Pete's football uniform didn't seem to fit the same as it used to....

“Be honest, Pete,” Joanna commanded. “Has anyone asked you out?

I felt like everyone turned to look at me all at once. I stalled. “You mean besides Megan?” I wasn’t going to mention Leland Frick’s offer to go to the movies, which certainly wasn’t a date!

Most everyone laughed, Beverly’s tipsy cackle louder than the rest.

Smiling but not laughing, Joanna got more direct. “You know what I mean. Has any boy asked you out as Gayle?”

Put that way, I had wriggle room to deny since Lee had invited Pete, not Gayle. I decided to tough it out, so I shrugged. “Why would they? The only boy that knows about Gayle-me is Jake.” I went for the spike. “And he’s your boyfriend.”

More general laughter, and Megan gave me a hug. “Petey, Petey, Pete,” she whispered in my ear. “Did you answer the question by not answering?”

“Later,” I whispered back.

Joanna tried to ask again, but her troops had turned against her. The other cheerleaders talked over her and wouldn’t let her continue the interrogation.

“Leave her alone,” said Katalina, the tall brunette on the varsity squad. “She doesn’t owe you any answers.”

“Well, I wanna know,” Beverly put in, managing to sneer over her glass without spilling it.

“Shut up, Bev,” said Joanna, unwilling to let someone else take over leading the partiers. “You’re supposed to keep the liquor cabinet locked, not raid it yourself.”

Bev snickered and took another sip of whatever she had in the tall glass. “I bet a highball or two would loosen Miss Pete up so she would tell us the skinny.”

Enough was too much for Joanna suddenly, and she pointed at her aunt, then the stairs. “Go to your room!” she ordered.

“Oh, har-de-har-har!” said Bev, sneering again, but she retreated from the big lounge-cum-theater and made her way to the kitchen, where we could see her head above the trays of snacks in the pass-through. She still had her highball glass. She mouthed something at me, and I had to confirm with Megan what I thought she had said.

“Did she just call me a cunt?” I asked. It was a common enough insult among jocks and didn’t have the usual anatomical meaning when used there.

“Uh-huh,” Megan agreed. “She said you’re a real cunt, so…take it as a compliment?”

I snorted.

Megan grinned. “Sometimes a girl just has to take a compliment where she finds one.”

I rolled my eyes at that, and after throwing a glare Bev’s direction, joined Megan in a giggle.

“What’s so funny?” she asked, poking me with a stiff finger under my ribs.

“We are,” I admitted. “We’re in a lesbian relationship, I guess. But a real rug merchant shows up, and we give her the cold shoulder.”

I didn’t think it was that funny, but Megan howled with laughter.

“Huh?” I said. “Am I missing something?”

“Yup,” she agreed after getting her laughter under control. “The expression is rug-muncher. A rug merchant would be an Arab, or maybe a Persian.”

My face turned red, and I tried to recover my fumble. “But the rug is still a flying carpet, right?”

More giggles. “It can be,” she agreed. “It can be.”

#

Joanna reasserted her position as queen of the party. “Hey, everyone! Halloween is just three weeks away! Has everyone already decided on a costume to wear? Friday is Halloween Eve this year, so we can wear our costumes to school that day!”

“Uh-oh!” I may have said that out loud because Megan grinned at me.

Joanna was on a roll. “It’s traditional for some of the boyfriends of cheerleaders to come to school in cheerleader costumes!”

General laughter began, but I grabbed Megan and tried to pull her toward an exit.

“Pete, Petey, Pete!” she protested. “You would be so cute!”

I hoped she was kidding, but the pack of savages began to cheer the idea when Joanna brought it forward. “And we’ve got a football player right here!” She pointed directly at me, and the other girls surged around us, blocking our exit.

“Oh, wow!”

“Gayle, have you worn Megan’s uniform?”

“Argh!” I shouted, but it didn’t help.

“Pete’s too tall to wear Megan’s,” someone pointed out.

“Does anyone have a uniform she can try on?”

Joanna’s voice rose above the rest. “I do! It’s my house, and I have my old uniform from last year.”

#

My appeal to Megan to get me out of there did no good. “But Petey, Petey, Pete! I think you’ll look so cute! And it is a tradition for someone on the football squad to dress as a cheerleader!”

“But why me!?”

“Oh, come on,” Joanna put in. “Who better? You get to play on the boys’ team the rest of the time!”

“Yeah, but…!”

“Think of the embarrassment you’ll be saving someone else on the team! And if you’d been coming to school as a girl for the last four years, you’d probably be a cheerleader, now!”

“Maybe even head cheerleader,” said Megan in a dig at Joanna.

That set all the girls to laughing and poking me and pulling me toward the stairs. The poking tickled, and I found myself laughing, too.

I spotted Bev with her highball glass in the kitchen with the phone up to her ear.

“Help! Call the police.” I shouted. “You’re supposed to be the adult here! Stop this craziness!”

But she just grinned at me and waved a salute with her glass. “I’m calling for some reinforcements,” she said.

“Not likely,” Joanna sneered at her aunt. “Probably calling for another liquor delivery!”

But I didn’t have time to think of that.

The crowd of girls rushed me upstairs and into Joanna’s room, or as many of them as would fit, half a dozen plus Joanna, Megan and me. Such a giggling mob might not have existed since the French Revolution. It’s lucky for me, I guess that we weren’t headed for the guillotine, but only Joanna’s closet.

Which was actually about the same size as my bedroom back home. Half of one whole wall was just shoes!

Megan gave me a hug. By this time, I had squelched my own giggles down to a case of hiccoughs. “Relax, Petey! Have fun with this! After football season, you’ll need these girls as friends!”

“Hic,” I said. “You really think so?” I tried not to glare. Megan might have a point.

She nodded vigorously. “They already know you’re secret, and they still like you for it. What’s going to happen when everyone else finds out you’ve been a girl all along?”

That stopped my hiccoughs good. “But I haven’t been a girl all along,” I protested. “Just…just since last week!”

Megan frowned at me. “You sure?” she asked, looking a bit puzzled.

“Megan!” I wanted to scream now. “I…you…?”

But Kat was holding the cheer uniform up to show everyone. “It’s going to fit her!” She shouted.

And they did what they did best; they cheered.