chapter 5

By eight the next morning, my bad feeling is a reality. Rhiannon has somehow managed to get herself out of her door in time to be standing in front of the group home when I drag myself outside to face the dreaded in-school suspension. I have never had an in-school before. All of my other schools were pretty happy to have me out of school, which worked out nicely for everyone. The staffroom devils at this school have come up with a much more evil form of torture. Now I have a suspension but I have to go to school and be watched all day, so I’ll have to do a really good job of faking my work. Unfair on every level.

“Don’t worry, Sadie. Lots of kids have in-school suspensions at our school. I’ve never had one but that’s because I’m a total suck. I don’t have the guts to do anything remotely considered bad. Not that I think you’re bad or anything. It’s just that my mom has this hyperactive sense of right and wrong that she totally passed on to me and besides she would basically kill me if I got in trouble at school. Not that she would ever actually hurt me or anything. It would just be metaphorical. Like we learned in English class.”

“What?” All I hear is that someone is getting killed in English class.

“Oh, nothing. I’m just babbling as usual. Anyway, everything will be fine after today. No one will think bad things about you or anything. It won’t stop you from making friends or fitting in or whatever.”

“I don’t make friends and I don’t care about fitting in.”

“Really? Oh, I kind of thought we were becoming friends.” I look at her like she’s grown two heads, which would have been a total disaster because then she could talk twice as much. I know that I let Cecilia think that Rhiannon and I were friends, but I didn’t mean it. Friends are just another complication in an already complicated life.

Rhiannon looks kind of bummed out, and I feel almost sorry for her for a second. I don’t know why she would want me to be her friend, anyway. I’m not exactly soft and comfy cotton-candy friend material. I’m made of something a little harder and rougher than that. More like peanut brittle. The kind that breaks your teeth.

“It’s not that I don’t want to be friends. I just don’t have a lot of experience with the friend deal. Moved around a lot.” I’m not sure why I’m saying this. It’s just that she’s got this wounded-puppy routine going on, and, being a member of the dog family myself, I feel like I should do something to make her feel better. Except that I suck at this kind of stuff. I do a shoulder shrug so she’ll know it’s not a big deal. Doesn’t work. She does a little happy dance and even claps her hands, like I handed her money or something. All I gave her was a double negative.

“Oh, well, that’s OK. I’m not exactly an expert in the whole friend department myself. I had a best friend last year in grade nine but she moved away. She also moves around a lot. I don’t. I just stay right here while everyone around me moves around a lot. You want to know a secret? Well, it’s not really a secret because everyone knows about it pretty much. Most of the time I feel like I don’t really fit in either, which I know sounds weird because I’ve lived here so long, but I don’t always act like the other kids my age. Actually, I almost never act like the other kids my age. It’s not that I don’t want to, but I can’t seem to figure out how. I talk too much and think too much and have kind of weird interests and people think my house is full of weirdness and stuff so maybe we could sort of not fit in together.” She looks at me with those puppy-dog eyes. Not the Heinz 57-lost-mutt variety, but the cute-little-furry-pooch-wanting-a-treat kind.

“Sure.” I really have no idea what I’m agreeing to, but it seems to make her happy. It even makes her quiet for the last few minutes of our walk, which makes it worth it…so long as I haven’t accidentally agreed to go to a pyjama party or something equally repulsive.

We make it inside the school without running into Buffy or anyone else who is trying to make my life more useless than it already is. A few people stare and point when we walk by, but I ignore them and Rhiannon doesn’t even notice them, so it dies down pretty quick. We part ways at the guidance office where Ms. Jackson is standing waiting for me. I can’t remember if she’s the nice one or the smart one. It doesn’t really matter, because at least she isn’t the attendance queen who gets her jollies from making difficult lives more difficult.

“Hi Sadie. Come on in. I have a desk set up for you outside my office where you can work for the day. Your teachers have dropped off your assignments. I’ll be seeing students throughout the morning but I’ll have some time at mid-morning break and lunch if you need help. I also have a free hour this afternoon if you want to talk to me about ways of getting more settled in.”

“OK.” So far, this is not what I expected. No lecture. No principal telling me that I should be a good little girl if I want to stay in the school I hate. Maybe that part comes later.

I sit down at the desk she put there for me and look at the stack of work. The teachers have even been kind enough to provide me with extra textbooks just in case I forgot mine. Which I did. On purpose. Man, this place is not like my last school.

Science. Read chapter two and answer questions one through twenty-four. Yeah, right. English. Read two chapters and sum…sum…well, do something to them that would be a total waste of my time. Nothing from gym class. Too bad. Wouldn’t mind going for a walk to the store for exercise and chocolate. Math. Questions one to forty. All review stuff. Adding, subtracting, integers, and some algebra. I might do that. At least some of it, so no one can say I’m not working.

I spend the first part of the morning doing math equations as slowly as possible. Kids go in and out of the offices talking to the guidance people. I wonder what they all have to talk about. Do they all hate their English teachers too? Ms. Jackson pops her head out once in a while to check and see if I’m working. I don’t look at her. Just keep my head down and my pencil moving.

I’m busy drawing a really excellent picture of Wilson, complete with horns and a lovely tail, when a voice jumps at me.

“Are you done all of your work?” Jackson snuck up on me and is looking over my shoulder. I hate when teachers do that!

“No, just taking a break.” I still don’t look up, but I stop drawing and start making it look like I’m finishing my math.

“Do you need help with anything?”

“Nope.”

“Well, come on into the office for a few minutes.”

“I’m OK.”

“I’m not actually giving you an option.”

Of course not. Now it would come. The TALK. We would discuss the rules of the school and the Code of Conduct. I might even get the chance to write it out ten or even fifty times so that I would really, really understand it. Peachy. I follow her into the office and she closes the door behind me. It has a big window in it so people can see us but not hear us, like we’re in one of those old silent movies except that we’re in color.

“So, Sadie. Kind of a rough start to your year.”

“No big.”

“Well, not too big, but big enough. Mr. Wilson is pretty upset. I know it must be tough for you, but we have to figure out a different way to deal with things.” Here comes Chapter Two. How she read my records and knows I’m a poor little fostergirl and how tough my life must be and how I have to try extra hard to do my best so I can stay here and how I have to problem solve for the future. That she knows I had problems in my other schools and how this school isn’t going to tolerate this kind of behavior. How she knows I’m still on probation and that I’d better watch my step. This might even be when I get to meet the principal up close and personal so she can add in her own threats. I try not to yawn. I have so been here and done this before. I fold my arms and lean back—might as well get comfortable until the lecture series is over. I have nothing to say and don’t really need to listen.

“Can you read this to me, please?”

“What?” Now she has my attention.

“I said, could you read this to me, please.”

She’s holding out the same stupid book that Wilson asked me to read. Is she totally kidding? Is this her idea of a joke? Is she trying to get me kicked out?

“I don’t like to read out loud.” My arms stay folded. She keeps holding out the book.

“It’s just you and me here. Mr. Wilson does have the right to ask you to read in class. I just want to understand what the problem is.”

“There isn’t a problem. I just don’t read…out loud, I mean.” She’s really pissing me off. I want to swat the stupid book out of her stupid hand. What is it with this school? Do they have some sort of reading-out-loud fetish? I haven’t had to read to anyone since I was like eight and I don’t even remember doing it then. They always just leave me alone. This babe needs to back off!

“I just want you to try a few words. It’s not a big deal. I just think you need to get comfortable with the idea.”

“Not right now.” Back off, back off, back off, back off! My eyes close and my head shakes back and forth. I hear the book close with a thump. I open my eyes to see her putting it on a desk.

“OK, Sadie. Another time. For now, I’ll ask Mr. Wilson to give you some time to settle in before he asks you to read again. All right?”

I look at her and nod, totally confused. What’s going on here? Did she just say she’s going to tell the teacher to back off me? I thought teachers always ganged up together to make sure we don’t get the upper hand. Why would Jackson tell Wilson to give me a break? What kind of setup am I walking into here?

I spend the rest of the day trying to figure out what the master plan is and pretending to finish my work. My suspension ends without me ever meeting the principal and without anyone reading me the riot act.

What kind of lame school is #13 anyway?