Chapter 1
Harry Jordan.
"Hey Linda, can you pass me Maisie's report card?" I ask my wife. School just ended, and my daughter is excited to have finished. "Sure, Harry," Linda says. She passes me the report card, which is in an envelope. I open the envelope and take out the report card.
MAISIE JORDAN.
GRADE 10.
MATH: 70
SOCIAL STUDIES: 76.
ENGLISH: 72
SCIENCE: 70
TECHNOLOGY: 80
PHYSICAL EDUCATION: 78
MUSIC: 81
ART: 75
HEALTH: 73
SPANISH: 73
"How'd she do, hon?" Linda asks as I stare at the page, annoyed.
"Terrible!" I say. "She got all seventies!" Linda gasps.
"Any eighties?" Linda asks.
"Only two!" I say. "In Technology and Music!"
"Maisie!" Linda yells.
"Yeah, mom?" She says from upstairs.
"Can you come down here?" She asks.
"Sure, mom." She says. I hear thudding coming from the stairs. As soon as I hear the texting noises, I know why she got these grades.
Maisie walks up to us and stares.
"What do you guys want?" Maisie says, annoyed. She has a hunched-over posture. I can tell that she's been on her phone a lot.
"Can you come here, sweetie?" I ask her.
She walks over. I stare at her for a second. Then, I reach my hand out quickly and snatch her phone right out of her hands.
"Hey!" She exclaims.
"Shush," I say with a dismissive wave of my hand. I scroll out of the app she's using and go to settings. Then click screen time. I gawk at the results.
"You are on your phone for six hours a day?!" I exclaim, practically yelling.
"Hey, give me back my phone!" She tells me.
I turn my back so it's facing her and I scroll down to the apps most used. The top three are, not surprisingly, Instagram, Tik Tok, and Snapchat.
"You are not getting this back for a long time," I say.
"Why?" She asks.
"Uh, because your grades are hot garbage," Linda says.
"Exactly," I say.
"My grades are not that bad!" Maisie says.
"You have a seventy in everything,"
"So?"
"Maisie, this is when colleges start looking at your grades and determining when and if you can get in based on your grades," Linda says. "As of now, I don't think you're gonna get in."
"Seventies are not acceptable!" I say.
"When do I get my phone back?" Maisie asks.
"When we can find an efficient plan to make sure that you get your grades up," I say.
Maisie turns around and goes upstairs. This time her footsteps are louder and heavier. I sit down on our couch and turn on the TV. Linda comes to join me.
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Behind the Scenes
Mystery / ThrillerMy story revolves around three characters who are solving a murder mystery. One of them is a cop, another is a husband whose wife was murdered, and the other is the husband's daughter. It is a riveting, action-packed sci-fi mystery with plenty of tw...
