, cocking my head slightly as I did, as if examining some strange, inconsequential life form -- or, maybe, measuring them for castration.

"I can't wait to see you guys naked in school," I noted after a pregnant pause, eyeball to eyeball with them again, deflecting their smirks with an insincere smile. "It's gotta look better than your outfits. I bet your dicks are as dinky as your brains, so it doesn't matter which head you think with -- if you think at all."

Unused to being confronted, they shifted nervously, tried to regain the advantage.

"Wait'll you hear our reasonable requests," one growled. I think he was trying to grow a beard -- or maybe he just hadn't washed.

I gave him an eye roll. "If you do, remember, 'reasonable requests' cuts both ways. I don't think you'll like what I'll ask you to do. It may be physically impossible but it'll be fun watching you try. And you don't want to ask me for relief. I've got teeth and claws."

I turned on my heel.

"Dorks!" I snorted. They reminded me of Horace. At least I was free of him for the year, while he tried to claw his way out of the legal and academic hole he'd dug for himself. I should have known high school came with its own consignment of Neanderthals.

"Ouch!" Greg winced as together we walked in to the building. "Well, that got things off to a good start!"

"Too much, huh?" I asked.

He shrugged, and gave my hand a reassuring "we'll get through this together" squeeze as we merged with the chattering crowd. Around us upper-class kids chattered like machine guns. Summers were being caught up on, old friendships renewed, hugs and kisses, shoulder slaps, fist bumps and elaborate handshakes exchanged. Guys scoped out the girls, and vice versa. There were bursts of laughter, squeals and giggles, shouts. Seniors strutted, Juniors looked serious, sophs slouched, frosh cringed.

Then I saw John looking uncertain and fearful in the chaos and quickly moved to gather him under my wing.

"Sorry we're late. Greg's bus was late, and then I had to deal with the local goon squad guarding the door."

"Me, too," John admitted unhappily, in a way that led me to suspect the "fag" label had preceded him here. He's not gay, by the way -- not that I care.

"Well, we're here now," I assured him. I could actually feel him relax as, together, the three of us plunged into the turmoil of a new school. With Beth off at college, John's home life with her parents was shaken, and a new school would be hard without his sweet squeeze, Alice, to buck him up. I wondered if the relationship would survive the two years she had left in middle school. I hoped so.

At least he was still seeing Ms. Andrews, his counselor from middle school. His so-called mother and her boyfriend were still where they belonged, behind bars, and, it was hoped, would be until he turned eighteen. The case against them had been so solid it hadn't gone to trial, which meant very little publicity. Because names were different no one connected those losers to John. He had enough problems without that.

Meanwhile, after orientation we'd done what we could to assemble a support group for him, ignoring his mumbled protests. Greg was in some of John's classes, Mike in others, and both in his lunch period, so John had someone to sit with. Through me Greg knew John, had a sketchy knowledge of his background and was happy to oblige. Even though John and I had a carnal history, Greg knew the circumstances and claimed he wasn't jealous, though I still worried.

Even so, mom was right -- life is a lot simpler if you don't try to keep secrets.

Speaking of which, something was perking between her -- Mom -- and Elaine -- Dr. Elaine Smathers, OB-GYN. The strange noises in the night were getting stranger. I'd do some snooping after school. No secrets, right? Don't want Mom's life getting complicated, after all, do we?

Then I saw Missy and Mike, and for a moment I thought maybe they were back together, but they just happened to be standing side-by-side, looking in opposite directions, obviously lost. So we all coalesced, the five of us seeking comfort in the herd. Since out of all of us I'd spent the most time around the high school I was the natural leader, again.

Not that I minded, really. These were old friends. Four of us had survived the fires of our own middle school together, including our notorious sex ed adventures, while Greg had endured his own pubescent torments. Now we faced high school together. Even allowing for Saturday's tour the turmoil was intimidating, the geography confusing, and our assigned peer counselors had their own opening day challenges to deal with. Consulting the fists of papers we'd been given during orientation, I helped maneuver them through the maze to find homerooms and lockers.

"Diane Walker!"

"Here," I responded as I slid into my desk in home room in the nick of time. I was aware of various curious looks from some of the people around me. Well, I do stand out in a crowd, I consoled myself.

If the teacher said anything about Carl...

"I had your brother for English Lit," she remarked.

"Yes'm," I answered. I was relieved she left it at that and moved on with the roll call.

And so it went through the morning, from class to class, my backpack growing steadily heavier with each textbook or workbook, a few comments about my scintillating, talented brother Carl, only adding to my burden. I'd marched in his footsteps since pre-k, so I was used to it. This isn't to say that I liked it.

Greg and I shared some classes, John and I others, along with various other classmates from my middle school. I wasn't in French, where, during their stints in The Program, Madame DuClos had used Carl and Beth for lessons in French anatomical slang. I wondered if Frau Blucher would use me the same way in German class. When I'm in The Program, or maybe even if I'm not, I'd likely be called on in biology at some point, of course. Such is my fame.

The culinary offerings at lunch looked no worse here than they'd been in middle school, but no better, either. I was carrying my tray toward a distant table -- this cafeteria was at least four times the size of the one I was used to -- when I heard a snatch of conversation from a table of fashionably dressed upper-class girls, conversation obviously intended for my ears.

"What on earth is that?" one drawled.

"Looks like a truffula tree," another sniped.

That triggered a gust of catty laughter.

I winced internally at the reference to the slender-trunked, puff-ball topped trees out of Dr. Seuss. But what could I do? I am what I am, tall and slender, and my hair is my hair. Even under the best of circumstances it has a mind of its own. After a summer of sun and chlorine it was bleached almost white, with the texture of straw. Maybe if it were long I could do something with it, but it was cheaper, and infinitely more practical for swimming, to keep it in a simple bowl cut. With it really cropped I'd look like the business end of a cue stick. Instead I looked sort of like a bottle-brush.

I told myself I had better uses for my limited resources than the beautician. The Stick reminded me that we are tall, we are slender, we are graceful and to pay no attention to the carefully coiffed dwarfs.

"That's Dee Walker," one commented.

"Carl's sister?"

The mention of Carl brought a wave of sighs and drools from the estrogen brigade as I drifted out of earshot. The whole exchange -- like I needed it! -- was a reminder that, as a lowly frosh, I was at the bottom of the food chain again, after a year of being at the top in middle school.

Ah well.

While the gender barriers were eroding under the hormone onslaught, the tables were still pretty much segregated by sex, social group -- jocks here, geeks there, this first day we frosh circled our wagons based on the middle school we came from. I joined my lunchroom gang from last year as they coalesced around probably the least desirable table in the cafeteria, in a far corner, near where the departing diners scraped their debris into ripe trash containers and clattered trays onto the wash line.

We tried to be unobtrusive, keeping our voices down as we compared teachers and courses. At the same time we were aware of the boys scoping us out as they exited the room, and our eyes flicked over them in return. When sightlines happened to intersect there was a flinch and the applesauce on our trays suddenly became a point of interest while the boys usually found the sorting and recycling instructions on the wall above the containers fascinating.

"So, is anyone we know naked in school this week?" Inez asked, nervously twirling a lock of her black hair.

"No one," Fran answered around a bite. "I think they try to lull us into a false sense of security. They don't start The Program until next week."

Peggy, the most modest of us all, shivered and looked uncomfortable, hugging herself. Petite in every direction, her little breasts barely made an impression on her usual trim polo shirt. "I don't know if I can do it. I don't wanna be naked in school! What happens if I won't do it?"

"Didn't your parents opt you out?" Cindy asked.

Peggy shook her head dolefully. "They opted me in. Said it would be good for me."

"Uh oh," Fran barked in her way. "Bummer." Fran is big, and bold, and kinda brassy, with a heart as big as all outdoors.

I tried to soothe Peggy. "You can do it. We'll help you, won't we girls?"

"Well, you won't have any trouble with it, after what you did in Sex Ed," Fran observed slyly, looking at me.

I shrugged. "Naked is naked. But it is a different audience, and first thing this morning I drew some fire from a pair of Neanderthals by the front door..."

"Ick! Me, too," Cindy put in. "They said, 'Look at them balloons!' Gross!" She's precociously endowed, you might say.

" ... and then there's the fashion-police at table one," I went on.

"The Witches of Winfield?" Fran asked.

"You know them?"

She shrugged her broad shoulders. "Heard of 'em. They're the Queen Bees around here. They'll roast me on a spit if I have to go naked for a week."

Fran is, well, as I said, a Big Girl. I reminded her that Stephanie had made it through her week in The Program with the help of my brother Carl and his GF Beth.

"We've got your back," I assured her.

"It'll take more of us than there are to cover Fran's back," Cindy sniped.

Fran laughed the loudest among us.

"I'll bring a parachute," Inez teased affectionately as we gathered our stuff and joined the departing throng, chattering about who goes where next.

Phys Ed resulted in the usual dorky phys ed shirt and shorts, both of which exposed plenty of my epidermis, of course, in comparison to my less vertically gifted classmates, especially my long legs. I figured I was certain to be first-pick for volleyball and basketball teams, until they discovered my ball-handling skills.

As the afternoon wore down I was not looking forward to going home, believe it or not. Mom wouldn't be home for hours, and Carl was gone, gone, gone, had been for a week. I was suffering from a sibling version of the empty nest syndrome, the house seemed so empty without him.

Oh, sure, even before he wasn't always home when I got there after school, what with his swimming and band practice, but I knew he'd be home later. We teased each other, and fought, but I always knew when I needed to talk, he'd listen. But now he wasn't going to be home that evening -- any evening -- for quite some time, and I missed him. I wasn't eager to go home to an empty house.

The stick reminded me if I was handed a lemon I could always make lemonade. Hmmmmm. Mom and Dr. Smathers had been making some very interesting night noises, something more than the usual sighs and moans. Maybe it was time to do a little snooping.

Me? Snoop?

Well, at Mom's infamous pelvic exam Dr. Smathers had said, "no secrets," and after that exam there had been few left. If there were not supposed to be any secrets, what's wrong with a little snooping?

I had another problem as well -- make that two problems. Until swimming practice began in a few weeks Greg was locked in to his bus schedule. While that would change, now it meant I had no snuggle and smooch time with him.

And on the second front, John would be going home to Beth's house, probably walking. Though I hadn't shared my worries with him I had no illusions. At this point he practically had "victim" stenciled on his forehead, the way he walked, shying at every loud laugh, every sudden move, even when he was with me. I'd seen how the people who didn't know him assessed him in the hallways. If the wrong people got him out in the wild they'd make mincemeat of him, psychologically if not physically. I wouldn't even put it past them to deliberately hunt him down.

I don't mean to give the impression the school is a hot-bed of violence, but face it, with the testosterone flowing there's a pack mentality. There's a pecking order, a food chain, and John was on the wrong end of them. Boys, and girls, I admit, in a pack can be ruthless. John needed time to find his balance.

After the closing bell I found him with his head in his locker, a hermit crab looking for shelter. As if to verify my fears, I saw the same goons who'd greeted us in the morning sauntering down the hall and picked up my pace to get to John before they did. I wouldn't put it past those jerks to stuff him in his locker and snap the lock. Whether my being there deflected them or not, they ignored him and swaggered on their way.

"Hi, John."

There was a muffled thump and curse as he backed out, rubbing his head.

"Sorry," I apologized.

"'S'okay. Hi, Dee."

"Want to walk home with me? Beth's place is pretty much on my way."

He looked relieved. "Yeah! Lemme get my stuff." He hauled out a backpack that looked heavier than mine and wobbled under it as he shouldered it.

"So, how was your first day?" I asked as we trekked down the hall.

He shrugged, or tried to. "Okay, I guess. A few of the big kids made some nasty comments."

I nodded as we headed down the hall. "Did I ever tell you about The Stick?"

"What's 'the stick?'"

"Remember the first day of sex ed, when Carl got me up in front of the whole class and had me get naked? And you called me 'the stick?'"

He looked mortified. "Yeah. I'm sorry. That was really mean of me."