Yet another new story! Woo!
Yush, yush. I'm starting a new story. here's the intro and the first chapter, hope you like^^
Situated on the corner of 21st Avenue and Vinings, the school sat deep within the lot it was built upon in 1921 behind corroding iron-wrought fences and an 8 foot tall, 2 foot thick hedge of a stone wall. To escape the school is nearly impossible and highly unheard of. For, you see, the school was created for the sole purpose of restraining, not releasing. The school had the air of something unheard of, like a hybrid animal – half the school resembled an elegant three story cathedral or manor complete with turrets, ivy, and stone while the other half of the academy bears the outlandish manifestation of a mental ward, a large white box, complete with barred, black windows, squatting between a mansion and a large, overgrown oak tree.
The two parts of the school seemed to have been fused together by an obtuse mad scientist and the result might remind you of something like Frankenstein’s monster, an awkward, perplexing thing which was never meant to exist in the first place. And yet, disastrously, it still remains at the corner of 21st and Vinings to date.
And the Institute, known for its distinct look and its dated establishment, is the renowned, prestigious, distinguished, and oh-so cavalier, Greenwich Board and Institute for Women. And this, this monstrosity of an excuse for architecture, is where our story begins and ends.
UN~~~
The smell of honeysuckle in the morning just about composes one as easily swayed by tempting smells as Adrienne Pickering to forces a smile upon her downcast face.
“Entering a new school in the middle of the year, note the word ‘middle,’ isn’t too smart of a move, mom.” Fifteen year old Adrienne Elisabeth Pickering sat fidgeting her thumbs and shifting in the passenger seat. She didn’t dare look outside at the grey day in fear of suddenly becoming sick. Cars weren’t her specialty. “Couldn’t you drive slower?”
Abree Pickering sighed and her frustration was illustrated through her tight grip on the steering wheel. “You want me to drive slower because you feel car sick…or because you want to be an hour late for orientation?”
“Both,” Adrienne closed her eyes, her forehead pressed against a cool window. The vibration of the car was a bit soothing and for a moment, just a moment, her mind was taken off her fear that mounted every inch they preceded towards her new school.
“Just a month ago you were practically on your hands and knees-”
“Oh, please, not this again–”
“– begging me to send you to Greenwich. ‘Please, mom, oh, please, please, please, can’t I go there? Why not, huh, why not? It’s not fair! Not fair in the least bit!’ you’d say over and over until my ears were ringing–”
“I didn’t say it just like that–”
“Yeah, but the whining was pretty bad.” Abree stopped to catch her breath, a small smile of victory crawled up her lips etched in light pink lipstick. “Besides, this’ll be good for you, good for your character–”
“There’s nothing wrong with my character.”
“I know, but I think you’ll come to think me one day for sending you to this school.”
Adrienne mumbled, “But I was the one who came up with the idea; therefore, I’ll be thanking myself…if there’s anything to thank myself for in the end.”
“What I’m trying to get across – and, really, Adrienne, dear, must you interrupt me every other word?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what I’m futilely trying to get across is, well, you know…back at home…we’ve had lots of little issues. At school, in the family, between the two of us…perhaps it’s just better that we spend some time apart, that you spend some time out of the house, away from your old school.”
“But…” Adrienne opened her eyes just a bit and watched rapid flashes grey cement or brick buildings and the sudden appearance then disappearance of a pedestrian or an early-morning biker slowly weaving his way about the near-empty streets. “But…” there were no ‘little issues’ between us…everything was fine, or…at least…everything seemed fine.
“Adrienne, I know what happened, “Abree said flatly, but without any signs of anger. “I know what happened, between you, you and those girls at the old school.”
Adrienne reframed from moving. She listened intently to the humming of the car and to the sound of the tires pass over cement. Pained, she watched the buildings with darkened windows flash by and the puddles the early-morning cloudbursts left sitting near the curbs.
“I know you lied to me. Your principal called that evening after she broke up the fight. Remember, you came home with that cut on your lip? I asked you what happened…you said, ‘I fell.’” Abree stopped talking for a moment, her fingers tightly wrapped around the wheel as if she were strangling some imaginary person. “I know you were defending me, defending my honor.”
Adrienne whirled around, catch off guard and helpless – emotions overflowed within her, emotions that were supposed to have remained hidden somewhere within the dark recesses of her heart. The place where she pushed all her woes and troubles to deal with later, and now a recollection of sadness had been uncovered when it shouldn’t have been.
“I know I'm a young mother. That's something I'm not proud of... But, I’m actually kind of proud of you. I know it’s wrong to fight, but I give you kudos.” Abree even smiled, un-forcedly. “I bet you gave them more than what you got.”
Adrienne glared out the window once more as the car sat still at another red light. She watched some pigeons dance around an assortment of brown crumbs a woman dressed in rags sat flicking into the air. Some of the pigeons leapt into the sky and caught the crumb before it could plunge back towards the sidewalk.
Adrienne felt like one of those crumbs, forcedly tossed into the air and then swallowed up by a pigeon. And if it weren’t that pigeon, it would have been another to swallow the morsel – no matter which pigeon ate the crumb, it, inevitably, would have been swallowed in the end. It was as if the crumbs had no way out. The road downward led to one place: inevitable death.
“No,” said Adrienne with little emotion as the car accelerated and her eyes lost contact with the old woman’s beady eyes who was busy flicking the crumbs to the ground. “No, they didn’t get hurt at all.” It was I who came out bleeding; it was I who came out broken inside – not them. They just laughed.
Abree ignored that and smiled happily. “Whatever the outcome, I’m proud of you. I didn’t know you loved me that much.”
“You’re my mom, aren’t you?” I have to love you. You’re all I’ve got left.
Abree spun the car down yet another street, a thinner street packed with cookie-cutter buildings all the same drab grey color. Clothes lines hung between curtain-clad windows and damp laundry cried droplets of water on the windshield. As Abree rolled up her window she beamed, “This transition benefits you in numerous ways, my dearest, dear, Adrienne Elisabeth Pickering! Firstly, not only is this school one of the most prestigious academies in the who north east, but you’ll also find it to be the most renowned, celebrated, and well-known school for its journalism studies! Isn’t that great, it’s what you had an interest in back at the old school, right? You’ll do so fine, you’ll go so far; Greenwich is foolproof.
Secondly, and yes the list does continue, you’ll be far, far away from all those dumb-arsesses back at the old school. You’ll be in your dorm holding you’re A++ exam paper laughing it up thinking ‘Why did I ever let them bother me? Look where I am now!’ And then you’ll phone your dearest mother, me, and say ‘Gee, mom, I’m ever so happy you sent me to Greenwich! I love you with all my heart!’
And, last but certainly not least, you’ll live the American Dream. You’ll get a fresh start, a new genesis, and a clean occasion to recreate yourself…”
Recreate…?
“…I bet you a nickel and a dime you’ll come out of Greenwich your senior year, holding up your diploma, and declaring to heavens above, ‘Nothing others say matters one bit, nothing at all! Look at me now world because here I come!’”
If only, if only…
