of iPod time, right?”
Diana stared at me, her little beady eyes boring into my skull. Finally she said, “Okay. I’m in.”
I looked triumphantly at Chip and Mohammed. I’d successfully brought one of the toughest cases on board. So why were they looking at me like I was an idiot?
“Uh,” Chip said. “Dude. If she’s got your iPod, how are you going to—”
“Crap,” I said, and Chip started laughing. “You can borrow mine. For ten minutes.”
“And that’s at least nine and a half more minutes than you’re going to need,” Mohammed whispered in my ear.
I laughed, and for a brief moment, things didn’t seem so bad.
And then it was off to Aesthetics of Classic Film, which I thought might be okay, but today’s class was just a lectureabout silent movies. The teacher kept talking about
chiaroscuro
, which I thought was a sausage, though that didn’t really make any sense in this context.
At least in Culinary Science we got to bake things, since that was about the only thing you could do in a kitchen without sharp knives, though we were told before the cookies came out of the oven that we could be proud that our classmates would get to enjoy them at dinner tonight.
“So we get to smell cookies baking and we don’t get to eat them? The hell with that!” I yelled. I scooped up the pathetic remains of the batter with a rubber spatula from the bowl I was using and licked it. This would probably stop me from moving up a level, but it tasted great.
And then I had to have an emergency session with Max during which I explained that I really just wanted some cookies, and I wasn’t trying to kill myself with salmonella from the uncooked eggs in the batter.
Which made me miss Fitness, which was fine with me. The terrors of the locker room could wait.
Then it was on to directed study time. I didn’t have any homework to do, so I was instructed to write home.
Hey guys
, I wrote.
Bars on the windows, bullshit classes, and rules about everything, including which way to wipe your butt. Front to back, in case you’re wondering. Wish you were here. Instead of me
.
IN THE CAF THE NEXT MORNING, MOHAMMED TRIED ONCE AGAIN to keep us on track with the “all for one and one for all” setup Tina had instituted after the brawl by using a combo platter of intimidation and guilt. Everyone but me was totally fired up about the lame rewards, so they were perfectly happy to comply. Especially Justin, who seemed way more excited about watching gross actors have sex on a tiny little iPod screen than he was about having a real girl who might actually like him sitting right next to him.
As for me, I was so over it already. An hour of music or more talk time with my family just wasn’t that motivating. If I could speak to Joss, sure, I would’ve been thrilled about the extension. But I wasn’t allowed to chat with anyone other than my momand dad until I got to level two, at which time I would have supposedly learned to “trust” again and started moving into the “realization” of how I had gotten myself into this predicament.
So things being the way they were, not only did I not want more time for that call to ’rents, I was totally dreading the awkward, guided conversation we were supposed to have during it. I’d been informed my goal for the required weekly report to Mom and Dad was to clearly and calmly communicate my progress in three key areas: Academic, therapeutic, and social. It was going to be totally weird, following a script like we were business associates instead of people who actually knew each other. It seemed like just another way my parents were cutting ties with me. Even thinking about it hurt.
“I know I sort of agreed to this all at breakfast yesterday, but I decided last night there’s nothing in this deal for me,” I said, after gagging down five thousand bites of melon, scrambled eggs with spinach, and toast. I could practically feel cellulite forming on my thighs and ass as I chewed,
Diana stared at me, her little beady eyes boring into my skull. Finally she said, “Okay. I’m in.”
I looked triumphantly at Chip and Mohammed. I’d successfully brought one of the toughest cases on board. So why were they looking at me like I was an idiot?
“Uh,” Chip said. “Dude. If she’s got your iPod, how are you going to—”
“Crap,” I said, and Chip started laughing. “You can borrow mine. For ten minutes.”
“And that’s at least nine and a half more minutes than you’re going to need,” Mohammed whispered in my ear.
I laughed, and for a brief moment, things didn’t seem so bad.
And then it was off to Aesthetics of Classic Film, which I thought might be okay, but today’s class was just a lectureabout silent movies. The teacher kept talking about
chiaroscuro
, which I thought was a sausage, though that didn’t really make any sense in this context.
At least in Culinary Science we got to bake things, since that was about the only thing you could do in a kitchen without sharp knives, though we were told before the cookies came out of the oven that we could be proud that our classmates would get to enjoy them at dinner tonight.
“So we get to smell cookies baking and we don’t get to eat them? The hell with that!” I yelled. I scooped up the pathetic remains of the batter with a rubber spatula from the bowl I was using and licked it. This would probably stop me from moving up a level, but it tasted great.
And then I had to have an emergency session with Max during which I explained that I really just wanted some cookies, and I wasn’t trying to kill myself with salmonella from the uncooked eggs in the batter.
Which made me miss Fitness, which was fine with me. The terrors of the locker room could wait.
Then it was on to directed study time. I didn’t have any homework to do, so I was instructed to write home.
Hey guys
, I wrote.
Bars on the windows, bullshit classes, and rules about everything, including which way to wipe your butt. Front to back, in case you’re wondering. Wish you were here. Instead of me
.
IN THE CAF THE NEXT MORNING, MOHAMMED TRIED ONCE AGAIN to keep us on track with the “all for one and one for all” setup Tina had instituted after the brawl by using a combo platter of intimidation and guilt. Everyone but me was totally fired up about the lame rewards, so they were perfectly happy to comply. Especially Justin, who seemed way more excited about watching gross actors have sex on a tiny little iPod screen than he was about having a real girl who might actually like him sitting right next to him.
As for me, I was so over it already. An hour of music or more talk time with my family just wasn’t that motivating. If I could speak to Joss, sure, I would’ve been thrilled about the extension. But I wasn’t allowed to chat with anyone other than my momand dad until I got to level two, at which time I would have supposedly learned to “trust” again and started moving into the “realization” of how I had gotten myself into this predicament.
So things being the way they were, not only did I not want more time for that call to ’rents, I was totally dreading the awkward, guided conversation we were supposed to have during it. I’d been informed my goal for the required weekly report to Mom and Dad was to clearly and calmly communicate my progress in three key areas: Academic, therapeutic, and social. It was going to be totally weird, following a script like we were business associates instead of people who actually knew each other. It seemed like just another way my parents were cutting ties with me. Even thinking about it hurt.
“I know I sort of agreed to this all at breakfast yesterday, but I decided last night there’s nothing in this deal for me,” I said, after gagging down five thousand bites of melon, scrambled eggs with spinach, and toast. I could practically feel cellulite forming on my thighs and ass as I chewed,
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