Page 2 of Darling

To her surprise, the dean smiled. “That’s a lot of confidence. If you’re as forthright about your work as you are about handling new experiences, you’ll adjust just fine.” He shuffled the papers in front of him and then shoved them to the side. “Now, do you have anything you’d like to say that you think will influence whether or not we accept your scandalously late application?”

Wendy looked down at her shoes. “I—” she started, then stopped. “My mom wants me to go here. I wanted to go to public school because I wanted to have a new experience, but I think that it would be really painful for my family if I didn’t at least try my best to get in here. My mom used to live here, and I think she always wanted to go to a school like this. Giving me the chance to go is the closest she’ll get to that.”

The dean watched her curiously but didn’t say anything, so Wendy continued.

“I know a lot of kids do things for their parents that they don’t want, and it’s always some big sacrifice. But I know the difference between wants and needs, and my want to go to public school is smaller than my mom’s need to see me go here. And that’s important. If my grades aren’t good enough, then maybe my extracurriculars will help.”

The dean nodded. “That was a good answer.” He folded his hands on his desk. “You’re an interesting applicant, Wendy Darling.”

He wrote something on the papers and then stamped them.

“You can go out to the lobby. If I need anything else I’ll give your mom a call. Have a great rest of your day.”

When Wendy stepped back into the lobby, Mr. Darling immediately stood. “How did it go?”

“Okay, I guess?” Wendy said. “He stamped the forms and said we can go home.”

The dean’s secretary looked up. “You’re probably good to go then. Believe me, he doesn’t stamp much. You’ll get a confirmation call next Monday that has her start date, and an email with information about what supplies she needs and where to purchase your uniform.”

Mrs. Darling sighed in relief and leaned against her husband. “Thank you!”

The secretary snorted. “Usually I wouldn’t call it this early, but you looked like you were about to pass out. Figured you could use the good news. Have a nice rest of your day, Mr. and Mrs. Darling. And good luck, Wendy.”

Wendy’s quiet mood followed her all the way back to the brownstone they’d just moved into. They had unpacked the car and promptly hopped back into it to register her for school, so all her things were still sitting on the floor in the living room.

While her parents focused on unpacking boxes in the kitchen, Wendy began lugging her suitcases and boxes up the stairs to her room. Her parents’ bedroom was on the first floor, but her room and the room where her new sibling would be living were both on the second floor, with their own bathroom. After Wendy was done shoving boxes into her room, she took a break to go into the second room. It was white like hers, but had a bigger closet and one more window. Normally, she would have taken this room, but whoever they were adopting probably deserved to enjoy having a nice big space after what they went through a bit more than she did. Wendy scrunched her toes in her socks and looked at the ground. They hadn’t had wood floors at their old house, only carpet and linoleum.

“Are you unpacked yet?” Mr. Darling yelled from the first floor. “I don’t hear unpacking noises.”

“I’m getting to it!” Wendy yelled back. She ducked out of the empty room and into her significantly more crowded one.

She set up her phone on the windowsill and started a video call, then she sat on the ground and started assembling her bed.

“Wendy?” Eleanor’s twangy voice blared loudly into the room. “Is that manual labor I see you doing? Very butch. I’m loving it.”

Wendy huffed. “I’m not doing it for your entertainment, Eleanor, I’m doing it so I can have a place to sleep.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. So are you able to meet up tonight? I want to take you to Ann Sather so you can understand what real cinnamon rolls are supposed to be like. Then I was thinking we could go to Boystown and see if we can get into a club or something.”

Wendy sighed loudly and wrenched at her headboard. “No. My dad says we can’t meet up today. My mom thinks you’re a serial killer.”

“Why does she think I’m a serial killer? I’m vegan.”

“You’re vegan because you like animals. Not because you don’t want to kill people. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. You think there aren’t any vegan serial killers?”

“Anyway, didn’t you tell them that I couldn’t possibly be a catfish because we video chat? Catfishes always work really hard to make sure people never get a chance to video chat with them. Plus, if I was a catfish, I would work harder to look better than … this.”

Wendy looked up. Eleanor had her curly blond hair bundled up into a pineapple on the top of her head and was wearing a gel mask.

“What? You look hot.” Wendy snorted. “Why are you dressed for bed? It’s like four thirty.”

Eleanor rolled her eyes. “Well, I WAS going to take a nap so I would be awake enough to take you on a tour of the city, but I guess that’s no longer a thing.” She whipped the scrunchie off her head and shook out her curls. “Why are your parents so strict? Aren’t they tired?”

“Dude, I don’t know. I’m so well-behaved. I genuinely don’t get it. I’ve literally never done anything that they wouldn’t approve of, but they treat me like a criminal.”

Eleanor shrugged one shoulder. “Well, at least you’ll be eighteen soon. Maybe they’ll let you go outside then.”

Wendy dropped the slats over her bed frame, then tugged her mattress across the room. “Mmm. I don’t know. Whenever anything happens that reminds my mom that I’m growing up, she gets all weepy and excuses herself to go feel feelings in another room. Just … like … what do you even say to that?”