“Oh.” My heart sinks. Since I’ve been spending so much time at the store this year, I’ve kind of abandoned all of my friends. Chatting with Mom is what I look forward to after a day of work.
“Okay, well, goodnight,” I say, but she’s already gone back to her room, closing the door behind her.
I sit on the bottom stair and eat my food. I’ll have to get an excuse note for school tomorrow if I want to avoid getting another detention. I don’t even want to go to that stupid place, but the money I made today will cover for a bad sales day tomorrow. Plus, I can work on my notebook of good ideas for the store while I’m in class. I make a mental note to write a letter saying I was sick today and then forge Mom’s signature before I go to school tomorrow, and then I pack up the leftover dinner on the stove and clean up the kitchen before going to bed.
Tomorrow will be a better day, I tell myself.
It has to be.
Chapter 3
My cell phone alarm is this naturistic sound that starts off quiet, like crickets and birds chirping, and then it slowly gets louder as the seconds pass. It’s only the sounds of nature and not some stupid blaring honking sound, so you’d think it’d be a peaceful way to wake up. It’s totally not.
As soon as I hear those cheery birds in the morning, I know that I have to suffer through an entire day of school and work before I get the blissful event of sleep again.
I climb out of bed and throw on some clothes. I have only ten minutes until I meet April at the stop sign so we can walk to school. As I brush my teeth, I think back to how when school started I’d set my alarm to forty-five minutes before school so I had time to get ready and do my hair and makeup. As the months have gone by, I’ve pushed my alarm back further and further. If I thought I could get ready in five minutes, I totally would.
At least school is almost over. Three more months of this bullshit and it’ll be summer break, which is our most popular time of year at the store because so many people come to the beach. Since our store doesn’t open until ten in the morning, I always get to sleep in late. Summer is magical.
I grab a muffin for breakfast and then rip out a sheet of paper from my notebook. In a cursive-ish scrawl that’s very different from my own bubblier handwriting, I compose a letter:
Please excuse my daughter Natalie Reese for missing school on Thursday the 28th. She was suffering from a migraine and could not get out of bed.
Regards,
My pen hovers over the signature line. I’ve never been able to get mom’s signature just right. It’s like a big capital M and then some squiggles and then an R and some more squiggles. When I sign my name, I like to fully write each letter in an elegant cursive.
Hefting my backpack over my shoulder, I run upstairs and knock on Mom’s bedroom door. She’s awake, luckily, standing in her bathrobe in front of the TV with the remote in her hand while she flips channels. “There’s never any good news on this early in the morning,” she says with a frown. “I just want to see the weather, not celebrity gossip.”
“Can you sign this real quick?” I shove the paper and my pen at her.
She gives my excuse note a quick glance and then scrawls her signature on it and hands it back. “They’re gonna figure out you’re lying one of these days,” she says as I leave her room.
I don’t bother replying. Unexcused absences means I have to suffer through detention to make up missed time. If they’re excused, I just get annoyed looks from the attendance lady in the office because she makes it like her personal mission to hate students who miss school.
April is waiting for me at the stop sign three houses down from mine. She’s one of the only people I know who can stand around and wait for someone without killing the time on her cell phone. She says phones are stupid and nature is more beautiful, but I kind of disagree. I always feel weirdly alone and awkward if I’m waiting for someone in public. The phone is my lifeline. My excuse that I’m busy doing something, to give off the look that I’m totally not awkward and alone.
“Morning,” April says with a half-smile. She’s only a freshman, but she seems wiser than most of the kids at school. She has long dirty blonde hair that goes all the way down to her butt and she usually lets it hang free like that. Sometimes on hot days she’ll put it in a ponytail. “I missed you yesterday,” she says in a way that’s more of an accusation than a real sentiment. She’s been pointing out my many absences lately almost as much as the attendance lady at school.
“Sorry, I got caught up at the store.”
She snorts. “I don’t know how you can miss so much school and get away with it.”
I hold up the letter that’s now folded in half in my hand. “I have an excuse.”
“Mmhmm, sure.” Two junior high boys in bicycles zoom past us on the sidewalk, already smelling like body odor. I feel sorry for their teachers who have to sit with them in class. April casts a sardonic glance toward my excuse note. “I’m pretty sure working at your store doesn’t count as an excuse to miss school.”
I shrug. “Good thing I had a migraine.”
April laughs it off, but there’s a serious look in her eyes that makes me feel kind of bad. And it’s crazy because she’s a freshman, so she’s basically a kid and I’m almost graduated, but I look up to her sometimes. She’s not only smart as hell, but she doesn’t care who knows it. She never wears makeup or fancy clothes, and she just kind of lives her life the way she wants to. I can appreciate that, even if I’m not the same way. I’m always worried about what people think of me.
We get to school just before the bell rings, which is a timeline we came up with at the start of the year. If you get here too early, you’re forced to stand around and hang out. After losing most of my friends last summer because I ditched them for the store, I didn’t really have anyone to hang out with. I was bitter about it for a while, but then I met April. We’re casual friends – aka, friends who walk to school together and that’s about it—but it turns out that’s just the friend I need. Real friends get too pissy when you have to work on the store instead of go out and party with them. April doesn’t party, and her school work is so important she doesn’t hang out after school. It’s the perfect friendship.
When the first bell rings, April nudges me on the shoulder. “Good luck,” she says, eyeing the attendance lady who is already watching us as we walk down the hallway.
I laugh. “Thanks. See you after school?”
“Yep.”
