Read Online Alex as Well by Alyssa Brugman - Free Book Online Page B

somebody fixes your hem. It’s not a normal shop—they must do mostly online orders.
    The stylist arrives and stands in the background while Miss Angela talks to us.
    ‘Let me make this clear,’ she begins. ‘I don’t want you to be sexy. It’s not appropriate. When you walk, you need to walk as though you’re late for class. There is to be no cleavage, or upper thigh. The principal is coming to the dress rehearsal, and if he doesn’t like the tone, then he will cancel the show, and we won’t be allowed to do it again. So let’s see your walk.’
    We line up and walk up and down the shop. ‘No, no, no. Less hips,’ Miss Angela counsels us. ‘More like this,’ she says, pointing to me.
    ‘She walks like a guy,’ somebody mutters.
    In the background, the stylist, Lien, starts putting together outfits.
    ‘This is about making money,’ she explains. ‘The audience will be given order forms and they can tick off clothes in the sizes they want, and hand them in as they leave. This means we’re doing clothes your mother would wear and school-formal dresses.’
    Then Lien asks us to strip to bras and knickers, and she will hand out the outfits.
    The girls look around.
    ‘Well, come on then, get busy. We’re all girls here.’
    And then they start undressing. Amina is undressing.She kicks her shoes off. She reaches back to unzip her tunic. She turns to Julia. Julia slides Amina’s zip down. Amina slips the material off her shoulder. The tunic crumples to the floor. Even with the shirt on I can see the curve of her buttocks.
    One of the year eleven girls has enormous breasts in a pink lace balconette bra. Everywhere I look there are breasts and buttocks. I spin around.
    Now Amina is coming towards me, in her underwear. She has a hot, smooth, athletic body.
    She reaches towards my zip. She has mistaken my turning away as a request for help. She is close enough to me that I can feel her breath on my skin and the warmth from her body.
    Alex is shouting in my head. They’re going to see! They’re going to see!
    ‘No!’ I shrink back from her.
    It’s like some hideous porn cliché. It’s a nightmare. I squeeze my eyes shut, but I can still smell their perfume, and something else. A girl smell. It goes up my nose and straight to my groin. I cross my hands in front of the noodle.
    ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Miss Angela asks.
    They’re going to see! Alex is hysterical. He’s sweating. He’s going to cry.
    Shut up!
    ‘I don’t feel well,’ I whisper.
    I’m so ashamed.
    She stares at me, and then she draws me away from the other girls. ‘What is it?’ she asks.
    I swallow. ‘I’m not wearing a bra,’ I confess. ‘I didn’t realise we’d have to get changed in front of other people.’ I fan my sweaty face. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just…I’m embarrassed.’
    She scans my eyes and then she sighs. ‘Ok, I have an idea.’
    Miss Angela draws the wheelie clothes racks into a triangle around me. It’s like a change room. ‘Better?’ she asks.
    I nod at her over the coat hangers.
    ‘Anyone else like to make themselves a change room?’ she asks.
    Nobody did. Most of them didn’t even look up. They were folding their clothes into piles by their feet, or on a nearby chair.
    Julia looks at Amina and rolls her eyes.
    Lien leans towards Miss Angela and murmurs, ‘Is this one going to be a problem?’
    Miss Angela shrugs.
    I pretend I didn’t hear.
    Lien throws a red tartan suit over the clothes rack at me. ‘Here you go, princess.’
    The other girls are pulling their outfits on, and finally everyone is dressed again. Think of road kill. Stinking dead carcasses, half mooshed with flies on. There. That’s done the trick.
    I smooth the front of my skirt. Smooth, smooth, like the Clinique girl. Then I move the rack aside and I stride out in my red tartan suit and my steel-capped boots, and stop, with my hand on my hip.
    Lien and Miss Angela exchange a glance. Miss Angela shakes her head.
    ‘What?’ I