Double Trouble

Cal and Val

California’s POV

The trees flashed past my window. Jane told me to ‘enjoy the view’ but I haven’t listened to anything she’s said since I was 6 years old, and besides, every single tree looks exactly the same.

Jane hates it when I call her that. She’d prefer it if I called her Mum or something, so at least she could escape her name, but I can’t pretend we have that sort of mother-daughter bond.

She became diagnosed with me when she was 17, on a road trip with her parents through California. She spent a night with a C-list rock star, who never called her again, so she was left with nothing when her strictly religious parents kicked her out.

She was desperate to make me different from her, so she called me California to stand out from the crowd and always remind her of her ‘success’ at sleeping with fame. She also tries to be a ‘cool mum’, so I don’t have rules or worried phone calls in the middle of the night.

Her dream is to unload me off to someone else and move to California, and her chance to do the first part came recently.

The train slowed to a stop, and I looked out the window full of dread, praying it was my stop and praying it wasn’t.

It wasn’t my stop, so I had to stare viciously at every old, wrinkly person who tried to sit themselves beside me. I need my personal space.

When the train started up again, several people were still standing, but none dared to approach me or tell me off for being selfish. Honestly, who would confront an angry 16 year old who looked like she would kill anyone who blinked in her direction?

I probably wouldn’t really kill anyone, anyway, unless they ruined the plot of my book or killed a puppy. And murder isn’t why I am being forced to go to this stupid boarding school in the middle of nowhere, if that’s what you thought.

I’m being sent here because I took an extended holiday in Sydney, unknowingly paid for by my dear, loving mother. After I was missing for 10 days, she called the police (she probably didn’t even notice before then, anyway) and when she received a bill for a 5 figure amount, Jane decided it was time for my out of control self to receive some discipline.

I was also forced to scrape out every cent I owned, which totalled about $102.40, to start paying her back. The school has promised to straighten me out and give me ‘world-recognised’ qualifications so I can get a high paying job to pay Jane the rest, and give her the money she needs to find her dream home in sunny California, far away from me.

The train had stopped again, and without me noticing almost all the passengers had escaped from me and the stuffiness of the train, so I heaved my luggage from the compartments above. Ironically, Jane had kicked me out the same way her parents did to her, lost, alone and with barely any possessions or money.

The nerves finally kicked in when I saw the small, dirty station. I’d grown up in a big city, and small country towns scared me. You could be murdered or kidnapped, and no one would know where you’d gone or how to find you.

When I got to the platform, the only person left was a middle-aged, dumpy woman.