The House of Marcellinus

Arc 2: Slum Girl - 2

Jennifer's legs seized with another spasm, forcing her to lean against a concrete wall, scratching her hands on the rough and pitted surface. She had nowhere in particular in mind for a destination, just a vague sense that she wanted to see something new before she died. Unfortunately, the broken ruins of the buildings all looked the same, both inside and out. So instead, she retreated into her memories from before the slums.

Her eyes still saw the empty baking street in front of her, but in her mind she lay supine on the couch in her parents' UBA one-room apartment, kneading her toes into the short soft bristles of the armrest while she read. The apartment always had that slightly musty but pleasant odor of old library books, and the TV gibbered in the background. Her parents didn't like her to have the TV on while reading, but the drone of the news helped her concentrate. It had been just like that the day when–

No, she didn't want to remember that now.

♦ ♦ ♦

Her mom, Lyra Brooks, was bringing up dinner from the communal cafeteria, filling the apartment with the scent of bland meatloaf. She went so that Jennifer could keep reading. Reading was something sacred in her family. "Education is everything. Education is a future." Her parents repeated that like a mantra. That ideal had been the basis for all the sacrifices they had made.

When they couldn't afford to keep her in school, reading was the only source of education. She went to school for 1st to 3rd grade, but then the savings ran out.

Her parents made lesson plans and exercises for her to do, and she did them. "Education was everything", after all. No school meant no friends, so her parents became her whole world. She was a good girl, so she did all the lessons. She wanted to make them proud.

Those were memories that sucked when you were living them, but that you could look back fondly on. Her parents stayed up late, putting together the materials under a dim study lamp while she slept on the floor, and then she did them after they went to work together in the morning. It was lonely, but the lessons were her parents' love made manifest into sentence diagrams and math problems.

When she could go back to school, the principal wanted to put her into 4th grade, but her parents went to plead her case. She had sat in one of those plastic blue stackable chairs, swinging her feet back and forth and staring at the clock while the adults decided her fate. After an hour of arguing, her butt ached, but the principal agreed to let her try to test into the 5th grade. Even as a 10 year old, she had seen that tight, forced smile and knew he just wanted to get rid of them, not thinking she had a chance.

She did pass, because how could she not? Education was everything. She had studied like her life depended on it. The principal did a good job of hiding his disappointment when he offered his congratulations later.

Going back to school was like coming back to life. Her friend Annie greeted her with wide-eyed wonder. "My daddy said when kids drop out, they never come back!" Jennifer answered with pride: "I tested out!"

Her parents were right; education was everything. It was friends, it was a playground just for kids. It was class projects and art and music, and even games.

She never neglected a single lesson and finished the year top of her class. When they all took the national placement exam, she learned a new phrase:

Merit-based scholarship

She remembered standing in the middle of their living room after they got the letter. Dad knelt on her left and mom on her right, and they hugged each other with her in the middle, everybody crying. It was like being embraced by love itself. Education really was a future. Now hers was assured (at least through middle school), and all she had to do was keep her grades up.