1. Turn Over a New Leaf
The kid sat crumpled on the third row of the ancient Suburban, and sulked. He was an expert at sulking. With his beanie hat pulled down over his closely cropped dark red hair, almost over his emerald eyes in order to escape any stray stares, and with his ears stuffed with marshmallow earphones so that he could avoid any attempt at conversation, he was the personification of sullen aloofness.
The only other person in the SUV was the driver, Shari Wingrove (neé Sara Ruiz), and she did all she could to avoid falling into the trap of being the first to speak, but it never worked. She always tried to engage her son in conversation. Especially today, with such a long trip ahead of them.
"Listen, I'm sure you'll have an easier time in this new school. I understand that all those military academies were not really your thing. But this new school, well… Remember me telling you about your auntie Marge? She was a wild one, she really was! Wasn't she? Anyway, she went to that school, and she did very well, got her high-school diploma and all. I'm sorry it's so far away and… Hmph! You're not listening, are ya? Of course you're not…"
After checking a couple of times on the rear-view mirror, to see if she could catch his eye, she gave up trying to soothe his mood. He was also an expert at ignoring his mother.
"It's gonna be a long trip…" she sighed, and looked again at the GPS, to make sure she didn't miss the next highway, yet again. Truth be told, she was glad to be ignored this one time, because she needed to concentrate on making the right turns. When they finally made it out of Texas she would need to find the turn into Interstate 84 at Gallup, in New Mexico, and then it would be almost a straight shot all the way up to I-86. Then she would have to pay attention again to avoid getting lost until they finally made it past Ketchum, Idaho. Why The School should be all the way in the middle of nowhere, in Idaho, she couldn't guess. But they really wanted Giovanni there.
They were very insistent in all the letters they sent, almost begging her to send Giovanni to their boarding school. They promised scholarships for tuition, room and board, and living expenses. They were so enthusiastic in recruiting her son, that they even sent a very nice old lady to give her a presentation about the school, even before she had replied to any one of their letters.
How they had heard of her son, the nice old lady named Adelaide, was very eager to explain. Supposedly, a friend of a friend of a teacher who knew auntie Marge, back in the day, and who worked at Giovanni's last military academy, had recognized untapped potential in her son, had sent a letter of recommendation to The School, and they agreed that they just had to get him into The School. They just… had to. They had all sorts of grants supporting The School, Giovanni fit all their profiles, and "Bob's your uncle." Never mind that neither Giovanni nor Shari had filled out any sort of applications, no, everything was settled, and all that was left to do was for the legal guardian to sign the pertinent documents. And never mind that neither she nor her son had ever known anybody before who used the phrase "Bob's your uncle".
At the time, she was ecstatic to have this offer fall on her lap. It was right down providential. A couple of days before, the principal from the Preparatory School had phoned her to tell her that he was very sorry, but Giovanni was "not the right fit for the school," and could she please come get'im a'fore the week's out? Thank you, ma'am… For the fifth time straight, in as many military academies, her son was not the right fit for the school. Whatever the heck that meant. So she said yes, yes to The School, yes to the scholarships. Please and thank you. What else would she had done, if not? I mean, all the silly independent school districts in Texas had already black-balled Giovanni as "intractable, unsociable, and insufferable."
But that was hardly fair. Giovanni wasn't a bad kid. Okay, well, he was a bit unsociable, but who wasn't unsociable at sixteen? And the teachers were intimidated by his ability to just… know things. To be able to answer the test questions without doing one single homework assignment, or to be able to answer questions in class that even the teacher wasn't sure how to answer… Well, that had to be intimidating to all those bureaucrats.
Or maybe it was because nothing seemed to go right whenever Giovanni was around. He didn't have bad luck, as it were. Things just didn't work out with him around, that's all. When he was little, of course he got blamed for busting all of his toys. But as he got older, other situations arose that were more difficult to explain than a simple broken toy. Like the time when the cheerleader squad was…—
"Fodder Mucker!!!" Shari hated to use curse words: they were too vulgar for her. Instead, she was very fond of minced oaths. "Was that Sierra Blanca we just passed? Oh, right, like you would be paying attention. I just hope we don't end up in Mexico if I miss a turn… Alright, I guess I better stop woolgatherin' and pay attention to my drivin'…"
She checked the GPS, yet again. Under normal circumstances, the trip all the way to Idaho from South Texas should only take about twenty-four hours. But with the sorry state of her Suburban, she would have to baby it to avoid breaking down in the middle of the road. She would have to make frequent stops to avoid over-exerting her venerable but hardly trusty old SUV. They would have to stop over for the night at El Paso.
Just then, she realized how very skillfully old lady Adelaide had avoided explaining exactly what was the curriculum at The School. Also, it kind of nagged at her not to be able to pinpoint the exact reason why she hadn't thought of The School in the first place. How did she forget about it, since it was all that Marge would talk about when they were kids? She supposed that, after Marge died on her trip to England twelve years ago, she put a lot of things about her sister out of her mind.
Oh, well, once she found a half-way decent motel at El Paso and got into a shower, she would review all the paperwork from The School, to see what they were all about… Maybe she'd even remember to do it, this time.
"Yep, it's gonna be a long, long, long, long trip, alright…"
The kid sat crumpled on the third row of the ancient Suburban, and sulked. He was an expert at sulking. With his beanie hat pulled down over his closely cropped dark red hair, almost over his emerald eyes in order to escape any stray stares, and with his ears stuffed with marshmallow earphones so that he could avoid any attempt at conversation, he was the personification of sullen aloofness.
The only other person in the SUV was the driver, Shari Wingrove (neé Sara Ruiz), and she did all she could to avoid falling into the trap of being the first to speak, but it never worked. She always tried to engage her son in conversation. Especially today, with such a long trip ahead of them.
"Listen, I'm sure you'll have an easier time in this new school. I understand that all those military academies were not really your thing. But this new school, well… Remember me telling you about your auntie Marge? She was a wild one, she really was! Wasn't she? Anyway, she went to that school, and she did very well, got her high-school diploma and all. I'm sorry it's so far away and… Hmph! You're not listening, are ya? Of course you're not…"
After checking a couple of times on the rear-view mirror, to see if she could catch his eye, she gave up trying to soothe his mood. He was also an expert at ignoring his mother.
"It's gonna be a long trip…" she sighed, and looked again at the GPS, to make sure she didn't miss the next highway, yet again. Truth be told, she was glad to be ignored this one time, because she needed to concentrate on making the right turns. When they finally made it out of Texas she would need to find the turn into Interstate 84 at Gallup, in New Mexico, and then it would be almost a straight shot all the way up to I-86. Then she would have to pay attention again to avoid getting lost until they finally made it past Ketchum, Idaho. Why The School should be all the way in the middle of nowhere, in Idaho, she couldn't guess. But they really wanted Giovanni there.
They were very insistent in all the letters they sent, almost begging her to send Giovanni to their boarding school. They promised scholarships for tuition, room and board, and living expenses. They were so enthusiastic in recruiting her son, that they even sent a very nice old lady to give her a presentation about the school, even before she had replied to any one of their letters.
How they had heard of her son, the nice old lady named Adelaide, was very eager to explain. Supposedly, a friend of a friend of a teacher who knew auntie Marge, back in the day, and who worked at Giovanni's last military academy, had recognized untapped potential in her son, had sent a letter of recommendation to The School, and they agreed that they just had to get him into The School. They just… had to. They had all sorts of grants supporting The School, Giovanni fit all their profiles, and "Bob's your uncle." Never mind that neither Giovanni nor Shari had filled out any sort of applications, no, everything was settled, and all that was left to do was for the legal guardian to sign the pertinent documents. And never mind that neither she nor her son had ever known anybody before who used the phrase "Bob's your uncle".
At the time, she was ecstatic to have this offer fall on her lap. It was right down providential. A couple of days before, the principal from the Preparatory School had phoned her to tell her that he was very sorry, but Giovanni was "not the right fit for the school," and could she please come get'im a'fore the week's out? Thank you, ma'am… For the fifth time straight, in as many military academies, her son was not the right fit for the school. Whatever the heck that meant. So she said yes, yes to The School, yes to the scholarships. Please and thank you. What else would she had done, if not? I mean, all the silly independent school districts in Texas had already black-balled Giovanni as "intractable, unsociable, and insufferable."
But that was hardly fair. Giovanni wasn't a bad kid. Okay, well, he was a bit unsociable, but who wasn't unsociable at sixteen? And the teachers were intimidated by his ability to just… know things. To be able to answer the test questions without doing one single homework assignment, or to be able to answer questions in class that even the teacher wasn't sure how to answer… Well, that had to be intimidating to all those bureaucrats.
Or maybe it was because nothing seemed to go right whenever Giovanni was around. He didn't have bad luck, as it were. Things just didn't work out with him around, that's all. When he was little, of course he got blamed for busting all of his toys. But as he got older, other situations arose that were more difficult to explain than a simple broken toy. Like the time when the cheerleader squad was…—
"Fodder Mucker!!!" Shari hated to use curse words: they were too vulgar for her. Instead, she was very fond of minced oaths. "Was that Sierra Blanca we just passed? Oh, right, like you would be paying attention. I just hope we don't end up in Mexico if I miss a turn… Alright, I guess I better stop woolgatherin' and pay attention to my drivin'…"
She checked the GPS, yet again. Under normal circumstances, the trip all the way to Idaho from South Texas should only take about twenty-four hours. But with the sorry state of her Suburban, she would have to baby it to avoid breaking down in the middle of the road. She would have to make frequent stops to avoid over-exerting her venerable but hardly trusty old SUV. They would have to stop over for the night at El Paso.
Just then, she realized how very skillfully old lady Adelaide had avoided explaining exactly what was the curriculum at The School. Also, it kind of nagged at her not to be able to pinpoint the exact reason why she hadn't thought of The School in the first place. How did she forget about it, since it was all that Marge would talk about when they were kids? She supposed that, after Marge died on her trip to England twelve years ago, she put a lot of things about her sister out of her mind.
Oh, well, once she found a half-way decent motel at El Paso and got into a shower, she would review all the paperwork from The School, to see what they were all about… Maybe she'd even remember to do it, this time.
"Yep, it's gonna be a long, long, long, long trip, alright…"
To be continued…
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