Chapter 6

Susan and Megan didn't go much further than they had the first time in the hour or so they were parked out there by the river, but they kissed some more and talked some more without settling anything, except for perhaps a little of the confusion in Megan's mind. After a while, they decided enough was enough and drove down to the Frostee Freeze, a one-time A&W that was still a drive-in, and the predominant teenage hangout in Spearfish Lake, at least when it was open in the summer months.

That blew up the rest of the afternoon, and sooner than either wanted, it was time for Susan to drop Megan off and go home for dinner. On her way home, Susan reflected that as far as she had been concerned what she'd done with Megan had all just been in fun, and she could see letting it get quite a bit further sometime if things happened to turn out that way. While she liked guys, and being in bed with guys, it carried a danger of getting hooked up with some guy along with it, something she didn't really want to do, at least yet and maybe not ever. While it might be the right thing for many girls, Susan thought, it could force her to give up a lot of her dreams of seeing the world. That was something she didn't want to risk, at least at the moment; there were too many things to do and places to see, and she needed the time and freedom to do it.

As far as that went, it might be fun to go much further with Megan some time, at least if Megan could manage to not take it as seriously as she seemed to be doing. Whether Megan could do that remained to be seen, but if so, then Susan thought it might make her last year in Spearfish Lake go a lot faster, at least assuming that they could keep it very, very discreet. The rumor mill in Spearfish Lake worked fast, like in most small towns, and the wrong kind of gossip going around school could be very hurtful, especially as fragile as Megan's concerns about her orientation seemed to be. It might be better to not do it at all – but then there might be some fun missed, too. At any rate, a decision didn't have to be made right now, she thought.

Susan had never worried very much about if she was straight or bi or lesbian or what – as she had told Megan, sex right now was all just for the sake of fun. She'd explored just about every angle on the subject possible with her friends in Germany, who had been carrying on in various combinations before she arrived and were glad to include her in their circle. Presumably they would continue as before now that she was gone. It wasn't as if they did it all the time, but every now and then when the time was right ... it was as she'd told Megan, all in fun, and she'd had a lot of fun with it. It was a big reason why she missed her German friends, and the prospects for that kind of outlet seemed very limited in Spearfish Lake. It was possible when she got to college that things would be different since the rumor mill that ran rampant throughout this town probably wouldn't be as prevalent in a bigger place, and from what she'd heard, people in college tended to be looser and less judgmental, anyway. It was just another reason why she wanted to have the downer of another year in high school out of the way, even if it was her senior year.

Perhaps it had been a mistake with Megan, but then, maybe it hadn't, either. One of the advantages of having that sort of fun in Germany was that it was a long way from home, and maybe it wasn't such a good idea to get involved with it where her parents might hear about it. But whatever happened, the next few months seemed to have a little more potential than it looked earlier in the day.

Monday rolled around inexorably, as Mondays have a way of doing. Now that she was getting her internal clock a little closer to local time, she only slept until about nine or so. Her folks were both at work when she got up – Mondays were a big day at the Record-Herald – and she lollygagged around the house trying to figure out what to do. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to get back together with Megan right away, she thought. Perhaps in another day or two, but not just yet; she didn't want to give Megan the idea she was desperate. This soon would send that sort of signal.

The most logical thing to do was to head over to the school, see Mr. Hekkinan, and get the registration business settled. Although it needed to be done, even considering it was a little depressing; it seemed like an admission that her carriage had indeed turned back into a pumpkin and that her wonderful year as an exchange student was over. But, after some breakfast and some other attempts to delay the inevitable, she decided that there wasn't much else she could do.

She pulled on a lightweight halter-top sundress that seemed appropriate for visiting the school off season. To go with the outfit, she put on some white pumps with a little heel, just to help the good impression; it wouldn't look well to wear beat-up tenny-runners with the nice dress, would it?

Susan didn't do slob easily, and just wearing shorts and a T-shirt for something as routine as what she planned didn't seem right to her. One of the things she'd already known before she went to Germany is that people took her more seriously if she was nicely and appropriately dressed. The American habit of teenagers dressing like slobs had widely infected Germany and the rest of the world from what she could tell, and it didn't impress her in the slightest.

In a few minutes, she was in her car – her car, she was still having trouble getting used to that fact of life – and heading across town to the school. She walked in the front door and up to the office, noticing that the place seemed still and stale and empty; desks and chairs and a myriad of other things were stacked in the halls, and there was the sound of a floor buffer running somewhere. The place even smelled funny, and didn't have much of the life as when there were kids around, the way she was most familiar with it.

Mrs. Foxbender was in the school office; it seemed like that much hadn't changed. The kids called her "The Dragon Lady" because she was pretty aggressive about grilling them over absentee slips and the like, but that was nothing for Susan to worry about – today, at least. Sometimes Mrs. Foxbender seemed pretty sour, but as Susan walked up to the open sliding glass window onto the main hall, the secretary was cheerful in her greeting: "Hello, Susan. So how was Germany?"

"Really nice," Susan replied. "I had a great time!"

"It was pretty good when my husband was stationed there," Mrs. Foxbender said. "But that was a long time ago. So, what can I do for you today?"

"Well," Susan sighed. "I came to see about getting signed up for classes."

"I thought that might be the case," the older woman smiled. "You're going to have to see Mr. Hekkinan for that, but he said a few minutes ago that he wanted to see you anyway when you came in. He's on the phone right now but shouldn't be very long."

"That's all right," Susan replied. "Do you think I could look at the list of courses offered so I can review it a little bit?"

"That's probably a good idea," Mrs. Foxbender said, shuffling around on her desk. "If you'd like to come sit back here until Mr. Hekkinan is free, you'd be welcome." She handed Susan a couple of sheets of paper that listed the graduation requirements and the available classes.

Susan glanced at the graduation requirement lists. She had come close to completing everything needed to graduate, especially with some of the classes she'd taken at Johannes-Staudinger Gymnasium in Regensburg. There were a couple exceptions – she needed senior English, for example – but there weren't very many.

She turned to the list of classes. There weren't many available to her, and fewer that would do her any good. She noted with interest that the school now had a Spanish 1 class, apparently for the first time this year, taught by Mr. Delehayne, who had been her French teacher. In theory she could have taken that, but she'd passed Spanish at a high level in Gymnasium, so there was no point in going back to a basic level class, except maybe to pick up the credit hour while sleeping through the class. In any case, there would be no challenge for her there, except in trying not to appear too bored.

In another case, she could have taken calculus, which had a prerequisite of pre-calc, which she hadn't taken. However, she had taken and passed calculus in Regensburg, and probably at a higher level than was taught here. Taking pre-calc would just mean another class where she'd have to look like she was staying awake. Oh, she could have taken "weight training", which was on the list mostly for an easy credit for dumb male jocks, but pointless for her, even if she liked being around jocks, which she didn't.

There were things she could do, like taking an art class or two – but she didn't want to, and not just because she didn't like the teacher, who seemed like a vapid, pretentious little twit. All in all, the pickings seemed mighty slim for her. Christ, she thought, this is going to be a long, pointless year. If she'd just stayed in Germany, she might be heading off to uni with Hans right now, instead of being stuck taking Hauptschule-level classes in what amounted to a Realschule. What a waste!

She was sinking into an angry depression when she heard Mrs. Foxbender say, "Susan? Mr. Hekkinan will see you now."

"OK, thanks, Mrs. Foxbender," she replied brightly, at least looking like she was trying to make a positive impression.

She got up and went into the principal's office. "Good morning, Mr. Hekkinan," she smiled.

"I'm afraid you're not going to think it's a good morning," the principal replied glumly. "Sit down, Susan; I'm afraid I've got bad news for you. I made a huge mistake this morning, and unfortunately the consequences are going to fall on you. I just got off the phone talking to your father about it, so I suppose I might as well make you unhappy, too."

"Is there a problem?" she asked innocently, a stupid question and she knew it. There was a huge problem or Mr. Hekkinan wouldn't have been this up-front about it. She knew he was a long-time friend of her father, and he'd always seemed to be an upbeat person. This was not upbeat.

"I'm afraid there is," he sighed. "You may not be aware, but we have a new superintendent as of the middle of last month, Mr. Gingrich. He's, well, he's new to the area, and you may not have heard of him."

"Never heard of him," Susan replied. She could see that Mr. Hekkinan was struggling to break whatever the bad news was to her gently, and wished he'd get on with it.

"I wish I hadn't," he shook his head. "But that's something I really shouldn't say. In any case, I was talking to him this morning, and I'll have to admit that I was a little proud that you were returning to us, and told him that your being here offered the possibility of bringing some valuable alternative viewpoints to some of your classmates." He let out a sigh. "He missed the point almost entirely. What he focused on was that you'd skipped your junior year here, and, well, he insisted that since you missed the whole year here that you be registered as a junior, rather than as a senior."

"What?" Susan said, her cool, collected demeanor falling away in an instant. "That's the stupidest thing I ever heard! I worked hard for two years, more than that, to get all the class requirements in before I left. We had an agreement on that, and I did everything I was supposed to do. Now, why would he want to take that away from me after it's too late for me to change things?"

"I told him that," Hekkinan shook his head. "In fact, I told him we had plenty of paperwork on it. He, well, he said it didn't matter, that was something the previous administration had done, and that he wasn't bound by it."

"Jesus H. Christ," Susan fumed, ignoring the fact that she shouldn't be swearing in front of Mr. Hekkinan. "I was just looking at the course list to see what I might be able to take this year, and there are hardly any classes left where I can learn anything. With only one exception, what's available to me is only warehousing classes or stuff where I've already taken and passed harder classes elsewhere. What possible reason could he have for pulling this kind of thing?"