TriNovel Chapter 162 - 162: Rebellion
Chapter 162 - 162: Rebellion
Mikaela approached the driveway of her house, and spotted the familiar BMW M5 and Lamborghini Aventador."Daddy's here!" she whispered in excitement, as she parked her bicycle and hurried to the front porch.
"Daddy?" she asked, letting herself in.
"Hey there, Princess," said Ivan, meeting her at the door.
"Daddy!" she squealed, hugging him tightly.
"You're growing bigger every time I see you," chuckled Ivan, returning her hug, and realizing that Mikaela was developing under her oversized hoodie and jeans.
"Mikaela, go wash up. Dinner will be ready soon," said Annette sharply.
"Go freshen up. I've got some big news," said Ivan, and Mikaela eagerly bounded for her bedroom.
---
Mikaela came down to raised voices - mostly Annette's.
"No! No! No! Absolutely not! I don't care if it means losing alimony, Ivan! I am not sending Mikaela to that horrible school that is St. Ignatius Academy!" shouted Annette.
"We both know exactly what happened Annette, or are you still under the delusion that Sarah Clarke was an upstanding citizen? Actually, scratch that. I don't care if you still believe that, Ignatius is no longer the same school it was years before. It's under new management now," said Ivan.
"I don't care Ivan! Mikaela will not be going to a private school that charges thirty grand a year for turning her into a vapid society girl in the name of education!" screamed Annette, her eyes wild.
She noticed Mikaela, and sprang towards her.
Mikaela felt herself smothered inside Annette's hoodie, and could feel Annette heaving with sobs.
"Please! Please! You can't take Mikaela away from me! I want her to have a normal life! Don't send her away to that school!" wailed Annette.
Ivan and Stefan stood up.
"All right Annette. You win. I won't ask Mikaela to transfer to St. Ignatius," said Ivan, deep sadness in his voice.
"Mom, I can't breathe," Mikaela finally managed to say, as she tried to free herself from Annette's hug.
Annette let go of her and slumped to the floor, tears rolling down her cheeks.
"I'm sorry, Princess. I wanted to tell you that I was going to set up a transfer for you to attend St. Ignatius Academy after summer break, but your mom doesn't want that," said Ivan.
"It's OK, Daddy," said Mikaela, deciding to suppress her own wish.
"I'll see you on our next supervised visit, Mikaela. Be good for your mom, OK?" said Ivan, giving Mikaela a warm hug.
"OK, bye Daddy," said Mikaela, a pain she didn't know she could feel, eating at the pit of her stomach.
Annette calmed down and breathed huge sighs of relief as the rumble of Ivan's BMW and Stefan's Aventador faded.
"Happy now?" asked Mikaela, here blue eyes dead.
"What are you talking about?" asked Annette.
"Please. I'm sick of drama. I'm not going to St. Ignatius, and stuck in the dump, let's have this dinner and get the day over with," said Mikaela, bitterness pouring out of her.
Annette pursed her lips, but decided to ride out Mikaela's tantrum instead of escalate it.
---
Mikaela sat in her room, hugging the teddy bear Ivan had given her for Christmas, and shedding silent tears.
After meeting Adelaide, she was sure that St. Ignatius was the place for her, and had come home eager to look it up.
What she hadn't expected, was for Ivan to have wanted to enroll her himself, and for Annette to throw an absolute tantrum over it.
The pang of fear, that had made her decide to stay at Boston Public school to placate her mother, had morphed into a deep, and intense anger.
"Mom, no. Ms. Petra, is going to regret every single moment," she whispered, as her tears stopped.
She got off her bed, stripped down, and looked at herself in the mirror.
For the first time, she really looked at herself, taking stock of the changes her body was going through.
A desire to burn every oversized and shapeless piece of clothing that she owned bubbled up in her, but she repressed it with an iron will.
"One step at a time," she told herself.
She changed back, sat on her bed, and reached for her phone.
"Hey, Adelaide, it's Mikaela, can you give me some clothing advice? I'm sick of hoodies," she typed into her messaging app.
"Hey Mikaela! Sure! What kind of styles are you looking for?" came Adelaide's response.
"What was that you were wearing today called? It looked pretty," texted back Mikaela.
"It's called a skirt-suit, but you really have to have grown up a bit for you to pull it off," came Adelaide's response.
"I am growing, I got my periods over winter break, and I'm getting fat no matter how much exercise I do," texted back Mikaela, somewhat annoyed at being treated like a kid from somebody not that much older than her.
"OK, TMI, If you're free next weekend, we could go shopping together," came Adelaide's offer.
"That's cool. I'll make sure of it," texted Mikaela, before she realized that she didn't have any allowance.
She clicked on Ivan's name in the messaging app.
"Daddy? Can you set up an allowance for me? I actually made a new friend today, and we're going shopping next weekend, but the whole mom getting mad at St. Ignatius stopped me from telling you," she texted.
"An allowance? Sure. I'll walk you through accessing your account. But first, does this friend have a name?" came Ivan's reply
"She said her name was Adelaide, we met while I was biking today," texted back Mikaela.
"I see, does this Adelaide have blonde hair, and ride in a Stormkreuzer with a young man named Axel by any chance?" came Ivan's reply.
"You know her?" texted Mikaela back, brimming with excitement.
"Yes, and I approve. I'll send you instructions to access your allowance account now," came Ivan's reply.
Her anger fusing with rebellious excitement, Mikaela eagerly followed the instructions Ivan sent her to set up her phone payments app and account.
---
"What's gotten into this girl," grumbled Annette, as she impatiently rang the doorbell of Edward's house across the street.
"Morning, Annette. Care for some breakfast?" asked Ruth, opening the door.
"Mikaela! We're getting late for school," admonished Annette, brushing past Ruth to find Mikaela sitting with Edward, eating a breakfast of sausages, eggs and toast.
"Yeah, yeah I'm coming," said Mikaela, wiping her mouth with a napkin, and taking her plate to the kitchen sink.
"Leave the plate in the dishwasher, Mikaela," chuckled Edward.
"Thanks for breakfast, Captain Hawkins," said Mikaela, picking up her backpack.
"Why didn't you tell me that you were having breakfast here? What am I going to do with the scrambled tofu now?" demanded Annette.
"Toss it," said Mikaela nonchalantly brushing past Annette.
Annette grabbed Mikaela by the arm.
"What's with the attitude?" she demanded.
"Let go!" screamed Mikaela, and Annette flinched back in surprise.
"Don't ever touch me again, Ms. Petra," said Mikaela, putting some distance between her and Annette.
"What's gotten into you?" asked Annette, now looking genuinely worried.
"From start of school, to end of school. We are not mother and daughter. You are Ms. Petra, the seventh grade homeroom teacher, and I'm just another student. Got that?" asked Mikaela.
"Mikaela, we're getting late. I'm in no mood for this right now," said Annette wearily.
"Then get going. Captain Hawkins, can you give me a ride to school?" asked Mikaela.
"I'll give you a ride. It's on the way to my office anyway," said Ruth, coming between Annette and Mikaela.
"Teen angst, Annette. Just let it go, OK? We can deal with it in the evening," she whispered to Annette, laying an arm on her shoulder.
"Teen angst. From a ten-year-old," sighed Annette.
"Come on, Mikaela. Let's get you to school," said Ruth, picking up her car keys.
---
"Ms. Washington, I have questions about this grade," said Mikaela, cornering Maria after the class.
"Sure Mikaela," said Maria, sitting back down.
"I checked each of these math questions. They're all correct right?" asked Mikaela.
"Yes they are," said Maria.
"Then why am I graded a C?" asked Mikaela.
"Because of this," said Maria, deciding not to sugar coat the issue, and showing Mikaela the privilege weighting grade card that she was forced to use.
"What's this?" asked Mikaela, scanning the rows of names, and the cryptic weights attached to them.
"Let me first tell you, that I hate doing this, but I'm forced to by the principal and everybody else," said Maria.
"OK, so what is it?" asked Mikaela.
"It checks privilege. If you're from a certain place, have parents who earn certain amounts of money, and a bunch of other stuff that I absolutely hate, and don't agree with. Your grade gets docked, so that those kids who don't have those things can compete," said Maria.
Mikaela's hands shook in fury.
"Let me get this straight. Are you saying, that this dump doesn't care if I work my butt off? It only cares that my mom is a teacher here, and that I live in Pine Springs? And that's why I'm supposed to get a C, while some idiot from the Projects can coast?" she asked.
"For what it's worth. You're the only kid smart enough to see through this," said Maria, deep sadness in her voice.
Mikaela seized the red ballpoint pen from the teacher's desk and drew a line across her math test paper, tearing it in fury.
"How about you just give me a D minus and call it a day? Why even bother checking if what I wrote is right or wrong?" she screamed, and ran out of the classroom.
---
Mikaela stepped out of the bathroom cubicle, after calming down from crying.
She started in surprise to see Maria come out of a cubicle as well, her eyes also red from crying.
Maria knelt down in front of Mikaela and took her hands in hers.
"I'm so sorry Mikaela. I tried to object, but was told I could either follow it, or be fired," she said softly.
"I... I know you're not that mean, Ms. Washington. I get that it's a crappy rule," said Mikaela, unable to stay angry at Maria.
"Come on, let's get out of here," said Maria, taking Mikaela by her hand, and leading her out of the bathrooms.
"So, what other crappy rules do you have to follow or be fired? I'd like to be prepared," asked Mikaela.
"Well, I was told to stop wearing my dresses, because it was distracting the boys, and I pushed back on that saying the school does not have a dress code policy, so I could wear whatever is deemed professional," chuckled Maria.
"How is it a distraction for boys?" asked Mikaela.
"Well, just like how your body is changing as you get older, boys go through changes as well. They stop seeing girls as annoying, and start seeing them as pretty," said Maria.
"The doctor whom I went to said the same thing. Why is that?" asked Mikaela.
"Well, that's how it works, which is why people fall in love, get married and have kids," said Maria.
"Yeah, well. My parents didn't get the memo. They're always fighting," grumbled Mikaela.
Maria just nodded as they walked out to the school parking lot.
Ruth was waiting for Mikaela, standing by her red Tesla.
"Want to come home with me? Or have you made up with your mom?" asked Ruth.
"Coming home with you," said Mikaela, opening the front passenger door.
"She just found out about the grading system. Be warned," said Maria.
"Oh, I'll be careful," said Ruth, and got into the driver's seat.
"Ms. Hirschfield, can you sue the school or something about the grading system? It's totally unfair," asked Mikaela.
"We did, and we lost," said Ruth, as she drove them back home.
"Why?" asked Mikaela.
"Because the school argued that it works. It helps kids from poorer and more dangerous neighborhoods pass and get into college to escape their situation. That's how it's supposed to work, but things rarely work the way they're supposed to," sighed Ruth.
"I don't get why my mom wants me stuck here instead of going to St. Ignatius," said Mikaela.
"She's worried you'll turn into a spoiled brat, asking for ponies and looking down on everyone," chuckled Ruth.
"Hmph! Daddy teaches there, and has way more money than he lets on, and he's still nice to everyone," said Mikaela.
"Yes, well. Not everyone is like your father. Trust me on that. I've seen rich guys treat people like absolute dirt," said Ruth grimly.
---
"Mikaela, you've got homework, come on," said Annette, marching into Edward's house to find Mikaela sitting in the living room, playing a video game on his TV.
"Why should I bother? I'm getting a C because I'm privileged according to your crappy rules, so my time is better spent doing what I want," said Mikaela, working the game controller as she played the racing game.
Annette stood in front of the TV, blocking Mikaela's view.
"Mikaela, I'm going to tell you nicely, one last time. Get your privileged butt home, and do your homework, or your privilege of leaving the house gets revoked. Permanently," said Annette, her voice shaking in fury.
"Fine," groused Mikaela, getting up from the couch and trudging to the door.