Carlie seemed to be even angrier with him than usual. He guessed it was probably still because of the incident with the treadmill. When she had come out of the school principal’s office she had glared at him with the most searing hatred. On the bus on the way home he had tried to apologize again and again, but she was a stone wall. She didn’t even acknowledge his existence.
All weekend it had been the same thing. On Saturday he’d helped Mr. Weaver in the garden and when they’d gone out to the nursery to buy more of the weird spiky plants that he seemed to be totally obsessed with Lucas had tried to coax Carlie into going with them. He’d knocked on her bedroom door and tried to talk to her but she wouldn’t respond. She hadn’t said a word to him since the treadmill.
It upset him. He didn’t understand why she hated him so much. At first, when he had thought that it was a temporary moodiness, he’d been able to shrug it off, but now it was wearing on him.
“What do you think I should do?” He asked Micah on Sunday when he spoke to him on iChat.
“I don’t know, can’t you just forget about her and make other friends?”
“I live with her Micah. Have you ever tried living with someone who hates your guts before? It doesn’t do much for how good you feel about yourself, that’s for sure.”
“Sometimes women need their space.”
“What does that mean?”
“I dunno, I overheard my dad say it to Matthew once.”
“Space… like her room isn’t big enough?”
Micah shrugged. “Maybe.”
“So maybe I should offer for her to keep some of her stuff in my room?”
He shrugged again. “Grace never seemed to have trouble fitting in to her room, but she’s pretty tiny. Is Carlie bigger than Grace?”
“Yeah, she’s way bigger.”
“Maybe it’s proportional. Maybe bigger girls need more space than smaller girls. It makes sense.”
“Okay, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll offer for her to keep her stuff in my room.” Lucas started to feel a weight lifting. Perhaps that had been the problem all along. Perhaps if Carlie could use both of the rooms she would have her required space and be happier.
“Hey, did you join a swim team yet?” Micah asked.
“Nah.”
“Might not be a bad idea. At least then you could meet some guys to hang out with.”
It wasn’t a bad idea. He told Mrs. Weaver where he was going and then he spent the day riding on his bike to all of the local swimming pools to check out if any of them had a team he could join.
Brisbane had to be one of the best places in the world for swimming. There were so many pools, and most of them were big bustling colorful outdoor facilities full of swimmers and kids and lifeguards.
It was a beautiful, sunny, warm day outside. It was hard to believe it was February. It was snowing back in Denver right now.
When he walked into the Centenary Pool facility and started to inquire about their programs the woman behind the counter misunderstood him. She thought he was asking for a job interview. She passed him a clipboard and pen and told him to fill it out and bring it back to her. Before he could protest she turned around and started to help someone else.
He looked down at the piece of paper on the clipboard. ‘Which position(s) are you interested in?’ It asked. ‘(a) Lifeguard, (b) personal trainer, (c) guest services, or (d) food & beverage attendant.’ He circled (a) Lifeguard.
What was the harm in applying for a job?
The woman who interviewed him, was an excessively cheerful, excessively fit-looking blonde in a skin-tight lycra outfit. She was so excited that he wanted to be a lifeguard that Lucas himself became excited with the idea. She was impressed that he was willing to show up for work at 5 am and that he was willing to come straight to work after school in the afternoons.
“Where do you go to school?” She asked.
“Um… Grammar.”
“Oh, Boys’ Grammar, I went to Girls’ Grammar, what a coincidence! It’s so close too, it will only take you a minute or two on your bike!”
“No, I go to Girls’ Grammar.”
“Girls Grammar?... Well, that’s… unusual! It was all girls when I went there!”
She offered him a job on the spot. All he had to do was to get a letter or consent from his parent or legal guardian and go to the lifeguard-training course. He asked Mrs. Weaver who called his mom to make sure it was okay.
“How old are you?” Mrs Weaver asked.
“Fourteen.”
“They really want to hire a fourteen year old?
“Yeah, they said so long as I’m thirteen and nine months and I don’t work during school hours it would be okay.”
Of course his mom was okay with him getting a job. His older brother Nicholas had worked at a martial arts gym all through high school. His mom thought that having a job was ‘character building.’
“Not that Lucas needs much more character,” she added dryly.
That made Lucas laugh.
That night at the dinner table Lucas decided to ask Carlie if she wanted to use his room.
“Hey Carlie, do you want to put some of your stuff in my room?”
All three Weavers stopped eating to look at him.
“No," she answered.
“It’s okay if you do. I don’t mind.”
“Why would I want to put my stuff in your room?”
Three sets of eyes peered at him uneasily.
“Well, I just thought seeing that you’re a bigger girl you might need the extra space.”
Carlie’s eyebrows shot up at the same time that her eyes widened and her mouth fell open. “I am not fat!” She yelled.
“Huh?” He was confused. “I never said you were.”
Her eyes smoldered with hatred as she glared at him for a moment before she jumped up from the table and ran out of the room. Seconds later he heard the now familiar sound of her bedroom door slamming shut.
He turned back to her parents who were still staring at him.
“Lucas, why would you think Carlie needs extra space?” Mrs. Weaver asked.
“Well, Micah overheard his dad say that sometimes women need their space. I thought maybe since Carlie is tall she might needed more space than the average girl, that’s all.”
Mrs. Weaver turned to look at Mr. Weaver and suddenly they were both laughing hysterically.
“What’s so funny?” He asked.
Mr. Weaver leaned over and put his hand on Lucas’ shoulder. “One day you will understand.”
Now that Lucas had a job at the swimming pool that he had to go to on Monday and Wednesday mornings and Tuesday and Thursday afternoons he started to ride his bike everywhere instead of catching the bus with Carlie. He saw less of her, but that didn’t seem to make the time they spent together any better.
She was so touchy. Even the most innocent comment could set her off. He seemed to be constantly offending her. Sometimes she was outright angry at him, other times, especially when her ‘friends’ were around, she just sat and simmered.
Lucas didn’t think much of the girls Carlie hung out with. They weren’t very nice. Bess, their leader, was the worst of them. She was always making mean comments about the other girls in the school, even to the point of calling them names. She called the Asian students ‘nips’ and the Indian students ‘curry munchers’, and it made him uncomfortable. His brother was half Indian so he felt defensive, but besides that it was just plain mean. He was thinking about leaving their ‘group’ to look for nicer people to sit with at ‘morning tea’ and lunchtime.
The classes were pretty awful. The girls just sat quietly and listened to what the teacher was saying. Their idea of clowning around was passing a note once or twice during an hour-long lecture. It made it pretty much impossible not to learn. There were hours upon hours of learning every single day. His head hurt from all of the learning. They even learned during PhysEd.
They had PhysEd three times a week. On Mondays and Fridays it was regular sports and games but on Wednesdays it was a lecture. The first Wednesday wasn’t too bad, they’d done a review of the last unit they’d done last year, which was about diets and how to match the amount of exercise you do with the number of kilojoules you eat in a day. He was expecting something equally innocuous today.
That expectation was blown out of the water with the first sentence out of Ms. Stephens’ mouth.
“This term we will be studying the female reproductive system.”
Oh no.
“Today I will give an overview of anatomy and the menstrual cycle and we will watch a short film.”
Lucas didn’t know what the menstrual cycle was, but he was sure it couldn’t be good.
He sat petrified, rooted to his chair, unable to breathe, unable to move. His face burned with embarrassment.
“Please turn to page fourteen of your text books.”
All around him was the sound of rustling paper as the girls opened their books and laid them on the tables in front of them. He was supposed to share Carlie’s text books, which was why he was currently sitting right beside her, even though he would give anything to be anywhere else in the world.
He watched in his peripheral vision as Carlie flipped through the pages until she’d found the right one and then nudged the book across the bench-style desk so it was between them. He didn’t want to look at the page but he couldn’t help himself. He glanced down and was horrified by what he saw. Page fourteen was a cartoon cross-section of a girl’s anatomy and page fifteen was a labeled cartoon of a girl’s private parts.
He thought he might just keel over and die from embarrassment.
Of course they had sex ed classes in his school at home in America, but he had always been very careful to never learn anything in it. He always sat up the back and goofed around with the other guys who were also determined not to have to deal with this sort of stuff.
But here at an all girls school it was different. There was no way to goof off or tune out. All of the girls sat still and listened. Some of them even took notes.
Ms. Stephens was rattling on about the different parts of the reproductive system. She had an over-head projection of the cross section that she was pointing at with a stick as she spoke. She was wearing some sort of tye-dyed hippy smock with flared sleeves that obscured the projected image when she pointed.
“These are the ovaries, where the eggs are kept.”
Girls had eggs inside them? Like the sorts of eggs you got at the grocery store?
“Here are the fallopian tubes, the uterus, cervix and the vagina. Now, I’m sure you all have a million questions but remember that today is just an overview, we will get to all of the details in the coming weeks.”
They might get to the details but Lucas wouldn’t. There was no way he was ever showing up for this class ever again. He’d leave right now if he had the guts.
“Turn to page sixteen.”
Paper rustled again, but Carlie didn’t touch her book. She was sitting to his left and to turn the page she’d have to lean towards him. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to touch the book but he also didn’t want to draw attention to himself by being on the wrong page. He reached out and very gingerly took the corner of the page and flipped it towards Carlie but it didn’t have enough gumption, and the cartoon of the private parts flopped back in front of him.
Oh god, could this get any more painful?
He tried again but the same thing happened. By now everyone else had turned their page and was waiting, but Ms. Stephens was watching him. He tried again but this time Carlie reached out for the page at the same time and their hands touched and he just about jumped out of his seat. The last thing he wanted to do right now was to touch a girl… someone who owned all of this weird plumbing with eggs inside.
Ms. Stephens sighed. “Carlie and Lucas, if you don’t stop fooling around I’ll have to send you both up to Mrs. Hoskins’ office again.”
He wished he were small, so small that nobody could see him. He shrunk down into his chair and Carlie reached out and briskly turned the page.
The teacher changed the overhead on the projection screen and continued. Thankfully it wasn’t another cross section. It was a cartoon of a clock that was divided into four unequal sections, but instead of having 60 seconds it had 28 days.
“This is a schematic of the menstrual cycle. It makes the most sense for me to start on day six, when the lining of the uterus begins to thicken. The release of an egg from the ovary usually occurs on day fourteen. The lining of the uterus continues to thicken until day twenty-eight at which point it starts to break down. On days one through five the broken down uterine lining passes through the cervix and out the vagina as thick blood.”
It does WHAT?
There must be some mistake. That couldn’t possibly be the case. It was the most gross, creepy, disgusting thing he’d ever heard of.
“Now girls, I know this is a very important topic for you. Some of you may have even started menstruating. It is a normal, beautiful, wonderful part of becoming a woman.”
What? Was this lady high or something? What she had just described was ghastly, it was about as far as beautiful and wonderful as you could get.
“Rest assured that we are going to explore the menstrual cycle in great detail this term. Over the next eight weeks we’re going to talk about hormones and fertility and emotions and pre-menstrual tension and… everything. Were going to answer all of your questions in the sort of detail that they deserve.” She clasped her hands together and smiled as if this was the most fantastic thing in the world.
Lucas couldn’t think of anything worse.
“But today we have to move on. I have a short film for you to watch that explores one of the other great wonders of being a woman. It is called Sally’s Baby.”
She pressed the play button on an old VCR player and an image came to life on the screen. Ms. Stephens did a quick circuit of the room, flicking off the lights and pulling the blinds down over the windows.
Finally it was dark and nobody was talking about girls’ plumbing or private parts anymore. There was just some stupid video to watch and then it would all be over.
There was some lame music and the title ‘Sally’s Baby’ came up on the screen, and then there was an interview with a pregnant woman named Sally. She talked about how nervous she was about giving birth. It wasn’t so bad.
Until…
Sally actually had her baby. There was footage, real footage, of the baby coming out of her, all bloody and hairy and disgusting.
Lucas had seen his fair share of horror movies in his time, but nothing, nothing, could have prepared him for Sally’s Baby. It was the most gruesome thing he had ever seen. It was so grisly. He was shocked and frightened and appalled that something that gross not only happened, but that someone actually agreed to let a film crew see it.
He was surprised the cameraman wasn’t throwing up or passing out.
When it was finally over Ms. Stephens flicked on the lights and the girls packed up their books and started to file out of the room.
He couldn’t believe what he had just seen. He must be in shock or something. He had to tell each part of his body to move. He had to tell his legs to stand and his hands to pick up his bag.
Instead of going to eat lunch with Carlie and her friends he went to the library and locked himself in the boys bathroom (he was the only boy, so that wasn’t really a big deal). He got his laptop out of his bag and hacked the library wireless router to get online. They weren’t supposed to use the internet at school but he figured this was an emergency. He’d just been robbed of his innocence and he needed to tell someone about it.
It was eight o’clock in the evening in Denver and Micah was online. He sent him a video chat request and moments later he popped up on his screen.
“Shouldn’t you be at school?” He asked.
“I am.”
“It doesn’t look like a school. Hey you don’t look so good. Are you alright?”
“I’m in the bathrooms. I’ve just had an extremely traumatic experience.”
Micah’s brow furrowed with concern. “What happened?”
“Do you know what the menstrual cycle is?”
“No… is it like the Calvin Cycle?”
Lucas shook his head weakly.
“Wait, I’ll ask dad.”
“No, don’t do that…"
But it was already too late, Micah was already calling out loudly, “Hey dad, what’s the menstrual cycle?”
It was so like Micah. He just assumed that there was nothing he couldn’t talk to his parents about.
“The menstrual cycle?” He heard in Micah’s dad’s deep voice.
“Yeah, Lucas wants to know.”
“No, I just learned what it is, that was part of my traumatic experience,” he explained.
Sam, Micah’s dad, came to stand beside Micah, who looked up at him. “What is it?”
“Ah… well, when a girl becomes a woman certain changes happen to her private parts that give her the ability to become pregnant. Her body goes into a pattern called the menstrual cycle.”
Micah turned back to Lucas and shrugged. “What’s so traumatic about that?”
Lucas shook his head. “He’s not telling you the full story. They bleed… out of their…who-ha… for five days every month!”
“They WHAT?” Micah’s eyes went wide with shock and he looked up to his dad for confirmation.
Sam bit down on his lip and nodded solemnly.
“That’s not all,” Lucas continued. “They lay an egg, on day fourteen.”
“An egg! I thought eggs came from chickens?”
“I’m never eating an egg again.”
Micah shook his head. “Me neither.”
“It’s not like that boys,” Sam interjected. “The human egg is microscopic, they’re nothing like chickens’ eggs.”
Micah turned to his dad. “Do all women do it?”
Sam nodded.
“Even mom?... and Gracie?”
He hesitated for a moment before he nodded again.
Micah looked forlorn, his mouth gaped open and his eyes had a lost look about them. “That’s why they need extra space…”
“Huh?”
“That’s not all,” Lucas continued. “I saw one.”
“You saw one what?” Sam asked.
“A girl’s bits. I saw them, they were awful… awful beyond description.”
“Awful? Whose… bits did you see?” He asked suspiciously.
“Sally’s”
“Who’s Sally?”
“The girl in the video. It was awful.”
“They showed you a video of a girl’s bits at school?”
“Yes. She was having a baby… It was the worst thing I have ever seen in my life. It was a hundred times worse than the worst horror movie. It was so gruesome but I couldn’t look away. I think I am permanently scarred.”
“Oh.” Sam nodded in recognition. “They showed you a video of a live birth and you saw the woman’s… bits.”
“I don’t know how men do it. They are so disgusting. How could such a disgusting, repulsive thing evolve? You’d think they would have been weeded out by natural selection.”
Sam laughed. “You won’t always feel that way.”
“I’m not going back. There’s no way I’m going back out there, let alone to that awful class.”
“Micah, why don’t you go and bring Lucas’ dad back here to talk to him?” Sam asked.
Micah, who still looked shell shocked from finding out about the menstrual cycle, nodded and slunk out of his room.
Sam made Lucas tell him about the Weavers and the school and his job at the pool until Micah came back a few minutes later with his dad.
“Hi Luka,” he said merrily. “What’s going on?”
“You tell him,” he said to Sam. “I’m too traumatized.”
Sam turned to Lucas’ dad. “Lucas learned about the menstrual cycle today.”
“Oh.” The smile fell from his face. “That’s unfortunate.”
“Yes. He doesn’t want to go back to class.”
“Surely they don’t talk about the menstrual cycle in all of the classes. That has to have been the worst one. They’ll get better from here on.”
Lucas shook his head. “The teacher has an eight-week plan. She’s going to talk about hormones and fertility and… emotions.”
“Oh god no. You don’t want that.”
“I know! Who wants to sit in a class of twenty two girls and talk about emotions?”
His dad nodded. “Don’t worry. I’ll get you out of it. I’ll call the principal, what’s his name?”
“Mrs. Hoskins.”
“It’s a woman?” All of his dad’s confidence seemed to deflate.
Lucas nodded.
“I can’t talk to a woman about the menstrual cycle. You’ll have to do it,” he said to Sam.
“What? Why would she care what I have to say about it?”
“You’ll have to pretend to be me.”
“How come I have to do it? He’s your kid.”
“Because you’re way better at this stuff than I am. You know I’ll just say something stupid and end up getting him in trouble.”
Sam’s brow furrowed.
“Do you honestly want Luka to have to sit through eight weeks of classes about the emotions girls feel about their menstrual cycle?”
“No, of course I don’t but…”
“Good, so you’ll do it then.” Lucas’ dad was already leaning over Micah’s computer typing. “Here it is…”
He stood upright and typed a number into his cell phone, pressed send and handed it to Sam. He must have put it on speaker phone because Lucas could hear the birr of the ring tone.
“Brisbane Girls’ Grammar School, this is Margie how may I help you today?”
Everyone was silent for a moment.
Lucas’ dad punched Sam in the arm.
“Ah… yes, hello, this is Tyler Gray, my son Lucas is an exchange student at your school. I was wondering if I might have a word with the school principal please?”
“Of course, please hold the line.”
A generic-sounding rendition of Vivaldi’s Spring came over the line.
“What am I supposed to say to her?” Sam asked.
“Just say you don’t want him to take the class about the menstrual cycle,” Lucas’ dad said.
“Yeah, but why?”
“Because it’s… inappropriate.”
“I can’t say that to a woman.”
Before Lucas’ dad could reply the uncomfortably snobbish sound of Mrs. Hoskins voice came over the line.
“Hello Mr. Gray, this is Principal Hoskins speaking.”
“Hello. I just received a call from my son who is in quite a lot of distress. It seems that the curriculum for one of his classes is… ah, well, somewhat inappropriate for a boy of his age and I was wondering if he could be excused form that class in the future.”
“Inappropriate? In what regard?”
“Well, he tells me that his teacher has an eight week plan for discussing the menstrual cycle. I appreciate that this is important information for girls, but it seems to me to be a little excessive for a boy.”
“Excessive? One can only gain respect for the female body through knowledge. Are you suggesting that you would prefer your son to go through life without respect for the female body?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then I expect that he will attend the full gamut of classes that are required of our students.”
“There’s something else. He tells me that he was shown a video of childbirth in which the woman’s genitals were visible. I’m not comfortable with him being exposed to that sort of material.”
“Ah yes, Sally’s Baby. We show that video to the girls yearly from grade nine onwards. We find it to be most useful in deterring sexual relations.”
“Even so…”
“Mr. Gray,” she said sternly. “I hope you are not questioning our methods for ensuring our young ladies do not stray down the wrong path.”
“No, not at all, I just think…”
“Excellent.” She cut him off. “We are in agreement then. Lucas will attend the full compliment of classes. I must stress the importance of his attendance. If he were to miss classes I’m afraid I would have to suspend him and I’m sure neither of us want that.”
“No, of course not.”
“Well, if that is all Mr. Gray I will bid you good day.”
“Ah…”
She hung up. The monotone of a dead phone line emanated from the phone.
Sam looked at the phone, shocked. “She bamboozled me.” He looked up at Lucas apologetically. “Sorry Luka.”
Lucas felt his heart drop. There was no way for him to even skip class. Now that Mrs. Hoskins had specifically said he had to go he was trapped.
Eight weeks of talking about girls’ stuff. If there was such a thing as hell on earth surely it was being trapped in Ms. Stephens’ health class talking about the details of the menstrual cycle.
It was all he could think about.
The stress was just about killing him. He couldn’t think or talk, he could hardly eat. On the weekend he was so distracted that he cut himself on one of the spiky plants when he was helping Mr. Weaver in the garden. As Wednesday got closer and closer he got more and more anxious. Micah and his dad were no help. They just nodded sympathetically.
Finally, on Monday night, Mrs. Weaver knocked on his bedroom door and he let her in. She sat at the desk chair and pressed her hands between her knees. He sat on the bed.
“Lucas, you’ve been acting very strangely over the past few days. Is there something bothering you?”
He did not want to talk to Mrs. Weaver about this. “Um… no.”
She turned her head to the side. “You can tell me if something has happened. I’m here to help you. Is it your job? Is it too much responsibility?”
“No, it’s not that.”
“Is it school?”
He nodded slowly.
“Are the girls teasing you?”
“No.”
“Well…?”
He sighed. “It’s health class.”
“Health? What’s wrong with heath class?”
“The material is… girl specific.”
Something seemed to click in her head. “Oh…”
“I told my dad and he and Micah’s dad called Mrs. Hoskins to ask if I could quit the class, but she said no.”
A look of pity came over her face. “Oh dear. I’m afraid Mrs. Hoskins is not the sort of woman you ask things of.”
“No. She said I have to go to all of my classes or else she’ll suspend me.”
“Really?” She said without surprise. “When is the class?”
“Fourth period on Wednesday.”
“Do you have a copy of the syllabus?”
He went to his bag, fished out the piece of paper and handed it to her. She read over it quickly and nodded.
“I can’t make any promises but I’ll see what I can do.”
He wasn’t going to hold his breath. Mrs. Hoskins had been so strict and Mrs. Weaver was so nice.
She was on the phone for the rest of the night. Every time Lucas left his room to do something she was on the phone. Most of the time she appeared to just be agreeing with whatever the person she was talking to was saying.
The next day she drove him and Carlie in to school and went to talk to the principal. He felt sorry for poor Mrs. Weaver. He thought she had no chance against Mrs. Hoskins, but that night she came back into his room.
“I have some good news,” she said. “Mrs. Hoskins agrees that you don’t have to sit through health class on Wednesdays anymore.”
Lucas had never felt such relief. “That’s awesome!”
“Yes, well I’m afraid that you will still have to do the course work for the class, which means you will have to get the hand-outs and assignments from Ms. Stephens at the beginning of the class, then go to the library and do the work on your own.”
“Okay, that’s fine. Thank you so much. I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”
Mrs. Weaver smiled. “It was my pleasure Lucas. If you have any more problems at school, especially with Mrs. Hoskins, just tell me okay?”
“Okay.”
Lucas had never felt so happy in his life. He was free.
After Mrs. Weaver left his room he lay on the bed and smiled as he listened through the wall as Carlie practiced her flute. She was really good at it. He wondered why she wasn’t in an orchestra or a band.
He didn’t know the piece she was playing but he had heard her practicing it enough to know it by heart. He got the tuba that Mr. Hawthorn had loaned him out of its case and started to play along with her, just as an accompaniment.
As soon as the first resonant notes escaped the tuba she stopped. He waited to see if she wanted to play his game. After a few seconds she started again and this time she went along with it when he played in time with her.
It was fun. He made it up as they went along, just trying to follow her without seeing her. Carlie played two more songs, both ones that she had been practicing since he arrived, and then she called it quits. He put the tuba away and lay back on the bed smiling. Even though she shunned him when he tried to talk to her she had played her flute with him. Maybe she was starting to hate him less. Maybe they were turning a corner.
