Throw Away Teen (14 page)

“
Will Gabe be in trouble for protecting you, B.J.?” Liz finally asked.

“
Nope. We’ve watched each other’s back so many times, it’s routine. He probably told Dr. Murphy to call his father and Murphy refused.”

“
Why?” Ted asked. “Shouldn’t Gabe be with his dad?”

“
The guy lives in Montana and Gabe’s lawyer is still trying to work things out with him. He has issues and he can’t take care of Gabe.”

“
What kind of issues?” Liz asked.

“
Carol says he has PTSD from being in Iraq so many times,” I said. “So, Gabe can’t go home, but he still wants to be a Marine like his old man.” After a moment I continued. “Actually, the center doesn’t want to lose the extra bucks they get for Gabe since he’s high-risk.” The same rule applied to me. I knew the state would cough up major bucks for Liz and Ted if they kept me. “If Gabe goes back to Montana, it would be financial suicide for Dr. Murphy.”

Liz nodded. Then, she glanced over her shoulder at me. “When were you mauled by that Doberman, B.J.?”

“
I wasn’t.” I stared at Liz for a moment, before I recalled Irene running off at the mouth. “Irene was. We’d decided to split for California. The cops weren’t after us. It was just a drug raid. I was almost out one of the windows when Irene got nailed by the Dobie. I went back to help her and this other dog knocked me down. I didn’t move, so all he did was growl. The one on Irene bit her when she tried to get away.”

“
When did that happen?” Ted asked. “It must’ve been before the shoplifting incident.”

“
It was eight months ago. I got into a battle of wits with one of the counselors. He lost. Irene and I left when the old director told us not to make waves. Usually, he, the old director left us alone if we didn’t make trouble for him. But he retired and then Dr. Murphy came to Evergreen last November.”

“
It sounds to me like your old director retired long before he left the center,” Liz said.

CHAPTER 8

The next day Liz told me we had an appointment with the headmaster of Stewart Falls Academy. When I asked what a headmaster was, she said, it was a principal. That didn’t sound good. I figured I could make a pretty good case for blowing off the last few weeks of the semester. My grades sucked, and this guy was probably going to agree with me that ninth grade was a do-over, so I shouldn’t waste his time. Having ADD meant that I usually bailed on assignments in class and forgot the homework crap the teachers gave. Personally, I thought school wasn’t all that important, but somehow I knew Liz and Ted wouldn’t agree.

They still seemed downright strange. When we arrived home last night, Ted carried my duffel bag upstairs while I walked Guard. At ten, Liz sent me off to bed. Neither of them said a word about my fight with Irene, not even at breakfast. I didn’t know if I should be glad or worried.

On the one hand, I was glad that Liz wasn’t mad at me. But on the other, I didn’t know what to think. I’d been in enough places to know a lot of garbage would come up if we argued, and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t win this round with Liz. It was my fault after all. I knew Irene and I should’ve expected her to be upset about me leaving even if I hadn’t anticipated a Monday night Fight Club.

I went upstairs and put on clean jeans and a huge yellow sweater. I brushed my long red hair, then piled it on top of my head, and secured it with a clip. I put on my newest earrings and even bothered to apply some make-up. The mascara made my lashes long and dark, enhancing my green eyes, but I kept the rest natural. My first day at a new school wasn’t the time to play the skank. My real mother sold herself on First Avenue, but not me. And I didn’t want to give anyone cause to think I would ever be like her.

While I wished I was taller, not just five-foot-nothing, I wasn’t. But I wasn’t about to let on that it bothered me, so I slipped on my favorite pair of flats. As I stared at my reflection, I reminded myself that I could take whatever a bunch of hicks could dish out, especially the ones in this po-dunk town. That didn’t work as well as I’d hoped at calming my nerves, so I tried a couple deep breaths before heading downstairs.

When I walked into the kitchen, Liz gave me a steady look. Then she smiled.

“
What?” I demanded.

“
You look lovely,” she said. She sounded as though she really meant it. She didn’t even give me crap about my tone, which a few of my previous foster parents would’ve called snotty.

“
Really?” I asked.

“
I’m not in the habit of saying things I don’t mean, B.J.” Liz sniffed. “The proper response to a compliment is
“Thank you
.” Now, let’s try this again. You look lovely, B.J.”

“
Thank you.” I tried to lace my tone with sarcasm but a bubbly warmth seeped through me and ruined it. Nobody had ever said I was lovely before. I stored her compliment in my mind so I’d remember it when I returned to the center. I gave Guard-dog a quick pet and hug before I led him to the bathroom. While I disliked the idea of locking him up at all, the downstairs bathroom had a tile floor so it wouldn’t matter if Guard had an accident while we were gone. It was also much bigger than the crate Ted had gotten for him. I snuck him a dog cookie before shutting the door.

Liz suggested setting up the crate for him but gave up when I adamantly refused. I wasn’t locking him in a cage. He was a puppy, not a prisoner. But she just smiled and reminded me that I’d be the one cleaning it up if he piddled or pooped on the floor, so I walked him one last time before we left.

Stewart Falls Academy was on the other side of town. It was a bunch of red brick buildings like a college campus scattered around long sweeping lawns. On one side was a football field. There were tennis courts and Liz pointed out a huge barn that she said was an indoor arena for the equestrian team. A track, baseball diamonds, softball fields and even a swimming pool took up the far end of the place. I’d never seen a private school like this and now I was supposed to attend one? Talk about entering the Twilight Zone.

Liz pulled into the visitor parking lot. We walked into the office and the secretary gave us a friendly smile. “Hi. How can I help you, Liz?”

“Ginger, this is my daughter, B.J. We have an appointment with Mr. Donnelly to arrange her transfer up here from Seattle.”

Talk about a rush. None of my other foster mothers ever called me their daughter.

Ginger smiled at me. “Welcome to Stewart Falls, B.J.” She wheeled around in her chair and found a stack of forms. Then she stood up and led the way into a conference room with a long table surrounded by big expensive chairs. She passed the papers to Liz. “Start here and I’ll round up the headmaster for you. Would you like coffee or tea?”

“Thank you. Coffee would be wonderful.” Sitting down, Liz took a pen from her purse and began to fill out the papers. Lowering her voice so nobody else heard, she asked, “What do I put for your proper name, B.J.?”

I just looked at her like she was dumb. “B.J. Larson. What else?”

“Are you sure?” When I nodded, she wrote it down. Then she gave me one of her steady looks. “B.J., if you dislike your name that much, why don’t you make up a new one? You can have it legally changed, you know. I’ll even help you.”

I gaped at her. Was this old lady crazy or what? Nobody had ever offered that option, not even Carol who claimed to be my friend as well as my caseworker. “Could I do that? Really?”

Liz just looked at me. “What did I tell you before we left the house, young lady?”

“That you don’t say things you don’t mean,” I told her. Slowly, I started to believe it—at least for the moment.

Ginger came back carrying a tray with two china cups of coffee, a pitcher of cream, bowl of sugar and a small plate of fancy cookies, the kind that came from Scotland. This school was definitely different. She put one of the cups in front of Liz and one in front of me. “Headmaster Donnelly will be here in five minutes.”

True to her word, the guy came in five minutes later with his own coffee, and he smiled at us like he was honestly glad we’d showed up. He wore a dark blue suit and a white shirt. He had gray flecks in his black hair and wrinkles around his dark eyes. He pulled up a chair by Liz and proceeded to read through the forms as she completed them.

Liz obviously knew the truth about paperwork. As long as she filled in all of the blanks on the forms, nobody would question what she wrote. Mr. Donnelly just accepted what Liz told him as well then matched up the classes I’d taken in Seattle with the ones offered by the academy. The only problem was the art classes didn’t have any room. I’d have to take photography.

“I don’t see why you can’t fit in one more girl,” Liz told Mr. Donnelly. “B.J. won’t take up much room.”

“There isn’t another easel,” Mr. Donnelly said. “I’ll get her in next fall, Liz. I promise. Will that work, B.J.?”

“It’s fine,” I said, snagging another cookie. “I can do photography. It might even help with my painting.”

“I like your attitude.” Mr. Donnelly returned to the list of classes. “I think you’ll fit in just fine here.”

“We could sign you up for art classes this summer, B.J.,” Liz said. “We can look on the computer at home.”

“I’ll check our summer catalog, too,” Mr. Donnelly promised. He sounded as if he meant it. I found myself believing him and wondering what his school would be like.

Once he took the forms out to Ginger, he came back with a three-ring binder. “The Academy handbook is in here, B.J. You’ll want to read the rules. You’re responsible for knowing the Code of Conduct.”

I blinked. “What’s a code...”

“Of conduct?” The smile faded and Mr. Donnelly met my gaze. “It’s the way we do things here. It’s going to be hard at first. We have zero tolerance for bullying, incivility, name-calling, fights, skipping classes, tardiness, public displays of affection, incivility, and so on.”

“What’s incivility?” I asked.

“Rudeness,” Liz said. “You have to be polite to the other kids, the teachers, the staff and the administrators.”

“That sucks,” I said.

“I told you, it’ll be hard,” Mr. Donnelly agreed. “And you don’t get to say that things suck anymore. We’ll teach you a more sophisticated vocabulary. It means the same thing, but it sounds much more mature.”

“So what happens if somebody bullies me?” I asked. “Who handles it if I’m not allowed to?”

“There are consequences for mistakes students make. Minor infractions receive demerits and those add up to school detention, or Saturday school,” Mr. Donnelly said. “Severe infractions like bullying or sexual harassment mean Saturday school for the rest of the year.”

“Wow, that’s tough.” I eyed him warily. “I got in fights at other schools.”

He nodded. “I read your file. You may have had provocation there. Here, you won’t.”

“You mean nobody will call me...” I eyed Liz then decided to go for it. “Blowj—”

“Nobody will,” Mr. Donnelly interrupted. He held up his hand before Liz said anything. “They’d not only get Saturday School, they’d meet with my Vice-Principal in charge of discipline every afternoon for counseling. And he’s an ex-Army Ranger who thinks running five miles on the track is a good way to start therapy sessions.”

“That—” I stopped before I said it sucked.

When Mr. Donnelly smiled at me, I knew he understood what I thought about running five miles. I definitely didn’t want to get on the VP’s bad side.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been in a school where people said there was zero tolerance for bad stuff and meant it,” I told him. “I’ll try my best. Honest.”

“And we’re here to help you.” Mr. Donnelly turned to Liz. “I’ve included the names of our teachers who tutor at-risk students. Liz, I recommend you arrange for Fiona Walker to start working with B.J. right away so she can improve her study skills.”

Liz nodded. “I’ll call her today.”

“Excuse me.” I raised my hand to get their attention and tried to sound super polite. “Foster kid here. I’ve never had a tutor.”

“We’re preparing you for college,” Mr. Donnelly said. “And we have high expectations for all our Academy students. So, you’ll work with a tutor three times a week.”

“Who pays for it?” I asked. I didn’t like the idea of Liz forking over even more money on my behalf. The old geezers would be broke before they knew it.

“It’s part of your tuition here at the Academy so we do,” Mr. Donnelly said.

After we finished with our enrollment conference, he sent me on a tour of the school with the office T.A. She looked like a blonde clone of Dallas, but her name was Vonnie and she was nice, almost too nice. She wore blue slacks, a white blouse under a blue sweater and a plaid scarf around her neck like a weird tie. When we climbed the stairs to the second floor, I noticed the shine on her black leather shoes.

This place was perfect, too perfect, like it was right out of a horror flick or just waiting for a catastrophe. Perhaps that was where I came in. Hadn’t Herphy Murphy called me a “walking catastrophe” on more than one occasion?

I shrugged. “So, do you like it here?”

“What’s not to like?” Vonnie asked. “We have the best teachers. Most taught at universities before they came here. Our drama department puts on plays that get reviewed on TV and in newspapers all over the West Coast. The band goes to New York every year. And our football team went to State this year.”

While she showed me the library, computer labs and different wings of the school, she chattered about the Journalism Department and the newspapers and literary magazines the students wrote. It turned out she was an assistant editor. When she offered to help me get on the paper, I turned her down.

“I have ADD,” I said. “And I’m not much of a reader or a writer. I’d screw everything up and you’d just have to fix it.”

“My brother has dyslexia and it’s hard for him to write his sports columns,” Vonnie said, “but he manages.”

“Thanks, but it’s still not my thing,” I said.