Trixie's Journal

Nothing at all would have happened if Moms hadn't started making us do our own laundry. I know, I know, she gave us all lessons but I guess the only one paying attention was Brian. Mr. Perfect never turned his white shirts pink like I did or did what Mart did.

You have to admit that was funny, even if Mart did not think so. He did a load of wash and hung it outside to dry, and then we all met at the Wheelers' lake for an early-season picnic. When he got home, his tidy whities were hanging in shreds!

Mart went storming into the house, figuring Bobby had something to do with this catastrophe; after all Bobby and a pair of scissors was a recipe for disaster. Remember the time he decided to give himself a Mohawk? Moms hid all the scissors after that, even the dull ones. Lucky that happened during the summer and not during school.

Anyway, Mart came in with the remnants of what used to be his Fruit of the Looms. I swear that his face was redder than mine, even that time Jim accidentally kissed me in front of everybody. Well, how was I supposed to know he was going to turn his face at the same time I was giving him a little thank you kiss on the cheek? The way everybody acted, you would think we were having a full make-out session in front of the entire high school.

"BOBBY! Robert Belden! Get down here right this instant!" Mart was yelling up the stairs, and it's a good thing Daddy wasn't home. You know how he feels about yelling up the steps. Mart had a bunch of what looked like white rags in his hand.

Moms and I came rushing out of the kitchen and saw what he was holding in his hands. "Martin Belden." Moms said it in that momly voice that usually resulted in whatever was going on immediately stopping and the guilty party well, looking even guiltier. But Mart was too far gone at this point.

"Look at this, Moms! Look what that little bas...Bobby did! I don't know what's wrong with him. He must've found your stash of scissors. You know," Mart said darkly, "This can be a sign of an incipient serial killer."

Moms took one look at the mess of white rags in his hand, shrugged her shoulders and asked him, quite calmly, "Where did you get those white rags, Mart?" I guess she couldn't understand why Mart was so upset that Bobby cut up a bunch of white rags.

"They used to be my underwear. All of my underwear. And now they're reduced to this." He held a pair up, and all that remained was of a few shreds of material attached to an elastic waistband and some anemic looking fruit. "Where is the little monster, Moms?"

Moms was looking at stuff Mart held in his hand with the funniest look on her face. It was almost like she was a combination of horrified and hysterical. She finally said in a strangled voice, "Your brother hasn't been home all day. He left even before you got out of the house, Martin. Diana's parents took him and the twins into White Plains for the day."

"Then how did every single pair of my underwear get like this?" Mart waved the shreds like a sort of tattered surrender flag, and neither Moms nor I could contain our laughter any longer. I even think I peed a little; tears were rolling down our faces and Mart was getting angrier and angrier. Finally, Moms took a deep breath.

"Just what did you do to these, um, underwear, honey?" Moms asked him.

Mart sat on the steps hard, looking miserable. "Nothing , Moms. I noticed they were getting kind of gray looking, so I remembered you told us to use some bleach. So I presoaked them in bleach before washing them."

Moms' voice sounded strangled again. "You presoaked your underwear in bleach. Straight bleach, you didn't dilute it? For how long?"

"A couple hours. Then I ran them through the wash and hung them out on the line. When I came home they were like this." Mart held up the tatters in both hands. And of course Moms started laughing hysterically again and I began laughing and she finally got a chance about thirty minutes later to explain that you shouldn't presoak your underwear in undiluted bleach.

Then she had to run Mart to Crimper's for all new underwear. And of course I had to needle him for the next couple of weeks. It isn't often that Mart does something really stupid like that, even if he is a lamebrain.

I guess he decided to get revenge on me for laughing so hysterically – and maybe for telling all the other Bob-Whites too – because you know his motto is revenge is sweet. Saccharine sweet.

Well you know me, I have to use every single bit of clothing that I own before I go downstairs to wash it. Mart must've been observing me for quite some time and learned my habits. All I had left in my underwear drawer was an old pair of boy-cut panties with Wednesday printed across the back. I put them on even though it wasn't Wednesday, because honestly who was gonna see them? I also had to wear a short skirt and sweater set because all my jeans needed to be laundered.

Wrong move.

I was sitting in the cafeteria with Jim. Honey and Diana had gone on a field trip with one of their classes; Brian was in guidance doing some stuff about college and God only knows where Mart and Dan got to.

I stood up to return my tray to the kitchen when I felt a little snap.

And then my panties slithered down my legs.

Right down to the ankles.

And I sat right back down.

I must have turned vermilion, because Jim stared at me and asked what was wrong. Oh great. Just what I want to tell the boy that I've been in love with since forever. Well, you see Jim, I know it's Friday but I have on panties that say Wednesday but really, I've changed them and they just broke. And right now I'm sitting here bare-assed in the cafeteria with my panties around my ankles.

Even worse than that, I had stuck my book bag in my locker before lunch, so I couldn't just bend down and stuff them in there. Damn that Mart. He probably sanded the elastic so that would give way at some point.

"Trix? What's wrong? You're practically purple."

I tried to tell him, really, but I started to choke and then he really got scared and started pounding me on the back. Hard.

"Jim!" I hissed. "I'm not choking." I motioned for him to lean down I could whisper. "This is really embarrassing." I just couldn't say it right then.

He tugged at my curl, the one that he considers his. "What's really embarrassing, Trix?" Gosh when he looks at me with those green eyes and makes me feel like I'm the only person in the world I just feel like melting.

I started chewing on my lower lip. "Jim. Ummm… When I stood up the elastic on my panties broke. My panties are now taking up residence around my ankles. I don't know what to do."

I guess of all the things that I could've told Jim, telling him that I was sitting next to him bare-assed was probably the last thing he expected. He turned as red as I was, his eyes widened into great green seas, and he let out a short bark of laughter. "Are you sure?" he whispered back.

I know I rolled my eyes. "Of course I'm sure. The problem is I can't just pick them up and put them in my backpack, because I don't have it with me. And I don't want anybody to see what I'm doing."

Jim had the strangest look in his eyes. "Listen Trix, I have gym next, so I have my duffel bag with me. Just bend down and get them off as nonchalantly as you can and stuff them in my bag. You can get them later."

I made a big production of dropping my fork. When I bent under the big cafeteria table I picked up my fork in one hand and with the other stuffed my panties in Jim's duffel bag, which he had unzipped for me. Nobody seemed to be any the wiser.

"Trix, do you think you should go home? I mean, you don't want to be walking around in a short skirt and ummm… you know." For some reason Jim had a light sheen of perspiration on his brow.

"I'm going to stop by the girls' gym and pick up my gym shorts," I said. I stood up and asked him if he wanted to take a walk with me.

"Ummm…no, I'm just going to sit here for a minute."

I shrugged my shoulders and told him I'd see him later on the bus.

And you know what? Mart is going to pay for this.

Jim's Journal

Oh, man. Trixie and I were finally alone in the cafeteria, if you think that eating with a couple hundred other kids is alone. What I mean is we didn't have any of our fellow Bob-Whites around. Alone time with my special girl is very hard to come by.

All of a sudden Trixie turned this peculiar shade of red. I swear, I don't think I ever saw her that red. She couldn't even answer me when I asked her what was wrong. When she did try to answer, she started to choke so I gave her a couple of taps on the back. To tell you the truth, I was almost kind of hoping I'd have to give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Then she whispers to me her panties fell off. Her panties. She was sitting right there, next to me, and she tells me her panties are around her freaking ankles. I mean, I know she's naked under her clothes but it's not like I sit there and think about it all of the time.

Well, not all of the time.

Then she tells me she didn't bring her book bag or anything that she could stuff them into. It took a minute or two for her words to soak in, because really, I know the word honorable gets bandied about a lot about me, but geez. I am a red-blooded heterosexual male. And my special girl is sitting next to me in a tight sweater and short skirt and no panties.

I leaned over a bit and unzipped my duffel bag and told her to put them in my bag. And then I started to think I really didn't want her walking around the school in that short skirt with ummm… no panties on.

Because believe me, nobody was going to see my Trix that way unless it was me.

She finally got the offending item zipped up securely in my bag and then she stood and told me she was going to go to get her gym shorts. Wanted to know if I wanted to take a walk. I don't think so.

At least not right then. I needed to ummm, calm down a little bit.

Of course you might think this would be the end of the story. That Trixie and I met some time after school and made the exchange. But noooooo. Nothing is ever that easy.

I watched her make her way through the cafeteria and I guess it was just my imagination that her round little bottom just jiggled a bit more. It was just my imagination that all the guys in the cafeteria were staring at her like she was an ice cream sundae and they all had spoons.

Mart and Dan finally showed up, asked where Trix was and I told him she went to the gym for something or another. We started talking about the latest happenings on ESPN and I forgot all about the little bomb in my duffle bag.

So you can guess what happened next.

There I was in the boys' gym, taking out my clean baseball uniform to put in my locker. I pulled it out and something crumpled fell on the floor. I couldn't imagine what it was, until I picked it up in my hand and shook it out.

Of course it wasn't my jockstrap. It was the tiniest pair of panties I ever seen with Wednesday scrawled across the back.

Oh. My. God.

Trixie's panties.

The funniest thought went through my head. Not the fact that I was standing in a boys' locker room holding my special girl's panties for all to see. Nope.

I was wondering why Trixie had on Wednesday's panties and it was Friday. I know I must've stared at them for several seconds before I crumpled them up in a ball in my hand and shoved them deep in my duffel bag.

I know I must've been bright red, because Coach came over to me, clapped me on my shoulder and asked me if I was okay. I saw a couple of the guys give me funny looks, but nobody said anything.

It seemed like such a good idea at the time, back there in the cafeteria.

And now I'm trying to figure out how I could get them back to her.

And I really, really want to know if the elastic is going in the rest of the set. Because seriously, when it does, I certainly want to be there.