Leslie's Journal - Allan Stratton [29]
She bites her lip. “Okay,” she says softly. She’s almost crying. “But is it all right if I pray for you?”
“Fine. If it makes you feel better. Just don’t tell me about it or I’ll barf.”
For the next few days, Katie keeps coming up to me all soulful and whispering, “Are you okay?”
Of course I’m not okay. I’ve never been okay. What’s okay, anyway?
Life sucks. I want it to end.
Eighteen
It’s one in the morning. I’m in my room writing this down, cuz if I don’t I’ll never sleep.
I am in unbelievably deep shit. It’s about my journal. I should maybe just kill myself.
Breathe. Breathe.
Okay. To start at the beginning. Ms. Tracey James.
Ms. James arrived a week ago, last week of October. She’s taking over from Ms. Graham, who won’t be back until after Christmas. (Make that Christmas a couple of hundred years from now.)
Ms. James is under thirty. Real skinny, organized and scary. Like, when she introduced herself, Nicky Wicks made a fart sound with his armpit. Ms. Graham would’ve gotten flustered and the card players would’ve gone berserk. Ms. James just glanced at the seating plan and eyeballed him with a glare that’d stop a truck.
“Nicky,” she said with this thin, crisp voice, “we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other over the next few months. This experience can be pleasant or unpleasant. Your choice. What’s it to be?”
Nicky shrunk into his desk.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Pleasant,” he whispered.
Ms. James eyeballed him for another five seconds, then looked at the rest of us. “Are we all understood?” We stared at our desks, except for the card players, who quietly hid their decks.
“As for your mid-term reports,” Ms. James said, “they’re due at the end of next week. I’ll be entering your grades for English once I receive a copy of your marks from Ms. Graham.” Nobody’s talking, but we’re shifting in our seats. “What seems to be the problem?”
Cindy Williams flapped her arm like a wounded seagull. “Ms. James, we don’t have any marks.”
“What do you mean, you don’t have any marks?”
“Ms. Graham never gave any tests or essays or anything, except for a content quiz and these question and answer sheets she never collected.” Here Cindy showed off her binder, knowing the rest of ours were empty.
“If that’s the case,” Ms. James said, “tomorrow we’ll have a test on Mockingbird, followed by an in-class essay, with automatic zeros for anyone missing without a doctor’s note.”
“But we haven’t finished reading it,” someone cried from the back.
“Then you’ll have a busy night.”
She got our tests and essays back to us within a day, which should put her in the Guinness Book of World Records. All the same, I only realized how big a marking maniac she is this afternoon. At the end of the period, she says she’d like to see me privately. Once we’re alone, she tells me it’s no secret she needs marks for our reports, so she’s started to grade our journals.
“You’re reading them?”
“Yes. And as you might guess, I find yours very disturbing.”
“What?” I blurt out. “Ms. Graham promised they’d be private!”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t told.”
“What kind of excuse is that?” I act all tough, but my stomach’s heaving. Ms. James knows about me and Jason having sex, about me getting beat up, about, well, everything!
Ms. James pauses. “Leslie, do you understand the meaning of the word ‘rape’?”
I can’t breathe. “Yeah. So? What’s it got to do with me?”
“It’s what you wrote about.”
“No, it’s not.” I struggle to my feet. “That journal is my property. Where is it? Give it back!”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can! Give it back or else!”
Ms. James stays calm. She’s not mad, just very serious. “Leslie,” she says, “I’ve given your journal to the principal. After this discussion, Ms. Barker wants to see us in her office.”
“No!” I sink back into my seat.
Ms. James leans against the desk opposite. She looks concerned, but I hate her like I’ve never hated anyone. “I have an obligation to report abuse,” she says. “You’ve been hurt. You need help.”