Neighbours

by Sarah Bayen

Part Five

 

Looking out of my bedroom window, I saw him come home some three quarters of an hour after me. He was disappointingly wearing his jeans and his blue T-shirt. I did wonder for a moment whether he was still wearing his bra, and those wonderful knickers of Katy's. I supposed he must be; he had arrived in them, and almost certainly must have gone home in them. I also wondered whether he had managed to remove all his make-up, and the stuff I had put in his hair.

I moved swiftly away from the window to make sure he didn't see me. There was no way I wanted to face him there and then, especially if he was dressed as a boy. I lay down on my bed, and shut my eyes. The strange feelings he evoked in me would not go away, however hard I tried to make them. The feeling of triumph and power arising from beating him at arm wrestling; the strange need to see him in his knickers again; the bizarre thrill I felt when I saw him putting on his make-up; the overwhelming desire I had had to kiss him. I was unused to feeling like this, and it unsettled me for the rest of the day.

I did not sleep well, but being awake gave me the opportunity to think about things. I decided that the reason I was feeling ambivalent was that I was thinking of him as a girl. It was my own fault; I had been so engrossed in entrapping him into behaving and looking like one, I had almost come to believe it myself. The solution then was simple; I needed to remind myself again that he was a boy, not by allowing him to dress as one; oh no, that would ruin the whole show. But by reminding myself that he was a boy wearing hair decorations, make up and girl's clothes; that would be the answer.

I decided the next morning that I couldn't face escorting him to our den. He could follow on later. I got there, after a shower and breakfast, at about half past nine, and sat in there, waiting for his arrival eagerly. I had taken my savings with me, about £8. I wasn't entirely happy about using it for this, but in the end I convinced myself it was a worthwhile investment. I hoped that he too would bring some money. Then I could really kit him up with a whole range of girly stuff; excellent.

He arrived five minutes early, tentatively saying hello from the door. I deliberately made him wait a few moments, and then opened it. He was standing there in his boy clothes. I stared at him in as unfriendly way as I could and then said. "You can't come in dressed like that."

"I know," he replied breathlessly. "I just wanted to check that it was you in there."

"Well it is." I told him shortly. "Get yourself properly dressed, and we'll get down to the shops." He nodded in reply, his soulful eyes gazing up at me. "You've brought your knickers I hope?"

He nodded again. "Yes. I still think they need a wash, but I'm going to wear them."

"You've not got them on now then, like you did yesterday?"

"No," he replied, shaking his head so that his brown hair shook around his head. "My Mum kept coming upstairs while I was trying to get dressed. They're in here." He held up a plastic bag for me to see.

"Well I've got something for you that might help," I said, barely containing my excitement to make my voice sound matter-of-fact. I went back into the shed, and pulled a small packet out. My hands were trembling, I noticed, as I did so. I went back to the door. "Here," I said, handing the packet to him. "This should help keep your knickers clean."

He took the small packet, with its stupid pink flowers on, and looked at it dubiously. "What is it?" he asked, turning it over to see if it said anything on the packet. It did not.

Barely able to contain myself and my breathing, I struggled to say my next well-rehearsed line. "It's a sanitary pad. Slip it into your knickers, and they'll stay clean."

By far the worst thing about being a girl, Andrea and I had decided a year or two before, was the monthly torture of periods. We hated the stomach cramps, the bleeding, the general discomfort, and the ridiculous jokes the boys made about it whenever they had a chance. Many times Andrea and I had wished that boys could be made to suffer it as well, that would teach them! Well, I couldn't make him suffer the full gamut of the monthly visitation, but at least I could make him feel the humiliation and discomfort of having to ram a stupid pad into his knickers for the day.

He looked bewildered by my gift, and simply stared at the packet dubiously. "How does it go in?" he asked.

This rattled me. Was he so stupid that he couldn't work out how to put on a pad? I calmed myself before replying however. "You just put it into the gusset. It's got sticky wings on it to hold it in place."

He looked at me with his big brown eyes, and tiled his head to one side. "Gusset?"

God he was stupid! "It's the bit of the knickers that goes between your legs," I snapped at him. "Come on, get your knickers out, and you can put it in now."

I regretted saying that almost immediately. I had resolved not to look at his knickers until I had reaffirmed his status as male in my consciousness. I felt myself flushing, and my teeth clenching as he fumbled in his plastic bag for the garment in question. He pulled them out, and I breathed in deeply as I saw them again. He held them in his hand, and looked at me plaintively for guidance.

"Well open the damn packet," I snapped again. He looked at me sorrowfully, and managed to undo the packet, and take out the pad. "Put it in the gusset, and fold the wings over the sides," I hissed.

He did this, and looked with fascination as the pad went into place in his knickers. He had put it in slightly lopsided, which would probably make it even more uncomfortable for him: good!

"Is that right?" he asked, holding the flimsy pink things out to me to look at.

I nodded, and gulped to restrain myself. "Yes," I said. "Now put your stuff on, and come on in."

"Okay Jen!" he said, far too brightly for my liking. I went back into the shed, trembling, and flopped down into one of the chairs. I could hardly believe what had just happened; I had got him, not just to wear girl's knickers, but to wear a sanitary pad as well, as if he was having a period! Was I powerful or what? I tried to control my breathing, and shut my eyes. I had an overwhelming desire to slip my hand under his skirt when he came in, to feel those beautiful knickers, and the little towel pressed against him, but I knew I had to resist this. He was a boy, one of the evil ones placed on the planet to make my life hell. I had to reinforce this to myself before going much further, otherwise I would lose control.

After a few minutes, he tentatively opened the door, and came in. Despite myself, I looked at him, standing in the doorway wearing his blue pleated skirt. He had a light blue T-shirt on today, tucked nicely into the waistband of his skirt, and I could clearly see the outline of his bra, although not the colour of it. I knew also, that under his skirt, he was wearing those wonderful knickers, and between his legs, the pad I had given him.

"This pad's not terribly comfortable," he confided to me. As if I didn't know! And what was he complaining about anyway? He didn't have to wear one for three or four days every month for thirty years of his life like I did, did he?

"They're not suppose to be," I muttered. I felt tense, like I had never done in my life before. It was essential for me to remind myself that he wasn't what he appeared, a friend, but an evil male, whom I was teaching a well-deserved lesson to. Luckily, I had a plan, and was prepared.

"Are you still happy to go shopping then?" I asked him.

He looked at me with his eyelashes flashing. "Well I don't know about happy," he confessed.

I smiled at him; he had taken the bait. "Well I tell you what," I said. "Let's have another competition then. If you win, you don't have to go shopping, and if I win, well, it'll be sort of double or quits."

"What do you mean by that?" he asked.

I smiled again. "Well, if I win, we don't just buy you a couple of pair of knickers, we get you another bra, and a couple of skirts, and maybe some tights if we can afford it."

Losing my control for the moment, I looked down at his legs, exposed as they were under his little skirt. I could just imagine them in tights, they would look wonderful.

"What sort of competition?" he asked. "I don't want to do arm wrestling again, I'll only lose!"

How right he was! "No, not arm wrestling," I assured him, still smiling. "Let's try something else. After yesterday, we know that boys aren't always stronger than girls don't we?"

He frowned, and nodded in response.

"But there's something else boys have that girls don't isn't there?"

His frown deepened, and he looked at me suspiciously. "What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean," I insisted. "between their legs."

His little mouth opened, and he flushed pleasingly. "Okay," he said at last. "So what?"

"Well," I said, springing the trap. "If what you've got between your legs is bigger than what I've got, then you win." He eyed me suspiciously, obviously knowing this was a trick, but unable to see exactly how. I stared at him earnestly. "Come on Charlotte, you know you shouldn't be able to lose this one."

He bit his lip nervously, and his eyes widened as they scanned my face for signs and signals of what his trap might be. Excited as I was, I tried to keep my face blank. At length he shrugged. "Well all right," he said, his eyes not leaving mine.

I grinned wildly at his acceptance. "Okay," I replied, standing to face him. "You first."

He looked puzzled. "Me first? What do you mean?"

"Well you'll have to show me what you've got, so we can compare sizes. Just pull your knickers down a bit, and lift up your skirt. We don't have to be naked or anything."

He pulled something of a face, and then slipped his hands up his skirt. His knickers appeared beneath the hem, and I could see the pad, still in place in its gusset.

"That'll do," I said, when he had them half way down his thighs. "There's no need to take them off completely."
"Not unless I win," he said, throwing me a meaningful look.

I breathed deeply to control myself. "No, not unless you win." I agreed. "Now lift your skirt up."

He hesitated for a moment before letting his hands clasp the hem of his skirt. He hesitated again, before lifting it upwards to reveal himself to me. My eyes were torn between looking at his gorgeous knickers, half way down his plump little thighs, and looking at what he was showing me.

"Not bad," I managed to say at last. "Not bad at all."

He looked quite pleased with himself, and let his skirt fall back down. "Your turn now," he said, staring at me with a look of daring I had not seen in his eyes before.

"Fair enough," I agreed, and undid the zip on my jeans. I put my hand through my flies, and into my knickers to find what I had slipped in there that morning. It was a trick Andrea and I had pulled before, when we had decided to pretend to be boys. I found it. Slowly, I pulled it out, point first from the zip so that it was pointing directly at him, and looked down proudly at myself, now sporting a huge, rather phallic-shaped carrot.

His eyes nearly popped out of his skull in surprise, and he took a step backwards.

"Sorry Charlotte, but I think it's bigger than yours!" I announced in triumph, holding the vegetable slightly aloft, and waving it towards him.

The shock on his face was exquisite. He tried to back away further, but was hampered by his knickers, still half way down his thighs. Quickly his little hands grabbed at them, and pulled them back into place in an act of desperate defensiveness. I grinned, and waved the carrot some more. "It's good isn't it?" I asked him.

"But that's not fair," he whimpered. "It's not real."

"Oh isn't it?" I sneered. "Do you want to feel how real it is?" I advanced towards him, brandishing my new weapon, and he backed himself against the wall, his hands clasped together in front of himself.

"No," he said, nervous and frantic, and then, with a note of resignation. "It's all right. You win."

I felt my face aching from its wild grin, and hesitated whether to close in on him there and then. But no, he was a boy, one of the evil ones. With some reluctance, I placed the carrot down on the tea chest, and did up my flies. "Okay," I said at last, turning away from him so I could no longer see him, and his sorrow filled brown eyes. "Once you've done your hair and make up, we can go shopping then."

I sat back down with my back to him, but heard him retrieve the make up bag and mirror, and begin his work. In spite of reaffirming him in my mind as male, I still felt a desire to watch him pretty himself up, but I resisted, instead, reading an old book that was gathering dust on one of the shelves. I saw him fussing around in the corner of my eye, but intently stared at the pages of the book in front of me.

It seemed to take him an age, but eventually he finished. "What do you think?" he asked, nervously. I looked over at him. What a transformation, especially from the day before! His eyelashes were much better done, without clumps, and well separated. He had chosen more sober colours for his eye shadow and lipstick as well, and managed to balance both of his eyes much better. He had even had the forethought to put on some foundation, and, unless I was mistaken, a little bit of blusher on his cheeks. It was my turn to stare open mouthed at him. "It looks fine," I whispered.

"Are you sure?" he continued, turning his face around from side to side. "I read up on how to put it on in one of my Mum's magazines. I'd done it all wrong yesterday."

I steadied myself as I looked at him; damn, it was going to be hard to remember he was a boy looking like that. "Yes I'm sure," I reiterated. "Now do something with your hair."

"Okay," he agreed, and picked up some of the decorations I had used the day before on him. "I thought I might not put so many in today," he ventured. "I think I might have had too many yesterday."

I stared at him, with his big eyes now looking even bigger, and his delicate red mouth, and shivered before nodding. "Suit yourself." I responded.

"Okay," he said, and broke into a heartbreaking smile. "Actually I practiced a bit last night, in my room," he confessed. "I thought that if I was going to be a girl, I might as well be a good one!"

I was jolted, and speechless for a while, as I stared at him smiling again. As his bright little face looked eagerly across to me, I felt like getting up and kissing him again, but refrained. I nodded, and went back to my book. He fussed and preened in the corner of my eyes, holding the mirror close to himself as he did so. Damn him, why wasn't he in tears, and running back to his mummy because the nasty Jennifer had made him dress up as a girl?

Eventually he seemed satisfied with his work. "There," he announced, "what do you think?"

I continued looking at my book pointedly for a couple of seconds before looking at him. The practice had obviously paid off. His hair, while still too short for a girl, was expertly decorated now, with five or six well placed extra strands hanging fetchingly across his cheek, and some of the butterflies strategically placed around his crown.

"Is it okay?" he asked eagerly. "I don't look too stupid do I?"

I shook my head, partly in reassurance, and partly in wonder. "No, it's fine Charlotte," I managed to stutter at last.

He broke into another of his heart rendering smiles, and stood up. "Shall we get down to the shops then?" he asked me.

I couldn't refuse him, and put the book down. We left, locking the shed behind us, and took another route out of the forest, which led down to nearer the town. I walked as quickly as I could, and he had difficulty keeping up with me, particularly as he seemed intent in walking in my shadow. It occurred to me that he was doing this to be less conspicuous, and, whenever I could, I moved so that he was in full view of any passers by.

Not that anyone seemed to pay him any particular attention. They weren't looking close enough, I decided. He probably just looked like a girl with unusually short hair, perhaps a little over made up for the time of the day and his age, but certainly not a boy in a skirt. I cursed myself for making him too realistic, although I also blamed him for doing so much research and practice into his make up and hair.

He told me, when I asked him, that he had brought along his own savings, all twenty pounds of it. I was pleased; we should be able to get him quite a few girly things with all that money, without necessarily using too much of mine. Pleasingly, when we reached the high street, he did get some odd looks from a couple of women, and because of the crowds, I was able to separate myself from him enough to make it look as if we weren't necessarily together.

"I'm a bit scared," he confessed to me in a whisper, catching hold of my arm. "I'm sure some of these people realise I'm a boy!"

"I'm sure they do too," I said, unkindly, as we reached the door of the shop I had been heading for, a chain store that I knew did a fair range of embarrassing underwear. We entered, and I led him through the maze of displays towards the back of the shop where the womenswear department was. We moved through to the lingerie display, and stood in front of the racks.

"Go on then," I told him. "Pick yourself some."

He looked at me with alarm in his eyes, and then, fluttering his long eyelashes once more, nodded meekly, and began to gaze at the display. After some delay, and hesitation, he picked up a pair of plain white cotton briefs, and looked at me questioningly. I shook my head. "No, not those. Pick something fancier."

Pouting, he put the knickers back, and moved along the display to the nylon pairs. This was more like it. I felt an urge to move forward, and select him some. That way I could make sure he ended up with something appropriate, but I resisted, and even moved away from him and the display. If he were embarrassed about picking girl's clothes for himself, it would be much better if he had to do it seemingly alone.

He dithered some more, nearly picking up a huge red pair, but in the end withdrawing his hand. Then, to my delight, an assistant came across to him.

"Can I help you?" she asked him. He blushed delightfully, and shook his head rapidly without looking up, making his long pink tresses at the front shake. The assistant was not to be put off so lightly. "What size are you?" she helpfully asked. He turned to me with a helpless look on his face, pleading with me to come to his rescue. I smiled at him, and shook my head. His face fell instantly.

"I'm not sure," he whispered, still not daring to look at the woman. She eyed him over.

"Well you look like an eight or a ten to me," she declared. "What colour were you after dear?"

He threw me another pleading glance over his shoulder, but I just smiled again, folded my arms across my chest, and shook my head again. I was enjoying this too much to let it stop now.

"I don't really know," he stuttered, in a higher pitched voice than usual. Good, he was pretending to be a girl now, for sure. "I'm just looking really."

The assistant was persistent to a fault. "These ones are nice," she said, holding up a white pair, picked out with mauve lace. "A bit saucy, but nice!" He looked as if he were about to faint as she held them up for him to look at. "Do you like these?" she went on.

He was dumbstruck, and just stood there looking at them with his mouth open, and his eyes wide with fright. I decided at last to intervene. "Oh Charlotte they're lovely!" I gushed, as I stepped forward. "Oh yes, they'd suit you." I went on, taking them from the woman. "Mind you, they've only got a narrow gusset, you wouldn't be able to wear them when you were on."

He visibly swayed as I said this, and his face had gone almost scarlet. The woman stood there with us for a few seconds more, and then said. "Well I'll leave you to it then. Call me if you need any help."

"We will," I said to her brightly.

I watched her walk away to another aisle. "Oh God," he whispered. "That was awful. I'm sure she guessed I was a boy."

"Perhaps she did," I said. "But it's your own fault for taking so long. Come on, pick out some pretty pairs for yourself, and they won't think you're shoplifting any more."

He busied himself by picking up a few pairs from the display, examining them, and holding them up for my approval. Whenever he picked out something plain, or in unfeminine colours, I shook my head, gradually narrowing his choices. In the end, he settled on a lovely white pair with pink lace flowers on, another pink pair, with ruffles at the front, and a gorgeous pair in black with a huge pink bow at the front.

"Shall we go and pay for them?" he asked me nervously, once he had made his final selection.

I smiled at him. "Not yet. You've got to choose yourself a bra yet." He shut his eyes in despair for a few seconds, and then nodded slightly to acknowledge I was right. "They're over here," I told him helpfully, and led him over to the display.

He looked helpless in front of the wall full of brassieres, laid out in different styles and sizes. I decided to help him out. "If it helps," I began, "the one you're wearing is a 30 inch A cup. If that fits all right, you should go for the same again."

He darted a nervous look at me again, and went to the correct section of the display. I moved away, over to look at some tops a few yards away. I was rather hoping that he would attract the attention of another assistant, but it was not to be.

"Jenny," I heard him whisper. "Is this all right?" He was holding up a plain white T-shirt bra. I could see why it had appealed to him. It had no decoration or adornment, and he probably thought it looked as masculine as a bra possibly could.

I smiled sweetly at him, and shook my head. "Something prettier than that!" I suggested.

With a look of mortification on his face, he replaced the bra, and began to look for another that might meet with my approval. He suggested two others to me, which I gently rejected as being too plain, and eventually found a nicer white one, with lace detail in mauve. It would match the knickers he had chosen quite well, so I smiled, and told him they would do.

I was loving this, and did not want it to stop. I had half a mind to get him to look at slips and nighties, but realised that if I made him buy too much here, he would not have enough money left to think about skirts. I nearly got him to look at the posh hosiery, but again, if he got some stockings, I'd have to make sure he got a suspender belt to wear with them, and we might run out of cash too soon.

"All right," I said to him. "That'll probably do. Take them up to the cash desk then, and we'll have a look for some skirts next door."

He looked at me amazed, and looked furtively around. "Don't they sell skirts in here?" he asked.

"Yeah, but they're not very good," I explained to him. Actually, some of them weren't all that bad, but I wanted another go at exposing him to shop assistants. "Come on Charlotte, get that lot paid for."

He took a couple of paces towards one of the tills, and then turned back to me, biting his bottom lip. "Aren't you coming with me?" he half asked, half pleaded.

"No," I replied firmly, and strode through the shop towards the front door. He hung his head for a moment, and then trudged towards the till. Luckily for me there was a bit of a queue, which meant he had to stand there, clutching pathetically at his feminine purchases all the longer. At last he reached the front, and handed them to the assistant, who pleasingly took some time over folding them into a bag for him, holding them up for the whole shop to see. He handed her his money, and she chinged the till, before counting out his change for him slowly and deliberately. Her final shot was priceless. "Thank you sir," she said.

I saw him quiver as he walked away with his little bag. Excellent, she had clocked him as a boy, even with his make up and skirt on. He must have felt embarrassed by that. As he walked over to me, he looked unsteady on his knees, and his face again was scarlet.

"OK Charlotte?" I asked in an unnecessarily loud voice. He looked at me pathetically, and nodded, and I led him out of the shop. Next-door was a small but quite trendy little boutique. I dragged him into it, and over to the racks of skirts on the far wall. The lady who owned the shop smiled at us as we came in. I smiled back, but he kept his face as well hidden as he could. I couldn't face any prevarication here, so I went with him to the racks, and swiftly picked out three nice skirts, and handed them to him. "Here," I said almost as a command. "Try these on."

He stared at me in disbelief. What was the matter with the boy? Did he really think he was going to be able to buy a skirt without trying it on first?

"The changing room's just there," the lady said helpfully, smiling at us. I ushered him into it, and then stepped out again.

"Show me them when you've got them on," I said, and began looking around the shop idly, while he was behind the curtain. The lady made some small talk with me about the weather, and the little denim mini skirt I had picked out for him.

"That should look nice on your friend," she said. I agreed with her enthusiastically.

Eventually he emerged wearing one of the others. A little black skirt, with plastic gold buckles and details. It was tight, very tight, but he looked good in it. "Turn around then," I urged him. "Let's see what it looks like from the back as well."

He did as he was asked. He had a small bum, especially for a girl, but the sight of the black material clinging to it so tightly made me shiver slightly.

"It looks really good on you dear," the lady observed, smiling at him, in spite of his pretty obvious distress.

"Well go on," I urged him. "Try on one of the others. We can't make up our minds until we've seen them all."

Dolefully he went back into the changing room, and I continued to look around the shop. Then something occurred to me that might make the whole thing more fun.

"He's a boy you know," I said to the shopkeeper.

She looked up at me. "That's nice," she said, smiling, before returning to her paperwork.

"No, really he is!" I went on. This was ridiculous. Where was her sense of outrage that a boy should come into her shop and start trying on her fashionable skirts? "Really, he's a boy!"

She looked up again. "Well I rather thought he might be," she told me, still smiling. "But he looks nice in skirts. If he wants to try them on, I've got no objections."

I was crestfallen. I had hoped my exposure of his gender would cause a far greater stir than that. She had no objections indeed! What was the matter with her? I decided that she must have misunderstood me in some way.

"He likes dressing up as a girl," I explained to her. There was no change in her expression. "And calling himself Charlotte," I added.

"That's a nice name, it's sweet," she replied, still smiling pleasantly at me.

I was therefore rather crestfallen when he stepped out of the changing room in the next skirt, a white RaRa affair, which barely covered his modesty. He looked ridiculously cute in it.

"Oh that looks sweet!" the lady exclaimed. "You look lovely in that. Nice and summery," she added. He smiled nervously back at her.

"You don't think it's a bit too short?" he asked.

"Not at all," she went on, "Not with legs like yours anyway. It's really nice."

He smiled more easily, and, unprompted, did a little twirl to show us what it looked like from the back. It swished around him in the speed of his movement, and showed for a brief second, his gossamer pink knickers. I wanted to touch them then, and even moved a step forward, but then stopped myself. He was a boy, I shouted to myself in my mind, a boy who I was making dress like this to get him out of my life.

"Try on the denim one now," I told him blankly, turning my eyes away from him, and his pleading brown eyes. He exchanged glances with the shopkeeper, and disappeared behind the curtains once more.

"Was it your idea or his?" she asked me.

I looked at her puzzled. "What?" I asked.

She smiled. "For him to dress up as a girl, He's very good at it you know, but perhaps you ought to let him pad out his bra a bit, and maybe buy him a wig."

This was dreadful. This damn woman was giving me advice on how to make him into a better girl. Didn't she realise that half the fun was having him recognised as a boy in skirts?

"Well," she persisted. "Was it your idea or his?"

"Oh his entirely," I answered after some thought. "I wasn't keen on the idea at first. I thought he'd get beaten up or something. But he insisted," I added, with a shrug. She nodded in reply knowingly. "He says he wants to dress up as a girl all the time, but I'm not sure his Mum's going to like that, or the school."

She continued her smile. "Well maybe not," she said at last. "But it's ever so nice of you to help him out like this. He's lucky to have a friend like you."

I could do nothing but smile back at her. Preposterous, that I should be his friend, he was a boy after all, and he had stolen Andrea's place. I was saved from the bother of making a reply by his reappearance in the denim skirt.

It looked good, not so nice as the RaRa, but still nice. The lady got out from behind the till, and straightened the waist for him, which made him smile his thanks. They were ganging up on me now, and I was getting angry.

"Well it looks nice dear," she told him. "I have to say though, I preferred you in the white one."

"Did you?" he asked, earnestly.

"Yes. It suited you better, especially for the summer. Denim's nice and practical, but it can look a bit boyish sometimes, even in a skirt."

"Yes," he agreed. "What do you think Jen? Do you think I should have the white one?" I shrugged. I had lost interest in the whole affair now he seemed to be enjoying it. He looked at himself in the mirror in his denim skirt, and moved to get a sideways view. "I see what you mean," he said, in a conspiratorial voice to the shopkeeper. "It does look a bit boyish doesn't it? Especially with the zip at the front!" She smiled and nodded in reply, looking at him and beaming her approval. "Well I think I'll take the white one then," he said to her. "If that's all right with you Jen."

I snorted. "Well I'm not the one who's going to wear it. If you like it, then get it."

"I think I will," he replied, oblivious to my displeasure.

"Well bring it out," the shopkeeper told him, "and I'll wrap it up while you get changed."

I hated their new chummy double act, and sat myself grumpily down on one of the chairs, while he came out with the white skirt, and then nearly skipped back into the changing room to remove his denim skirt, and change back into the blue pleated one.

"You look after him," the shopkeeper said to me, as she wrapped the RaRa. "He's special."

I was outraged by this, but held my anger in check. I had another plan to ruin his day and his reputation yet, and could not wait to put it into play. Impatiently I sat in a wooden chair beside the changing rooms, while he seemed deliberately to take forever to get changed again. Eventually he re-emerged, with the black and denim skirts immaculately folded back onto their hangers. "I'll just put these back for you," he said, sickeningly sweetly.

"Bless you," the shopkeeper exclaimed, as he did as he had promised. He got to the till, and handed over the rest of his money. "Well you look lovely in it," she told him as she handed him the bag. "I hope you enjoy wearing it!"

"Oh I'm sure I will!" he told her, his eyes filled with joy.

Oh I'm sure you won't, I thought to myself, jumping up from the chair, and, grabbing his arm, leading him out of the shop. It was time to put the next part of my plan into action, the one that really would leave him sobbing for mercy, and pleading to be allowed to leave the Wild Girls once and for all.

  

  

  

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