Bending the Rules

Chapter 3 : Lara Breaks The Tessa Barrier

Lara was waiting at the entrance to the tunnel at 3:05. The tunnel, used only by M.I.H students, connected the school with the bus stop on the other side of West Street.

"Do you want to walk, or take the bus?" Lara asked.

"Let's take the bus," Tori replied. "I'm completely knackered. Gym class took it all out of me. Softball. It's stupid, if you ask me. Give me a skateboard and a killer slope any day. Not this running after the ball."

"Knackered?" Lara asked, confused as usual by Tori's Australianisms. She was confused enough as it was by fast-spoken New York English.

"Oh. Tired," Tori explained. "Bushed. Beat."

"I get the idea," said Lara.

They got onto the bus and hopped off a block from Aunt Tessa's apartment.

"I like this neighborhood," said Lara. "I like your Aunt's street."

Tori did, too. It was a mixture of apartment buildings and brownstone houses that made you wonder who lived inside. One of Tori's favorite things to do was to walk along the street in the evenings and look at the lightened-up rooms that didn't have curtains drawn, and see how people live. A lot of people had walls and walls of books. Aunt Tessa had a lot of books, too. Tori loved that. There were about six books in her parents' house.

There was nothing really wrong with Tori's parents. They just wanted a nice girl who would grow up to maybe work in a shop, like Tori's mother, or an office, like her dad. Or she'd be a school teacher if she wanted to really go places.

People in their family didn't go to college, and they didn't grow up to live far from home. But Tori was different, and Tori's parents simply felt that Tori would be better off at M.I.H.

Louie the doorman was still on duty in the lobby when Tori and Lara came in. He looked very relieved to see Tori walking in her own two feet.

They waited quite a while for the elevator.

When it arrived, out came an extremely fancy-looking woman with a tiny, long-haired dog in her arms. The dog's lower teeth jutted upward, over its upper lip.

"Arf arf arf!" the dog yapped at Tori.

"Arf arf arf arf!" Tori yapped back. The woman gave Tori a sinister look. Tori just smiled pleasantly.

The girls stepped into the elevator. Tori was about to push 12 when Louie came rushing over.

"There's some mail here that I think is for your aunt," he said. "The mailman left it by the mailboxes, because he wasn't sure. Would you give it to her, please?"

"Sure thing, mate," said Tori.

As they rode up in the elevator, Tori looked at the envelope. She wasn't snooping, it was just idle curiousity, really. She knew so little about her aunt.

The envelope was addressed to "Ms. Tessa Steinmetz." Funny, they'd gotten the first name right, but not the last name. Aunt Tessa's name was Livingstone, same as Tori's mother's maiden name. They'd gotten the apartment number correct, too. The return address in the corner read "Henry Abrams, Abrams Art Galleries," on Madison Avenue.

Tori opened the apartment door as quietly as she could with her key. This was only the second time she'd brought someone home with her, and her first time no one had been home.

Aunt Tessa had never told her she couldn't have anyone over, but Tori didn't feel very comfortable doing it. If she was going to live there for a year, though, she was going to need to bring friends at home sometimes, wasn't she?