is it!” I know she’ll be in a lot of trouble, mostly from her father. Her mother is just the warm-up. Her parents used to live in rural India, and life is just entirely different there for girls. Shayla says they think she is the Devil sometimes.
“Whoa,” I tease when her mom walks away. “You’re in shit.”
“Shut up,” Shayla replies, punching me in the arm.
Our two mothers sit beside each other. They look so different. Shayla’s mom is in a business suit, with the blazer folded on her lap. My mom is wearing a jean jacket and thick-soled flip-flops. Her nails are painted pink with swirly butterfly designs on both big toes. My friends think I’m lucky to have such a cool mom, but they don’t have to live with her. Sometimes I’m proud how beautiful and young she looks. People always question my mom about her being a model, and then they look at me and shut their mouths because I’m just average pretty. She used to try to get me to wear feminine, tight clothes like her, but we just don’t have the same body. And most of the time I find her taste tacky anyway, a cross between that bold, gold Québécois jewellery and Brazilian bling.
“They were all smoking marijuana,” Ms. Brentworth explains to our moms when we are finally called into her office.
“You mean each girl had a joint in her hand?” Suddenly my mother’s mood has changed. It seems she is no longer mad at me. It seems she’s now pissed off at Ms. Brentworth. I want her to shut up. Shayla’s mom isn’t saying a thing. She just sits in her chair like a normal parent, looking humiliated and furious.
“No. Actually. Only Melissa and Shayla had the joints in their hands. That’s part of the reason why they are here now and the other girls were sent home.”
My mom darts me a disappointed look. Not because I had the joint in my hand but because I ruined her plan of attack. “And the other part of the reason?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You said that’s part of the reason,” my mother persists. Why is she being so confrontational?
Ms. Brentworth opens her desk drawer and removes a plastic bag full of a few hundred empty dime bags.
“What’s that?” Shayla’s mom asks.
“Well. It’s a few hundred Baggies, suggestive of trafficking purposes.”
“You had that?” Shayla’s mom turns to her. “What are you doing with that? You selling drugs? Is that what you’re doing when you’re out at night? Is that what’s been happening right outside my home, in the park?” Her mom really lays into her. Shayla keeps her head down, I’m sure humiliated that I’m witnessing the public lynching.
“Ms. Jaya …” Brentworth interrupts. “We don’t think Shayla and Melissa are drug dealers. But we do wonder why they had this paraphernalia in their possession. We also are extremely concerned about the amount of marijuana brought onto school property. We have discretionary expulsion and notification of police in matters of trafficking. But since we haven’t caught the girls in the act of selling, we’re going to suspend them for five days for being under the influence of illegal drugs on school property. We are also going to suspend them for another five days for possessing illegal drugs.”
“Ten days? What good is keeping them out of school for ten days going to do?” my mom pipes in. “Guess what they’ll do during that time? Because it ain’t gonna be school work.”
“Please understand, Ms. Sullivan. We need to ensure our school is a safe place for all attending students. It is highly concerning to have students bringing drugs onto school property, and using them. We have an obligation to terminate the behaviour. Sometimes it’s necessary to involve the police.”
“For a little bag of weed?” My mother laughs. “Come on, Ms. Brentworth. We all experimented when we were young—”
I bury my head in my hand. What is she doing? Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!
“But we know Shayla and Melissa have the potential to be positive peer influences,” Ms. Brentworth masterfully interjects, shutting my mom right up. “They both have good leadership potential, if channelled in the right direction.”
We listen to the radio on the car ride home. My mom seems pretty happy. She doesn’t ask me about the drugs—whose they were or what we were going to do with them. Then, at a stoplight, she turns down the radio and I prepare myself for the lecture. “Listen. I know you smoke sometimes, Melissa.