Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 �>�Dress Code by Jacqueline Jillinghoff Copyright�(C) 2021 by Jacqueline
Jillinghoff

   The principal thought he had won.

   The morning of the day Compton High School made national headlines for
the second time, every student who walked through the doors was in
compliance with the dress code.  Fifteen hundred teenagers were clad head
to foot in long-sleeved T-shirts, sweatshirts, sweater vests, sweatpants,
and tube socks, all in defiance of the Florida sun and the kind of hot
breeze from the Gulf that scours the flesh and shreds the nerves until
gunfire breaks out on the highways.  There was not a short skirt, spaghetti
strap, or pair of shorts in sight, nor an inch of skin beyond faces and
hands.  And yet, as Miss DeLong, our AV specialist, observed, something was
off.

    -�They look like they -(TM)re homeless, -� she said.

   It was as if the students had planned it, which, as things turned out,
they had.  If their clothing was modest, it was also shabby.  Cuffs were
frayed, elbows were torn, sweatpants were held up with twine.  Their
footwear, too, had seen better days: beat up sneakers with holes in the
toes and sandals with broken straps, all looking as though they -(TM)d been
buried in bedroom closets for years.  Compton was being overrun by an army
of chattering hobos.  What disturbed Miss DeLong Roy most, though, was that
the girls seemed to be moving a little too freely beneath all the many
layers cotton and polyester.  In the mob she spotted Kellie Green, the tiny
freshman whose cleavage had become a cause c�(C)l�"bre.  Miss Green wore a
tattered, paint-stained plaid shirt over a school jersey (Go Manatees!),
neither of which did a thing to suppress the sprightly wobble underneath.
Hundreds of other girls, as well, jiggled or bounced in direct proportion
to their endowments.

   Principal Sully was unconcerned.  He stood at the head of the lobby
stairs, surveying his subjects with an air of triumph, and he dismissed the
recycle-bin chic as  -�ironic compliance. -�

    -�They think they -(TM)re making a point, -� he went on.   -�They know
they have to cover up, so they stick it to us by looking like slobs.  I
-(TM)m impressed they got everyone to go along, but it -(TM)s the revenge
of the powerless. -�

   True revenge  -" the revenge of the empowered  -" had only a short time
to wait.

   If asked to name the moment when the first cracks appeared in the
façade of school discipline, the initial sign of the ultimate collapse, we
would have to pick the sundress incident.  The dress itself was
unobjectionable.  The skirt hung well below the knee, the neckline was
high, and the straps were wide enough to conceal all of the area above the
shoulders  -" all as required by the dress code.  But the material was
white, and thin, and when Athena Toles, the poor junior naïve enough to
believe her body was her own, passed the row of windows in the lower
corridor, the morning sunlight caught her from behind, and the dress all
but vanished.  The girl -(TM)s thin silhouette, wrapped in what seemed like
a dazzling patch of fog, made its way obliviously down the hall.  Of
course, she was wearing a bra and panties, but they were shadows
themselves, tight against her skin, and only gave the illusion a more
alluring shape.  She might as well have been nude.

   Her classmates never noticed.  Those who walked in front of her were
facing away, and those behind saw only the bright sunlight on the opaque
dress.  But Mr.  Sully  -" he noticed.  At first, he said later, he thought
the girl was in fact naked, unthinkable as that seemed.  His heart leaped
in the moment before his eyes adjusted to the sunlight and he discerned the
translucent cloud that surrounded her.  This was the sort of enforcement he
loved: wholly subjective, dependent on his discretion.

    -�Miss Toles, -� he said just as she passed,  -�don -(TM)t you think
that dress is more appropriate for the beach? -�

    -�I -(TM)m sorry? -�

    -�You -(TM)re in violation of the dress code.  Come with me, please. -�

   He led her upstairs to his office.  When she emerged fifteen minutes
later, she was sheathed an oversized jersey that crushed her skirt to her
thighs like a fist clutching a bouquet of crisp dead flowers.  She was also
in tears.

   We didn -(TM)t know just what was said to her until the following
Tuesday evening, when Mrs.  Penelope Toles sat before the school board and
defended her daughter -(TM)s honor.

    -�He told her she should be ashamed of herself, -� Mrs.  Toles said. 
She spoke into a microphone as a tripod-mounted camera operated by Miss
DeLong broadcast her indignation live over the district -(TM)s cable
channel.   -�He said she was practically naked.  Practically naked.  What
kind of man says such things to a sixteen-year-old girl?  My Athena is a
good girl.  She -(TM)s a modest girl, and her high school principal, a man
charged to look after her wellbeing, went out of his way to humiliate her.
She has struggled with self-esteem and mental health issues ever since she
enrolled here, and for this man to shame her like that undoes everything
she has worked so hard to accomplish. -�

   Athena Toles, who was not present at the meeting, was a stringy girl
with olive skin and deep-set, haunted eyes.  It was said she had the body
of an underfed fashion model.  There were rumors of an eating disorder,
reinforced by a number of absences the causes of which remained a mystery
to everyone outside the main office.  If any student at Compton was too
fragile for Sully -(TM)s methods of enforcing propriety, she was the one.

   Now, every school board has one member who makes it his job to argue
with everyone, object to everything, and vote down every expenditure.  In
our district, this self-appointed Taxpayer Advocate was Mr.  Tomlinson, who
was not satisfied to let Mrs.  Toles have her say.  Just as the other board
members were murmuring in embarrassed sympathy, promising to look into the
matter, and almost begging to move on, Tomlinson, for the first time in
many terms on the board, stood up for the faculty.

    -�It -(TM)s the responsibility of the principal to enforce the dress
code, -� he told Mrs.  Toles, and, by extension, the viewing public.   -�We
take that very seriously.  I don -(TM)t know your daughter, but if she had
bothered to check herself in the mirror before she went off to school, she
would have avoided exposing herself. -�

    -�And how about the boys? -� Mrs.  Toles retorted.   -�Should boys
check themselves every morning, too? -�

    -�Take it up with the fashion industry, -� Tomlinson said.   -�They don
-(TM)t sell skimpy outfits to boys.  Girls need to be more careful.  A
little shame might be a good thing. -�

   The support of the most outspoken member of the board was all the
encouragement Mr.  Sully needed.  Two days after the Toles-Tomlinson
faceoff, he, Miss DeLong, the school counselor, and three others went
classroom to classroom, hunting for  -" and finding  -" more than a dozen
violations.  Skirts were too short.  (No skirt or shorts shall be worn in
excess of four inches above the knee, the dress code says.) Too much skin
was exposed about the neck.  (Tops shall cover the entire shoulder area.)
Bras and even panties were apparently lacking  -" appropriate undergarments
shall be worn at all times  -" although in these cases, no definitive
inspections could be carried out, and the team had only their sharp eyes
and good judgment to guide them.  Students were required to stand as the
charges were spoken aloud.  Names were taken.  Transgressors were handed a
flyer reminding them of the rules and told to report to the office the
following morning before class, appropriately dressed.

   As Mrs.  Toles predicted, not one boy was singled out in the raid.

   All the more remarkable to us, then, that the first pushback came from
the male quarter.  While, in the days following the classroom sweep, the
girls seemed to close in on themselves, faces and front and eyes down, the
boys grew flamboyant in their defiance.  First one, then another, showed up
in denim shorts cut to the crotch.  They walked about on spidery legs, some
with their lower moons flashing, in pointed violation of the four-inch
rule. When Mr.  Sully, with his patriarchal blind spot, failed to take the
bait, a senior named Tyler took the protest to extremes.  He spent an
entire Friday in a pink wig, with a white sundress over his clothes.  The
sight roused the girls from their fearful passivity: they applauded him
wherever he went.

   Still, Mr.  Sully did nothing.  The dress code did not state explicitly
that clothing must be gender-appropriate, he told us  -" an oversight he
would address at the next school board meeting.  Until then, he would
enforce the rules as he saw fit.

   It seemed like the right call.  The kids lost interest in the uprising,
as they lose interest in everything.  The girls covered themselves.  The
boys went back to knee length shorts.  For a time, everything returned to
normal.

   Then the yearbooks came out.

    -�Wait, what is this? -� Kellie Green was heard to say.   -�What did
they do to my chest? -�

   She was standing at the table in front the main office, where the books
were being handed out, in a circle of girlfriends signing their copies for
each other.  Halfway through her third autograph, she noticed the black
bar.

   In her formal school portrait  -" the one she sent copies of to her
aunts and grandparents, the one they all said made her like such a mature
young lady  -" she wore a black, scoop-neck top under an open brown
sweater. The upper slopes of her breasts, divided by a wisp of shadow,
peeked above the neckline.  It was just too scandalous, because in the
version printed in the yearbook, the scoop was gone, and so were the two
padded arches, all blacked out with a digital patch.

    -�It looks like they taped me up, -� Miss Green said.   -�Why?  It
-(TM)s not like I was flashing. -�

   Word spread fast, and for days, students buried their noses in the
yearbook every chance they got, studying with more determination than they
had ever read a history or mathematics text, in a schoolwide tournament to
Spot the Hidden Hooters.

   Eighty  -" that was the number of doctored photos reported as the story
worked its way up the media food chain.  We never learned who made the
call, but suddenly one morning camera crews planted themselves around the
flag poles, and we got a full minute at six and eleven, tucked between
sports and weather.  The anchors winked and smirked through the entire
segment.  The weekly paper followed up, sending a college intern only a
year out of high school herself.  Her story caught the attention of the
wire services, and finally, we were a headline in the New York Times:

   Girls -(TM) yearbook photos altered to hide their chests

   Miss DeLong, on Mr.  Sully -(TM)s orders, had devoted countless hours to
ensure no girl -(TM)s body would be subject to undue scrutiny, and in the
end, the girls -(TM) bodies were all anyone could talk about.

    -�They are shaming our daughters again, -� Penelope Toles told every
reporter who phoned her.   -�They are sexualizing them more than if they
had just left them alone.  We demand they apologize.  And throw those books
away. -�

   Once again, Athena Toles was a victim, and of a particularly clumsy
attempt to render her sexless.  In her formal portrait, she wore a plaid
blazer over a sweetheart collar.  It was Miss DeLong -(TM)s inspiration to
copy a piece of the blazer -(TM)s lapel and paste it over the girl -(TM)s
chest.  The pictures ran side by side in all the papers and on all the
websites, along with the two of Kellie Green.  Two of our model students
were now nationally famous for their adolescent breasts.

   The next meeting of the Compton District Board of School Directors was
packed.  An endless stream of parents, backed up by their children, took to
the microphone, making the same point again and again, waving newspapers
and decrying Compton High School -(TM)s newfound status as a national
laughingstock.  Mr.  Sully and Miss DeLong explained themselves without
actually apologizing, and in the end the board to refund the full $100
price of the yearbook to anyone who asked.  The crowd merely groaned.

   It was the unmatched people skills of Mr.  Tomlinson, however, that we
were sure brought on the Troubles.

    -�We should all thank Mr.  Sully and Miss DeLong for acting in the best
interests of our students, -� he said.   -�I -(TM)d back them up if they
did it again.  What business do underage girls have showing off their ta-ta
-(TM)s? -�

    -�I wasn -(TM)t showing off!! -� Miss Green shouted in the instant
before the crowd rose to its feet.  The snap of the superintendent -(TM)s
gavel was drowned beneath the hooting and the jeers as a volley of
yearbooks flew toward the dais.

   It was lucky no one was hurt, Tomlinson would tell the girl from the
paper, but when permissive parents refuse to discipline their children,
what can you expect?

   Such was the situation the next morning, when the kids came to school in
rags.  The plan must have been in the works long before the catastrophe at
the schoolboard.  Otherwise, how could it have taken shape so quickly? 
Maybe the students were waiting to see what the board would do, and the
balloon went up only after things went bad.  We never found out.  We never
asked.  The entire district just wanted to pretend it never happened.

    -�What -(TM)s this about? -� DeLong asked Miss Green when the girl
reached the top of the stairs.

    -�What -(TM)s what about? -� Miss Green replied.

    -�The way everyone is dressed. -�

    -�How -(TM)s that? -�

    -�In old clothes. -�

   The girl looked about her, all wide-eyed innocence.

    -�Oh, how about that? -� she said.   -�Sorry.  I don -(TM)t know.  It
must be a coincidence. -�

    -�I find that hard to believe, -� said Miss DeLong.

    -�Leave it, -� Mr.  Sully interrupted.   -�Miss Green, run along to
class. -�

    -�Yes, sir. -�

   She trotted off, her unsupported breasts waving like treetops in the
wind.

    -�She has a nice-sized bust for such a petite thing, -� Mr.  Sully said

    -�You noticed. -�

    -�She wanted us to notice, -� Sully said.   -�She -(TM)s flaunting it.
These kids -" -� But he was cut off by the bell.

   First period came and went.  So did second.  And we all remarked how
exceptionally alert and attentive the students seemed that morning.  Even
the dullest among them took part in class discussions.  Everyone raised
their hands.  The kids who never spoke up suddenly had had something to
say. The kids who always spoke up had more.  They were jazzed about
something, and we didn -(TM)t question it.  If we could keep it going, we
assured ourselves, the last month of the school year would be a
professional triumph.

   The kids gathered for homeroom.  We made our announcements.  The bell
rang for third period, and they streamed back into the halls, strangely
quiet for the first time all morning.  No signal was given.  No word was
spoken.  They acted as if under a spell, sloughing one garment after
another as they walked.

   Our principal was sitting at his desk, planning yet another raid to
snare any girl not wearing a bra, when Mrs.  Kling, the receptionist, burst
into his office.

    -�You need to see this, -� she said.

    -�What -(TM)s wrong? -� Sully asked.

    -�The students, they ...  you just need to see it. -�

   With a sigh, sure than nothing could possibly be as dire as this
ashen-faced woman made it sound, Sully rose and followed her into the
lobby.

   In the few seconds before the situation dawned on him, he thought he was
looking at nothing more than a petty case of littering.  He saw only the
sweatshirts, sweatpants, socks, and old shoes scattered in piles on the
floor.  Of course, he thought  -" they wore their old clothes so they could
throw them off as part of their silly demonstration.  The point, as always,
was to embarrass him.  Naturally, they would be made to clean up their
mess. And then, wordlessly, the logical question arose in his mind: if they
had dumped the clothes they had worn to school, what were they  -"?

   He eyes followed one trail of laundry down the nearest hallway, and as
he raised them, pieces of the scene slowly coalesced into a discernible
whole: a bare foot, a kneecap, a rounded thigh.  Then a jiggling buttock, a
pointed breast, a discreet penis.  One full body.  Two full bodies.  More.

   All this took but a moment.  Then the loudest bellow anyone Compton had
ever heard blared through the halls.

   PUT YOUR DAMN CLOTHES BACK ON!  ALL OF YOU!  NOW!

   They hardly seemed to hear him.  A few shuddered, slightly, in surprise,
and glanced at him over their bare shoulders, but when they saw the
impotent rage, and understood it was just the reaction they had had hoped
for, they went on to their next class.

   Mr.  Sully bellowed again: COVER YOURSELVES!  THIS INSTANT!  I WILL CALL
YOUR PARENTS!  I WILL CALL THE POLICE.

    -�Sir, sir, -� Mrs.  Kling said, tugging at his arm.   -�The PA system.
You can talk over the PA -" -�

   Just then an olive-skinned goddess stepped forward.  She had stark ribs
and high, apple-sized breasts, and her black patch, closely shaved, tapered
like a comet -(TM)s tail, vanishing at the apex of her pubic lips.

    -�Excuse me, Mr.  Sully? -� she said.   -�You lent me this to cover up
with.  I don -(TM)t need it anymore. -� And she pressed a black school
jersey into his hand.

   Go, Manatees.

   Before he could flare up yet again, little Kellie Green scuttled by, her
bare feet quietly slapping the tile floor.

    -�Hi, Mr.  Sully, -� she said.   -�Now I -(TM)m showing off my ta-ta
-(TM)s! -�

   She had a good deal to show off, although, in her natural state, her
back-end commanded just as much attention.  In profile, her butt was as
full as her bosom.  They balanced one another like a set of parentheses. 
Shoeless, she was less than five feet tall, but nicely rounded, and happy
with her ripe young body.

    -�It -(TM)s that one, -� Sully muttered.   -�Somehow, she -(TM)s behind
this.  Get her back here.  Bring her back. -�

   But her shiny behind was already lost behind an approaching wall of
flesh.

    -�She -(TM)s gone, Sir, she -(TM)s gone, -� Mrs.  Kling said.   -�Come
back inside.  Use the PA. -�

   He allowed her to draw him into the office, to her own desk, where he
sat at the microphone and set forth his carrots and sticks with murderous
calm.

    -�Students have five minutes to end this ...  demonstration, -� he
said.  -�Anyone caught in a state of ...  undress ...  after that grace
period will face suspension, and possibly expulsion.  Members of the
faculty are to suspend classes until decency is restored.

    -�Ladies and gentlemen, friends  -" please.  We can settle our
differences without bringing shame to your parents.  Think of them.  Do the
right thing.  And my door is always open. -� F

    -�Excuse me, Sir, -� Mrs.  Kling said.   -�That girl from the paper is
here. -�

    -�God damn it! -� Sully said.

   The mic was still open, and the roars from every classroom shook the
school to its foundations.

   Naturally, somebody had tipped off the newspaper in advance.  The news
vans arrived within the hour.  Little Kellie Green, the pretty face of the
revolution, appeared on every channel, standing by the flagpole and
speaking to the cameras as sparkling pixels danced across her chest, hiding
her two most persuasive arguments from the viewing public.

    -�We -(TM)re naked to show that our bodies aren -(TM)t bad, and we aren
-(TM)t ashamed, -� she said.   -�Some of the adults at school were on us
all the time about the dress code.  When they blacked us out in the
yearbook, that was too much.  Now maybe they won -(TM)t care if we just
show off a little skin. -�

    -�But how do you feel being naked in front of everyone? -� a reporter
asked.

    -�I love it, -� Kellie said.   -�When everybody -(TM)s naked, nobody
-(TM)s embarrassed.  It doesn -(TM)t matter what you look like.  It -(TM)s
like, oh, we -(TM)re naked.  Big deal. -�

    -�And how did your teachers react? -�

    -�They acted shocked at first, but I think they got used to it.  They
went on teaching, anyway. -�

   Well, sure.  When it became evident no one was about to put their
clothes back on, despite the threats emanating from the front office, we
decided, one by one, to ignore Sully -(TM)s command and go on with our
lessons.  There was nothing we could have done but bluster and bargain,
and, confronted by rows of taut young bodies, hardly anyone was in the
mood. By the middle of third period things had returned to normal, except,
of course, for the wealth of erogenous zones on display and the spectacle
of Principal Sully barreling through the halls, trailed by the chief of
police and a half dozen officers.

    -�Isn -(TM)t there anything you can do? -� Sully demanded.

    -�Like what? -� Chief Randy said.   -�I can -(TM)t arrest fifteen
hundred kids, and I can -(TM)t let my officers be seen manhandling them. 
The most I can do is make sure no one gets hurt. -�

    -�You could intimate them. -�

    -�They -(TM)re naked, -� Randy said.   -�I doubt they can be
intimidated by much of anything.  Let it go.  When they -(TM)ve had enough,
they -(TM)ll get dressed and go home. -�

   The chief was half right.  The kids did go home, but they never bothered
to get dressed.  After five periods of freedom, the discarded clothing lay
unclaimed in the stairwells and halls, and fifteen hundred students
strolled into the afternoon sun without a stitch on.  They boarded their
buses, started their cars, or just walked home, unmolested by the
dumbfounded cops leaning against their cruisers.

   They should do it every day, we agreed, though of course that was not
for attribution.  On the record, when asked, we said that if the rules were
unfair, there were proper channels for expressing grievances.  School was
not the appropriate place for protest.  Nothing good ever came of
challenging authority.

   And yet, the next morning, when the clothes had been swept away by the
overnight crews and headlines were bringing us to the world -(TM)s
attention once again  -" Florida high schoolers stage naked protest;
Student body displays student bodies  -" Athena Toles walked through the
front doors in her sheer white sundress, which now seemed startlingly
modest, given her appearance the day before.  Perhaps she was wearing a
bra, perhaps not.  And what was that comet-like shadow under her skirt?  It
hardly mattered.  She climbed the stairs toward Mr.  Sully, who stood alone
at his accustomed station.  It was a ritual he knew he would miss, and he
wanted to savor a final taste of authority.  In one hour, he had an
appointment with the superintendent of schools.

    -�Good morning, Miss Toles, -� he said quietly.

    -�Good morning, Mr.  Sully, -� she replied.   -�Is something the
matter? -�

    -�Not at all, -� he said.   -�I like your dress.  It -(TM)s very ... 
appropriate. -�