Roots - A Working Title

Prologue

'Miss Dwyer,' the voice of a stern bird-nosed woman echoed throughout the room.

The aforementioned woman looked down at a petite girl, her stance defensive and her expression unimpressed.

'Madam Finch,' replied the girl curtly.

'Mackenzie,' she sighed, her features softening, 'why must you do this to yourself?'

'Do what Madam?' Mackenzie questioned innocently; her demeanour suggesting quite the opposite.

Mackenzie was dressed in a figure hugging black jumpsuit and knee high stiletto boots. Her arms were folded across her chest and her weight was rested on her jutted out right hip.

'Why must you cause such anarchy?' asked the woman, 'do you crave attention that desperately?'

A pang could be felt in the chest of the seventeen year old, but it did nothing to sway her current confidence.

'No Headmistress,' she answered, 'I simply wish to no longer attend this establishment, and as it seems there are simpler ways than desperately asking my mother.'

'Mackenzie,' the woman sighed, her pity for the young girl growing.

Mackenzie looked up at the woman patiently.

'You could've just asked, I need not keep you if you're unhappy. Congratulations on your expulsion. I do wish you well on your endeavours.'

The young lady's eyes widened at the words pouring out of her headmistress' mouth. She wrapped her arms around the woman and gave her a thankful squeeze.

'You don't understand how much I appreciate this!'

The woman looked at Mackenzie in earnest; 'I honestly do wish you well Mackenzie, you are a bright girl, I just hope one day you can use that intelligence for good instead of evil.'

'Thank you,' the girl called, her stilettos clacking feverishly down the long corridor of the main building block.

~~~~~

'Mackenzie Dwyer, this was the final straw!' shouted a well dressed man as he flurried through the main entrance of Mackenzie's grand dwelling.

'Oops,' replied the girl, not caring to look up from her book.

Mackenzie was rested on a sitting chair in the front entrance. In her left-hand a first edition copy of Oscar Wilde's 'The Importance of Being Earnest.' She was rather eager to hear the argument about to occur.

'Where is your mother?'

Mackenzie continued to disregard the man, as her legs swooped over the arms of the sitting chair. She simply lifted the hand not holding her book and lazily pointed towards two grand oak doors. The man walked off without another word into his large unused study. Mackenzie, allowing enough time, jumped off the chair in the 'waiting' room and crept across the floor. She picked the empty glass off the table near the umbrella stand and pressed it against the massive doors.

'Leanne, what are we going to do about her?' John's muffled voice came through the door.

If there was anything valuable Mackenzie had learnt in all of the years living with her mother, it was how to eavesdrop on people and how to do it well.

'I don't know anymore, we've tried everything to rein her in, but she's just too difficult,' Leanne sighed.

Mackenzie could imagine her mother running her hands over her face.

'Maybe we could-'

'Wait!'

Mackenzie stiffened at her mother's raised voice, pleading inwardly for no one to find her in this state.