The Taming of the Drew (6 page)

“Greenbacks,” I said, “It’s an environmental club.” The trick now was for me to say enough to convince them our club was legitimate, without saying enough to raise any red flags.

Tio, catching on, said, “Kate started Greenbacks this year. There are eight of us who belong and we believe money works — that you can’t use violence to change people’s minds about helping the environment. We do iCandy orders and used book sales and rummage sales and…” I knew he suddenly realized he wasn’t supposed to mention the Flash Mob Snack sales (we buy banned junk food, sodas and transfats and sell it on campus in secret — notifying potential buyers The Store Is Open and the location on school grounds by tweets only). “Well. You get the picture. Greenbacks raises money for environmental…
things
.”

Mrs. Bullard gave him a sharp look.
 

Dean Padua said, “I want this verified.”
 

Dean Verona said, “Should be simple. All school clubs are registered and all fundraising has to be deposited in the school bank.”

I said, as off-handed as I could manage, “You can check if you want. It’s all there.” I hoped to God no one really checked it out and found out how much money we had, or where all that money was going. Our only real protection is that we were buried among 438 other clubs. Unlike the other Legacy pods, the school bank at Academy wasn’t computerized, partly because of lack of funds for a database and partly because that never seems to be a priority for arty people. Our pod still struggled with ledgers and paper receipts, so it would take some work to dig up all our Greenbacks entries and total them.
 

Mrs. Bullard said, “Stand up. Let me take a look at you.”

My mom gave me a look and I thought this was going to be one of those annoying adult moments where they make you do the slow-twirl so they can comment about how you’ve grown, or that you look like a “fine young woman,” or something like that. I slouched out of the chair.

But Mrs. Bullard surprised me. “That’s a nasty hit you took. Can’t someone get her a washcloth? Or at least some paper towels?”

Dean Verona started toward the door. “Wait,” said Mrs. Bullard, “what am I thinking. Andrew!”

The whole room startled. Who the heck was Andrew? Her valet?

“Andrew!” Still no answer. After a long pause, the Dog unfolded from his chair. “Yes,” he said, sullen.

“Go get her a washcloth. Now.”

Hello?
Andrew
?

I stared in shock as he did his slow, sulky walk out the door but Mrs. Bullard took my chin in her fingers and turned me back to look at her. “Something made this $400 a priority. How much money, total, does your
club
need?”

It was like being asked by someone you don’t know very well, if you had one wish, what would you wish for. Do you act cool and pretend it’s a joke? Or do you take the chance of looking like a fool and answer with your heart open?

I swallowed hard, trying to decide.

Mrs. Bullard said, “You come from good people. I know your family. Tell me how much you need, for this club, for you to be so very determined.”

I licked suddenly dry lips, feeling the scabbed blood on my upper lip crack. I whispered “Eight thousand more dollars. By May.”

Mrs. Bullard only raised one eyebrow, black and sharp as her son’s. “Less than two months. If you take on the job I want you to take, you’ll earn every single penny.”

***

Ever since I spent most of fifth grade hanging out in hospitals with my mom, watching my dad die from pancreatic cancer, I get the creeps whenever anyone asks people to leave the room so we can have a “talk.” No one clears the room to tell you good news. Only the really bad stuff. Maybe Mrs. Bullard
does
own the school, because Dean Verona gave her an office to use without batting an eye. By the time Mrs. Bullard and I were alone, I stood with my hands up under my armpits and my shoulders raised — the way you’d stand if you knew someone was going to hit you with a pail of ice-cold water and you had to stand there and take it.
 

Mrs. Bullard said, “Sit down, honey,” but I didn’t budge.

She gave a sigh, “Fine. Here’s the situation. You don’t want to be expelled.” I raised my chin at that and found her eying me, like she was measuring my stubbornness or something. “And I understand you want money. A lot of money.”

I gave a short nod. It was a lot of money. Maybe not for the University crowd, but it was for me, and for pretty much everyone else in Academy. No one at Academy had $200 a week allowances, or their own car, or a credit card that daddy paid off each month. Heck, I knew for a fact the reason Phoebe brought a pile of bananas and jar of peanut butter for group lunch was because that way Phoebes could sneak it through her mom’s grocery bill without setting off any alarms. Kids at Academy worked at burger joints and burrito stands and cleaning jobs and all earned minimum wage, which, after taxes and stuff came out to around $4 an hour take home — and everything you earned (mostly) went to stuff you needed. Eight thousand dollars, for us, might as well be ten or twenty or a hundred thousand.
 

“Maybe you think you could sue because those guards tackled you. But you wouldn’t see any of that money until a long time after June — if ever.”

I gave her a look. “You think I could
sue
? Clearly, you don’t know my mom.”

Mrs. Bullard smiled a pursed-lip smile, like maybe she did know my mom. “If you go looking for trouble, you’ll find it…”

“Exactly.” Mom had an annoying way of pinning blame precisely where it belonged. I’d be suing a security guard who caught me trespassing about the same time I won the Miss America crown. That is, never.
 

Mrs. Bullard straightened. Her hovercraft of breasts gave a distracting jiggle then settled. We faced each other, standing in the same position, her arms also crossed — but I was all twitchy bony elbows, and she was solid, rooted in place.

“This is my offer — take it or leave it. You and I both know I can push for you to be expelled. Instead, I’ll convince Deans Padua and Verona that a verbal “probation” is enough of a warning. If you break no more rules until June, nothing will be on your permanent record. Furthermore, at the end of the school year, I’ll give you the total that your club needs — up to a limit of $7,600.”

I felt my jaw gape. Then a horrible thought struck like a bolt of lightning. I had held my own in too many intense bargaining situations for Greenbacks snack purchases, iCandy contracts, and rummage sales not to realize that, for all this, there would be one-mother-of-a serious price to pay. I could feel my face get all slitty-eyed. “Eight thousand — even,” I said. “And what’s the catch?’

“There’s no catch. I’m paying for a job. Not forever, just for the next two months. Consider it a form of,” she cleared her throat, which sounded to my ears like it was a bit embarrassed, “work-study.”
 

I noticed she didn’t blink at the larger amount. Which meant she could pay the $8,000, but just didn’t want to pay it all if she could get away with less.
 

“
What
job, precisely?”

To give her credit, she didn’t flinch, even though her cheeks got a bit pink. “You attach yourself to my son. For two months, you keep him
completely
out of trouble. You, in a word, civilize him.”

For a long second there was a rushing sound in my ears, like my blood pressure was going to fountain out the top of my head.
 

“Are you mental?” I know that’s not how you’re supposed to speak to an adult who can get you expelled, but it just popped out. “I’m supposed to follow him all the time? Like at sports events and practice and parties and…” an appalled thought hit me, “the PROM?”

“Every minute,” she said, “like you’re joined at the hip. Or married.”

The blood ka-whoomed into my head and a black haze blurred my vision. This woman had no idea what she was talking about. It had taken me three years to find my friends, a few people, enough so I didn’t get that knot in my stomach when I arrived at school. This year I’d finally found a group, and a purpose, and I spent my snack breaks and lunches laughing and talking. Not hiding and wanting to be invisible. All that would be lost.
 

And I’d be a bigger freak than I’d ever been in my life.

I could imagine the University crowds, guffawing at my vintage bowling shoes, my homemade hair chopsticks. And my trombone. These are students who run like wolves in packs. They verbally Take Down people like me for entertainment — and the bruises hurt more and last longer.

The Dog was their golden boy. He’d die before he’d be caught anywhere near me. What would I ever say to him? “Hello, I’m your lunch-room monitor?” He would rip me to shreds in public. In a weird way, I couldn’t really blame him. If my mom hired some lame-ass kid I never met before to “make me behave,” I’d go ballistic too. This was impossible. Absolutely impossible.

Then, like the traitor that my mind is, I could feel the calculations beginning. Even though I was stunned and appalled at what Mrs. Bullard suggested, numbers whirled through my head. Dollars per day, price per school event, feasibility studies and cost per unit estimates all mingled and behind this tornado of totals, a backdrop rose. In my mind’s eye, I could see my trees, arching up and up in sun. Shafts of light filtered down between cool green branches like heaven was trying to spotlight an opportunity here. For a moment I could almost smell the resin tang again and everything inside me stilled and sharpened, the way I do when I’m around my redwoods.

Before I could stop myself, or even think about what I was saying, my mouth decided for me.
 

“Ms. Bullard, I’d love to do it, but I — I just don’t think it’ll work. I have no leverage. Your son isn’t going to listen to anything I tell him. The way it works, is that no one from University has anything but contempt for people like me. From Academy. It doesn’t even translate. I might as well be an alien from another planet.”

“Different, here, is better. Andrew has been surrounded for years by too many people — boys and girls — who all encourage his worst instincts. He will no longer listen to me, his Dean, or his coach.” Mrs. Bullard turned a tiny shade pinker. “But young men like girls. That’s all that motivates them at this age.”
 

I choked. “Hello? I mean, look at me.”

Mrs. Bullard tapped her forefinger on her chin and I could imagine what I looked like. Tangled scab-nest of hair with blobs of disintegrated wet paper-towel at hairline, a dried-blood Hitler mustache on my upper lip. Crumpled, dirty crinoline showing (my poor baby). Oh no, this certainly wasn’t pretty.

“You have brains. Wit. And a fierce determination. Those will certainly be a novelty for Andrew. But I see your point. Here’s what I’ll do. Andrew has too much disposable income and it allows him to get into more trouble than he otherwise would. How much is a normal amount, for, say, someone like you?”

“Try…none.”

She blinked. “Really? How do you pay for your car or dates, or go to events, or hang out with your friends?”

No way was I going to tell her that we did those things on the cheap — or gave them a pass. “Well, I have what I earn.”

Watching the steely look in her eyes I suddenly began to fear that I was creating a monster. Like I had just confirmed her worst fears about her son. Every teenager in the world says, ‘I need it and everyone else does and other kids get the same amount.’ For him, hanging with the University crowd, it was probably true. You couldn’t be one of those kids without serious money.

Here I’d busted him. Most Academy students had no money and no cars and now his mom knew it. Sure,
technically
, we were in the same school, but really, we’re talking worlds away. We weren’t her son’s crowd, but she clearly didn’t care about that Grand Canyon-sized difference. I felt a stab of guilt.

Mrs. Bullard said, “Hmm. Here’s what I’ll do. You need leverage. Andrew has too much money and I can promise you he hasn’t yet earned a penny of it. Every bit of his assets are now frozen. No car. No $400 a week allowance,” I choked again.
$400? A week?
“I’m keeping it all in a separate account and he can have an appropriate installment. When he earns it.”
 

“Earns it?”

“You’ll provide me with a daily report of acceptable behavior. You can text me.” She pulled out a business card and handed it to me. Great. Now I was a paid snitch. Was there a lower form of life?

It was like she could read my thoughts. “How about this — what he doesn’t earn, I’ll add to your club’s amount at the end of the year?”

“I can’t.” Again, it was like the words popped out before I thought about them. “I don’t want to be a social tapeworm, living off someone else’s mistakes.” All I wanted was my trees safe, not a profit.

“Then look at it this way, young lady. It’s normal for a kid to lose their allowance for bad behavior. I’ll decide whether or not Andrew deserves it. You just provide me with a report and I’ll go from there.”

After a few more attempts to negotiate, I knew she wasn’t going to budge further.

“Is that it?” She asked and I knew she was ready to call the others in.

“No,” I said. She looked as surprised as I felt, like neither of us expected me to be so firm. “Two more things. First, you can’t tell anyone that you're paying me. Not my mother. Not the Deans. You can tell people I'm supposed to help your son to make up for what I did — any way you want to describe it — but no mentioning money.”
 

“But I thought that would help you in your…role.”

“Are you kidding? If word gets out, I’ll never have a chance.” My mom wouldn’t tell anyone. But she’d never let me do it if she knew. “Think about how your son would feel. How much more mortifying could it be than to have your mother pay another student to get you to act right?”
 

I didn’t add — especially if that student is a year younger and a social misfit compared to you. Yikes. It would be a horror in the making, if word got out.