What Do You Think, Jenna?

Miss Teak was doing Review. Ughhh! Re meant again. View meant to look at something. They were going over fractions a second time. Jenna was bored since she did a lot of hard, “orange page” homework with fractions. Sometimes Miss Teak gave her harder math work in class too, but Jenna was supposed to do the same thing as everybody else today.

Instead she stared at the posters on the wall.

Her favorite chart was about science. She had to work hard to remember the words: SCIENCE and SCIENTIFIC and METHOD. She always asked Miss Teak about the poster at recess. Jenna loved it when her teacher did science experiments. She was amazed that they worked all the time. She halfway expected the experiments to be a trick, but they worked. Her favorite was when they used batteries, wire and a tiny light bulb to create a “circuit” and make the bulb light up.

She did some serious daydreaming, imagining herself in a lab, working with wires and mixing things together and creating new inventions. She would stare at the poster and think about herself, getting her name in the newspaper or being on TV because she was a famous inventor.

“What do you think Jenna?” asked the teacher.

Jenna glanced around. Nobody had their math books out any more except her.

A couple of kids laughed. Miss Teak shushed them. She had a good “teacher stare,” that angry, crazy look teachers use to get kids to behave. She used it on the students who were giggling, and then she turned toward Jenna and used it on her.

Neva leaned over and whispered something about taking out her science book.

Jenna tried to make her homework perfect that night. She wrote extra long answers on all her work and made up extra problems on the back of the math sheet.

Mr. Dan and Miss Laurie were going over his lines from the play. This time Miss Laurie was pretending to be the other person. Jenna was a little jealous. She must have walked in and interrupted too many times because they sent her to bed at 8:30 instead of 9:00.

I didn’t get time to read, thought Jenna. She walked past Miss Laurie and Mr. Dan’s room and glanced inside. On a bookshelf was the gadget that would give her the power to do what she wanted. She had seen Miss Laurie use it at night when Mr. Dan fell asleep early.

It was a book light.

It hooked to the back of a book and cast a tiny flicker of a light on the page you were reading. She heard Mr. Dan speak in his actor voice, “You stole it, didn’t you?”

Jenna shuddered a little. Did they know what she was thinking? No, they couldn’t. He was just saying lines from the play.

Jenna tiptoed into the room and reached up on the shelf. She swiped the book light and hurried into the hallway.

When she got to her room, she grabbed her book and practically dove under the covers. Once under the “tent” created by her sheet she flicked on the light and opened her book. She fumbled with the clip and after a minute made it stay on the back of the book. She opened Shadow Island and instead of turning to the last place she read, found something that happened earlier in the book, one of her favorite parts. Nick and his sister were in trouble. Mr. Bouchard, the headmaster, was a creepy guy who had totally white hair, pink skin and red eyes. Nick was in trouble, and Mr. Bouchard wore an evil smile and promised that Nick and his sister would do the “dirty work.”

Mr. Bouchard took an ancient looking silver bottle out of his coat pocket.

“What are you doing?” Nick demanded. “What is that?”

“Spanking powder,” he said.

“Spanking powder?!” Nick said.

“If you recall, I said you would do the dirty work. With a little help from the spanking powder you will whip yourselves!” And before my sister and I knew what was happening he poured a healthy amount in the palm of his hands and blew, smattering us with a blinding cloud of powder.

Immediately our arms went to work. I never received a worse paddling in my life, and I gave it to myself. My arms were working at superhuman speed. Amanda was whacking herself as hard as I was.

“I used double the usual amount,” cackled the headmaster.

Exhausting ourselves, our arms stopped working, and we collapsed to the ground, in pain.

She felt for a moment like Miss Laurie or Mr. Dan would blow the spanking powder on her. She didn’t know what a spanking would be like. She had never received one. A couple of Mom and Dad’s friends like Rob said they would slap her for having such a “smart mouth,” but it had never happened.

She was being a bad girl. Do I deserve to get slapped or spanked, she wondered.

I’ll put the book light back tomorrow she told herself.

Am I a bad girl for not making something up about Miss Laurie?

Jenna started to get a headache, so she turned off the book light and went to sleep.

They were doing volunteer reading in class. A kid read part of a story and picked somebody who hadn’t had a chance yet. At first nobody wanted to call on her. Jenna’s face grew red. They think I can’t read, thought Jenna. I’ll show them!

Then, Valeria spoke, “Jenna’s turn.”

Uh oh, where are we? Jenna thought. She scanned the page and thought she found the right spot. “I love you,” Jenna read.

Some of the kids laughed. Jenna glanced around. Neva whispered, “You are at the right spot.”

Good, thought Jenna. They just laughed at I love you. Jenna grinned too. She kept reading, “’I love you,’ said Grandma. ‘I love you as much as the biggest star in the sky.’ Then, Grandma picked up the little girl and gave her a hug.’”

“Jenna,” interrupted Miss Teak. “Time to pick a new volunteer.” Jenna heard a few hushed whispers like, “She’s good,” and “She can read,” and “Wow, Jenna!”

Don’t smile, she told herself. Act like it’s no big deal.

But it was a big deal. She was proud of herself.

Jenna looked around. Colton squirmed in his seat. He could read some, but he probably wasn’t paying attention.

“Colton,” said Jenna. “Do you want to start with, Let’s go to the park?

Colton glanced up. He stared for a moment, looked down at his book and read, “Let’s go to the park.”

Jenna stared at the science poster again. If I could only be a famous scientist, she thought.

“Jenna!”

It was a woman’s voice. She looked up and saw Miss Marken, the principal. She wore a suit and high heels. The only thing that looked out of place on her was her hair. It was brown and frizzy at the ends.

“Jenna,” she repeated. “Please come with me.”

Jenna stood up slowly and put her books inside her desk.

“Leave your books where they are,” said the principal. “Let’s go. Now.”

Jenna didn’t like leaving a mess on her desk. It made her feel a little shaky inside. She followed Miss Marken into the hallway.

She and the principal walked into an office. Sitting at a desk was that awful woman, Miss Ortiz, the one who took her from Mom and Dad. Miss Ortiz looked at some papers and told Miss Marken, “You can go now.”

Jenna heard the principal’s footsteps and heard the door close. It sounded like a huge thud. She heard her heart pounding. Miss Ortiz glanced up from her papers.

“How have you been?” said the woman.

Jenna felt her throat tighten. She swallowed hard. She didn’t know what to say.

“Do Mr. and Mrs. Hernandez treat you well?” asked the woman.

Jenna’s eyes grew wide. She meant Miss Laurie and Mr. Dan. Why would she ask this?

“Uh yeah,” she mumbled. “They are nice.”

“What kind of things do you do together?”

“Miss Laurie and I got to be twins,” said Jenna. The corners of her lips curled up in a smile.

“Twins?” asked Miss Ortiz.

“We bought the same shirt. “We can dress alike.”

“Do you miss your Mom and Dad?” asked the lady.

“Yes!” said Jenna. “When I go back to them I can show them I can read.”

“Your Father told us what you said,” Miss Ortiz said.

Jenna squinted. What was this crazy woman talking about?

“He alleged…”

“What’s a ledge?” asked the girl.

“Allege is when you say somebody did something… something they should not do.”

Jenna imagined lots of things going wrong. She saw them in her mind: swiping the book light, not paying attention in class, tearing up the plastic horse given to her by…

Dad.

She could almost hear her father’s voice.

“Be a good girl, and make something up.”

And…

“If these people are mean to you, they might send you home.”

She got that sick feeling in her stomach again, like a fist was squeezing her insides and making them ache. Don’t cry, she told herself. You can cry later.

Miss Ortiz said, “Your father says that you told him that Miss Laurie and Mr. Dan hit you.”

It was a shock. Her stomach stopped hurting, and her eyes grew wide.

Jenna tilted her head back and laughed. Mr. Dan had to struggle to get on stage and act like a tough guy, and Miss Laurie would not swat flies. She opened the door and chased the pests out of the house.

Miss Ortiz frowned. Jenna stopped laughing. She looked down at the ground and thought, I guess I’m not going to be a good girl after all.

Miss Ortiz asked her again, only she asked in a different way. Jenna shook her head no.

Jenna said, “Dad is going to be mad at me.”

Not looking up, Miss Ortiz asked, “Why will he be angry?”

“He told me to be a good girl and make something up,” said Jenna.

“I think you are a brave little girl,” said Miss Ortiz.

“I don’t feel very brave,” she thought. She felt guilty, she felt scared and most of all she felt confused.

Her mouth started twitching. She had to ask, “If I said yes, would you have let me go back to live with Mom and Dad?”

Miss Ortiz’ eyes grew wide. “Is that what Mom and Dad told you?”

Jenna squirmed in her seat and said nothing.

Miss Ortiz put a hand on her shoulder, and said, “Jenna, you would have been placed in a different foster home with a different family. Your Mother and Father would still have to work their program.”

Those words again: work their program. They had to go to classes and do things to get her back.

Jenna looked Miss Ortiz in the eye and said, “Are they working their program?”

Miss Ortiz’ mouth opened, but she said nothing.

Jenna spoke instead, “That means no, doesn’t it?”

“I can’t talk about that,” Miss Ortiz answered.