and it is heavily monitored. If you want to use the internet, you go to the computer lab and use the computer there, for an allotted number of hours. If you want to talk to someone on the phone, you do it using the school phone, again only during an allotted time period.
Second, if you want to go off campus, you need a permission slip from a teacher and you can only go out during an allotted time.
Now if you’re good – your grades are okay and you’ve been doing your homework and participating in activities – you get the privilege of using the computer longer than everyone else or you can go out twice a week and stay out longer and so on.
And who keeps track of things like this? The guidance counselor assigned to you that you meet with every week.
But all of this is useless to me.
Because I just started here and so I have a four-week ban on any privileges. Meaning I can’t go out no matter what. My computer usage is one hour per day and I can’t make any outgoing calls; I can only receive calls on Saturdays.
If at the end of the four-week period, my guidance counselor, who just happens to be Mrs. Miller, thinks I’m fit to be rewarded for my rule-following and hard-working ways, I might get to go out or use the computer for more than an hour.
So I write a little note of my own:
Thanks for the heads up. But since I’m on the four-week grace period, I basically have no privileges.
I hand over the note to the girl and she grabs it like I’m handing her a lifeline. I guess she’s as bored as me.
Quickly, she opens it and dives into writing a reply on a freshly torn piece of paper, which she hands me back a few minutes later:
Oh right! Sorry! I completely forgot that you’re a newb. But Miller has been known to deduct privileges in advance. She’s a biatch. Pardon my language.
I’m Calliope, by the way. But everyone calls me Callie. I’m sorry about all the stuff some of the girls are putting you through. I do gotta ask though: Is Principal Carlisle really your guardian? And are you really not a spy?
I have to smile at her note.
There’s no malice there. Not after the way I feel her looking at me with so much eagerness.
So I reply, Gotcha. No sleeping in Miller’s class. She’s actually my assigned guidance counselor too. So not looking forward to that meeting next week.
Yes, Principal Carlisle is really my guardian. My mom and her were childhood friends. She died when I was ten so me and my older sister were sent to live with her. And no, I’m really not a spy. I’m just like the rest of you guys.
Also, you’re the first person to smile at me in this place. So thanks again.
I pass the note back to her and like before, she jumps at it and devours it quickly. As soon as she’s done, she writes back.
You’re welcome! I would’ve said hi sooner but I had to be a little careful since I so don’t wanna get on the bad side of Principal Carlisle.
Yeah, I don’t blame her. Leah can be a little intimidating with all her rules and punishments and lectures and ambitions. I mean, what else do you expect from the principal of a reform school?
I, myself, am totally afraid of her and I lived with her for eight years.
But I guess she’s only intimidating to girls like us, who break the rules and are perpetually bad.
I write down my reply, feeling light for the first time in almost seven days.
It’s okay. Principal Carlisle scares me too.
A second later, her reply comes.
Right?! She is scary. Like, she never smiles. By the way, if you sit with us in the cafeteria, we’ll make sure no one will bother you.
I’m about to ask who ‘us’ is, when the bell rings and the day ends thankfully. Everyone dives down for their backpacks like they’re diving in to save their lives, which could very well be true because God, this class was killing me.
I turn to Callie, the first girl to talk to me at St. Mary’s, and say, “Thanks for having my back.”
She smiles brightly. “Of course. I’ve been there. Miller is so fucking boring.”
“Did I hear someone dissing Miller?”
This comes from a girl with black hair and glasses. She’s got a husky voice and a mischievous face,