✅ A Dose of Humiliation

20. Strategy Meeting

All day long, I couldn't stop trying to work out what this punishment could be. But I didn't have a clue. My parents seemed a little surprised that I hadn't found out what it was yet, but they didn't accuse me of lying or anything, which I'd half expected. When I checked my phone again in our lunch break, I saw there was another message... not asking if I'd figured it out yet, which would have made a lot of sense, but instead telling me that I would have to go back to the pharmacy for the backup dose if it hadn't started working by the end of the week. There was an alternative; something else they could do to me if this first one failed to work for some reason.

His message was terser than normal, cut down into few words. And I knew my father well enough to think that he was getting upset over something. Why would it bother me? I hadn't read the contract, but I was pretty sure that if they'd paid for me to get a shot and it didn't work that would be the pharmacy's problem. Just like if you buy anything and it doesn't work, you shouldn't have to pay for a replacement.

"They were buying stuff," Serena told me, and I remembered. Becker had said that there were some things they might need in order to cope with my problem. Mum had taken the stuff home while I was getting the shot. Serena hadn't seen what it was, but she reported Mum had been carrying several bulky bags that she'd seemed to struggle with a little. She wanted to get as much as possible in order to make the best of the discount Becker had offered. And that made me think that it could have been expensive stuff as well. My parents normally prized convenience over a small discount. Whatever they'd bought was probably enough to fill a typical kitchen cabinet, so it would be taking up space now, and there was no guarantee they could return it if it turned out I was mysteriously immune to one particular kind of humiliation.

"That's why they've given me these new rules." I said it as soon as I realised. Jodie and Marcie just nodded, presumably having figured it out ahead of me. "I'm not allowed to stay over with any of you guys until I ask permission. Because they want to make sure that whatever it is they've had to buy is available there as well. So I'm not caught without... whatever it is. But what happens if it comes on when I'm at school? Will I be able to function normally for the rest of the day, or will I have to call Dad in the middle of the day and beg him to bring stuff?"

"Sounds like something my mum would do," Elspeth read out the message that Marcie had scrawled on a napkin. "Make me call home and then punish me for interrupting her day. Or for being out of class."

"I don't think mine are that bad," I said, but it frustrated me that I couldn't be sure. How could I know now if I was going to be okay, when they'd already gone so far beyond what I'd thought they were capable of.

"Where have they put this stuff?" Clint asked, and all eyes turned towards him. There weren't any boys at our table normally, so it was kind of a new thing. But after we'd walked to school together, he'd asked if he could sit with us for lunch too and nobody had objected. We waited in silence for a second, not sure where he was coming from, until he elaborated: "You said they bought a load of bulky to deal with this punishment, right? Where is it? If you can find it in the house while they're out, you'll know what the punishment is supposed to be. And maybe if you wind up being immune to this one, you can fake it long enough to dodge the backup."

"I wish I'd thought of that," I said, and automatically went to hug him like I would any of my friends. I stopped before I reached him; not entirely sure whether I was hesitating because he was a boy, or because I didn't want to risk injuring him further when he was still recovering. But I gave him a fistbump instead, which he accepted with a big grin. Like being properly accepted into a new group of friends was the highlight of his year. And, given that he'd lived here less than a year, I wondered if this was the first time he'd really bonded with anyone. I would have to make sure to help him build a larger social circle, if I thought of anyone else he might get on well with.

I texted my dad back. Said I expected the punishment would kick in today or tomorrow. Becker had said sometimes it took a day or two, after all. And while I was writing, I told him that I would be making my own way back from school today. I had to meet Serena's lawyer, after all, but I didn't want to tell him that. I just told him that I was doing something with a friend, and when I got the expected all-caps message in response I said that I was exercising my basic rights and the law explicitly said that he couldn't stop me. I wasn't entirely sure about that, but I wasn't a lawyer. That was why I would be needing advice. And there was no way that Dad would think to challenge me without even knowing what I'd been up to. Maybe he'd think I was going to church for a change or something. There had been a case on the news a couple of months back where a court decided that when parents had grounded a kid, they couldn't stop him going to confess to his priest.

Dad didn't ask. He didn't complain. But just as we were heading off to class again I got one more message in response. I was expected home before six, no excuses. I typed out "do my best" with one thumb, and then thought for a second. School rules said phones should be off during class, so I switched it off. If the lawyer kept talking to me for more than a couple of hours without an insane bill, I simply wouldn't have seen Dad's demands.

"Guarding against the worst case?" Marcie asked. I didn't know how much she'd seen, but I knew she would understand. It was something I might have criticised her for in the past, wondering if she might have fostered a better relationship with her mother if she told the truth sometimes. I hadn't said that recently, because I knew my friend had reasons for doing what she did. But it really opened my eyes when I found myself in the same situation. Before I'd known, but this time I understood.

"Yeah. He wants me to be back for six. Pretty sure I will be, but if I'm not I can tell him I never knew."

A year before, I would never have thought of lying to them, but now I had more choice. Did that mean I was turning into the rebel they feared? Was their some validity to their paranoia after all, a devil inside me that I'd never recognised? Maybe not, but I knew I was changing a lot. I could only hope that it was in a productive way.