The Natural Sissy and the Gang

Appropriateness

"Are you okay?" Sebastian asked Ryan at the bus stop the next morning. Olivia and Amelia were a bit cross with Ryan, and Mrs Baxter had asked him not to call for Darren, having asked Danielle to collect him, so Ryan looked a bit out of sorts, standing on his own.

"Public enemy number one," Ryan replied sarcastically, glancing at Darren, who was holding hands with Danielle a few yards away. "Darren isn't allowed to talk to me, is he?"

"No...did you get in trouble at home?"

"Mum went mental about the detentions and then Mrs Baxter called her," Ryan shrugged as if it was not bothering him. "So, what do you think?"

"I know I would be in big trouble...but you aren't like me?" Sebastian pointed out, offering Ryan a rueful smile. He had his hair in bunches, held in place by school red ribbons, which made him look ever younger. Ryan knew that Sebastian would not turn fifteen until the next August, which made him the youngest in their year, but he looked about nine.

"No...I'm not," Ryan agreed, but he was still scared that he might be, one day. His mother had given him the telling off of his life, and then his father had spanked him, when he got home from work. Not his first one. It was not only petticoating freaks who believed in the occasional use of corporal punishment, but his father had really gone for it. Ryan was, according to his very disappointed parents, immature, disrespectful and downright irresponsible. By trying to influence Darren to disobey his parents, he had interfered in things that had nothing to do with him, potentially upsetting Darren even more. "It was bad...but I'll survive."

"I know you were only trying to help him...it was just a mistake?" Sebastian suggested with a grin, trying to be friendly. "Everyone will calm down in a few days...Darren will still need a mate...and we are friends?"

"I am surprised you are still allowed to speak to me?"

"We're not like that...Darren's Mummy just doesn't want you confusing him...I expect she will let him talk to you again when he is settled?" Sebastian said, looking up at the taller boy as he tried to offer some reassurance. "You need friends too...and I told my Mummy how nice you are?"

"Great...thanks." Ryan said as a spatter of drizzle started to fall and their bus appeared in the far distance and their day proper got underway. Ryan kept himself to himself, mostly. Callum and Sebastian stuck around some of the time, but he was in detention at lunchtime, so he did not have much free time. He had smiled at Darren once or twice, trying to say he was sorry without actually speaking to him, but he did not get much of a response. And he was actually quite glad when he got home, even if that did mean a mountain of prep. His mother was quite predictably cool with him, but he knuckled down and partially thawed her mood by showing her the A he had got in science.

"More of the same, please?" She said, ruffling his hair.

"I am really trying hard, Mum?" He assured her, still in his uniform, as always.

"Oh, you certainly are very trying...but we are pleased with your efforts in the classroom so far...and that is why we transferred you to Meadvale." She smiled, sitting down beside him at the kitchen table. "Educational petticoating works...plain and simple...and you have to take it seriously, Ryan? Otherwise, you won't get the full experience?"

"Mum...I am taking it seriously?" He insisted, although he was not entirely sure what she was really getting at. "I have never worked so hard?"

"Are you going to wear your dress this weekend?" She asked gently, sitting back in her chair and staring into his eyes.

"No...Mum, I don't want to wear a dress?" He insisted, staring back. "Wearing a dress in my own time has nothing to do with school...I agreed to study hard at Meadvale, and I am, you know I am...but I am not wearing a dress?"