The Boy I Hate

Five.

"Mabel Marie Abram!"

I had almost - just almost - forgotten what my mother's voice sounded like when she was mad. Truthfully, before the whole tea party scandal, I hadn't managed to get in trouble for a while. Sure, I got nagged constantly, but I followed procedure well enough. I wasn't doing anything that warranted my middle name.

My angelic streak was bound to end, though. Now was a fitting time based on my recent antics. I wasn't even surprised when my name was shrieked the second I closed the front door behind me. In fact, I couldn't help but feel a bit smug to have broken her silence.

I could hear Margret's heals clip and clop against the hardwood floors before I saw. It was strange, but my mom always wore shoes in the house. She claimed it was because she was insecure about her feet, but I figured she just liked hearing herself power walk. Sometimes I thought she swung her head a certain way to make her ponytail swing too. It was like she thought we were on a reality show.

When her angered face came around the corner, I winced. "Mom, Hi."

"I'm sure you know the principal called." I hadn't been told, but I gathered as much. Our school notified parents when their offspring didn't show up. Plus, my principal was a close friend of my mothers. She used to babysit me. Ms. Gonzalez would notify Margaret if I went out for lunch. "She told me you couldn't be bothered to show up to class today?"

She phrased it as a question so that I would be forced to come clean, or whatever. Her parenting antics seemed to be from a self help book. "I highly doubt that's how she phrased it, Ma."

Her face reddened. Sometimes I felt like when I disobeyed her I was lighting a fuze and she would explode. This was the closest I'd seen her get to obliterating me like an atomic bomb. She was slightly shaking as a pot does when it's boiling. But, as usual, she found her composure. She wouldn't be caught dead acting anything less of a lady. "What were you doing that was more important than your education?"

I considered lying, but she new I would have called her had anything truly urgent happened. I also liked to pride myself on being honest... most of the time. So I told the truth, "I was with Rich."

"If that boy makes you skip out on anything else of importance I will need to have a serious talk with his father," she shook her head disappointedly. "For now, you're grounded until further notice."

I mock-saluted to her receding figure while she clip clopped away. I couldn't exactly say she was being unreasonable. I did skip school. My issues with my mother weren't as simple as being annoyed by punishment. What bothered me about my mother was that she was nothing to me but an authority figure. My dad told me that's how most parents are; one's good cop and one's bad cop. He always reminded me that everything she did was out of love. I just couldn't see it. Did she really love me, or was I just a clone to extend her resumé of life achievement?

I wasn't the most observant person, but I caught on to the bragging trend in Sugar Port. Every mother, not just mine, comparing their daughters side by side. Which one was the shiniest? Sometimes I liked to pretend they were advertising their horses in a horse race, trying to attract bidders. "My horse won the Little Miss Sugar beauty pageant!" - "That's lovely, Susan. Speaking of horses; did you hear that my Emily just became cheer captain?"

That's really what the whole debutante ball thing is about. Upper-class girls making their first appearance in fashionable society? Show-boating extravaganza. I had dance practice for it that day. For a moment, I thought I could skip it under the reasoning that I was grounded, but my mother made it perfectly clear that wouldn't be happening when she barged into my room and told me to get ready.

•••

"Starting positions please!"

I laid my hand on Richard's upper arm. He placed his on my side; I giggled and slid it down to my waist. We intertwined our other hands. I could sense he was getting flustered. He didn't just have two left feet, but two left everything - arms, legs, eyeballs, whatever else. He was a god awful dancer.

The music started again. I would certainly detest the song by the time the ball came around. Our instructor counted, "one, two, three, four! Five, six, seven, eight!"

Dancing came naturally to me. My time on the cheer squad taught me to follow counts to the beat, and I genuinely enjoyed the feeling of it all. It always struck me as the easiest way to express myself. There was something about physically moving your body that was so venerable to me... Richard on the other hand, was stumbling over himself horribly. "I never thought I'd see the day Richard White wasn't the best at something."

"Shut up, Mabel, I'm focusing." I could see him fighting a smile.

I locked eyes with Margie across the room, who looked like she would rather rip her hair out than be stuck with Timothy Allen as an escort. She stuck her tongue out and rolled her eyes up as if she were dead. I smiled at her and winked.

I was lucky to have a boyfriend to escort me. I didn't have let my parents arrange a match - that's what most of the girls without their own choices had to do. I got closer to Rich's ear and whispered, "just stop thinking about it so much."

"I can't. I have to think about it to do it right."

I looked around, to make sure nobody was watching. Leaning in much closer than a proper waltz position allows, I lightly nibbled his ear. I let couple kisses linger down his jaw. "What are you thinking about now?"

"You know exactly what I'm thinking about now," he groaned. I backed up. As fun as messing with him was, we were in public.

We got to the mid-point of the routine when a burst of pink colored smoke erupted in the corner of the room. Then another, in the center, right below Elizabeth Eaton - this time blue. The next was green, then yellow. We were all only confused for a moment before we saw the boys from West High's baseball team cracking up outside the window. Our instructor, a little confused, yelled through everyone's chatter, "the rest of class today is canceled!"

The herd of teenagers began rushing out the door, trying to escape the suffocation of the smoke bombs. Richard remained still in his place, looking to the window with a glare. As I looked back and forth I could tell he was making direct eye contact with Charlie. I kept tapping his shoulder, trying to get him to look to me instead. He wouldn't. "Come on, Rich, it's just a dumb prank. Let's go!"

I looked to the window to make eye contact with Bobby, gesturing with my hand as if to tell him to get Charles away from the window. I saw him try halfheartedly, but Charlie wouldn't budge either. That was, until, he looked to me, and winked.

I gasped, "the audacity of that one! I cant beli-"

Richard interrupted me, grasping my forearm, "let's go."