My Sister and I

Chapter Two

I woke up groggy the next morning. I glared evilly at my alarm clock as it read seven a.m. Honestly, the school system had it all wrong; elementary age children naturally woke up at early hours so why elementary school didn't start until nine-thirty or ten in the morning completely boggled me. Luckily, fate had been on my side when my parents bought this house because not only did it take me less than ten minutes to get ready for school but I could be in school in less than five minutes. So I usually slept in as late as possible, as long as I woke up within twenty minutes of the first bell.

This morning I got up and slowly got ready for school like I normally did and it wasn't until I was putting my boots on that I remembered I had a meeting with Reggie before first period.

    "Hell," I muttered and dashed out the door and ran up the hill to the side door of school. I made it to the front office with only five minutes to spare before my first hour.

    "You're really trying my patience, Melissa," Reggie said without looking up from his paperwork. Reggie was an intimidating man, or he would have been if he wasn't one of the most fairest faculty members at the school. Reggie was the kind of teacher that tried to work with students rather than make students follow a strict set of rules. He also didn't put up with any bull. He was in charge of Student Affairs so basically he was the ultimate guidance counselor, you had to be pretty messed up to merit a meeting with him. I guess I was one of the lucky few.

He was a tall man with skin as dark as my black boots but when he smiled, man, it was the friendliest smile you'd ever get from a teacher--as long as you didn't give him any lip. Reggie and I had become fast friends almost from the very first day of school, of course I had been skipping class at the time and he'd caught me which gave me my first lesson on Mr. Reggie Lanfield. Ever since then, we'd been on a first name basis.

    "Lucky for you, however," he continued and finally looked up at me. "You got out of lunch duty today."

    "Is there anything else I lucked out on," I asked hopeful. Wishful thinking I knew but it was worth a try.

    "In fact, yes there is." Reggie smiled at me, all white teeth ad gums. It was kind of unnerving in this situation, he was never this nice.

    "Really," I asked hesitantly. "What is it?"

    "You do realize you have about a hundred and ten hours of detention, not including yesterday's--unexcused--mishap, right?" He said all this without losing his smile but I had a sudden sinking feeling this was leading nowhere good.

    "Yeah..." I answered.

    "Even if you did an hour a day of detention, you still wouldn't be able to complete your hours before graduation," he said. Still speaking cheerfully, when was the other shoe going to drop, I thought.

    "Is my punishment suppose to be standing here listening to you berate me," I asked irritated. I knew full well I was giving him attitude which Reggie never took positively but I didn't know where he was going with this line of thinking.

    "Careful, Melissa, I'm about to do you a huge favor," he warned. I failed to see how and asked him as much.

    "How so," I asked.

He shifted some papers around on his desk and pulled out what appeared to be a completely random sheet and handed it to me. I took the paper and looked at it carefully. It was my transcripts, dating all the way back to sixth grade.

    "What are you--"

    "Take a look at those English grades," he instructed.

A-A-A-B-A-C-A-A..."What about them," I asked and shrugged at the same time.

    "You excel in English, why?" He waited for an answer even though the warning bell rang indicating we had one minute to get to class.

    "I don't know, but class is--"

    "Don't worry about class, I'll write you a pass," he said and waved it off with his right hand.

    "Ok, but what does my English grades have to do with me getting rid of my detention hours?" I was still at a complete loss, when would he get to the point?

    "I want you to start a project," he sat back in his chair which creaked under his weight. He wasn't fat by any means but he was solid. He looked at me closely before saying, "Starting today, I want you to keep a diary."

I stood there in complete silence waiting for him to start laughing. When he didn't, I knew he wasn't joking.

    "Excuse me," I asked stunned.

    "Yeah, that's about what I thought your reaction would be," he chuckled and opened up a drawer in his desk and pulled out a medium sized book. It was lime green and looked rather simple but I instantly disliked the thing. "Your favorite color is still green, right?"

    "It was before this exact moment," I said slowly and continued to stare at the book. "What is that?" I dreaded his answer even though I already knew.

    "Your new diary," he smiled brightly and I had the sudden vision of me punching him in the face.

    "You're joking," again, this was said with attitude. "Right?"

    "Not to sound like Thor or anything but do I look to be in a jesting mood," his smile never faded but it did become more threatening.

    "Was that rhetorical," I asked honestly.

    "Mel," he warned.

    "Sorry! I just don't know what you expect from me," I said defensively. A diary, I mean, come on!

    "I'm so glad you asked," he said brightly."I expect you to write in this book every day starting from today until the Friday before graduation," he said. "If," he enunciated that single word. "If you wish to graduate on time," he finished. He handed the book to me and I took it as gingerly as I wold have if it was dynamite.

I was surprised to find it was heavier than it looked. I opened the first page and had to appreciate the design. The paper was compressed and matted, kind of like the paper you could make yourself at the renaissance festival. It looked pretty cool, I had to admit actually, but I still wasn't sold on this idea.

    "Reggie, I don't--"

    "This is your only chance, Melissa," he said. "You can't serve more than two hours of detention a day and even if you started today, you'd never serve all your hours."

He had a point, sadly. What was the saying again, hindsight was twenty-twenty? I shouldn't have skipped so much, I mentally scolded myself.

    "Mel," he sighed and sat up straight again. "All I'm asking you to do is write your thoughts down, once a day and bring me the book every Monday. Let me check the entries and I'll erase your detention hours at the end of this semester," he said reasonably.

    "Are you going to read all the entries," I asked. I wasn't sure what bothered me more, the fact that I was being made to do this or the fact that he'd be reading all my thoughts.

    "Yes," he said simply.

    "So what stops me from discussing the weather or what I've eaten on any particular day?" Because if there were no restrictions, that's about all he'd get from my entries.

He laughed, "Because if I feel like you're just writing nonsense, I won't delete your hours and I'll see you at summer school. Simple as that."

    "So, I just need to write my thoughts and feelings," I clarified.

    "Yup," he nodded. "Everyday."

    "Everyday," I muttered.

    "I know it'll take some time to really get into a flow but I know you'll get it," he reached into his desk again and pulled out his hallway pass pad. He wrote me a pass to my first hour but stopped me halfway to his office door. "Remember, Melissa," he tapped the calendar sitting on his desk. "Everyday and please, go to math today."

    "Sure thing, Reg," I called over my shoulder with a mock salute.

***

True to my word, I stayed for math class and even took it one step further and didn't start a fight with my teacher.

After school I went home and immediately started my homework so by the time my parents came home, I was completely done. We were about halfway through dinner when my father cleared his throat indicating he had something to say.

    "So, I got a call from Reggie today," he said and I groaned.

    "What? Why? I even stayed for math class," I whined and put down my fork, thinking I was about to get chewed out by my parents.

    "He said he gave you an assignment," he scooped more hamburger helper into his mouth. "Wanna tell me about it," He muffled through the food in his mouth. Both my parents looked at me expectantly. I was going to get back at Reggie...

    "Not really," I mumbled and my mother raised her eyebrows. "But I will," I added quickly. "It's not anything, really, it's kind of like...a writing thing," I trailed off, hoping that would be enough information.

    "He said something about a diary," my father said.

Yup, I was going to TP Reggie's desk first thing in the morning. Hardcore TP, the wet, gross, impossible-to-get-rid-of kind of TP too. "Can we not call it that, geez," I rolled my eyes. "It's a journal, let's call it a journal, ok?"

    "Ok, so he wants you to write in a dia-" my mother quickly retracted her words after I shot her a warning glare. "Dia-journal, but why?"

    "To help with graduation," I said. No need to mention--

    "It's for the detention she's accumulated the last four years," my father supplied.

    "Dad!" I interjected, irritated that he outted me to my mother. "If you already knew all the details, why did you even ask?"

    "Because I wanted you to tell your mother," he said innocuously.

    "Well, how much detention did you accumulate," my mother asked.

    "Just a couple--"

    "One hundred and ten hours," my father answered for me.

    "Dad!"

    "A hundred and te-how?" My mother's voice raised about ten octaves and I cringed. I didn't even have to look at her to know her face was bright red with anger.

    "Mom, it's not a big deal," I tried to pacify her. "Reggie said he'd cancel all the hours if I wrote in the diary," I said.

    "I thought we were calling it a journal," my father asked innocently.

I whipped my head to the left to glare at him. I didn't even bother to shout but I gave him my most intimidating look which I probably failed miserably at, "Thin ice, Dad."

    "Ok, Ok," he gave in and put more food in his mouth.

    "Well, I guess you should keep up with the diary," my mother said.

    "It's a journal, God!" I groaned and dropped my head onto the table hard enough to rattle the silverware.

***

The rest of dinner passed by peacefully but when I headed back to my room, the first thing I did was pull out the journal. Reggie wanted me to write my feelings, well here went nothing:

Dear Reggie,

        Thanks for ratting me out to my parents. I truly appreciate it. can you sense the sarcasm dripping from my written words? Well, let me assure you, there is heavy sarcasm. Dinner with the 'rents was quite delightful. She said with heavy sarcasm again.

I was hoping he'd get the picture...

How am I feeling? Besides, irritated, I feel stupid writing this. I hope you don't expect much to come from this exercise of yours. I mean seriously, who do you think I am? Anne Frank? She at least had World War II to write about. What am I suppose to write about? I'm a teenager from Mid-America, nothing exciting happens here. I could write about the war on terrorism except well, isn't that was newspapers are for?  We had hamburger helper for dinner...Oh! I went to math class and didn't start a fight with Ms. Jano. Although I still don't understand why I can't do the math problems my way as long as I get the right answer, seems stupid to me. 

I was quickly running out of ideas to talk about. How was I feeling? Bored...Stupid...that about summed up my feelings, actually. I wanted to get back to my cultures book so I decided to close out my entry with that.

Well I have a book I want to get back too. It's about the different cultures around the world. It's pretty interesting, actually. So, with that I'm going to say....goodbye? Ugh, this is too weird...

I debated on whether I should sign the bottom but felt too foolish and just dated the entry and left it at that. I put the book in the drawer of my nightstand and pulled out my cultures book.

***

I didn't dream that night...