Mitzi & Oz

Chapter 3: Mother Do You Think They'll Like This Song

Side A: Mitzi

I get off the bus and trudge down the road toward the condo unit we're renting. Three other kids get off at my stop. 

"You new?" asks one of them, a boy who's freakishly tall. If I looked all the way up at his face I'd be staring into the sun. His two friends are much shorter. They look similar, and I realize they must be brothers. They're all gawky and beanpole thin in the same way.

"Yeah."

That's about as much interest as I get. One of the short brothers kicks a rock and then the other short brother competes to kick it further. The tall one lopes along, taking one step for every three of mine. Soon he's half a mile up ahead.

Usually, being the new girl generates a little more excitement, especially in a tiny town like this. Everyone's excited to see if I'm cool or not, and then I am swiftly and harshly judged. I've never been ignored on my first day. Then again, I was never the second new kid. And Oz always beat me to the punch.

What luck, that we're in every single class together. Except voice class, thank god.

In the windows I can see Mom in the kitchen prepping dinners and lunches for the week. Sometimes I really wish I had a mom who worked. Instead she's a stay-at-home mom who's going to interrogate me the second I walk through the door.

"How was your day?"

I don't even have my foot inside the house yet.

"Fine," I tell her.

"Come on, I want more details than that! What's your favorite class?"

I feel so tired. My brain is pushing at the backs of my eyeballs, I swear. "Mom, it's the same at every school. I like voice class. I hate English."

Mom waves her hands around like she can erase my bad mood. "No, no. I know you enjoy certain subjects, but what about your teachers? Teachers can make a huge difference in how much you enjoy a class. When I was in college, I hated Shakespeare until I had an amazing professor."

As she speaks, I notice the toaster oven sitting next to our trash bin.

"So, which is your favorite teacher?" Mom asks meaningfully.

"It's not my history teacher." I sigh and drop my bag of heavy new textbooks onto a kitchen chair. "She almost gave me a detention for lending someone a pen."

"Let's keep it positive," Mom chirps.

I sigh again and inch closer to the toaster oven. "I guess my voice teacher is okay. Miss Burgess." She didn't even have me audition, just stuck me in back with the sopranos. I don't say this, though, because Mom would flip out. She hates when I just do things to get by, which was the whole reason why I do voice class to begin with. Voice class is always pass/fail. You show up and sing, you pass. You don't have to sing well. You don't have homework, or if you do, you don't really have to do it, because we practice as a choir. "Why is the toaster oven in the trash?"