MrsVaughn returned. “I was just coming to see if you needed any help with the buttons.” she said before looking them up and down and saying “They don’t look too bad.”
“They look awful!” Andrew protested as he continued fastening William’s buttons.
“Only girls wear dresses,” he claimed in the whiniest voice.
“Not until your clothes have washed and dried,” Mrs Vaughn said in a chirpy tone.
Once they’d buttoned each other into their frocks and donned a pair of girl’s knee socks, they returned downstairs and sat sheepishly in her lounge.
“What’s that noise?” Wayne asked as something began to loudly rumble.
“It’s the washing machine.” Mrs Vaughn proudly replied, before telling them that it’s fully automatic, lots easier, and far quicker than a twin tub.
“You just throw dirty clothes in and clean ones come out,” she said. “It’s a godsend!”
Being boys, they’ve no idea what toil and turmoil cleaning clothes can be and thus, are unimpressed by the so-called ‘godsend’ that is a fully automatic washing machine.
“Does it dry them too?” Andrew asked.
“No… but I’ve put the heating on… they’ll dry over the radiators in no time.” she told them.
“Now, would you like some cake whilst we wait?”
Shyly, the boys said yes… each added a, please.
She left them alone whilst she fetched it.
“This is weird,” William whispered, biting his lip.
“I know.” Andrew gulped.
“Surely her niece has got some boyish clothes.”
“What’s that?” Mrs Vaughn asked as she returned carrying a tray.
Andrew reiterated his comment and after setting the tray on the coffee table,
MrsVaughn told him that she doesn’t like ‘boyish’ clothes for girls.
“I’m rather old-fashioned in that respect… I don’t think boys your age should be in long trousers either.
When I was a girl, boys only wore long pants once they’d left school.”
“I hate short pants,” William grumbled.
“Well it’s a good job I chose dresses isn’t it.” Mrs Vaughn replied as she plunged a knife into a Victoria sponge cake.
“I’d rather wear shorts than this.” Andrew sneered, looking down at the prissy frock he wears.
The only good thing he can say about it is that it isn’t pink and that it doesn’t have any lacy trim or bows attached.
But it’s still a dress and it does have frills so, in that sense, there’s nothing at all good about it.
Mrs Vaughn hands them both a plate on which a thin slice of cake is placed.
“Thank you.” they meekly say in unison.
The lady advises them to try not to get any crumbs on their dresses.
She watches with a wry smile as they sit quietly in their prissy dresses, plates perched carefully on their laps as they cautiously and slowly eat their cake.
“Do you boys play truant from school often?” she asked.
“Er… sometimes.” William meekly replied.
“And how often is sometimes?” she asked, adding that today isn’t the first time she’s noticed them loitering on the side streets when they should be at school.
“Once or twice a week, I guess,” William says.
“And don’t the teachers wonder where you’ve been?”
William shrugged and after a little prompting, admitted to turning up for registration, then leaving the school grounds.
“If they ask I just tell ’em I was ill or summit.”
“You do realize that they probably know that you’re lying,” she said.
Again William shrugged.
“What if they refer you both to the education welfare services?” she asked.
“If you’re skipping school a couple of times a week, it’s only a matter of time.”
“Dunno,” William replied.
Throughout this exchange, both boys hung their heads like guilty five-year-olds.
“Have you anything to say Andrew?” she asked.
He gulped and shook his head.
“Well, I hope you’ll both have a good long think about things…
you only get one chance to go to school… if you waste your education now, you’ll regret it in the future.”
This is something they’ve been told a million times, but as far as they’re concerned, they live in the hear and now.
School’s boring so why bother going?
Homework’s boring so why bother doing it?
The only consequence is lines, detention, or a telling off… and such punishments are soon forgotten about.
Mrs Vaughn lectured them in the importance of a good education but didn’t lay the blame on the boys themselves.
“…its the education system that’s failing you,” she said.
The boys agreed.
Mrs Vaughn would have continued further, but just then, the telephone rang.
She excused herself to answer the telephone.
“Do you reckon she’s a retired teacher or summit?” William asked.
“Maybe,” Andrew replied. She certainly has that air about her.
They sheepishly and briefly discussed how weird it was, being put in the bath together and washed like little kids… then she returned.
“I’ve got a couple of phone calls to make boys…” she said.
“Would you like another slice of cake cutting?” she offered.
“Yes please Mrs Vaughn,” Alan replied.
“Yes please,” Wayne said.
She smiled and cut the cake, placing a slice on each of their plates.
They thanked her.
“Well I must say, you’ve finally found your manners boys… a please and thank you costs nothing yet means so very much,” she said before leaving them alone whilst she made the phone calls.
“Being put in the bath wasn’t anywhere as weird as being given dresses to wear,” William said.
“How long do you reckon it’ll take for our clothes to dry?”
“Dunno,” Andrew replied. “They’re not out of the wash yet so… I reckon it’ll be age.”
“Hmmm.” William groaned.
“I reckon her niece will have jeans and stuff… I reckon she put us in dresses deliberately.” he supposed.
“We should’ve put our foot down and refused to wear them.”
“Well it’s too late now… and we can’t exactly go anywhere until we get our own clothes back.”
“Mum’s gonna go bonkers when I get home… even if my clothes are clean and dry, it’ll still be too late to claim I went to the art club or chess club or something.”
“Yeah, I was thinking that,” Andrew replied.
He checked the time and it was a quarter to three.
The school bell will be ringing in about fifteen minutes and he should be home not long after that.
But a rough estimate of at least an hour before their clothes will be washed and dry enough to wear means he’ll have some explaining to do.
When MrsVaughn returns, Alan asks if she’s sure that her niece doesn’t have any boyish clothes they could wear instead of their dresses.
MrsVaughn replies, telling them that she hasn’t, and adding that they should be getting used to their dresses by now.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Andrew grumbled.
“Have you finished with those plates?” she asked.
The boys handed them to her and she suggested they stand to sweep any crumbs from their frocks onto the floor.
“It’s easier to Hoover the carpet than it is to launder and iron a dress,” she says as she gathers the plates and picks up the tray.
The boys stand and sheepishly sweep their skirts.
Mrs Vaughn hovers with the tray in hand and reminds them to sit how she’d shown them, sweeping their skirts beneath them first.
“Good boys.” she smiled.
“Have you ever worn a dress before?” Andrew asked.
“No!” William retorted. “Why?”
“Just wondered,” Andrew replied, before admitting that his big sister used to dress him in girl’s clothes when she had to stay in and babysit.
“Why?” William asked.
“Well… because Mum and Dad had gone out and I couldn’t stay on my own.”
“No I mean… why did your big sister dress you as a girl?”
“Oh… I dunno. She always did though… and she always told me not to tell anyone.” Andrew replied. “…not that I ever would.”
“Until now.”
“Well… I trust you won’t tell anyone.”
“Did you like it?” William asked.
“No!” Andrew retorted. “But I did sort of get used to it.”
“What are you boys talking about?” Mrs Vaughn asked when she returned.
“Nothing,” Andrew replied. “Are our clothes still in the wash?”
Mrs Vaughn told them that the automatic washing machine is on its final spin, so it won’t be long.
“Oh I wonder who that could be?” she said when the doorbell rang. “Would you mind answering the door William?”
“Er… I can’t.” William gulped. “Not like this.”
“Typical boy… either too shy or too lazy to do the simplest of tasks.” she said, before answering the door herself.
William and Andrew looked at one another and gulped.
They couldn’t quite hear who was at the door, but knew they were coming in when they heard Mrs Vaughn say “They’re through here.”
The boy’s jaws hit the floor when their form teacher walked in. “Miss Culnane!” they gasped.
“Andrew and William.” she retorted, echoing their tone. “We’ve been wondering where you two got to today.”
The boys gulped and hung their heads.
They glared at their knees, poking out from their prissy frocks.
“Well, they didn’t get very far.” Mrs Vaughn replied.
“I’ve been keeping them busy and out of trouble.”
“I can see!” Miss Culnane said. “Have they been any bother?”
“None whatsoever!” Mrs Vaughn chirped.
Eventually, William plucked up the courage to ask
“What’s she doing here?”
“Well…” Mrs Vaughn began.
“When you two were in the bath, I rang your school and spoke to your form teacher and explained that I’d found two truants.
Miss Culnane kindly gave me your parent’s phone numbers, and they’re on their way.”
“But…!” Andrew gulped.
The name of the school is emblazoned on their blazers and their full names are written in their name tags… so it wouldn’t have taken much detective work to find out who to speak to.
“You lied to us!” he said.
“Sometimes a white lie is necessary.” Mrs Vaughn replied.
“Especially when it’s for the greater good,” she said. “The truth is… I don’t have a niece.
Those dresses you’re wearing are for boys like you two… boys in need of guidance and correction.
Boys for whom regular forms of discipline don’t seem to work.”
“You tricked us!”
“You should have been at school.” Mrs Vaughn countered, before reminding them that everything they’ve done today, they’ve done so willingly. “…and that includes stepping into your dresses.”
“And very nice they look too.” Miss Culnane grinned as she perched on a chair facing the two boys.
They hung their heads. An aura of utter embarrassment surrounded them.
Andrew’s dress is cream with subtle stripes running down its fabric.
A round Peter Pan collar encircles his neck and short pin-tucked sleeves cover his shoulders.
The skirt is trimmed with a two-inch ruffled hem, from which his knees appear.
They look pink and flushed next to his white ribbed knee socks.
William’s dress is in a pale spearmint green shade with white trim.
It has fake buttons running up the front, through a broad white yoke up to a small pointed collar.
Unlike Andrew’s pin-tucked sleeves, William’s are puffed and gathered and far more girl-like.
He wouldn’t admit it but given the choice, he’d have preferred Andrew’s marginally plainer dress to his… not that that would have made wearing a dress any better.