The Library Stairs, Chapter Two

From reception stretched a corridor cavernous and square, high and cool and airy. The prevailing hush was that of all schools halfway into first period on a still midweek morning.

Mini-Flash Robin followed his three guides, who were making small-talk with Mini-Flash Juniper on how they hoped her new uniform was satisfactory, and especially that the knickers they’d chosen were the kind she was used to. When Juniper replied she liked these very much, the girls said they’d thought she would, because generally speaking you couldn’t go wrong with Luttertons.

It was funny, Robin considered as he walked, that Juniper in more ways than one behaved as this gaggle did. The corridor was lined on one side with windows, and shafts of sunlight fell at intervals over the road ahead. Passing through these, Mini-Flash Juniper’s fair hair shone as did the soft tresses of those around her, and all were distinct. Yet while they negotiated the shady interstices, visible edges of sunward skirt-pleats were all that remained, the rest blending with that pleasant deep green which was the ether of a quiet school. There each female form was defined only by the flick of stray strands which caught the bright periphery of a ray, or folds highlighted where a pullover curved to the unknowable hollow of a lower back, or when briefly beneath a bumping hemline the snug seat of white Luttertons was glimpsed as under smoky glass.

Without knowing it, Robin echoed an earlier thought of Joe's. Chap was totes going to have a job concentrating on these classes.

"Perhaps our new girl would like to introduce herself," said the form-teacher with a smile.

Poor Juniper, thought Mini-Flash Robin. Like yesterday wouldn't have been more than enough of being put on show, for anyone, let alone a girl as shy as she was. Nevertheless, Robin was proud of how she rose to the challenge at once, though her naturally pale skin was papery even for her.

She and Robin weren't sitting at the same desk, but were side-by-side with an aisle between them. He gave her a quick encouraging grin as she swivelled round on her chair, for he saw sympathetically that the first leg she put forward was quivering from slender calf to sculpted round thigh under its unaccustomed inkwell tint. The other leg followed, then the rest of her, and next second Juniper was upright at the front of the classroom. Her tie dotted with small silver crests was a rigid plumb-line to describe her straight stance, whilst her blouse and pullover ended in a neat horizontal line where her waistband began.

That seven-eighths school skirt was the same length every other girl wore. It was just that Juniper was taller and far fuller in the hips than average. Consequently her pleats no more than skimmed the tops of her stockings, and that only when she left them alone, which was never. One pensive hand or the other applied incessant hiking fingernails to the navy-blue sheer, sometimes dragging as high as her waist, and consequently disarraying her hemline so the tip of her knickers remained no secret from the rest of the room.

Just as Juniper opened her mouth to speak, one of her cheekier classmates couldn't resist commenting on all the above with a loud wolf-whistle.

Robin's heart pained him as his loved one's blush took possession of her, so swiftly that in the space of moments a furious red was flaming even through the thin fabric of her nylons. After Lasser and Hamaunji and their brand of salacious fun, this was surely going to be a make or break moment. Come on, Juniper, Robin silently implored her. You can do it. You can get past this.

Maybe she somehow heard him.

Because get past it, Juniper did.

"As it happens I did not choose my uniform," her voice rang out clear and strong to the whole assembled form. "I wear it with pride, but not with a view to provocation."

There was a spontaneous round of applause, and no-one clapped harder nor beamed more widely than rapturous Mini-Flash Robin.

"Very good, Mini-Flash Juniper," the teacher told her. "And Nanine," she added sternly to the girl who'd whistled, "at this school we own our bodies. You know that. It's every girl's right - and as of now I suppose I'm going to have to say, every boy's too," she added to Robin mirthfully.

Nanine looked abashed, while Juniper all in a triumphant flurry hastened to her desk and sat down with a bump. Through her flushes she gave Mini-Flash Robin a grateful grin.

"I'm so glad that's over," she whispered to him cheesily.

END OF CHAPTER TWO