Chapter 10: Wednesday

I might have gone to sleep with a smile on my face but I didn’t wake up that way. I woke up with a thump. No, that’s not true. I woke up when I was falling. The thump came an instant later when I hit the ground.

“Ow!” I said. Or at least I think that’s what I said, it might have come out more like a grunt. Then I clutched my face and said “Ow!” again. I’d landed face first onto one of my shoes which I’d normally kick under my bed, but obviously this one hadn’t quite made it that far. The heel had quite effectively whacked me dead on my right eye, or should I say that my eye had landed dead on the heel, either way the effect was the same. I guess I should be grateful I don’t own any shoes with pointy stiletto heels!

I pushed the hair out of my face with my spare hand and sat myself up. Liz was still fast asleep, all my thumping and grunting had obviously had no effect on her. She was spreadeagled over the entire bed, occupying the space where I’d been sleeping up until a minute ago. Liz had pushed me out of bed!

I was about to poke her awake and demand some space so I could get back in when I looked at my bedside clock. I had about fifteen minutes until it was time to get up for school anyway. Still holding my right eye with one hand – it was starting to throb – I went to my closet and grabbed a robe to put on. Then I selected an outfit to wear for the day and headed for the bathroom. It was a bit tricky getting through the doors – I was running out of hands – but I made it eventually.

The shower finished waking me up and since I was early, I figured it was a good chance to wash my hair properly. The hair conditioner bottle Tara and I used was getting close to empty so I made a mental note to add it to the shopping list that lived on the door of the fridge. I had to wipe the steam off the mirror so that I could check my eye. It looked like I was going to have a real shiner! I took my time drying and brushing my hair, and then I dressed and headed to the kitchen. I wrote up the brand of hair conditioner on the shopping list and added shampoo as well for luck and then I dug into the freezer to find a bag of frozen peas. Once wrapped in a tea-towel, those frozen peas felt heavenly against my still throbbing eye.

Back in my room, Liz hadn’t moved. She was still sprawled across the entire bed like she owned it. I poked her in the ribs and shook her.

“Wakey, wakey, rise and shine.” I stripped the blankets back off the bed, revealing Liz in all her naked glory.

Liz groaned and grumbled and one hand moved to drag some hair out of her mouth, and then wipe the sleep from her eyes. She blinked a couple of times then peered up at me.

“What time is it? I don’t want to get up! What happened to you?”

“It’s time to get up for school, and you happened to me. You pushed me out of bed and I fell on the floor, you little rat!”

She giggled a bit at that, but then stifled it. “But what happened to your eye? Did I hit you?”

“No! I landed on one of my shoes. It hurt like the dickens!”

She looked at me strangely, “I’m going to assume that means it hurt a lot!”

“Yeah! It hurt a lot! It hurt like the blazes! It hurt like Billy-O! I sodding well got hit right in the mince-pie! Or to put it in words an ignorant Yankee savage like you might understand, it fucking hurt!”

Liz did an exaggerated gasp, and then drew herself up and put a stern expression on her face.

“Rebecca Louise Freeman! I’m appalled that you would even know that word, let alone that you would use it in front of an innocent child like me!” She laid one hand delicately across her upper chest as she said that. Of course, the whole sweet and innocent act was completely ruined by the fact that she was sitting in my bed completely naked – and she knew it!

Then she started speaking in that Southern Belle type of accent. “Why, I am quite certain that even as I sit here, innocent and pure, I can feel myself being corrupted by such vile language.” Then she fluttered her eyelashes at me.

We both burst out laughing, and she slid off the bed and hugged me. She kissed my cheek and said sorry several times. I pretended I wasn’t ready to let her off the hook yet though and I put my nose in the air and sniffed. Liz knew I was joking and started tickling my ribs until I had to dance back out of her reach.

I grabbed a robe for Liz to wear and held it out for her to slide into it.

“You better go and have your shower. If you leave it too long, Tara will get in the bathroom first and she takes forever! Maybe once you’re clean and presentable, I might think about forgiving you.”

“I’m so sorry. I was lying there, all relaxed and warm, and then suddenly it’s morning and you’re poking me and complaining about me pushing you out of bed.”

I pushed Liz towards the bathroom and went to wake Tara. I shook Tara a few times until she started moaning and groaning and then I carefully stood back to allow her flailing fists to fly safely through the air. The last thing I needed was a second black eye to match the one I already had. Once I was convinced Tara was mostly awake, I set her alarm clock to go off in five minutes at full volume and put it on her dresser, on the opposite side of the room from her bed. I know, it sounds like an evil thing to do, but Tara is not a morning person and I’ve had to wake her up for school often enough to know that half-measures don’t work.

I ducked into Angie’s room to check on her, but amazingly she was still fast asleep. I checked her diaper and that was dry, maybe that explained why she was still sleeping. I figure wearing a wet diaper must feel totally gross and I certainly wouldn’t be able to sleep in one, so I couldn’t blame Angie for waking up early when she had a wet and stinky rag wrapped around her middle.

I headed to the kitchen to get breakfast ready and found Dad drinking a cup of tea. He looked at me, still clutching my bag of frozen peas to my eye.

“What happened to you? Did you and Tara have a fight?”

“No, Dad. I fell out of bed and hit my eye. It’ll be fine. Angie’s still asleep, Tara will be up in a moment, and Liz is having a shower.”

“Oh that’s right! Liz stayed the night didn’t she?”

“Jeez, Dad! I don’t know how you’d forget that. You were the one who brought her into my room last night!”

“Oh, er, yes...” Dad mumbled something about having to go to work, put down his half finished cup of tea, picked up a piece of toast from his plate in one hand and his car keys in the other and hurried out of the room. I blinked after him a couple of times and then looked at the clock. It was still fifteen minutes before he usually had to leave. I shrugged. Sometimes The Parents are simply unfathomable!

I rolled that word around in my head several times – unfathomable! I liked that word. It sounded good in my head. I decided to try and use it three more times today! In the distance I heard Tara’s alarm go off. I held my breath and a moment later heard a loud thump. I chuckled quietly to myself. At least now, I wasn’t the only one who’d fallen out of bed this morning. I shoved the bag of peas back in the freezer and started arranging cereal and cooking toast.

Mum joined us for breakfast and made the predictable fuss about my black eye. It wasn’t over the top fuss, it wasn’t crazy-mum fuss, it was the sort of fuss that any mother would make about her daughter having been hurt. I endured the fuss without complaining because I was secretly glad to have my mum back.

When Tara heard the story about what happened, she laughed herself silly. Then she started singing that children’s song ... you know the one: “There were two in the bed, and the little one said, roll over, roll over. So they all rolled over and one fell out...”

Liz laughed and joined in, the traitor! Even Mum joined in. They all thought it was terribly funny. Okay, it was funny, but not as funny as they were making it out to be! I put my nose in the air and sniffed, trying hard not to laugh myself, and started clearing up the breakfast things.

All the way to school, sitting on the bus, Tara and Liz would look at each other then suddenly burst out singing “Roll over, roll over...”

Finally I glared at Liz, “I think I need a new friend!” Tara laughed at that, so I turned my glare onto her, “ ... and a new sister! The people currently in those jobs are about to get the sack!”

Liz grinned and put her hand to her head, holding a pretend phone, “Hello? Is that rent-a-friend? Yes, I want to place an ad. Special requirements? Yes, must have a bed close to the ground. You see she tends to fall out of bed all the time.” We all laughed at that. Yes, I laughed too – well it was pretty funny.

As we got off the bus at school I linked my arm through Liz’s. “Well I can sack Tara as a sister ‘cause I have a better one at home, but I might keep you as a friend for a bit longer.”

“Hey!” yelled Tara, “I heard that!”

“You were meant to!” I responded and then I poked my tongue out at her. Tara poked her tongue back at me and then turned and headed off towards her class. I dug Liz in the ribs with my elbow. “But you better stop teasing me, or else...”

“Or else what?”

“Or else...” I held a pretend phone to my ear and put on an evil voice, “Hello? Miss Davidson? I have Dougal.”

“Dougal? Not my Dougal?” She used a pitiful little voice and made big eyes at me.

“Yes, I have your Dougal. And I have him locked away where you won’t ever find him! Mwahaha!” It was the best impression of an evil laugh I could manage.

“You would kidnap Dougal?”

“Totally! And worse. I have whips and chains and I’m not afraid to use them. Mwahaha!”

“Torture? You would torture poor little Dougal? But he’s just a defenseless little fluffy bear. Okay! I give up! I surrender. I’ll do anything. Just don’t hurt Dougal.”

“So you’ll stop teasing me?”

She sighed, “Okay, if you insist!” Then she poked her bottom lip at me, “I can’t believe you would threaten to torture Dougal!” Then she laughed at me. “You’re totally crazy. You know that, don’t you?”

We both laughed and with our arms linked together, walked into school.

During the last period before lunch, I got a message to go see the principal, Miss Webster. It got me out of art, with Mrs Billings, so I didn’t mind about that too much. Mrs Billings and I don’t get along. She had given me back another piece of artwork which she had graded as a C. I decided that the reason I wasn’t getting better marks was unfathomable.

That was when the student monitor knocked on the door with the message for me to go to Miss Webster’s office.

I didn’t think I was in trouble, I couldn’t think of anything I’d done wrong, so I was only a bit nervous when I knocked on the door to the principal’s office and was called to enter. Inside with Miss Webster was the Student Welfare Officer, Mr Shankie. Mr Shankie is the roundest man I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m betting he does Santa somewhere each Christmas. He wouldn’t need any padding, just a beard and the red suit and he’d be away. Not much of a lap for kiddies to sit on though, most of his lap is covered by his stomach. He’s nice enough, I suppose, but if you put him in a line-up with all the other teachers and asked someone to pick the Welfare Officer, I doubt if he’d be the first pick, or the second!

Miss Webster cleared her throat. “Rebecca Freeman?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Please, take a seat.”

I slid into the indicated chair and glanced between the two of them, trying to pick up why I might be here.

“I had a call from your father on Monday morning. He told me that there were some issues at home that might affect you and your sister here at school.”

It hadn’t occurred to me that Dad would do that, but I guess it made sense. I wondered how much he’d actually told her. “What did he say?”

“He let me know that your mother has had an ongoing mental health problem that hasn’t been in evidence for a while, but that it has flared up over the last few days. He also mentioned that this had been a little upsetting for you and your sister.”

“I guess!”

“Because of that phone call, I asked the faculty to keep an eye on the two of you and report to me any changes in your behavior or your work. From all reports, the two of you seemed to be largely unaffected, though perhaps a little more distracted than usual. Then I was shown this.”

She reached into a folder on her desk and brought out a sheet of paper. She put it down on the table between us and I leaned forward to see it. It was my science test from yesterday. Reading upside down, I could make out a large 61% in a circle written in red ink near the top. I leant back in my chair and looked back at Miss Webster, trying to keep my face blank. That was actually better than I thought I’d done, but I was still pretty upset that I’d done so badly.

“I gather that’s the first time you’ve scored below 90% on a science test. In fact, Rebecca, since you came to this school, you’ve consistently been an A student in all of your subjects, except, strangely enough, in Art where you often receive Cs. Naturally I wondered if the disruption at home your father referred to had caused this drop in your usual standards.”

Miss Webster stared at me and I realized she was waiting for a response. I hadn’t heard a question, so I had to replay in my head what she’d said. I pretty much agreed with everything, so I shrugged and said, “I guess.”

“Well, is there some other explanation?”

I was looking down at the table. I was withdrawing in to myself. I could feel it happening. I could feel my good mood from the morning evaporating in the face of Miss Webster’s stone faced glare. In the back of my brain, I wanted to be post-epiphany me, sitting up straight and looking the principal in the eye, but my body wasn’t doing that. It was hunching down and staring down at the test paper sitting on the table. That test was pretty disappointing. Miss Webster was waiting for an answer. What could I say? Was there any other explanation?

I shrugged, “I guess not!”

“Rebecca, given the circumstances, I am prepared to schedule a make-up test for you. How does next Tuesday during your lunch period suit you?”

That was a surprise. I looked up at Miss Webster. Her face was maybe not completely hard – I wouldn’t go so far as to say she was looking kind, but I think she was trying.

I licked my lips and hoped my voice would come out loud enough to be heard, “Thank you, Miss Webster. I would like that. Next Tuesday should be fine, thank you.”

At least my voice had been loud enough they didn’t ask me to repeat myself. I hate it when that happens to me. It happens all the time at school. I get all tongue-tied and quiet when everyone looks at me, so when I answer a question, sometimes the teacher has to tell me to repeat it. I really hate it when that happens. But this time they heard me so that was good. And I was going to resit the test so that was good. I guessed that was all and started glancing hopefully at the door, but Miss Webster had other ideas.

“I wonder if you can shed some light on why Art is such a poor subject for you.”

That was kind of a complete change of subject. I looked down at my hands for a moment while I reorganized my thoughts, and then I kind of shrugged. “I guess Mrs Billings doesn’t like my choice of subject matter.”

Miss Webster blinked at me, “Could you perhaps explain what you mean by that?”

I thought frantically, trying to pick an example that would explain what the problem was without me actually saying “Mrs Billings is an idiot.” I figured that wouldn’t go down too well. Also I didn’t think I’d be physically able to say something like that in front of the principal.

“One time she put a bowl of fruit on the table and asked us to draw it. While I was drawing, I saw an ant crawl across one of the apples. I drew that in, and then I guess I got carried away and put in a whole lot of bugs and worms and maggots crawling around in the fruit. I thought it was a pretty good drawing, but Mrs Billings said it was supposed to be real life and mine wasn’t so she gave it a C. She said if I wanted a better mark I could do it again properly, but I didn’t want to do that. I showed the drawing to Mum and she liked it, so...”

I shrugged and left it at that. I respected Mum’s opinion about art a heck of a lot more than I respected Mrs Billings’.

“I see!” Miss Webster blinked slowly at me. She lent forward and flipped the test over to reveal the mostly blank back, except for my scribble on the bottom half of the page.

“Would you say this is about your normal standard of drawing?” She spun the sheet of paper around and pushed it towards me. I looked carefully at the picture I’d drawn. I hadn’t really been thinking as I drew it so it was almost a surprise to me to see what I’d drawn.

I’d drawn myself, the post-epiphany version of me anyway, my face strong and determined. I’d drawn post-epiphany me breaking out of the mirror where I’d first seen myself and climbing my way through into the real world. Because it was only a pen drawing and because I’d only drawn the top half of me, you couldn’t really tell that I’d drawn me naked, which was a bit of a relief given the number of other people who’d probably seen the picture – including Miss Webster and Mr Shankie.

Miss Webster was still waiting for an answer. I had to think to remember what her question was. I looked at the picture with a more critical eye and could see a few spots where I could have made it better, the hands for instance weren’t that good, but overall I was pretty happy with it, given it was something I did in twenty minutes without really concentrating on what I was doing.

Miss Webster was still waiting for an answer, so I shrugged. “I guess.”

“I showed this picture to Mrs Billings and she seems to agree with you. She said it was crude and sloppy and had little artistic merit and was typical of your work.”

I snorted in disgust. Of course it was crude; it was a 20 minute scribble! As for artistic merit, while I didn’t think my drawing had a lot of it, there was some there. I knew about artistic merit. Mum had been taking me to art shows of all different standards and discussing the art with me since before I could walk. I doubted if Mrs Billings would recognize artistic merit if it bit her on the bum!