The Adventures of Sammy Watkins

[Sissy Little Girl]

Sandra B, I have to agree with everything that babycakes said.  You are a master at writing these stories.  Keep up the fantastic work.

[Sandra B]

15.
To return to the supporters for a minute.  The girls had watched the boys’ competition with some interest.  They found some of the contestants’ obvious discomfort amusing, and sometimes a little puzzling.  Several of them seemed more upset at being marked down than was justified.
“Why are they so miserable?” Paige asked Scarlett.
“Dunno,” replied Scarlett, perplexed.  “I’ve never seen such gloomy faces in a pageant.  It’s not all of them.  There’s about half a dozen who look either frightened or grumpy.  It must be their mums have really pushed them into this, and threatened to ground them or something if they don’t do well.”
“Poor things,” said Paige, thinking how happy her brother was.
At lunchtime the children made a rush to the back of the hall where sandwiches, snacks and drinks were being dispensed.  Several of the boys were amongst them, including one of the ‘sad losers’, as Paige had christened them.  He was probably Oscar’s age.  He still looked unhappy, so she decided to try to cheer him up.  Taking Scarlett with her, she approached him.
“Hi.  I’m sorry you didn’t get placed.  We thought you were one of the best.”
“You did?”
“Yes,” said Scarlett.  “I’ve done a few of these things.  I thought your outfits were more interesting that the others.”
“Well, it didn’t make any difference.  I didn’t make it.  Now I’m  gonna have to…”  He broke off, and looked at the floor.
“Don’t be sad,” said Paige, sympathetically.  “It doesn’t matter.  It’s only a stupid pageant.”
“You don’t understand…”
“What’s your name?”
“David.”
“I’m Paige.  This is my friend Scarlett.  Let’s take our food outside and get some fresh air.  Come on!”
“My mum…” he began, looking around.
“Forget your mum for a minute.  Let’s go.”
They led him out of the back door.  On their way out they passed Oscar and Sammy coming in.  They exchanged looks, but didn’t speak.  Once outside, they took David to a quiet corner and began to question him.
“Is it your mum?” asked Scarlett.  “I suppose she hoped you were going to win.  Mothers can have such unrealistic expectations.”
“My mum?  Yeah…”
“So what did she say?”
“You’ve never been here before, have you?”
“No.  Why?  What’s so special about here?”
David remained silent, shaking his head slowly.
“Tell us,” pleaded Paige.  “Maybe we can help.”
“You can’t.”
“So what’s the big deal?  Not everyone can win.”
David sighed.  “I guess you’ll find out eventually.  The regulars know all about it.”
“About what?”  The girls were puzzled now, and curious.
“All right.  Not all of us were in that competition voluntarily.”
“That’s par for the course,” said Scarlett.
“No, you don’t understand.  This place has a secret, known only to insiders.  I’m not supposed to tell anyone, but I’m fed up with it all.”
“A secret?”
“Yeah.  A horrible secret.”  He took a deep breath.  “Me and four of the others…we were there as a punishment, or…I dunno, what that Lesley woman calls “corrective therapy”.  They advertise it by word of mouth.  The parents have to pay.  The idea is…the idea is that if you think your son, you know, has issues…or is being difficult…and you can’t sort it out, you enter him for one of their special boys’ competitions.  The idea is, if he truly wants to reform, he’ll make an effort, behave like a model kid, make himself smart and cute and agreeable.  Then he’ll get a prize, and everyone’ll be happy.  That’s the theory.”
“Conform and survive,” suggested Scarlett.
“Exactly.”
“But why should he?  I mean, if he doesn’t respect authority in the first place, won’t he just revolt against the whole idea?”
“Course.  But there’s a penalty.  That’s the whole point.  If you don’t get a prize, you have to go on to the next stage…”
“Which is?”
David sighed again, and pinched his right ear hard, perhaps attempting to distract himself from his psychological pain.
“The following month, there’s another pageant.  A private one.”
“So you have to try again?”
“No.  This is….a baby pageant.  In name only, of course.”
The girls gasped.
“Are you serious?” cried Scarlett.  “So…you have to…”
“Yes.  Dress as babies, behave like babies, get treated as babies.  It’s supposed to reform us.  But I think it’s just for the entertainment of our parents and their friends.  And the organisers.  My mum took me to see the last one, as a sort of warning.  I felt sorry for those boys.  Now I’m gonna have to be in one myself!”
“No!”
“Yes.  And if you don’t conform…then the next one, and the next one, till their satisfied.”
“That’s…terrible!” said Paige.  “Wouldn’t they let you do a girl one instead?”
“I wish they would.  I’d go like a shot.  No.  This is much more…humiliating.  I won’t go into details.”
Lunchtime was over.  They had to go back in for the afternoon session.  Scarlett grabbed David’s arm.
“Give me your number.  I’m gonna have a think about this.  If nothing else, maybe we could come and support you…”
David looked alarmed.  “I’d rather you didn’t,” he said.  “But yeah, let’s swap numbers.  It feels better to have told someone…someone outside this place.  Someone who understands…”

[Sandra B]

16.
As the Little Miss Westford contestants made their way behind the stage, Sammy and Oscar were aware of some disdainful looks from the girls.  One of them, a girl with her blonde hair piled up on her head, reminding Sammy of an overcooked meringue, sneered at them and made some remark to her friend, who burst into shrill laughter.  Lesley Hyde showed the boys to their own changing room.  Denise followed them.
“I’m going to help get them ready,” she said.  “Is there anything else they should know?”
“As I said, this is a very informal pageant.  You will be called one by one.  When you’re called, walk onto the stage. Catherine will ask you a few questions, just so the audience and the judges get some idea of who you are.  Then move to the middle of the stage, and do one turn, so the judges can have a good look at your outfit.  It’s possible they may ask you something else.  Then to the far side, and stand facing the audience just behind the white line.  When everyone’s appeared, and your all in the line, Catherine will lead you in one last circuit of the stage and then you’ll file off.  In some of these pageants we have the contestants doing a little act of some sort, but not this time.  Good luck, boys!”
Denise helped the boys get into their dresses, and did their makeup, using the same peach lip gloss and eye shadow for each.  She had painted their nails at home – a uniform pale pink – so there was little else to do.  Sammy hair bows were on clips, and slid easily into his curls.  Oscar tried on his little straw hat, which sat prettily on his lacquered hair.
“You both look great!” said Denise, when they were all ready.  “Now, we have to go backstage and wait to be called.  You’re going to be last, Sammy, because it’s in order of surnames.  I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”
The girls started arriving in ones and twos, with their mothers.  Without exception, their dresses were vastly more elaborate than the boys’.  Meringue’s dress was multi-tiered and generously layered with organza – (“orgasma”, as Oscar had renamed it) – and contained every shade of yellow yet discovered by man.  Their reactions to the boys were sometimes startled, sometimes admiring, but more often contemptuous.  Meringue sneered.  Her  mother raised her eyebrows, tut-tutted, and muttered something disparaging to ger daughter, from which the boys discovered her real name was “Arabella darling”, or “Arabella angel”.  Denise returned their looks with a bland smile.
And then it was time.  The first girl was summoned onto the stage.  They could hear Catherine asking her her name and age, and trying to put her at her ease.  One by one they followed.  Oscar was third in line.  He adjusted his hat and shot onto the stage.  The conversation lasted a little longer for him, as Catherine tried to uncover his motives for entering the girls’ section, without appearing sexist.  He responded to all Catherine’s questions without any sign of nervousness, and when he was asked how the dress had been chosen, he boldly replied that he had chosen the whole outfit himself, and hoped she liked it, which drew a ripple of laughter from the audience.  Arabella was on next, and she flounced out of the waiting area with a dismissive toss of the head directed at Sammy.  She seemed well-known to the mistress of ceremonies, and required only a short introduction.  She responded in a squeaky voice, which made Sammy smile.  At last it was his turn, and, giving him a reassuring hug, Denise gently propelled him onto the stage.  Oscar’s appearance had been greeted with general, if reserved, approval.  He was a boy attempting to infiltrate a girls’ world, certainly, but the nature of his outfit, extravagantly feminine, was accepted as a sort of fitting apology for his presumption, and the members of the audience nodded to, and smiled at, each other, with something like relief.  Of course he had no chance of usurping the places of their darlings, for he was, evidently and undeniably, a little boy, albeit one trying as hard as he could (and failing) to emulate his sisters.
In contrast, Sammy drew an audible gasp from the onlookers.  He had shattered the first rule of The Pageant – he had appeared in a costume both simple and tasteful.  It seemed a direct challenge to all the precepts of the genre.  Worse, he was evidently at least as personally beautiful as any of the female contestants, and his entry onto the stage had been both modest and graceful.  Surely such impudence could not be borne!  There were murmurings and shufflings in the audience, suggestive of rebellion.  Even Catherine seemed momentarily unsettled, but the teeth soon reappeared and the smile returned.
“Sammy, I believe?  That certainly is a…remarkable dress.  I understand this is your first pageant?”
“Yes.”
“And how are you finding it?  Is it a little intimidating?”
Sammy knew just how to deal with leading questions.  Ignore them.
“Enjoyable.  I’ve met so many interesting and friendly people.  Everything I’d heard is true.”
“What had you heard?”
“That the contestants are all very pretty.”
A ripple of laughter.  Two of the judges looked at each other and smiled.  Catherine was unsure if this was said in innocence or mild irony.  Again she was slightly thrown.  She stared at him hard, but saw only artless sweetness in his expression.
“Well….that’s very nice.  Your dress…”
“I chose it myself.”
“It’s quite…unusual…for such an event…”
“I hope it’s not…inappropriate?”
“No, no, of course not…”
Catherine was feeling flustered.  She felt she was not in control of this interview.  She thought on the whole it would be best to bring it to a close without further ado.
“Well, Sammy. If you’d like to show the judges your outfit, and take your place at the end of the line.  Thank you so much.”
Sammy did his twirl, avoiding the judges’ eyes, and took his place.  The girl next to him stole a close-up look at his dress, whether with distaste or envy he was not sure.  Catherine wound up the first round, and taking up a position next to Sammy, asked the contestants to follow her.  They did a circuit of the stage and exited, leaving the judges to confer. 
Denise was waiting.  She gave him a hug.
“Well done,” she whispered.  “You were great!”

[Sissy Little Girl]

Sandra B, Well done, you were great with these chapters.  That pageant was a hoot and that punishment pageant sounds interesting.  Can't wait to read more about it.

[Sandra B]

17.
They hurried back to the changing room to get ready for the next round.  Denise helped Oscar get out of his dress, and left him to put on his leotard.  His makeup would be fine.  But Sammy would be in yellow.  She looked at him doubtfully as he wriggled into his little swimsuit.
“Are you sure you’re up for this, Sammy?  You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
Oscar looked momentarily alarmed.
“No, I’m fine,” he grinned.  “I’ve adjusted to the idea now.  I wouldn’t let Oscar down.  Besides, my aunt is going to more embarrassed than me.  Especially when I tell that Catherine lady it was she who chose this costume!”
“You wouldn’t!”
“If she asked I would.  It was her idea to get me here in the first place, remember.”
“But…”
“In any case, I can’t wait to see the faces of all those silly girls and their mothers.  It’ll be worth it just for that.  After all, I’ll never be back here after today.  I can do what I like.”
“Okay….  Here, sit down.  I’ll help you with your stockings.”
“Denise…?  My makeup…”
“Oh, yes.  What will go with this costume?  And preferably with the last one, too.”
“Yellow?  Blue?”
“They’d be okay for this, but they’d clash with the other, and I don’t want to change it again….
She thought for a second.  “I know.  Black lipstick, black eyeliner, and a bit more mascara.  That would work.”
“Sounds good.”
“And to set it off I’m going to give you a few freckles, so you don’t look too” – she searched for a diplomatic word – “too sophisticated.”

Denise had decided they should arrive at the collection point as late as possible.  She didn’t want to cope with the snide remarks and hostile looks she knew they would encounter, for longer than necessary.  But then she discovered the perfect thing.  In a wardrobe she found a row of robes on hangers – like those boxers wear entering the ring – obviously intended for contestants to keep their costumes secret till the last minute.  They were satiny things with the Westford Pageants logo on the fronts and some silly script – “Cutie Pie”, “Sweet Girl”, “Baby Doll” – that sort of thing, on the backs.  Denise selected a couple at random, and the boys were soon neatly wrapped up. 
When they arrived off-stage, the rest of the contestants were already there.  Arabella gave them a contemptuous look, but a couple of the others smiled in a friendly way and looked them up and down, obviously interested in what they were wearing under their gowns.  They were called on one by one, as before.  When Oscar shed his gown, there was a murmur of admiration from the group of girls.  The fact was, the colours of his outfit, the pink and shades of mauve, seemed to suit his complexion perfectly, and with his little cape he looked something between a ballerina, a fairy, and a trainee superhero.  He was well received by the audience too, and the mutterings of the disapprovers-on-principle were submerged under a quiet tide of approval.  Catherine also seemed surprised.
“Well, young man, that’s a very pretty costume.  I think I can say that without being accused of prejudice.  Was the cape your idea?”
“Yes, miss.  That’s my power cape.  I should have a magic wand too, to magic everything ugly and make it pretty.”  Here he glanced back to where Arabella was waiting in the wings.  “But I forget to order one.”
“Never mind,” laughed Catherine.  “Off you go.  Show the judges.  Give them a twirl.”
Arabella was on next, in an ice-blue swimsuit with white frills like frost at every aperture, and a huge white bow around her waist.  The scowl directed at Oscar swiftly transformed itself into a rigid, simpering smile, in which she had been carefully tutored by her devoted parent.
The other girls filed on one by one, until finally it was Sammy’s turn.  He made a face at Denise, in comic imitation of abject terror, and stepped onto the stage.  His reception was rather different from Oscar’s.  Catherine, recollecting his demure appearance in the first round, was completely wrong-footed.  She stared at him in dismay, and for once was lost for words.  The audience reacted with gasps of amazement, muffled exclamations of disgust, nervous giggles, and, in the case of Sammy’s supporters, cheers of encouragement.  Cecily, who had taken up as unostentatious position as possible near the back of the hall, covered her face with her hand.  The woman next to her turned to her companion.
“I think it’s disgusting!” she said in a loud whisper.  “Dressing him up like a tart!”
“I know,” her companion replied, “in my view they should never have let boys into the girls’ section in the first place.  And whoever is responsible” – here they both turned towards Cecily – “should be ashamed!”
Catherine, meanwhile, was attempting to recover her cool.
“Sammy…  I-I must say…that’s quite a…striking costume.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like it at Westford before…”
Sammy fluttered his long eyelashes flirtatiously.  “I hope not, miss.  I was trying to find something original.”
“Well, you’ve certainly done that.  The contestants normally wear a proper one-piece.”  She raised her eyebrows.  “Perhaps, if we see you here again, you’ll appear in a bikini,” she added, with a tinge of sarcasm.  But Sammy was equal to it.
“If you change the rules, miss, why not?  I’m not ashamed of my tummy.”  Titters from the audience.  Wait till you see what I’m wearing in the third round, he thought.
“So I see,” she returned, eyeing the jewel.  “And that…?”
“It’s a topaz.  Symbolic of enterprise and humility.”
There was no reply to this, so she somewhat icily despatched him towards the panel of judges, the female member of which was the only one seeming to appreciate his appearance.  She smiled a playful little smile.
“Sammy.  May I ask you?  You seem very at ease in your costumes, very relaxed.  Yet I understand this is your first pageant.  How come you have such confidence?”
Sammy thought for a moment.  “I suppose, miss, it’s because I know I have no chance of winning, so I can enjoy the whole ritual just for its own sake.”
“Well, I for one think that’s an admirable approach.  I hope we see more of you – no, I don’t mean that – I hope we see you here again the future.  Personally, I’m all in favour of diversity, and pushing the envelope of this “ritual”, as you call it.  Thank you.  Please take your place with the others.”
These remarks, from a long-standing and well-respected arbiter of pageant convention, effectively silenced further expressions of disapproval from the audience.  Cecily felt suddenly relieved of guilt, and her neighbours contented themselves with sticking their noses in the air and ignoring her.
“The others” had been staring at him with undisguised fascination during this interlude, all except  Arabella, whose face was oddly contorted, from a profound internal struggle, between on the one hand, a determination to maintain her outwardly smug demeanour, and on the other, a powerful inclination to aim a kick at her imagined persecutor.
And she hadn’t yet seen his final costume.
 

[babycakes]

BRAVO. Love Sammy's strong character, his support of Oscar and his willingness to kick convention in the butt.  So unique and refreshing when most protagonists are their own worst cowering, wimpy, sniveling and soppy enemy.

[Sissy Little Girl]

Sandra B, That was another great.  The pageant sounded like fun for Oscar.  Sammy was another story.  I think he accomplished his mission for the pageant so far.