Chapter 14 ; Thursday at school

Dad took me straight to the reception desk. He must have made an appointment for a meeting because Miss Webster and Mr Shankie were waiting for us. We went into Miss Webster’s office and sat around the table; me and Dad and Miss Webster and Mr Shankie. Habit tried to make me slouch down in the chair and stare at the table but I decided a normal person wouldn’t do that. I made myself sit upright and watch my dad and Miss Webster. I figured I could safely ignore Mr Shankie unless he asked me a question. I decided this was an important test for Little Miss Normal – maybe I should call her LMN for short. In the meeting Dad did all the talking and I did LMN.

“I asked for this meeting because I wanted to talk to you face-to-face. I hope this way we can avoid any more confusion like yesterday. Here is some information about Lambrecht’s Syndrome.” He handed a printout to Miss Webster and a copy to Mr Shankie.

“You will notice that I have highlighted the fact that this is regarded as a relatively minor condition. In adults, it appears in episodes separated by anything from weeks to months to years. My wife had an episode earlier this week that lasted for several days. By the time you spoke to her yesterday, Miss Webster, the episode was completely finished.

“You will notice that I have also highlighted the fact that a typical episode involves some obsessive behaviour. No delusions, no voices, no violence, just obsessive behaviour which can sometimes appear like a temporary change in personality.

“Next you will notice that I have highlighted evidence that there is a genetic link associated with this syndrome.”

Here it comes! I guess even a normal person isn’t going to sit and smile during this bit, maybe I should try to do a stone face like Miss Webster’s. Just do Little Miss Normal! LMN LMN LMN!

“Each of my wife’s children had a chance of inheriting her condition. Our eldest, Bec’s brother, did not get it. Tara did not get it. The signs are that Bec does have Lambrecht’s Syndrome in some form or other, though we will need to have her tested to be sure.”

Both Miss Webster and Mr Shankie turned to look at me. Stone face! LMN! Stone face! I was watching Miss Webster – trying to see how she reacted but she had stone face on and she is so much better at stone face than anyone else I know. LMN! Stone face! LMN!

“You will notice in the literature that the Syndrome first appears during adolescence. At first, episodes are much shorter, anything between thirty minutes and a few hours have been reported and they occur more frequently. They can sometimes be hard to detect unless you know what to look for, often the person involved isn’t aware of them either. Other episodes can be very dramatic and obvious to everyone.”

Hmm. That explains a few things. Oops. Stone face. LMN.

“We think Bec has been experiencing minor episodes for some time now, perhaps for as long as six months to a year.”

Oh! That was news (At least I think it was news. I couldn’t remember anyone saying that last night but maybe they did.) I tried to pretend I knew it and kept my stone face going.

“My point is, Bec has almost certainly experienced several episodes here at school without causing any real problems, so there is no need to treat her differently now that you know what is going on. If she does have a more dramatic episode at school perhaps you will be able to manage the situation without over-reacting. I find with my wife that if it is possible to do so, allowing her to do what she wants to do is the best way to avoid problems. I’m aware that isn’t always possible.

“Last night Bec finally started to understand the implications of all of this. Understandably, she was fairly upset. I was quite prepared to keep her at home today, but she seemed okay this morning and she insisted on coming to school, so here we are.”

Dad turned his big green eyes on me and stared at me, trying to reassure himself that I was still okay. Hmmm, big test, Dad can see through most things. LMN stone face LMN. I nodded at him, trying to say I was still okay without actually using words. I didn’t trust my voice to work properly with all that pressure going on.

“High levels of stress can bring on an episode so I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had been showing the effects this morning, but as you can see, Bec seems to be fully in control right now.”

That was pretty much the end of the meeting. Miss Webster asked a few questions which Dad answered, then they all did the shaking hands thing and Dad left for work. I said thank you to Miss Webster and that came out sounding mostly right except maybe a little squeaky at the start.

I left the meeting pretty pleased with myself that I’d managed to get through the whole meeting without looking miserable and without doing anything crazy. This whole LMN plan was working pretty well. In fact it was working better than well because I really was feeling okay. Liz was waiting for me at my locker and we smiled and hugged and kissed each other like we hadn’t seen each other for days. We waited there until the bell rang and then we linked arms and headed off to our first class together.

First period was English and Mrs Stone was running a discussion about different types of loyalty and examples in books and films. My usual plan during school is to play invisible and not say anything. If I get asked a direct question I go to single short words like “yes,” “no” and “maybe.”

I figured out that Little Miss Normal would probably not hide but actually give an opinion. The only problem now was actually to think of an opinion that LMN could have. I listened carefully and figured out that a lot of the suggestions were referring to war films and examples of loyalty to the country. That gave me an idea so a bit nervously I put my hand up. I think Mrs Stone was so used to me being invisible that she didn’t see it at first. When she did notice my hand was up, her eyebrows went right up under her fringe, but she called my name just like she called anyone. I stared straight at Liz in her seat near me and I said how in Lord of the Rings, Sam was so loyal to Frodo that he stuck by his friend totally, even when Frodo was going crazy because of the ring, Sam stayed right with him and supported him and even carried him.

My voice must have been a bit quiet because Mrs Stone repeated my comment for the whole class to hear and said it was a good example of loyalty between friends, then she moved on to the next person. I know Liz heard what I said because she was watching me and I saw her eyes go all wide and glistening when I said it. She knew what I was talking about and she knew I’d just tried to thank her in a public sort of way. When I finished, she looked at me a bit longer, then her lip kind of quivered. Liz then ducked her head so her hair fell over her face and stared down at the desk for the rest of the discussion.

At the end of the lesson, Mrs Stone came over to me and quietly complimented me for making a good contribution to the discussion. She said she thought it was the first time I’d done so in her class. I figured she was right because it was probably the first time I ever did it voluntarily in any class since coming to this school. But I did it then because Little Miss Normal would have done it, so that meant I had to.

After class, Liz hugged me and kissed my cheek and whispered thank you in my ear. We held hands and went to our next class. Because we were holding hands, all my books were under my left arm. On the way to next class, I saw an arm with an orange sleeve appear and knock the books out of my hand and onto the floor. The laughter that followed was easily recognizable as belonging to Laura DiMartino, the Queen Bitch of the school. I looked up and saw Laura with her arm around the neck of a girl who looked just like me, only wearing an orange sweater. Who needs enemies when you have sisters? I could hear Laura’s voice clearly as she congratulated Tara for showing that little brat her place in the world. Tara laughed and kept walking away with Laura and the rest of their crowd. She didn’t look back once.

Liz helped me pick up my books and we headed to math. I hadn’t done the homework of course, and Mr Palu had decided to spend the first half of the lesson going through the homework. Mr Palu is a really nice guy – probably the nicest teacher I’ve ever had, but he’s a useless math teacher. Most of what I learned about math that whole year I learnt by reading the textbook and doing the homework. I shook my head to myself and opened my math workbook. The book fell open to the most recent pages I’d used and there was my original prom dress sketch. I flipped over the page and there were the details of the bodice that I’d done at the mall.

My head swirled with the various images I’d been drawing and I ended up thinking about the one of future-me breaking through the mirror. As Tara had explained to Miss Webster yesterday, I was trying to show future-me breaking through and becoming real. I was trying to show me turning into her. But what if she never broke through the mirror? What if somehow this thing I have stopped all that happening?

I turned to a fresh page and started drawing.

The bell, ringing to end the class, jolted me and I growled to myself in frustration. This meant I had to pack up and move to a different class and I wasn’t finished drawing. Liz bounced out of her seat and asked to see what I’d been drawing but it wasn’t finished so I didn’t want to show her. Mr Palu came up to me and gave me a printout that listed the homework and the topics covered for this week and next week. He told me to make sure I got it all done before the end of term. He didn’t mind if I got behind this week provided I caught up eventually.

Next class was history and Mrs Nelson was giving a lecture about something that happened centuries ago that was only important because it gave history teachers something to talk about. I opened my math book again and went back to my drawing.

Suddenly Mrs Nelson was standing beside me and yelling at me because she’d asked me a question and I’d ignored her. I told her I was sorry but I didn’t hear the question and she started yelling at me for drawing instead of taking notes about her stupid lecture. She demanded I hand over the picture I’d drawn and I said no. I clutched the book to my chest and she yelled at me some more about insolence and demanded again that I hand over the book to her but I said no again.

The bell for the end of class rang and Mrs Nelson escorted me to the principal’s office. I sat on the bench outside and clutched my math book to my chest while Mrs Nelson stormed into Miss Webster’s office and complained in a loud voice about my behavior. I started to think that maybe I’d mucked up and forgotten to follow the LMN plan.

I could hear Miss Webster’s calm voice replying. She asked Mrs Nelson if she’d read the memo that had been distributed this morning. Mrs Nelson said no, she’d been busy finishing preparations for her classes and intended to read it later. Miss Webster told her it asked the faculty to be tolerant if I was a bit distracted but to report any changes in behavior to her. Mrs Nelson kind of went humph and then said she was now reporting that after being a conscientious and polite student all year, suddenly I wasn’t! Then she came out of the office and went to walk away. Miss Webster had followed her to the doorway and was standing there when Mrs Nelson turned back so they talked right over the top of me. Mrs Nelson pointed at the book I was holding and said to Miss Webster that she was also reporting that the drawing I’d done, based on the what she’d seen of it, was really quite disturbing and the “girl” should probably spend some time talking to the Student Welfare Officer. With that, Mrs Nelson turned on her heel and disappeared – well not really, but she left anyway. I guess I really made a mess of the LMN plan, huh?

So there I was in the principal’s office for the third time in two days. I wondered if that was some kind of record. This time it was just me and Miss Webster. I still clutched the book to my chest. I slumped in the chair and stared at the table. Miss Webster sat and looked at me for a moment. It was like this silence between us was threatening to go on forever. I was wondering if it was worth trying to start up my Little Miss Normal plan again or if it was too late for that.

When she finally spoke, Miss Webster’s voice was gentle; like she was talking to a frightened animal and didn’t want to scare it. Maybe she was.

“So have you been drawing again?”

I decided that even if LMN was in tatters, I still should be polite. After all, Miss Webster had been pretty decent to me over the last couple of days. The least she deserved was me being rude to her. I carefully shifted myself up until I was sitting more upright and looked up at her. Then I nodded. I carefully put the closed book down on the table in front of me, and then I looked back at Miss Webster.

“May I see your new picture?”

I glanced down at the closed book. “It’s not finished.” Amazingly enough, my voice came out clearly enough to be heard, even though it wasn’t very loud.

“Ah! Is that why you didn’t want Mrs Nelson to take the picture, because it’s not finished?”

“I guess!” Well no, not really. I didn’t want her to have the picture because she was yelling at me. I looked up at Miss Webster again. There was no stone face now. There was just this nice lady who wanted to help me.

“Would you like to sit here for a while and finish it?” she asked.

I stared at her for a moment. That was unexpected. I expected her to lecture me about disrespecting Mrs Nelson. She looked at me. I wondered why she was looking at me and then I realized she was waiting for an answer.

“Yes, thank you,” I said.

She nodded and stood. “I have some things I need to check down at the cafeteria. No one will bother you in here.”

She left, closing the door behind her.

I opened up my book and laid it flat on the table. It opened straight to the right page because the pencil I’d been using had been left there when I slammed the book shut. I put the pencil on the table out of the way and looked at the picture I’d drawn. Well pictures, really, because I’d done it in a kind of comic book style with a series of panels down the page. I fiddled with the pencil but didn’t use it. I guess it really was finished.

The first panel was based on Mum’s painting of the new me. The one where that other me was standing holding the mirror up, except that I’d drawn her inside the mirror with her hand up on the side of the mirror. It was only a small sketch and so even though in my head she was nude like in Mum’s painting, there wasn’t enough detail there for a person to work that out by looking. I was pretty pleased that I’d captured the whole confident stance and look though.

The next panel showed her trying to break through the mirror and not being able to. The panel after that showed her banging her fists on the inside of the glass and a look of despair on her face. The next few panels showed her getting weaker and weaker and thinner and thinner until she was practically a skeleton covered with skin like those pictures of prisoners in those concentration camps. The last few panels show her gradually collapsing until there’s just a pile of bones inside the mirror.

In all these panels, there is a suggestion of the real me standing on the outside of the mirror and looking in, watching all this happen.

The very final panel is on the facing page and it’s three times bigger than all the others. It shows the mirror with its pile of bones and in front of the mirror, facing out of the page is me – the real me – wearing the prom dress and looking all nice and pretty. Except in the mirror you can see my back and it’s all rotted away and hollowed out and empty and crawling with maggots. Yes I know, I took the idea from Mum’s picture of the bowl of fruit, but she always says there are no new ideas in art, just old ideas looked at from a new angle. I could see Mrs Nelson’s point. It was a pretty disturbing picture. It was definitely not a drawing that Little Miss Normal would do. I cursed myself for forgetting about the plan.

In fact the picture was so disturbing I wondered if I was really okay. An okay person wouldn’t draw something so extreme. Would they? Maybe my whole plan was a failure. Maybe I couldn’t make myself better by pretending. My dreams of a Little Miss Normal book started to crumble.

No wait! I mustn’t give up that easily. I forgot to follow the plan, that’s all. It was silly to expect the whole LMN plan to work perfectly in just a few hours. I would stick with it for longer and give it a chance to work.

There was a knock and the door opened a bit. It was Mr Palu, my math teacher. Mr Palu seemed surprised to see me sitting there.

“Oh! I was looking for Miss Webster. Apparently she asked to see Melissa DiMartino,” with that he stepped sideways and I saw Melissa was standing behind him.

Melissa was in my class and was the sister of Laura who Tara hung around with. You know, Laura DiMartino, the queen of all bitches. Melissa wasn’t nearly as bad as her sister. She kept pretty much to herself but she often spoke up in class and had good ideas and asked sensible questions so I figured she was pretty smart. She mostly left me alone too. I mean she laughed with everyone else when Hannah Fargo made comments about me, but otherwise she never did anything bad.

I sat up straight and smiled at Mr Palu. “Miss Webster had to leave! She put me in charge. I’m the principal now.”

I was making jokes with a teacher. That was something I never did at school. I don’t know why I did it. I wondered if this fitted in the LMN plan. Too bad! Having started I had to keep going, you can’t stop half way through something like that, it makes you look silly.

I was a bit surprised when Mr Palu suddenly grinned at me and nodded. “Fair enough! A good choice too, if I may say so. I’m sure you’ll do an excellent job. By the way, since you’re the principal, do you think I could have a pay raise?”

“Sure you can.” I remembered I had a couple of dimes in my pocket. I nodded at him and pulled a dime out. I flipped it across the room to him and he caught it neatly out of the air. “I know it’s not much but the school budget is very tight and all.”

Mr Palu was looking at the dime and chuckling quietly. “Well thank you, Miss Freeman. This is most generous of you.”

“Now was there anything else I can help you with Mr Palu? I’m a very busy person you know, what with a school to run and all.”

“Well sure, I guess you should talk to Melissa DiMartino then.” He gestured at Melissa for her to enter the room, which she did. “Oh, and if Miss Webster returns and wants her school back, would you please remind her that she was going to schedule a substitute teacher for me for tomorrow. If she leaves you in charge, you’ll have to schedule one for me. Otherwise you’ll have to take my classes yourself. Good luck with that.”