One (Sarah Crossan)

We Wait

Long after

the other students

have gone home,

long after Yasmeen has waved goodbye

and promised to meet

us in the common room

tomorrow morning,

we wait.

It’s past four o’clock by the time

Dad’s car appears,

mounting the curb and

skidding to a stop.

We creep out of our hiding spot between a clump of trees

but Dad isn’t at the wheel.

Thank God.

He’s slumped in the passenger seat,

his face as purple as a pickled beetroot.

Grammie is driving.

‘He’s hammered, isn’t he?’ Tippi says

as we slide into the backseat.

‘Blotto!’ Grammie says.

She stabs Dad

with her fake fingernails

and turns on the windshield wipers

though it isn’t raining.

‘He didn’t get the job

he interviewed for

yesterday,’ she says,

like that’s an explanation,

like Dad deserves our sympathy,

like lately he’s needed an excuse

to be drunk.

Tippi and I are fidgety,

desperate to tell someone

about our first day,

that it wasn’t perfect but

no one called us devil’s spawn

or asked how many vaginas we have.

But we stay silent in the back seat

because if Dad wakes up

we’ll have to listen

to his drivel

instead.

And no one,

no one,

wants

that.