Caroline is Confused - Book 2 – Creature of Habit by NeverDoubted Copyright © 2024 NeverDoubted All rights reserved. Chapter Two VICE-PRINCIPAL BOLTON’S instructions were clear. In his mind, Caroline’s offence did not warrant administrative involvement. Mr. Tharson had been ordered to take care of the situation within his own classroom in the unlikely event the disruptive young lady showed up to class without clothes on. He had assured the math teacher that something like this would not happen again. But Mr. Tharson doubted his prediction. Something deep down told him not to trust that particular girl to behave and to be prepared just in case. He had already visited the lost and found and picked out a spare outfit. When the sixth period tardy bell rang and he had to start class with an empty seat where she was supposed to be, he felt vindicated. And when the panty-clad young lady did eventually appear in the doorway to his classroom, he was not caught by surprise. “Good afternoon, Caroline,” he greeted her, “you’re late again. But I am willing to overlook it, as long as you don’t cause any more disruptions. Please, take your seat so we can continue the lecture. We’re on page seven.” When the boys of the class expressed audible shock and disbelief that their teacher would so casually ask a girl to attend class in just her underwear, Mr. Tharson was quick to reestablish control. “Must I remind you all of my class rules? Any student found to be too much of a disruption to my class will be sent to the office to be dealt with,” he warned. That shut the boys up. They would do anything to keep the cute, nearly naked peer in their class instead of having her sent off to the Vice-Principal’s office. Meanwhile, the girls, who were significantly outnumbered, were shocked into an embarrassed silence on her behalf. Trapped in her worst nightmare for the second day in a row, Caroline’s face burned with shame as she shuffled over to her desk and sat down. “This can’t be happening,” she told herself over and over, “it isn’t happening!” But it was happening. She looked down in disbelief and confusion at her neatly tied shoes and cute, white socks. How had she managed to put those on properly but forget the rest of her clothes?! The lecture forgotten, every boy around her was staring at her long, bare legs which were exposed up to her panties. The plastic chair felt cold against the backs of her thighs, another reminder of her missing wardrobe. She kept one hand firmly over each of her boobies. When she had first entered, before realizing she was topless, she had flashed her bare nipples to the whole class. She had to make sure she didn’t repeat that performance. But that still left plenty of bare flesh that wasn’t supposed to be exposed to a class full of students. The boys could see her rib cage and cute little belly button. And from behind, her entire back and shoulder blades were uncovered. Because she was hunched over to protect her front side, her normally good posture was ruined. But her gently curving spine showed the way to her lower back where her panties encircled her waist. Traumatized by how her elaborate first day of school outfit had turned out, Caroline had returned to basics for day two. It was something she would have worn in elementary school. She had even worn a more childish pair of panties, harkening back to a simpler time when things were less complicated. Of course, she never intended for anyone to actually see them! If she knew she was going to end up stuck in math class flashing everyone her panties, she would have worn the least embarrassing and most modest pair she could find. Or better yet, she would have stayed home! She glanced at the clock and despaired. Only two minutes had passed since she sat down! Hugging her bare chest, she could feel her pounding heart inside. Unable to respond to even minor inconveniences, she squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. A loose strand of hair hung down and tickled her face. She needed to scratch the itch forming on her cheek but didn’t dare lift one of her hands off her chest to do so. She could only wiggle her nose in annoyance and cross her legs in a futile gesture. “psst,” a boy’s voice behind her hissed, quiet enough not to draw attention from Mr. Tharson. The boy in the seat directly behind her had a perfect view of her panty-clad bottom through the large gap between the chair back and the seat. He was obviously trying to engage her in conversation, but the humiliated girl refused to acknowledge him. Instead, she held her breath and wished for the boy to be struck by lightning on the spot. He was not struck by lightning. “psst,” he repeated, a little louder. Caroline looked at the clock again. Zero minutes had passed? How was that even possible?! “Hey, is that Adeline Aardvark?” he whispered. Sensing he was just going to keep bugging her until she answered, she gave in and subtly nodded her head. Why did it have to be Adeline Aardvark? “I thought so,” he replied with a snicker, “my baby sister watches that show.” Caroline’s cheeks somehow grew even redder. It just so happened that Adeline Aardvark, the beloved children’s cartoon character, was currently riding a bicycle across the thin, cotton fabric that spanned her teenage rump. Her favorite character growing up, Caroline had seen every episode countless times. She loved that their names were similar, and she even refused to accept shorter nicknames like Carly or Carrie because of the episode where Adeline was trying out different nicknames. In the end, Adeline decided she liked her full name best, so that’s what Caroline also did. In a cruel twist of irony, both the happy aardvark and the blushing teenager happened to be wearing the same thing at the moment: nothing, except the cutest little pair of panties! While the show did try to teach children important life lessons, Adeline Aardvark was primarily just a silly cartoon. In one episode, Adeline got a new pair of ‘big girl panties” and insisted on proudly wearing them everywhere. She even wore them to the zoo! Beside the concerning moral implications of an anthropomorphic aardvark going around looking at other animals in cages, there was another incongruity that was best not studied too closely. Why would her mother even buy her panties when their whole family went around naked the rest of the time? The answer should be obvious. It was a shameless form of merchandising so the creators could squeeze a little more profit out of the character with a children’s clothing line. Although as a girl, Caroline had viewed Adeline as a kind of role model, that admiration would certainly never extend to attending public activities in nothing but her “big girl panties” like Adeline insisted on doing in that episode…until today, that is. And while the happy aardvark seemed to be quite enjoying her panty adventure, the blushing teenager did not appear to be having nearly as much fun with hers. Caroline looked at the clock, one agonizing minute had passed. At this rate, her humiliation would never end! She would be trapped in this room, this torture chamber, exposed to her classmates for all eternity! Now a teenager, Caroline was at that age where she was starting to think about boys in a different light. In elementary school, they were just these annoying little punks who tugged rudely on your pigtails on the playground or made crude noises and jokes in the halls. The proper response was to scoff at and ignore them. She and the other girls preferred it if the boys would just leave them be and not show them any attention. That paradigm had allowed her to focus on her studies and always achieve high grades to make her mother proud. But near the end of last year, the dynamic started to shift among her peers. Driven by chemical and physiological changes afoot within their bodies, some girls started to give the boys a second look and not to be so dismissive of their attention. Caroline had watched, first with bewilderment, then envy, as they started dressing differently, spending extra time on their hair, and even wearing makeup! Suddenly, attracting the attention of a cute boy was not a bad thing. An arms race soon developed to see which girl could turn the heads of the most desirable boys. These changes in their behavior just so happened to coincide with the emergence of interesting new curves on their bodies which the boldest among them were quick to exploit. Caroline, while exceedingly pretty, could not yet compete in the curves department. Only the tightest outfits would have shown off what little shape her skinny frame had produced so far and she didn’t have enough self-confidence to wear something like that to school. Then there was her chest which had remained completely flat all throughout sixth grade and had only barely started to sprout over the summer. She had intended her first day of school dress, along with her new, updated hairstyle, to be the first foray into a new era of confidence and beauty – and potentially…boys. But things had backfired so spectacularly that she wasn’t even sure she could ever wear that thing again without the negative association overwhelming her. Not that it mattered, though. She had lost that first day dress in the course of her humiliating tribulation and didn’t even know where it was anymore. “…Caroline…..Caroline….CAROLINE!” Keeping her head bowed low so at least her hair could hang down and hide her blushing face, she had been staring holes in the fake wood grain of the desk and wallowing in her humiliation. It took her a minute to notice the teacher calling her name and to snap out of her daze. She raised her eyes only to find, to her horror, that every boy in the class was leering hungrily at their beautiful, exposed classmate. They had already been sneaking as many glances at her as they could while still paying the minimum required attention to the lecture. But they used this opportunity as an excuse to turn and stare more overtly at Caroline’s interesting, exposed treasures. It turns out, when it comes to getting the attention of boys, Caroline had inadvertently stumbled upon a tactic that none of her peers had thought to try. It was supremely effective and did not require makeup, fancy hair, or tight outfits to emphasize your growing curves. It was actually quite simple. All a girl has to do is take off all her clothes and attend class in her underwear and she’ll have every boy’s attention! Completely naked from the waist up, she hugged her chest more tightly in a failed attempt to gain more modesty and located her teacher who was standing at the front of the classroom tapping his shoe against the linoleum floor impatiently. “Caroline,” he said, his voice thick with irritation as if the mere act of speaking her name annoyed him, “I thought I told you to turn to page seven. Are you not following along? Where are your notes?” She looked down where her math textbook and notebook were sitting, closed, and forgotten on the corner of her desk. She squeaked out “sorry” in a small voice, but instead of getting out her books like he was expecting, she just sat there and stared helplessly at them. With both hands needed to keep her chest concealed, she couldn’t possibly open the book to the right page without exposing at least one of her newly sprouted boobs – much less hold a pencil and take notes! Mr. Tharson could have pointed out the obvious. If Caroline was so concerned about keeping her body covered, she should have worn more clothes. No one had forced her to come to class without a shirt on – at least, it didn’t appear that way. But instead, he folded his arms and waited, refusing to continue class until the topless teen was dutifully taking down notes like everyone else. Caroline fought with her own hands for several tense seconds. If everyone would give her a moment of privacy to think, she could maybe figure out a way to honor her teacher’s request in the least embarrassing manner. But her interested peers just kept staring at her, not about to look away now. She didn’t want to move a muscle and risk flashing anything, but she was also desperate to no longer be the center of attention. The sooner she obeyed Mr. Tharson, the quicker that would happen. Sitting up further in her seat and crossing her ankles, she had to perform a delicate juggling act to preserve what little modesty she had left, carefully sliding her left hand across her chest to cup her right nipple. That left her left nipple only barely concealed behind her skinny left arm but did free her right arm to reach for her books. After turning the textbook to the correct page, she opened the notebook. Across the top of the blank page, she wrote “ratios”, the same word Mr. Tharson had written on the board. She sensed that, at the right angle, a few of the boys around her could now peek around her left forearm and see the small cone that had started forming on her chest. She also had to keep her shoulder tense and take shallow breaths to keep them from catching glimpses of the pretty, pink tip. But it was the best she could do, seeing that her right hand had to remain free to take notes. She looked at the clock. Only three more minutes had passed since the last time she checked. Using the excuse of taking notes, the distressed girl bowed her head again to hide her face. This time, she stared holes through her textbook and tried to pay attention to Mr. Tharson’s lecture with just her ears, which happened to be uncontrollably burning with shame at the moment. At least she was finally able to scratch that maddening itch on her face. “As I was saying, ratios are all around us. Once you learn to recognize them, you will find useful applications for ratios in all areas of study. Early enlightenment artists used ratios to produce realistic perspective. The golden ratio, a plus b over a, equals a over b,” he wrote the equation on the board and Caroline copied it down even though she didn’t have the slightest clue what it meant, “also known as the divine proportion, is considered to reflect perfect, objective beauty. Leonardo Da Vinci’s use of the divine ratio is partly why the Mona Lisa is the most famous piece of art in the world.” “You might have heard of an aspect ratio in relation to movies and tv screens. Scientists have worked out that a pair of human eyes view the world in an approximate ratio of sixteen units wide by nine high.” He wrote 16:9, on the board, then showed them how to reduce the fraction to down to the number 1.78. He went on to give examples of ratios used in business and finance, architecture, and farming. “Biologists study male-to-female ratios in animal groups,” he noted, “because it can often indicate whether or not a given population is thriving.” To illustrate his point, he did a headcount of students, writing the surprisingly imbalanced ratio of boys to girls in that class on the board, 22:5. Then he showed them how to reduce that fraction down to a ratio of 4.4. “A skilled sociologist, who studies human populations and interactions, could extrapolate lots of useful information just by knowing your male-to-female ratio is 4.4. They could even make predictions about how your class will behave and perform this year compared to another class with a ratio closer to 1,” he explained. Stopping and informally looking over his students, Mr. Tharson frowned. The twenty-two boys were very distracted and barely paying attention to his lecture. The girls, everyone but Caroline, appeared to be paying better attention. But the rest were headed for a failing grade unless he could come up with some way to better engage the majority in the topic being discussed. As a talented educator, he was nothing, if not resourceful. He knew that when it comes to pubescent boys, very little could draw their attention away from a nearly naked girl in their midst. But why try to compete? He just needed to use their raging teenage hormones against them. All he needed to accomplish that was an attractive, young assistant. Checking the time, he said, “I want you to understand what a valuable tool ratios can be when it comes to mathematics. With the time we have left, I’d like to give you one last example along with a little assignment.” Ignoring the smattering of groans that inevitably arose in response to the mention of homework, he turned back to the board and wrote the numbers 36-24-36, stacked on top of each other. “Some of you may recognize this famous ratio originally defined as the ideal woman’s bust to waist to hip ratio. Actresses in the early days of Hollywood who fit these measurements were idolized as paragons of feminine perfection. That includes famous people like Marilyn Monroe who is considered one of the most beautiful women in history.” Walking over to his desk, he opened the top drawer. Caroline looked up briefly when he pulled out a shirt, the one he had picked out from the lost and found for her. But that wasn’t what he was searching for. He folded the shirt on top of his desk and reached back into the drawer where he usually kept his collection of measuring devices. Pulling out a special kind of soft tape measure, called a tailor’s tape because it is used for taking measurements of rounded or soft surfaces, he turned back to the class. “Once you understand ratios, you will come to recognize them in many areas of mathematics. Through a process known as geometric extrapolation, for example, you can compare ratios and watch them change over time. Let’s compare two ratios. We can use Marilyn Monroe for the first, but I’ll need a volunteer to provide the second. Ladies?” Caroline, who had been staring longingly at the shirt, immediately looked back down at her desk, but the four other suddenly shy girls looked up in terror at Mr. Tharson. The last thing any of them wanted to do was submit to having their bodies measured and the numbers shared with the whole class for an assignment. Mr. Tharson had anticipated no volunteers and was unfazed. “Very well, if no one will volunteer, I will select someone.” Caroline held her breath and prayed that she would not be the one chosen. The stakes for her were higher than the other girls because of her lack of clothes. She would simply die of embarrassment if she had to walk up to the front of the class and show off her Adeline Aardvark panties while her math teacher unfavorably compared her body to the feminine ideal. But her prayer was not answered. Her bare shoulders slumped when she heard him say, “Caroline, come up here, please.” With a gulp, she sat her pencil down and took a deep breath. Cupping her right hand back over her naked breast, she stood up on wobbly legs and began to walk up the aisle. She could feel every eye glued to her bottom as she walked. With her hips rocking back and forth and the firm muscles of her bottom flexing with every step, it almost made Adeline come alive, like the adorable little, cartoon aardvark was actually pedaling her bicycle across the enticing expanse of Caroline’s teenage rump. Unable to bring herself to turn around and face her classmates, she kept her back turned to them and just stared at the blackboard while her humiliation burned. “To keep the assignment from being too difficult, we’ll only focus on two numbers instead of all three,” he explained. “Everyone, copy this down.” With the board right in front of her face, Caroline could easily watch as he picked up a piece of chalk and drew a large horizontal rectangle. Then, he divided the rectangle into a two by ten grid. Beside the row of boxes, he wrote the word “waist” and beside the bottom, he wrote “hips”. “How old are you, Caroline?” he asked the shy, exposed girl. Her mouth moved, but nothing louder than a baby’s breath came out. It took her two tries to croak out, “thirteen”. He wrote the number “13” above the first column and counted up from there until he had reached the end of the grid. In the far-right boxes, he wrote Marilyn Monroe’s waist and hip measurements. Then he picked up the measuring tape and wrapped it around Caroline’s midsection. She sucked in her stomach initially, but he waited for her to relax back to normal before taking the measurement. “hmm,” he said with a frown, “we’ll round it up.” Then, on the box below her age, he wrote “20” for her waist size before returning to finish. Telling her to place her feet together, he wrapped the band around the widest part of her hips where her bottom stuck out the furthest. Returning to the board, he wrote out her hip size for all to see, a mere twenty-five inches. She was relieved that he didn’t insist on measuring her embarrassingly small bust which would have come back even smaller. “Ok, Marilyn’s waist to hip ratio was 24:36, which reduces to two to three, or .66, while Caroline’s ratio at age thirteen is 20:25, or .8.” He wrote both ratios on the board below their respective ages. Doing some quick math in his head, he filled in Caroline’s projected measurements for the intervening years but did not calculate her ratio. “Here is what Caroline’s measurements should look like for the next eight years. Your assignment tonight is to calculate what her precise ratio will be at each age as she approaches the feminine ideal,” he said, looking her up and down and adding, “assuming geometric growth, of course. You have some work ahead of you, young lady.” “Tomorrow, I will show you how to chart these ratios on a graph. Any girl who wants to take her measurements at home and bring in her own chart will receive extra credit. I will also give bonus points to any girl who correctly calculates her current bust to waist or bust to hip ratio. Sorry boys, I’m afraid this exercise only works with women’s bodies. But don’t worry, you will get chances to earn extra credit throughout the year as well.” Mercifully, the dismissal bell rang out just then. Still unable to face her classmates, the topless girl stared intently at the chart on the wall and listened to the students packing up and filing out of the room behind her. Once the room was empty, Mr. Tharson plucked the folded shirt off his desk and handed it to her. Caroline scrambled into it, briefly nauseated by a whiff of body odor, but not sickened enough to take it off. Her need for modesty trumped any aversion she felt for the nasty shirt. Mr. Tharson looked on in amusement as the meagerly dressed girl ran back to her desk. A ratty, button-down shirt and panties hardly constituted proper attire for a young lady. But after what she had just endured, she seemed grateful for it nonetheless. Already at risk of running late for seventh period, she scribbled down the homework numbers from the board into her notebook then scooped up her supplies and hurried off to her next class.