Ballet for Boys

Christmas end of term at the Grammar School was always a nightmare for Joe.  In those halcyon days having boys knock seven bells out of each other for sport was considered suitable entertainment for the school so Christmas was always heralded by the school boxing tournament.

Such was the beneficial effect, the general all round manly virtues, engendered by such sport, that all boys were expected to take part.  Joe, being the smallest, lightest and altogether girliest boy in the class knew he would get pounded to pieces.  Strangely enough it wasn't the getting pounded to pieces that worried him, he wasn't a cissy in that way, it was that everyone would laugh at him getting pounded to pieces, especially his sister.  His sister, a well built light heavyweight, would have walked away with the tournament, if only girls had been allowed to box.

He resolved therefore to try and get out of boxing.

"Please Sir," he was addressing Noddy Younghusband the senescent games teacher at the school as the boxing gloves were handed out.

"Yes," Noddy growled at him, his voice roughened by years of chain smoking Woodbines.

"Please Sir, I don't want to do boxing."

"Don't want to do boxing?" The idea that some boy would not want to do boxing was quite alien to Noddy and it took some minutes and repeated requests form Joe to sink in, "Don't want to do boxing?"

"Yes Sir.  I'd rather not Sir.  If it's possible Sir."

At that moment old Whacker, the headmaster, appeared.  His real name was in fact Whicker, but being a teacher of the old school the name Whacker seemed somehow more appropriate.

"What seems to be the trouble Mr Younghusband?" He sneered.

"Boy here doesn't want to box."

"Some sort of cissie are you boy?" the Whacker barked at Joe.

"No Sir," Joe wished now he'd never said anything.

"Tell you what Mr Younghusband, if he doesn't want to box, we shouldn't make him," he sniggered rather disconcertingly, "hand him over to Miss Dragoon, he can take part in the girls' dancing display."

Girls of course did not box, instead they put on a display of dancing at the end of term, vaguely termed the 'ballet' though of course nobody was teetering about on their toes or leaping about doing entrechats.  The ballet was organised by the ancient music teacher Miss Dragoon, not inaptly nicknamed The Dragon, her fierce temper being matched only by her extreme shortsightedness and her love of gin, a bottle of which she kept 'hidden' in her desk.  In these days of child centred political correctness we should not lose sight of the fact that not long ago every school had at least one sadistic alcoholic on its teaching staff, and many had several.

Joe went pale with horror.  Put in the girls class.  Made to dance!  No greater horror could befall a boy in Grammar School than being made to dance.But he had no choice.  He was dragged along to Miss Dragoon’s group and deposited in front of her.

“This child wants to dance,” announced the headmaster, and left him there to his fate.

Miss Dragoon had taught all her adult life in the Grammar School.  She had started there in 1952 full of the enthusiasm of the new Elizabethan age, anxious to bring knowledge and learning to generations of young and eager children.  Thirty-five years later, beaten down by years of trying to push a love of music into reluctant brains she had become an embittered old spinster, too fond of gin and not too bothered about much else.  Except the Christmas dance entertainment.  She had produced this every year since old Mrs Trevelyan had passed on.  It might be the same every year.  It might be totally hopeless.  But at least it was hers.  She was also very short sighted.

She stared down at Joe through her pebble lensed spectacles.

"Well child, what are you waiting for.  Get yourself changed."

"But I'm wearing shorts," stammered Joe.

"Shorts are no use for dancing.  Use the things in the box," snapped Miss Dragoon.

Joe looked in the box.

"But, there's only a pair of old gym knickers and a tee shirt Miss," Joe's use of the word knickers brought about a little giggle from the girls.

"So..."

It occurs to me that some gentle readers may hail from distant shores where the concept of gym knickers is unknown, so perhaps I had better explain.  In those days fancy lycra sportswear and the like were still things of the future.  Girls could not of course wear their school dresses so theydid activities like gym and dancing in their knickers.  Tight fitting, blue cotton knickers, universally known as gym knickers.

It was such a pair of knickers that Joe held up now.

"You mean I've to put these on," he asked.

"Of course child," hurry up, we need to get on.

"I'll need to go to the changing room to get changed."

"Don't be stupid child.  You can't be shy at your age.  Just put them on here."

Joe went bright red.  He had to strip off and put a pair of knickers on in front of all these girls.  He opened his mouth to protest, but the Dragon's fierce glare squashed all resistance.

He took off his shoes and socks and pulled down his shorts.  The girls were all staring at him in his tighty-whitey string underpants.  It was all too embarrassing.  But worse was to come.

"Come on child.  Get your pants off as well.  You can't wear those under the gym knickers."

Joe opened his mouth to protest again, but again no words came out.  Horrible Mandy Phillips came and stood beside him.  She was the biggest and most forward of the girls and one of the major torments in Joe's life.

"Pull 'em down" she whispered in his ear.  And he knew he would have to.  As quick as he could he pulled down his underpants and trying his best to cover his willy with his hands he pulled the gym knickers on.  Given the fact that Joe's willy was not the biggest in the world you might think that this would not be too difficult a task, on the other hand you would only think this if you had never actually tried pulling up a pair of gym knickers with one hand, with horrible Mandy Phillips, six inches taller than you are, standing next to you.  He realised very quickly that his best option was to uncover his willy and try and pull the gym knickers up as fast as he could.  It was his misfortune that the Dragon chose that very moment to go and get her music for the dancing.  Quick as a flash Mandy Phillips had his arms pinioned behind his back.  The gym knickers, which he had managed to get as far as his knees slipped back to the floor, and his willy was put on display for all the girls to see.

"What are you laughing at girls?" The Dragon snapped as she retrieved her music from the piano stool.

"Just a funny little thing," sniggered Mandy Phillips, letting go of Joe's arms.

"This is no time for amusement," said the Dragon turning back to face the girls as Joe at last got his knickers up and pulled on the tee shirt, "time to se how well you can dance."

She started to play.

"Just dance round the room in time to the music, so I can judge your sense of rhythm."

There is a big difference between boys and girls aged sixteen, above and beyond the fact that one lot have willies and the others don't.  Sixteen year old girls love to dance, for sixteen year old boys dancing is something confined to the outer circle of hades.  A punishment only to be visited on those who have committed the gravest of sins.  Such as refusing to box.

Joe couldn't believe it, Mandy Phillips excepted, the girls were actually quite good.  They did this sort of thing voluntarily, they went to dancing classes in their spare time.  Mrs Trevelyan's Treasure's of Terpsichore Dancing School (Ballroom, ballet and tap) still bore the name of the old martinet although Miss Dragoon had run it for many years.

He stood still as the girls skipped and pirouetted round the room, some performing intricate coupes and fouttes as they did so.  He and Mandy Phillips lumbered round jumping up and down in what they fondly believed was time to the music.

Miss Dragoon looked on in dismay.  The big one and the new one would have to go.  They would spoil the whole thing.  She was going to put on a version of the second act of Coppelia and they would just spoil it.  Not that the girls would be up on pointes or anything, and it was hardly Petipa's originally choreography, but they would still spoil it.

Coppelia.  As her fingers flew mesmerically over the keys of the ancient upright piano, her mind drifted back to that far off day in 1956 when Billy had taken her to London.  He had taken her up to town for the cup final and after his team had won he had bought two tickets for the ballet.  Two seats in the God's at Covent Garden and they had sat watching Coppelia holding hands.

Billy.  If only things had been different.  If only her father hadn't....  She wondered where Billy was now and as she did so a little of that old enthusiasm, that old desire to pass on a love a music to the younger generation, came back to her.  The big one and the new one had wanted to dance.  They might be useless but that didn't matter.  She would include them whatever it took.

She snapped down the lid of the piano.

"You're all in the ballet," she grunted.  It was her good deed for the year.  And she was to live to regret it.  So was Joe.

The bell sounded for the end of the lesson.

"Changed, showered and back to your classrooms," announced Miss Dragoon.  Joe breathed a sigh of relief.  It was over.  He picked up his shorts and set off.

"Where do you think you're going," Miss Dragoon grabbed him.

"Back to my class."

"Shower first," and pulling him by the ear she dragged him towards the girl's changing room.

Joe tried to protest, but she was pulling too hard on his ear.  This was just the sort of punishment the dreadful woman would inflict for ruining her dance display, making him wear knickers and get changed in the girls' changing room.  He determined to escape once he got inside, but it was no good.  Mandy Phillips had a hold of his other ear and he was dragged in.

Joe stood under the freezing shower shivering with cold and embarrassment.  Mandy Phillips hadn't allowed him to turn the hot on.  He was hiding in the corner shower in the shower room facing the wall, back to the shouting giggling girls.  For some reason, although he was crimson with shame, the giggling girls, who must have been equally naked, seemed to be loving every minute of it.  Joe thought they must be naked because they were in the shower, but he didn't dare look.  He'd been told he mustn't look.  There was however another reason why he didn't want to turn round.  He was naked in the shower with a load of naked girls.  The result was inevitable.  He looked down at his little willy.  Why had he got such a little one.  Thank goodness the girls couldn't see it.

"Come on you girls," the voice of the Dragon echoed through the changing room, "Stop dilly-dallying, you should be dressed by now."

The girls scuttled out the shower, but Joe remained anchored to his place.  He didn't dare turn round.

"Hey you," the Dragon was addressing him directly, "get out and get dressed.  Just because you're a new girl don't think you can take liberties."

As he heard these words a sudden horrible realisation came over Joe.  She had called him 'the new girl'.  He hadn't been made to wear knickers and shower with the girls as a punishment, the short sighted old bat had mistaken him for a girl.  Not for the first time in his life Joe cursed his blonde curls, his delicate features and his high pitched voice.

Ther was only one thing for it.  Slowly he turned round.  But the Dragon had already rushed off.  Not the girls though.  With a loud whoop they pointed at his private parts.  He looked down with horror.  The cold water had shrunk his little willy even further.  And all the girls had seen it.  The news would be round the school in no time.  The girls had seen Joe's willy and it was tiny.

To begin with Joe thought he had had a lucky escape, but then he realized, he hadn’t escaped at all.  If only he’d said something, but he hadn’t, he couldn’t now tell the Dragon that he was a boy.  She’d say he’d been deliberately pretending to be a girl, to get into the girls changing rooms.  It was hopeless.  If she ever found out he’d been in desperate trouble.  There was only one thing for it.  He would have to go on pretending to be a girl.  Have to dress up in knickers and a girl’s tee shirt every week, have to shower with the girls.  It was all too humiliating, but what could he do?  He had no option.

Of course all the children knew, but never a word was spoken to the teachers.  Why would anyone want to spoil the fun?  So the next day Joe reluctantly pulled on his blue knickers and girly tee shirt and stood in line waiting to be given his part in the ballet.

The Dragon dragged out three of them.  She pointed to the first girl Ann-Marie Williamson was, in Joe's eyes, the sexiest girl in the class.  She was similar in height and build to Joe, with the same golden locks, but of course she was a proper girl not a silly girly boy.  She could also dance beautifully.

"Swanilda," said the Dragon, pushing her back.She had been the obvious choice.

Next came Mandy Phillips.  Not perhaps an obvious choice for a lead role, but she had her reasons, "Doctor Coppelius," she said.

Finally it was Joe's turn, "Coppelia," she said.

Joe stared back in alarm.  He had hoped to be some sort of anonymous spear carrier at the back and here he was in the title role.  He was going to have to dance.

He would soon find out, as you will know gentle reader, that in this belief he was entirely mistaken.

In the ballet of Coppelia, at least in the Dragon's much modified version, Dr Coppelius, being short of female company and not in a position to indulge himself with an inflatable rubber woman, has made for himself a lifesize wooden doll in the form of a beautiful girl - Coppelia.It is his intention to bring the doll to life with a few waves of his magic wand!

Joe therefore was to play a wooden doll, a part to which he was ideally suited as it involved basically no more than standing still in the middle of the stage.

In the second act, on which the Dragon had based the performance, Swanilda and a group of village maidens for no accountable reason sneak into Dr Coppelius's house to peek a look at this strange doll.  They leap around for a while, do a few peasant dances (as you do when you are breaking and entering) and eventually find Coppelia hidden behind a curtain.  Then, horror of horrors, and not entirely unexpectedly, Dr Coppelius turns up and chases them round and round the room looking mean and nasty (type casting for Mandy) and they all run out, except Swanilda who hides behind the curtain.  There she plays a trick on the old twit by dressing in Coppelia's clothes and prancing round the stage pretending to be a puppet brought to life.  Dr Coppelius is entranced until Swanilda reveals the doll still behind the curtain, still made of wood and dressed only in her bra and panties.  At which point Dr Coppelius catches Swanilda, puts her over his knee and smacks her behind.  All good clean fun.

Joe played little attention to the rehearsal being continually in a blue funk at the thought of being unmasked as a boy dressed up in girly knickers and spending most of his time behind a curtain.But that wasn't the worst of it.  After every rehearsal he had to go back to the girls changing room where Mandy Phillips made him take a cold shower.  Never one peek at the girls was he allowed, but he was tormented by the fact that he was surrounded by nude girls and his little cock, proud and erect the whole time, was a source of continual amusement to the girls.

It was with a sense of enormous relief therefore that the day of the performance in front of the whole school arrived.  Joe arrived in his gym knickers to be met with a command of the utmost horror.

"You girl," the Dragon was pointing at him, "put your costume on."

Costume?  What costume?  Why hadn't Joe realised that he would need to dress up for the part.  He looked at his costume.  A short white ballet dress.  He was going to have to put on a dress!  He was going to have to dress up as a girl in front of the whole school.  It was too horrible to contemplate.  But what choice did he have.  He put on the dress.

"Well put your ballet knickers on girl.  You can't wear those.  You can see them through the dress."

Joe looked round in horror.  The real girls all had proper white ballet knickers and he had no such thing.  To admit that he hadn't got any would give away that he wasn't a girl.With a horrible realisation he knew there was only one option.  To pretend he was wearing ballet knickers.  After all he didn't have to kick his legs up or anything.  Even though he was completely naked under the dress nobody would know.  Quick as he could when the Dragon wasn't looking, he pulled down his knickers, pulled off his tee shirt and pulled on the dress.  He was ready for the performance.

The children filed in.  Watching the Dragon's boring old ballet was usually an annual torment for them, but this year they would have to opportunity to both laugh at Joe in his ballet dress and ogle Anne-Marie's knickers (she did have to kick up her legs) so it wasn't all bad.

Joe hid behind the curtain.  The performance would soon be over.  His nightmare would soon be over.  Little did he know.  Suddenly the curtain was pulled back. The girls had found him.  The children in the audience roared with laughter at the sight of Joe in his ballet dress.  

Bashing away on the piano Miss Dragoon was surprised, and not a little pleased, at the reception her little performance was getting.She was used to it being endured in glum silence.  The other staff members had skyved off back to the staff room for a fag.  They wouldn't know what they were missing.

Back on stage Mandy Phillips was chasing the girls off stage.  All except the lovely Ann-Marie.  She crept in beside Joe and pulled the curtain across.  Joe's nightmare was about to begin.

"Get your dress off," she said.

"What!"

"Get the dress off.  I've got to put it on and pretend to be you."

All this time it hadn't occurred to Joe.  He had to give the dress to Swanilda and be exposed in the end in his knickers.  Except he wasn't wearing any.  He was stark naked under the dress.

"But I've got nothing on underneath."

"Do I care?  Get the dress off."

"No!"

"It's not as if I haven't seen your willy before."

This might have been true but it didn't help.

"No!"

Now Anne-Marie might have been a little slip of a girl, but she was feisty with it.  No way was she going to be deprived of her finale.

"Right!"

Joe felt a hand go up his dress and grab hold of his balls.  And squeeze.  Anne-Marie had grown up on a council estate.  She knew how to make a boy do what she wanted.  Joe had the dress off in seconds.

The children in the audience were getting bored again.  Anne-Marie's knickers were no longer on show and she was prancing round the stage like a demented puppet.  At last the finale came.

Joe couldn't wait for the end.  Cowering in the nude behind the curtain, unable to escape.  He had forgotten one thing.

The demented doll went over to the curtain to show the stupid doctor...

One moment Joe was standing in relevant obscurity behind the curtain, the next, the curtain was pulled back and he found himself staring out, naked, at the whole of the school.

Miss Dragoon was more pleasantly surprised than ever at the uproar that greeted the revelation of what lay behind the curtain.  She bashed away on the piano oblivious of the mayhem on stage.

On the stage, Joe, exposed completely nude, stripped, naked and humiliated to the whole of the school, was running round, hands over his privates,being chased by the imposing figure of Mandy Phillips.  

On the piano, amid tumultuous shouts, Miss Dragoon played the final chords.  The audience burst in spontaneous laughter.  Joe had taken his hands away.  The whole school had seen his willy.