A Step Off the Path

Backfire

My name is Ruby and I have a husband, Fletcher, and three children: Esme, nineteen, in her first year at uni and still living at home; Sloane, seventeen, in her second last year of high school; and Heath, fourteen, with four years of schooling to go.

While I think of my family as something special, I guess we pretty much fit the mould. Married couple in their early forties, both working full-time, paying off the mortgage of our nice four-bedroom house, three normal kids; so there we were.

But now something a little strange was happening. Actually, there had been a lot of minor odd things happening for quite a while. Maybe even a couple of years when I think back on it.

They weren't a big deal, just the occasional funny, unexplained thing, like items being moved or disturbed. It seemed to happen more to the females in the family rather than to Fletcher and Heath, or perhaps the 'men' just didn't notice.

The spare room - which was originally the study, but now used to store stuff, particularly the kids' grown-out-of clothes until I could get around to donating them to charity - also seemed to be suffering these small disturbances.

Then it all came to a head.

"Mum, I came home early today. As you know, Heath was supposed to be at home by himself. Would you believe it, I saw him through the window prancing around his bedroom wearing some of my old clothes."

"What? Don't be silly, Sloane."

"He was, Mum."

"Really! That seems very odd. What did you do?"

"Nothing. I just came in the back way and went straight to my room."

"Oh."

A family conference without Heath. Esme took a hard line, "Well, it's bloody obvious, isn't it? The kid's been ratting around in our stuff and the old clothes in the spare room, and dressing up as some sort of tart."

I was shaking my head in wonder, "But what's he on about? Is it a sex thing?"

Sloan responded, "All I saw, was him strutting around his room, fiddling with the clothes and preening himself in front of the mirror."

"Look," said Fletcher in a laying-down-the-law manner, "we can't just jump to conclusions here. We have to find more evidence, get a clearer picture."

"What do you suggest?"

"I think we will just have to start spying on him, maybe even set a couple of traps."

We did, and after a few weeks had the 'evidence' we needed.

Another family conference (sans Heath).

"He needs a good kick up the bum."

"If we confront him, he'll probably stop, but maybe later he'll start doing it again in a more sneaky way."

"Yeah, we need to do something that has an impact."

"Shock treatment!"

"Okay, but what?"

"Well, he thinks he's so clever dressing up and hiding in his room; what if we made him dress up and go out in public?"

"He hates being embarrassed. That should work really well."

"Make him do it a few times . . ."

"We'll get him some of his own girl's clothes, the whole bit, underclothes, shoes, everything . . ."

"Take him out for lunch, shopping, a visit to the park . . ."

"You don't think we're being a bit too cruel?"

"No, Dad. He needs a hard lesson. This is the best way."

"Okay."

The girls and I got a bit carried away; we ended up getting three different outfits along with the underclothes and other stuff.

Right, we were ready to go.

On the next Saturday morning, I sent Heath down to the shops on a brief errand. While he was away we laid out all the new clothes on the lounge chairs in the living room.

When he got back, I called him into the living room where the four of us were waiting.

I spoke in a stern voice, "Heath, we know what you've been getting up to, and we've decided to take action. We've got these clothes for you (I waved my arm at the clothing on the chairs). We are going to begin taking you out in public - starting with lunch today - with you wearing one of these outfits. If you're going to dress like a girl, then you should let everybody see. Understand . . . young lady," I added with a sneer.

Heath's eyes had gotten big. He looked from us to the clothes and then back to us. Unexpectedly, he smiled and said, "Thank you."

WHAT?????

He started picking up the items of clothing with comments like, "that's nice", "oh, very pretty", and "not sure about this, but we'll see".

The four of us were standing there rigid, gaping stupidly at our 'victim'. With his arms full of the new clothes, Heath turned to us and said with a big smile, "I was beginning to despair that you were never going to wake up to what I was doing."

He headed for his bedroom with the parting remark, "From now on, please address me as Heather."