excerpt from the novel, “The ‘Y’Sapphires,” a work in process.
It’s the end of January and we’re starting the second semester. Miss McPherson, in addition to teaching us PE, is also in charge of Health Education.
She is leading us out of the gym to the Health Room. She takes the steps three at a time and we’re behind her, lined up in rows, snickering and making comments about her except we’re all afraid to say anything directly to her. To Miss McPherson you only answer. You do not start any conversation. Especially me. We’re doing the drills for the Olympics. It’s all set up to do one of the exercises each week so we can perfect our skills. This week it’s the high jump. Some of the girls can do it ok. The best I can do is step over the tape because my legs are so long and I'm so slow. You’re supposed to run and then do a kind of sideways scissors kick to take you over. I try to fake a run but when I get to the tape it’s like I see a stop sign. I stop and stretch my legs and step over. I don’t catch her eye no matter what I do but I can see the corner of her lips moving down as she watches me. When we get into the Health Room, Miss McPherson pulls down these rolled up images. One is of the female body, the other is of a woman's internal organs. The girls are rolling their eyes and giggling.
“Ok, girls, this is where the rubber hits the road. I know you don’t think of yourselves like this and some of you haven’t even moved through adolescence yet, but here it is. A year from now all of you will have breasts and she points to them on the skeleton. Whether you like it or not, by then you’ll all have your periods and that will make you women. That’s where it all starts. She points out the vagina, the cervix, the uterus which may as well be Latin words for all we know about it. We’re sure that all of this has nothing to do with us. We can’t see those parts of our bodies. It’s like someone is showing us our tonsils. So what! Then she pulls down the next roll and it is of the male body.
“This is the penis and that’s where the trouble starts,” and she slaps the pointer right at the penis as if she’s whacking it. There is some whispering and giggling which she lets go on for a minute or so.
“When the penis enters the vagina, and sperm is released and that sperm meets an egg, that’s when life is formed.”
We’re trying to keep a straight face but there is a lot of tittering going on in the room.
“Don’t go giggling like a bunch of ninnies,” she says.
We’re looking at each other and mouthing, “What are ninnies?”
“I’m going to put this in language you can understand. The point is it isn’t just wrassling with some guy in the back seat of a Dodge, or letting him feel you up. You’re not little kids anymore. You’re women and you have a responsibility to your bodies. Men don’t have babies. Women have babies. Women create life. You have a baby because you get excited with some guy and he wants you to do it, and tells you how much he loves you, and the next thing you know you have a little…” She writes it on the board , “I want you all to repeat it with me. You have a bastard…”
We’re all saying “Bas-tard…” It’s two syllables and drawn out.
“That’s what it is, girls, and don’t come crying to me. I’m supposed to teach you about birth control. It’s very simple. See those legs, cross them and keep them crossed. That’s birth control. “Boys can't control themselves - it's your body. It's your responsibility. Repeat after me, “Boys can't control themselves.” We do and she says again, “Boys can't control themselves” and we repeat again. Again and again and again - we're screaming by now. Miss MacPherson seems content that her message has penetrated. “Any questions?”
You can imagine that there are no questions but there is a lot of excitement in the room. You can feel it.
“Right now, we’re going back to the gym and run a few laps to cool you down.”
Somehow I was hoping with all this there would be something like love but I guess that’s not part of it. It all doesn’t look very appetizing, that’s for sure.
