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#Post#: 60--------------------------------------------------
ESCAPE! -- Main Post
DIR By: StoryGod
Date: December 19, 2019, 5:31 pm
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"We did it!" proclaimed a relieved Corianne.
"We have to be back in the gym soon," Tikvah reminded her
roommate.
"So what... it's a break. We need a break."
"It's not going to be for long, or we'll be in trouble."
"Doesn't matter. Any break is good. Besides I'm getting that
Bible. Remember what we discussed last night."
"Yeah... but you're going to be reading in English."
"So..."
"I guess it's OK."
The high school building, one of three high school buildings,
but the one they needed called Crosby-Magnoni Hall, was three
stories tall. It was nearly empty because school hadn't started
yet. The library was up on the third floor. It was a big space
with computers, monopolized by boys playing some sort of game
with crude graphics. They gathered around their machines with
quiet intensity.
It took Corianne several minutes to realize she did not know
thing one about finding a Bible. She decided to ask the
librarian, a skinny middle aged lady in a blue dress. "What sort
of Bible do you need?" she asked Corianne.
"One with Psalms in it."
"Any particular translation?"
"I'm not sure."
The librarian recommended the New American Standard, and yes, it
had a New Testament. She said it was a good translation, modern
but with enough poetry to make the Psalms beautiful. Something
beautiful could be spiritual, Corianne thought. She signed out
the Bible, meanwhile Tikvah had wandered off.
Corianne stepped into the hall, but Tikvah was not there. She
came back inside and found Tikvah signing out a coffee table
book about light. It was an adults book despite the pictures.
She carried her prize under her arm as she and Corianne walked
as slowly as they could back to the gym.
"We're stuck with games again," Corianne complained.
"Didn't I tell you."
"Maybe if we ask Albina nicely she'll let us read."
Tikvah did not reply. The girl was lost in her own thoughts. At
least, thought, Corianne, she was not weeping, even though both
of them would be bored to tears by lunch.
#Post#: 123--------------------------------------------------
Re: ESCAPE! -- Main Post
DIR By: StoryGod
Date: January 10, 2020, 8:29 am
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Corianne found herself in the high school library in the middle
of Saturday morning. A pass that bought her freedom, a
wonderful piece of cardboard, hung around her neck like a dog's
collar, but she did not care. Normally, this would have been a
coup, but Tikvah had wakened at the crack of dawn or more
properly before sunrise for the long walk to synagogue in White
Plains. The kids in the suite had ended up playing games again.
Corianne was supposed to finish the Biblical book of Proverbs,
for a book report, but she decided to write an email home to
each of her parents. Actually neither of them were really
letters home. The small town outside Indianapolis had been her
address for an unhappy year. Her father would have to fly to
visit her. Her parents found the boarding school, liked its
educational philosophy, its secularness, its modrenity, and did
not care how far from either parent their daughter ended up.
If the truth got told, Corianne realized her father preferred
several of his exwives and his current mate to her mother. That
was not a completely awful thing, because dad and mom were
divorced after all. Corianne did not want to think of how she
ranked among all the children her dad had fathered. Her mother,
meanwhile, wanted to keep her career teaching technology or
mathematics. Sometimes she could get a good gig, like the one
she had in Texas when Corianne was conceived.
Other times, it took knowing someone in a school district and
years of substitute teaching to get a job. Corianne's mother did
not have time to wait around. She got creative about employment.
When Corianne was small, after the divorce, which happened when
she was an infant, her mother worked at a boarding school in
Upstate New York near the border with Canada and Vermont. There
was a job in Virginia after that which did not work out. Then
mom got work in the Emirates, and dad would not let her take
Corianne with her.
Corianne's mom did not put up much of a fight, because she did
not like the way rich girls grew up in the Emirates. She sent
Corianne to live with her father and not get along with the
newest wife, number five. Corianne's mother was number two.
Corianne told herself to be glad she did not have to write to
all the stepmothers. She still really had only two parents who
counted and that she liked.
But why in the hell did they have to be so far away! She
probably wouldn't see her dad until the middle of October, and
she wouldn't see her mother until Christmas. "Kids my age aren't
supposed to be this alone in the world," she thought. The
thought made her face hurt. She blinked back tears.
Yes, Tikvah was lucky. She'd see her father tonight. Her father
would bring a friend who did not speak English. Tikvah would
translate. Corianne wondered: "Were kids supposed to translate.
Tikvah's father did it too, so maybe that wasn't so bad. Anyway,
who made the rules for what kids were supposed to do?" Corianne
reasoned that it must have been someone whose parents weren't
divorced and who had both parents living in the United States.
Life was just not fair!
#Post#: 139--------------------------------------------------
Re: ESCAPE! -- Main Post
DIR By: StoryGod
Date: January 21, 2020, 8:41 am
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Corianne sat nursing her precious sanity in the high school
library. The middle school had a library, but the high school
library was better. She was intensely grateful that Ms. Albina
had given her a pass. Playing games would have been the last
straw of a totally retched day. It was time to email her mother:
[QUOTE]
Dear Mom,
Everything fell apart today. Over the weekend Albina, the Suite
Advisor, and me discussed book reviews and how it is perfectly
OK to write a bad one. I was looking forward to writing a
critique that had real criticism in it, but now we are doing
grammar in English. Grammar is stupid! It is baby stuff! I know
about subjects and predicates. It also takes all the fun out of
English. I guess I like literature much better.
In swimming, we did canoe rescue, which is fine, but I'm the
smallest kid in Advanced Aquatics and a big boy with disgusting
chest hairs had to pull me into the boat. I'm not sure I passed
because I am so small. I'm not sure what my gym will be in
January. That means I'll be playing ball, and it will be just
like Baird, Indiana. Blech!!!!!
We're doing the continents in social studies. That is the stupid
part of geography. I mean I thought everybody knew this already!
They say we'll have to memorize countries and the names of
cities and rivers. They say that this hasn't been taught in
sixty years, but they want to bring it back. It was more fun to
do the earth and the sun and maps with scales and land types. I
think the teachers make us memorize stuff in geography because
it is easy for them.
I hope everything is alright with you in the Emirates and that
the principle stood up for you against that rich family that
wanted you to change their daughter's grade. Here, if I fall on
my face, you won't bother with changing my grade. You'll just
say "Corianne, you can do better." I try, but sometimes it is
not easy.
My roommate and I get along even if she gets up very early
Saturday morning to go to Synaugogue. She is quite religious,
but she has never told me I'm going to Hell. She also likes all
her subjects. She even likes geography. She says her favorite
book when she first moved to Brooklyn with her mother was an
atlas. She wrote her book report for English on a book about
light. She had to learn powers of ten to understand it. She has
to learn about angles and a bit of geometry to do metal shop.
I'm just doing metal cut outs in metal shop so we'll see. I'm
illustrating the 148th Psalm. My roommate is not sure you can
illustrate a Psalm. I think it violates the Second Commandment,
but Ms. Albina says there is a long tradition of religiously
inspired art, and it means I am getting something out of reading
the Bible. Is art inspiration spiritual? Please let me know?
Love and your daughter,
Corianne
[/QUOTE]
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