All Good Children - Catherine Austen [8]
“Mommy’s driving us to school tomorrow,” Ally says. That’s a thrill for her—two cars in two days. We probably can’t afford the fuel.
Life is lean without a father. We could get a stepfather easily—with sperm so feeble after years of herpes, hormones and heavy metals, the useless men like to marry into children— but I couldn’t withstand that. Mom says Ally and I are all she needs. As long as we have each other, we’ll be okay.
“I hope we’re not in trouble for missing the first week of school,” Ally says.
I kiss her head. “Nah. It’ll be fine. Grade one is premium. They’ll love you there. Can’t you feel it? It’ll be great.”
She nods to convince herself. “It’ll be the best year ever.”
TWO
Mom drives us to school in a car that smells like a chemical spill. It’s glorious not to walk. It’s only a mile and I don’t have much to carry, but I like pretending we’re still rich. Ally sits behind me with a red backpack on her knees, crammed with emergency undies, gym shoes, jump rope, lunch box, whiteboard and twenty fat markers I secretly covet.
We drop her off first. Her schoolyard is a fenced field of concrete and sand writhing with a thousand children in grades one to four. Girls squeal around the play structures. Boys chase each other down the pavement. Loners hang by the fence and wait for the bell. Ally surveys them hopefully, searching for her friend, then walks away alone.
“Melissa must be sick,” Mom says.
“No.” I point to the entrance doors. They won’t open for another eight minutes, but hundreds of uniformed children wait there with id badges in hand. “Isn’t that Melissa near the door? With the yellow pack?”
Mom nods. “Her whole class is lined up. I wonder if Ally missed something important last week.”
“Oh yeah. Xavier said she missed a math assessment and a vaccination.”
“How would Xavier know what goes on in grade one?”
“He knows everything.”
“Was it a flu vaccine?”
“I don’t know. Ask him.”
She rolls her eyes like I ought to be on top of my little sister’s immunization record.
The high school is a five-minute drive down the road. It’s larger and more stylish than the elementary and middle schools, with six black glass-and-concrete units—ambitious architecture for this part of town and so spacious it’s unsettling. There’s only one academic high school in each of New Middletown’s quadrants. Three-quarters of the city’s children go to trade schools. Academics cost more and they require a B average right from grade one. It’s always competitive, but kindergarten is dog-eat-dog. Once you’re recommended for trade school, there’s no coming back.
I’m in Secondary Two, which means tenth grade. We’re not allowed in the buildings reserved for grades eleven and twelve. The higher the grade, the fewer the students still maintaining a B standing, the more space and attention each student receives. And they need it because once they graduate they’ll have to compete with foreign students and private-studies graduates. There’s no point paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for twelve years of academic school if you fall behind when you finally get out. You might as well educate yourself online for free.
Tuition is bleeding us dry, but Mom never mentions it. She pulls up to the school gates and smiles like there’s nowhere else she’d rather see me. “First day of grade ten,” she says proudly.
“And I’m already a week behind,” I add.
My principal, Mr. Graham, rushes outside to greet us. He must have seen the car and assumed we were premium people. Confusion spreads across his face when I step out from the passenger seat. Sweat rolls down his temples into his shirt collar. He’s another fat bald white man who can’t take the heat. The army should enlist them all, stick them in their own division somewhere temperate. They wouldn’t need uniforms because they already look identical. An armed battalion of fat bald white men would