Chapter 24: Things Get Tough

My fears for my father's reaction proved to have understated just how mad he would be. The man destroyed every wedding picture he got his hands on and ripped all of my mother's clothing to shreds that night after Mrs. Roberts brought Matti and me home.

Ashley did whisper to me that she had left her phone number with Lenore. The sad woman had tried her best to do a great job as a waitress while the group of us ate in stunned silence. We heard nothing from her for the rest of the week, and Ashley ended up assuming that the woman was not interested.

At home things were tough. With mother gone and Mike unwilling to help, I found that I had to take over most of the domestic chores. Matti helped as much as she could, but I tried to keep her away from cooking breakfast and dinner. Father often loudly complained about how he missed having a woman around to sleep with while he was eating, and I felt that Matti should stay out of his sight as much as possible.

School for the next few weeks turned into a near warzone. The teachers tried to maintain discipline, but the high CAP boys, led by Walter ignored the male teachers while sexually harassing the female teachers pretty much constantly. Principal Mathews tried to calm the situation down, but the news of pickups and the crowd that had tried to attend the rumored pickup showed that the vast majority of the population was more concerned with escaping Earth than with their daily lives. Jessica and I moved back to the courtyard, reclaiming her old table and tried to keep Walter and his friends from abusing the female students, but it was a wearying battle. Only the fact that Amy Phelps and Neil Larahm joined us, allowed us to finally bring the more blatant abuse to a halt.

I did end up with a new trial when Matti came home just over a week after Mother had been picked up. My sister was in tears, and when I finally managed to get her to calm down, told me that some of the other students had been harassing her. They were using the fact that Mother had not taken her with them to claim that Mom had not loved my sister. I ended up taking a day out of school to visit my sister's school. Principal Daniels was sympathetic, but hardly helpful.

"We cannot be expected to control what every student says," she told me after I had carefully explained the problem.

"So you are saying my sister must just accept the bullying?" I asked.

"Unless it happens in front of a teacher, we cannot stop it."

"My sister has been using her phone to record the taunts. There is more than enough proof that the harassment is ongoing."

"She should not have her phone out during class. I should punish her for that."

"That is unacceptable. You are saying that my sister will just have to tolerate these bullies for the final month of classes? I will take action against this."

The woman smiled evilly. "I'm union, and I know your father. Do you think your father will allow you to make a union member to look bad? Especially after your mother abandoned you and your sister."

I hissed. "Fine, my sister will no longer attend this school. Please do a workup on her grades and send it home. I'll take care of her educational needs for the rest of the school year."

My outburst was mostly ignored, but I did tell Matti to stop attending classes and start coming to school with me. My teachers complained about having an extra student, but with as much as half the student body being absent almost every day now, they took no official action. Meanwhile I found myself spending hours after school meeting with bureaucrats as I tried to ensure that Matti would be entered as a high school freshman in the next year. The double grade jump was fiercely argued, but Matti passed every exam they gave her during the month of May, and as the day of Jason's birthday approached I received word that as long as Matti passed some summer courses, she would be able to jump to high school in the fall.

I kept all of this quiet at home. Mike had effectively dropped out of school. He spent most of his time with Victor Shields. They had started selling some drug that they claimed would allow anyone taking it to improve their CAP score by two when they retook the test. Julio tried a sample one day at Walter's insistence. The next day he told us that he felt like he could conquer the world, but that he had actually achieved nothing all day. I was surprised that the police did not move to stop my brother, although we did hear that the local testing center had announced that people who were clearly under the influence of drugs would not be allowed to retest.

Jason just watched all this. He backed up me more than once when I had to wade into the crowds to rescue a girl from the clutches of Walter and his gang. Walter would protest, but to my surprise, Roger Berkey took to supporting me on my ventures into the scrum that surrounded the abusive high CAP boys. I asked him why one day during break, and the boy blushed and dragged me into an empty classroom.

"What do you think about Miranda?" he asked me.

I had to think for a second and then looked him straight in the eyes. "Are we talking about Miranda the Hun?"

Roger blushed and nodded. "You know she scored six point five on her CAP test."

"I think most of the school does. She, Amy, Jessica, and I believe, Stacy all have good scores out of the girls. There are ten boys at this point if my count is correct."

"Are you including yourself?" Roger asked with a smirk. I must have had a look of fear on my face because he laughed. "What? You face down guys like Walter without batting an eye. You stood up to Billy in the past. You and Jessica claim a table, and there is a circle of peace surrounding it, partly because the girls are vicious to anyone who bothers you. I even hear that you have a high school sophomore girl who hangs out with you constantly after school. Do you really think people haven't guessed?"

"My father doesn't appear to know," I muttered. "And I thought we were talking about Miranda."

"Your father is trying to figure out who he has to beat up or blackmail so he can raise his CAP score or can get a union waiver to allow him to join the exodus," Roger sneered.

"Exodus?" I asked. "Did you just use a fifty dollar word?"

"I'd use thousand dollar words if it got Miranda's attention," Roger murmured. "How much do you know about her? She sits with your group occasionally."

"Why do you want her attention?" I asked. "In the past you never seemed to be stuck on any girl and preferred to stalk ones you could bully."

"That was Billy more than me," Roger said. "And he's dropped out to help support his brother's little gang. Your brother is one of the top enforcers in that group; I'm surprised you hadn't noticed."

"Mike doesn't come home much since Mom got picked up," I admitted.

Roger laughed. "And your father spends more and more time with the prostitutes out on East Seventh Street."

"Anyways," I said with a frown at that revelation. "Miranda doesn't talk all that much to the rest of us. She grew up on a farm in the Midwest, but I guess her father was killed when a tractor rolled over. Her mother wanted to get away from her memories and moved here to find work as a nurse."

"Her father is dead?" Roger asked with a shiver. "Sometimes I wish my father was..."

"Don't think about it," I growled. "I do know that Miranda hasn't made any choices about who to take with her if she's picked up, but she's not going to welcome you trying to force a decision now. The best I can suggest is that if you can behave, hang out at the table occasionally, like Julio does."

"What does that bible-thumper want with your group?" Roger said with a sneer. "Everyone knows he's a little momma's boy who can't stand up for himself."

"He's trying to break free from her and he's actually become good friends with Amy," I said firmly.