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Choices, Chapter 7 A league's choice "Oh, Maggie," Laird fretted. "Do you think it was wise to quarrel with Blair's teacher? There are so many ways that she can get back at you by punishing him." "Her! Punish her. Didn't we agree always to use female pronouns when speaking of our daughter? How else will Blair be able to adapt successfully to her new gender? She's doing her level best to adapt by wearing girls' clothes twenty-four hours a day. And that's the reason why Blair got into trouble and why I had to tell off her teacher - that nosey parker grabbed hold of Blair, bruising her arms, in order to brush Blair's hair into a bob against her will and then forced your daughter to show the label of her tee shirt. If you ask me, that teacher could be sued for assault!" "No one's going to sue anyone, Maggie; Blair doesn't need the publicity. Besides, are you positive that a court would approve of Blair's complete transformation while he ... she's still a child? So let's leave well enough alone. From what you tell me, Blair won't be hassled by the school so long as she keeps her gender sufficiently ambiguous for her classmates to view her as a boy. Have I got it right?" "Yes, that seems to be the attitude of Mr. La Ronde, the school psychologist, and he's the one who appears to have the final say, provided that Blair doesn't make a public spectacle of herself." "Good, so far, but will this Ms. Umbridge leave our ... daughter alone? You make her sound like quite the virago and bigot. We don't want Blair coming home in tears every day. Even more important - will this woman condescend to keep Blair's secret?" "The psychologist and I, we told her in plain language that she could lose her job, even her teaching certificate, if she mistreats Blair. However, since I don't trust that bitch to behave in a professional manner, I will be quizzing Blair each day after school about how she's being treated. And if Umbridge gives me any reason to take umbrage, I'll have her empty head as a wall trophy." "I fear it will be a lot harder to protect Blair from a hostile teacher than you think," said Laird. "She can make life very difficult for our daughter without having to say a thing about crossdressing or transgenderism." "You mean try to fail Blair? She wouldn't dare do that to a student with Blair's scholastic record. Besides, I intend to look over and keep a copy of every one of our daughter's assignments; and if that harpy doesn't grade the work fairly, I'll have more than enough evidence to prove to the school board that Umbridge is an unprincipled, unprofessional bigot." "I wasn't thinking of an unfair evaluation. There are many other ways she can harm a child, especially a girl as delicate and sensitive as Blair. Oh well, time will tell. What is the object of our loving concern doing right now?" "Blair's in her room playing dolls with Kirk. I told Kirk in no uncertain terms to get with the program. After getting Kirk to say that he wanted Blair's gender change to be as quick and painless as possible, I wrung a promise out of him both to play dolls with Blair and to play like they were two girls. That promise, by the way, will cost you another dollar a week for Kirk's allowance." A storm cloud came over Laird's face: "Reward Kirk for playing like a girl? Not on your life! This time you've gone too far, Maggie. I should have put my foot down yesterday but better a day late than never - I'm going right now to tell him that I'll deduct a dollar from his allowance every time I see him playing dolls, with or without Blair." He reached the two kids before Maggie caught up. However, he didn't say anything at first. He instead watched them at play, fearful yet hopeful about Kirk's reaction to "dollies". "Hey daddy," Blair's high voice piped, "Watch my girls catch and bash Kirk's two villains." More violence! Maggie had to ask, "Why on earth, Blair, would your pretty Barbie dolls want to bash another doll? Why can't your dolls behave in a feminine way - you know, by getting married, setting up house, and throwing tea parties?" "Because they're Charlie's Angels, mommy! It's their job to punish the bad guys! And Kirk's two dolls have been acting really, really badly. One of them is a vampire, and you said yesterday that there were far too many vampires in this house. So the Angels are going to put a wooden stake through Edward's heart. See - I sharpened this China stick for them to use. As for Ken, he's been stealing panties from the girls; so the Angels are going to force him to wear them. He won't do it unless they beat him up first because he doesn't want to be a girl." "Yeah," muttered Kirk, "Sweet Kenny likes being a boy and being naked with boys." Kirk punctuated his comment by having the Ken doll give a big smooch to Twilight Edward. Thus distracted, Kirk's dolls were swiftly overwhelmed by Blair's Angels. Before they could pound the chopstick through Edward's chest (for real, not pretend), Maggie called an end to their play. She sent them upstairs to bathe. "Separately," she shouted after them, "since it's inappropriate for a ten-year-old girl to be seen in the nude by her older brother." Maggie then turned to Laird: "Honey, you were right - and how! It was a big mistake for me to ask Kirk to play dolls with Blair. I abhor all that violence.' "I wouldn't blame the violence on Kirk. His dolls were about to be killed or neutered by Blair's. Wow, I didn't know that tween girls did that sort of thing with their dolls. But I guess we shouldn't stereotype how boys and girls play." "It's obvious that Blair is going to behave like a tomboy as long as she apes her older brother. She needs to be around girls, not like at school where she has to behave like a boy, but in other places where she has to behave in a ladylike way or be exposed as a crossdresser." "Where are you thinking of?" asked Laird. "Tomorrow morning I am going to enroll Blair in an all-girl's soccer league. I found the perfect one for her, across the Columbia in Washington. Over there, well away from our community, her secret will be safe, indeed, super safe because the league uses a soccer pitch that has neither showers nor change room. The girls come and go in their kit. I'll even make sure Blair applies a scented deodorizer just in case her perspiration smells differently." "Do you really think there is any risk of our Blair working up a sweat? She's never shown any interest in, or ability for, athletics," Laird noted. "That, my love, is precisely why Blair needs to learn to play soccer. She needs to develop as a well-rounded girl and become less of a woos. In addition, since soccer can get rough, Blair will learn how push and shove ("And trip and hold," added Laird) like a female athlete rather than like a limp-wristed boy. Soccer will teach her to move with grace." "Maggie, I'm surprised that you'd see sports as the best way to get Blair thinking and behaving like a female. I'm surprised, but pleased, that you don't want our daughter to grow up to be la prissy stereotype like Butterfly McQueen in Gone with the Wind or Cordelia in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Laird an expert on Buffy? Yes, he had developed an innocent "thing" for Sarah Michelle Geller.) "Laird, I don't regard soccer to be the best way to educate Blair in the manners of modern girlhood. It's just one way for her to meet other girls and I wouldn't expose her to the rough ways of female athletes if I didn't have the perfect antidote - a place where she still will be interacting with other girls and where she will be taught to move with classical feminine grace." "Classical? You don't mean ..." "Yes, love, I have enrolled Blair in the Dame Margot Pavlova Ballet School. As it's downtown, it's not hitherto attracted any girls from Bybee Lake; thus, Blair can totally be a girl without fear of meeting anyone she knows." Laird turned around to veil his emotions. Maggie saw his shoulders sag, as he said, his voice as obscured by sadness as the nearby mountains were by rain and mist, "I've feared for years that Blair would end up a male dancer - like one of those queens in a tux and top hat in Blazing Saddles, but until now, I never thought that one of my kids would end up as a ballerina in a tutu. There are limits to what a man can stand; and so, don't count on me to drive Blair to ballet class or, heaven forbid, to see the kid in a public spectacle. No, there are limits." Maggie embraced him, holding him tight, kissing his neck, as his body began to quiver with deeply suppressed emotion: "Laird, honey, listen to your language - "queens in a tux". That tells you what you really fear - not that Blair might become your daughter for keeps, but that he'll end up a prissy sissy called "Miss Thing", living in San Francisco or West Hollywood." "I'm no bigot, Maggie. I've got no problem with gays who behave like men; it's the queens I can't stand. You're right, as always, my love, I would indeed prefer Blair to be a female than an effeminate male. The funny thing is that Blair has been flitting about the house less since he became a she. Blair seems to appreciate that real females don't mince around like drag queens. Thank God for small mercies." "Laird, I hadn't thought about it until you mentioned it, but Blair does seem have her feet more solidly on the ground since she started wearing panties and skirts. And I know that I'll be able to convince her to play girls' soccer, whereas the old Blair would rather have gone to school painted blue than try out for boys' soccer. Blair may well be the most inept girl on her soccer team, but at least she won't face taunts from the sideline about running or kicking like a girl." Laird chuckled: "So that's the plan, is it? To 'butch' Blair up by transforming him into a girl." "Well, that's one way of looking at it," Maggie laughed. They embraced, then headed off to the bedroom together, in love, and agreed (for a time at least) that they were definitely doing the right thing by their daughter Blair. Around two o'clock in the morning, Maggie stole out of bed and into Blair's bedroom, where she briefly watched her daughter fast asleep, the blankets lowered just enough to show off her pink brocaded nightie. "Naughty girl," thought Maggie. "She didn't remove the makeup she put on after dinner. I don't want her to ruin that peaches-and-cream complexion." Then, after kissing Blair on the forehead, Maggie rummaged through the back of Blair's dresser to find two white tee shirts, never yet worn, left over from her daughter's boyish childhood. These Maggie took to her sewing room, where with the help of cloth shears, a sewing machine, and raw talent, she shortened the sleeves on both tees to mid-length, thus giving them a slightly more feminine cut. That way she hoped to convince Blair that the tee shirts had been recently bought in a girls' department, with the hope that Blair would consent to wear them to school. For all her bluster, Maggie was determined not to have another confrontation with Miss Umbridge, and to that end she wanted her daughter to dress as conservatively as possible even while continuing - at least in Blair's own mind - to be clothed "in girls' clothes" from head to toe. The plot seemed to work: Blair wore a white tee and unisex jeans for the next two days, and her first week of attending school as a girl in unisex clothes passed without further incident. True, Blair had to endure two after-school detentions, and admitted, when pressed by Maggie, that, "My teacher really hates me. She's always picking on me." Even so, Umbridge hadn't made any attempt to draw attention to Blair's change of gender, and Blair had to admit that, "Miss Umbridge treats most kids badly, most of the time. She's very difficult to please." "So maybe, just maybe," Maggie thought, "The harpy won't try to harm my daughter." Somehow, Maggie realized that she was hoping for more than flawed human nature could deliver. Miracles weren't always possible: For example, it had been foolhardy for Maggie to expect Kirk to "play nicely" with Blair's dolls. On Thursday evening, she'd had to order Kirk never again to go near them after he had almost set fire to Blair's bedroom. Maggie, her curiosity pricked by the silence (save for the occasional giggle) that had befallen their play, had peaked into the bedroom where she discovered them about to set fire to a "funeral pyre" built from wooden pencils, on which were arrayed Twilight Edward and every doll that he'd "bitten" - which was all of them, save for Ken (because Edward wasn't, as Kirk explained, "a homo"). The only reason that Maggie was able to avert a veritable Barbiecue was Kirk's failure to set fire to a mechanical pencil. Maggie concluded that Blair was either too young or too old or not yet girl enough to be trusted with dolls. Maggie was relatively relieved, then, when the children reverted to dress-up and role-play after Kirk was banished from the doll harem. As before, she marveled at the many ways that female clothing could masquerade as male - at least as the sort that almost all males wore before the invention of the zipper, and still wore (at least on festive and ceremonial occasions) in most of the Eastern Hemisphere. Maggie was surprised to see how easily a petticoat could function as the skirt of a Greek sentry, her linen nightie as a "Pharaoh outfit" for Ramses the Great, or a black blouse and skirt to emulate a priest's cassock ("like they wear in Italian movies"). Maggie was less than pleased that Kirk wore an extra-large white tee shirt over a black dress for their game of "the priest and the altar boy," which mainly consisted of Blair clumsily chasing a giggling, more agile Kirk around the house. The game usually ended in a tickle fight. On the first Saturday after Blair's first visit to the school psychologist, Maggie took her daughter to a sportswear store to buy her soccer kit, all from Addidas: black soccer shoes (with three pink stripes); diva pink and white helios (armless) jersey; and diva pink training shorts with a darling white draw string and side stripes. After Blair changed into her soccer togs in a women's bathroom (with Maggie standing guard), they drove in the pouring rain across the Columbia River to Rose Villa, a flowery suburb of Vancouver, Washington where, with the help of GPS, they found the soccer pitch that played host to the teams of the Girls' Friendship League. Soon enough they had met the League secretary, Mrs. Beverly Bolton, standing under a large golf umbrella. Her first remarks - she simply couldn't help herself -addressed Blair's gear. "So this is Blair. Aren't you the little cutie! How darling and unusual for you to dress in pink for a practice session. With all the sliding about on the west grass and mud, most girls wear such drab colors for practice - mostly browns, blacks and grays. So you will certainly stand out like a rose among the thorns. Let's hope your game is equally noteworthy." Mrs. Bolton then explained to Maggie and Blair that the league had "An Every Girl Must Get Her Fair Share" policy, which they found easiest to enforce (given kids' natural resistance to standing on the sidelines watching everyone else have fun) by restricting team size to a maximum of fifteen players. Five of the eight teams, alas, had already reached their full complement, but three were still looking for girls, two (Gold Pride and Sky Blue) their fifteenth and last, and one (Breakers), its eleventh. "All three teams will be practicing on one third of the pitch over the next ninety minutes," Mrs. Bolton explained, "and the idea is to have Blair join each team to determine on which one she fits in best. We'll trust the three coaches to decide, as they have decades of experience and will, given Blair's personality and skill level, find the right place for her for the remainder of the League season. There aren't many regular games left, but the playoffs and invitationals should, however, guarantee her a healthy amount of exercise before the summer holidays. So, Blair, why don't you run over to that team?" Mrs. Bolton pointed to the Gold Pride squad. Mrs. Bolton gasped: Oh dear, Blair has already tripped and fallen down - before she reached her first team. Maybe she slipped on the wet grass. Or it may be her shoes. They looked brand new before her fall. That's right. They're new today, you say? Well that must be the problem; she still has to break them in. Still, it's a genuine pity that she fell into that muddy pool of water. Almost no one got to see her pink outfit. Ah, well, maybe it's for the best. As you see, Ms. Maguire, in this climate girls generally don't wear pastels and whites to practice. And I do recommend you add rain gear to her kit; soccer football, unlike baseball, tennis and golf, is a sport played rain or shine - and around here, that means mostly in the rain. However, the skies generally clear for the playoffs. Anxious to change the subject away from her faux pas in picking Blair's clothes for the tryout, Maggie exclaimed: "Oh, look, Blair is already taking - I think you call it - a penalty shot. Does that mean she was tripped or tackled or hooked from behind? My girl has always been a fast runner; she must have left one or two players so far behind they had to cheat." "Not exactly," Ms. Maguire." "Oh do call me Maggie." Mrs. Bolton, with an obvious sigh of relief, replied, Likewise, I'm Beverly to my friends as I am sure you soon will be. I think you will find that Blair probably hasn't run more than few yards yet. It's customary to start by watching her kick a few balls at the net. In that way, we get a feeling for her strength, stamina and accuracy. After the Gold Pride coach gets a feel for the range at which Blair can hit the net - you know, the range at which she can consistently "score" on an empty net with a kick hard enough to get by the goalkeeper, then we'll know whether Blair should play one of the attacking positions. As they watched, Blair mostly missed the ball entire entirely, about half the time ending up flat on her back, as though someone was yanking the ball away at the last second. The Gold Pride coach, deciding that Blair was trying too hard because the goal looked too far away for the kid's best-struck ball to reach, kept spotting the ball ever closer to the goal line. Finally, at three yards out, the Gold Pride Coach concluded that there was literally no distance from which Blair could sink the ball into the net more than one time out of every seven tries. And that was on an empty net. There seemed no point in seeing whether Blair could shoot or run the ball past a live goalkeeper. Even a deceased, expired, defunct goalkeeper nailed to a perch could probably prevent the girl from scoring even once during an entire season. The coach, despairing of ever seeing Blair's foot make solid contact with the ball, next tried the girl on headers. After about a dozen tries, with Blair demonstrating a near total inability to judge the path of a flying object, the ball finally hit her head by sheer accident. Well, the League had probably never heard anyone wail as loudly as poor Blair. Oh the pain! Oh the agony! She was inconsolable until the Coach promised that she could play soccer without having to use her head. No, she couldn't wear a helmet, but the coach did instruct her how to "duck and cover" if the ball seemed about to bonk her. The Gold Pride coach, noticing a lull in the play of the Sky Blue, currently occupying the midfield, suggested that since Blair was not really suited for an attacking role, that maybe she should join the Sky Blue in their game of ball chase. "You'll catch on quickly," the coach assured her, the game's a simple one: each player is trying to use her feet to gain possession of the soccer ball, and then to keep it away from everyone else for as long as possible. That generally means a general melee when your age group - the ten-to-twelves-- play. It's great fun, though your ankle might take a beating. Sharon, would you lend the new kid your shin guards? We don't want her to go home black and blue from her tryout." Now wearing Sharon's shin guards - sort of - Blair was passed off to her second team whose coach's instructions were simple enough: "See if you can strip the ball from whoever's got it and then run around with it until someone takes it away from you. Have fun - that's what soccer's all about." Though simple, the instructions were impossible to follow, inasmuch as Blair didn't once catch up to the "whoever's got it", in part because she did not, as Maggie boasted, run like the wind, but for the most part because she always got the worst of the scrums that occurred whenever two girls or more attempted a tackle at the wrong time. Blair, it turned out, might have been trying out roller blades for the first time - she was that easy to tip over. Even so, she did have fun because she spent so much time on her knees, bottom or back in the mud (there being an inverse correlation between the intensity of play and the density of the grass) that her time with the Sky Blue reminded her of the time, two years ago, that she had tried to build the Great Wall of China on a tidal flat near Long Beach, Washington. As Maggie watched her hapless child, she was pleased to see that Blair seemed to be enjoying herself, although it might be more a case of the pleasure she got from stamping her feet in the puddles being formed by the downpour in every recess of the pitch than of actually playing soccer. Maggie was making a mental note to remind Blair that it wasn't "ladylike" to cover her shoes, socks and legs with muddy spray when she noticed that Blair wasn't the only girl playing in the puddles; the activity seemed to appeal to several other girls, who like Blair were younger, smaller and less athletic than the giants actually able to maneuver a soccer ball through, around or above a water puddle. Even so, Blair was easily the muddiest girl on the field when her coach handed her off to the third team on the pitch, the Breakers (named, like the others, after a team in Women's Professional Soccer). The military demeanor, shrill whistle, rippling muscles and close-cropped blonde hair of the Breakers' coach made Gus Anderson a standout on a field filled with females - that and the fact that Gus was the only male involved in an official capacity with the Girls' Friendship League. Having already assessed Blair's athletic potential (Gus was said to have watchful eyes on all four sides of his square head), Gus told Blair, "You're here to have fun. Since you're just starting out, you're more likely to twist an ankle or crack your funny bone than the girls who are more familiar with running around a wet field, so I don't want you attempting any tackles or charging after the ball. I want you instead to position yourself a foot or so in front of the goal line about ten feet wide of our net. There, if you stay put, you will be ideally positioned to make it almost impossible for an attacker to run around the last defender on her way to the goal." Although her new station took her almost entirely out of the play (even in practice session it focused on defending the penalty area directly in front of the goal), Blair had fun chasing down and carrying back soccer balls shot wide of the net and past the goal-line; she could now envisage a role for herself in girls' soccer! She also enjoyed chatting with the Breakers' goalkeeper, who had little to do, given the prowess of the Breaker fullbacks, who were easily the League's elite. When an occasional ball came her way, Alicia, the Breaker goalkeeper, nonchalantly, almost disdainfully, caught or stopped it; she then kicked it over everyone's head to give herself some time to talk to the "new girl". Being a gifted athlete and coach's daughter (and sole reason for his interest in girls' soccer), Alicia could pretty much take the practice for granted. As Blair moved ever closer to the net, the conversation became ever more personal, and soon Alicia was regularly kicking the ball high into the sky gray, halfway down the field to the annoyance of Sky Blue, whose turf it invaded. Alicia quickly made it clear that no one called her by her birth name: "Hey blue eyes, everyone calls me Big Al. You should too." The nickname was a natural for Big Al, who, at age 13 (an age she had attained five weeks after the start of the League season, making her its second oldest girl) stood five foot ten and weighed 180 pounds with an a body mass index of 20.3. Built like the proverbial brick outhouse, Big Al looked awesome - especially to paper-thin Blair. Big Al took an immediate liking to Blair, whom she showered with endearments like "Blondie, Apple Cheeks, Honeybunch, Rose Lips, Bubble Butt, Button Nose, Pinky, and Sweetie pie. However, "Blue Eyes" had become her favorite before practice ended. Had Blair been older and worldlier, she might have been alarmed by Big Al's language and attentiveness. (Big Al at one point was so engrossed in slowly tucking Blair's tee shirt into her shorts - "for neatness sake" - that Big Al missed a breakaway on goal.) And a child more perceptive than Blair might have wondered at having a girl who had started the day as a total stranger buy her a veggie dog and diet drink. ("We must protect your little girl figure, mustn't we," Big Al had said to Blair, who would have preferred more calories and amino acids.) The biggest clue, save for the clueless, who included Maggie as well as Blair, was Big Al's offer to come by the house the following day to teach Blair "the fundamentals" - in soccer, that is. When told that Blair lived in another State, Big Al said, "No worries, my dad lets me take public transit alone. He knows I can handle myself." Despite Big Al's impulsive "friendship" for Blair, it wasn't clear for a while whether Blair would even be allowed to play for any of the teams, even less the formidable Breakers, of the Girls' Friendship League. Since she didn't live in Rose Villa, she had no automatic claim to a spot on a roster. And unsurprisingly, none of the coaches wanted Blair for a player. The coach of the Gold Pride voiced the firm opinion that Blair didn't have sufficient coordination or natural ability to be a team gofer, as in go for water, towels or snacks: "She'd definitely trip over own feet and end up hitting one of my girl's face with a head butt, an elbow or a bottle of ketchup." The consensus, to advise Blair to take up chess instead (albeit, with someone else moving her pieces for her), was first challenged by Big Al. She had been listening in on the conversation, and didn't like it one bit. Determined to keep "Blue Eyes" around, she demanded that her father add Blair to his roster "Because, after all, the Breakers don't even have eleven players. We're always a girl short." Gus wouldn't budge: "There is no way I'm going to add a girl from another town who plays so badly that she'll weaken my team. The Breakers are a much better team playing a girl short than they would be trying to avoid inadvertently hurting that girly girl. If one of you feels sorry for Little Tangle Foot, then you take her! Don't impose her on the Breakers." But that was exactly what Mrs. Beverly Bolton and the other two coaches insisted on doing. They were anxious to bring the Breakers down a notch, because the team hadn't lost a game, which was bad enough for morale on other teams, but it was winning while playing a girl short, which was downright embarrassing for the League. To be sure, everyone agreed (with varying degrees of reluctance) that the Breakers were better coached than the competition, but the team's remarkable success was also attributed to Coach Anderson's "unsportsmanlike" refusal to permit tyros and tykes to stay on his team. He had used, they said, a Drill Sergeant manner to drive away every ten-or-eleven-year-old, which allowed him to put together a "packed team" aged twelve and thirteen, in contravention of the rules of the league and the spirit of the Pacific Northwest. Everyone, including his own daughter, thought it was finally time - indeed, past time - to impose a "green girly girl" on Coach Anderson and the Breakers. He relented, agreeing to add Blair to his team after the phrase "otherwise forfeit the season" started getting banded about. Big Al excitedly hugged her father: "Coach, you don't know what it means to me to have little Blair added to the team." Gus sighed: "Alicia, I think I do know what it means. That's one reason I wanted to keep that girl off of our team. You need to keep your mind on the game, which you can't do if you're obsessed with whether Blair is having fun, getting wet, or looking tired. You tend to smother your "favorite" girls with so much attention and affection that you scare them away, after which you become so depressed that your soccer and schoolwork suffer. We can't have that happen again, can we?" "Don't worry, Coach. I've learned my lessons well. While I do intend to become the best friend, the most loving friend, that Blair has in the whole wide world, I'll take my time. I won't rush things. But Coach, you understand: I've just got to stick close to Blair, 'cause she's easily the cutest, sexiest girl I've ever met. She's dreamy." Blair dreamy? It was difficult for Coach Anderson to see the mud- splattered, clumsy girl as anything but a nightmare. For one thing, he considered her much too young for anyone, even a newly minted thirteen- year-old, to be swooning over. So he repeated the warning: "Just don't get hurt, Alicia. Blair seems awfully young and na?ve. She's probably not knowingly met a girl like you before or ever aspired to the kind of romance that you seek. So, honey, be cautious; don't do anything that might force us, once again, to move to a new city. I sort of like it here." What befell Blair during her stint with the Breakers is quickly told; her relationship with Big Al was, in contrast, extremely complicated and, as the Coach feared, kind of messy. The first thing that Blair had to do as a Breaker was to foreswear pink on the soccer pitch, for the Breakers dressed in menacing black: black shorts, headband and socks (of whatever make), black sports shoes (obliging Blair to hide her pink stripes with electrical tape), and a black, team tee shirt with the name of the team's sponsor, J. Hoffa Wrecking and Salvage, in block letters on the back, and the team's name and logo - a giant wrecking ball smashing into a soccer player's knee - on the front. Thus attired, Blair had only one responsibility on the field - and that was to stay out of the way of her teammates. "Ferdinand the Bull" was the name that Coach Anderson gave to her role on the pitch. She was to wander at will, playing her hunches, always as close as feasible to the enemy net and far from Big Al in her own goal. However, she was always to move away from the flow of play so that if her teammates were being totally stymied, they had the option of lofting a pass to her. If by some fluke, she were able to trap it with her body or foot, Blair would be ideally placed to score. It didn't bother Blair that no one ever took the pass option and that her foot touched the ball only once in three games (by sheer accident - the opposition were trying to kick it out of bounds to slow the Breaker attack). Blair was happy not to tackle or be tackled because her highest priority was to avoid getting dirty or sweaty, as she knew that her friendship with Big Al somehow depended on always looking her best. She even wore a shower cap during the game- much to the derision of fans and players - because Big Al didn't like the look of her bangs and bob when they became soggy from the incessant rain. Even though it was heartwarming to know that Big Al was watching her from a distance more closely than the goalkeeper was watching the ball, it was also discomfiting. So Blair generally kept her own gaze low, looking for ladybugs and four-leaf clovers, or high, gazing at nimbus clouds or branches buckling in the wind. Despite, or possibly because the Breakers continued effectively to play with a ten-girl roster, the team won the League championship with a perfect record. Consequently, Blair won her first athletic trophy, as girl or boy. That was the good news. The bad news was that teams as successful as the Breakers played in tournaments, not all of which were in Washington State. Indeed, the Breakers were destined to play for the Valley Championship against the Smith Lake Smiters on a soccer pitch less than a quarter-mile from Blair's own school. Needless to say, that game would be life-changer for Blair. As would Blair's friendship with Big Al. For a girl who lived in another State, it was extraordinary how much time she found to spend with Blair: after practice, after games, after any excuse at all. The pretense of helping Blair learn "soccer fundamentals" she soon gave up - it was simply too difficult for anyone to imagine Blair's ever connecting with the ball more than randomly. However, Big Al did persuade Blair to wear her pink soccer kit often, her look topped off with a pink hair band and a sterling silver necklace with a diamond-like pink amethyst, a gift from Big Al selected with the help of an Avon Lady who came to the Finlayson-Maguire home. As it was a good excuse to get Blair into the pink soccer outfit, easily Big Al's favorite, the two girls frequently kneeled on Blair's bedroom carpet, using her dolls to play soccer with a ping pong ball supplied by Big Al, who had used a black felt marker to color it like the real thing. Somewhat sheepishly, yet proudly, Big Al added a new doll to Blair's collection: it was Skipper, whom Big Al said was Barbie's "little sidekick." Short, blonde and wearing a pink soccer outfit concocted by Big Al out of an assortment of Barbie's cast-offs, Skipper represented Blair whenever they played with dolls. Big Al chose Twilight Bella as her own avatar so that Al could pretend that the doll had been bitten by a vampire, thereby giving Bella an excuse to bite Skipper, and Big Al, in mock emulation, to nibble on Blair's neck. Kirk also attempted a few nibbles of his own - on Big Al's neck as well as Blair's. Somewhat surprisingly, he started to hang out with the two girls, not only helping them to play doll soccer, typically as the last line of defense for Blair's hopelessly inept team, but also crowding with them around the computer as Big Al introduced Blair to all "the" Internet sites that would help her to develop into a cool, yet ultra- feminine teen. When asked by Big Al, Maggie, Laird and Blair what he could possibly find interesting in these sites, Kirk blushed fiercely, first saying that he wanted to learn what made girls tick, then later admitting that he just liked to hang out with Big Al. Although Maggie and Laird would have chosen a different girl for Kirk's first crush, she was pleased and Laird was thrilled that Kirk was finally showing some interest in the opposite sex. True, Big Al did seem infatuated with Blair; but both parents hoped - for Kirk's sake - that, being a coach's daughter, Big Al had been raised a tomboy. "I know," Laird said to Maggie one night in bed, "that Alicia comes across as a lesbian, but she's still young enough to be in the pre- adolescent stage of development that Freud called the latent homosexual." "But," Maggie asked, "Why have you never thought the same of Blair, who is even younger? That she too is merely going through a phase that she will soon grow out of?" "Because Maggie, Blair is never going to be attracted to women. Even though the kid enjoys the presents and attention from Alicia, I don't think it's ever occurred to Blair that Alicia could possibly have sexual designs on her "little sister"; and if Big Al does ever make a pass, I predict that Blair's reaction will be - 'Ugh, gag me with a spoon'." "Maybe, but I believe that Alicia could successfully seduce Blair. Not only that, but I wish I could find a way for it to happen, because don't you see, if Blair's first sexual experiences are with a female, then Blair will be much less likely to end up a male homosexual." "That would be a relief. But," Laird asked, "Isn't there some risk of Blair's ending up a lesbian if our ... daughter associates sexual gratification with female-on-female sex? "Yes," Maggie replied. "There is indeed some risk of that; yet it's one well worth taking, honey, because if Alicia introduces Blair to the world of amour, then Blair will definitely want to remain my beautiful, sweet daughter forever. You've seen how Alicia encourages Blair to be a girly girl - and Laird, I do think you'd prefer to have a lesbian daughter than a gay son to introduce to your men friends." He nodded. "Then we must find a way for Alicia to initiate Blair in the mysteries of Venus and Aphrodite." "Easier said than done," Laird said. "Remember: There is a small snake, no more than three or four inches in length, that is likely to expel Blair from Alicia's garden of delights long before he ... she has tasted the forbidden fruit." "Yes," Maggie sighed. "Why does a small thing like gender have to matter so much to people? Alicia clearly loves, indeed lusts after Blair. Should it matter, then, what Blair has between her legs just as long as Blair looks and acts like a beautiful, sexy girl?" "It's just a thought, Maggie, but maybe gender isn't as easy to manipulate as you believe. Indeed, is it possible that there is something indefinably male about Blair? I know, I know, it's hard for us to see, and yet it may be there and just possibly it enables Alicia to know subconsciously that Blair is a male. Is it possible, Maggie, that Alicia isn't even a lesbian? A tomboy for sure, but maybe not a lesbian. After all, what kind of lesbian is it that mistakes a boy for a girl?" "Let me get this straight: You're saying that Alicia may realize deep down that Blair is a boy and that she's after his body because she's, unbeknownst to herself, heterosexual and domineering enough to want a boyfriend who wears dresses?" "Sure, why not? I've read of stranger things on the Internet." Maggie was lost for words. She even felt a low wave of panic, for she regarded a domineering girlfriend (heaven forbid, a bossy wife!) to be the worst possible outcome for either Blair or Kirk. She wanted Kirk to grow up to be a Mensch, an Alpha Male, and she wanted Blair to be the Alpha bitch in the pack.