RANSVESTIA

"I think it's obvious," Greg cut in quickly. When all the other s turned to look at him, he shifted anxiously but then went on de- terminedly. "Kenny can't go ashore like he is. It's just like Dad said last night. He can pass as a girl, so you ought to let him go ashore that way. We can say he's a friend of Cathy's or something."

"He's Eleanor's son," said Kate indignantly.

"And what about you?" asked Jim, speaking directly to the boy for the first time since the voyage had started. "Given a choice, would you rather go ashore as Kenny Porter, as you are, or in your other clothes?" His head nodded in the direction of Kenny's cabin.

Kenneth's polished fingernails touched his hair. "My hair," he said softly.

"Cathy has two wigs with her," said Greg promptly, but then subsided as his mother glared at him.

"Well?" barked Jim Porter, staring at Kenny.

"Well, I guess," Kenny whispered, keeping his eyes on the porthole, "that it would be less trouble if I ..." he made a little shrug.

"That's settled then," said Jim Porter grimly. "Get back into your petticoats." He had a very strange look on his face.

"He'll need a new name," Greg said urgently. "We can hardly call him Kenny in front of everyone. He'll be a girl and he should have a girl's name."

"Helen," said Kate. Jim and Greg looked at her in surprise. She looked defensively at them. "Well, it was your grandmother's name, Jim. So it makes sense that we call her a name that Eleanor might have called her daughter. We'll explain Kenny by telling everyone that Eleanor had a girl as well as a boy, both named after your grandparents, Jim."

As soon as Helen Porter set foot on the Marina, she was the object of deep and appreciative attention. The Porter family's progress was necessarily slow as they had to stop and introduce the beautiful girl

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