I jogged easily to school, barely breaking a sweat under my backpack with the gym bag inside. Of course I first stowed the medal, as Grandmama had advised.
As I stepped inside the school, I fastened it back around my neck, thinking how good it looked with my impossible tan and the dark blue bike shorts. When I looked up, the tubby little vice principal was standing glaring up at me. "You can't come to school without a shirt, Vinnie," he growled.
"Yes I can," I asserted. He was obviously about to repeat himself, so I touched my medal and declared, "Guys really don't need to wear shirts unless it's snowing outside."
Not only did the VP nod his head, but every boy I could see in the halls immediately took off his shirt and hung it in his locker, transferring writing implements, calculators, and other gear out of the pockets. Guys who'd been in the classrooms came out and hung up their shirts, too. The janitor stripped off his jumpsuit and continued working in his cargo shorts. Most of the male teachers hurried to the faculty lounge and came out stripped to the waist. Even the VP, like a few other out-of-shape men, loosened his tie and undid the top button of his shirt before visibly deciding not to go further.
I'd expected to be the finest tiger in the jungle that day, but a lot of the school athletes were even bigger than I'd become, and of course many of the AfroAmericans and Latinos were darker, so I was a bit disappointed. But having so much eye-candy around more than made up for it.
The day unfolded pretty much like any other Monday except for one major thing. The few guys who'd been embarrassed enough to keep their shirts on kept getting offers from the rest of us, and most of them eventually accepted. I overheard one basketball star telling the scrawny president of the Chess Club, "If you've got the grit to become a champion at your game, then you can find the determination to get a body that you're proud of." And the chessplayer agreed to meet the ballplayer in his basement gym that night. Others were invited onto informal soccer or softball teams, to go jogging, and so forth.
When I got to last period PE, Coach found gym shorts to fit me in the lost and found. Of course I didn't need a shirt any more than the rest of the class did.
When I got home that night, Grandmama presented me with an even bigger pair of spandex bike shorts, and a warning that I probably would reach my "natural magical limit" by the end of the week, when we'd buy a whole new wardrobe. She was right. Wednesday evening I'd become the third biggest guy in the school and stayed that way through Saturday despite enjoying several major workouts with Ryan.
By then, we'd realized that the high school was going to be a permanently shirt-optional zone; in fact, the middle and grade schools were starting to match it. So my new clothes included no tops. They did include an XXL jockstrap, and it was long past time to change Ryan back.