Brownie Points by Jennifer Coburn

Author:Jennifer Coburn [Coburn, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Contemporary Women, Fiction
ISBN: 1481103571
Google: DNIAngEACAAJ
Amazon: B00AE9SQXK
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: 2012-12-04T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

By winter break from school, Logan had sunk into a depression like I’d never seen before. To get out of school, Logan claimed he had the avian flu, restless leg syndrome and the blues. The third diagnosis was most accurate. Maya said the boys at school went from calling him Froot Loops to the Girl Scout Reject, which stung far more than the cereal reference. Ever since the tooth kicking incident, Max McDoyle’s posse stepped up their verbal harassment, which seemed to have longer-lasting effects than the hitting.

When I called the principal to enlist his help, he immediately turned the conversation around to Logan’s slipping grades. “I agree Logan needs help with school,” Mr. Albany said. “His teachers say he’s sullen and unresponsive and has failed his last few tests in every subject. I know both he and Maya scored exceptionally high on the GATE test, but I do not have to let him into that program, you know? I’ve kept other kids out for being lazy.”

“Logan is not lazy. He hates coming to school because he’s been bullied several times and no one seems to be doing anything to protect him.”

“Mrs. Taylor, that is not true,” he said. “All of the students were required to sign a Peace Pledge at the beginning of the year.”

I sighed as I hung up the phone. Whatever happened to this being the most wonderful time of the year?

™˜

After a few days of watching our son sulk around the house like Droopalong Dog, Jason suggested we take a family day trip to San Francisco. “See if you can get tickets to the Nut Buster, and afterward we can go skating or something at the Embarcadero,” he said. I called Jorge, who was not only available that day, but said Finn had a connection at the San Francisco Ballet who could get us in to that afternoon’s performance. Apparently, the Niners quietly included ballet as an integral part of their fitness training. This deal also included ticket reciprocity so brawny men could get into the ballet at any time, and swans never had to miss the home team in the playoffs.

“Just call me your Sugar Plum Fairy Godmother,” Jorge said into the phone.

My heart lifted at the thought of escaping Utopia for the day, but Logan seemed less than excited. “Whatever,” he said when I bubbled over with our plans. His spirits picked up, however, when we neared San Francisco and the skyline beckoned to us like Oz.

There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, I said silently. I clammed up partly because I didn’t want to let on how much I detested Utopia, and partly because no one else but Jorge enjoyed quoting the Wizard of Oz with me. In college, he wrote a paper for an English class about the life lessons and practical wisdom of the classic film that seemed very deep to us at twenty-one. Now, it was just fun to quote lines and recall some of his heady theories from his term paper.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.