In Search of Tomorrow ✓

Ten

When I walked into math the next morning, my eyes were puffy and I had enormous dark circles just above my cheekbones. Just as I had settled down into my seat and taken out my homework, struggling to keep my eyes open, the intercom system buzzed.

"Can Evelyn Caverly please head to the front office? Again, we need Evelyn Caverly at the front office."

Everyone in the classroom turned to look at me as I slung my backpack over my shoulder and trudged out into the hallway. It was hard to concentrate on much of anything when my head was throbbing and I could barely see where I was going because I was so tired.

It wasn't even my fault that I hadn't gotten any sleep the previous night. After I'd woken up, I had been unable to go back to sleep, and so I had gotten up and spent the entire night worrying about money and fretting over the bills. I'd drank a giant cup of coffee for breakfast, but it didn't seem like it would be enough to keep me from acting like a zombie all day.

When I got to the front office, the secretary smiled at me too pleasantly for the early hour and said, "Evelyn? Mrs. Barrett wants you in her office."

I thanked her with a somewhat abrupt nod and then shuffled my feet in their worn sneakers over to Mrs. Barrett's office. She answered the second before I even knocked and gestured for me enter.

"Thank you for actually coming," she said. "I sent an email to you yesterday asking to meet starting twenty minutes ago, but evidently you did not receive it."

Pushing my hair out of my face, I leaned back in my chair and waited for her to say what she needed to say.

"I just wanted to check up on how things are going now that Cameron has started tutoring you," she said. "Your grades have increased very slightly, and I'm hoping it's the beginning of an increased effort in your academics."

I surveyed her: her skeptical expression and pursed lips, raised right eyebrow and hands folded neatly together. Right then, I very much wanted to scream at her that I wasn't a slacker, that I couldn't help what had happened and that I wanted just as much as everyone to succeed at school. It took everything I had to contain myself.

"Miss Caverly?" asked Mrs. Barrett, her voice rising to a higher pitch. "Are you going to speak at this meeting today?"

Struggling to keep my expression neutral and not disrespectful, I said, "Yes, I am. And Cameron's been a big help. I've been trying to improve my grades and yes, I hope to keep them up."

But my guidance counselor did not seem satisfied with this blunt answer. "I think everyone's interested in knowing why your grades dropped to start," she said. "You had straight A's your freshman year. What happened? Did you simply lose interest in school? Did you feel a need to rebel against your glowing report cards and compliments from your teachers?"

Somewhere deep inside me, I felt myself growing increasingly angered with this woman who called me in her office and pretended to know what was going on in my life. I gathered all my hair on one side of my shoulder and began braiding it frantically, trying to control my emotions before I said anything I would regret later.

"Well?" asked Mrs. Barrett.

I very near exploded just then, but I managed to say in a somewhat shaking voice, "I guess I lost interest, is all."

"Yes," said Mrs. Barrett dully, as if those sorts of things happened every day and it was her job to deal with them and purge the school of such indecency, "that can happen. Hopefully you've come to realize the error in your ways?"