Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 Copyright (C) 1998, Clayton.  ALL Rights Reserved

   Babysitter - Jenny Chapter 1 - Mgg, voy, setup

   <begin Intro> Greg applies for a position as tutor and meets a couple of
wannabe sluts.  <end intro>
Disclaimer:

   This is a work of fiction.  No illegal activity described

   herein was carried out, this document details fantasies

   that took place late at night when I was alone in bed.  I

   firmly believe that no fifteen minutes of pleasure is

   worth the innocence of a child.  Besides, I derive much

   pleasure from the company of children, playing with them

   or simply watching them at play, I am not going to risk

   this for any momentarily heightened sense of pleasure.

   If you are under the age of eighteen the law says I've

   got to tell you to go away, so, "Go away!" Common sense

   says you're going to ignore me, so don't blame me if you

   go blind, your parents find you in possession of this

   document or your space bar to stops working.

   If this type of material is illegal in your city, state,

   country, then see above, substituting "law enforcement

   agency" in place of "parents".
Introduction:

   Between now and the new year I will be unable to do much

   writing.  Instead I will be proofreading this story, and

   possibly a couple of others, and publishing a chapter or

   so every day or two.

   When I next have the time to write, your response will

   determine which stories I will work on.  So if you have

   a preference for which story you would like me to finish

   first, send me an email or five.

   __ _

   / ) // _/_ / // __.  , , / ______ (__/ </_(_/|_/(_/_<__(_) / /_,

   /

   '

   +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ |
Clayton | clayton@nym.alias.net |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------| |
There is nothing so soft, or pleasing to the touch, as the skin of | | a
child.  Cup their cheek in your hand and ask yourself if you are | |
willing to harm such beauty for your own gratification.  | | Take you
fantasies to bed - alone.  |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+



   Chapter 1 - Jenny

   I had answered an ad in the newspaper for a maths and science tutor. 
Then when I fronted up for my interview, I almost cut and run right there.
The century old house her parents owned occupied about two acres of prime
real estate and looked big enough to house an army.

   Parking my battered old Valiant around the corner, I gathered my courage
and walked up to the gate.  After checking my watch to make sure that I am
not too early, I follow the endless drive to the front door, feeling as if
a thousand eyes were following my every move.

   Hesitating on the step I'm just about ready to turn and leave when the
door opens, revealing a small, pretty, and somewhat startled woman in her
early thirties, dressed in a faded work shirt several sizes too large and
ratty old jeans with mud stained knees.  Her dark brown, almost black, hair
is pulled back into a pony tail but several wisps have pulled free and hang
down beside her ears.  Finally a streak of mud on her lightly tanned cheek,
where she has pushed that hair back completes her dishevelled appearance.

   "Oh!" she gives a startled squeak, "You must be the young man I was to
interview about tutoring Jenny.  Please excuse my appearance, I was working
in the garden and forgot all about you coming today.

   "Please come in.  Do you mind waiting a few minutes while I make myself
presentable?"

   "Not at all." I reply smiling, "But unlike the garden I'm only going to
be here a few minutes."

   "Are you sure?" She asks, "I must look a positive hag."

   "Positive," I reply, "in fact, you'd be doing me a favour.  I almost
took off when I saw this place, it just seemed so far out of my league that
I felt like would be wasting your time."

   "But now that you've discovered that human beings live here you want to
have the advantage of being better dressed than the interviewer?" she asks,
cocking an eyebrow and smiling up at me.

   "Something like that." I admit sheepishly, "Although I really would be
more comfortable if you didn't go to any trouble for me."

   "That's fair enough, take a seat over there and I'll go get a drink and
we can begin." she says waving me toward a lounge that probably cost more
than I could hope to make in six months.

   I gingerly sit on the edge of the plush leather couch and promptly have
to throw myself back into it as it gives way beneath my weight and
threatens to dump me on the floor.  While I wait, I glance around the room
and begin to realise that things aren't quite as bad as they had seemed.

   Although the room was immaculately clean, there were signs that a family
really did live here and it was not the showpiece that it had at first
appeared to be.  The leather of the couch on which I was sitting showed
some signs of wear.  Proudly displayed amongst the obviously expensive
knick-knacks on the mantle, are cheap plastic trophies of the type that
might be presented to a child at school; an inexpertly thrown pot; and an
impossible to identify conglomeration of coloured string, sticky tape and
paint daubed cardboard tubes.  On the wall, a citation lauding one Jenny
Gormley's achievement in reading a book a week for an entire term some
three years in the past takes equal place with a master's degree in
aerospace engineering.

   The bookshelves too, bear witness to this being a home, Enid Blyton
juxtaposed with engineering texts; Robert Heinlein and the Baby-sitter's
Club; and at one end of the shelf filled with the Britanica encyclopaedia
Alfred E.  Neuman stares up at me with his crack toothed grin from a pile
of dog-eared magazines.

   "I hope you like tea." the woman's voice, snaps me away from my
examination of the bookshelves.

   I turn to find that Jenny's mother had taken time to freshen up,
exchanging her gardening garb for a comfortable looking pair of slacks and
a pale yellow shirt that better fits her diminutive frame.  The smudge of
dirt is gone from her cheek and her hair, though still pulled back into a
pony tail, is now neatly brushed back.

   "Tea's fine." I reply, returning to the center of the room.

   She sets the tray, down on the coffee table, and extends her hand
towards me.  "I'm sorry," she says, "your turning up like that had me so
flustered that I forgot to introduce myself before.  I'm Dianne Gormley."

   I take her hand and, reply, "Sorry, I was just as forgetful.  I'm Greg
Parry, Mrs Gormley."

   "Dianne please.  How do you like your tea?"

   "White with two thank you."

   As she hands me my cup, she apologises, "I'm sorry I took so long, but I
took a look at myself in the mirror and nearly had a heart attack."

   "Not a problem, it gave me time to realise that all of my fears were for
naught." I say, indicating the overstuffed bookshelves and Jenny's
certificate on the wall.

   "So you've discovered our secret." Dianne says with a smile, "We're just
plain folks, like you."

   "That's some of it," I smile back, "but mostly it's because you give
your children's achievements equal place with your own."

   "And why not?" Dianne says a trifle hotly, "To Jenny her book a week was
as important as a Nobel prize would be to my husband."

   "Hey I agree." I say holding up my hand, "It's just that a lot of
parents consider the side of the fridge the place for that sort of thing."
I indicate the bookshelves again, saying, "And their room is where their
books should be."

   "Again why not?  After all this is the family room."

   "Indeed why not?  But while I may not be entirely fair considering the
limited size of my sample, I have noticed that more often than not, the
richer people are, the more likely that attitude is to prevail.  Which is
why I almost turned away when I saw your house and the way the gardens were
kept.  No that isn't fair, it's a home, because it's become obvious to me
that you take pride in it because it's the place where you live and not
because you are out to impress the neighbours."

   "You obviously have time for your children, unlike too many other
parents, both rich and poor, and that really makes me want to take the job,
assuming of course that I haven't just talked myself out of it with my
outspoken expression of my attitudes."

   "But wouldn't the children of parents like you just mentioned be in
greater need of your services?" Dianne asks.

   "No, because parents who don't take time for their children, usually see
their children as a personal asset to be turned into something that they
can trot out at the appropriate times to show off what bright offspring
that they have produced; or a bother that needs to be bribed into keeping
out of the way.

   "I won't be a party to the first, and in the second instance I have to
avoid making waves while still producing results with a spoiled child who
in all probability does not want to work, does not know how to work, and
will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid having to do anything that has
the appearance of work."

   "No thank you.  I'd much rather work where I have the best chance of
achieving the greatest good and really make a positive difference."

   "So how would you go about making a positive difference with Jenny?"
Dianne asks.

   "I'd need to know a bit more about her circumstances before I could
say." I reply, "On the phone you said that Jenny's performance at school
has dropped right off this year and you felt she needed tutoring to bring
her back to her usual level.

   "The first thing I'd need to know is why her performance has dropped
off. Has she missed a lot of school because of an illness?"

   "No, but she did miss a lot of groundwork because she had a new teacher
for the final term of last year who had rather unusual thoughts on what
should be taught.  She concentrated on what she called 'Social
Development', which to be truthful was quite good and we welcomed it. 
However, for the rest she just gabbled what the syllabus required from the
books and then marked everything according to what she 'believed' the child
should have achieved.  Which as far as we could tell was to simply
perpetuate the marks of the previous two terms with enough variation to
disguise what she was doing."

   "Unfortunately, because Jenny has always been a good student, and her
marks had remained where they 'should' be we saw no reason to check up on
her work.  We only discovered the truth towards the very end of the year
when she dropped a returned homework sheet coming in from school and I
noticed that several clearly wrong answers had been marked correct."

   "The teacher's response when we spoke to her about it, was that
interpersonal relationships were much more important in determining how a
person advanced in the real world.

   "The attitude of the school principal, when we brought this to his
attention, was a combination of 'Well it's too late to do anything about it
now.' and 'They'll survive, after all it was only one term.' Even more
frightening was the fact that he allowed that teacher's assessment of
Jenny's class to stand, because in his words, 'It would be unfair to the
students and the school to provide a true assessment when that teacher
would not be coming back in the new year.'"

   "What was really apparent was that his primary concern was the damage
failing an entire class would do to his school's reputation.  So this year
Jenny is at a new school, and Mr Sampson, her new teacher, is doing his
best to help her catch up, but she is only one of twenty five students and
he can only do so much.  He suggested that a tutor would be the best
thing."

   "Up until a week ago we thought we had a perfect tutor in Julie, but the
pressure of her class work forced her to give up tutoring.  But after
talking to you, I feel that you'll be even better.  It's obvious to me that
you tutor for more than just the money.  Speaking of which, how does thirty
five dollars an hour sound."

   "Like way too much." I reply, mentally kicking myself for my honesty. 
"I assume that means I've got the job.  However, before I take it I'd like
to meet Jenny for myself.  I need to be sure that I really can help her and
that we can get along together.  It wouldn't do much for her self esteem if
I wasn't suitable and you had to find yet another tutor."

   "Of course." Dianne replies, "As for the money, that's less than what I
would be paying for and agency tutor.  Besides I know how little a graduate
assistant gets, I married Tony while he was still working for his Master's
and if I hadn't had my allowance we would never had made it.

   "Now before I go and get Jenny, I should tell you about her brother
Jeremy.  There were unfortunate complications with his birth and he was
born profoundly retarded and almost completely deaf.  Because of this he
sometimes yells loudly so that he can hear his own voice, it gives him a
great deal of pleasure and we have been unable to make him understand that
it disturbs others.

   "Up until now he has been able to go out in the garden, or either my
husband or myself have taken him elsewhere during Jenny's sessions. 
However, with the colder weather coming on, I think we might have to make
some sort of alternative arrangement if he is too much of a disturbance."

   "Let's try not to make too many changes in Jenny's routine for the
moment." I say, "We can always rethink things later if we need too.  I hope
you don't mind my asking, but why do you need me at all?  Couldn't your
husband tutor Jenny?"

   "His job takes up too much of his time during the week and we both feel
that Jenny's weekends are her own time.  Besides," Dianne finishes with a
laugh, "Tony's a lousy teacher.  He keeps on drifting off into algebra and
calculus."

   "I can see where that might be a bit of a problem at Jenny's level." I
chuckle.

   "O.K.  let's go get the monster and see if you can put up with her and
if she can put up with you, she's up in her den with a friend."

   Dianne leads me out into the entry and up a sweeping flight of stairs to
a wide landing.  At the end of the hall, a partially open door allows
girlish voices raised in laughter to escape.

   Pushing the door open, Dianne precedes me into the room.  Following her
I come to an abrupt halt as twin shrieks of embarrassment greet my entry.
Faced with a bed strewn with clothes and two half naked little girls, I
beat a hasty retreat as one of them, Jenny, berates Dianne, "Mum how could
you?  We're not dressed.  You should have knocked."

   "How was I to know?  The door was open." Dianne replies, her voice
filled with suppressed laughter.

   "You should have still knocked," Jenny continues, "he's a *man*."

   From where I am standing in the hall, I suddenly get a glimpse of one
girl's bottom encased in brief pink knickers as she bends over to rummage
through a pile of clothing on the floor, her bottom protruding past the
frame of still open door.  As she straightens, I look up and notice that I
can see the other girl from behind, reflected in the mirror over the
dressing table.

   Unable to help myself I continue watch as she bends over to retrieve her
own clothes, Her lacy powder blue knickers are even briefer that the first
girl's and as I watch they creep up into the crack of her backside,
revealing a broad expanse of white untanned skin.

   "Jenny!" Dianne's voice rises in mild outrage, "They're not your
undies."

   "They're Vanessa's." Jenny replies, squirming uncomfortably as she
extracts them from her butt crack with a curled finger.

   "Well take them off before you stretch them even further out of shape.
They're positively indecent, in case you haven't noticed, Vanessa's two
sizes smaller than you."

   "But they're so pretty Mum." Jenny protests, "How come I don't have any
pretty knickers Mum?"

   "Because you don't need them." Dianne replies, "Nobody sees them so it
doesn't matter what you wear so long as they are clean and comfortable."

   "But you have s-pretty knickers." Jenny pouts.

   "So that's the way of it," Dianne sighs, catching the almost slip, "my
little girl's growing up.  That's a bit different, your daddy sees mine."

   "Daddy sees mine too sometimes." Jenny says reasonably, "Can I have some
pretty ones for him to see?"

   "Uh, I don't think that's a good idea." Dianne says, suddenly on the
defensive, "Now hurry up and put some clothes on, Mr Parry's waiting to
meet you."

   "Oh!" Jenny squeaks in embarrassment, suddenly reminded of my presence
on the other side of the door, "Who is he anyway?"

   "Your new tutor." Dianne replies, "At least he will be if you haven't
embarrassed him so much that he's left."

   "Oh no, he can't be!" Jenny shrieks, her dark hair swinging from side to
side as she looks about the room, as if she fears that I might be in there
with her rather than in the hall outside, "He's seen me naked!"

   "Don't be silly, he's probably forgotten it already." Dianne says, then
teases, "Besides you're the one who want's the sexy knickers to show off,
maybe I should call him in her so you can show those off for him."

   "Mu-um!" Jenny cries stretching the word to two syllables.

   "Well hurry up and get changed." Dianne says.

   Fearful that her mother might carry out her non-threat, Jenny skins out
of the knickers she is wearing, giving me a brief glimpse of two pouting
white lips separated by a thin vertical slit.  As she rises she turns
toward the dresser and I take a quick step to the side, suddenly conscious
of how it would look if I was caught where I was.  As I hear the scrape of
a drawer opening, I beat a hasty retreat to the wait on the landing at the
top of the stairs.

   A few minutes later they emerge, the first out is a tiny, elfin, slip of
a girl, barely a metre tall and probably weighing in at less than
twenty-five kilos dripping wet.  As she glances toward me a faint pink
blush darkens her clear, pale skin.  Flawless skin that so rarely
accompanies the magnificent red-gold hair with which she has been blessed.
Slightly over shoulder length with just a hint of a wave it frames a narrow
triangular face.  Astonishingly dark eyes meet mine as she ventures a
tentative, slightly embarrassed smile.

   Behind her, almost as if propelled from behind, Jenny emerges, a cascade
of long jet black hair half concealing her brightly glowing features.  A
good fifteen centimetres taller than her friend and outweighing her by the
best part of ten kilos, she stumbles to a halt beside Vanessa, her eyes
briefly darting all over the place, before settling on a point just in
front of her toes.

   Behind them Dianne apologises, "I'm sorry about that, I didn't realise
what they were up to."

   "On the contrary," I return, "it is I who should apologise.  A true
gentleman should not enter a lady's boudoir unannounced and uninvited."
Bowing with a flourish towards the girls, I continue, "For that I most
humbly and abjectly beg your forgiveness ladies."

   Giggles and a slightly deeper chuckle greet my display, and I look up to
see the two girls their eyes dancing with mirth over hands cupped over
their mouths and Dianne smiling broadly over the tops of their heads.  I
remain half bent, waiting, for a few seconds then ask, mournfully, "Am I
forgiven?"

   Twin jerky nods and more giggles answer me, and I make a show of rubbing
the small of my back as I stand, eliciting another round of giggles.

   "Jenny, Vanessa," Dianne says, "this is Mr Parry, he is going to be
tutoring you Jenny, that is of course if he's willing to put up with you.
Greg, this," she lightly rests her hand on top of her daughter's raven
head, "is Jenny my daughter.  And this is Vanessa her best friend.  Jenny,
why don't you take Mr Parry through to the schoolroom so he can give you
the third degree while I take Vanessa to get some drinks."

   Leaving me and a suddenly quiet Jenny in the hall, Dianne and Vanessa
head off down the stairs.  After a few seconds of embarrassed silence I
ask, "Hadn't you better show me to the schoolroom?" making her jump.

   "Oh." she squeaks, "It's - It's down here." Almost running ahead of me,
Jenny leads me to the hall on the far side of the landing, stopping outside
a closed door and waiting, her eyes downcast, and her toe digging into the
carpet as I catch her up.  Opening the door, she plunges through and once
again halts abruptly, standing just inside the door looking anywhere but at
me.

   Giving her some time to get over her embarrassment, I edge past her and
survey the room.  Wrought iron bars cover the lower half of the windows,
obviously intended to keep small children from climbing/falling out of the
windows.  On one side of the room two doors lead off into small, almost box
like, rooms.  One room, obviously what was once the nanny's bedroom by the
second door that leads out onto the end of the hall, is now fitted out as a
bathroom.  The other is a storeroom neatly filled with an old rocking horse
and other toys that Jenny has outgrown, many of them obviously her mother's
before her, and just as obviously intended to serve the next generation.

   At the other end of the long airy room, a wide archway has been cut
through into what was once a dormitory style bedroom.  A ping-pong table
fills the centre of the room and low shelves line the walls, filled with an
enormous selection of children's books, games and jigsaw puzzles.  The main
nursery/school room is fitted out with a TV, VCR, and a good but not flashy
sound system.  Interestingly the TV set is fitted with what appears to be
some sort of timing mechanism.  On a desk in the corner is a state of the
art computer system, complete with scanner and colour inkjet printer.  Both
rooms are furnished with modular foam rubber lounges and beanbags, two work
tables with comfortable looking chairs stand in the main room and
lightweight curtains decorated with cute cuddly animals idly sway in the
light breeze coming through the wide open windows.

   "You know," I begin casually, "what happened before reminds me of the
time I was hiking up in the mountains when I got caught in a downpour.  I
knew there was this hut where people could take shelter in storms, so I
went looking for it, but by the time I found it I was completely saturated.
So I got the fire going and hung all of my clothes up to dry.  I mean
everything, even my jocks were soaked.  So there I was, stark naked trying
to get some heat back into my bones when the door opens and a whole troop
of girl guides rush in."

   "What did you do?" Jenny asks giggling.

   "What could I do?  All of my clothes were on the line behind me and I
couldn't turn around, so I just stood there while they giggled at my hairy
bum.  What was even worse was that their leader was a girl I used to know
at school.  I was so embarrassed that I almost put the fire out."

   "How?" Jenny asks, then "Oh!" as comprehension hits her and she begins
laughing so hard that she collapses on the floor and rolls about with
un-contained mirth.  Finally half a minute later, she crawls over to a
beanbag and still giggling occasionally, flops into it.  "What happened
then?"

   "Susan, the leader, lent me her raincoat.  I spent the next two hours,
waiting for my clothes to dry, in a clammy, too small, plastic raincoat
with a dozen ten to thirteen year olds giggling every time they looked at
me and whispering 'did you see it?' to each other.  By then it was dark and
it was raining even harder so we had to stay the whole night together and
last thing I heard as I slunk off the next morning was 'Hairy bum.' and the
whole lot of them giggling."

   Two minutes later, Dianne and Vanessa enter the room carrying a tray of
drinks and a plate piled with slices of fruitcake.  "Well whatever you said
sure broke the ice." Dianne says looking down at her still howling daughter
as she carefully set her tray down on the coffee table, "What did you say
to her?"

   "Oh Mum." Jenny gasps, holding her sides, "It was so funny, he only saw
us in our knickers and he had no clothes on at all."

   "What?  When?" Dianne asks sharply, looking at me as if expecting me to
be standing there stripped bare.

   "Not now Mum." Jenny cries, "Another time when he was hiking."

   "You hike nude?" Dianne asks me, "I'm not sure you should be telling my
daughter stories like that."

   "Not nude." I put in before Jenny can dig me in any deeper.  "I was
telling her of my most embarrassing moment.  Which was a lot like me
walking into her room before, except in my case I didn't have a single
stich on and it was an entire troop of girl guides, complete with leader,
who walked in on me."

   "Oh my!" Dianne slaps a hand over her mouth in a vain attempt to control
her mirth, as Jenny once again collapses with howls of mirth, joined by
Vanessa who falls on top of her.  Hugging each other, both girls roll about
on the floor.  Loosing her fight, Dianne falls back onto a chair, tears of
mirth streaming down her cheeks.

   Eventually they get themselves back under control, Dianne dabbing at her
eyes with the corner of a handkerchief, and the girls lying in a tangled,
gasping sprawl, unaware that their skirts have ridden up to expose their
bodies from the waist down.  Vanessa is still wearing the pink, wispy
almost nothings that I had briefly seen earlier.  Clearly visible through
the thin, tightly stretched nylon, her young mound rises in a smooth
prominent curve, split by the slightly darker line marking the cleft
separating her obviously hairless labia.

   In contrast to the what she had been trying on earlier, the full, high
waisted, dark blue briefs now worn by Jenny, hide every inch of her body
from just below her navel to the tops of her thighs, leaving nothing but a
smooth androgynous curve.  "Uh girls, I think you'd better straighten your
skirts." I say looking away.

   Vanessa gives a brief embarrassed squeak before quickly tugging her
short pleated skirt into place.  Jenny however seizes the hem of hers, and
flips it up and down several times - the movement catching my eye and
drawing my gaze back between her legs - before settling it into place.  "I
don't care." she giggles, "You can't see anything anyway, they saw your
*hairy bum*."

   "Jenny!" Dianne cries, trying to sound shocked through her involuntary
giggles.

   "Well he said it first." Jenny defends herself giggling.

   "That doesn't mean you have to repeat it." Dianne remonstrates, still
laughing.

   "O.K.  they saw his hirsute gluteus maximus."

   "Jenny!" Dianne cries again.  Turning to me, she says, "You can see why
we only need you for maths and science, she already reads more than a
sufficient plenitude."

   "Well that probably explains the teeth marks in the dictionary." I say.

   "Ha.  Ha." is Jenny's sarcastic response.

   "Probably." Dianne smiles.  "Now if we can be serious for just a few
minutes we can get this finalised and everybody can get back to what they
were doing.  Though you can keep your own underpants on this time young
lady." She turns a significant glance on her daughter, who in turn looks at
me.

   "At least I was wearing some."

   "And they'll be around your knees in a moment if you aren't careful."
Dianne warns.

   A quick glance at her mother, tells her that she has milked that one for
all it's worth, so she squirms back into the beanbag and awaits her
mother's words with somewhat poor grace.

   "Now as I was about to say," Dianne says ignoring her daughter, and
turning towards me, "I'd like Jenny to have three hours a week if possible.
Since she already has gym on Tuesday and Brownies Friday night, would an
hour a night on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday suit you?  Say from five
thirty to six thirty or seven to eight."

   "But Mum," Jenny protests, "I only did two hours with Julie."

   "That's because Julie could only manage two hours Honey," Dianne
replies, "I really think you need three hours.  At least until you get
properly caught up at school."

   "But that's every night of the week." Jenny wails.

   "Might I make a suggestion?" I ask.

   "Please do." Dianne says, while Jenny looks on hopefully.

   "I have a free afternoon on Wednesdays, so what if instead of an hour on
each of three nights, we do an hour on either Monday or Thursday and Two
hours straight from four until six on Wednesday or we can take a break in
the middle and finish at six thirty?  That way Jenny has one free night a
week, and if we make it Monday, and Wednesday, it gives her that day near
the middle of the week when she needs it most."

   "Please Mum?" Jenny pleads soulfully.  "I'll work hard I promise."

   "I suppose leaving Thursdays free has absolutely nothing to do with
Student's Night and two dollar shots down at the Royal?" Dianne asks with a
grin.

   "Oh absolutely." I grin back, "How could you think such a thing of me?"

   "Like I said, I married a graduate assistant, I know these things." she
returns.

   "Madam you wrong me." I gasp, "I'm as pure as the driven snow."

   "The closest you get to snow is the ice in your glass." she scoffs.

   "Well Mum." Jenny interrupts, "Can we do it like that?  Pleeeezzze?"

   "Well O.K.," Dianne agrees, "but no slacking off on Wednesdays, Mr
Parry's very kindly giving up his free afternoon for you, so you'll have to
work hard and not waste it."

   "Oh I will." Jenny avows, "I'll work so hard I can have Mondays off
too."

   "We'll see about that." Dianne smiles.  "So you think you can do good
work for Mr Parry?"

   "Uh-huh, he's sick."

   "The ultimate accolade." Dianne says to me with a wry grin and rolling
her eyes.  "Now since you spent the time you were supposed to be getting to
know Jenny telling her dirty stories, is there anything you would like to
ask her now?"

   "Well if I hadn't, we'd still be at the 'yeah', 'nuh', and scuffing
holes in the carpet stage." I say, making Jenny blush with remembered
embarrassment.

   "About the only thing I'd like to know is what she's up to in school so
we can get straight into things on Monday, but that wouldn't be fair to
Vanessa, so I'll just have to bluff my way through instead."

   "Vanessa's got to go home soon." Jenny says glancing up at the clock on
the wall, "Can't you wait and I can show you then?  I really do want to
catch up, 'cause I really hate feeling dumb."

   "Jenny you can't ask Mr Parry that," Dianne remonstrates, "I'm sure he
has more important things to do, than wait on you."

   "Pleeeezzze Mr Parry?" Jenny begs, ignoring her mother's indrawn breath.

   "Well I was going to wash the cat," I demure cutting over the top of
Dianne's sharp reprimand, "but in the face of such dedication, how can I
refuse.  And it's Greg, the only Mr Parry I know is my dad.  Now you'd
better scoot, while your mother tells me off for giving in."

   "Thanks Mr, uh Greg, you're, the best." Jenny cries, struggling out of
the beanbag in a fashion that flashes the tops of her thighs and a broad
expanse of sensible navy cotton for a couple of seconds.

   In an attempt to avoid a repeat of her friend's ungainly exposure,
Vanessa rolls to her hands and knees first, but is defeated by the
shortness of her skirt, and I have to look away from where her plump little
pussy stands out in sharp relief below her half exposed buttocks.

   As they scamper from the room, Dianne lets out a sound that is half
exasperated sigh and half giggle.  "Now you know why I don't buy her sexy
knickers like she wants, but she's growing up so fast."

   "I know it's not quite the same, but I remember the hell we used to give
any kids who wore clagies and it's probably not much better in the girl's
changing rooms."

   "Clagies?"

   "Those baggy, white, underpants with the fly."

   "Uh-huh.  I remember the same thing except with us it was bloomers.  And
you are wrong, girls are probably worse than boys when it comes to
clothing, since it's our clothes which are the main weapons in our arsenal.
God kids can be so cruel."

   "Pink monkeys." I murmur, remembering a particularly nasty experiment
I'd read about.

   "What have pink monkeys got to do with it?" Dianne asks obviously
confused.

   "Take a monkey from a cage full of monkeys and dye it's fur pink, then
put it back.  The other monkeys will tear it to pieces." I explain, "It's
an experiment I read about once."

   "That's sick, and I don't mean that in the sense that Jenny does."
Dianne says, her face twisted up in disgust, "What were they trying to
prove?"

   "Probably what they already knew; that most creatures fear the strange
and unusual, and react aggressively towards it.  The strange thing though,
is that human children start out with a very sketchy outline of what
belongs in their world, and its we adults that make them into little
monsters, when we fill them with bigoted ideas of who they should associate
with.  Are they the right colour?  Do they have the right money?  The right
education?  Do they speak the right type of English?"

   "I'd like to think we aren't guilty of that." Dianne says.

   "I'd like to too, but there's the TV, videos, their friends, and a whole
host of other sources that still do.  And while society might be well on
the way toward eliminating some of those foolish notions, they've been
replaced with a whole raft of other ideas that are just as silly.  In this
case the way we dress.

   "What would you have done if I'd turned up in ripped jeans and a filthy
t-shirt?"

   "Probably turned you away." she admits.

   "And even after I said it didn't matter, you still felt so uncomfortable
that you couldn't help yourself and you had to change your clothes.  I'm
guilty of the same thing.  If you were to go for a walk around the block,
you'd see a beaten up old Valiant that I couldn't bring myself to park in
front of a house like yours.  That's possessions, which is a thinly
disguised way of measuring of how rich or poor someone is."

   "Then there's the bigotry we instil even when we think we are doing the
exact opposite.  What is the natural reaction to a toddler staring at
somebody who is different; an amputee, a blind person, a cripple, a drunk?"

   "You tell them it's rude to stare." she replies.

   "But what if the subject of their scrutiny has the good fortune to be
good looking, or is doing something amazing like juggling six balls, or is
some fascinating piece of machinery?"

   "I get your point," Dianne says, "by establishing a class of what is all
right to stare at, and a class that is wrong to stare at, we are also
telling them that there is actually something wrong with what they
shouldn't stare at."

   "Right." I agree, "They also pick up on our feelings of discomfort which
only intensifies that feeling of wrongness.  A staring toddler is not being
rude they are just trying to do their job, which is to expand their
understanding of the world around them.  A paraplegic is not going to be
angry because a child asks them why they have wheels, but they have every
right to be angry when an adult calls negative attention to those same
wheels by loudly shushing the child."

   "At least the schools are doing something about that sort of thing, by
bringing different people into the classroom and helping the children get
used to them." Dianne says.

   "It is a help, but it's also a case of too little too late.  By the time
these familiarisation sessions take place, a child's visceral reaction is,
different is bad, and all that is accomplished is to give them the
intellectual understanding that there is nothing 'wrong' with these people.
It does help them to get over it eventually, especially if a child with a
particular disability joins them in class, but why should children have to
get over it in the first place, they should simply be able to accept them."

   "Phew, you certainly have strong feelings on the subject." Dianne says.
"You're what twenty six?  Twenty seven?  How did you get to think about is
as much as you obviously have?"

   "Twenty eight actually.  Mostly because I was one of those kids who was
different, I was an intellectual in a small country town and it didn't help
that I had the poor sense, at least as far as my peers were concerned, to
choose an aboriginal boy for a best friend.  Unfortunately, that was what I
picked up on.  So when I tried to be like everybody else, the only thing
that I accomplished was to drive off the only real friend that I had.  It
was several years before I realised that I would never be a part of the 'In
crowd', and in the meantime I was always pushing away those with whom I
actually had something in common, and any real chance of friendship.

   "It took over fifteen years before I began to get an understanding of
what the real problem was.  Actually it was reading about the pink monkey
which did it, and since then I've kept my eye out for articles about the
subject ever since and made my own observations as well.  I even audited a
couple of psych lectures from the teaching course."

   "Why didn't you do teaching instead of computing?  You obviously like
children so what was it that kept you from working with them full time?"

   "You're right, I love kids, but I don't like the education system.  If I
was to try and teach the way I think children should be taught, I'd soon be
out of a job at best and more than likely lynched into the bargain. 
Instead I work with a few children at a time and hope that in time they in
turn will be able to make a real difference."

   "So just how do you think children should be taught?" Dianne asks.

   "Give them the naked truth." I reply, "If a child is old enough to ask a
question, they are old enough to hear the answer.  I might simplify an
answer to suit what I believe is their level of understanding, but I won't
lie.  And if I don't know the answer, I'm not afraid to say so, and then
join them in searching for the answer.  I guess the most important thing I
try to teach a child is how to learn."

   "Oh no!" Dianne gasps in mock horror, "The naked truth *and* teaching
them to think for themselves.  You'd hang for sure.  How would you handle
something touchy like religion or sex?  Would you destroy a child's belief
in Santa just because Santa doesn't exist."

   "If it's something like a belief system, I present it as; 'Some people
believe this, and other people believe something different.' Then as their
ability to understand grows, I help them to learn the difference between
blind belief and real understanding.  And you are wrong, Santa does exist,
he exists in the heart of every child who believes.

   "As for sex, you're right it is a touchy subject.  Very touchy.  So if
the subject does come up I try to give as simple answer as possible, and
explain that I have to ask their parents before I tell them anything else,
because it's something that they might want to teach their own child.  If I
know in advance that a child's parents have negative attitudes about sex,
and the child is old enough, I may explain that their parents wouldn't like
me to teach them about it and give them a few pointers on how to find out
what they want to know from the library, as well as a warning to keep quiet
about it.  Oh, and if they already have some knowledge, I will correct any
misconceptions they might have."

   "Such as?"

   "In one case it was a girl who was approaching puberty and the
explanation she'd received from her mother was so garbled that the poor
girl had the impression that the only time she could get pregnant was
*during* her period."

   "Oh my, that was a time bomb just waiting to explode." Dianne gasps.

   "And how."

   "So you did the right thing." Dianne says approvingly, adding, "Which
would have cost you your job in mainstream education if you'd done it
outside the approved sex education course, and it came out that you had
done it."

   "Exactly.  What about here?  Should I get out the axle grease?" I ask.

   "What on earth for?" Dianne asks, surprised at this non-sequitur."

   "For the rail.  I find it's a lot more comfortable that way."

   "No you won't be needing it." Dianne smiles, "Tony and I both agree with
your view that if Jenny is old enough to ask a question, she's ready for
the answer.  Hopefully though she won't bother you too much with the sex
angle, she's had the talk and we've given her a few books.  Just keep us
posted on anything you think we need to know.  "

   "Of course," I reply easily, "but I won't break any confidences to do
so. Though if I think it is something you *should* know, I'll try to
convince her that she should tell you, herself."

   "That's fair enough, I wouldn't ask you to do otherwise." Dianne agrees,
"However this conversation seems to have drifted a fair way from where it
began, and I can't quite work out whether you are telling me I should, or
should not buy her some not-sensible underwear."

   "Hey I'm not telling you anything," I say lifting my hands, "I found out
a long time ago that there's no percentage in telling parents how they
should raise their children.  If you want my opinion, then I'd have to say
in this case give in, the battle has already been lost.  Jenny has
demonstrated a desire for and the ability to obtain frilly knickers.

   "At least by supplying them yourself you have some say over just how
not-sensible they are, and of course their proper size.  At the same time
I'd suggest a few lessons in feminine deportment and why it is not a good
idea to crab-walk out of a beanbag whilst wearing a short skirt."

   Dianne giggles, adding, "I think you might be right, and I wish you
wouldn't do that."

   "Do what?"

   "Make me giggle.  It makes me sound like a silly schoolgirl."

   "What's wrong with that?" I ask raising an eyebrow, "I spent the first
eighteen years of my life trying to grow up too fast and the last ten
trying to recapture what I threw away."

   "Point taken." She smiles, "Look I'm sorry, but I've left a number of
plants out there in the sun, and if I don't do something about them soon
they'll die.  Do you mind if I leave you?  You can wait downstairs in the
family room."

   "Would you mind showing me whatever schoolbooks Jenny has here at home,
that way I can begin to familiarise myself with her work and then I'll just
have to find out what she's doing at the moment.  And if you still have her
books from last year they would be a great help as I'd be able to get a
better idea of exactly what she has missed."

   "They're all right here." Dianne says, moving over toward a set of
bookshelves near the computer, "Last year's stuff is on the bottom shelf
and this year's is here.  Hmmmm, it look like her science book isn't here
but here's her maths book." She looks about for a few seconds until her
eyes alight on the desk, "And here are her exercise books.  There you go,
I'll leave you to it."

   "Thanks." I reply, "I'll see you on my way out."

   As I settle back with Jenny's books, I hear Dianne in the hall calling
out, "Jenny, I'm going back down to the garden, Greg's in the schoolroom
looking over your books."

   In reply, I hear a muffled, "O.K.  Mum."

   Ten or fifteen minutes later I hear the muffled thud of feet on the
carpeted floor of the hall followed by Jenny and Vanessa bursting into the
room.  Giggling, they come to a halt side by side a couple of metres in
front of me and assume poses somewhere between sexy and ridiculous.

   "Wadda ya think?" Jenny asks in a sultry(?) tone combined with a toss of
her head that flicks her hair back and then forward over her eyes.

   Giggling she pushes it behind here ear and rests her fist on her hip. 
"Well?"

   Carefully containing my mirth, I look them up and down: Reebok sports
shoes; bare ankles; an endless length of leg that stops at the hems of
their matching pleated netball skirts which to my eye are a good two inches
higher than even such short attire should be.  In fact, at anything above
eye level, I would lay long odds on their ability to conceal anything. 
Lifting my eyes to the where the waistbands of their skirts have been
turned twice, I see why.  Form fitting tank tops hacked off just below
their rib cages complete the ensemble, leaving their bellies bare.  One
showing the trimness of fairly intensive gymnastics training, while
Vanessa's is still slightly rounded with puppy fat.

   Makeup, well past garish, has been applied with a heavy hand to their
faces, making them look like cheap hookers.  Below the makeup, which stops
well above their necklines a flush suffuses Vanessa's pale skin, and this
makes me decide that a blunt response is called for.

   "I hope you two are trying to be funny, because if you're not, you are
looking for serious trouble.  And if you are trying to be funny, I'm not
appreciating the joke."

   "Huh why?  What's wrong?" Jenny asks, crestfallen, beside her the pink
of Vanessa's flush begins to show even beneath her thickly applied makeup.

   "Let's take this one step at a time.  Come with me." I say, getting up
and leading the way to the top of the stairs.

   "O.K.  both of you go down to the bottom and look up at me."

   Giving each other puzzled glances they comply, turning at the bottom to
stare up at me.  "O.K.  Jenny start coming back up." Ignoring her, I watch
Vanessa's face, and when her eyes widen, I say, "Stop!  O.K.  back down to
the bottom and Vanessa you come up." This time I let Vanessa, who by this
time is blushing furiously, walk all of the way to the top.  At the bottom
Jenny's eyes indicate that she too has seen what I wanted her to see.

   Calling her back up, I lead the way back into the schoolroom, and take a
seat on a lounge and wave them toward the beanbags.  Blushing and shaking
their heads violently then perch themselves on the very edge of chairs
pulled out from one of the work tables, their knees pressed tightly
together.

   "Well?" I ask.

   "A bit too much huh?" Jenny says with an embarrassed giggle.

   "Way too much I'd say." I reply.

   "But other girls wear even shorter skirts sometimes."

   "Loose netball skirts?" I ask raising an eyebrow.

   "No tight ones." Vanessa puts in.

   "That's right, tight skirts that fit so close that you could slip a
piece of paper underneath and it wouldn't fall out.  Even then you'd have
to be very careful just how you sat." I wave my hands at their current
uncomfortable looking postures.

   "The shoes and tops are O.K.  like they are, but that makeup has got to
go.  If you were to wear it like that very often, you'd have zits like you
wouldn't believe.

   "Pretty soon girls, your bodies are going to start making a whole lot of
different chemicals, and those chemicals make your skin very susceptible to
acne.  If you don't let it breath properly, like by covering it with lots
of makeup, you risk making it even worse and if you aren't careful, you'll
have to start putting it on that thick just to hide the scars.

   "Jenny I'm sure your mother knows how to put makeup on properly.  When
you need it, or for a special occasion, I'm sure that she'll be happy to
help you, but in the meantime, you both have beautiful skin, don't ruin it
by trying to make yourselves look older.  You'll get there soon enough, for
now stick to a little bit of lipstick on special occasions.  I'll let you
in on a secret, the best way to put on makeup is so that it can't be seen
once it's done, and that takes loads of practice."

   "Does makeup really cause acne?" Jenny asks.

   "It can, if you put on too much, or too often." I reply, "Older girls
and women wear makeup to try and make their skin look like yours does all
of the time, so there's absolutely no need to hide it.  If you want your
skin to stay looking good, the only thing you need is sun screen."

   "Now go fix your skirts and wash your faces, but you'd better scrape
some of it off first, we don't want you blocking the drains.  And when you
get back I'm going to thrash the pants off the pair of you at tables
tennis."

   "One at a time or both at once?" Jenny asks impudently.

   "Both, now git." I reply, "Oh, and put your own knickers back on Jenny."

   "How'd you know?" she asks whirling in surprise, incidentally giving me
proof that my guess was on the money.

   "Well if you spin around like that when your skirt is as short as it is,
it becomes pretty obvious, but I guessed.  I figured that you wouldn't put
on a get up like that with out completing the ensemble."

   Turning her head to show me her tongue, she flounces out the door,
briefly flashing a small patch of pale blue fabric and twin crescent moons
of pale creamy skin.

   They return so quickly, that I barely have time to settle back and
finish skimming the chapter that I had begun earlier.  They take so little
time that I fear for the state of the towels, that however, is not my
problem.

   "Much better," I say with a smile, "and guess what?  You still look
pretty sexy."

   Blushing rosily they respond with nervous giggles.

   Now before we start playing I've got a few more things to say.  "I know
you were trying to look sexy before, but you are nowhere near old enough to
carry that sort of thing off, all you managed to do was look like tarts,
and ridiculous tarts at that.

   "Not only that, but for girls your age it's dangerous.  If you went
trolling for boys looking like that, the sort of boy that you're most
likely to catch would use you until they got what they wanted and then dump
you.  Or even worse; you've had 'stranger danger' talks at school?" Twin
wide eyed nods, answer me.  "Well that's the other sort of person you might
attract."

   "We wouldn't really go out dressed like that." Jenny says, "We just
wanted to tease you a bit.  Besides Mum'd kill me if I tried it."

   "Well you shouldn't tease an old dog, he might just have one bite left."
I say.  "Now are you ready for that thrashing?"

   "Ha!" Jenny replies, "You haven't got a hope."

   "Sez you!" I mock, "I'll even let you have first service."

   After selecting our weapons, we face off across the table and I prepare
to face the first shot.  Coming low and fast, I barely have time to meet it
with the tip of my bat and I return it with little power, barely clearing
the net.  Pouncing on it, Vanessa smashes it past me and first blood goes
to them.

   "Ha looser, my grandmother plays better than that." Jenny mocks and
sends the ball flying my way.  Better prepared, I catch the ball in the
center of the bat this time and Jenny barely manages to touch it with the
upper edge of he bat, skying it terribly, it falls in on my side and a
second later I smash it back over their heads.

   "Who's a looser now?" I jeer, "You nearly put that one on the moon."

   Back and forth, we exchange the lead several times throughout the match,
their ability to cover more territory making up for my greater power and
height.  Closely matched, the game looks like going on forever, until, when
the score stands at 26-25 in my favour, I manage to put so much back spin
on the ball that it actually comes back at me over the net and I reach
forward to pluck it out of the air.

   "Whew!" I breath, wiping the sweat from my forehead, "Great game girls.
A bit more practice and I don't stand a chance."

   "Yeah not bad." Jenny replies panting hard.  "But it was a lucky shot."

   "Oh no!" Vanessa suddenly wails while staring at the clock on the VCR,
"I missed the last bus.  Mum's going to kill me."

   "I'll give you a lift if you can wait fifteen minutes." I offer, "I've
just got to find out what Jenny's doing in school at the moment and then we
can go."

   "Oh would you?" Vanessa says with immense relief, "I've got all of those
clothes to take home too."

   "Not a problem." I say moving over to the chair where I'd left her books
and falling into it with a groan.

   "Now Jenny, come here and give me an idea of what you missed last year
and what you are doing right now so I can plan out where to start on
Monday. Vanessa why don't you get your things packed while Jenny and I
talk."

   "O.K." Vanessa chirps as Jenny moves up to stand with her hip pressing
into my upper arm.

   She quickly blocks out the sections in the previous year's books
indicating where the new teacher had started taking her classes.  In maths,
she'd missed out on adding and subtracting large numbers, the beginning of
division and fractions.

   In science it had been things like: measuring heart rate and respiration
before and after exercise; growing beans under different conditions; and
simple experiments on the solubility of different substances.  Pretty much
the things intended to teach that, on which science is based: careful
measurement; observation; and hypothesis and experiment.

   "I left my science book at school b'cause we don't have it till
Wednesday." She tells me apologetically as I set last year's books aside
and pick up her current maths text.

   "That's O.K.  we'll just concentrate on maths on Monday." I reply.  "For
now I think we should work on catching up on the things you need for
whatever you are doing in maths on Mondays, and an hour of the same for
science on Wednesdays, and then use the other hour to catch up everything
else.  O.K.?"

   "O.K." she nods.

   "So what are you doing in maths at the moment.?" I ask.

   "Compound fractions." she replies with a mixture of disgust and anguish,
"And I don't understand them at all."

   "That's not surprising if you missed out on basic fractions last year."
I reply, "So they're what we'll do on Monday.  We'll go back to the
beginning on fractions, and do just enough on compound ones to keep you
from falling even further behind."

   "So that's it." I say getting up.  Holding up last year's books I ask,
"Can I borrow these so that I can work out Monday's session?"

   "Sure," Jenny agrees, "and thanks, I really appreciate your helping me."

   "And I really appreciate having a student who wants to learn." I reply
smiling down at her.

   "Got everything?" I ask Vanessa, who has been waiting patiently for the
last couple of minutes.  At her nod I continue, "Well lets go."

   "Uh Greg?" Jenny asks, stopping me as I reach for Vanessa's bag, "You
won't tell Mum about the way we were dressed before will you?"

   "Not this time." I reply with a conspiratorial wink, then harden my
voice, "Next time though, I'll march you out into the garden just as you
are, even if every boy in your class is walking down the street."

   Blushing at the thought, she accompanies Vanessa and I into the garden
and leads us to where her mother is working at the side of the house.

   "You're still here?" Dianne asks in surprise when she sees Vanessa. 
"How are you getting home?"

   "Greg said he'd drive me." Vanessa replies.

   "That's very kind of him," Dianne says, "But you shouldn't have missed
the bus, and *you*," she turns to her daughter, "shouldn't have let her."

   "Actually it's my partially fault." I confess, "I challenged them to a
game of table tennis and it lasted a bit longer than we expected.  "So it's
only fair that I keep her out of trouble with her mother."

   "I guess it's O.K.  then," Dianne relents and turns to me, "but if it's
too much trouble, I can drive her."

   "It's no trouble, and you won't have to get changed yet again because of
me." I say referring the disreputable clothing she'd resumed for her work
in the garden.

   "O.K.  but don't let them take advantage of you." she says, warning me,
"They'll both shamelessly exploit any opportunity you give them."

   "It's too late." I reply, "When it comes to beautiful young ladies, I'm
a pushover."

   Giggles and speculative looks greet my admission, then fade as I
continue, "Unless of course I don't want to be pushed, in which case look
out.  And cooperation always comes at a price.  Jenny, I'm sure your mum
would appreciate a hand to finish up here."

   Extending her tongue in response to my suggestion, Jenny starts
gathering plant trimmings from the path and tossing them with more force
than is necessary into the wheelbarrow.  Over her head, Dianne raises her
eyebrows in question, to which I return a little shake of my head.

   "Come on Vanessa," I say, adding, "I'm sure your mum has plenty of
dishes waiting for you." to let Jenny know she not alone in having to make
restitution for their earlier silliness.

   Grinning, Dianne says, "I won't ask what they did, I'll see you Monday
and you can see about keeping her so busy that she won't have time to think
about being naughty."

   "See you then." I reply, grinning at Jenny's scowl, "I'll be here at
about quarter past five with my slave driver's whip."

   After accepting an ungracious "Bye." from Jenny, Vanessa and I head for
the gate and around the corner to my car.  Tossing her bag in the back
seat, I reach across and open the door for her, waiting while she settles
herself into the seat and fastens the seatbelt across her lap.