Robbin

20. Doodles and Diaries

She was terrified to face her parents the next morning, the ring of her necklace, which hung safely from her neck, being of no comfort at all. She had showered and was sitting on her bed with a towel atop her head, fully dressed and immovable. Afraid to face the trouble downstairs, she found that trouble instead came to her in the form of a knock at her bedroom door. Instead of waiting for her reply, the door obnoxiously burst open.

"Here's the deal lil' sis: I have to lay some ground rules." Sarah was dressed in a hippie shirt that showed her stomach and ripped blue skinny jeans up to her belly button.

Terra raised her eyebrows at the intrusion, feigning apathy. "Oh really, and what are those?"

"Now, I don't know what was going on about that disappearing act you pulled for the last two days, and I don't really give a damn about what mom and dad say to me about 'being gentle' toward you about it, but first of all, if you ever intrude in my love life again, I swear to you I will not hesitate to plead guilty for murdering your sorry butt."

"Really? You still seeing that... Danny guy or whatever..." Terra rolled her eyes exaggeratedly as if not inwardly terrified at the answer.

"No," Sarah answered, as if she should know, "he left after your freak out the other night on the porch. Hasn't come back since, you jerk." Sarah looked down on Terra, arms folded as if she should apologize. She didn't wait for long. "Second of all, if I ever find you in our kitchen passed out again, so help me lord.... Just eat stuff now and then, will you? Take care of yourself."

The unexpected demands continued. "Third of all, don't you ever, ever run away from home again because I don't want to be left here to deal with the mess you leave behind, and the wreck you leave of mom and dad."

Terra didn't even have time to exhale in surprise as Sarah turned abruptly to leave her room. "Oh, one more thing: mom and dad made you pancakes, so won't you finally come downstairs and get them, instead of hiding out in this miserable hole of a room... dork?"

Terra stared after Sarah's retreating figure. If she only knew how much more there was to the story.

She ate pancakes with Steve and Laura and found herself in Algebra II three hours later. Her necklace still dangled from her neck as she moved her pencil maniacally in her doodling of her notepad, no inch of which held any math equation of any form. She put her hand up to the silver chain to make sure it was still there, as if it could have gone anywhere without her.

She felt the teacher had droned on for far too long and had stopped even pretending to listen. Feeling his eyes on her, she looked up for half a second.

"And..." he said, opening his mouth while staring as if about to make some witty comment about not paying attention. Cut off mid sentence by a loud ding, he didn't find the opportunity, however. The students stood uniformly and shuffled from the classroom as if the prospect of third period was so much better than second, they could hardly stand waiting to get there. Terra, however, took a moment to admire her doodling handiwork. It was a mistake.

"Who's Madiera?" she heard the male voice boom authoritatively from above. Terra looked up bashfully at her Algebra II teacher who had apparently taken the opportunity to waltz over to her desk and view her doodling handiwork as well.

"No one." Terra shut the notebook again quickly.

He looked to her critically as she stood. He was one of the younger teachers, much more likely to feel obligated to bother her with righteous advice than any of the older ones. "I suggest you spend your next class day paying more attention to the lecture than to your doodling, especially with the last class day you missed, you're starting to fall behind."