Charlie woke up, not to the annoying buzzing of the alarm clock he was used to, but to the sound of an agonized scream. "What the," he asked, not getting a reply, as he looked at the clock. Midnight. He almost got out of bed, but remembered the door was locked from the outside. He listened for a few minutes, but the yell was not repeated, and finally he settled back into the covers and went back to sleep. Tucker leaned over the toilet, not sure if he was going to puke or not. The shaking and sweating made him feel incredibly weak, and the fast breathing worried him. He was always worried about an asthma attack, even though he hadn't had one in two years. Prior experience had taught him that he was most vulnerable when he had nightmares, and he wasn't carrying the proper drugs any more. That had been, at one time, about the risk equivalent of trying to scramble across a freeway on crutches. It was better now, but old fears were hard to break, especially when originally grounded in reality. Finally, his stomach settled down, and he wiped his forehead with toilet paper and got up. "I should never have agreed to stay here," he told himself as he swayed back and forth in the dark bathroom. So? so what So what are you worried about? you don't worry about tuck. he can take care of himself. but sometimes. :P *laughs* but what if you need help Bite me, Mike ? we were talking about what to do if we need to hie him debbie, hes got your pager number, he'll call you or me if he needs us. wont you tuck? hide him, I mean. x-> Yeah, I'll call if I need help, really! i just worry she worries a lot about you, Tuck I jsut think I can handle it up here long enough to get that Libretto Kim: how MUCH does she worry about me? what if we cant get there in time tuck: and thats what its all aboutm, isnt it? Tuck: tons. we're getting tired of hearing about it actually ;) kim: no kidding thats not Deb: we're kidding, but I think youre over reacting. fair Mike: really? youd tuck: would i lie? dont answer that => worry too if it was mike there Mike: you'd lie in a heartbeat Tuck: I told you not to answer that! no I wouldnt, because I know mMike can take care of himself. So can Tucker. Can't you Tucker? Mike: silly macro, kicks are for trids! Kim: you betcha. MrStudd has joined #camp what MrStudd has been kicked off #camp by @tucker closed session dude. get lost! mode +b for *.edu has been set by @tucker what was that mode +isn for #camp has been set by @tucker Some loser, saw some girl-names online, wanted to come get some MrMike is now known as HotBabe oooh im so horny Kim: Yeah, I can take care of myself. Mostly, as Mike pointed out. But with friends like you all, how acn I go wrong? ? ROTFL* oh if only there was a REEL K00l D00D around to make me cum HotBabe has been muted by @tucker *kisses Debbie* *laughs herself sick* *kisses Debbie* *kisses Debbie* *kisses Debbie* HotBabe is now known as MrMike MrMike has been unmuted by @tucker what are you doing kissing you, Deb Deb: they're messing around. dont' worry about it stop kissing her you fiend! *kisses kimkim* Debbie, I miss you, but I'll be back. And I'll make it. I promise. *kisses kimkim* *kisses MRMike* *kisses tucker* Jane saw Valerie, staggering around as she usually did in the morning, and sipping another of the sodas she had bought during her 'outing' "Valerie," she called, and the girl stopped and turned around. "Yeah?" she replied slowly. Jane was about to supply a correction when the girl added, "...mean, yes ma'am?" "Valerie, I need to..." Her voice trailed off as she first noted that the girl had not applied makeup that morning. The second item that caught her attention was the dark rings, almost black, under the child's eyes. "Huh?" Valerie asked, and Jane realized that she had been examining Valerie for quite a period of time. "First, you have forgotten your makeup this morning, and you need to go back and put some on for breakfast." "Oh, sor-" "And second," Jane interrupted without meaning to, "tell me how well you are sleeping." Valerie stared at her for a moment, uncomprehending, then blinked slowly. "Not real good. I don't sleep well in strange places." She gave a short chuckle. "I think this place qualifies as strange." "That's as may be," Jane discarded the attempt at humor. "How much did you sleep last night?" Valerie considered the question. "'Bout four hours, I guess." "And the night before?" The girl shrugged. "'Bout the same." Her head bobbed as she replied. "Maybe three." Jane considered. "Valerie, I had planned to take you and Charlene shopping today, but I think-" "Oh, good," the child said with some relief, and sipped at the soda in her hand. "Good?" Jane was puzzled. "I need to get some more stuff, casual clothes I mean." She smiled at Jane wearily. "My skating stuff gets kind of stinky, you know?" Tucker was feeling pretty good about the day, even though Charlene didn't look too happy at the idea of going shopping, for some reason. *Maybe she's on the rag or something,* he speculated. Debbie didn't want to go out when she was having her period. Otherwise, like most of the girls he'd ever met, she could shop any guy into the ground and enjoy it. "Oh," Jane said, turning to him. "By the way, your first practice with the choir is today. I forgot to mention it earlier." "Choir?" Charlie wasn't too happy with the idea of going shopping with Jane all morning - again - but at least he had the consolation that he wasn't going to be stuck practicing singing. Dance classes had been enough for him. He hoped. Tucker followed Jane into the small building, and was rather surprised to see so many girls up at this ungodly hour of nine. He was also conscious of the fact that, even though he had consciously dressed down, he was still overdressed. *Peachy,* he thought as he sighed. Mrs. Bishop was apparently anticipating a no-show or something, judging by the way she kissed up to both Jane and Tucker, telling them how fun it was going to be and throwing a whole bunch of girl's names at him. "Oh, and I do think that the accents for that one bring out the color of your eyes, don't you, Charlene?" Charlie smiled wanly at both Miss Franson and Jane in the mirror. Tucker gladly accepted the orange juice that Miz Bishop handed him, and drank half of it, feeling the cold citrus easing the pain of a overstressed throat. Somehow, singing for ten minutes in the hothouse atmosphere of a shower wasn't quite the same as singing for an hour in a dry house. Plus, if he was singing by himself, he didn't have to keep stopping and starting and backing up and 'try it again, please, from the top'ing. This choir thing was going to be a pain in the ass, he could tell already. And he still had two hours to go. Jane smiled as Charlene's brows clenched at what she was holding. "This should look quite good on you, especially since your bust has been growing," Jane said. Since Jane had added a larger breast form to Charlene's wardrobe, she meant. Charlene knew what she had meant, too, and she didn't like it, but she took the dress with a smile and went to go put it on. *I needed this,* Jane decided as she watched the graceful swaying of Charlene's skirts as she retreated. "You're one of Jane's charm school girls?" Ellen asked Tucker. "Does everybody know about that place?" he complained, and they all giggled. "It's hard not to notice when they come in for six months and then disappear for ever," Kayla replied. Audrey mentioned, "We USED to think that she was killing them or something," which made Tucker feel all sorts of better not, especially since he had wondered such things himself, "but we asked around, and it's a charm school." "Ugh," Tucker commented, which sent the girls into fits of giggles. "Besides," added Missy, "we saw you come in with her." The dispersing choir hid Valerie until she was almost at the car. As she opened the rear door and got in, Jane asked, "Did you have fun today, Valerie?" Silence instead of the expected reply was all she heard. She turned around to admonish Valerie, and saw the girl flapping her hands in sign language. "Out loud, please," Jane directed. "My throat hurts," was the instant reply, and the pained look as she spoke seemed to validate her. "Can I get something to drink, please?" she croaked. "Please?" echoed Charlene. Charlie wished they hadn't ended up at the mall again, but Valerie led the way and made a beeline for the food area and some place that advertised "smoothies," whatever they were. At least this time, Jane looked as puzzled as he felt. Charlie and Jane both ordered plain juice, but Valerie was already sucking down a reddish something that had come out of a blender. "What IS that?" Charlie asked when he could no longer restrain his curiosity. "Duh, it's a smoothie," she replied scornfully. "Valerie, I don't think either of us know what that is," Jane said, placing a hand on Charlie's shoulder to remind him to keep his temper. He would have been grateful for it if he hadn't wanted to dump the glop over Valerie's head so bad. "It's, um..." Valerie frowned. "I forget, except it has fruit and bananas in it. Anyway, it's really good for sore throats like you get from singing all day." "You were only in there three hours," Charlie reminded her. "You sing for three hours straight, blondie, and see how YOUR throat feels," Valerie snapped back. Charlie was about to say something really rude in reply when Jane's hand tightened on his shoulder again. "Valerie," Jane said sharply, "don't be rude. Charlene was right, you were only in practice for three hours." "It's still a lot more than I'm used to, Jane," Valerie said before she coughed and sucked on the straw again. "BACK to Miss Franson's?" Charlene gasped. "Who?" Tucker asked. "Why?" Charlene wanted to know. "Because," Jane replied, "I have to discuss some business with someone over lunch, and I certainly wouldn't want to bore you two with discussions of finance." "What's Miss Franson's?" Tucker wanted to know. He had a feeling that he'd rather be bored with business. Besides, there was always the possibility of trading the info to his dad, if it was good enough. Valerie, for once, looked properly disgusted as Jane took the two of them into the shop. "What IS this place?" she asked Charlie quietly. "Hell," Charlie replied. Valerie glanced at him, looking skeptical, then caught the movements of a young girl in a prom dress swirling around in front of a mirror. Not only was the dress of the expensive sort, Charlie knew, but the hovering woman that was apparently the girl's mother was dressed in the same sort of I-have-too-much-money fashion as Jane, except she sounded more like a twit. "Oh, God," Valerie remarked, sounding horrified. "I told you," Charlie said smugly. Tucker stared at the woman who was approaching their 'party' with a large smile on her face. "Well, Jane, good to see you again," the woman chuckled. "Of course, Betty. May I present the latest addition, Valerie? Valerie, this is Miss Franson. You are to obey her at all times, as you would myself. I should be back in two or three hours." Tucker curtsied to the accompaniment of a skeptical snort from Charlene. "Well, Valerie, I think we can take good care of you," said Miss Franson. *Uh huh,* Tucker thought skeptically. "Come along, both of you." Tucker followed, as did Charlene. He was less than thrilled to be stuck in this place. *Wonder if today is the day we get fitted for that stupid dance?* he wondered. Then he wondered what Debbie would look like in some of the ultra-feminine finery that was all around him. He was practically salivating when Miss Franson remarked, "Well, my young man, I hope that you have been paying attention to what Jane is teaching you, because-" Tucker's astonishment had given way to anger, and then to that sort of mischief that was either going to make him rich or dead one of these days. "ExCUSE me?" he said in the frostiest tone he could manage, and in the English high-bred accent that went so well at times like these. "WHAT did you call me?" he asked as he stopped and glared at her. Miss Franson stopped too, and turned to look at him. "Oh, my dear, Jane told me all about you-" "WHAT?" Tucker shrieked, and caused heads to turn all over the store. *Roll with it,* he thought, and fought to keep from wiping his now-damp hands on his skirt. "I do NOT have to put up with this kind of INSULT from a SHOPKEEPER," he snarled at her, loud enough for everyone to hear, and turned around and began marching for the door. Charlie had stopped when Valerie had opened her mouth. He had a sneaking suspicion that she was going to get all bitchy about things again, and he wanted to watch from a good viewpoint this time. Sure enough, she yelled at Miss Franson, sounding like a princess, and turned around to leave. Miss Franson made the mistake of grabbing her arm, and Valerie turned and unleashed a ringing slap that froze everyone in the place, and yanked her arm loose. "You will NOT touch my person," she commanded Miss Franson in a voice so full of royalty and command that Miss Franson actually let her get out of arm's reach. And when the frazzled Miss Franson regained her wits, it was too late. Valerie had left the building. Charlie started to snort, and when Miss Franson unsuccessfully chased Valerie to the front door of the store, and then turned around, apparently at a complete loss, he lost it entirely. Tucker was so pissed, and so caught up in the role he was playing, that he'd actually made it through a good quarter of the mall, striding along with such authority that grown men got out of his way, before he realized that he'd escaped. "Well, bloody hell," he said to himself in amazement. "Who would'a thunkit?" He glanced around, looking for pursuit, but there wasn't any apparent. *Hmmm,* he thought. *Next stop....* Nothing presented itself except a bench, so he sat down and started to think about where to go next. He was looking in his satchel for Tracy's phone number when he spotted Charlene walking through the mall, looking nervous. *Wonder what her problem is,* he wondered, then thought, *Probably afraid that Jane'll yell at her for losing track of me again.* He debated the pros and cons of that scenario, and finally decided that, since she had warned him about Miss Franson's, that she deserved a save. Besides, there was that damned contract. He got up and followed her, but she was so intent on looking in front of her for him, that she didn't notice him pacing her about two feet back. Finally, he couldn't stand it any more, and said in the most male voice he could muster, "Hey baby, lookin' for someone?" She flinched and spun, and then gaped for a few seconds. Then she started to laugh. Charlie had just about laughed himself sick, and he was glad that Valerie had led him over to a bench, because there was no way he could have stood up after that. He sighed, laughed out for the moment, and grinned weakly at Valerie. She grinned back, a smile full of infectious malevolence, the sort of smile that said, Come With Me To The Dark Side Of The Far Side. "So, whatcha wanna do now?" Too out of breath to talk, Charlie merely reached into his purse and pulled out Jane's charge card. She'd given it to him for use at Miss Franson's, but he figured that Valerie could find some use for it... Reluctantly discarding the idea of charging two airplane tickets to Hawaii, Tucker found a pay phone and called up Chase Bank and asked for the balance on the card. When he got the answer, he politely thanked the phone droid and hung up. And stared. "So?" Charlene asked. Tucker roused himself up, and smiled at Charlene. "Want to buy a car?" he asked her rhetorically. Charlie had been entertaining thoughts of something along those lines, but Valerie had shrugged, and within minutes they were Shopping. She had an eye for color that was almost as good as the one he had developed over the months, but his choices were for things that Jane would never have approved of. The first place they went, she got them both T shirts and shorts, and within minutes they looked almost identical to every other girl wandering around the mall. Charlie noticed that the amount of attention they got decreased by half, too, since they weren't standing out so much. The second place they went, they got new shoes. Now they were completely invisible. Except teenagers kept looking at them. The third place they went, Valerie picked up a couple of miniskirts and three tops, all of them in the retro styling that was becoming popular. The fourth place they went, Valerie talked Charlie into getting an ankle length skirt that was slit up past his knee. She got two granny dresses and four bracelets. The fifth place they went was for lingerie, and Charlie almost balked at that, but Valerie just laughed at him. She went inside, and Charlie wisely decided to stick with the charge card. Within ten minutes, she had bought over a hundred dollars worth of lingerie, much of it in a breast size that she manifestly was not equipped to wear. "You'll see, or not," was all she said when Charlie asked about it. The sixth place was some sort of private mailbox place, where Valerie used some of her own cash to stick the too-big lingerie into a box and have it mailed someplace. Charlie tried to look at the address, but Valerie was cagey and never let him see it. The seventh place they went had leather jackets, and Valerie actually squealed at one, and had to have it immediately. "Valerie," Charlie said, getting worried, "don't you think you're going kind of overboard?" "Did you see the kind of stuff they were selling at Franson's place?" she asked in return. "Trust me, this stuff is TONS cheaper than that. And maybe we won't look so much like charm school inmates." The eighth place, Valerie got three miniskirts and four tops, and Charlie liked the look of what Valerie was prancing around in enough that he picked up a few outfits for himself, including one fairly nice dress that Valerie insisted would look great. It did, too, when he tried it on and looked in the mirror. The ninth place had all natural-fiber clothing, and the clothes felt so nice on their skin that both of them were practically raving, right alongside one of the sales clerks, and between the two of them they bought so much that it had to go into TWO bags. The tenth place... "It's all pierced stuff," Charlene mentioned as Tucker stared at the racks of earrings. "Well, you know Jane's not gonna let me get out of this without having my ears pierced," he remarked, sure of it as soon as he'd said it. "Besides, my, uh, my best girlfriend," *Oh, how true,* he grinned, "she has pierced ears." "You think Jane would make you pierce your ears?" Charlene asked. "I know it." "She never made me pierce mine," Charlene countered, and when Tucker gave her a look, she pulled off what she was wearing to show that indeed, she had no holes in her ears. "I'll do it if you will," he challenged her, grinning. "What?" Her eyes widened. Charlie had made Valerie go first, and while the girl had gone white, she hadn't passed out, or screamed at the little 'pop' when the little gun - it really looked like a gun - went off. So it was Charlie next, and he was sitting on a stool while a pretty clerk fluffed his hair up and 'hmmm'd to herself. *I am so glad I'm not wearing a wig any more,* he thought as she stared back and forth. The touches on his face and neck and ears, and in his hair, were extremely erotic for some reason, and he was likewise extremely glad he'd worn tight underwear that morning. Finally, the moment came, and after the first few seconds it didn't hurt nearly as bad as his feet did. Neither did the second one. An image came to him, of some guy he'd seen on television, and he asked the girl, "Can you do a third one?" Valerie's eyebrows went up, but the girl didn't bat an eyelash. "Sure, which ear?" Charlie smirked a challenge at Valerie as she got the third one ready. Tucker sighed, and wondered how he got into things like this, as the sales clerk counted nodules in their heads and finally came up with a grand total of twelve piercings, for sixty dollars. "So, what now?" Charlene asked, grinning at him. They'd called it a tie while they still had flesh left. "Ummmm..." He thought for a minute, then realized what he was missing. "I need some more bike shorts." "For what? Are you gonna get a bike, too?" "Now that's an idea...." Tucker mentioned, considering the idea for a while before he finally dropped it. "Nah, by the time I get in good enough shape to really use it, I'll be out of here." "So what do you need bike shorts for?" Charlene wanted to know. "Duh! For skating, in those skirts? I don't want everyone to see what kind of underwear I've got on." "Oh," she remarked. Charlie was beginning to get into the spirit of things, and decided to see how far he could push Valerie. "You know, if you got a swimsuit, then you could go swimming," he mentioned to her as she forged Jane's signature once again on a charge slip. "At Jane's? Hmmm." She ripped off her copy and handed the rest back to the clerk, trading it for a receipt. "Not a bad idea." "But, she'd want you to get a girl's suit," he mentioned. Valerie looked at him as if he'd just mentioned that the sky was blue when it wasn't cloudy. "I think I'd figured that one out. She won't let me do ANYthing unless it's a girl's version." "Want to pick one out?" Charlie asked. She shrugged. "Sure, why not?" They walked over to the swimsuit area, and poked through it for a while, but Valerie rejected everything that Charlie showed her. Finally, she said, "I think there's a place a few doors down that has some good ones, come on." Sure enough, there was, and Valerie dove right in. In an astonishingly short period of time, Charlie was staring at one hot fox in a two-piece bikini. "Hey!" Valerie complained, and he turned around, starting to blush as he realized what he'd been doing, and more importantly, why he didn't want to be caught doing it. She was wearing something similar, though the top had almost nothing in it. He was going to say something, when a couple of girls brushed by him, and he realized that they had the same sort of protuberances up top - which is to say, practically zilch - as Valerie had. "Like it?" she asked, grinning and turning around in a circle. The bottom had a sort of skirt arrangement on it which flared as she rotated. All in all, it looked quite nice, if you happened to be a late starter in the puberty race. Tucker sighed in satisfaction as they stood around outside, waiting for Jane to show up. They'd spent a bundle, it was true, and technically it was all stolen, but he wasn't kidding when he'd told Charlene how much Franson's Lil' Shop O' Horrors cost. Tucker figured, from what he'd seen in the back seat as they went from choir to the mall again, that he'd come out about even as far as monetary expenditures went. And it WAS normal girl clothing. He just hoped he could convince Jane of that. They'd changed back into their original outfits, too, for the same reason that Tucker had gone around to the trash to find some shop bags to stuff everything in. So the only thing to do was wait around and suck on the second smoothie he'd gotten and wait for Jane to show up. Or for something else to go wrong. Jane pulled up, anticipating SOME sort of problem, but remarkably enough, her two charges were waiting outside the store holding bags and sipping on drinks. They waved as Jane pulled up, and co-operated in flinging bags into the car before jumping in themselves. "Well, girls, how did you enjoy your shopping?" she asked. The two children looked at each other, and started to giggle. Tucker passed out again on the ride home, therefore it seemed like a remarkably short time before the car turned into the driveway and he opened his eyes again. *Ah, home sweet home,* he grinned as he stretched his kinked neck. They wrestled bags out of the car, and Jane was leading them inside when a panicked-sounding Marie called out, "Jane, Betty Franson called, she said that-" Tucker tuned it out, because he knew that it was, like the song said, "Time for me to fly..." He smacked Charlene on the shoulder, and when she looked at him, he pointed towards the stairs urgently. As he took off running, the sound of Charlene following him closely, Jane called angrily, "VALERIE!" "Why is it always my fault?" he complained to the universe as he pounded up the stairs to his haven. Charlie was more than a bit annoyed. He'd enjoyed the burst of freedom, even if he'd had to keep up Jane's masquerade to do so. Now, Jane had found out, and all hell had broken loose for about half an hour. Valerie had used everything in her defense, and Charlie had added what he could, but he had a sneaking suspicion that the only thing that had really saved them was the fact that Valerie had insisted on only buying girl's things. Jane had shut up for almost a full minute when Valerie had waved some of their purchases in front of her nose. That, in Charlie's experience, was unique. Of course, watching a teenage girl wave lacy underwear in someone's face was also pretty unique, in his experience. Even so, the argument had been wearying, and Charlie was shocked when Jane demanded they model everything - EVERYTHING - they'd gotten. So was Valerie. "Jane!" Tucker complained. "Have you even LOOKED at any of those magazines you have sitting around the house?" There were plenty of them, all of them the sort of mass-market juvenile publications that the Pack would have dissected into small bloody gobbets. The sort of thing, in fact, that his sister used to read. "This IS what's fashionable nowadays!" he exclaimed, pointing at the picture in the magazine that Charlene handed him. "See?" The girl in the picture was wearing clothing almost identical to what Tucker was at that point. "All you're doing with the preppy stuff is drawing attention to you and the students. They LOOK FUNNY." "And how do you know this?" Jane asked, dangerously quiet. "BeCAUSE, Jane, everyone I've talked to feels sorry for me, because they can INSTANTLY tell I'm here at your charm school! NOBODY dresses like that all the time. I mean, to the salon to get your hair colored? Do you have any IDEA what perming solutions do to nice clothes?" Charlene groaned in reaction. Tucker smiled to himself as his guess was proved correct. "Besides, I HAPPEN to know a whole BUNCH of girls, and NONE of them would wear this stuff all the time, even the ones running their own businesses." *Never mind that half of them are loonies,* he reminded himself. *Especially the one I'm dating.* "It's very nice clothes and all that, and I can see where you would want your students to get used to being in nice clothes, but I mean, come ON! Even the Princess of Wales gets to dress down once in a while!" "Because you were going to MAKE me get my ears pierced!" Valerie countered. Charlie still felt that argument was flawed, for some reason, though after Valerie had mentioned it in the shop, it made perfect sense - he just couldn't figure out why Jane hadn't done it to him yet. She continued, "We ALL know-" "You know NOTHING," Jane emphasized. "I most certainly would NOT have insisted upon that, and do you know why?" She had no takers for that one, so Jane answered it herself. "Because I said that anything done to you had to be reversible at the end of the period! Remember?" Charlie could see by the expression on Valerie's face that she did not. Finally, the girl's mouth opened, and a very forlorn, "Shit," came out. Valerie had been banished to her room for a while, which suited everyone. Jane pinched the bridge of her nose, wondering if stress could possibly induce a brain tumor. She sighed, and picked up her drink for another sip. "So, Charlene, what could possibly have induced you to go along with today's shenanigans?" she inquired. Charlene shifted uneasily in her seat. "I, um..." She posed in thought for a few moments. "I guess, just... I mean, it was sort of fun with her. Trying on clothes and not hav..." She trailed off. "Not having me around?" Jane supplied. Charlene sighed and stared at her feet. "Well, I mean, she was right when she said we stand out. None of the other girls I've seen dress like this," the boy-girl flipped the skirt he was wearing at her. "At least not all the time. And it was..." Charlene sighed again after a moment, a deeper, sadder exhalation than the last. And was silent. Jane considered everything - the sad look, the reluctance to speak, and the extremely important fact that either of them could have been on their way home, in male attire, with the credit card she'd given to Charlene. "May I speculate?" Jane asked. Charlene just nodded, not even meeting Jane's gaze. "Then, I would have to guess, that you found shopping in a more, 'normal' mode, more enjoyable than you expected? That, without me, and with someone your own age who shares your secret, perhaps even a 'partner in crime,' that you actually enjoyed the shopping you did today?" Charlene was still for a time, and Jane was about to prompt her to speak, when she caught the dark bloom of a fallen tear on Charlene's dress, and the child began to weep quietly. Tucker's throat had almost stopped hurting, and after he'd showered and changed into something lightweight, the allure of a bed was too much to resist any more. Charlie listened to the phone ring, and tried to wipe the tears out of his eyes without disturbing his makeup. He wanted to laugh at the way it had become almost automatic, but his throat closed up too much. Finally, someone answered. "Um, hi," Charlie said, "can, can I speak to, uh, John? Please?" "Who may I say is calling?" asked the older woman on the other end of the connection. "Um, it, it's Charlene... please, I really need to talk to him." He fought, almost successfully, to keep the sounds of distress out of his voice. "Sure, just a minute, I think he's up in his room." A minute or so later, someone picked the phone up, and a decidedly male voice said, "Hello?" "Joan?" Charlie asked, losing what control he had. "I, I..." he stuttered out before he lost his reserve and started to cry into the phone. Jane had left her student to make his call in the parlor, allowing him the privacy she thought he needed at this point. The realization he'd come to, no matter how strange the precipitating incident, was one that almost all of her students came to eventually, and it was best that they talk it over with someone besides Jane herself. Ideally, of course, was the council of another, older student, and luckily Charlene's own 'older sister' was supposed to be at home for the rest of the summer. Jane hoped that things would go well, although the surprising appearance of this particular turning point had caught her unawares. Unfortunately, she also had a myriad of things to do, and there was nothing she could do for Charlene at this point, except pray. And she'd already done enough of that. Marie was collecting the laundry from the upstairs areas, and as she passed by Valerie's room, an almost superstitious impulse made her look in to see if she was still there. She was, sleeping peacefully in the bed, and the realization that Marie herself had found that surprising, kept her busy thinking for quite some time afterwards. "Look, you're in the home stretch," Joan, or John, told Charlie. "Once you start to, you know, kind of like it, it gets incredibly easy. And Jane knows this; she can tell when you reach that point. Trust me, you'll be out of there in maybe a month." "A month?" Charlie whimpered. "What then? What happens after that? Do I just, I mean, CAN I just go back to my life?" Joan chuckled into the phone. "Yeah, pretty much. I can tell you one thing, kiddo, I never thought I'd ever make it with the girls after I got out of Jane's, but, my God, it's like they are all over me!" Charlie laughed. The image that stuck in his head about his older 'sister' was the Spring Cotillion, when both of them had been pulled into another one of Edith White's monstrosities, and Joan had been besieged with young men asking her for dates. Charlie himself had thought her one of the most gorgeous young women he'd ever seen in his entire life. "I know," the voice on the phone continued, laughing too, "but it's true! So you just sort of watch your manners, the OTHER way from what you've been doing, and then after a month or so, you're back in the groove as far as the male thing goes, and then the girls can sense that you're 'not like those other guys.' My God, I must've heard that a dozen times already!" Tucker jerked awake just as the firing squad was pulling the trigger. "Ahhh ah ah ah ah," he gasped as he stared at the wall blankly, trying to sort out reality and REM. The problem was, it had all started in this room, just like this, and so it took him several minutes before he could tell himself that he really wasn't going to be executed for crimes against the state. Marie was starting dinner when Valerie wandered into the kitchen, looking abstracted. "Valerie," she asked, and the girl turned her attention to Marie. "Would you mind helping me with dinner tonight?" "Oh, um," she looked around as though the proper answer was written on the walls somewhere, "uh, yeah, sure. Just tell me what you want me to do, I guess." "The first thing you need to do, is to get an apron," she suggested. "They are in the pantry, over there. We don't want you to get your nice dresses messed," she reminded the girl. "Oh, yeah, okay," she replied, and walked over to the pantry. A sigh followed, and then she was pulling out one of the ruffled frilly concoctions that Jane kept on hand for the students. "She WHAT?" Joan protested. "I'm NOT making this up!" Charlie giggled. "She just slapped the HELL out of Miss Franson, and then walked out of there like she owned the whole country! I thought I was gonna die laughing!" Joan sounded like she was in mortal danger herself at the moment. Jane relaxed back into her chair, feeling quite satisfied with the fifteen thousand dollars in pure profit she'd made that day with a little clever currency trading. Finding a new student to occupy her time, she realized, would not be quite so easy, but with the renewed optimism her success had drawn forth from within herself, she felt quite up to the task. Debbie double-checked the figures in the accounting program that Tucker had given her last year, and smiled happily. Business was good. Good business meant more money for her, as well as for her 'employees,' who were mostly her friends. "Maybe a party," she mumbled to herself as she directed the computer to print out the weekly balances and the pay charts before she went to the bank. Payday was a lot of work, but it usually produced a lot of happy people, too. Tucker wiped his forehead on his upper arm and sighed. *It's not that I mind cooking,* he decided, *I would just rather do it in a meat locker, because there is no place in the world that is cool enough to keep me from sweating when I'm cooking.* On the other hand, dinner was looking good. And, since Marie was mostly the one tasting it, there was a good chance he would arrive at the table with his appetite intact. "Feel better?" Joan asked, sincerity in her voice. Charlie sighed. "Yeah. A lot. Thanks SO much," he said, and flip-flopped between embarrassment and gratitude for a few moments. Joan sighed, but it was a relieved sigh, and then said, "Well, okay, you know my number if you have any more problems or anything, right?" "Yeah," Charlie admitted. He was feeling a lot better about things, and right now what he wanted most was to get the phone away from his aching ear, and to go take a swim. Tucker came out of the kitchen, glad in a way to get away from temptation. He ran into Charlene on his way to the staircase, and almost immediately noticed that she seemed different. It wasn't just the tear-marks all over her face, either. She seemed calmer, somehow. She smiled at him, and asked, "Want to go for a swim?" Jane got up from her leather-backed chair, and stretched herself towards the ceiling, feeling the kinks roil through her muscles. "Mmmmm," she sighed sensually as she held the stretch until it became more painful than pleasurable. The relaxation to her normal posture felt as good as the initial stretching had. "Time to check on the children," she sighed to herself, and she left her office, making sure to lock the door as she left. They weren't in their rooms, and the rooms themselves offered no clues as to where they might be. Jane sighed to herself; this was becoming more and more common. They weren't downstairs either, as Jane checked the usual haunts that her students had inadvertently pointed out to her over the years. She finally found both of them splashing each other in the pool. Valerie had apparently also gotten a bathing suit that day, a pretty two-piece in the same range of blue as her eyes, and she looked quite fetching in it, Jane had to admit, even though her body coloration was that of someone who never voluntarily saw the sun. At the moment that Jane espied them, Valerie was over-exaggerating a model's runway walk on the diving board, and Charlene was laughing at the shallow end of the pool. Valerie thrust her arm into the air, and twirled around, looking quite dignified. That lasted an instant more, before the imperious fist became a flailing hand on the end of a spinning arm. There was nothing she could do, of course, and a moment later she fell off the end of the diving board into the pool. Charlene's howls of glee were clearly audible through the closed doors. Valerie floundered to the surface a moment later, lazily backstroking around and yelling something back at Charlene. Relieved that the two of them were, for once, apparently content with remaining in their surroundings, Jane turned to go find out what Marie had concocted for supper that night. Tucker watched appreciatively from his vantage point behind Charlene as she strode out of the pool, shaking her head from side to side. *Yowza!* he thought. *Wish I had a camera for that one- damn. Wish I'd thought of it earlier, when I had the credit card. Too late now.* He sighed, and went to follow Charlene out of the pool, still full of admiration for the sexy moves she was displaying. He thought about mentioning something, as they both stood there drying off, but he decided against it. She had a strange streak of prudishness, and he didn't especially want to spook her at this point. There would be time enough for that later, if he changed his mind, or if she changed her attitude. But this 'new, improved,' Charlene was much easier to live with, he decided. They both went upstairs and into their respective rooms to change. Tucker decided that he really deserved a rest tonight, and so he yanked a couple of tags off some recent purchases, and ended up in a loose cotton dress in a paisley print that somehow felt a lot like lying in bed next to Debbie after they'd had sex. He spent a few minutes gently rubbing his body through the fabric, wishing it was Debbie wrapped around him instead, but finally shook himself and sat down at the makeup table to get ready for dinner. Charlie sighed as he finally crawled towards his room. Tonight had been good, again, once he'd had some time to think over what Joan had talked about. *I guess it really doesn't matter,* he thought. *Just as long as I keep in mind which 'part' I have to play at any time, I can do this or anything else I want, I guess. And, hell, shopping with Valerie today was FUN, damnit! I don't care if I'm not 'supposed' to like it. And if Jane doesn't like that attitude, she can eat some of that stuff she bought.* A cheerful but tired, "'Night Charlene," from behind her caused her to turn around. Valerie was just about to disappear into her own room. Impulsively, he took a step towards the girl and hugged her firmly. After a moment, Valerie returned the hug. They stood there, in the hall, for a long time, it seemed to Charlie, as he inhaled the scent of Valerie's hair and felt the warmth of her body against his. Finally, Charlie let go, and they both stood there for a moment, Charlie wondering what had come over him. Finally, he sorted out the whirl in his mind enough to say, "Thanks, for today. I had... I had a lot of fun." "Yeah, me too," Valerie said, scratching her head and leaning against the doorframe. "I'm just afraid it's gonna be a cold day in hell before we get her credit card again." That comment, and Charlie's amusement, gracefully broke the mood, and with a hearfelt, "G'night, Val," they both went into their rooms to get ready for bed. Saturday went mostly as expected, until about five in the afternoon. Valerie came in to Jane's parlor with a look that Jane immediately identified as 'hat in hand,' as it were. "Yes?" she asked the girl. "Um, Jane, I was wondering..." "Yes?" she prompted the girl when she said nothing else. Valerie shifted nervously on her feet. "Well, I, I... remember those girls I met? I was wondering if maybe I could call one of them and go out and do something tonight. Or something." Jane's eyebrows went up of their own volition. "You want to go out tonight?" Valerie sighed. "It's, I mean, it's kind of boring, here, and I want to get out of the house for a while, and not have to worry about you watching my every move. Besides, they're cool." "Hello?" "Hi, can I speak to Jojo, please?" Tucker crossed his fingers. "Tell her it's Valerie calling?" "Just a minute," said the adult at the other end of the phone. A while later, someone picked up the phone and said "Hello?" Tucker smiled in relief. "Jojo! It's me, Valerie?" "Oh yeah! Hey, whatsup?" "Hello, D&E Personal Services, this is Lisa." "Hey Lisa!" "Hey Deb! Whatsup?" Debbie giggled into the phone. "I really think you should come over here and see this package I got." "What?" Lisa frowned in confusion. "What did you-" "Just come over," Debbie said cajolingly. Jojo listened intently to the parts of her conversation that she could hear, from her mother's side. Jane Thompson was on the other end of the phone, and Jojo was really REALLY hoping she wasn't as sadistic as she seemed to be, because she REALLY wanted to go out of the house tonight. And it was up to Jane, and therefore it was up to Jojo's mom to convince Jane that Valerie would be safe enough if she went out with the other girls. Jojo caught herself muttering, "Oh please, oh please..." Jane realized something, out of the blue, and before she was really aware of it, she was on her way to Valerie's room. *I can't believe I forgot about this until now,* she thought, shaking her head. *I must be going senile.* She opened the door to Valerie's room, and heard the shower running. With a couple of taps on the door as a formality, she opened the bathroom door. A grunt came from the figure behind the curtain, then Valerie's foamy head appeared around the edge. "Char- oh. Um, Jane, I'm kind of busy at the moment..." Jane spoke her concern. "You realize, of course, that you will have to go tonight, as a female?" Valerie rolled her eyes and disappeared back behind the shower curtain as she replied scornfully, "Well, duh! I mean, what was going to do, tell them, 'Oh, I got confused, I'm really a guy?' Come on, give me a LITTLE credit for brains, huh?" Jane normally would have reprimanded Valerie for her insolent attitude, but the combination of what she had forgotten - that Valerie was in fact one of her charges, and one here for less than a week - and Valerie's complete implicit acceptance of femininity, left her utterly speechless. Valerie added earnestly, "Besides, if I'm a girl tonight, then it's not a date, and therefore Debbie won't think that I'm cheating on her, and I get to live for another day. And, if you think she wouldn't find out, you're wrong. She ALWAYS finds out." Tucker came out of his room almost in time to bump into Charlene. "Oh, sor-" he started to say. "Where are YOU going?" she demanded. Tucker hated being interrogated like this. Especially by older, bigger girls who thought they had some sort of moral obligation to act as his mother. "Out." "Where?" "None of your BUSINESS, Charlene!" and he trotted downstairs quickly, hoping to outrun her without making it obvious. Debbie displayed the box proudly. Lisa was not impressed. "Oooh, a box. Wow." Debbie snorted. "No, dolt! C'mere." Lisa sighed and got up off the chair to look. "See where it's from?" she pointed at the label. Lisa frowned. "Where is... wait, is that where Tucker is?" Debbie nodded, smiling. "So what did he send you?" Lisa asked, curious now. "Look inside," she grinned. Lisa gave her a look, but pulled open a flap. Inside was something that had a whole bunch of colors, and lace, and- Lisa reached into the box, and pulled out a chemise in a deep blue. "Lingerie?" she asked, not sure what was going on. Debbie nodded, smiling and hugging herself. "I dunno how he got it, but he sent me a whole BOX full of stuff." "Wasn't he supposed to be going to boot camp or something?" Debbie shrugged. "I guess he took a field trip or something. Or maybe they let him out to run errands or something, I dunno. He didn't say." "Did he send you a note or any-" Debbie flourished it in front of Lisa's nose, and she carefully snatched it and read it. "Have fun with all this," it said, "and think of me when you wear it. XOXOX, T. P.S. Hi Lisa!" Lisa looked up at Debbie, astonished, and they both cracked up. Marie wondered about the wisdom of allowing Valerie out of the house, all the way into town and through the streets until they reached the house that Valerie assured her was the right one. After all, she had already almost disappeared twice, and Marie, unlike Jane, was not at all sure that one signed piece of paper would hold this one's spirit. "Are you sure you do not need a ride later?" she asked, one last time. Valerie nodded. "I'm sure, Pauline, that's one of the other girls, has a car, and she agreed to drop me off when we're done. So," Valerie took a breath, "see you later!" With that, she got out of the car and almost ran up the sidewalk to the door. Marie waited until the door opened, and Valerie waved at her before going inside, before she drove off, shaking her head. Tucker came out of the movie theater with one thing on his mind: a pair of Ray-Ban Wayfarers. "Come on, please?" he begged. "Didn't anyone tell you it's dark?" Jojo remarked. Trish signed, drawing the words out like the lyrics, before she was overcome with the giggles. Tucker asked in shock. Trish sighed. "So, I mean," Ellen asked Debbie, "he sent you all this, right?" Debbie nodded, watching Kim and Pam wiggle silk things at each other. "But how did he know what size to get you?" Debbie bit her lip and looked down at her freshly painted toenails, but it was no help when Sabrina snorted. She lost it, big time. Just barely audible over the laughter, she heard Kathy remark, "Tucker's tricky that way, Ell, you never quite know what he's been into." Debbie laughed until her abdomen cramped soild. Charlie realized that he was in great danger of becoming paralyzed out of sheer boredom. He looked over at Jane, who was reading some large anonymous tome or another, and sighed. *Next time,* he vowed, *that bitch is taking me with her if I have to handcuff myself to her!* Besides, the blond one was cute. Since they'd made a stink over it, Tucker made sure that he was wearing his sunglasses as they toured the mall. For one thing, he was still not quite sure these were the same ones as in the trailer he'd seen. For another, it allowed him to watch the guys that were watching them, without looking like he was watching them. There were a lot of guys watching the five of them. Tucker did his best to emulate the mask of unconcern that the rest of the girls were displaying, although he could barely stand the comments that they made when some 'cute' guy had passed by them and was out of earshot. *I wanted to get out of the house,* he reminded himself. *And anything is better than sitting around waiting for Jane to notice another mistake or something.* Charlie was almost ready for bed, although he was way too mad for sleep at this point, when he heard the front door open. *Jesus, finally!* he fumed. He made his way downstairs, figuring out way too late that Valerie might have invited the girls in for a nightcap or a tour. "Um," he said, staring at the flock of girls who were staring at him. Including, he noted with regret, the blond. He wrapped his arms around his ribs nervously. "You going to bed already?" Valerie remarked as the other girls stayed ominously quiet. "It's only ten thirty." Tucker was observing Charlene as she came around the corner, and his mind told him, *Definitely on the rag.* Both his sister and Debbie had the tendency to stay 'dressed' in nightgowns when they were having their periods. Unfortunately, while his mind was saying this, his mouth was telling everyone else, "You going to bed already? It's only ten thirty." He knew, as soon as he heard what his treacherous mouth was saying, that he was going to pay for it. Sure enough, Charlene exploded on him, giving him a lecture on how boring it was here and how Jane didn't even have a television - news which the other girls received with gasps of shock - and that she was sick and tired of being cooped up and so on and so on. Finally, she finished up and stomped off upstairs. Tucker sighed, and looked around to see if any of the girls were still there. They were, and they were all looking at him. Finally, Pauline said, "Um, maybe we should take her next time." Trish corrected. Sunday, and Monday, and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday too, passed in a blur for all of them. Tucker's piano practice continued under Jane, as did the choir lessons under Miz Bishop, and while he chafed under the etiquette lessons, the pace had relaxed quite a bit. Jane introduced the morning paper to him, and her questions and the resulting 'discussions' did a lot to make him more aware of the 'big picture,' though the rapport he and Charlene had shared diminished quite a bit as Tucker attempted to increase her socialism quotient. He and Jane had settled, somewhat, their power struggles, and Jane now had to contend with the two of them parading around the house in clothes that Jane would have thrown out six months ago. Unfortunately, even Jane had to admit that yes, Seventeen and Cosmopolitan were both showing similar clothes on similar girls, and Jane also had to admit that they looked much more believable, matching the girls in town, even if they seemed remarkably less attractive. Charlie, meanwhile, was coming to the startling realization that half of his continuing resentment had been the unnaturalness he'd sensed from wearing 'nice duds' all the time. Even though he was still in girl's fashions and wearing makeup and doing those things that kept his personal masquerade going, he felt so much more _comfortable_ with things that he could hardly believe it. His life, he felt, would have been almost perfect if Valerie would stop trying to convert him to communism. Marie, too, was happy, because it was a rare day that she had two students helping her with the daily chores of running and cleaning a large household. Now, for the first time in a long time, she felt almost as though she were on vacation. The illicit-seeming lessons on Valerie's skates only added to this, of course, though she always made certain that she was not neglecting her duties when she had them. Jane herself was torn during this period. The two children had almost completely settled into their roles at the same time, and so Jane was without the pleasure she took in bending a new young male to her will. On the opposite side of the equation, the two of them were practically self-maintaining at this point, leaving Jane a great deal of energy for other things. Part of this energy she put to work in her business dealings, with the result that she had spotted a few clever deals that she knew would have escaped her had she been more occupied with her training program. Those deals netted her a significant and pleasing amount of income, which always made her feel better. The conversations between the four of them had gotten increasingly sophisticated, though Valerie herself still had quite a ways to go in maintaining a facade of education and wit. It was Thursday afternoon, in fact, soon after lunch, when Jane received a phone call from one of her older 'graduates,' that things changed again. Copyright 1997-1999 Ellen Hayes, all rights reserved