Why are you wearing a dress? Are you a girl now? Do you like wearing dresses?
“No… my mum made me wear it.” I muttered. “I hate it.” I sulked as I pushed past them and headed back to the house.
“Oh don’t go Peter… please…” they pleaded, but I wasn’t hanging around. I went back indoors and told granny that the neighbors aren’t away.
She said, “Oh maybe it’s next weekend… well if that’s the case, you should go and play with them.”
I told her I didn’t want to ‘play’ with two girls, but she told me she wasn’t asking. I reluctantly sauntered outside again where the two girls were waiting. The eldest looked at me from head to toe. “So, why are you wearing a dress Peter?” she asked.
“I told you, my mum made me wear it.”
“It’s very pretty.” the younger said, “But I don’t think I’ve ever seen a boy wearing a dress before.”
Peter tells the girls that he’d never worn a dress before, until today of course. They ask him if he likes it. He tells them that he feels silly in it and it’s not fair that he has to wear it just because his mum decided.
“Well… there’s no point making it if nobody’s going to wear it.” the elder girl said. “and it’s not as if you have a sister is it?”
Peter shook his head. “She could have made a pair of pants or a shirt instead of this though.”
“But they’re really hard… it’s much easier to make girl’s clothes.” the elder girl explained.
“And you wouldn’t look half as pretty.” the younger girl grinned.
A moment later, granny comes out with a tray of pop and cake for them. “Doesn’t Peter look nice in his dress?” Granny asks. Of course, the two girls say he looks lovely, and with them, both wearing jeans and t-shirts means he’s the only one wearing a dress. “I found a skipping rope in the hedge that might belong to one of you two.” granny says. “It’s on the wall there,” she adds before leaving the three alone.
Before long, Peter finds himself being taught how to skip. It doesn’t take him too long to get the hang of it. “If my friends could see me now.” he thinks as the two girls spin the rope whilst he jumps in time.
Eventually, the girls are called in for supper and Peter soon finds himself with nothing to do. Noticing his boredom, his grandmother asks him if he’d like to do anything ‘nice’ this evening. He knows what he wants to do, but that doesn’t involve staying at his granny’s house or wearing a dress. He shrugs his shoulders, so she suggests watching a DVD. That sounds promising until she assumes that he’s happy to go with her to the rental store to choose one. He refuses to go if it means going in his dress, so his grandmother goes on her own. She’s confident he won’t go anywhere.
Whilst he’s alone, he tries and fails one more time to undo the buttons on the back of his dress. Then he realizes there’ll be nothing for him to change into except his granny’s clothes. When she returns he’s waiting patiently in the armchair. When she shows him the two films she’s rented he wished he’d gone with her as tonight’s entertainment is Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue, and Disney Princess: Enchanted Tales.
His grandmother began preparing supper and Peter found himself in the back garden once more. After a few minutes just meandering and a few more sitting on the swing, he notices the skipping rope on the picnic table. “This day is just going from bad to worse.” he thinks as he begins to skip for no other reason than for something to do. He knows what he must look like but he’s beyond caring.
After supper, his granny asks him which film he’d like to watch first. Neither was very inspiring for Peter, but he decided to get the Princesses out of the way first. By the time Tinker Bell had finished, Peter was shamed by the fact he’d enjoyed them more than he’d expected. It was almost eight o’clock and Granny said it was time for him to wash up and get ready for bed.