18TV FICTION CLASSICS "SANDY THOMAS

replace the blazer. In warmer months, when shorts are required, the alternate shorts provided (see illustration. 8) will be

worn.'

I looked around for illustration 8, and finally found it over in a corner of the poster . . .I groaned. It had a picture of a properly uniformed tress, front and back views. The boy was wearing the grey slacks, a white blouse with the flouncy kerchief tied in a bow instead of a necktie, a jacket that was short and closely fitted. It had very wide, long, pointed lapels and the buttons were on the wrong side...a girls' jacket. To make things worse he was wearing girl's black low-heeled pumps, a tam on his head, and the back view showed his long brown hair neatly French braided with a big ribbon bow tied at the end!

A second picture had the same boy, but this time instead of wearing the long pants he had on the 'alternate shorts'! They looked just like an above-the-knee length, full skirt! They were cut very full, with a sharp pleat right down the middle. This resulted in the material hanging loosely, giving the impression of a skirt, not pants! I couldn't believe the next line I read:

'While attending Girls' School, boy actresses will adhere to all uniform requirements in effect for girl students.' "Do you mean I have to wear a girl's uniform part of the time?? A skirt??" It was a rhetorical question at this stage.

"Well, yes. But don't worry, almost every new tress has the same reaction. If you were in a normal school like you're used to, I can imagine it would be somewhat embarrassing. But here, you'll be taking the school bus to the Girls School on the other side of our property along with Mike and a whole bunch of other, similarly dressed boys. Believe me, tresses are envied by all the other boys here, because where they only get to interact with our girl population once a month or so at a social function, tresses spend close to 50% of their school time surrounded by girls. And I'm sure you'll find our girls to be a prettier lot than you're used to at public school."

Well, that may be true, I thought. . .but how many of them will turn out to be 'different' underneath the skirts, like Michelle turned out to be.

To my great embarrassment, I spent the next hour trying on uniform after uniform. Yes...including the skirt and the tunic. I was also assigned two pairs of black girls' pumps with a 1 1/2" heel. All in all, I came away with four girl's blouses, a skirt, a tunic dress, two pairs of boy's trousers, and two pairs of the 'skirt-pants' shorts. It certainly looked like the boy's clothes came in a distant second place.

When we got back to E Wing, there was a lot more activity. Many more students were arriving. I saw Mike, still in his boy's outfit, talking to a couple of very pretty "girls". Ms. Cavell saw the object of my staring and commented, "Ah, Jeff and Allan have arrived."

ACTING LIKE A GIRL -19

Jeff, a stunning blond with a wealth of glorious cascading curls tumbling nearly to his waist could be overheard saying to Mike, "Do you like it?" as his hands fluffed his locks. "It's a body perm that I set overnight. Oh, it's just so hard to dry when it's this long! I don't know how girls have time to do everything."

Jeff's long, stockinged legs were exposed by his leather miniskirt. Being perched on the 4" high-heeled sandals made his behind move in an ever-so-unboyish manner! And his see-through, dark blouse clearly showed a black, very lacy brassiere that was molding and uplifting a very realistic pair of breasts! How could that be?!? To top it all off, Jeff was wearing full makeup including very long false eyelashes, deep red lipstick and matching nail polish on his toe and fingernails. The latter must have been 3/4" past the ends of each finger. Ms. Cavell, must have read my thoughts because she said under her breath, "I'm going to have to speak to Jeff about his unnecessary 'advertising'."

She excused herself for a moment and headed off to speak with the blond bombshell.

We couldn't hear the discussion, but it clearly pertained to some 'over revealing' fashions being sported by the boy/girl. It ended with a somewhat apologeticlooking Jeff heading off to one of the dorm rooms probably to change.

The boy who had been standing with Jeff and Mike was almost a complete opposite of the flamboyant Jeff. Yes, Allan was indeed dressed as a girl, but very conservatively. His shoulder-length brown hair was in a simple, curly, pageboy style with the sides pulled up with a pair of barrettes. He wore a white, angora sweater and a beautiful, knee-length tartan skirt. His pierced ears sported simple, yet elegant gold loop earrings that matched the necklace and bracelet he was wearing. He wore subtle, yet effective eye makeup, subdued lip color and very feminine but not garish manicured fingernails. Allan presented himself as a high class, society girl. Dressed conservatively, yet with much class. I had to notice the front of Allan's sweater. There was an obvious, padded bra underneath. At least at the time I assumed it was 'padded'.

"Ms. Cavell, why do so many boys arrive dressed up like girls? And do they wear girls underwear too?" I unashamedly asked.

"Well, Ken, for many boys it's like a game. They have this opportunity here at Rosemount to play a role that males normally cannot. Many enjoy spending time improving their acting by pretending to be girls during the summer. Others, like Jeff, like to show off to their tress buddies how well they can pretend to be girls. As for underwear, its something we strongly encourage. If you are to act a role, you must completely and totally submerge yourself in all aspects of the character. And we do emphasize 'all' as you will see in your training."