Thirty-Five
____________
New Child - Old Criminal
The breakfast chatter revolved
around the upcoming arrival of a new teen at the FHG home… a female. This teen
was currently completing a year of foster care commitment in a home that
chose, for one reason or another, not to renew or extend their commitment to
provide foster care for the girl any longer.
“This young teen woman attends
your school, Jennifer. Maybe you can look her up today if you have the time,”
begged Mr. Coloradas, “and tell her a little about the Chandler Mansion
and us.”
“Sure,” Jenny replied. “What’s
her name?”
“Kathy Roman.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Jenny
affirmed.
Jenny wondered who this girl
was. Her curiosity contained both excitement and dread. How do I go around and search her
out? she asked herself. I’ll
see if Millie knows.
Jenny did not see Millie
in the hallway when she entered the school building, so she went straight to
her first class.
Later in the day during art
class Jenny was introduced to some of the basic colors the students would be
using during the year: lamp black, titanium white, cerulean &
ultramarine blues, yellow ochre, burnt umber, burnt sienna, cadmium red and
various shades of gray. A guest artist visited the class and demonstrated
some basic brush techniques using brush sizes 2, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 and 20
and an 18 inch by 24 inch drawing board. The guest demonstrated how to
draw an outline sketch on a transparency and place it on an overhead projector.
She then adjusted its size several times by projecting the image onto a
blank canvas, “This way you all can avoid the need to keep starting over and
over again on a new canvas every time you happen to make a mistake. Just
be sure you are content with your sketch on the transparency and its projected size
on the canvas.”
“Wow!” Jenny blurted out in
excitement, feeling a bit embarrassed afterward. But no one noticed her
outburst. Everyone else in the class was as deeply entrenched with the
same awe and fascination as Jenny.
When Jenny went to the cafeteria
for lunch she saw her new lunch friend sitting alone in the same spot as
before. She picked up her lunch tray and food as quickly as possible and
joined Mille.
“Hey,” Millie greeted, with the
sound of dejected softness.
Mildred was a small girl with
medium short hair and not so modern clothes.
“What happened to your eye?”
Jenny questioned. “Where’d you get that shiner?”
Millie sported a black eye that
was sloppily covered over with some type of cheap makeup.
“Oh, you know that girl that
mouthed off to you yesterday? She did it.”
Jenny’s anger burned, she felt
it rise within her swiftly.
“It’s my fault actually,”
confirmed Millie. “I sort of said something to her I shouldn’t have.”
Jenny calmed slightly, but still
felt she should give the girl who hit Millie a good pounding.
Millie continued, “Her foster
parents dumped her and she has to move to some group home for teens soon. So I
sort of told her to have a nice trip and enjoy her move, so she punched
me. It doesn’t hurt much, really.”
Jenny felt an uneasiness creep
its way up inside of her, slowly replacing the anger she had felt. She asked
the inevitable question, “That girl’s name doesn’t happen to be Kathy
Roman does it?”
“One and the same.”
Now what do I do? Jenny’s perplexed mind and emotions confused her.
She had agreed to make an attempt to find this girl and tell her about
FHG’s home, but now….
Trouble arrived before Jenny
could complete her thoughts or her lunch. The fight began with Jenny’s hair
being grabbed and two teen girls wrestling on the linoleum floor of the
cafeteria. It ended with two other girls from the school’s wrestling team
intervening to break up the fight.
“Cool it!” one of the wrestlers
shouted. “Sit up… quickly.”
The two teen women sat across
from each other waiting for staff to arrive to investigate the commotion.
Seeing that all was calming down the girl wrestlers returned to their
seats.
“You must be Kathy,” Jenny said.
“Glad to make your acquaintance.”
The two girls’ laughter
displaced the brief moment of intense silence which permeated the cafeteria.
“Looks like nobody’s comin’ to
bust us,” Kathy observed.
“Looks like,” replied Jenny.
Millie sat in silence, staring
at the two former floor fighters in bewilderment.
When Kathy looked over toward
Mille then back at Jenny she inquired, “One of your friends?”
“Yeah, just about my only one.”
The two girls laughed, but Mille
did not.
Looking back at Mille, Kathy
apologized clumsily, “Sorry about the eye, but… sometimes… well--”
“It’s ok,” Millie said. “Sort of
my fault anyway.”
“So,” Jenny continued, “what
brings you into the cafeteria to start a fight with me?”
Kathy thought for a while and
then replied, “Not sure. I saw you when I passed by the hallway door over
there,” she pointed, “and the urge just overwhelmed me.”
“Them urges,” Jenny commented.
The girls laughed.
Not sure as to how to proceed,
Jenny blurted out, “FHG.”
“What?” questioned Kathy
inquisitively.
“The home where I live… FHG… For
His Glory Youth Home.”
“You live there?” Kathy’s eyes
studied Jenny intensely.
“I heard this morning that you
are probably movin’ in. That’ll make three of us in the house for now.”
“Three?” Kathy looked puzzled.
Mille noticed the look and
jumped into the conversation, “Somethin’ wrong, Kathy?”
“Oh, no, I just….”
As Millie and Jenny waited for
more words to flow from Kathy’s mouth, the lunch bell rang.
“Time to go to class,” Jenny
announced. “Maybe we can all meet after school.”
“Sounds great,” affirmed Millie.
“By the flagpole,” Kathy
suggested.
The trio agreed that once the
three of them met at the flagpole after classes they would get an ice cream
together at the Cone Kingdom roach coach that parked Monday through Friday
one block from the school. The large vending truck eagerly awaited dozens of
hungry teen patrons to fill its owner’s coffers with cold cash in exchange
for a cold ice cream treat.
The remainder of Jenny’s school
day passed by swiftly, she wrote two Flash Fiction stories for her Creative
Writing class, the first being a one thousand word count work and the
second consisted of a four hundred word count piece. Jenny’s teacher wanted the
class to practice focusing their, ‘literary creativity abilities’ and to
apply those abilities to ‘varied textual output parameters’. A lot of
big words for just tellin’ us to write a thousand word and a four hundred word
story, Jenny had thought.
The class also reviewed a short
story by the award winning author Flint Jey Blackfeather. This guy can
tell a story, Jenny’s thoughts leaped with excitement and inspiration.
The three girls’ trip to the
Cone Kingdom vendor proved to be another highlight of the day. A two-for-one
sale left the three friends feeling overly stuffed after consuming two
large multi-flavored cones each, but that feeling did not bother them in the
least.
The trio walked around the
picturesque streets for about an hour discussing their lives, dreams, and
school life, before splitting up to return each to their own residences.
Departing, Jenny exclaimed,
“There’s just something so soothing about ice cream cones!”
“Absolutely!” Millie replied.
Waving from a distance, Kathy yelled, “Soothing!”
Next Chapter: A Moving Experience
No comments:
Post a Comment