The Secrets We Keep (On Hold...)

Chapter One

    The hideous yellow school bus neared my stop and I practically threw up in my mouth. I am the only junior in my entire school that still rides the bus. Well, at least that's what it feels like. It's not that I don't have my license, I do, I've had it for almost year. My Mom just doesn't have the money right now for me to get a car. We barely can afford the one car we have as it is. It's my moms work car, so I'm not allowed to use it or else she might get fired. Again. Add having three mouths to feed on a minimum wage job, and things get pretty tight. My mom has been searching high and low for a job with a better pay, but nobody in this small town is hiring. I've been looking too, but with schoolwork and babysitting my seven year old sister, it's hard to find a job that will fit my busy schedule, let alone have the time to even look for one. So I'm stuck with riding the bus with annoying little sixth through tenth graders.

    Regretfully, I stepped onto the bus and grabbed a seat towards the back, away from the younger kids and closer to kids around my age. I had my headphones into my ears before I even sat down. Somehow, the bus doesn't seem so bad when all I can hear is the songs of my favorite bands blasting in my ears. The bus rides usually aren't too long, cause I'm almost the last kid to get picked up, but, no thanks to the town officials, they feel its necessary to have the roads a few streets down from the school, fixed. Although, whenever the bus passes the construction site, the workers never seem to be making any progress, or doing anything at all really. Then I think to myself, It's sad how people get paid for doing absolutely nothing except standing and turning a sign that says 'stop' and 'slow'. Quite the glamorous life, huh?

    After waiting for about ten minutes for the infamous 'sign spinner' to let the bus pass, we finally arrive at the school. Not that I want to be at school any more than being on that stupid bus. Anything to get me away from my far too 'glamorous' life, I guess.     School is never really all to great for me, I mean, I get good grades, mostly all A's, but I'm not one to keep my mouth shut if I see something I don't like, and because of this lovely skill I've managed to gain numerous detentions for starting fights. I even have my own personal desk in the principals office not a foot away from his. I'm there so often we're practically on a first-name basis. Although he never seems to like it when I call him Daniel instead of Mr. Molten.

    It didn't really surprise me when my name was called over the intercoms of the school by a dull, droning voice. I walked to the too familiar principals office with my head held high, my jaw set, and a wiry smiled spread across my lips. I knew perfectly well what I had done and why I was being beckoned to Daniel's office. And I was damned proud of it.

    When I entered Mr. Molten's office he was standing behind his desk staring out his office windows, looking across the schools courtyard. He knew I entered but didn't turn to face me, he just stood there sipping his coffee and staring out the windows. I threw my bag down on one of the two black leather chairs across from his desk and went over to the coffee machine to pour myself a cup. When my cup was done I wrapped my hands around the heated plastic and let the warmth of the coffee seep into my hands. I flung myself down, coffee in hand, in the remaining chair with my legs dangling over one side of the leather armrests. The black leather chair was surprisingly modern for something you'd find in a principals office.

    "Are you settled, Ms. Barlow,” He says with a sigh, and a tone of pure irritation. “Or would you prefer a gold throne with maybe a servant or two, one to fan you while you sit here and one to hand-feed you grapes, while you lounge and waste precious learning time and drinking all my coffee?" Mr. Molten was turned toward me now. Behind his huge, 70's bottle-cap glasses he was giving me one of his usual annoyed 'here-we-go-again' looks. His stomach bulged out looking like he accidentally swallowed a basketball. And his random, worsening bald spot on the top of his head really wasn't helping him out with the ladies.

    “Is that an option? Cause if it is I would be glad come to visit you more often then I do now.” I say back, a half-smile growing at my lips.

    “I don’t think that’s possible Ms. Barlow.” He replies back and takes a seat in his black cushioned desk chair that made the one I was sitting in look like a hard, painful, and uncomfortable thing to be sitting in, compared to the overly fluffed leather-chaired paradise he was sitting in now.

    “You clearly don’t know me then.” I sink farther into the chair, trying to get comfortable, cause by the looks of it, I was going to be here a while.

    “Ms. Barlow, you are here in this office more than I am, I know you better than you know yourself.” He says, not looking up from the paper he was writing something on. His voice still monotone. There is a long pause, and then he places his pen down on the solid oak desk, and looks up at me, and I can see it in his eyes how were going to start the big spiel on how starting fights is bad, and how I have no good reason to be duct taping innocent kids to the bottom of buses. Blah, blah, blah, story of my life.

    “Now, I assume you know what you’ve done, the whole school does, and you seem to always have your own special twist in all the... stunts you do, that are too hard to forget. And you seem to take pride in them. Like the zip ties through all the lockers so no one could open them. How you managed to pull all that off in the middle of the day, to all the lockers, without getting caught is a mystery in itself. And then there’s the rigging of the water fountains so they shoot out vinegar, and changing the lunch menu that day so they were honoring the Japanese culture by making vinegar rice so no one would smell it coming,” I smiled, reminiscing about all the “Stunts” I have pulled. Ah, yes, the water fountains, that one was quite the challenge, but when it was finished it was a great success; well for me anyway.

    He started babbling about one of my newest achievements, this one being the reason why I’m in his office right now, something about baby alligators, and I began to zone out. It wasn’t until he was yelling my name that I realized that almost thirty minutes have passed and I wasn’t listening to a thing he had said.

    “False! True! Seven! All of the above!” I shouted randomly. Mr. Molten stood there with a confused look on his face.

    “Mrs. Barlow, what are you blabbering on about?” he said, raising a bushy eyebrow. I don’t even pretend I was listening.

    “I have no idea. I wasn’t listening. I kinda zoned out after the mention of someone fanning me and hand-feeding me grapes.” I stand up, pick up my bag, and stare down  at my empty coffee cup with my eyebrows creased together, as if staring at it long enough will make it magically fill up again. I turn around to see Mr. Molten rubbing his temples with his stubby forefingers. “What?” I ask, trying to sound innocent, but neither of us fall for my charade.

    “Quintana, you just never learn do you?” He asked with a look of tired defeat in his glossy brown eyes.

    “Can’t. Learning is something I prefer saving for the last minute.” I smirk, even though that didn’t make any sense.

    “Just like your homework.” He replied, and began scribbling some more words on a small blue piece of paper. I’ve seen plenty of these in my day to know what they are. Detention passes. “You’ll have detention for the next two weeks, in my office, everyday after school. Now, here’s your late pass,” He hands me a orange late pass without looking up from his papers. “Get to class Ms. Barlow, and please for all that is holy, at least try to stay out of trouble today. Try, for your mother.” That last part struck me. I know he knows about the difficulty my family is having trying to get by these past few years, he knows because my mom has been called down to the school numerous times because of all my “Stunts” as Mr. Molten would call them. But I didn’t think he would ever bring something like that up and try to use it to encourage me to behave.

    When I turned and left his office, with none of the bravado I came in with, I couldn’t ignore the tightness in my chest the words left me with.