A Field trip

By Lynda Shermer

Chapter 2 - Terms of enrollment

Come the start of term, things got more difficult. As Dave, I now had to attend school regularly, which cut into my Barb time. I started working out how to carry my female uniform in Dave's backpack, including how to stuff the backpack itself into Barb's school bag after I'd changed. (how did superheroes ever manage this...) Thank goodness I only needed one set of textbooks.

The first day, in school, I introduced myself to Sally; she seemed disinterested. Of course; she knew Barb, she'd never met Dave before. But at least I'd ended up in the same home room.

Meeting her over lunch period as Barb, having changed my clothes, Sally told me what classes she was anticipated trouble with. She didn't mention meeting Dave at all; evidently I hadn't made much of a impression on her.

After lunch, looking for somewhere to change back, I went a little late. I was trying to find the supply closet I'd changed in the night of the football game when a voice behind me said, "Hey, young lady! Do you have a hall pass?"

I was cornered; it was Doug, the student from the field trip; evidently in addition to his other jobs, he was a hall monitor. Of course. I had to admit I didn't have a pass, and he then started to escort me to the office.

Started, I say... Along the way, I spied a book cart. Managing to run into it, I tipped it over, scattering textbooks everywhere, and made good my escape in the confusion.

The next week, in home room, I tried to lead Sally into a discussion of what subjects she was taking, hoping for an opening to offer her help, already knowing that she was worried about Geometry, but again, she brushed me off. Evidently, I wasn't wearing her down.

But she was noticing me; meeting her at lunch as Barb, she started talking about this annoying Dave person and how he wouldn't leave her alone. I decided to back off for now.

This, however, set a pattern; as Dave, she wouldn't give me the time of day. Not what I had been hoping for. There was no way things seemed to work out, though.

So, several times a week, I'd meet Sally for lunch as Barb, to ape a Monday-Wednesday-Friday class schedule. Changing into Barb at school got to be routine, but time consuming.

And I had to keep one eye on the clock, to allow time to change back before my next class. Even though it was study hall, they took attendance and would notice if I was missing. Every time I went a little over, cleaning my eyeliner off, or washing off other makeup, I was in the halls past the start of class, and Doug was on me like paint! He must have been watching me in the lunch room like a hawk. It was getting harder and harder to duck him.

After a couple of months of this, though, Sally passed Dave a note in homeroom, asking him to meet her at lunch. I wondered what she was up to; I hoped she wouldn't be too disappointed when Dave stood her up; this was one of those days on my schedule to lunch as Barb.

Meeting her at lunch as Barb, per usual, she was waiting impatiently outside the lunchroom for Dave to arrive. Noticing her agitation, I tried to beg off to change back, but she grabbed my arm to keep me from leaving. It seemed she was trying to introduce Barb to Dave! Which of course was not going to happen...

If I couldn't change, though, I wanted to get in line to get food. They were serving sloppy joes that day, one of the few things they did really well, and they could run short if you got there late.

Sally was impatient, as I've said, and she wasn't budging. Finally, I asked, "What are we waiting for?"

"I wanted to introduce you to this guy, Dave, you might like him, but he's not right for me."

"Oh, really?," I said, nettled by her characterization. Suddenly, I was fed up with the whole situation, even if it was of my own creation! And when I get annoyed, I get bull headed and do things I might regret later. But I never think of that at the time, unfortunately, so what I said was, "Well, I can tell you, he's never going to show. Let's grab some food before it's all gone!" But she wouldn't give up.

"Come on; I know him much better than you can; you haven't even met him yet. He'll be here!"

Stronger tactics were clearly called for. I played my high card, throwing caution to the wind, and risking her friendship. "I tell you he isn't coming! I don't just know him, I AM him. Come on, we don't want to miss lunch," I said quietly, grabbing her arm and pulling her. She seemed shocked and confused by my statement, so this time I was able to get her to the line.

"What? You are him? That doesn't even make any sense," she rejoined.

Looking both ways, furtively, I raised the edge of my wig, revealing my straight brown hair laying under my curly lighter brown wig, "See?"

"My goodness. You're ... Dave?"

"I was joining a random field trip that day at the Art Institute and I happened into one from our school. And that's when I met you; I liked hanging out with you, so that's how all that happened," I explained.

"But why were you dressed as a girl? Why ARE you dressed as a girl? Wouldn't it be much easier to manage as a boy?"

"I found a uniform at a thrift store while trying to figure out how to blend in on the tours, but it was a girl's uniform."

And then, looking embarrassed, I added, "But now, I find it's kinda nice. I'm still trying to figure it out."

"Wow. Just... Wow," She looked a bit shocked.

We got our food, but it was late in the lunch period. We hurriedly scarfed it down, barely before the end of period; She then had to get to class, and I didn't want to be late for study hall, so agreeing to meet after school, we parted ways.

As the afternoon progessed, my attention in class was distracted by wondering how Sally would react to all this, once she had a chance to think about it; I feared in my irritation, I'd lost her friendship.

I met her as agreed, still dressed as Dave, with a certain amount of trepidation. I led her to my now familiar supply closet in the field house wing.

"So now you know," I lamely said, once I'd secured the door against interruptions.

"Let me see you go through everything. Do you have it all here?" she asked.

"Of course; do you think I'd leave that in my locker? That would be just asking for trouble."

So while she watched I undressed down to my briefs. Then I had to unsecure the door and let her out, so she could wait outside the closet while I changed into my gaff and panties, and then re-secure it when she came back in. After that, I donned my training bra with the thin silicon pads, my socks, and finally my uniform with its skirt.

And, putting on the wigcap, I went through the routine of doing my makeup, finally putting on the wig. After the addition of my fake braces and my thick glasses, I was Barb again.

"See?"

"It's uncanny; it's like you're two different people. You really don't have acne?"

"No; Actually, I have clear skin, but I decided that acne and braces would get me more ignored."

"There's a lot here I'll have to think about," she said, and left, shaking her head, clearly in shock. We parted way, catching our respective activity busses, going our separate ways home.

I had a troubled nights sleep as I pondered what Sally could do in retaliation for my duplicity.

The next day in homeroom, she seemed a little warmer towards Dave. Clearly, she was still processing all this, but said she still wanted to see Barb at lunch on Friday, so I wasn't off the hook.

Friday at lunch, she had reached a decision, "Well, I think it's a little weird, but on reflection I decided I couldn't get through school without my BFF, Barb."

"But I really am not Barb. I've spent far more of my life as Dave," I replied.

"Tough; it's your fault for making Barb so friendly. It's Barb I'm close to, and you're just going to have to deal with it."

"But Barb isn't even really a registered student here. They're already looking for her as a trespasser, after the hall monitors reports."

"If I start hanging out with Dave, that could be interpreted certain ways I'm not ready to have, and that's that."

---

To be honest, I was glad to have an excuse to keep being Barb, even with the threat of official notice hanging over me. I was getting used to it, and the insights it was giving me were interesting.

I was musing about this right after that lunch, after changing. I was going to have to find more convenient places to change if I was going to have to keep it up all semester...

So the next week I was scouted for just such locations. Across from the lunch room was the band room, and several doors I hadn't tried yet. Testing one of them, it was unlocked; I went through it and found myself in total darkness in what sounded like a large room. By the sounds, there were clearly several people out there in the darkness, trying (and failing) to keep perfectly still.

Suddenly, a spotlight above my head blazed to life, focussed on what appeared to be the proscenium of a stage (in addition to my interest in art, preparing my move to Chicago, I'd been reading up on architecture...)

Suddenly, a figure strode into the spotlight, and began. "Two households, alike in dignity, in fair Verona where we... we... Line?"

"Lay our scene, Michael. It's a bit archaic, but you only have two sonnets in the whole play, as the narrator. I know the form is new to you, but surely you can remember them!" came an adult voice out of the darkness.

"Sorry. Lay our scene," he continued, and strode off as the curtain behind him opened, revealing...

Well, revealing a bunch of students with hammers, cloth, and paintbrushes, working to complete the scenery flats

Then, there came a click from behind me. Coming in, I'd narrowly missed a student standing by a bank of light switches. She'd just thrown all of them. There was now an annoying low hum, as all the lights in the house came on.

"Ah, fresh blood!," the adult voice said. The source proved to be a matronly woman, heading towards me from the front of the theater, "We can always use more help with the scenery and other 'tech' chores."

And at that moment we were plunged back into darkness.

"Such as lighting," she continued, "Would someone kill the spotlight on the main panel, restore the breakers, and Please! Remember NOT to turn on all the houselights while the spotlight is still on?"

I walked up to the stage, and mounted the stairs off to one side. The lady followed me, and introduced herself as Mrs. Phelps, the drama teacher. (In fact, the entirety of the drama department, amongst other miscellany, I was to learn.) I introduced myself as Dave, of course.

Remembering I was here on a mission, I toured the backstage area, noting several secluded niches that could serve as a changing area. And I had a modicum of talents I could apply to stagesraft, I felt.

Maybe this could be made to work?

I told Mrs. Phelps I'd have to think about it, and hurried out to get to my study hall.

Only to run smack into Doug.

"Dave, isn't it? I think we have an english class together. Do you have a hall pass?

"No," I responded, "I was going to study hall and stumbled into the theater. It was so interesting, I guess I missed the bell. May I have a pass?"

"I can't issue them, but I'll let you off with a warning, this once. Actually, they collect attendance slips in the theater. If you stay there to work on the play, it counts as study hall." Aha! Another piece falls into place!

Going back in to volunteer, I found that they took their time about collecting the slips.

Mrs. Phelps put me right to work painting the fabric flats of the scenery, something I found interesting enough. At the end of the period, everyone left and I had a minute or two alone gathering up my stuff. I promised myself I'd be back.

---

As, indeed, I was, the next day after lunch, while dressed as Barb.

Mrs. Phelps introduced herself again, mentioning "We can always use more help with scenery and...," here, she seemed to pause ever so slightly, and then continued, "costumes. The more the merrier, I alway say."

I wondered about that odd little pause (had she eyed me before she continued? No, I must be imagining things.) But my concerns soon got swept away in the work.

I had to reintroduce myself to everyone, of course. Turning in my attendance slip, I palmed two, and turned in signed slips for Dave and Barb at the same time. The student collecting them took no notice. At the office, they'd enter the one for Dave and be puzzled by the one for Barb, which should be just fine. I'd only have a problem if anyone came from the office to fetch Dave for some reason, a rare occurence indeed, usually only done for family emergencies.

At the end of the period, I again hung back, and then hid in a disused paint closet (all the paint was out, in use). Once the lack of noise made it clear that everyone was gone, I changed, and exited the theater. Possibly, had I been less ecstatic over how well this was working, I might have noticed Mrs. Phelps, through all the students passing between classes, standing outside her office door down the hall from the theater, watching me thoughtfully.

As it was, as I rounded a corner, I ran square into someone. As I was apologizing, I realized it was Doug! I turned to evade him from reflex, but I was dressed as Dave again (and it was between classes anyway); he just waved me on my way and bade me get to class on time. (Exposure to the bard tends to promote archaisms in ones words...)

A couple of weeks later, as I left the lunchroom to go to the theater, from lunch with Sally as Barb, I saw Doug's back in the hall again, moving away from me. Curious, I followed at a distance. He seemed to be escorting someone from the Principal's office. As we reached a corridor junction, he looked behind him, and seeing me, turned back and flapped his hand behind his back to gesture me towards the field house while he escorted the adult he was with towards the shop wing, off at a right angle from the path he indicated for me. He was helping me? What was going on? Puzzled, I went back to the theater.

I didn't have long to wait to find out a little more, though. A week later, Sally informed me that Doug had passed her a note for Barb in math class. Reading it, he was asking to meet me. And sure enough, there he was in the hall outside the cafeteria after lunch.

Clearly I looked nervous, because he started off with, "No, wait. I'm not after you; I helped you the other day! I just want to ask you something."

I faced him squarely, but stayed poised to run down the intersecting corridor. "Go on," I asked warily.

"I want to ask you to the next dance." he continued.

I was bowled over. My nemesis wanted to ask me out? "This is sudden. Can I give you my answer tomorrow, same time, here?"

"it's a bit untraditional..."

"I assure you, if I don't go with you, I won't go with anyone. I'm not shopping around for another offer," I told him. That seems to satisfy him, oddly, and he said OK.

---

After school, I found Sally. I was still a bit dazed, but I started in, "Doug asked me to the dance!", I said.

"What? You told him no, I hope," Sally responded.

"Well... Not so much. I said I had to talk to you first."

"Well, that's great, I can only think of two or three Thousand

problems with that idea..."

"What problems?"

"To start with, you aren't really a girl, in case you've forgotten, which means there are some details he might notice."

"Well, I'm not that sort of girl, certainly, so I'm not sure he'll notice anything.""

"Next, well, you don't have anything to wear yet."

"I know some really understanding shops in Andersonville that can probably set me up," I mused, "with some good advice from a friend," I hinted.

"

"Seriously, you aren't ready for something this social."

"I certainly didn't design Barb to have a social life, true, but it makes a whole bunch of problems disappear, if it goes at all well."

"And if it doesn't, it ends all of it for good, and you'll make National news. And Design Barb? You can't design a person. You had a caricature in mind of a teenage girl, and wound up as Barb, but as soon as you met us at the museum, she was out in the world and you have no more control over what happens with her than the rest of us do. I wish you'd realize that."

Besides, how can you attend the dance? You're not a student here. Then there's that you don't know how to dance; heck, I bet you've never even walked in heels."

"So how long will it take for you to make me minimally ready?"

"Well, apart from a couple of anatomical deficiencies, we have enough time for the bare minimum. But do you know what goes on at these things?"

"No. Never been to one."

"Dancing is just the least of what is involved. This isn't prom, at least, just a dance, so you won't have to meet the parents, but 'making out' is going to be on the menu."

"You almost make me sorry I'm not asking you."

"You're getting carried away by your successes. One failure, and it goes away big time."

"One dance, and he'll go away, start treating me like any other student."

"Who shouldn't be in the halls when you are, anyway."

"Come on, help me get a dress and learn how to not make any more of a fool of myself on the dance floor than the other students..."

"I still think no good can come of this, but I'll do it for my friend Barb. I'm not sure I'd go this far if it was just Dave asking, though," she said, getting way too metaphysical for me; my head ached when I even tried to parse that one, so I left it alone.

---

Using her connections, Sally got a copy of the play list the DJ was proposing to use at the dance. (Naturally, the student council wanted to add things, and the school admin wanted to omit others.) She'd gathered the tracks onto her laptop, and slipped copies to me so I could familiarize myself with them.

"Oh, and bring whatever you have like a suit," she added, when giving me my instructions at lunch.

"I've got a jacket and pants; not sure about a shirt, though. But I'm not going as Dave, remember?"

"Just bring it," she said.

So after school, with mom still being at work, I quickly made "Barb" presentable in her uniform and grabbed what pieces I could easily lay my hands on of my regular suit. Then was off to Barb's place.

When I was buzzed in, I stopping to say hi to Mrs. Ackerman really quick, and continued on to Sally's room.

Sally looked me over, "I see you eased up on the acne. I still can't believe you do that to yourself."

"I'll have to amp up the acne the week after the dance to make everyone forget how Barb looked normal then," I said, although actually, I was starting to have another plan entirely. "It is a little over the top, maybe, but I can't help but feel it helps keep people from looking more closely."

"I wish we could do something with your hair. It has such a 'bad hair day' vibe to it. Oh, well. Be right back," she said, and grabbed the parts of my suit from where I'd hung them on the back of a chair and left the room.

While she was gone, I looked over the playlist she'd gotten from the DJ. Most of the song's were current hits, but late in the list there was a scattering of slower older classics.

"What do you think?" Sally had come back into the room; she'd changed into my dress pants, seemed to have done something to her bust to flatten it under a satin-looking blouse, and my black suit jacket. Her red hair was drawn back in a severe ponytail, which she had tucked into the collar of her blouse, and she'd washed her face. It was the most boy-like I'd ever seen her. She still looked enthralling, though. She was wearing wedge heels to make herself roughly Doug's height.

Positioning myself across from her at arms length, I indicated I was ready to start when she was.

The early parts of the playlist were very recent; the dances for them mostly seem to me to be bobbing in place and arm motions with little shifts in position; or at least, that was all Sally could be sure I could handle. as she pointed out, dance floors tended to be crowded anyway and there wouldn't be much room for large moves. I still was not totally successful at handling it, though.

"You're holding yourself closed, somehow," she told me, "I have an idea thoug, but we'll have to go shopping first. Are you free tomorrow morning? We still have to get your dress, anyway. So we'll come back to the recent stuff."

I admitted as how I was available Saturday all day.

And then...

"Now we come to what the escorts love to throw in the mix: older songs for the slow dances. That's why I asked you to bring a suit," she said as she cued up the first slow dance.

Then, holding me closely, she took me by the hand and we started awkwardly moving around a small patch of her room.

Once I had seen all the movements, she cued up the music again, and we started over.

"You know, you threw me quite a curve," she whispered into my ear, holding me close as we danced.

"How's that?", I responded. I was distracted by the her delicious scent, quite drowning out that of the mothballs my suit had been packed in, as she held me close.

"Here I was all set to fix my BFF up with this guy, Dave, that kept trying to get my attention, and it turns out my BFF was that guy Dave."

"Well, why didn't you just take Dave for yourself? He wanted to get to know you better."

"I was more interested in Barb than Dave, but Barb kept missing my signals, so I figured, next best thing."

"Oh." OH...

"And here in the slow dance, at the end, it's traditional that the music pause a bit to allow time for those so inclined to express themselves," And then she kissed me. It was a slow, lingering kiss, straight to the mouth.

At this point, I'd rarely kissed anyone except relatives. It wasn't gross at all, though, I thought, through some sort of haze that surrounded me suddenly and slowed my thoughts...

I wondered if my necessarily heavy foundation allowed the flush I felt on my cheeks to show through. Evidently it did.

"I've been dying to do that for MONTHS," she whispered further.

Which left me to wonder how Sally would take my plan, now.