Bear Child (Book 1)

Chapter 2

     2. Going to High School

          It was Monday already. I spent the whole weekend reading "The Phantom of the Opera" by Gaston Leroux. It was a bit cloudy out but sunlight still shone through the clouds. As much sunlight as there was, though, the temperature was very low. Around 6:25 A.M., Ben walked in my room without even knocking on the door and just shouted "Rise and shine! Time to wake up, Clairina. "

          I groaned. "Haven't you ever heard of privacy, Ben?" I mumbled loud enough for him to hear. "Oh, my bad." he said sarcastically. He walked out the door, closed it, knocked, then walked in and said "Wake up, Clairina. No excuses."

          "That's not what I meant." I told him, totally annoyed. I groaned as I put the pillow over my head. He walked over and threw the pillow off my head and threw off the blanket I had over me. "Hey!" I exclaimed. "Rise and shine.” He said. “But I don’t want to rise! And I don’t have the energy to shine either!” I protested. “Either way, you have to. And, call me Dad." he said, and then walked out. As he shut the door, I threw the pillow at the door aiming for him. I missed and I stuck my tongue out towards the door. “Why?” I asked to myself, “Of all people in the world, why did that man have to be my father?”

          Lazily and unwillingly, I got up and out of bed and began to change out of my green spaghetti strap and black and white checkered pajama pants. I decided to put on a purple shirt, an open black sweater, lose black jeans, and my purple converse. As for my hair, I decided to leave it down and put on a purple head band. My hair reaches down to my elbows. All in all, it wasn't a bad look for your first day at school. After I put on a very thin coat of eye liner, I made sure that I had all my things for school. I put on my grey Jansport backpack and headed downstairs.

          "There, happy now? I’m all ready for stupid school. Now I expect you to knock on my door from now on if you want more cooperation!" I yelled as I walked to the toaster and popped in a strawberry Poptart. The Poptart was done and I was already taking a few bites out of it. "Well c'mon.” Ben said, “I’ve got to get you to school and I got to open up the store." Then he walked out the door.

          "Uh, Ben?" I called. He poked his head through the door.

          "Forget something?" I asked.

          "Not that I know of." he replied.

          I tossed him the keys to the Volkswagen. "Hard to get a car running without a key, don’t you think?" I said, and then took a bite out of my Poptart. He stared at me as I walked past him and into the old car. It was a 2004 Volkswagen Golf GTI that was in desperate need of a paint job. I heard him mumble "Why does she always have to have so much attitude?" and walked towards the car. I laughed. "Is it so hard to believe that you're kid is smarter than you are?" I asked. He just cleared his throat. "Hey, I just had to make a point." I said, then just laughed again and continued to eat my Poptart.

          As soon as Ben started the car, he told me "The high school isn't far from here. It’s just about 5 or 10 minutes or so. You know, I won’t always be able to drop you off, so you're either going to have to take a bus or ride a bike."

"But I don't have a bike." I pointed out.

"Then I guess you're going to have to use mine. It's not too bad — unless you want to walk."

"I am at legal age to drive, you know." I argued.

"It's either a bike or you walk."

"Fine, jeez."

          Ben put the car into full reverse and we pulled out of the run down driveway. We had to go halfway through town just to reach Old Glenn Highway, which we had to take in order to get to Palmer. To tell the truth, I really liked the scenery along the road. The Matanuska River was a great view throughout the highway on the left and another amazing view of the mountain and its forests to the right. There were some questions that I forgot to ask Dave about the local area. I hoped that Benjamin over here knew more than Donkey Kong did.