It is one thing to fantasise and to take pleasure at what he imagined, but it was quite different to live such a dream. Circumstances forced Peter to walk the streets of his old town dressed as a girl… Read this extract from We Girls.
Extract: Threats, desires and reality
“You’re to see a shrink.” Eloise handed him a duffle-coat, saying, “Button it up.” When he raised his eyebrows, the prefect said, “You might be forced to dress as a girl in school, but the headmistress doesn’t want that to be known.”
Made sense. It was tempting to thwart her plans by revealing how he was dressed, but, knowing the headmistress, she’d find a way of turning his defiance against him.
Eloise pulled a brown beret from her pocket, where it nestled against a paperback and set it at an angle on his head. “Suits you,” she said, no trace of mockery in her voice. His lips were curling in a smile of satisfaction when, to his surprise, she took his hand and led him across the street away from the school.
Walking through his old town dressed as a girl, hand in hand with another girl, filled him with conflicting feelings. Doing so had always been an ardent desire but also a terrifying prospect. Fi had threatened to walk him down the high street dressed in her school uniform but she’d never followed through, leaving him torn between disappointment and relief. The fact that he was being forced to do what he’d always dreamed of was so weird he both trembled with excitement and felt oddly detached.
Of course. It had to happen, didn’t it? They bumped into a bunch of girls from his old school. That there was a war raging between the girls of the two schools didn’t help. Eloise groaned, quickly letting go of Peter’s hand, as the girls moved to block the pavement and surround them.
“Don’t mind us,” a girl Peter recognise as having been in Fi’s class said, “Feel free to cling to your girlfriend.” She sneered at Eloise. “Do you sleep with her? Or is that privilege reserved for nuns?”
Extract from We Girls, Book 3 of the Boy & Girl Saga.
More about the Boy & Girl Saga
Boy & Girl – Twelve-year-old Peter secretly dresses as a girl. Imagine his delight when he finds himself in the head of a girl. Yet, despite his wild hopes, that girl is not him. She’s Kaitling, the daughter of a mage in a beleaguered world. Peter has his own problems when a vicious new girl at school threatens to reveal his girly ways. Becoming friends, Kaitlin and Peter join forces to do battle with those who oppose them.
In Search of Lost Girls – Dressed as a girl, Peter sets out in search of his soul-mate Kate who has been ripped from his arms and kidnapped. In his quest, he is hounded by fanatics bent on eliminating those who mess with gender. Meanwhile, Kate has been dumped in a nightmarish girls’ orphanage where she emerges as a decisive figure in the rescue of her fellow orphans. Will the two ever be together again?
We Girls – Retain his androgynous ambiguity or say goodbye to his girlish self, such is the existential choice that besets Peter. Circumstances, however, force both him and Kate to take up other challenges. By straddling the line between child and adult, between carefree creativity and weighty responsibility, between play and work, they find imaginative ways to confront far-reaching problems on which adults persistently turn a blind eye.
Colourful People – What happens when a boy who dresses as a girl, but has no wish to transition, is confronted with a boisterous crowd of transgender youth in a desperate search for a safe haven? The fierce will to be themselves despite the determined opposition of society is common to both the Lost Girls and the Colourful People. Not surprising then that they join forces and advance together. (Currently being written)