Andrew’s brother Mark began to explain how both he and his brother had tried their best to avoid wearing their dresses, especially out of the house, but this was met with a torrent of abuse from Patrick. None of us were more shocked than Patrick when Andrew thumped him in the face, sending him crashing to the floor. Tears welled up in his eyes as he picked himself up, but his abuse continued as he parted from the group. Not wanting to receive the same or similar, Nigel muttered an apology to Andrew and Mark, before heading off after Patrick. “That certainly showed him.” I said to Andrew as he checked his hand still worked.

“He’s always been a gobby little prick.” Andrew replied, before thanking me for backing him up.

“No worries.” I replied. “Is your hand all right?”

“Yeah I think so.” he gulped, but it clearly hurt. Not surprising as it was some whack!

I mentioned the incident to my mother when I got home, but spared here the finer details. Mum claimed that Andrew should have just ignored Patrick instead of hitting him. I would have done, but then again, I’m not much of a fighter. Patrick wasn’t in school the following day, and Andrew’s hand was in a bandage. The day after that however, a very sheepish Patrick did turn up, sporting a very black eye. Wisely, he kept himself away from Andrew, but I’d heard that the headmaster had had words with both of them. I told my mum about Patrick’s shiner, and whilst she agreed that he probably had it coming, she maintained that there’s never an excuse for violence.

On the weekend, I went into town with Mum as usual to help her carry the weekly shop. I was used to seeing the ‘boy’ mannequins dressed in girl’s clothing in the shop windows, but seeing actual boys wearing skirts or dresses in the town centre is still an unusual sight. One poor lad looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him whole as he walked with his parents through the main square. Clad from head to toe in various shades of pink, he wore a candy pink satin dress that would be too girlie for most girls, let alone a boy! His pale pink tights had little white love hearts on and even his shoes were pink with little kitten heels. But worst of all was the big pink ribbon tied on his very boyish head. Mum thought he looked sweet. I said it must be horrible having to wear something that prissy. “It wouldn’t be so bad wearing a dress if it was plain, blue maybe and not satin or frilly.” I added.

“I don’t see the point of plain dresses for boys” Mum replied. “I they’re going to wear plain clothes then they may as well just wear what they’ve always worn.” she mused. “If I was buying you a dress it’d be a really pretty one.” she suggested, much to my horror.

“Please don’t.” I asked. The level of fear was evident in my voice.

“Don’t worry.” mum grinned. “The really nice dresses are far too expensive and the affordable ones are far too plain.” she smiled. As usual, Mum wanted to browse around the department stores, and as usual, the assistants approached us and asked if they could help. “No thanks, we’re only looking.” mum respectfully replied. Thankfully, the normal boy’s clothes and the boy’s dresses were in separate sections of the boy’s department. I nervously glanced at the unlucky lads who’d been dragged into ‘that’ section by their mothers. Most looked like they were ready to burst in to tears. To my surprise however, intermingled with the normal boy’s underwear and socks was a wide variety of pink & frilly stuff that sent shivers through me. Alongside the socks were packs of tights and white girlie knee socks, and right next to the pyjamas were nighties and girlie PJs. Some of the nighties were trying to be boyish, bearing Ben-10, Star Wars and Marvel prints, but they were still nighties. Thankfully my mum didn’t give them more than a superficial glance as we wondered through. As we left, I spotted a boy aged about eight or nine, looking positively petrified as his mother held a green gingham school dress against him. I hoped for his sake that she wasn’t planning on actually sending him to school in it!