Kadic Academy Kids

THAT SINKING FEELING

Tovah Pressman Kadic Academy Tenth-grade student

I was three weeks post-op; it had all gone off without a hitch, it was excellent in the week I was gone to be secluded at my aunt's house, being babied, and waited on hand and foot, but what sucked was no one had even texted or called me. I, of course, understood that everyone was busy studying for winter finals, in my absence I spent every second I wasn't sleeping studying. It was just that time of year, I got back to school to have a shock to my system, when I was walking up to my room, I saw none other than Sadie and Odd sitting on the staircase, laughing about something. "What's this?" I asked.
"Just hanging out, Odd and I have a lot in common. It's easier to realize when you and Jeremy aren't trying to tell him what to think," she smirked, it was her typical evil smirk.
"Where is that cousin of ours anyway?" I asked, wanting to get Jeremy down here, immediately, mostly to have him help me convince Odd that Sadie was certainly insane, and not a sweet, nice girl.
"He's at some brainiac convention, Principal Delmas sent him," Odd said, finally saying something.
"And he was okay with that?" I questioned, had everyone gone bonkers while I was gone?
"Yeah, he said he would call you," He shrugged.
"Guess I missed the call." I sighed.
"You don't have to micromanage everyone, short-stack." She always knew what buttons to press, every single time to piss me off. "Oh, by the way, do you like my new hair?" She had dyed her previously purple hair to be brown and grey, like mine.
"It's like looking in a mirror, a funhouse mirror that is." I rolled my eyes.
"I heard you tell everyone you say that yours is natural, we both know that isn't true." she crossed her arms.
"My mother had hair exactly like mine," I said, my blood beginning to boil at the accusations.
"She does this a lot, the whole lying for attention thing. At least I'm getting therapy for my issues." She exhaled as if she was always the calmest and most level-headed person.
"Court-ordered, it's court-ordered therapy, you got arrested and those were the conditions, so..."
"You should chill, being so uptight is going to make you shrink, even more."
"I am perfectly secure with my height," I said through gritted teeth.
"Come on Odd, let's go to the skate park before it gets dark," Sadie said as she grabbed his hand, pulling him away, he looked over his shoulder, then he didn't look back again.

Odd Della Robbia Kadic Academy Tenth-Grade Student

"You were kind of super mean to T," I said as we walked into the park, I mean Sadie could be mean, but usually she was cool, like a big brother in a way, I wouldn't say that to her face though.
"You wouldn't be so nice to her either if you knew her," she said waxing her board.
"I do know her," I replied.
"Well, I probably shouldn't say this, but I guess you should know, she and I used to go to the same school when we were young, but she would be so mean and she would take spray paint from the art room, vandalized anything she could find and blame it on me, and people believed her! She was also just generally vile and evil, hitting kids and making up stories to get people in trouble. Eventually, they caught her, and expelled her, her parents didn't move to Africa to help people, and her family is too self-serving for that, do you think they would move out of their giant house to the tiny two-bed apartment they had in Africa? No, they moved there because they exhausted all options here and no one wanted her in their school." She explained.
"What about Kadic? She goes here,"
"Her dad makes a lot of donations so they'll let her stay, she gets it first in the mail to take a little off the top. Money makes the world go 'round I suppose."
"I mean, she's never mentioned any of it before,"
"Why would she? She's an asshole like her dad is."
"What did her dad do?"
"Blamed me for something I didn't do, even went as far as calling the cops," she said, it seemed as though after that she didn't want to talk more.

-The next day-

I saw Tovah walking to the office with an envelope, I wondered, were those the donations her dad sent?
"Hey, what's in the envelope?" I asked, stepping in front of her.
"Geez, you snuck up on me." She jerked her head. "It's just some documents my dad sent home with me when I was home there,"
"What kind of documents?"
"Why do you care?" She retorted.
"Can't a guy take an interest in his friend's life?"
"Just kind of doing it aggressively." She stepped around me.
"I'm just curious what your dad would want to send, I mean is..."
"Enough with the third degree, say what you want to say." She stopped me.
"I just was curious what your dad would do taking an interest in your life, I mean, he's kind of an ass, isn't he?" I asked.
"My dad has been through a lot, he's apologized to me, and he's fixed his mistakes, I don't know why you're criticizing my father when you're hanging out with the ultimate criminal." she shook her head. "I don't know why I'm trying to justify myself." She walked around me, going into the office.
Later that day, we had gym class, Tovah was standing next to Jim and she was holding his clipboard, it was the tenth and eleventh-grade evaluation days, mostly seeing if we could run, throw and jump.