It was Friday, and the spring term would begin on Monday. The twins needed to take Ayame to the high school to register and then they had to stop at the dojo to return some equipment. As they drove through the base, Ayame looked around in amazement.
“This is such big place! When you said you lived in place called ‘Camp Pendleton’ I thought it was like small camp, yo?”
“Yeah, nothing like Japan, right? Even LA isn’t anything like Tokyo; Tokyo has all those tall buildings. You didn’t get to see LA too well since we arrived at night. LA is big but doesn’t have many tall buildings,” Cynthia said, smiling. “Our school is in a little town just off the base.”
They arrived at the school and took Ayame to the office where she handed her school records to the clerk.
“Oh my goodness, this is too complicated for an administrative transfer. You need to see a guidance counselor for this,” the clerk exclaimed as she riffled through the paperwork. “At least it’s mostly translated. You should see the records that some of the Marine families come in with after they return from a foreign tour. Let me see who’s available to speak to you.”
They were directed to a counselor who spent an hour matching up courses that Ayame had taken with corresponding ones in their program. Finally she had a list completed.
“It looks like you’ve virtually completed all of the high school graduation requirements and have a few areas of advanced standing, too. The only areas you’re lacking are in civics, obviously, and possibly English, although your spoken English is quite good.”
“Hai, sensai... yes, miss,” Ayame said, “my parents said that for this term I should concentrate on American civics, history, and English. Been already accepted at several colleges and need to visit some ones that I’m much interested in attending—major to be pre-med.”
“Okay, let’s see how those classes can fit into a schedule for you. Do you guys want to be in the some of the same classes?” she asked, looking at the twins. “I could put Ayame into your English class, and let’s see, you’ve got American History too.” Roger nodded yes. “The best civics class for you, Ayame, is this junior class,” the counselor finished.
“Yes, sensai, please, that would be good to be in their classes if you can.”
“Let’s look at electives too. Roger and Cynthia are also in Psychology—oh, yes, Anatomy and Physiology too. Since you’re going to be pre-med and you haven’t had those classes, how about those too?”
“Oh, yes, those would be good.”
“Now it looks like we won’t need to calculate your graduation requirements from this school because your Japanese transcript already shows that you’ve met their requirements. May I ask why you want to take more high school classes instead of just beginning in college?”
“If I stay in Japan I have to study electives anyway and taking entrance exams is draining. Parents wanted me to come to the U.S. for college anyway and told me that starting in high school might help with culture shock a bit. My parents both Americans, you know, so this isn’t new decision, sensai.”
Soon Ayame’s schedule was arranged with her having five periods together with Roger and Cynthia and the trio left the office to give Ayame a tour of the school.
“Cynthia!” a voice rang out. They turned to see who had called.
“Coach Vickers! Hi!” Cynthia answered. “Come meet our cousin from Japan.”
The coach came over to them.
“Hi there,” she said, extending her hand, “I’m Amy Vickers, Cindy’s basketball coach; welcome!”
“Asano Ayame desu, ahh, name is Ayame Asano, nice meeting you.”
“What a pretty name, Ayame. You’re visiting us?”
“In some way. I’ll be here until graduation. Then I go to college and have got several to choose from to visit. Thank you for name compliment. Name means ‘iris,’ a flower.”
“A beautiful flower, like the person. Well, you missed seeing our basketball season; Cindy led our team to the state championship last term—oh, right! Cindy—how did you do in the judo match?”
Roger broke in, “She’s the world champion lightweight judoka, Coach. She won the gold medal.”
“Fantastic, Cindy! I’m so glad that the b-ball schedule didn’t hurt your judo training. I remember how intense it was for you during the last few months. What about you, Roger? How did you do, if I may ask?”
Cindy answered, “Rog took bronze in middleweight. That’s the toughest weight class, too, because there are so many good judokas in that weight.”
“Congratulations, Roger. Well done, both of you. Now you can devote all your attention to the swim team, right, Roger? I’m looking forward to the swim meets starting next month. Ayame, do you have a sport you play?”
“In school only games I played were volleyball and, errr, we call it sakka—but I was not so good, I’m poor runner and not play in games with other schools.”
“Sakka? Oh, soccer! That word must have come from our name, ‘soccer,’” Vickers said.
“Hai, Vickers-sensai. Translates for ‘association football.’ Lots of people still call it futtoboru, that’s ‘football’ in nihon, err, Japanese.”
“Say, it’s been nice to talk, guys, but I need to get busy now—nice meeting you, Ayame, and congrats again on your judo titles, guys!” And she rushed off.
“Say, Ayame, you mentioned not running very well in soccer—those burns still cause you problems?” Cynthia asked with a concerned look.
“Hai, but now lots better. Several more surgery and treatment happened to break up scar tissue that kept forming after I went into puberty...”
“What scar tissue? Excuse me for breaking in...” a new voice interrupted them as they walked down the hall. They spun around to see who it was.
“Coach Jerter!” Roger exclaimed.
“Yep, it’s me. I ran into Coach Amy and she said you were headed this way so I caught up with you. Roger—and Cindy—congratulations, she told me about your judo. Roger, I just wanted to let you know that we had some team swimming practices during the break so you’ll need to get caught up. But who’s your friend and what’s this about surgeries and scars?”
“Guys, this is Coach Jerter, my swim coach, obviously, and Coach, this is our cousin from Japan, Ayame Asano. She was burned in a fire.”
“Hello, Jerter-sensai, honored to meet,” Ayame said, bowing her head. “Yes, are cousins but Roger and Cindy aren’t related by blood. Parents adopted me after whole family died in fire when I was little. But hips and belly burned pretty bad and have lot of scarring there. Can walk fine now but still tire quickly if I have to run lots.”
Cynthia continued, “Ayame is here till we graduate and then she’ll be going to college in the U.S.”
“Well, good meeting you, Ayame. You may want to try swimming, you know. It’s a great way to increase your leg strength without having your legs bearing your whole body weight. Roger, I checked your gym schedule and want you in the pool when you have gym, okay? See you all next week, now; take care!” He turned and strode back down the hall toward the offices.
The trio finished their tour at the library and then left to show Ayame the town and some other sights. First they stopped at a mobile phone service provider and Ayame got her phones set up. Then they stopped for lunch and afterward drove to the dojo. As soon as they entered, Roger and Cynthia were mobbed by the staff.
“The conquering heroes return!” “Way to go, guys!” “I saw the clips of your matches, way cool!” rang out around them.
Some of the students came over, curious about the uproar. Then they saw the twins and realized what the excitement was about.
One of the classes that was being held was for a group of law enforcement personnel from the city police and the sheriff’s department. Cynthia and Roger were among their instructors during the times that the class met after school hours, but because of their fall training schedule, the twins hadn’t worked with the class for the past four months. The group insisted on a demo of some of the moves and throws the siblings used in their matches, so they changed into their gis and drafted the two instructors for their sparring match. Then they took some of the more advanced students in the group and easily flipped, threw, or dropped them each within ten seconds.
One of the cops groaned, as he struggled onto his feet after being flipped by Cynthia for the third time, “Geez, I’m glad you’re the good guys. I can’t even touch you without getting thrown.”
“Yeah, you move so fast I can’t even get my feet planted to resist getting thrown!” another puffed, lying on his back after Roger had tossed him over his shoulder.
“Don’t feel bad, guys,” Cynthia said after the group agreed that they had enough. “You could all outshoot us in a pistol match, right? It’s all just good training. You all really did pretty well against us—Roger and I actually had to work hard to get inside your guards, so keep up the good work. We’ve gotta run now, but this was fun. See you in class sometime. Our schedules will be better now.”
Ayame had been watching the class with interest. When the twins had resumed their street clothes and were in the car, she began to reflect on the differences between what she saw at the matches in Tokyo and in the class.
“There was real difference! You move much more slowly with them in dojo than in match in Tokyo—almost like slow motion. Why was that?”
Roger answered, “With the class, those guys have almost no experience so we have to be really careful not to injure them. We have to throw and drop them carefully because they don’t know how to fall properly yet. So we move slowly and deliberately. It’s also a teaching tool so the student can feel the proper positioning of the attacker. In competition, we’re facing people who know all the techniques for protecting themselves and we can move as fast as we possibly can. Speed is almost as important as strength—maybe even equal in most cases.”
“Ayame, do you need anything for school? Do you have enough clothes till the shipment of your stuff arrives? There’s a nice mall not far where we can shop,” Cynthia suggested.
“Maybe don’t really need anything, but never turn down the chance to see some new shops,” Ayame grinned. “You know Japanese teenie girls just love going shopping malls, right?” she laughed.
The kids spent the rest of the afternoon at the mall and then finally went home. The twins’ dad was already home.
“Hey, guys, you’re local celebrities here now. The camp commander, General Markus, wants to honor the two of you at next week’s formation. He said that a great honor to a Marine family is also a great honor to the Corps.”
“That’s cool, sir,” Roger said, “do we need to do anything special? He doesn’t expect a demo or something, right?”
“No, you just need to stand, smile, and look pretty while the troops pass in formation. They’ll salute you and you’ll acknowledge.”
The rest of the weekend passed with the three teens doing regular teen activities.
Monday morning dawned bright and cool; it was still winter even in southern California, so it was 51 degrees when the teens left for school.
They arrived at school and entered the building with a hoard of other kids, used their lockers to stow items not needed until later, and went off to their home room. After the final bells rang, Cynthia, Roger, and Ayame were seated, looking over the syllabuses for their first few classes of the day. The teacher came in and noticed the twins.
“Class, I heard from Coach Amy that Cynthia and Roger Denison won medals at the International Judo Federation tournament in Japan last week. Congrats, guys, well done.”
The students in the room gave them a round of applause. A few minutes later the door opened and a student came in and handed a message to the teacher.
She read it and looked up. “Cynthia and Roger, this message asks the two of you to go to the main conference room. It says to leave your backpacks in your lockers and then go to the conference room.”
Roger looked at Cynthia. “What’s this about, I wonder. Maybe about our judo?”
Cynthia shrugged. “We’ll see.”
They got to the room with a bunch of other kids who were arriving from all directions, kids from all of the grade levels. Roger noticed a sophomore who was on the basketball team and some of the kids looked really young—must be freshmen, he thought. The room was set up with chairs lined up around the walls and there were a number of staff members at the far end of the room.
The principal, Mr Davis, was there; so were two coaches. Roger recognized the football coach and thought that the other husky man was the wrestling team coach. Two additional adults were the school’s security guards in their rent-a-cop outfits and another man whom he hadn’t seen before.
Cynthia looked around the room and counted 24 students and noticed a stack of boxes in one corner. She scanned the boxes and suddenly felt her knees get weak. She clutched Roger’s arm.
“Rog, I don’t like this! Look at the boxes there!”
“Yeah, Cyn, I noticed. Same as the number of kids, right?”
Just then the principal started to speak.
“Students, you may recall that last fall we sent letters home to your parents about the Naked in School Program that the school is beginning. Well, you are honored today as the first group who has been chosen to participate.”
There was a loud howl of objection from everyone and Cynthia staggered; only Roger’s strong grip kept her from falling.
“NO!” she cried. “NO! I’m not!”
Davis interrupted, “Yes, everyone here will be participating, and this meeting is to explain about how you will participate in the Program for this week.”
Roger broke in, “Well, in selecting us, you made a mistake. Our parents didn’t approve our participation. The Marine base commanding general is not allowing Marine families to allow their students to participate and our parents even sent a letter saying that we were not to be picked.”
“Son, during the fall term we learned that the Program was now mandatory and everyone in the school must participate. That’s why we’re so crowded now,” Davis said.
Cynthia was quietly crying and Roger looked at her. He whispered, “It’s okay, we’re leaving here.” To Davis, he said, “Mandatory or not, we’re not staying for this.”
He turned to the door to leave with Cynthia but one of the security guards had moved over to the door and blocked it.
Roger whispered to Cynthia, “Watch me for your lead. We’ll get out, even if we have to fight our way out.”
She nodded.
Mr Davis continued, “Now students, I want to introduce you to Mr Cirota. He’s the Program official at our school and he’s in charge of how the Program runs. It’s essential that you listen to everything he says because it’s his decision whether or not you successfully complete the week. If he doesn’t think that you’ve met the requirements, then you’ll need to repeat your Program week. Please, everyone, take a seat while I continue. Now I’ll go over the rules with you, take your questions, and then you’ll all strip naked, put your clothes in these boxes, and go to class.”
All the students had taken seats except for Roger and Cynthia, who remained standing, leaning on a wall and glaring at Davis, who kept shooting pointed glances at them while he spoke.
“Mr Cirota is handing out the Program booklets and the rules for the Program are in them. Complete nudity is required during school and at all school-sponsored activities between now and midnight Sunday. Any attempt to hide or cover up is a Program violation; violations can result in your being required to repeat your week. Completing the Program is now a graduation requirement.”
He went on to describe “Reasonable Requests,” where other students could touch, fondle, grope, or play with the sexual organs of a participant, and “Relief,” where a participant was to masturbate to orgasm with or without assistance of another student during the beginning of any class. Teachers could use Program students for any necessary teaching demonstration, such as a model for sex studies in biology or as a figure model in art or photography. All demonstrations would be videotaped and published on the school website. Refusing Reasonable Requests and not participating in classroom demonstrations were other Program violations, and some violations would extend the Program participation time by days or weeks.
Davis concluded, “Boys and girls will use the locker room facilities and the rest room facilities of the opposite sex during their Program week. Those of you who are in sports or performing arts will participate in those activities naked as well. After school today, your clothes boxes will be located at the main doors and you will get dressed there. For the rest of the week, in the mornings you’ll strip at the main doors and leave your clothes in your box until the end of the school day. All of these rules are spelled out in the Program booklet and you must read it to know what your responsibilities are. If you fail to follow the rules because you’re not familiar with them, the consequences will be the same as an intentional violation.
“Now it’s time, everyone needs to strip.”
All the kids began looking at each other, hesitantly waiting for someone else to begin.
“Students, you have to strip now. If you don’t, the coaches and guards will forcibly disrobe you.”
The guards and teachers began to move toward the kids, but when the guard moved away from the door, Roger and Cynthia immediately went to it and began to open it. One of the coaches intercepted them and reached out and grabbed Cynthia’s shoulder. She ducked slightly, did a half twist, grabbed his arm, and tossed him onto his back in a classic shoulder throw. He landed with an “ooof.”
Then the guards and teachers turned toward Roger and Cynthia and began to move toward them.
“No closer! Cindy was gentle that time. We don’t want to hurt anyone.” Roger called.
One of the guards charged Roger and reached out to hold him; Roger grabbed his outstretched arm, stepped aside, and pulled him forward while tripping him. The guard stumbled and fell headlong onto his face.
Roger shouted, “Get out of the way, kids! Stay away!” and mayhem broke out.
All the students squeezed themselves into the corners of the room and watched with amazement as five adults tried to reach the twins, who easily kept the adults away by grappling one and throwing him to the floor or into another person trying to close in; one after another the attackers were thrown to the floor. After less than two minutes of futile attempts at reaching the siblings, two of the adults—a teacher and a guard—were nursing injured arms, while a third limped away from Roger and Cynthia, who were barely breathing hard.
While this was going on, Mr Davis was talking excitedly on his cell phone; then he looked up. “Everyone, stop now!” he called.
Roger shouted, “Cindy and I’ve had judo training. If you touch us, you’ll just wind up on the floor again. I said that we’re not going to do that Program crap and I absolutely mean it. Guys, now that everything’s all confused, just get out of here and decide if you’re gonna do it or not. You need to think about it and not just get forced. If any of you are Marine, you know you can’t be forced.”
Davis called, “Stop! No one leave!” but about half of the kids left the room anyway.
Davis told one of the guards to get back to his post at the school’s main door to keep students from leaving. Just then the school’s police resource officer arrived.
“Okay, Mr Davis, what’s the matter?” he asked, looking around the room.
Davis told him what happened.
“Those two assaulted my teachers; I want them arrested.”
The cop asked to speak to the twins privately.
“Okay, Denisons, come on out here,” he said with a grin. When they went out of the room and moved away from the door, he continued. “Looked like you had a little rumble in there. Wan’ta tell me about it?”
Cynthia said, “Yeah, Don, funny you should be here after our class on Friday. Still sore after all my throws?”
“Right, Cyn. Nothin’ that several sessions with a heating pad didn’t fix right up. Now what the hell happened in there?”
“Did you know about this Naked in School business?” Roger asked.
“Hell no. Naked? School? Is this a joke?”
“Wish it were. You’re gonna see lots of weird stuff from now on,” Roger explained. “They’re gonna try to get kids to each spend a week walking around naked. My dad’s general ordered us not to participate and when they tried to force us to strip...”
“Hold right there. Force? As in physical force?”
“Yeah, the principal told the teachers to strip any kid who was moving too slow,” Cynthia put in.
“Well. That’s all I need to hear. Let’s talk to Davis now.”
They returned to the room and only half the number of kids were still there, still dressed.
Davis walked up to the officer. “Are they under arrest?”
“Sir, I’m told that they were going to be forcibly undressed?” Davis confirmed that. “Well, seems to me that they were just protecting themselves.”
“They’re in a federal program that requires that they be naked in school, officer.”
“Then it’s a federal problem, right? Let them deal with it,” he said and walked out of the room.
Roger said to Cynthia, “Let’s get home and talk to Dad right now, okay?” She agreed. “Mr Davis, I told you that we won’t participate, and we won’t. We’ll also do everything we can to derail this idiotic thing. You’re dealing with the Marine Corps and not only Marines themselves, but their kids too, know about proper, moral behavior. We’re leaving now and you can mark this down as illness—we’re sick. From disgust that this could happen in a school.”
They slipped a note into Ayame’s locker telling her that they’d be back to pick her up, and then left the school. As they left, the guard at the door first began to challenge them, but then noticed who they were and gave them a wide berth as they left.
They went straight to Sgt Denison’s office and burst right in; he was meeting with a group of NCOs.
“Sir, this is an emergency—nobody’s hurt, but this is serious.” Roger exclaimed.
“Okay, Roger. Gentlemen, give us a few minutes, okay?”
“Sir, wait. Your command team should hear this too since I know a few of their kids are at my school too.”
“Go on...”
Cynthia began. “They started the Program this morning and we were picked in the first group.”
“Oh HELL!” Denison exclaimed. He looked at the others. “You know what that means?”
“Yeah, we do,” was the muttered response.
Cynthia continued, “They tried to forcibly strip us...” there were loud sounds of outrage, “...but Roger and I fought them off.”
“GOOD!” came the response.
“The cop at the school—we know him from judo classes—was asked to arrest us but he’s cool and told the principal that if it’s a federal program, then the feds will need to enforce it, not the local cops. But he’s just one of the local police troops...”
“Stop right there. I’m going to call the MP commander and we’ll get the local law enforcement mobilized so that what your officer told you will be local doctrine. And I’ll put a squad on alert to keep an eye on things at the school too—we’ll put out the word that no Marine kid is to be messed with. Do you know if anyone else in that first group is Marine?”
Cynthia said, “I think two other kids were Marine is all, sir. If the selection was random, let’s see, about 10 percent of the school is Marine and three out of 24 is 12.5 percent, so statistically it’s probably only us and the other two.”
One of the NCOs pointed out, “Um, Cynthia, there were four of you, not three.”
“True, but if selection was random by name, two Denisons would come out as one for the purpose of Marine affiliation, you see.”
“See, guys, that’s why grunts like us need people with brains like her to tell them how to think,” Sgt Denison joked. “Okay, this is way more important than the stuff we were discussing. This is about the honor of our families. I’ll let the adjutant know about this development so he can tell the general; probably this might go up to Corps level for any other schools near major Marine facilities. Kids, do you feel comfortable going back to school today? You probably disrupted things enough that they won’t bother you today; tomorrow I’ll have a detail standing by to support you.”
Roger grinned. “Sir, I’m not going to be a passive resistor, either. I’ve already told the principal that we’re going to try to block every possible element of the Program that we can. Here’s what I’ve thought of doing so far...”
Roger and Cynthia explained their plans to the group and soon the men were roaring with laughter.
“If you gentlemen could let your contacts who have kids in the high school know what’s up, what we visualize is starting up a kind of platoon of kids who’d be willing to keep the lid on any Program nonsense so it doesn’t dishonor anyone. Does that sound okay?” Cynthia asked.
There was universal agreement that taking action was essential and that this was a good plan. Marines love action and they love good plans even more.
Copyright © 2015 Seems Ndenyal. All Rights Reserved.