Journey to Psitharis

Chapter 4

Four

The next three weeks actually went very quietly. I enjoyed my Art class, despite the occasional dirty look from across the room. And, despite those looks, The Terrible Two behaved themselves. It might have had something to do with their punishment, it might have been the fact that my mom took the medical bill and presented it to the principal the next day...$2,724.92 total, including x-rays, doctor fees and getting the cast. Mom had them print the bill out the moment services were rendered. Getting your wrist broken was very expensive in this town.

The other classes were fine as well. I stopped wearing all black and people stopped seeing me as some sort of freak. A football player found out I had some prowess in Algebra and asked me to tutor him. I agreed to show him a few pointers, though I honestly doubted he had the ability to retain them. One girl in English class showed me her book of poetry and asked me to critique them, as if my eccentric style of dress meant I was the reincarnation of Emily Dickinson. I was beginning to enjoy myself, and even though I kept waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop, my problems were very few and my status seemed to be climbing ever so slightly.

The best news, as far as my sister was concerned, was that Jessica didn't pay her sister's hysterics any attention. And, as Aurora was informed, there were plenty of hysterics, both from Jennifer and her furious parents. In the end Jennifer was told in no uncertain terms that one more screw-up would see her placed in a boarding school in the Virginia mountains. A solid hour of screaming and the crashing of knick knacks and furniture from Jennifer's room followed. And after that, she emerged from her room acting as if nothing had ever happened. I'm sure the maid didn't consider herself so lucky when she came in the next day and found the room in a shambles. But, either way, Aurora was happy, Mom had gotten her revenge against the "uppity" principal and, other than the bulky thing on my hand and arm, I had fared pretty good as well.

A girl named Peri became my new busmate. She was a Bohemian sort, dressed in a long skirt with a peasant top and looking every bit like she stepped right out of a Woodstock poster, with long, light brown hair that extended down her back, accentuated with one light blue streak. Nevertheless she was the sort of girl who was so vivacious and so beautiful she could dress however she wanted and people would still flock to be around her. That's just the way it was for Peri. Much like Aurora, things naturally worked out for her.

Peri told me her life story the first day she sat down beside me. Her parents were former flower power types who devoted their lives to traveling around with little Peri in a nomadic commune, saving the forests and protesting pollution in big cities. Then her mom got pregnant with her baby brother, at which point one of their tree-hugging comrades told them that two kids would be overpopulating the earth and if they cared at all about the planet she would get an abortion immediately. Disillusioned by their former friends, they settled down in Marshdale, worked their way through the corporate ranks and eventually moved to Camden Hill with their two overpopulating children in one the McMansions they used to protest. But where her parents had completely become all-business, Peri never completely let go of her roots, and still made an effort to be earth conscious without being too pushy about it.

Peri was also a senior in high school, but we scarcely saw each other. She took advanced classes while I considered myself lucky to make B's in the college prep courses. The only times we had to speak were during lunch and on our bus rides. She did most of the talking, which I didn't mind a bit. I didn't have a lot to say about myself that didn't sound like endless droning. I mean, come on. Absentee dad, mom who hated you from birth, evil half-sister and my best friend ever had been my Granddad until he passed away. Talk about a scene right out of a Shakespearean tragedy...or was it more of a Euripidean tragedy? Either way, not worth talking about. All I knew was I finally had a friend in this dump. And she was so accepting of everyone she wasn't likely to turn her back on me. My guard could come down, if ever so slightly.