Marshmallow Masquerade

by Cynthia Blair

  Once Whittington High came into view, however, Chris forgot all about matching up her sister with Mike Anderson.

  She suddenly realized what the fact that it was Tuesday meant.

  On Tuesdays, Chris Pratt had gym class.

  “Oh, no!” she cried, stopping in her tracks. “Sooz, I just remembered something!”

  “What?”

  “I have gym today! What am I going to do? I mean, what is Charlie going to do?”

  Instead of offering her sympathy, however, Susan grew excited.

  “Chris, that’s fantastic! This could well be one of the shining moments of the Marshmallow Masquerade!”

  “What are you talking about?” Chris wailed. “Surely you don’t expect Charlie—I mean me—to take part in a boys’ gym class!”

  “Why not? Just think, Chris, you’d get to hear what the boys talk about in the locker room! Well, maybe not ... but at least you’d get a glimpse of what boys are like when they’re alone. How they treat each other, what they talk about ... That’s exactly what we were talking about with Holly and Beth last Friday night, remember? Being a ‘fly on the wall’ and all that?

  “It’s simple, too. Just go up to Mr. Nagle, the boys’ gym teacher, and explain that you’re visiting the school from Chicago and that you’re Chris Pratt’s cousin and all that, and that you’d like to take gym so you can get some exercise....”

  “Wait a minute! What will I wear? And where will I change? And ...and ...”

  Susan remained undaunted. “Those are all just minor details. I have great faith in you, Chris. You’ll come up with a way to get around the tricky parts. After all, this is such an opportunity! Oooh, I’m so thrilled!”

  By the time Susan and her twin sister parted, Chris had actually agreed to go along with it.

  But as she walked into her homeroom, her heart sank.

  Oh, no! she thought. Scott Stevens also has gym second period! He’ll be in that gym class with me!

  Even Eddie McKay’s mean looks, all through homeroom, didn’t bother her. For a moment, she had something a lot scarier than a bully’s threats to worry about!

  For the rest of the morning, Chris tried hard to see the positive side of what she was about to do during third period. Maybe Susan was right. Perhaps this really was her “golden opportunity.’ After all, gym class was the only time during the school day that the boys were separated completely from the girls. All male students, a male gym teacher ... and absolutely, positively no girls.

  For the first time, Chris was going to experience being “one of the boys.”

  When third period rolled around and Chris-as-Charlie was striding into the boys’ gym in search of Mr. Nagle, she was still nervous. But she was also excited. After all, she was about to enter territory that no girl had ever entered before. And that, in itself, was no small achievement!

  “Are you Mr. Nagle?” Chris asked, knowing full well that the muscular man in the gray Whittington High T-shirt with a whistle hanging around his neck was, indeed, the boys’ gym teacher.

  “Yes, I am,” he replied. “What can I do for you, son?”

  Chris felt a small surge of triumph, just as she did when anyone she talked to assumed that the short-haired person in the baggy shirt and sneakers was a boy. “I’m Charlie Pratt. My cousins Chris and Susan are students here at Whittington High....”

  “Ah, yes. I know Chris. She’s a cheerleader, isn’t she? And she’s on the girls’ swim team, too, I believe.”

  “That’s right.” The fact that Mr. Nagle knew Chris—as Chris, of course—made the triumph of fooling him even sweeter. “Anyway, I’m from Chicago, but I’m visiting my cousins this week. Chris is out sick, though, and I’ve been going to her classes for her, to help her keep from falling behind. She has gym scheduled for this period, and of course I can’t take gym with the girls....”

  Mr. Nagle laughed heartily. “No, of course not, Charlie. That wouldn’t work out too well, now, would it?”

  If you only knew, thought Chris, smiling to herself. “I guess not. Anyway, I was wondering if I could participate in the boys’ gym class, just for this week.”

  “Sure, Charlie,” he replied. “Why not?”

  Chris had a very good answer to that question, too. But it was one that, for now, she would have to keep to herself.

  “I see you’ve already got sneakers, Charlie. I’m pretty sure I’ve got an extra set of gym shorts and a T-shirt around that you can wear—”

  “Oh, that’s okay, Mr. Nagle,” Chris sputtered. “I mean, uh, I don’t mind wearing these clothes.”

  Mr. Nagle glanced at Charlie Pratt quizzically. “You’ll be working up quite a sweat in my class. I think you’d be much more comfortable in a pair of gym shorts. Besides, it’s a school rule.”

  Chris’s heart sank.

  But before she could say, “Susan Pratt, what have you gotten me into now?” Mr. Nagle had stepped into the small office near the entrance to the gym, picked up some neatly folded clothes from a shelf, and returned to hand them to her.

  “I’m afraid all we’ve got left is extra-large,” he said apologetically. “And there are no more T-shirts, so you’ll have to wear this sweatshirt.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Nagle.” Well, thought Chris, at least if they’re baggy, they’ll help hide the fact that Charlie Pratt is shaped more like a seventeen-year-old girl than a seventeen-year-old boy!

  “I’ll have somebody show you where the lockers are.” Mr. Nagle glanced up at the stream of boys who had started filing into the gym. “Blake!” he called. “Come on over here for a minute!”

  Peter Blake, the “school nerd” that Chris and Holly had been joking about just a few nights earlier, sauntered over wearing a friendly grin. As always, his dark hair was just a bit too long, and a few strands in front kept falling into his eyes.

  “Pratt, this is Blake. Blake, would you please show Pratt here where the empty lockers are? He’ll be taking gym with us this week.”

  “Sure, Mr. Nagle,” Peter Blake agreed cheerfully. “Come with me. I’ll get you set up.”

  “By the way, my first name is Charlie,” said Chris as they walked across the gym together, toward the door to the boys’ locker room.

  “I’m Peter.” He paused for a few seconds. “Pratt, huh? You’re not by any chance related to Chris Pratt, are you?”

  Chris nodded. “I sure am. Chris and Susan are my cousins.”

  “No kidding.” He looked at her more carefully than he had before. “Well, I guess you look sort of like the Pratt twins, a little bit, anyway ... but not really.”

  It was all Chris could do to keep from laughing.

  “So I guess you must know Chris pretty well, then, huh?”

  Even though Peter Blake was apparently quite interested in discussing Christine Pratt, that was the last topic that Chris-as-Charlie wanted to discuss. “Yes, I guess I do. But let me ask you something. Did you ever wonder how come Mr. Nagle calls everybody by his last name?”

  Peter just looked at her strangely.

  Chris realized then that she had just asked a question that most boys would never ask. Why, it was not at all uncommon for boys to be called by their last names. Girls, on the other hand, tended to be addressed by their first names. Or else as “Miss,” as in “Miss Pratt.”

  There’s another difference, she noted with surprise. A small one, maybe, but it must mean something. As if teachers and everybody else feel they have to be more polite around girls. Treat them with more courtesy. As if we girls couldn’t take being called by our last names! Now, there’s something that makes no sense at all!

  But Chris didn’t have much time to dwell on her latest observation.

  She and Peter had just entered the boys’ locker room.

  Fortunately, it was still early, and there weren’t many boys there yet. The few that were there were taking their time, chatting with one another as they dialed the combinations to open their lockers. Even so, Chris kept her eyes down. She felt so out of pl
ace here! Yet she had to be careful not to let on....

  Peter led her to the back, where empty lockers were available. She thanked him. Then, just before racing toward the boys’ room, where she could change out of the way of all the other boys, she said, “By the way, Peter, what sport have you been playing lately in gym class?”

  Peter answered her question in a matter-of-fact tone. “Wrestling.”

  Chris gulped. Susan Pratt, she was thinking, wait until I get my hands on you!

  The boys’ room, she was relieved to discover, was empty. She changed quickly. Fortunately, the extra-large gym shorts hung down to her knees, and the huge Whittington High sweatshirt covered almost every other part of her body. When she glanced at her reflection in the mirror, she actually laughed.

  She slunk through the locker room on her way out to the gym, once again keeping her eyes on the floor. She could hear all the boys in Mr. Nagle’s third-period gym class, hooting and joking and tossing one another’s sneakers around playfully.

  So what if I can’t be a “fly on the wall” in the boys’ locker room! Chris thought as she shut the door firmly behind her. I can still observe what they’re like during gym class, when there are no girls around.

  Once she was out in the gym, Scott Stevens spotted her right away.

  “Hey, Charlie!” he called, making his way over. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “Well, Chris has gym on her schedule this period, so I figured I’d take advantage of it to get some exercise myself.”

  “Good thing you didn’t get stuck in the girls’ gym class!” Scott joked. “You’d probably end up spending the whole period practicing giving tea parties!’

  Chris was astounded by what Scott had just said. Not only was it unfair; it was so far from the truth that she couldn’t believe she had actually heard him say it! She thought about all the female athletes that had helped Whittington High make a name for itself in high school sports. The girls’ basketball team had won last year’s county championship. Her friend Katy Johnson was a first-rate gymnast, good enough to pursue a career as a professional athlete. And even Chris Pratt was an accomplished competitive swimmer. Then there was the fact that all the girls’ gym classes were demanding, just as the boys’ were.

  But this was not the time or place to start defending Whittington High’s female students,

  As it was, she didn’t have a chance to say anything. Just then, Mr. Nagle blew his whistle and announced loudly, “All rights, boys. Let’s get started. I’d like to take a break from our usual routine today. We’ll go back to wrestling in a couple of weeks. For now, I’d like to start you guys on some gymnastics.”

  Chris was so relieved that she felt as if her knees had just melted. Good-bye, wrestling. Hello, gymnastics.

  At the same time, however, she experienced a twinge of disappointment. All of a sudden, she felt like showing Scott Stevens that girls could handle any sport.

  I’ll just have to set him straight some other time, she thought. Hopefully, I’ll have plenty of chances to do that in the future!

  Mr. Nagle started out the period with ten minutes of vigorous calisthenics. Being both a cheerleader and a member of Whittington High’s girls’ swimming team, Chris had very little trouble keeping up. She couldn’t help being pleased by that. She hoped that Scott noticed how well Charlie Pratt was keeping up with the rest of the class ... but of course it wouldn’t even occur to him to check something like that out. Since Charlie was “one of the boys,” Scott would just assume he was better at athletics than any girl could ever be!

  As she launched energetically into push-ups, something else occurred to Chris.

  Good thing it’s me, and not Susan, who’s pretending to be Charlie! She thought as she finished her twentieth push-up. She’s not nearly in such good shape.

  Chris resolved, then and there, to start encouraging her sister to get more exercise and to participate in sports more often. Not only would it be good for her; her twin was missing out on a lot of fun.

  That’s something that boys are geared toward all their lives, she thought. Girls are generally encouraged to do less-active things. Or even to stay on the sidelines, just watching, while boys have all the run!

  Why, come to think of it, there’s even an element of that in cheerleading! The boys are playing, and the girls are encouraging them to play. And that’s okay, except that now that I think about it, when we girls play basketball or participate in swim meets, there are no cheerleaders for us—either boys or girls!

  Once again, Chris was amazed at how much the Marshmallow Masquerade was teaching her. She kept learning all kinds of things about the different ways that boys and girls were treated—often ways that made no sense at all or else were based on really old-fashioned ideas.

  From now on, she decided, I’m going to be more aware of those “differences” and what they mean!

  For now, however, she had more pressing matters to deal with. Like how she was going to get through the rest of this gym class!

  After the calisthenics workout, Mr. Nagle had the boys gather around the parallel bars. Chris was used to seeing the bars set up so that they were uneven, with one of them placed much higher than the other. In fact, it was on the uneven parallel bars that the female gymnasts had distinguished themselves at the last few Olympics.

  Boys, however, used them differently. They were arranged so that both bars were lined up at the same level.

  “Okay, boys,” Mr. Nagle announced. “Today we’re going to try a simple exercise, just to give you a chance to become familiar with this piece of equipment. What I want you to do is pull yourself up and, keeping your elbows stiff, use your arms to walk the length of the bars.”

  I can do that, Chris thought smugly.

  “Okay, let’s go in alphabetical order. Andrews, you’re up first!”

  One by one, the boys got up and tried the exercise on the parallel bars. Peter Blake did fine; Chris was surprised to find that she was actually rooting for him.

  I guess it’s because he was nice to me before. I mean, he was nice to Charlie.

  When it was Chris’s turn, she did just as well as all the others.

  “Good going,” said Mr. Nagle, And as she jumped down from the bars, several of the boys slapped her on the back.

  This is easy! she thought proudly. I’m doing just as well as anybody else in this class!

  When everyone had had a chance on the parallel bars, Mr. Nagle had the boys try a few other pieces of gymnastic equipment. The rings were a bit difficult for Chris, because they demanded real strength. She just thanked her lucky stars that she had been working hard on her Australian crawl lately, one of her favorite swimming strokes. She also managed to keep up with the boys on the horse and the horizontal bar. By the end of the class, Chris was exhilarated.

  I made it! she thought over and over again. I actually managed to participate in a boys’ gym class without a single person suspecting that I wasn’t just like everybody else in the class!

  She couldn’t wait to tell Susan.

  Just as she had before, Chris changed her clothes in the boys’ room, steering clear of the locker room. On her way out, however, she overheard some of the boys talking about Charlie Pratt.

  “Hey, what about that new kid, Pratt?” jeered a voice she didn’t recognize. “Pretty puny, don’t you think?”

  The next voice, however, was familiar to her. “Yeah, he’s skinny, all right,” said Scott Stevens. “At least I don’t have to worry about him taking over as captain of the basketball team!”

  Chris was bewildered. Was it possible that Scott actually felt competitive toward Charlie Pratt? The two boys hardly knew each other! Not to mention the fact that they were supposedly starting up a friendship.... It didn’t make much sense.

  Then again, ever since the Marshmallow Masquerade had begun, Chris had been finding out that a lot of things didn’t make much sense!

  She was even more surprised to hear another familiar voice ru
sh to Charlie’s defense.

  “Aw, lay off,” Peter Blake said. “He’s an okay guy. So what if he’s not as strong as you guys?”

  Chris rushed out of the locker room then. It was getting late, and she had to hurry if she didn’t want to be late for her next class,

  But she was suddenly so confused! And not only about the things she was learning about boys and girls, either. Here she had thought that Scott Stevens was the best thing since chunky peanut butter, and she was discovering that there was another side to him, one that was much less attractive. On the other hand, Peter Blake, the school nerd, wasn’t such a bad guy after all.

  And it was all because she had started looking at them both as equals, instead of as separate, mysterious, different creatures. She was seeing them as people, instead of as boys that she might or might not like to date.

  Whoa! thought Chris, shaking her head slowly. I thought that the Marshmallow Masquerade might be fun and that I might learn a few things. But I never, ever suspected that from now on I would start looking at everything differently!

  Chapter Eight

  As Chris followed Scott up the narrow path that led to the front door of the Stevenses’ house later on that same afternoon, she was still feeling a bit overwhelmed by all that she was finding out simply by pretending to be Charlie Pratt. Even so, she was more enthusiastic than ever about the Marshmallow Masquerade. Why, here it was only Tuesday, yet she already felt as if she were the world’s foremost expert on teenage boys!

  And now she was on the verge of embarking upon still one more phase of this adventure. She was about to see where Scott lived, how he acted at home, and how he treated his friends. His male friends.

  “Thanks for inviting me over, Scott,” Chris-as-Charlie said as she stepped inside and looked around. It was a nice house, quite simple, but made comfortable and warm by numerous small touches. There was a vase of fresh flowers on the coffee table in the living room, and the smell of freshly baked cookies was in the air. The dining room table was already set for dinner. Everything was neat and clean, from the shining wooden floors to the plumped-up pillows on the couch to the highly polished furniture. Chris could tell that a lot of work—and love—had gone into making this place a real home.