Julio had not been especially pleased when he had been ordered to
put himself on a train and go to this stupid place up in New England and
do whatever this woman said.  Half the reason he'd talked in the first
place was to get out from under the many thumbs that were pressing him
down, and it seemed like everything that had happened to him after that
had been more of the same.  He was getting tired of it, he had decided,
and so instead of abandoning his breakfast and rushing for the train,
he'd decided to finish his food and take the next one instead.
     Mrs. Rabelais, back at Juvenile, had told him that this would work
out best for him in the long run, but she hadn't told him why, and he
was beginning to doubt that it would actually be good for him.  After
all, being kept in prison had only restricted his own movements, while
not providing much in security for him.  The stitches under his ribs
told him that.
     On the other hand, he had to admit, there was no way anyone would
be looking for him up here.
     So it was sort of a shock when this little girl called his name.
He glanced at her, and was surprised.  Instead of the duty clothes or
uniforms he had expected, the girl was wearing a nice dress, hose, low
heels, and even a hat and gloves.  She looked like one of the little
chicas going to church.  Except you didn't often see Latinos with blue
eyes like hers.
     She was actually quite good looking, he decided, and acting womanly
instead of looking like she wanted to be a guy like so many of the girls
he'd seen lately.  He smiled at her.  She didn't smile back, but he
thought he detected a pink flush to her skin on the side of her neck.
     "Excuse me?" he said, putting on his best manners for her.
     "Are you Julio Castilliano?" she asked again, managing to pronounce
his name halfway correctly.  He was surprised; he didn't think anyone in
this area would.
     "That's me," he grinned.  "And who are you?"
     "I'm Valerie," she said, and held out her gloved hand.  He took it
by the fingers and lifted it to his mouth for a kiss, like he'd seen in
the movies.  She definitely got red at that, but didn't yank her hand
away.  *Definitely the shy type,* he decided.
     "If you'll follow me, please, Jane is waiting for you," she
announced, and turned around.
     "Wait a second," Julio said, and she turned back around.  He dimly
remembered being told he was supposed to meet someone here, but he
couldn't quite remember her name.  "Who's Jane?"
     "The person you're supposed to be meeting.  She was worried when
you didn't show up when you were supposed to," the girl Valerie
explained.  "So she's been trying to figure out where you are, or were.
Please come with me, as I'm sure she'll want to know you got here
safely."
     "Okay," he said, and picked up his bag.  She was already walking
away, so he had to jog a few steps to catch up to her.  "So, what's this
place like?" he inquired.
     She looked at him.  "What place?"
     "This place, Westbury.  Is there any, you know, fun stuff to do
around here?"
     She looked llke she was thinking about it for a second, then she
nodded.  "There's rather a lot... I'm sure you'll find enough amusements
to keep you busy," she smiled at him.
     "Maybe you could show me, later on," he pressed, and put a hand on
her shoulder.

     Tucker flinched as the jerk grabbed his shoulder.  His instincts
were telling him to throw the guy under a train and run like hell, but
he gritted his teeth and pretended nothing was happening.  "If you'll
come this way," he said when he thought he could control his voice.
     "Sure," he said, his voice oozing with some sort of subcarrier that
made Tucker's arm hair stand up.

     Charlie didn't have to say anything, so he was probably the only
one that noticed just how pissed off Valerie looked when she delivered
Julio to Jane's side.  As they went through the introductions, with
Valerie acting as majordomo, Charlie wondered if she was going to cause
a scene again.  He hadn't seen her this pissed off since Miss Franson's.
     As they were all walking out to the parking lot, Valerie tapped
Charlie on the shoulder and whispered, "Sit in the back with me, okay?"
He nodded, wondering what was going on.

     Tucker sort of wondered, when he had time, just what it was about
this new guy that set him so on edge.  The rest of the time, he was
sitting on his hands to keep from doing something rash.  It was just
some sort of instinctual revulsion, and he had to keep fighting it to
keep from saying the nastiest stuff and really blowing the mood Jane was
trying to set up.
     "Jeez, cool it, willya?" Charlene whispered in his ear at one
point.
     He leaned back and whispered to her, "I think this one is gonna be
trouble, I mean BIG trouble.  Don't be alone with him, okay?"
     She looked puzzled after he warned her, but didn't ask any more
questions.

     Julio's face broke out in a dazzling smile as Jane turned down the
driveway to their destination.  It was a beautiful mansion, and he
thought he could see a horse or two grazing in a fenced-off area.  *Oh,
man,* he thought with glee, *this place is gonna be like Club Med or
something!  No worries, no problems, just laze away with all these women
around....*

     Charlie noticed that Valerie was cocking a fist to punch the guy,
and she grabbed her hand before she could pop him.  They fought a silent
battle in the back seat for a few moments until Jane stopped the car.
     Jane asked Charlie to escort the guy up to his room, and told
Valerie to come with her for a moment.
     She walked up the stairs, with the guy following, and it got harder
and harder to ignore the feeling that he was staring at her butt as she
walked.  She was biting her lip by the time she reached the top of the
staircase.  Two doors down was his room, on Valerie's side of the hall,
for which she was immensely grateful.

     Julio bestowed a last smile on the blond as he walked past her into
the room, and then froze.  "I think you put me in the wrong room, miss,"
he said, backing out of it.
     She shook her head.  "No, Jane told me this morning which room was
to be yours, and this is it.  Perhaps you can talk to her about
redecorating it after a while," she smiled.
     That was a certainty; there was no way he was going to live with
all those ruffles and lace in his presence.
     "If you'll put your bag down, Miss Jane wishes to speak with you
right now," the girl said.
     "Sure, sure," he replied absently, still vaguely horrified at
leaving anything of his in this place.  Finally, he managed to pry his
fingers off the handle of his bag with sheer willpower, and followed her
out of the room and back down the hall and down the stairs and to a set
of double doors which she knocked upon.
     "Come in," called the older woman, Jane, and the blond girl opened
one of the doors and waved him inside.  She shut it behind him, too.

     Charlie wondered where Valerie had run off to this time, but found
her quickly enough in the kitchen, kneading some of Marie's bread dough.
Actually, kneading was the wrong word; she was attempting to beat it to
death.  You could tell by the muffled curses coming out of her mouth, as
well as by the enthusiasm with which she was pounding it with her fists.
     "Jesus, what's gotten into you?" she asked.
     Valerie took a deep breath and let it out before she turned to face
Charlie.  "That, that...."  She had to take another deep breath before
she could speak again.  "He's trouble, and I mean BIG trouble.  Did you
notice him staring at us?"  Charlie nodded, uncomfortable with the
memory.  "He's the sort of fuckhead who would rape you and then be
surprised when you weren't grateful for it," she spat, and resumed
pummeling the bread dough.  "I just hope he's chickenshit enough to
be..."  She stopped, and stared out the window over the sink.
     "What?" Charlie asked after a few moments.  He wasn't sure if it
was such a good idea to re-start her, but she seemed to have spoken
exactly what was bothering HIM about the new guy, and it gave him the
chills.
     When Valerie turned her face back to Charlie, he was startled by
the feral grin that had appeared on her face.  "Of course!" she said
lightly, "of COURSE he's going to be like that!  And, likewise, once
Jane gets him going, he is going to collapse like glass versus hammer."
She cackled, and rubbed her hands together.
     Charlie was no longer sure which one was scaring her more, Julio or
Valerie.

     Julio went outside to wait, feeling really irritated.  He was glad
the girls hadn't been there to hear Jane talking to him, or at him.  But
they were waiting outside, and he wondered if they had been listening at
the door.  He sat down on the bench and wondered if staying here was
worth it.

     "Valerie," Jane told Tucker, "I want you to do the serving for
lunch today.  Charlene, can you stay at the table and be relatively
quiet?"  She nodded.  "Good.  Valerie, PLEASE be on your best hostess
behaviour today, alright?"
     Tucker nodded.  He thought he had enough self-control to keep from,
say, flinging boiling pudding into the guy's face and laughing as he
screamed-
     "Valerie?"
     "Huh?"  Jane was looking at him.  "I'll be good, I promise," he
said hurriedly.

     Charlie had mostly blanked out a lot of what had happened in his
first few days at Jane's, but lunch brought it all back to him.  He felt
strained and uncomfortable, and the only thing that was fun about it at
all was first, knowing that he'd already been through it and didn't have
to do it again, and second, Valerie's insane psychopathic glee kept her
smiling the entire time she was in the room, and she kept winking at
Charlie like they were in on some private joke.
     What was extremely un-fun were the soft flutters against one of his
legs that he KNEW weren't an errant breeze.  Coming from Julio's side of
the table, natch.
     Charlie was beginning to worry.
     Finally, lunch was over, and Charlie excused himself before Valerie
brought out the wine.  He had half a suspicion that the stuff was
drugged anyway, and the faster he could get out of there, the better he
was gonna feel.

     Tucker sighed in relief as he heard snoring coming from Julio's
room.  "Thank God," he muttered as he started walking again.
     Charlene was in her room when Tucker tapped on the door, and the
look of relief on her face when she saw him told him that she was
worried about the new student too.  "What?" she asked.
     "Well, I just checked on Mister Young Studly," Tucker said, and
Charlene giggled, "and he's passed out and snoring.  Want to go swimming
before he wakes up?  I asked Jane already, and she said it was okay."
     "Sure," she said, and Tucker went to his room to change out of the
nice clothes and into his bathing suit.
     As he was tying the string around his neck, he sighed.  "I hope he
gives up and goes home, 'cause I hate having him around."  He would
definitely like seeing the two of them in swimsuits, which was not
really something Tucker wanted to encourage.

     As they hung on the side of the pool, Charlie asked, "So why does
he bother you so bad?  I mean, yeah he's sort of looking at you, but, I
mean, it's not any worse than what was going on at that party at Missy's
house."  Not that that was anything but bad, in his opinion-
     Valerie sighed, and flutter-kicked away for a moment before
returning to perch again.  "Yeah, it is.  I mean, I've seen a lot of
guys, okay?  And he's one of them that'll sort of weasel around, saying
how nice he is and how much he respects you and everything, and then
he'll be on top of you trying to stuff his dick in your face."  Charlie
shuddered at the graphic that came up in her mind.  "Debbie dated a
couple of guys like that, before we started dating, and she told me
allll about them."
     "So, but, I mean, so what?" Charlie asked.
     "So, do you want him doing that to YOU one night?" Tucker said.
     "NO!" Charlie protested, his voice cracking up two octaves.
     "Yeah, see?  And I'm in more danger than you, 'cause if he gets the
idea that I'm not what I seem, then his poor widdle masculinity is gonna
be threatened, and he's gonna have to take it out on me."  She sighed.
"Stupid fucks like that can't tolerate anything other than 'Me Tarzan
you Jane.'"  She added, "The kind of guy that thinks 'NO' means 'rape me
harder.'"
     "Oh God."  Charlie had just realized he couldn't even lock his own
door.  "What if he gets out, at night, he, I, he-"
     "Relax," Valerie grinned.  "I'll let you have one of my doorstops.
Guaranteed to hold against lust-ridden teenagers."
     Charlie had to laugh at that.  Then he remembered that Julio had
been playing footsie with him in front of Jane, and then it wasn't funny
any more.
     "What did he do?" Valerie asked, her face all serious again.

     Tucker had climbed out of the pool after an hour or so, and now was
dozing on the side of the pool, vaguely listening to Charlene swim laps.
After an indeterminate time, he became aware that the moving-water
noises had stopped, an instant before a cold wet hand touched his
shoulder and Charlene said, "Ready to go in?  You're getting a little
pink."
     Tucker sighed, and levered himself up from the lounge chair.  "I
guess.  It's just been, you know, sort of fun the last week..."  *Minus
Saturday,* he thought.
     "Minus Saturday," she echoed as if she was reading his mind.
     "Yeah, but now it's like, we gotta watch everything around him,
'cause I'm not kidding when I say he worries me."
     Charlene chuckled at him, and replied, "Just wait 'til Jane gets a
couple of days with him.  He'll be under control."
     "Jeez, I hope so..."

     Charlie was reading a book on Revolutionary War history when he
heard someone yell something in Spanish that sounded like a curse, and
then a thump against the wall.
     "I guess he woke up and found all his stuff missing," he grinned at
Valerie.
     "Awwwww," she drawled, about as full of sympathy as he was.  Maybe
even less.
     "Wonder what he's gonna do when he finds out he's completely
naked, too" she said with a straight face.
     "How do you know..." Charlie started to ask, then trailed off as
Valerie held up a mutilated pair of briefs.  And a pair of scissors.
     "He's a VERY deep sleeper," Valerie said solemnly before she
cracked up.

     "Is that understood?" Jane asked Julio, as he stood there holding
the pale rose nightgown that Jane had selected over his crotch.
     As the two stared at each other, they heard the girls laughing from
another room.  He flinched as if he'd been struck.
     *Oh, yes,* Jane thought, smiling internally, *this one will be MUCH
easier than the last one.*  "Now, hurry up, for we have important
business to discuss," she told him, and leaned against the doorframe to
wait and see what his next move would be.

     Charlie had a feeling that he would get yelled at if Jane caught
him listening at the door, but then again, she was rather busy.  As
Valerie had pointed out when he'd objected.  They heard the two of them
walk down the hall towards Jane's study, and Charlie pulled away from
the door.
     "So-" he started.
     "So, we go and do the same thing by her study."
     Charlie protested, "But, don't you think that's going kind of far?"
     Valerie shook her head.  "This one's gonna be trouble, I'm telling
you, and I'm not sure Jane can handle him."
     Charlie remembered the time she'd slapped him so hard he thought
his neck would break.  "Um, she can, really-"
     "Sure, and you're just gonna tell the cops you have no idea why
she's dead when he kills her, right?"  Valerie rolled her eyes at him.
"Come ON, Char, don't be a twit, okay?"

     Tucker wondered if he was doing the right thing too, but he kept
telling himself that Jane needed to be alive if he was going to get a
Libretto.  Besides, he was in the mood to do evil, and he'd found it
best to just work the evil out right away, before it bred inside his
soul and caused him to do even more evil things, like crash banking
computers or-
     "...as sweet and adorable as Valerie," Jane said.
     Charlene made a hideous face at him, and he made one back.  "Shhh!"
Charlene hissed at him, and he poked her because he hadn't been making
any noise.  She glared at him, but then lost interest. Tucker pushed his
ear harder against the door, wishing he had some of his surveillance
gear with him.

     Jane had expected the outburst, although she had not expected it to
be in Spanish.  Still, she followed it well enough to understand what he
was saying.  Unfortunately.
     She waited until he ran down, then sighed and commented, "Pathetic,
repetitive, and completely lacking in imagination."  He opened his mouth
to try again, perhaps, and Jane snapped, "SILENCE!" with such authority
that he almost bit his tongue closing his jaw.  "Now, if you disagree
with this," Jane began before she noticed the stealthy movement of the
door handle.  "...then you may go, as you are now.  Call whomever you
wish, but I very much doubt that they will respect you after they see
you dressed as you are now..."
     "You BETTER give me my clothes back," he demanded vehemently, as
the door opened silently behind him and the two girls crept up
stealthily behind, with Valerie putting a finger over pursed lips.  Jane
noted that it was also time for her to renew her nail polish.
     "I think not," Jane said calmly.
     Julio said an extremely vile word and spat on her desk.  Jane's arm
rose as if under its own volition and delivered a resounding slap that
turned his head aside.
     He growled and started to leap towards her, but even as Jane was
moving to grab him and flip him, Charlene grabbed him from behind and
caught him in a full nelson, and Valerie dashed in front of him and
struck a blow that Jane would have called unsporting in the extreme.  He
gasped and sagged, and Valerie grabbed him by both ears and pulled his
head down.
     "See," Valerie said in a low, serious voice, "Miss Jane is a classy
lady, and you really shouldn't use language like that around her,
because she might get upset.  And you really, REALLY, don't want to get
Miss Jane upset.  Because, if she gets upset, EVERYONE gets upset, and
then bad things start to happen.  Got it?"  Julio didn't respond right
away, and she let go of his ears and punched him in the stomach, very
close to where Jane had noticed the recent stitched-up gash.   He
literally squeaked when she hit him.  "Got it?" Valerie asked again.
     "Si!  Si!" he gasped, and began begging in Spanish.
     "Thank you girls, that will be enough, I think," Jane said calmly,
as if she had been expecting them.  "Charlene, set him in the chair,
please."  Charlene maneuvered him to the chair in front of her desk and
dropped him, where he drooped over the back and panted, staring at her
with eyes that were rimmed in fearful white.
     "Now, Mister Castilliano," Jane intoned as she walked around the
desk, "I believe we were discussing your leaving?"

     Tucker couldn't quite keep the smirk off his face as he and
Charlene trooped along behind Jane and Julio.  Neither could she, he saw
when he glanced at her.  As they walked down the hall, Tucker could hear
the roaring of his tub, no doubt being filled with gallons of hot soapy
floral-scented water at this very moment.
     *I really shouldn't feel so good about this,* he thought, *but he
IS a prick, and I'd rather have him like this than wagging his dick
around like he was earlier.*

     Debbie sighed, and said to Lisa, "I just hope he doesn't get so
butch he starts acting like all the rest of the guys."
     Lisa sighed back, and wiped her face with the back of her hand,
therefore not smearing pastry filling over her makeup.  "I dunno, but I
have a feeling it'd take more than six weeks of summer camp to turn him
into the usual sort of asshole."  She motioned at the cake in front of
Debbie.  "So quit pining and start decorating, okay?  We've only got a
couple of hours before the party, remember?"
     "Yessss, mistress," Debbie groaned, and picked up the icing gun
again.
     "Or no spanking for you tonight!" Lisa said as if she meant it and
wiggled her finger at the same time, which made Debbie giggle.

     Julio stared, aghast, at what had been done to his room while he
was bathing.  He'd thought it was bad to begin with...

     "Chicken?" Valerie suggested.  "Like, roast chicken or something?"
     Charlie shook his head.  "Too messy, for ANYone except maybe Jane
to eat."
     "Yeah, I guess," Valerie half-heartedly agreed, "but it sure would
be fun to try and watch him eat it while obeying Jane's rules of table
etiquette."
     "Right up until she saw one of us screw up the same way," Charlie
agreed.  "We could peel the meat off the bones and cook that..."
     "It'd take too long," Tucker reminded her.
     "What about meatloaf?"
     "OOOh," Valerie cooed, "My aunt taught me this GREAT recipe.  Do we
have any fresh garlic?"

     Half of Julio wanted to run screaming, but the rest of him was too
paralyzed to move.  Just a few hours ago, he'd looked GOOD.  Now... now,
looking at himself in the mirror, hating what he saw but unable to turn
away, he looked like one of his nieces getting ready for confirmation.
The hairpiece Marie had added was twirled around his head, and the
dangling wisps and the tails of the lace bow Marie had fashioned
fluttered next to the tinkling earrings, looking unbearably cute.  And
the white lace that accented the pink satin dress stood out all the more
against his dark skin.
     "Now we must do your makeup," Marie said firmly, and his heart
skipped a beat in his chest.

     "I hate carrots," Charlene complained.
     "Um, well...."  Tucker looked through the pantry.  "Fresh green
beans?"
     "Those'd be okay," she admitted.
     "We're gonna have to snap 'em, you know," Tucker warned.
     "I know, but what else?  We can't just have one vegetable."  She
wandered into the pantry with him, and they both stood, scanning the
shelves.  "Mmmmm... do we have potatoes?"
     "Think so, yeah," Tucker said as he spotted the bag.  "Baked or
what?"
     "Maybe like au gratin or something?" Charlene suggested.
     Tucker considered this.  "Hmmm..."
     "Charlene, I need to speak with you a moment," Jane said from
behind them.
     "Huh?  Okay, I'll be right there," Charlene said.
     "I don't know how to make au gratin potatoes," Tucker called at her
retreating back.  She disappeared through the door, and Tucker sighed.
"So..." he said to himself as he resumed inventorying the pantry.  "Lima
beans?"

     "You're sure you remember?" Jane asked Charlie again.
     "I'm sure," he relied confidently.  "How's he taking it so far?"
     Jane smiled the old familiar predatory smile.  "About the usual,
perhaps a little worse.  We had to wait a little longer than usual to
start his makeup, because he was tearing so heavily.  I think this one
will work according to plan."

     "So what did she want?" Tucker asked Charlene as she pushed through
the kitchen door again.
     "Remember," she sighed, "remember that first day?"
     "Yeah," he agreed warily.  "You're gonna double-team him again,
when he comes downstairs?"
     She nodded.  "It helps, but it has to be one of the students doing
it.  And Jane figured I'd be more sympathetic than you."
     "I figured that's what you were doing," Tucker told her.
     "Sure you did," she scoffed.
     "Well, I mean, I knew you weren't doing it out of the goodness of
your heart," Tucker told her.
     "Well, it was, kind of, I mean, you would've gone to pieces if
you'd thought everyone was against you."
     "Hah!" Tucker snapped.
     "Hah what," Charlene drawled.
     Tucker had an unusual flash of self-restraint, and debated the
merits of winning this argument versus the benefits of solidarity with
Charlene, and decided that the latter was more important.  "Nothing," he
said, shaking his head.  "Anyway, I was thinking lima beans and those au
gratin potatoes you were talking about?"  She thought about it for a
second, then nodded in agreement.  "So how do you make 'em?"

     Julio's heart was pounding frantically in his chest as he
hesitantly made his way down the hallway.  It was horrible enough that
he was dressed like this at all; the possibility of encountering either
of those two little bitches, dressed like this, made his head swim.
     The worst thing was, he looked CUTE.  Marie had insisted that he
look at himself in the mirror, and for just an instant he could see one
of his nieces looking back at him.  Except it was really him.  *Oh, God,
I can't really be like this!* he'd silently wailed, but his eyes told
him otherwise.
     He gently made his way down the stairs, his nerves twitching every
time he took a step and heard the incredibly loud swish of the
petticoats as they bounced and rustled against each other and the dress
and his legs.  They were so loud they almost drowned out the sound of
his frantic breathing.

     "So you got it, right?" Charlie confirmed as he peeked through the
kitchen door, waiting for Julio to appear.
     "No problem," Valerie said confidently.  "Twenty more minutes in
the oven, right?"  Charlie checked the clock on the wall and nodded.
"Okay!"
     Charlie thought he heard a hint of creaking stairs.  "Shhh!  Hey,
come here for a second and watch," he whispered urgently, waving Valerie
over.  In a few seconds, she was kneeling next to the door and they were
both waiting.
     They were rewarded with the slow, hesitant appearance of the 'new'
Julio as he trudged towards Jane's office.
     "Ng-" Valerie choked, and then they were both running for the
garage door with their hands over their mouths.  When Charlie shut the
door, Valerie collapsed in her tracks as she started to howl, tears
coming down her cheeks.  Charlie wasn't sure what was funnier, watching
Julio or watching Valerie laugh, but it was all enough to make her
abdomen cramp after a few minutes of hysterics.

     Tucker finally managed to laugh himself out, and after a few
moments of slow breathing, he rolled over on his back.  Charlene was
crouched down leaning against the door, and her face was tomato-red.
     Finally, she said breathily, "I think I better get going."
     "Yeah," Tucker agreed weakly.  "I think I'm just gonna lie here for
a while and get my breath back."
     She sighed, and stood up.  Before she opened the door, she turned
and told him, "Oh, by the way, Jane told me to tell you, you need to do
your nails again.  She said it would be okay after supper, though."
     Tucker sighed.

     Charlie quietly approached the figure in pink, who could have been
placed in the dictionary as the illustration for 'despair.'
     "Hi," he said gently, and Julio almost jumped sideways.  Charlie
shoved a fingernail deep into his skin to keep from laughing as the new
boy flushed completely red.

     Marie tasted the green beans.  "Mmmm," she commented to Tucker, "I
don't think you used enough salt in the water."
     "Hmmm?"  Tucker tried it himself, and it seemed fine to him.
"Well, I'm used to going lighter on the salt.  My mom sort of started
cutting back on the salt when she got her last blood pressure test."
     "Just a dash," Marie said, flinging a couple of pinches into the
simmering pot.

     "That's much better," Charlie told Julio as he pranced across the
floor.  *What a dork,* he thought to himself.
     "You, I mean, you think she'll like it?" he asked Charlie as he
sashayed back.
     Charlie nodded earnestly, smiling at him.  "Yeah, you're getting
a lot better at it than you were."  *Give it three or four years, maybe
you can fit in.*

     Tucker sighed and plopped down directly on the floor.  "This
cooking thing is a pain," he mentioned to no one in particular.
     The timer beeped, signalling that it was time to take the meatloaf
out of the oven.  Tucker sighed again, and pushed himself up.  "Thank
God I don't have to do cleaning too."

     Julio proceeded to the dining room, where Charlene was standing by
a chair, waiting for him.  She motioned him to a chair on the side, so
he walked over there, feeling anew the shame and anguish of being
dressed up in girl's clothes like he was.  At least Charlene wasn't
making fun of him...
     As if that had been a summons, the other girl, the one with the
weird hair, came in bearing a large salad bowl.  She glanced at him
once, and then paid no further attention to him, but he could see her
smirk as she put the salad on the table and tossed it a few times.

     Tucker was, in a way, glad that dinner was over.  It was too hard
to keep from laughing at the way the new kid kept looking around to see
if anyone was laughing at him, and Charlene had nearly kicked his leg
black and blue.  He'd returned the favor, though.
     When Jane told Julio that it was time for bed, Tucker almost
cheered, but he kept his silence until Julio had gotten out of earshot.
Before he could make his own excuses, though, Jane turned to the two
remaining teens and said, "Since Marie will be busy putting the final
touches on him tonight, you two will be required to clean up after
supper."
     "Awwww!" they both complained at the same time, but it was no use,
and they knew it.

     "So?" Valerie asked as she began running water in the sink.
     "So what?"
     She sighed at Charlie like he was an idiot.  "So, what was he like?
When you went to talk to him, I mean."
     Charlie shrugged, then grinned.  "Oh, really different.  Almost as
though he was a brand-new person, or something."  Valerie giggled.
"Anyway, he's a lot different than he was when he got here."
     "Good," Valerie said firmly.  "I can't STAND assholes like that,"
she said with such vehemence that Charlene was surprised that he didn't
break the bowl he was holding.  She took a few deep breaths, then asked
in a calmer voice, "So what do we have to do the rest of the night?"
     Charlie shrugged.  "Stay out of the way for a while... she'll
probably want us to go out tomorrow and introduce him to the
groundskeepers, so's to give him a new name."  Valerie nodded solemnly.
"After that, I dunno."  He shrugged.
     "Are we gonna be able to go out this week, or what?  I think it'll
take him a while to get used to things here...."
     "Yeah, maybe just a TEENY bit longer than it took you," Charlie
said, emphasizing the distance in millimeters with her fingers.
     "Just a LITTLE bit," Valerie agreed, and grinned.

     "So, I mean," Charlene asked as they were drying the dishes, "what
WAS it Saturday that set you off so bad?"
     Tucker sighed, not noticing that he had stopped drying the glass he
was holding.  "I just really hate plays and stuff.  There's something
about being on a stage that just makes me crazy.  I used to have asthma
attacks in school plays and stuff, I really hated 'em."  The glass
regained his attention, so he set to polishing it.
     Charlene considered this for a plate or two, then shook her head.
"Nah," she discarded Tucker's explanation, "there's something more than
that.  You freaked out too bad."
     Tucker sighed again, then put the glass down.  "Swear not to tell?"
he said.
     "I swear," she replied instantly.
     "Well...."  He leaned against the counter and wrapped his arms
around himself.  "It was like, after I got done, and walked offstage, I
was feeling really bad, you know?  Like I'd screwed everything up,
again, and everyone was going to be laughing and everything-"
     "Nobody was laughing," Charlene pointed out.
     Tucker explained, "Well, they used to when it happened in like
school and stuff.  Anyway, so I felt pretty bad, and I was trying to
find a place to sit and wait, 'cause I didn't want to go out front and
have Jane yell at me, 'cause I thought she was going to yell at me for
screwing up deliberately.  That's happened too," he said.  "So..."
     After a few seconds of silence, Charlene prompted, "So?"
     "So," Tucker breathed, "so when this guy came up, and asked if I
was okay, and seemed to be like really concerned and everything, I, it
sort of made me feel worse, so, so," he swallowed and looked away from
Charlene, not wanting to see her face just then, "so I started to cry,
and once you start it's real hard to stop, and so he was like holding me
and stuff, and I was just starting to feel better when he kissed me, and
then I like freaked, and he acted like I'd just started speaking Chinese
or something, and like I was teasing him or something, like it was
deliberate or something, and I called him a fucking prick, and then HE
told ME that it was pretty damn obvious I was the one fucked up, and I
told him that at least I didn't rape people when they were crying..."
Charlene gasped.  "And so he told me that there was nothing there worth
raping anyway because he 'knew' that I was a lesbian, and I called him a
retarded epileptic and he reached over and yanked my top up and tried to
grab one of my tits, and it HURT, so like before I realized it I'd
kicked him in the nuts, and then I was like in some real pain and he was
down on the ground and I just couldn't handle it any more, so, so..."
Tucker noticed his eyes were leaking again, and he angrily dashed the
tears away.  "And the worst thing was, too, that like Ellen and some
other girl were watching or something, so I dunno what's going around
the gossip now, but I don't think it's gonna be real good news, you
know?"
     And then, Charlene was holding him, and that was when the tears
really started.

     Charlie hadn't known it was as bad as it had been, but now he could
understand why Valerie was so freaked out.  *I mean, if a guy kissed ME
like that... and THEN...*  Such a statement was made all the worse by
the fact that it was technically true.
     Valerie was finally winding down to just shakes and sniffles, and
Charlie let her out of his arms far enough to wipe her face with the
dishcloth.  "Come on, Valerie, I think we've had enough for one day," he
said gently.  She just nodded, not meeting his gaze.
     *Ohboy,* Charlie thought.  *Now what?*

     Tucker was sitting in the parlor as Charlene went to get some
cookies and milk.  He felt sort of stupid with her treating him like a
little kid, but on the other hand it also felt sort of comforting-
     The phone rang.  *Um,* Tucker thought, looking at it, *do I get it
or what?*
     It rang again, and then he was scrambling for it.  "UmhelloThompson
residenceValeriespeakingmayIhelpyou?" he gasped into the receiver.
     "Um, who?" said a girl's voice.  And giggled.
     "This is Valerie," he said slower, "who's this?"
     "It's me, Tracy?"
     "Oh, yeah, hi, whatsup?" he sighed, sitting down in Jane's chair.
     "You okay?" she asked.
     He debated telling her the truth versus not, and decided to edit it
some.  "Sort of, I mean, I had a really bad day Saturday and I'm still
recovering."
     "Oooh," she said.  "Well, Saturday was what I was calling about..."
     If Tucker had been a dog, his ears would have stood straight up
when she said that.

     Charlie opened the door to the parlor, managing to balance two
glasses of milk and a tin of cookies, just in time to see Valerie leap
to her feet from behind Jane's desk and shriek, "WHAT!" into the phone
she was holding.
     *Uh oh,* Charlie thought, and shut the door behind him as quickly
as he could manage.  *This looks like a loud one,* he thought, *and
we're not supposed to be using the phone, are we?*
     "That is a LIE!" Valerie screamed.  "HE tried to molest ME!"
Charlie set the cookies on the desk, and managed to place the two
glasses of milk down without spilling anything either.  "No, I mean, it
was like, he tried to pull my shirt off!" Valerie explained into the
phone.  "I didn't-  NO!  No WAY!  If HE said that-  What?"  She glanced
at Charlie, and made a sick face as she sagged back into Jane's chair.
"Oh, nooooo," she breathed.  "Oh, GOD, why does this have to happen to
ME?"
     Charlie wondered who she was talking to and what she was talking
about, but it was pretty clear that she didn't want any interruptions.

     "Why does this have to happen to me?" Julio whispered into the
pillow.  "I just tried to do the right thing... why do I have to go
through this too?"

     Tucker finally hung up the phone, and then it was all he could do
to move his head back to the desk before he collapsed.
     "What was THAT all about?" Charlene asked, and he vaguely
remembered her almost subliminal presence having been there for most of
the conversation.
     "Oohhhhh," he groaned, and tried to sit up, but it hurt too bad and
he didn't have the energy.  "Shit."
     When he didn't say anything else, Charlene told him, "That's not
real helpful.  Who called?"
     Tucker sighed, and with superhuman effort managed to sit up in the
chair.  Luckily, it had a headrest, so he leaned back and let the chair
do the job of holding him up.
     "Tracy called," he began, "and she wanted to ask me about this
rumor that has been making the rounds the last couple of days, about
this play that was having tryouts this weekend?"
     "Uh oh," Charlene remarked.
     "Yeah," Tucker sighed, getting more depressed about it the more he
thought about it.  "Anyway, there's some confusion about what happened,
but the basics of what's been going around is that I tried to
practically do the nasty on the floor with Missy's boyfriend-"
     "What!"
     "No, wait, it gets better... anyway, HE fended ME off, and since I
wasn't gonna get porked by him, I allegedly kicked him in the nuts for
refusing to cheat on Missy."  He took a deep breath, and rolled his eyes
towards Charlene, who looked like she'd eaten some more wasabi except she
wasn't sweating.
     "Th- that's INSANE!" she finally gasped out.
     "Welcome to small town hell," Tucker said, wishing sincerely he'd
just run out into the street and gotten squished by a tractor-trailer.
The longer he sat there, the more it hurt, and the more he realized just
how screwed over he was.  "Damnit," he half sobbed, "damn him to
hell..."

     "Hello?"
     "Jojo, it's Tracy," she said urgently, "I just talked to Valerie,
and what she said was..."

     "Hi, can I speak to Marcie please?" Jojo asked politely, hoping she
was done with dinner.  Jojo herself was practically bouncing up and down
with the need to pass this info to someone else.
     "Sure, just a minute," her stepmom said.  "Marcie!  It's Jojo on
the phone..."
     A few seconds later, there was a crash and a breathless "Hello?"
Then she yelled over her shoulder, "PATTY, I GOT IT!" and another crash
as Patty hung up her extension.  Jojo popped her ears in the hopes that
it would restore some of her hearing.  "Whatsup?"
     "You remember what David, Missy's boyfriend, was saying about
Valerie, about Saturday?"
     "Uh huh," Marcie said eagerly, sensing some dish on the way.
     "Well, I just talked to her," Jojo inserted a little lie, "and SHE
said what happened was..."

     Tucker was feeling better until Charlene opened the door to his
room, and he immediately figured out that she was going to drop him off,
to leave him alone-

     Charlie sighed, as the waterworks tapered off for the third time
that night.  "So, what did you do when your sister left for college?" he
asked.
     Valerie sniffed, then gave a weak grin.  "Sometimes, I slept with
my best friend Mike, he's, he knows what my nightmares are like.  Then I
started dating Debbie, and so sometimes I'd sleep with her."  He smiled
at the thought.
     "You'd sleep with your girlfriend?" Charlie confirmed, and she
nodded.  "Didn't her parents object?"
     Valerie bit her lip, but when she glanced up at Charlie it was
apparently more than the girl could stand, because she broke out into
soggy laughter.  "It," she finally gasped, "we worked it out..."

     "She said WHAT?" Missy asked, not believing it.
     Angie repeated, "She said, and I'm only telling you what she said,
was..."

     Charlie looked over at Valerie before he turned off the light.  She
looked so small and delicate, asleep already...
     Not entirely sure why he was doing it, he reached down and kissed
her forehead gently.  "Goodnight, Valerie.  Sleep well," he whispered.
     Her only response was to reach out an arm and pull him closer.

     Tucker woke up, slowly, feeling relaxed.  For a moment, he thought
he was in bed with Debbie, and he snuggled closer to the body next to
him, but the scent was wrong.  "You're not Debbie!" he said in surprise
as he opened his eyes.  A blond face looked startled at him from a few
inches away.
     "What?" said the girl, and the name finally came to him.
*Charlene,* he thought, and then remembered what he was doing in bed
with her.  Again.
     "Oh, sorry," he smiled at her.  "I thought you were my girlfriend
for a second."  Her eyebrows shot up.  "Um."
     This was one of those situations that would cause Miss Manners to
throw up her hands.
     On the other hand, waking up with his nose in someone's cleavage
always made him feel better.  Even if it wasn't much.

     Charlie paused, the water pounding over him as he wondered, *Does
he STILL think I'm a girl?*
     On the one hand, it was apparent that he did.  On the other, he
hadn't seemed THAT stupid....
     He ignored his raging erection as a distraction that he hoped would
go away soon.

     Tucker was downstairs just in time to see Julio coming out of
Jane's parlor, looking horrified.  He was also looking seriously
partied-too-late-and-I'm-paying-for-it-now, with his hair up in small
rollers and makeup smeared all over his face.  He didn't look any
happier to see Tucker, either.  "Hi!" Tucker said cheerfully, to add
some insult to his present suffering.  Then he frowned, and mentioned
offhandedly, "You know, you really need to take your makeup off before
you go to sleep. Is Jane in?"
     It took a few seconds for the question to sink through his misery,
but the rather used-looking guy finally nodded.  "Thanks," Tucker said,
smiling again.  She patted him on the shoulder and said solicitiously,
"Why'n'cha go get cleaned up, okay?"  And with that, he walked past him
and knocked on the door to the parlor.
     "Yes?" Jane called from inside, and Tucker opened the door.
     "Um, Jane?" he started.  "I was wondering, I mean, what the agenda
was for today?  I mean, like, what are..."  Jane was giving him that
look that he already knew meant 'You are not speaking properly,' so he
took a deep breath and started over.  "I mean, I'd like to know what
Charlene and I are supposed to be doing today, while you and Marie deal
with 'Julie' back there."
     One corner of Jane's mouth quirked up, but all she said was, "In
all probability, we will be busy most of the day.  If the two of you
could decide upon lunch, and otherwise keep yourselves amused and out of
our way, that would be best."
     Tucker nodded, then remembered and said, "Thank you, Jane, that's
what I needed to know."  He curtsied, then turned back around and went
to go tell Charlene what was up.  And to see if he could con her into
doing lunch.

     Charlie was just finishing his hair when someone knocked at his
door.  "Come in," he called, betting it was Valerie again.  It was.
"Whatsup?" he asked.
     Valerie smirked as he sauntered across the room and flopped on his
bed.  "First off, I saw the new addition to our little family, and he
does NOT look at all happy this morning.  Heh," she chortled.
     Charlie remembered, vaguely, what HE had looked like that first
morning, and how he had felt, and so he didn't think it was that funny.
"Yeah, and?"
     "And, Jane said that we are to amuse ourselves and stay out of the
way until further notice.  And someone has to fix lunch.  And, since _I_
did most of dinner, I think that leaves-"
     "What!" Charlie complained.  "No way!"

     "Ellen?  It's Missy."
     "Oh, hi," Ellen replied, sounding apprehensive.
     *Good,* Missy thought savagely.  "We have GOT to talk about what
happened Saturday."

     Julio fumbled the buttons of the blouse into place, silently
cursing the idiot who had decided that men and women's buttons should be
reversed from each other, and when he finally got them all, Marie handed
him a dark blue jumper to put on.  *Is there no END?* he wailed to
himself.  He wiped away the latest of the tears that had come out of his
treacherous eyes, and prepared to slide into the jumper.
     "You have it backwards," Marie calmly observed, and he wanted to
throw the clothes at her so bad he almost bit through his lip.

     "You look stupid," Charlene commented as she hung on the door,
watching Tucker get ready.
     "Do not," Tucker challenged.  "Debbie looks good in this, and she
and I are almost the same coloring, so sod off, okay?"  He privately
thought that the white, long-sleeved blouse and the long black skirt
looked exceptionally cool and professional, especially when combined
with the right shoes, which luckily he'd picked up when he went
shopping, and a pair of suspenders, which he'd also picked up when
shopping.  And a hat.
     "Not the hat," Charlene groaned as he picked it up and adjusted it
on his head at what he thought was the proper angle.
     "What is wrong with this hat?" he complained.  He thought he looked
good in a black fedora, at least in this outfit.
     "You look like a dork!"
     "Oh, like you'd know," Tucker snapped back, and flipped the brim of
the hat at her.
     "Oh, Jane said you were supposed to do your nails last night,"
Charlene said in a completely different tone of voice.
     "Damn," Tucker said, pulling them down and looking at them.  They
were looking kind of ragged.  "And she already saw me today.  Do you
think she missed it?"
     "Jane sees all," Charlene intoned.
     Tucker sighed.  "The problem is, I can do the left side, but I
can't paint worth a damn with my left hand."
     "Me neith- hey, trade you, you do mine and I'll do yours," Charlene
suggested.
     "Sure!"  That would solve a couple of Tucker's problems-
     Charlene added, "Just take off that stupid hat."
     "IT is NOT stupid!"

     Charlie was enjoying arguing with Valerie about whether the hat was
stupid (his side) or not (hers) as they kept adding layer upon layer of
polish to each other's fingernails.
     Valerie was grumbling something under her breath about Mailbu not
being the wellspring of fashion when they both heard someone coming down
the stairs.  From their vantage point in the library, they were
perfectly placed to watch.

     Julio was trying to walk carefully down the hallway and also make
it to Jane's parlor before the deadline - he didn't want to know what
she would do to him if he was late - and so he didn't realize he was
being watched until he passed by an open door and one girl's voice rose
over the pounding of his heart, declaiming, "See, he looks even dumber
in that than you do-"
     "I do NOT look dumb!"
     "You are so clueless you don't even KNOW?"
     "You ignorant BITCH!" cried the other one, and Julio forgot to keep
walking.  "You're the one that has no clue; you look like a Leave It To
Beaver reject-!"
     "At least _I_ got taught by someone with TASTE," the first one
stated with calm confidence.
     "Taste?  TASTE?!  The taste of fifty-year old mummified relics that
even the thrift shops would gag at?"
     Unfortunately for her, it was the last sentence that Jane
apparently heard, because that was when a hand fell on Julio's shoulder,
almost causing him to spill his bladder on the floor, assuming the
liquid made it through all the weird underwear he had on.
     "Valerie," Jane said in a voice of ice, "may I speak with you in
the parlor for a moment?"

     Charlie knew it was a bad idea to smirk at Valerie, but seeing her
AND the new kid in matching spun-sugar outfits was too funny for him to
hold in.
     "Stop it!" Valerie hissed at him as he set the soup down on a
potholder.
     "I'm not doing anything!" he protested.
     She glared at him, then looked around.  "You'd BETTER wipe that
smirk off your face," she warned Charlie as she turned back to face him,
"or you'll wish you had."
     "I'm NOT doing anything," he complained, turning around and going
back into the kitchen for the salad he'd made.  "You're just being
paranoid."
     "I am NOT!" she shrieked from behind him.  He sighed as he went
through the kitchen door.  *God, she is so WEIRD,* he thought, shaking
his head.

     Tucker waited all the way through lunch, ignoring the idiot
goggling at her from across the table, and responding appropriately to
Jane's comments and admonishments.  Revenge, he knew, was a dish often
served cold, and opportunity sometimes took her own sweet time about
coming by.... he just hoped the ice cube in the spoon wouldn't melt
before she knocked.
     The worst part of things was, he knew HE hadn't been serious, and
he thought Charlene hadn't been serious either, but Jane had come out at
JUST the wrong moment... so now he was wrapped again in satin and lace,
and hating it.  The rustling of the layers over each other every time he
moved was driving him crazy, and Charlene smirking at him was too much
to live with.
     Finally, Jane and Julia were looking away at the same time just
long enough for him to grab the spoon and expertly flip most of an ice
cube down the V neck of Charlene's blouse.
     "YIIIHHHH!" she yipped, almost jumping off the chair in shock and
rattling the table as she banged her knee or something against it.
Tucker already had the spoon in his tea, stirring innocently, when Jane
looked back up.
     "Excuse me?" Jane said.  It was amazing how she could fill two
words with that kind of menace, Tucker noticed.
     "Um," Charlene said, "I, I think I just popped a blister, may I be
excused for a moment?"  At Jane's nod, she got up from the table and
almost ran out.
     "Blisters really suck," Tucker commented when Jane stared at him a
little too long.  "I told her she needed to wear thicker socks when she
was skating."

     Charlie gritted his teeth as the cold slimy THING that he just KNEW
Valerie had flung at him slithered its way down across his tummy and
around his underwear before finally exiting and skittering across the
floor.  "An ice cube?" he said in astonishment, because he would have
sworn the damn thing was alive.  Then he got pissed.  "She's gonna PAY
for that," he grimaced.

     "Well," Jane said as she patted her lips clean.  "Charlene, that
was an excellent lunch, thank you."
     "You're welcome, ma'am," was Charlene's prompt reply.
     "Now, girls, I think we," she indicated the stricken Julio, "have
a few more hours of business, and then perhaps you can show our new
addition around the grounds?"  Charlene darted a look at Valerie that
promised something unpleasant.  Jane debated saying anything, but
decided that whatever Valerie had done to Charlene during lunch deserved
some form of retribution.
     "Yes Jane."  "That'd be fine, Jane."
     "Excellent," she beamed at the two of them.  "Now, if you two girls
will attend to the clean-up, I believe I will go help Marie with our new
precious."  All three of the teens winced at the last word.

     "Yessss, my precioussssss, we hasssss it, yesssssss, the lasssssst
of the dishhhhshesssss," Valerie hissed as she brought in the last of
the dirty bowls.
     "Would you stop that?" Charlie demanded.
     "Ooooh, wouldszs we stopsss it, hmmmm?  Perhapses the little hobbit
doessssn't aprecccciate our preciousssss, hmmm?  Hmm?  Hmmmm!"
     Charlie looked at his reflection in the window over the sink, which
showed an image that was no doubt going to haunt him for years.  "Oh,
God, why do I always get the weirdos?"

     Julio flounced down the stairs for yet another attempt to please
the un-pleasable Jane.  As he took the last step off the stairs, the two
girls came out of the kitchen, and stopped.  The one with the weird
hair, Valerie, wolf-whistled at him.  "Looking better," said the blonde
one.
     The tears welled up in his eyes, and it was all he could do to find
the door to the parlor and open it before he began to cry.  Again.

     Tucker sighed.  His fingers ached from piano practice, and he was
changing YET again, which made it the....  He decided not to count; it
would be too depressing.
     *I should have bought some slacks or something,* he decided,
digging through the closet looking for something 'feminine outdoorsy.'
*Damn.  Bet I'll never see that credit card again, and somehow spending
my own cash on that seems like a Not Terribly Clever Idea.  Though
Debbie might like 'em, if I give them to her when I'm done... Hmm.*  He
thought about the idea as he selected a pale-blue cotton sundress that
indeed had a bodice secured by straps around the neck like his bathing
suit.  *Thought so,* he smirked to himself.  He went back into the
bedroom and held it up in front of his body, checking in the mirror to
help visualize what he would look like.  *Yeah, this one.*
     Now he just needed to find some shoes.

     Charlie bit his lip to keep from laughing as both Julio and Valerie
walked out the French doors ahead of him.  *If I can juuuuuuuust....*
Finally, the moment he'd been waiting for came, and he slid his foot,
clad in a delicate pump which acted like a wedge, under Valerie's heel
as it descended.  And lifted.
     Then stared in horror.

     Tucker knew, in the long instant of hang time in which he got to
look at the clouds in the sky, that, without a doubt, the current
situation was a direct karmic retribution for what he'd done to Charlene
at lunch.
     Then he finished falling into the pool, and it was as cold and wet
and surprising as he'd expected.
     He surfaced, sputtering, and floating in front of him was the short
stick that had acted as a roller bearing when he'd tripped.  The one
that had turned a simple mis-step into a real pain in the ass.  He
grabbed the stick and was about to throw it into the bushes when the
French doors opened again and Jane appeared, calling his name.

     Jane opened the doors to the pool area, hoping that Valerie had not
yet walked out of earshot, because Jane was going to give her an
earful...
     She saw Charlene, and "Julie" standing on the walkway by the pool,
looking shocked, and Valerie was... Valerie was....
     Valerie was floating in the pool.  In her clothes.  With her shoes
on.
     Jane's mouth, which had opened to call for Valerie, closed while
she considered the situation in front of her.  She noticed that Charlene
in particular had an especially guilty air about her.
     *Mmm hmm,* she thought to herself.  *I think you deserved this one,
you little brat.*
     Instead of asking the obvious questions, such as "What is going on
here?" or "Charlene, what did you do?" or even saying "Valerie you get
out of the pool this instant; you know I said long ago that you must
have proper swim attire to go swimming," Jane instead stated, "Valerie,
there is a young girl calling you on the phone, and from her tone of
voice I believe you should talk to her immediately."
     After a pause, in which Jane could see the wheels turning in
Valerie's mind, she asked, "Who is it?"
     "She said her name was Missy," Jane replied.
     "Missy?" Valerie confirmed.  At Jane's nod, she flew into a flurry
of activity towards the nearest ladder, finally reaching it and climbing
out.  "OhmiGod ohmiGod ohmiGod..." she was chanting as she rushed past
Jane and into the house.  Dripping, naturally, at a furious rate,
leaving a trail of puddles behind her.
 
Copyright 1997-1999 Ellen Hayes, all rights reserved