Paper Walker

Chapter 20

After school is out, Isla wants to pull me into the library, but I have to work.

"I'll borrow a pile of books and come over, tonight."

She gives me no chance to protest and races of in the direction of the library.

Oh well, it can't hurt to try, right?

Behind the cash register, I notice I'm looking more closely at the money than before. There are so many see through parts and shiny pictures it almost seems impossible for me to take the exact same money from a book. And didn't I read somewhere that every piece of paper money has a number? They will notice when there are suddenly two of them, or when there's money that doesn't have a number at all. And what if they can trace it back to me? With fingerprints and such?

My overstrung imagination takes me straight to juvie with orange overalls, or punishment with a prod in the park. I shiver.

Quickly I stuff the notes back into the registers drawer, I'm not gonna risk it. Clothing is one thing, money remains safely inside the books.

---

Isla is waiting for me at the back gate. Her bag is beside her on the ground and I suspect she must have used two cards, because it's bulging.

"There you are, I've waited for ages."

Without saying anything I open the door and she follows me inside, huffing and puffing.

Grinning I hang up my things on the coat rack and yell two minutes later from the kitchen: "Take them upstairs, okay? I'll warm up dinner. Pizza-day."

Because my mother is late today, we talk a lot more than usual and eat slowly.

"Bram talked about studying in Utrecht yesterday, and that we might find a room together a year from now. How bizarre is that? I mean, I think it's great, but that he's the one to bring it up. You hardly believe it. I'm really so happy with him."

Isla's Bram in in six vwo. I think he wants to become some sort of doctor, but I'm not entirely sure any more. He's arranging his university applications, or how ever that works in the Netherlands. I don't have those high aspirations myself. Thanks to the weeks I now work in the boutique, I abandoned the idea of Business Administration. I still can't decide between lab assistant and Marketing Communication, although neither of them seem very appealing. I just don't know what I want. Unlike my best friend, who already mapped out her entire future.

Maybe I need to take one of those internet tests. If that tells me precisely what suits me best, I don't have to contemplate any more.

I should have learned I can read without a problem when others are near, years ago. Then I wouldn't have had to base my choice of subjects on scary visions of someone throwing away the book I was in. Now I'm stuck with a profile I don't actually like. I'm pretty good at it, but I just don't like Nature and Health. Would it be possible to go from havo5 to vwo5 with a completely different profile? Or would I have to begin from scratch? And if I do get to choose a different profile, which one should I pick?

In the middle of Isla's sentence about finding a place to live in Utrecht, I ask: "What profiles are there in vwo?"

"Tss, you're paying attention, are you. Why? Do you want to transfer this year?"

"Perhaps." I shrug, bite off a piece of my next pizza slice and say: while chewing slowly: "I have no idea what I want to do after school and I only chose this profile because it had the least reading in it. But now I think I don't really want to do anything with what you can do with this profile."