Girl Next Door - Alyssa Brugman [6]
'You're kicking me out?' I asked.
'Jenna-Belle, please understand that you are welcome to return just as soon as your parents resume the payment plan.'
The idea of not going to school appealed, but at the same time it sent a fluttery bird feeling around my neck. School is all I've ever known. Not going to school could be like the Christmas holidays, but even then, I get a bit bored at the end of them and look forward to going back to school. Besides, I think it's the law. The police might force me to go to a public school. I'll probably get stabbed three times and be on crack by lunchtime. They might as well take me straight to jail.
'Maybe you have an uncle, or grandparents, who would be willing to cover your tuition for the interim?'
It's a bit late for that. My mum is an only child and I'm pretty sure all the uncles on my dad's side have been hit up already. I tried ringing each of them when Dad first disappeared and they were not just blasé, but plainly unsympathetic to my plight, which was a lesson to me in not dissing your relatives.
One day, when I'm an A-lister and they want to invite me to their parties, or introduce me to their friends, I'll be all, I'm sorry, do we know each other?
Back in my classroom, Tanner asked what I was called into the office about and I didn't know what to say. Jasmina said, 'Is it because your family is . . .' She and Tanner exchanged a glance. '. . . vintage, since your dad left?'
My guts sank into my stupid, ugly, scuffed, old shoes, because I'd been thinking I was getting away with it.
Recently they've been doing this thing where they stop talking when I come into the room. But I remember them doing it to Sapph and they never really were talking about her, they just wanted to make her paranoid, so whenever they did it to me I'd just pretend that they were organising a surprise party for me. It's not working now though.
Well, I thought to myself, at least I don't ever have to come back here again.
When I arrived home I gave Mum the letter and she read it, frowning. She raked her hair a few times and then she handed it back to me. I didn't want her to hand it back to me. I wanted her to take it and deal with it. When she handed the letter back she made it my problem.
Her suggestion: 'Go anyway. It's not like they're going to march you out the gates.'
'Mum!'
'You listen to me,' she said, finger waggling. 'When you have The Finsbury School written on your résumé certain doors will open to you that otherwise would not. You will rub shoulders in the playground with people who will be useful to you later on in life.'
Yes, they'll remember me as the girl with the scuffed shoes and hairy nipples.
'You'll thank me, Jenna-Belle. Besides, looking so lovely in that uniform out there in the community is good for your self-esteem.'
'What would be good for my self-esteem,' I said calmly, holding the letter out, 'would be having an adult deal with the adult things.'
She huffed twice and then she spluttered, 'Well, I can't deal with it now, okay? I just can't. I'm doing the best I can!' Then she ran to her room and slammed the door.
I'd read in her What to Expect When You're Expecting book that rapid mood swings, along with flatulence, are commonplace, but now I'm left standing in the kitchen with the letter in my hand.
Willem wandered through the kitchen and snatched it out of my fingers.
'Oh man, you got kicked out? Seriously? We had this talk at my school but they said my marks were good enough that they'd give me a scholarship, and I haven't even being doing that well, so you must really suck!' Then he poked his tongue out.
My brother wears boots, fatigues, tight black t-shirts, and plays paintball with his friends. He says 'oh-seven-hundred' and thinks that makes him Jason Bourne. I've watched all those movies and Matt Damon never pokes his tongue out.
'Shut your face,' I said.
It turns out Mum was wrong. They can march you out the gates.
I crept back into school the next morning,