Brittney, the Tapgirl Princess

The first few days that the "Tap-Check Committee," as it came to be called, did its work, there were a lot of glitches. There was no problem getting students to agree to have their shoes inspected, and in fact usually several friends would gather around to watch and joke with them while the checking was going on. At first the committee asked people to take off their shoes, but it turned out to be easier to just have the student sit down on a chair with one leg crossed over the other. The computer guy would enter the information on the laptop and the tap-checker would take photos and then inspect the taps for sharp edges. The usual glitch was that the computer was too slow or it took to long to enter the description. Also, it was hard to keep choosing students randomly because often several kids volunteered at the same time.



"Pick me, Brittney! My #7 heel taps are awesome on these flats!"



"No, me, Brittney! Melissa already got picked yesterday! I've worn four different pairs of shoes this week, all of them with heel and toe taps, and I haven't been picked once!"



Francisco had made a place in his computer program for entering the location and size of each of the taps they identified. At first, they thought they could tell a #3 from a #4 or a #5 from a #6, at least by the number etched into the tap. But because the kids scraped their taps across the concrete so much, the etched numbers soon became illegible, so the committee members brought in a ruler, and when they couldn't tell and the wearer didn't know they measured the size of the tap plate.



After the first two days, Francisco totaled up the score of shoes checked and taps counted. They'd checked 205 different pairs of shoes so far on 184 kids. There were heel taps on 64 of the 91 boys' shoes and on 95 of the 114 girls' shoes. Only 3 heel taps were found to have sharp edges coming from nails that stuck up above the hole for them in the tap. (There might have been more originally, but if there were, the nail heads had already worn down to be flush with the tap.) Ten of the toe taps had problems, and sharp edges were found on 12 of the side taps. Kathleen, who served as chairman of the tap-check committee, reported these totals to Mr. Martin and suggested that since the toe taps don't really hit the floor much that they should be allowed to skip checking them and then they'd be able to test more of the students' shoes. The Principal agreed with Kathleen's request, partly because he was quite pleased with the interest and enthusiasm that the students had shown for having their taps inspected and repaired. All 16 pairs of shoes that were found to have problems (some had more than one sharp-edged tap) got fixed up, usually that same afternoon in Sam's Shoe Shop.



One surprise for the tap-checkers was that there were more shoes with horseshoe taps than they thought there would be, particularly on boys' shoes. In that first week of inspections, more than half of the boys with taps had shoes with horseshoe plates and 10 of them were double-horseshoes, like John Baker's. In truth, the boys of Forest Glen had really taken to the huge steel plates they'd covered their heels with, and horseshoes were now found as often on loafers or lace-up oxfords as they were on boots. Every morning, guys would compete with each other to see how far they could slide on their horseshoe tapped loafers along the hallway tile floors. They discovered they could slide even further if they put side taps on. One 9th grader even had Sam the shoe repairman put a row of taps down the middle of the sole of his oxfords. But although the boy did slide further than anyone else, he also couldn't walk in those shoes without slipping and falling all over the place. The next day, his middle-sole taps were off. But over the next couple of weeks, several other boys put one or two middle-sole taps on their loafers as well. The 9th grade boys also had a tendency to get into fights with each other, but if two of them with horseshoe taps started fighting, it wouldn't last very long because they'd slip and fall before they landed many punches. On the other hand, those fights sometimes ended with one of the boys stomping on the other one with his horseshoe-heeled boot, and then it did get bloody. Mr. Hawkins had to be called in to break those fights up, and that led to him disliking the kids' taps even more than before.



After the first week, the tap-checking went more smoothly. But with everyone looking closely at everyone else's shoes and taps, there was a lot of comparing and bragging and putting other kids down. Sometimes feelings were hurt as students with bigger taps made fun of those who'd put small taps on.



"Jeez, Allison, you're such a wimp! How come you have only #3s on those loafers? The heels are big enough to take #6's or even #7's! And you don't even have any toe taps on them!"



"Buzz off, Jennifer," Allison would reply. And then Allison, feeling the need to get respect from the other girls, would walk over to Sam's Shoe Shop after school and have her #3's replaced with #7's and have the #3's moved to the toes of her shoes.



The biggest scorn was handed out to the kids who wore sneakers to school or whose oxfords didn't have taps on them at all. Catcalls and boos greeted each of those inspections, not from the tap-checkers but from the students watching. In fact, Kathleen and Felicity took pains to make the non-tap-wearers feel o.k. They usually said something like "That's all right, Tom. You're allowed to wear shoes without taps if you want. But in case you change your mind, be sure to let us know so we can check the taps to make sure they don't have sharp edges. And if you ever want some help in deciding what size taps to put on for the first time, just come looking for me. I'd be glad to help you." With their beautiful eyes blinking suggestively and their calm, supportive words, Kathleen and Felicity could convince almost any guy to put taps on his shoes. And Brittney could convince any girl, so between the three of them, most of the remaining tapless Forest Glen students crossed over the line during the next several weeks.



By the end of the fourth week of shoe inspections, the tap-checking committee had inspected at least one or two pairs of shoes for every student in the school—as many as a dozen pairs for some of the shoe-crazy girls. Francisco decided to take on the challenge of tabulating statistics about the taps that people had on their shoes, and he prepared several tables or charts that gave all the details. His charts showed that 94% of the girls and 73% of the boys had at least one pair of shoes with heel taps on them. Altogether, they had tested 2,767 pairs of shoes, which worked out to an average of 5 pairs for every girl and 2 pairs for each boy—not counting sneakers, which weren't even counted at all. Out of all those shoes and boots, 78% had heel taps. Nearly every pair of boys' tapped-up shoes had toe taps on too (97%), as did almost three-fifths of the shoes that girls wore with heel taps (58%). [Note to readers: Excel spreadsheet available on request!]



Side taps were counted on only 4% of the girls' shoes but on one-third of the shoes that boys had heel taps on. Horseshoes (or sometimes full heel dance taps) were on 88 pairs of girls' shoes and on 286 pairs of boys' shoes, more than half of the shoes that boys had any taps on. By far the most common sized taps for girls were #5's and #6's (counted together because they were too hard to tell apart). A majority of girls' heel taps were that size—over 1,300 pairs of girls' shoes in all! Boys generally had #5's or #6's on the toes of their shoes while girls preferred #3's or #4's for the toes, as did boys for the taps they put on the sides of the soles of their shoes. Francisco also was working on a table that counted taps by what kind of shoes or boots they were on, but he got into an argument with Brittney about how to categorize certain kinds of boots and shoes, and so he didn't finish making that table.



When the students took a look at the numbers that Francisco had printed out, some of the girls got really annoyed.



"Hey, Brittney," said Megan. "We girls were the first ones to put taps on our shoes, but now, look! The boys are way ahead of us in some ways. They've got horseshoe taps on most of their shoes and toe taps on almost all of them! Plus they're way ahead of us on side taps. True, we've got a lot more shoes than they do and more of ours have taps than theirs do, but you have to admit the boys' taps are a lot bigger and louder than ours are."



Brittney listened to her friend as she examined Francisco's statistics. "Well, the thing is that most of us girls who have horseshoes on only have them on our boots, but guys put horseshoes on all their shoes—loafers, oxfords, whatever! You know, I think this afternoon I'm going to take all my flats and loafers over to Sam's and have him put horseshoes on them, and side taps too!"



So after school, Brittney gathered up all of her shoes except the two pair of boots that already had horseshoe taps on them and walked back to Main Street and into Sam's shop. Not surprisingly when she got there, there were already several kids waiting to have taps put on.



"Hey Carla," said Brittney to the girl she knew best. "Are you getting taps put on, too?"



"Hey, Brit. Yup, my mom just bought me these really cute sandals with the silver chain across the toes. I thought they should have taps too. I've never had taps on sandals before, though."



"What size taps you getting put on?"



"Oh, the usual—number 5's on the heels and 3's on the toes. What are you doing here? Don't you have taps on all your shoes already? Did you get some new shoes, too?"



"Well, no. Actually I want to take the heel taps off of these and get horseshoe taps put on instead."



Carla looked into the bag Brittney was carrying her shoes in. "Horseshoes on all of those?"



"Well, on whatever ones Sam says they can go on."



"How come?"



Brittney lowered her voice and spoke in a whisper. "Well, did you see in Francisco's chart that most of the boys' shoes have horseshoes on them? I don't think that's right since us girls were the first to have taps on our shoes. We need to show them we're just as good."



Brittney's whisper was overheard by the two other students in the shop, both of them boys from her school. Ralph White, a 10th grade boy, called out to her: "Hey chump! No way girls are going to have taps as big as the guys do. Wait till you see the ones Sam's putting on my new cowboy boots."



"Yeah," called out his friend Ramon. "When Kathleen checked my boots yesterday, she said she'd seen full heel taps only on dance shoes before. She'd never seen them on guys' biker boots!"



"Yeah," said Ralph. "That's what I'm getting on mine, too! Full heel taps. Can't get any bigger than that!"



"Fuck off," answered Brittney, a little annoyed. "Everyone has big taps on their boots. I have double horseshoes on my harness boots. But I'm going to get horseshoes on all my loafers and flats. I'll bet you don't have 8 pairs of shoes with horseshoes on them, do you?" she said confidently.



"Hell, no, I don't even own 8 pairs of shoes." replied Ramon. "I actually have to work to pay for my clothes. Not like you bitches who just have 'daddy' buy them for you."



This could have gotten even more contentious, but just then Sam came out with the shoes he'd just applied taps to. First, he gave Carla back her cute sandals, now with gleaming silver #5 heel and #3 toe taps. And then Ralph's cowboy boots with full-heel aluminum dance taps on the heels and continental taps covering several inches at the front of the soles. Ralph proudly showed them off to Brittney and Carla, and then both boys marched haughtily out of the store, laughing hard with their boots clicking loudly on the sidewalk outside.



After the boys left, Carla turned to Brittney, "Those creeps! They think they're so hot."



Sam shook his head sympathetically, "Yeah, boys will be like that. But they'll melt when they see and hear you coming in your shoes, no matter if your taps are smaller than theirs. Ya know what though, miss?" he said, speaking to Carla. "I could put the same kind—full heel dance taps—on your sandals if you want. Then you could show them you're just as good as them. Would you like me to do that for you?"



Carla turned to Brittney. "What do you think, Brit?"



"Sure. Sounds like a great idea. I think I'll get some of those dance taps on my shoes too!"



So Sam took back Carla's sandals that he'd just tapped up and replaced the #5 heel taps with Capezio duo-tone heel taps. As he brought them back to her, he said, "These are even better than the ones I put on those boys' shoes. These have two sounds—see?" And he showed Carla how the heel-strike made one sound and then lifting up the heel made a second sound. "So it's almost like you have two different taps on your heels!"



"Hey, Sam, that is ultra cool!" said Brittney. "Carla, you're going to love those! I'm so jealous! And they look fantastic on your new sandals!"



Carla beamed with pride. Then Sam finally turned to Brittney. "So what brings you in here today, Brittney? I see you have a big bag with you. Are those new shoes?"



"No, Sam, these are all old ones. I want to replace the taps on these with horseshoes and also get side taps on. Can you do that?"



"Well," replied Sam. "Maybe I can, maybe I can't. Course, I'm not making any money on all of this. I wish you'd asked for horseshoes to begin with!"



"Yeah, well I'm sorry I didn't too. I didn't realize how much I wanted to have them until I started seeing horseshoes on guys' loafers and oxfords at school."



"Well, Brittney. Show me each pair, and I'll let you know."



So Brittney showed Sam each pair of shoes she'd brought in. First, the ones she was wearing that day--her Bass Weejun penny loafers with the #8 heel taps.



"Those #8 taps are already pretty big, but if you want, I can take them off and put horseshoe taps on those. The horseshoes would look and sound really good on those Weejuns. Do you want side taps on them?"



"Yes, please. Would #5's fit on the sides? That's what's on the toes."



"Well, because of the bend of the sole, I'd suggest putting #3's on the sides, o.k.?"



Brittney nodded her head. "Then what about these?" She held up her black tassel loafers that had #7's on the heels.



"Sure, horseshoes will work on those too. But I wouldn't put side taps on them."



"Oh? Why not?"



"The soles are too thin. Your feet will hurt from the taps. I'll do it if you want to, though."



"No, that's o.k. Just the horseshoes on those. Can you do double horseshoes then?"



"Sure, and I'll put the back two nails only on the bottom horseshoe so you'll make more noise that way, just like on your harness boots." Sam had an amazing memory for the taps he'd put on all the girls' and boys' shoes.



Brittney went through each of the other shoes she'd brought with her. Sam agreed to put horseshoes and side taps on her chunky heel loafers ("they're the smallest horseshoes I have, but they fit pretty well—as long as you don't mind if they hang over the edge of the heel just a little bit"). He put Capezio dual-tone dance taps, like Carla's, on Brittney's knee-length dressy boots, but he said her skimmer flats were too soft to take horseshoes or dance taps and the soles too thin for side taps. All in all, though, Brittney was very pleased. Counting her two pair of boots at home, she now had 5 pairs of shoes with horseshoes along one pair with full heel aluminum taps. As the two girls left the shop, Brittney in her horseshoed Weejuns and Carla in her Capezio dance tap sandals, Carla offered Brittney one of her Marlboro Lights. They walked along Main Street for several blocks together, chatting and smoking as girls do, before they split up for their respective homes. Mostly they talked about how the girls were on their way back to taking the lead in being the tap champions of Forest Glen.





The next week, when the tap-check committee started re-checking the shoes that they'd already checked before, Brittney convinced the other girls on the committee, Felicity, Kathleen, and Megan, that they needed to be more active in getting girls to upgrade their taps. So a lot of conversations went like this:



"Hey, Jessica. You're picked to be checked."



"But," replied Jessica, "you already checked these shoes. See, look at the taps on them. There's no way they'll hurt the floors." Jessica sat down on the checking chair, crossed her legs and raised one of her chunky-heeled platform loafers up so Brittney could see the bottom of the heel. Her metal taps were so worn down, they were starting to show the edge of the rubber heel.



"Yeah, I know," said Brittney. "But Jessica, those loafers just scream for bigger taps—and look how worn down they are already!" She brought her ruler up to measure the heel. "See, your taps are just size #4's! Those heels could even take horseshoes on them! Or, at least #6's. And those platforms would be awesome if you had side taps and toe taps on them. Why don't you have Sam put new bigger taps on the heels and while you're at it put some on the soles too? See, I have horseshoes and side taps now on all my loafers—like these Weejuns," and she slipped off one of her loafers and showed it to the girl.



Jennifer, like any of the other girls whose shoes Brittney checked that day, was likely to be impressed enough with Brittney's aura and confidence that, even if she hadn't thought of replacing her taps with larger ones, she'd think to herself, "Well, why not? If Brittney can, then I can too!" So right after school, she'd march herself over to the shoe repair store and tell Sam that "these taps are too small for these shoes, Sam. I want horseshoes on the heels. Can you put horseshoes on and also some nice-sized taps on the toes and on both sides of the soles?"



The next morning, Jessica would seek out Brittney. "Brittney, you were right! Horseshoes are sooo much better on these. And the side taps are cool sounding too!" She'd drag her heels and then slide her soles backwards so Brittney could hear the sounds made by both sets of taps. "Brittney, can you re-check these now so your records will be up to date?"



By the middle of May, the number of girls who had horseshoe taps on their shoes had tripled! And now 10% of the girls' shoes had taps on the sides of the soles. That was still not as many girls as boys, but Brittney felt they were fast catching up and she was satisfied they were on their way back to being in charge.



But first the girls had to learn to walk all over again. When the girls started getting horseshoe and side taps put on their loafers and flats, sometimes they slipped around more than they wanted to. The boys (and some of the girls who'd already put horseshoes on) helped to show them how to walk so that they wouldn't slip—putting less weight on their heel-strike and pushing off more with their toes—either that, or dragging their heels along the floor and sliding forward on their soles. The latter method was preferred by most of the girls because they could make more noise that way and that was the whole purpose of having taps on their shoes. Pretty soon, the passing period resembled a skating rink, with boys and girls holding hands and sliding along the floors in their steel-bottomed shoes. And the noise, the big wonderful noise of taps—it was everywhere!