Kalico 2: Hypnotized & Naked in Hope Springs

Kalico: Wallflower Au Naturel

Kalico: Wednesday morning, The gate at Johnson Farm

Even with all the chatting with Granny, it was still only turning a minute before 6 a.m. when I left the house

Wallflower was waiting for me on the Bus Stop Bench beside our front gate. This time she had a flashlight, so no collisions. She was pulling her shirt down and straightening her clothes.

"Only just now getting dressed?" I teased Flower. "Have you been running around naked in the dark, again?"

"As a matter of fact, I have," she admitted, which was no surprise, considering yesterday morning's nude collision in the dark. "It's isolated and dark out here. I thought it would be fun to walk naked for the mile from my house to here. I got here a few minutes ago and was just taking it easy on your bench until you were ready."

She was seated on a permanent piece of outdoor furniture which Granny calls the Bus Stop Bench. It's placed beside the primitive road and is quite weathered, as if several generations of the Granny Johnson household have waited there to board their school buses. Presumably,  Madison and I will wait there, too. I've never been the extra mile to the house where Wallflower and her Mom live. I think it has a similar bench.

If it had not been for our bumping into each other in the dark Tuesday morning, I would have thought Flower was pulling my leg about nude hiking. But we did collide yesterday so I already knew she's a rather free spirit. I believed her when she said she was doing some fresh air strolling.

Who am I to judge her? Especially because in the last hour I had enjoyed sitting naked for breakfast with Granny, and listening while Granny discussed dancing naked for the troops in World War II. If Flower is the type of girl who walks down the road naked in the dark, it just makes her that much more interesting to know.

"Speaking of naked," I said. "What was that you were saying yesterday about questioning people while they are naked?"

"Oh, that? I read it somewhere," she laughed. "Back in the 1950s the military, particularly the Air Force, did some research and experiments on the topic. They were concerned about U.S. pilots falling into enemy hands in case they were shot down.

"They set up some fake prisoner of war camps and put some pilots in there to see if they could be made to talk, maybe give away military secrets. One of the first things they discovered was that naked prisoners cave in faster than fully clothed prisoners. It was all a research project of course, but many decades later that concept led to some misbehavior on the part of U.S. soldiers guarding prisoners in Iraq."

"So, just now, on the dark road, you were pretending to be a naked prisoner of war?" I teased her more.

"No, I was naked by choice. I was enjoying the fresh air and the feeling of freedom that comes with being naked. If it's a free choice to be naked, you can really feel free. But if you're a prisoner, and forced to be naked, you feel even more vulnerable and less free. Isn't that an odd contradiction on being naked?"

"If you say so," I mumbled. "I think I'm way too modest to be spending much time naked, especially in public places."

We walked or jogged the two miles to the school gym for volleyball practice. I carried my pack with me, with that psychology textbook from Mr. Coltwright, the printout pages from yesterday's journal, a change of clothes, some soap and shampoo, some perfume, a towel and my favorite coarse-tooth comb. My purse and lunch money, that sort of stuff was in the pack too. I should admit, here, that I included a moderate size bottle of perfume stolen from Mom's room. If she's upset about it, I'll remind her that she's always on my case about how I should grow beyond my self-image as a tomboy.

It's a wonder I remembered to put all that stuff into the backpack in such a short time.

The hard copy paper pages of my journal were actually redundant, a safety backup. While I was writing all that stuff – up through half of Tuesday – I emailed each chapter to Mr. Coltwright as I finished it. Ideally, he should have had his copies of my journal last night, or when he checks his email first thing this morning. But who knows what happens to electronic messages? I brought the paper copies just in case. Another system, I thought of later in the day, will be to make copies to CD, if I have some spare blanks, and just drop the disk into the campus mail when we arrive at school.

We had a normal, sweaty volleyball practice. The coach had said the previous morning to expect the photographer, but we knew not to expect him today because –

Because, why?

Golly, because the photographer had surprised us by showing up Tuesday afternoon, that's why. It must be the early hour, I'm forgetting important details of yesterday afternoon.

Our surprise for Wednesday morning's volleyball practice was that the coach divided us into two teams – Upperclassmen and Ninth Grade. There's 14 girls total, so that gives us seven for each team.

He made me libero for ninth grade and one of the junior varsity girls libero for their team. From this point onward she and I are to wear distinctive tee shirts during practice, so the other players can become accustomed to us in our floating positions.

Normally, with fully staffed teams, players are paired up for substitution, and only those two may substitute for each other. The libero may freely sub for anyone on the back row, but must substitute out when that position rotates to the front row.

I'll be limited from serving, except if I sub in with a designated player. In our team's case, it will be Amy. But for practice purposes, I am to let Amy hold the position and serve because she needs the practice. I'm going to have to read the rules again, because there's some other technicalities about libero, such as not playing the ball over my head if I'm in front of the three meter line.

Amy has figured out that she needs lots more practice, and asked for help. I promised to work with her. She also figured out that she can go to the gym on her own to practice serving. We haven't yet arranged for a time when she and I or the others can meet to practice.

I was determined to sneak in a quick shower before going upstairs to meet with Mr. Coltwright.

Additional volleyball team chatter

"Hay Girl! Hey Flower!" someone shouted a greeting when Wallflower and I entered the gym for volleyball practice Wednesday morning.

"Hey back at you!" I shouted, as Flower waved to return the greeting.

"No, silly. It's Hay Girl, you know, like the stuff that grows in your hair. Like the stuff Granny Johnson grows on her farm," the other team member called to me. "After yesterday that's your nickname. It's official, we decided that last night."

"Nickname? Oh brother!" I groaned.

"That's right. After yesterday's little incident, you're Hay Girl. Jamie is still Flower or Wallflower and Yolanda will probably always be Yo. Amy is Blossom. When you four jumped in the shower together you passed the test, we're accepting you as team members."

"We may be a lousy team, but you're accepted as members," another player piped up. "If Yolanda ever shows any motherly tendencies, we'll probably call her 'Yo Mama.'"

"Meantime, welcome to the team," someone else said.

"Gee, thanks. My own nickname? To rub it in about an embarrassing situation? It could have been something worse. I don't know what to say."

"Then don't say anything and answer when you're called," she said. "Yes, it could have been worse, like Hay Baby. Don't bother trying to explain how you got saturated with hay. We know something you probably don't know. We saw the television show, so we're not curious any more.

"Amy better be happy with Blossom. It's better than Muffin! That's what her grandpa calls her. How would you like to be in the shower with a girl named Muffy? Could you keep your mind off her Muff?" she laughed.

The mention of 'Blossom' reminded me momentarily of Blossom, the naked geis fairy princess in my dream. I'd rather forget the dream Blossom, but the image of naked Amy Blossom is still etched in my head from yesterday's shower.