Chapter 2

Contiunce of Chapter 1

It was starting to sink in. I was in, right? Yes. I was. He said yes, I had witnesses. He could not take it back. I was in. What’d this mean exactly. I was in the program, yes, but what about the school? An all boys school where I would be the only girl. Wait was there even a girls bathroom? What would happen if I was innocently sitting in my biology class when all of a sudden I had to pee? Where would I go, would I just sit there, I mean come on, you can only hold it for so long. That’s it, I cant go to this school. It would be to much work. It’s not even worth it if I can never pee. Breathe. I was psyching myself out, I did that a lot. Besides, there was no going back anyways. I needed this. My family needed this. And even if I didn’t want to go, how I would I decline. Would I just decline and be like “Yeah, journalist Craynor, thanks for the offer, but never mind.” No, I was in for the long run, no going back now.

I walked through the parking lot full of fancy Mercede’s, Jaguar’s, and Audi’s. I was even pretty sure I was saw a limo somewhere in there. My truck, hard to miss in pretty much any parking lot, was like a hobo with one sock and two teeth showing up to a white tie party at the white house. But I liked  my hobo truck, it had character. Even though that’s just something people say when they’re describing something old but they still loved anyways. It was a big vintage black ford with tall wheels and a pair of fuzzy pink dice on the rear view mirror. They had character too. I bought it about a year ago with the money I saved waitressing at a diner called Benny’s that was about ten minutes from my apartment. The car had a tendency to break down unexpectedly and I always had a fear that I would be going up a hill and the wheels would literally just pop off and I would be stuck there. Lucky for me the mechanic in my neighborhood lived on the apartment directly above from my family; he had agreed to fix my car when it was in dier need as long as I agreed to watch his four year old twin boys whenever he felt like he needed to make a trip to the store or in other words go drink beer at a bar, but whatever, a free mechanic was nothing to complain about.

I took my key out of my pocket when I heard someone yelling and panting behind me. “Hey, wait.” I almost didn’t turn around. I didn’t want to hear anymore complaints about me going here. At least not before I even started going here. But I turned around anyways, and I turned right into the boy that was yelling my name. I remembered him from class, he was the short blonde kid that I was staring at while everyone was staring at me. His name was Adam. His parents weren’t proud enough to name him junior. I wacked him in the face with my elbow and fell backwards onto the pavement. I clasped my hands over my mouth and he shook his head. Either trying to realize what just happened, or he was checking to make sure it still worked.

“Are you okay!” I gasped, as I knelt down on my knees next to him.

“Watch where your swinging that thing.” He said looking up at the sky as he stood, with his hand over his nose. Was he bleeding? Did I make him bleed! Not even my first day and some rich sophmore is already going to sue me. Awesome. Once I actually got to see him standing up I saw that he wasn’t really that short. About an inch taller than me. Even though that didn’t mean that much, I was like 5’4. I was actually thankful at times for having a name like Joey that people would tease me for, that distrated them from calling me things like Shrimp or The Midget. He really needed to cut his hair. It was almost to the point where he could put it in a pony tail, he looked like a hobo, like my truck, except for the preppy uniform, rolex watch, leather shoes, and perfect teeth, he totally could’ve been a hobo. “And yes I’m fine.” His voice sounded muffled with his hand over it. He took off his bag and unzipped the pouch, he reached out inside it and pulled out a newspaper. “I thought you might want to keep this.” It was the schools newspaper.

“This is what you wanted?” No rude remarks? No comments on how I’m out of my leaugue? He really just wanted to give me a newspaper.

“Yeah, is that a problem?” He took his hand off his face once he was sure he wasn’t actually bleeding. Yay, now he couldn’t sue me. Wait. Was that a British accent?

“No, thanks, I just wish you wouldn’t have ran into my elbow, that really hurt.” I said, fake rubbing my elbow. Talk again. Talk again. He looked confused.

“Me?” Yep, it was British. “Your elbow?” He paused. “Are you seriously blaming me for this?” British accent. Now THAT was cool. No one at my school had an accent of any kind. Unless you counted the kid who wore a bandana and talked like a pirate. Wait, umm, did he say something?

“Well you’re the one running down the middle of a parking lot.” There were other boys also coming down the parking lot. They either wanted Adam or me, I didn’t want to accidently injure anyone else so I slid into the drivers seat of my truck. I was now at least a foot taller than him. “And, thanks for the newspaper.” I said, putting my key into the ignition. He looked like he was about to say something, he didn’t even notice the boys that were about to swarm around us. I drove away.

XXX

The weird transition between the two different cities of the same state was incredible. It went from well manicured lawns, golf courses, antique shops, glass museums, and fountains of porcelain babies spitting water, to cracked sidewalks, old ladies in trench coats, hobos with cardboard boxes, and groups of guys with pants at their knees and necklaces at their belly buttons. The one way to tell a ghetto place from a non-ghetto place was by looking at the buildings. The nice, rich, preppy neighborhoods had white houses, apparently white was just a rich people color, there were never many apartments or motels, no, it was always big white mansions, ­because rich people never stayed in apartments because they proved they were better than everyone by living in their mansions that had enough room for about twenty but they only lived with about four people.  The ghetto neighborhoods had lots of apartments, and even the houses were still all connected in rows. The amount of money the spray paint industry must of made from all of the graffiti in my neighborhood astounded me. It was about a thirty mile drive from Concord, New Hampshire to Nashua, New Hampshire. It took me about thirty minutes till I got home and I just watched out my window to see the houses practically shrink before my eyes as I entered Manchester and then the hobos and railroad tracks started to appear when I got into Nashua.

My aprtment building blended in with all the other ones in the town. Big and brown. The only other way I could really tell it apart from the other buildings was the big yellow graffiti letters spelling out the word ‘BEASTLY’ on the front.  My parking spot was right on the corner of the street right below a giant tree that went a little higher up than the sescond story windows of the building. I don’t know why no one else ever parked here, it was a good spot, close to the door, under the shade, I think people really just left it there as my spot.

People wave to me as I walk to the building, friendly people that I see every day but I don’t know their names or let alone, anything about them. The building is old and I’m forced to take the stairs again because the under maintenance sign is still taped to the elevator door, the elevator had been ‘under maintenance’ for two years. After I reach floor seven I go to my apartment door and reached under our ‘welcome home’ door mat for our room key, apparently it’s safer to keep it under a door mat in an apartment building of two hundred people than it would be to put it on my backpack key chain.

Happy smells fill my nose as I close the door behind me. Our carpet is the mixture of reds, blues, and browns so you can’t tell if something actually gets spilled on it. The kitchen, dining room, and my bedroom are all in this one square area. On the left wall was our fridge, oven, and a counter that had a million year old microwave sitting on top of it. Then there was a wooden table with a bench on each side of it. Then on the other wall had a large red pull out couch where I slept. Next to it was a little round metal table that had an alarm clock, a purple box of tissues, and a desk lamp on it. There weren’t any fancy chandeliers or antique wooden clocks that you often found lying around small apartments, the apartment above us had a wall long fish tank filled with aquatic sea life. Most small places had something like that, something that even though you weren’t wealthy, actually the exact opposite of wealthy, you usually had one fancy thing that made you feel important and you wouldn’t get rid of it till they were literally evicting you from your apartment by dragging you by your ankles. Our families one luxury item was our dog, Poppy. He was some sort of mixture of lab, poodle, beagle, yorkie, boxer, bull dog thing. We just said he was a mutt. Technically his full name was Poppy Seed because of the small black dots on his fur, but when you were at the park yelling “Poppy Seed!” you definitely got some strange looks. Poppy was actually just sleeping on my couch bed, curled up on my pillow.

My mom came out her room, dancing in her apron and covered with flour. She couldn’t dance to save her life, but that’s pretty much just how she got around. “Jojo!” horrible nickname, right? “You are just in time for breakfast.” She cheered, pirouetting her way to the stove.

“It’s like six thirty at night, mom.” I reminded, sitting on the black wooden bench at our dining room table.

“I would like to know who decided you have to eat breakfast in the morning? It’s so delicious you deserve to eat it at night, when you’re awake and can enjoy it properly.” Mom didn’t really do anything if someone told her to. She did the exact opposite just because she could. It’s like when you’re a kid and you are just about to clean you’re room and then your parents tell you to clean your room and then you no longer want to clean your room, and you are not going to clean it. “Jojo, will you please go fetch your brother from his room, he hasn’t eaten all day.” Oh my brother. Probably the most amazing person in the entire world. He was six and smarter than half the adults I knew. I  walked in his room, right across from my moms room, and saw him banging a toy car against his bed frame.

“Preston, are you hungry for dinner….. I mean breakfast.”

“Preston only eats breakfast in the morning.” He said, still facing the wall opposite of me.

“Okay, then let’s go eat dinner.” I said, hoping this would fool him.

“No” It didn’t fool him.

“Please Preston” I walked over to him and knelt down to his level. He wouldn’t look at me, he continued to bang his toy car against the bed as he looked at the carpet.

“I want a sticker.” He said, trying to look at my face, but he was really just staring at my neck. Stickers were how we actually got him to do things. If you did something right you got a sticker, we had probably spent a total of an entire month’s rent on stickers. We got the idea from a guy who used to live in the apartment next door to us who also had an autistic son. He showed us all this stuff that you usually have to spend a hundred dollars at a therapists office about how to make autistic kids happy and productive.

“Look me in the eye and ask me Preston” This was a gamble, he didn’t like looking at people’s faces, but he lifted up his head and looked me in the nose, close enough, and started banging his car against the bed even harder.

“If Preston eats, can Preston have a sticker?” He was practically scowelling by how much he was squinting while he tried to keep his eyes on my face.

“Yes Preston can.” He hopped up, and ran out of the room, toy car still in hand.

               I was just about to walk across the hall to grab his sticker sheet from my mom’s room when someone knocked on the door. I stopped mid-step. I never told my mom about this school. She had enough to worry about without getting her hopes up over something that probably wouldn’t happen. The problem was that it actually was happening.

               “Jojo, would you please go answer the door, and if it’s Ms. Chang from across the hall please tell her that I do not havae her lawn mower, and remind her that we don’t even have a lawn.” My mom yelled from the kitchen as she was trying to convince Preston that waffles could indeed be eaten for dinner. I knew that it was not Ms. Chang at the door asking or her imaginary lawn mower, no, it was Journalist Craynor coming to get my mother to sign paper work or something she had no idea about. They knocked again. “Fine, Jojo, I’ll get the door.” Wait. No!

               “Mom!”I started to yell, but it was to late, she was already pulling open the door. I ran up behind her, hoping that I could shut the door and take one second to slightly explain things, but htat wasn’t going to happen. She looked surprised when instead of a short skinny asian women, there was a tall handsome strange man in the doorway. “Hi Mr, I mean Journalist Craynor.” I said, going on my tiptoes so that I could see over my moms shoulder.

               “Hello, Joey, you must be Mrs. Benson.” He said, sticking out his hand to my mom. She didn’t take it.

               “It’s Ms. Benson, and I’m sorry but who are you.” She said while she crossed her arms. She wasn’t that into strangers. She hated meeting new people, and when she didn’t like you, you could definitely tell, she used an attitude similar to teenage girls’.

               “I am Journalist Craynor from William Juniors Private Academy for Boys.” He said, trying to get past my mom and into our apartment, but she stood in the middle of the doorway, making sure getting in would be impossible. “I just came by to have you sign some paperwork”.

               “Paperwork? Joey, what is this man talking about?” She said, using her same teenage girl attituse. 

               I had to explain everything. We sat on my couchbed and I told her everything, from the beginning where I submitted my application to today when I broke into the school. Most of the explanation she just laughed. Journalist Craynor mostly just rolled his eyes the entire story, probably not appreciating that I expressed how I found him buyouant and sexist.

               “Why am I just hearing about this now?” My mom asked, trying to scoot farther away from journalist Craynor.

               “I really didn’t think I was going to get in.” I said blankly, journalist Craynor continued to roll his eyes.

               “Well where’s the paperwork I have to sign” She said excitingly. She really hated to current school I was in more then I did. It probably had something to do with the last time we were leaving a parent teacher conference at my school, some random senior boys were trying to hotwire our car, and when my mom asked them what the hell they were doing, they said they were checking tire pressure.

               “Here you go.” He said, reaching down for his brief case. Poppy walked over to him and started licking his hand. You could tell he was trying to be polite but was really creeped out by our ‘mutt’. He lifted his whole brief case up and nudged Poppy away with his foot. He handed the large stack of papers to my mom.

               “Oh my God, she’s going to school, not joining the army.” My mom exclaimed, lifting up the pile and just staring at it.

               “Well boarding school can be a big change and �"“ I’m sure that he kept talking, but I began to tune him out. That was something I DID NOT know about. I had done so much research, I knew when the school was built, how many teachers they had, even the average G.P.A. for each student. How in the world did I not know that. That didn’t seem to faze my mom at all.

               “Oh, well then I guess I can live with this.” She said, standing up and heading over to the table where my brother was poking his blueberry waffle with his toy car.

               “Excuse me!” I yelled, pounding my fists on my couchbed. “I can’t go to this school.” I stated blankly. My family couldn’t afford to not have me here.

               “Yes you can darling.” My mom slightly yelled from across the room. “You’re just getting cold feet, you’ll get over it.” She didn’t seem to even care that I was sixteen and I wouldn’t be living here anymore.  Journalist Carynor, kinda just sat there and enjoyed the show.

               “Mom, I have to live here, I have to take care of Preston and you.”

               “That’s my job, to take care of Preston, and you, and taking care of you includes letting you follow your dreams.” She said, grabbing a pen from the cabinet with the ancient toaster on it.

               “I’m sixteen, you really want me to move out?” I was starting to get offended.

               “You would be moving thirty minutes away, not across the country. I would still see you all the time, and yes, you’re sixteen, you should be happy about this.” Well, if she didn’t care, why should I? She obviously didn’t want me to live here anymore. Fine. I’ll move out. She started to sign the paperwork. Very fastly, might I add. I don’t even think she was reading it. That’s when Journalist Craynor finally stepped in.

               “Ms. Benson, maybe you should read that more carefully, I don’t need it tell tomorrow.” He stood up and grabbed his brief case.

“Okay Mr. Craynor, thank you, we’ll see you tomorrow.” My mother said, distracted by Preston, who was scratching his nails on the wall while his waffle was laying on the floor. She lifted him up and Journalist Craynor walked into the kitchen and right next to her.

“Once you get in the paperwork we can start getting her moved in. Hopeully over the weekend so that she can start on Monday.” He starting walking out. “And by the way, it’s Journalist Craynor.” He closed the door.