Later in the afternoon when I returned from college, Peter was sat in the dining room doing his homework. I asked if he’d had a good day at school before asking if anyone had noticed that he’d been wearing make-up. “No.” he replied, adding that he’d spent the whole day worrying about nothing. I asked if he had a lot of homework to do. “Not much.” he replied, telling me he’d be finished in half and hour or so.
“Cool.” I replied. I took myself to my room to find the burnt CD-R ejected from my laptop. I closed the tray and checked that it had transferred the images properly, then double checked my hard-drive to make sure I’d copied rather than moved them. I took my laptop down to the dining room and asked Peter if he minded me joining him. I sat and ejected the CD tray. “Here… a present for you.” I said, handing him the disc.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“About two-hundred and fifty pictures of you wearing nice clothes for a change.” I grinned. “I’ll get going on Sunday’s pictures and you can do Saturday’s.”
“I’ve got my homework to finish first.”
“I know… just letting you know so we don’t edit the same ones.”
I batch processed Sunday’s images, reducing them from their vast original size to a more manageable 1280×960 pixels, then each would need the head cropping off, and splitting to show just the top or skirt where necessary. We tapped away in relative silence for a while, until Peter said “I was looking at that school you and mum mentioned last night.”
“What school?”
“Ashford Academy… where the boys and girls all dress the same.”
“Oh that school!” I exclaimed. “Why?” I asked.
“Because I didn’t believe you.” he replied.
“And?”
“They’ve got a website.”
“Show me?” I asked as I got up and took the seat beside him. He typed ‘Ashford Academy, Kent’ into the search box and tapped ‘go’. The first result is the official .edu website. Beneath this is a number of news websites and headlines such as ‘controversial school storms local league tables’ and ‘new uniform rule triggers wave of transfers from Kent high school’. Peter clicked on the official website and from the home page, clicked on the ‘uniforms’ tab. I chuckled at the image of two pupils; a boy and a girl wearing almost identical uniforms. “He’s wearing ballet shoes.” I said.
“Is that a skirt or those clot things?” Peter asked.
“Culottes.” I corrected, before reading the description. “It says they are but they look very similar to the girl’s skirt.”
“It also says that boys can wear either culottes or a skirt.” Peter added.
“Which would you wear?” I asked.
“Culottes I guess… I’d rather wear shorts than a skirt.”
“Click on the gallery.” I suggested. Peter did and we browsed through the various images; kids in class, kids at play, kids cooking, doing science, reading, debating, receiving awards and so on. “It’s hard to tell which are the boys and which are the girls.” I said. Peter claimed that the boys have short hair and girls have long hair. I listed a couple of short haired girls we both know, before drawing his attention to a pupil with bunches and said “He’s definitely a boy.”
“No way.” Peter claimed before having a closer look. “Maybe.”
“Definitely.” I insisted.
“I hope you’re studying and not just surfing.” Mum said, popping her head around the dining room door. Peter told her that he’d pretty much finished his homework, before asking her opinion as to whether the pupil in question was a boy or a girl.
“What’s this?” Mum asked. We told her and she took a closer look at the enlarged image. “Boy.” she claimed, before asking why we’re looking at that particular website. “You’re not hoping to transfer are you?” she asked.
“No way!” Peter replied.
“Good, the bus fare to Kent would be extortionate.” Mum grinned. “Why are you looking at that school?” she asked again.
“Because I didn’t believe you so I did a search and found it… I was just showing Emma.” Peter replied. “Must be horrible having to go there.” he muttered.
“It wouldn’t be that bad… you’ve just spent two days wearing girl’s clothes and that wasn’t horrible.” I said.
“But that didn’t involve walking to and from school and all my mates seeing me.”
“If you went there all your mates would be wearing the uniform too… it’d be strange at first but I expect they get used to it soon enough.” I replied.
“Maybe.” Peter frowned.
“What’s this?” Mum asked, noticing a CD-R on the table with Peter’s Photos written on it. I told her and she asked if she could borrow it. I told her that Peter needs it to help me edit all the images I’ll be using to sell my old clothes on FleaBay. “Well, when you’ve done that, can I borrow it?” Mum asked.
“I guess.” Peter reluctantly replied. “…just…”
“I know.” Mum chirped. “I won’t show anyone.”
She left us alone and Peter spent a few minutes finishing off his homework, before slipping the disc into his laptop. I told him that images are in two folders, one for Saturday and one for Sunday. “I’m doing Sunday so you do Saturday.” I told him, before asking if he knew how to do a batch process to reduce all the image sizes at once. He didn’t, so I showed him. “It’ll take five or ten minutes.” I said.
“I’ll go and change.” Peter said, referring to his school uniform.
“You can change into one of mine if you want.” I grinned.
“Tempting… but I’ll pass.” Peter sarcastically replied. He returned just as the batch process had completed.
“You’re wearing my hoodie.” I noticed.
“Yeah.” he bashfully replied. “So, what am I doing?” he asked as he sat.
“I’m doing the skirts and frocks, you’re doing pants and tops…” I said. “…so I need a crop of each item, and don’t forget to crop your head off.” I explained.
“And saving as a JPEG?” he asked.
“Yes please.”
“What about the image names?” he asked. “And where should I save them?”
“Errr, save ’em onto your hard-drive and retain the original P0101 whatever names. I’ve stored the clothes in the order I took the pictures so…”
“OK.” he replied.
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this Peter… it’d take me all week on my own.”
“It would have been quicker to just photograph them on clothes hangers.” he reckoned.
“I know but they supposedly sell better if they’re modelled.” I replied. “Plus it was much more fun putting them on you then it would have been if I’d put them on hangers.” I added. “Would you do it again?” I asked.
“You mean… next time you have a clearout?” he queried.
“Or next time you don’t feel like wearing boy’s clothes.” I suggested. “You did say you liked how we can completely change the way we look…”
“I didn’t say I liked it.” he claimed.
“You at least found it interesting though.” I replied. “…and you did feel elegant in this.” I added, twisting my laptop so he could see the image on the screen.
“It’s hard to believe that’s me.” he said.
“I know… you look so pretty.”
“Only because you did my make-up.”
“You looked nice when you did your own.” I said as I opened the image folder and showed him one of those pictures, zooming right into his face.
“Yours looks better.”
“Yeah but yours still looks good.” I replied. “Plus, I’ve had years of practice, that’s your first attempt.”
“Maybe… it’s not that good though.”
“It’s fine… and imagine what you could do with some practice.”
“I think you’re forgetting I’m your brother.” Peter dryly retorted.
“I’m not.” I grinned. “But we both know you’ve loved every minute being my sister.”
“Not every minute… some of those dresses were awful.”
“Yeah and others you really liked… the dungee-dress, the frayed denim skirt and you’ll probably deny it, but the tea-dress too.” I claimed.
He began to deny it but stopped himself. “Yeah they were OK…” he admitted. “…but the tea-dress definitely felt better than it looked.”
“How it feels is all that matters when you’re wearing it.” I said. “How it looks is for others to decide.” I added as I found the image on my laptop. “Imagine that’s not you…” I suggested, tapping the screen in the vicinity of his head. “…do you think that dress looks nice on her?”