TRANSVESTIA

skirt set, which meant that I had to change the ribbons on my plaits to pink, also. I was fixing my face... and yes, admiring myself a little ... the praise had gotten to me, I guess, when mother came in.

"Christine, can't you hurry up a bit. I need your help to serve," she said nervously, as if the count of Novgorod had come to call. So now she kept on calling me Christine, also.

"I'm not Christine. I am Chris, your son," I insisted.

"Yes, yes, yes," she said, leaving again in a hurry. She had not heard a word of what I said. Didn't she ever consider my feelings? Couldn't she say just once, "Yes, I know you're my son and I love you in pants, also."

With a heavy heart I followed her to the kitchen. Within two minutes, I found myself in a fresh white apron, serving coffee to the visitors, none of whom I really knew. And everyone seemed to like the Ukrainian pastry, which mother always made Friday night for Sunday.

I must say all the women were very nice to me. I almost began to forget that I was not the girl they thought I was. But they would not let me, showering me with compliments: how pretty I was, how nice I helped mother, how cute I looked, and how nice I had been to the little kids.

Two of them asked me if I was available for babysitting. Just as I began turning them down, mother overheard and butted in. "Of course Christine would be glad to help you out. Just give her a call."

"But what about my homework?" I asked, desperately trying to avoid a definite commitment.

"You can work at our house, after the kids are safely in bed," one of the ladies said. I liked her. She had an open, pleasant face and she sure did not hide the fact that she liked me.

I smiled back at her, but then looked at mother, trying to hypnotize her to say, "No, no, no." She must have forgotten completely about my masquerading as a girl because she repeated that anyone wanting a babysitter just call me. "She charges one dollar an hour," my mother

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