RANSVESTIA

I was choking with rage. "Girls, you must be crazy. I have no inten- tion of going through with this wacky thing. And as for you, Margie, I'd like to break your neck."

"Oh, come on, Jackie. Don't be a prig. It's only one date. Take his school ring if he offers it to you and then mail it back to him later. Be- sides, if you don't go through with this harmless little joke, I swear I'll find a way to break you and Gail up. And you know me. When I say something, I mean business."

Reluctantly, I admitted to myself that Margie was always as good as her word and that if she said she'd break us up, she'd find a way to do it. It looked as though I didn't have much choice except to go through with this ridiculous masquerade. And as Margie had pointed out, it was only for one evening. Assuming I could avoid detection, it wouldn't really hurt anyone.

"O.K., Margie, I'll do it on the proviso that you give me your prom- ise you'll never try to get me in dresses again. Will you promise?"

"Yes, Jackie. I promise."

And so the routine of me returning home from school each night to transform myself into a girl began again. This time, however, Margie had some new courses to my training schedule. First, she insisted that I learn to dance as a girl just in case Ted took me danc- ing. She and Betty and Susan spent hours talking girl talk in front of me so that I could sould like a typical teenager. I wouldn't have any memorized script to help me as I had in the play. And they clued me in on how a girl feels when she is out with a boy.

Finally, that dreadful Saturday arrived. I was in my room putting on the finishing touches when the doorbell rang. Margie's voice drifted through my partly open door.

"Good evening. You must be Ted Rogers. I'm Margie, Jackie's sis- ter. She's almost ready. She'll be out in a minute."

Mentally, I reviewed everything Ted had said about himself in the letters the girls had shown me, put a dab of perfume behind each ear as Margie had instructed, and with a certain amount of fear and trembling walked into the living room.