Date: Mon, 31 May 2010 13:45:04 EDT
From: BertMcK@aol.com
Subject: Dancing on the Tundra Chapter 1 of 24

DANCING ON THE TUNDRA
by Bert McKenzie
  2010

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction.  Any resemblance to any real
person alive or dead is coincidental and unintentional.

CHAPTER I

     Terry sat in the dusty basement and cried softly.  The tears
ran down his face and mixed with the blood dripping from his nose
to make a pink, watery mess which slowly stained the front of his
white uniform shirt.  His nose hurt and the blood frightened him
making him cry all the more.  He wanted to relax into his grief
and sob his heart out, but he was afraid someone upstairs might
hear him.  The absolute last thing Terry wanted was to be
discovered crying over a bloody nose while he hid out among the
broken desks and cobweb covered books that were discolored with
mildew.  He tried his best to stifle his sobs.  They came as
quiet gasps which caused his chest and throat to ache and his
shoulders to convulse.

     The basement was dark and dingy, the only light coming
through a grimy little window of frosted glass mounted high on
the foundation wall.  The dull grey glow barely illuminated the
rickety wooden steps which led down to this small, forgotten
storage chamber.  At one time in the distant past it had been a
coal bin for the school.  The window was originally an opening to
a chute where big trucks could pull up and empty their loads of
combustible rock.  The room was a square stone box with an old
metal door in one wall that led to the rest of the basement.  A
huge metal furnace had stood close to the door on the other side
so it could be easily stoked from the coal in this bin.  But as
times changed the big metal furnace was converted to gas and long
pipes were run into it from outside.  The coal bin was converted
to storage space and now, in 1963, it was for the most part
forgotten.

     Terry suddenly jerked his wet face up to look at the
overhead beams.  Footsteps could be heard in the hallway above.
The sound came directly to the door and Terry held his breath as
he heard it open.  He had forgotten to lock it.  He tried to
squeeze back further into the corner behind the broken desks.
Perhaps whoever it was would go away.  He breathed a quiet sigh
of relief as he heard the door creak shut again.  Just as his
heart began to slow down he heard a footstep on the rickety
stairs.

     "Terry?  Are you down here?" a voice called softly.  The boy
didn't know what to do.  Should he call out in answer or sit
tight and hope whoever it was would go away.  It might be a trap.
The stairs creaked as the searcher came slowly down into his
gloomy retreat.  "Terry?"

     He looked up and saw her standing just a few feet away in
the middle of the room.  Terry breathed another sigh as he
realized it was Paula.  Paula Brown had been his next door
neighbor and best friend as long as he could remember.  They had
their fights, but they always made up and got back together.
Although the two were the same age, Paula always seemed older,
and perhaps she was, if only in temperament.  She stood taller
than he, an awkward looking little girl, all elbows and knees.
Her long, thin face and high cheekbones she inherited from her
father.  The man always reminded Terry of a horse with his sad
brown eyes and long, forward jutting jaw.  It was plain to see
that Paula took after him.

     She suddenly spotted the fugitive crouched down behind the
broken desks.  "Terry, what are you doing back there?" she asked.

     "Nothing," the boy said as he tried to push himself further
back into the corner.

     "Have you been crying?" Paula asked.  She knelt on the dirty
floor to examine her friend.  His small round face was tear
stained, his crystal blue eyes red rimmed, and dried blood caked
on his upper lip.  "Your mom's gonna kill you," she said as she
noticed the red splotches on his white shirt.

     "I don't care," he said sullenly as he sniffed.

     "Sister Mary Francis is gonna notice you aren't in class."

     "Well neither are you," the boy countered.

     "I told her I had to go to the bathroom.  Now come on and
lets go upstairs before you're missed."

     Terry could feel his throat tightening again at the thought
of going back into the classroom.  He had to bite his lip to keep
from crying.  "I . . . I can't . . ." he managed to say before
the tears began to leak out of his eyes again.

     "Come on," Paula said and grabbed his hand.  She pulled him
up.

     "No," he protested.

     "Come on.  Don't be a baby."  The words stung.  That was
what the other boys had called him.  Michael Myers had started it
but the others were quick to join in.  Now Paula was calling him
a baby, and he had trusted her.

     The girl felt him begin to struggle, but she only grabbed
him tighter around the arm.  "Come on," she said.  "Sister Alice
Claire's room is just above us.  She might hear you."  Paula half
pulled and half dragged the boy to the bottom of the steps.  He
finally quit his struggles and followed her up the creaking
stair.

     Paula cautiously opened the door and peeked out.  The coast
was clear, so the two of them slipped back into the hall.  Terry
had the presence of mind to pull the big skeleton key from his
pocket and slip it into the lock to secure the door.  He had
found the old key in a rusty, tin box in his garage at home and
had tried it on every lock he found.  As luck would have it, it
worked most of the old locks on the doors at school, at least the
ones to the janitor's closet and the two basement doors.  The
classrooms were never locked, and the main entrance doors to the
building were much newer, too new to be worked by such an old
key.  The basement became Terry's own private hide out.  He had
hidden there through several recesses when he could slip away
without being seen.  The only other person to know about the
basement storage room was Paula.  Terry told her about it.  He
told Paula everything.

     "Come on," the girl said and quickly pulled him down the
hall.  They slipped down the blue-grey painted walls and floor
covered with brown linoleum and they passed the rows of empty
brass hooks that held coats in winter, finally coming to the
bathroom doors.  "Go in there and wash your face," Paula ordered.
"I'll go back and tell Sister you had an accident."

     "Thanks," Terry said before he slipped into the boys' room.

     Inside the room was painted pastel green.  Four toilets in
stalls without doors on them lined one wall.  Right next to the
door but separated by a wood partition that only went up five
feet was a long, porcelain trough.  As Terry stepped in, a sixth
grader was just zipping up his fly and leaving.  Terry stepped
over to one of the four sinks opposite the toilets.  He looked up
at his image in the cracked and spotted mirror.  He truly was a
mess, his face smudged with black where his dirty hands had tried
to wipe away the tears.  Even his pale blond hair was streaked
with dust from the basement.  He turned on the water and began to
wash up.

     "Terrance Michaelson," an adult voice called.  He turned and
looked up to see Sister Mary Francis standing in the restroom
doorway.  She seemed hesitant about coming in.  "Are you alone in
there?" she asked.

     "Yes, Sister," the boy replied.

     The nun quickly stepped into the boys' room and crossed to
him at the sink.  "What did you do?" she asked as she gently
lifted his head to look at his nose.  She took a brown paper
towel and moistened it, then dabbed at the dried blood.  "And
just look at your shirt.  What in heaven's name will your mother
say?"  Terry didn't answer.  He could tell it was a rhetorical
question.  The nun continued to fuss over him, then dabbed a
clean paper towel at the stains on his shirt.  "How did this
happen?"

     "I . . . I fell down at recess," the boy lied.

     Sister Mary Francis' oversized rosary beads clattered on the
floor as she squatted down beside him so she could look him in
the eyes.  She was the tallest nun Terry had ever seen, normally
towering over her fifth graders.  She was even taller than
Michael Myers and he was the tallest kid in class having been
kept back at least twice.  "Paula Brown told me you were in a
fight."

     "She said she was going to tell you I had an accident,"
Terry blurted out before thinking.  He suddenly realized what he
had said and felt very uncomfortable.  He wondered if it was a
mortal sin to lie to a nun.  Now he knew he would have to go to
confession on Saturday.

     "Did one of the other boys do this to you?" the woman asked.
Now Terry was really in a quandary.  If he said yes then Michael
Myers would get in trouble.  He had no sympathy for the boy who
beat him up, but he did have a healthy respect for the
retaliation that would invariably come to a squealer.  Yet if he
lied to the nun a second time he knew he might go the hell before
he ever had the chance to go to confession.  So Terry kept
silent.  He was really afraid that Sister Mary Francis would
force the issue and compel him to name his attackers.

     "I'll go call your mother," the nun said as she stood to
again tower over the boy.  "I'll tell her not to worry, but
perhaps you had better go home and have her soak your shirt.
You're lucky you didn't scrape yourself on the cement when you
fell."

     "Yes, Sister.  Thank you, Sister," the boy said.  He wanted
to fling out his arms and hug the tall woman in the long, black
skirt.  He wasn't sure if she believed him, but she pretended she
did anyway.  She was so nice to him.  He wished she was his
mother.  He would love to have her fold him in her arms, to be
hugged by the heavy sleeves of her habit.  But instead he stood
there quietly until she took his hand and walked with him down
the hall to the office.  He was going home early on a Friday, and
best of all, he wouldn't have to see Michael Myers again until
Monday.

                            *   *   *

     "Why didn't you hit him back?" Paula asked as they sat on
her porch swing that evening.

     "I don't know," Terry replied.  But in truth he did know.
He was afraid of the bully.  He was afraid that if he hit back
Michael Myers would only hurt him all that much more.

     "Terry, you're going to be a sixth grader next year," Paula
explained.  "You can't keep acting like a baby."

     "I'm not a baby!" he said strongly.

     "Well you sure act like one sometimes, or a sissy."  The two
of them sat in silence for a while.  "What were you fighting
about anyway?" she asked at last.

     "The two team captains were yelling about who had to take
me," Terry answered quietly.  "Michael Myers said he wasn't going
to take me because I was a girl and a baby.  Then he hit me in
the nose."

     "You gotta play with them," Paula said.

     "But I don't like baseball," came the answer.  "It's boring,
and I can't catch and I can't hit the ball and nobody wants me on
their team."

     "I'd love to play ball," the girl said wistfully.  "But
Sister Alice Claire won't let us.  She watches the girls'
playground and she says we have to play hopscotch or some other
stupid game."

     "But all the other girls seem to like that," Terry replied.
He had stood at the edge of the tall, chain link fence and
watched the girls playing.  They seemed so happy to play their
games of hopscotch and tag and jump rope.  Terry often wished he
could slip onto their playground and join them.  There wasn't
anything threatening in their innocent games.  Terry wished he
could play with the girls, but of course Sister Alice Claire
stood guard over their playground like the sword wielding angel
that guarded Eden from Adam and Eve once they had been ejected.

     It wasn't like the games played on the boys' playground.
When the boys played things like dodge ball, the object of the
game seemed to be how hard you could throw the ball so that it
really hurt when it impacted with one of the players.  Of course
if one let on how badly it hurt then he was immediately branded a
baby and teased unmercifully.  All of this went on under the
watchful eyes of Brother Andrew, the cleric who monitored the
playground during lunch and recess.  It seemed to Terry that no
matter what atrocities were committed, Brother Andrew never got
involved.  Either he didn't care, or really was as oblivious to
the actions as he seemed to be.

     The girls never had to play baseball.  That game was the
worst.  Two team captains would choose up sides, and at the end
they would almost always argue over who had to take Terry.  He
wasn't very athletic or coordinated, so he became a handicap to
whichever team was unfortunate enough to get him.  Whenever it
was his turn at bat, it invariably meant a strike out.  In the
outfield he either missed the balls or got in the way.

     "I'm not like all the other girls," Paula said, jerking
Terry out of his reverie.  "I hate their stupid games.  They're
always giggling and acting so silly.  I just wish Brother Andrew
would let me play with the boys.  I could show you how to hit a
home run."

     It was then that Terry realized how he and his friend were
alike.  Each one had been born into the wrong gender.  Maybe God
made a mistake.  Since they lived right next door, maybe Terry
was supposed to have been a girl while Paula was destined to be a
boy.  But then Sister said God never made mistakes.  So why were
the two of them so mixed up?  "Maybe . . . maybe we could get
married," Terry said as a plan slowly revealed itself to him.
"We could get married."

     "Married?!" Paula pushed back her long black hair.  "Don't
be so queer."

     "But see I could stay home and take care of the house and
stuff and you could go to work."  It made perfect sense to the
boy.  He knew Paula would protect him and support him.

     "And who's gonna have the babies?" the girl asked.

     "Well, I guess I could," Terry answered slowly.

     "Gosh, sometimes you really are stupid," Paula said in
astonishment.  "Don't you know where babies come from?"

     "Sure," Terry bluffed, but the more the girl stared at him
the more confused he became.  "I know it has something to do with
kissing."

     "Come on," she said and jumped up from the swing.  Paula led
her friend around the house and through her back yard.  They
climbed through the thick honeysuckle bushes into a private
little area that they had discovered right next to the old white-
washed garage.  Paula and Terry had used this tiny clearing as a
clubhouse and a sanctuary for several years.  Now surrounded by
the sweet smell of the trumpet shaped blossoms, Terry sat on the
ground while Paula took the up-ended concrete block that served
as a chair, stool or table as need demanded.

     That evening as the two of them sat close together in their
private sanctuary Paula explained the facts of life to Terry.
She told him about women having periods once a month.  She told
him that a man must push himself inside a woman to make her
pregnant and then how the baby grows inside the woman's stomach.
Nine months later the woman goes to the hospital and the baby
comes out of the same opening where the man had entered her.
Terry sat quietly and stared wide eyed at his friend.  He had
heard stories about pregnancy and having babies, but to have it
graphically explained was a whole different matter.  He could not
quite grasp the concept of a man and woman joining, or of a baby
coming out down there.

     "I just can't believe how you don't know this," Paula said
as she stood up.  She quickly unfastened her jeans and pulled
them down to her ankles.  As Terry sat in silent shock, she
pulled down her panties as well.  "Look," she said as she sat on
the edge of the concrete block and spread her legs.  Terry
marveled at seeing the private, secret part of his friend for the
first time.  "This is where the man goes in and nine months later
this is where the baby comes out."

     "But it's so small," Terry said as he looked at her vagina.
"How does a man get inside there?"

     Paula laughed as she stood up and stooped to pull up her
clothes.  "The guy only lays on top and puts his pee-pee in
there.  Then he squirts in it and his seeds come out of him and
go inside."

     "And that's how babies are made?" Terry asked.  "But not
always.  There must be some other way."

     "No," the girl corrected him.  "That's the only way."

     "But my parent's wouldn't do that!" the boy protested.
"They wouldn't take their clothes off and do that."

     "They had to or you and your brother wouldn't be here."

     Terry just couldn't accept it.  His parents weren't very
affectionate, and his mother was something of a prude.  He knew
they would never take their clothes off, let alone perform the
actions Paula described.  "I gotta go home," he said quickly,
then stood up.

     "Before you go," his friend asked, "can I see it?"

     "See what?"

     "I showed you mine.  I want to see yours."  She pointed to
his pants.  Terry felt himself blushing as his face grew hot.  He
didn't want to show his friend his body.  He had been told by his
parents time and time again that his body was 'dirty' and being
naked was something to be ashamed of.  In church and in school he
had been told about the sins of Adam and Eve and how they had
been naked.  "Come on," the girl coaxed.  "No one will know.  I
won't tell.  Don't be a baby."

     That final jab did the trick.  Terry unfastened his jeans
and pulled them down, then stood and gripped the waistband of his
Fruit of the Loom undershorts.  He hesitated for a moment, then
quickly pulled them down before he lost his nerve.  His tiny
organ was shriveled up close to his body with fear, but Paula
seemed to be amazed anyway.  "That's neat," she admired.  "I saw
a picture in a doctor book once but I never saw one in real life.
I thought it would be bigger."

     "Some . . . sometimes it is," Terry admitted nervously as he
looked down at himself.

     "I wish I had one," Paula said softly.  "I wish I was a
boy."

     It was starting to grow dark and just then Terry's mother
called to him from their porch.  He quickly grabbed for his
shorts and pants and pulled them up in haste.  He was still
blushing as he wriggled back out of the bushes and ran for the
safety of his house.

     That evening, after he had said his prayers and climbed into
bed Terry lay back on the clean white sheets.  He thought about
all that had happened.  Sister said that he should examine his
conscience every night to think about what he had done during the
day and to repent his sins.  He thought about recess and Michael
Myers hitting him.  He thought about Sister Mary Francis and how
he wished he could grow up to be a nun.  He thought about the
strange and frightening things that Paula had told him, and how
they had examined each other's bodies.  Of all the terrible and
frightening experiences and revelations he had had that day, the
one thing that Terry kept thinking of was the envy on Paula's
face when she looked at his pee-pee, and the disappointment when
he pulled his pants back up.  Maybe he wasn't such a baby after
all.

     Just as Terry was about to drift asleep he remembered that
tomorrow was Saturday.  He had to go to confession and tell the
priest that he had lied to Sister Mary Francis.  He knew God
would forgive him because he really was sorry.  He didn't want to
lie to the nun, especially to protect Michael Myers.  Then he
thought about what he and Paula had done.  He should tell the
priest about looking at her and showing her his privates.  That
thought made him tremble with fear.  Surely this must be a great
sin.  The priest might not even have a penance big enough to
cover exposing one's self.  He'd have to say at least a dozen
rosaries for that.  But the worst part was actually telling
Father Heinz.  Despite the fact that he would be in a dark,
little booth, what if the man recognized his voice?  What if
Father told his parents what he had done?  Terry decided it might
be better to go to hell than confess this sin.  He would just
keep it to himself.

     Once he had made his mind up, it was like a great weight was
lifted from him.  He reached his hand down under the covers and
slipped it into the waistband of his underwear.  Ever so gently
Terry felt himself, running his fingers over the miracle of flesh
that made him different and perhaps better than Paula.  As he
touched it, it seemed to grow bigger in his hand until it was
hard.  It caused his underwear and the sheet on top of him to
stick up like a tent.  He looked at the white sheet covering him
like snow.  It was just like the tundra they had read about in
geography.  Terry thought about his body being buried in the
tundra except for that one part that pushed up out of the snow.
In the frozen tundra there wasn't any Michael Myers to bother him
or anyone to force him to play baseball when he was bad at it.
If it wasn't so cold he could be like Adam in the Garden of Eden.
He could take off his clothes and go around naked in the snow.
Then everybody would see this hard thing between his legs and
everyone would look at him with envy, just like Paula.  He
continued to rub and caress it until he finally fell asleep.