“Stella,” he began, I rolled my eyes and looked to the floor. “As you can see for the past week your results have shown lack of effort and concentration,” he continued to ramble on as I gazed outside which was not how I first saw it, now there are screaming kids darting in and out of each other and girls linked arms with a lunch box on their wrists. “Stella are you listening to me!” Mr Coleman exclaimed, “I am trying to help you here and you are once again going off into your own world” I scoffed at him. “Any way as I was saying, I am going to inform your mother and will ask her to come visit me at school so we can discuss this.”
“She’s been to see you a couple times before and I’m not seeing any change, can I go now?” I said feeling restless.
“Yes, and don’t slam the door on your way out.” I strutted towards the door and slammed it, right in his face. A grin rose from my mouth to my rosy cheeks. When I got home later that day my mum had beat me to my room, she lent on my wardrobe, crossed arms, just as Mr Coleman did.
“Why are you late?” her face was stern and her eyes were sharply fixed on mine.
“I went to the get a hot chocolate with April.” I slumped my bag on to a beanbag and flopped on my back with my arms stretched out onto my bed. I looked up to the ceiling and then backwards to watch my mother as she traced her finger round the carved border of the wardrobe.
“Is there anything you want?” I asked, trying to edge her out the room. She looked up as if forgotten what she came for, her eyes looked worried of a moment and she shuddered, she then straightened herself up and cleared her throat.
“I got a call from Mr Coleman this afternoon”
“Already?” I said sarcastically, she stood there open eyed, appalled that I didn’t seem to care as much as she did and for interrupting her.
Hannah B Harper
“Listen Stella, I know its been hard for you, its been hard for all of us but you have to move on from it and focus on what is important,” she’s blabbering on about Dad again.
“Move on? That soon? I hope you haven’t, I would hate you if you did!” I now flopped on to my belly and buried my face into a compressible cushion. The door slammed shut and I turned my head and stared at the door and then at the place where Mum had stood.
My head fixed into the pillow, I kicked off my shoes and fiddled at my tie and flung it to the side of my bed. The house is so quiet but so tense without Dad. Every creak and every word can be heard. Even now I could hear a vauge conversation Mum was having on the phone.
“Yes five o’clock tomorrow then? Can’t wait to see you either.”
By the time she had quit chattering on the phone I had drifted off to sleep in my scratchy uniform and was soon to be woken the next morning. Another nervous day went by buttoday was especially cold and the wind whipped against my face making my eyes tear.
Today when I got home I unwrapped layers and sat by the radiator in the kitchen, I fixed myself a toasted bagel spreader with cream cheese. Mum flashed back and forth through the door way and slipped her arm through her handbag.
“Where you going?” I called after her.
“To your school, Mr Coleman wants to have a word about you, theres food in the fridge.” I got up from my stool which scrapped against the floor making a piercing sound. Opening the fridge I sneered at the leftover pizza from last night. I popped it in the microwave and watched the glowing screen.
Then the door slammed shut and I watched Mum as she swooped into the car. A buzzing then shook my glass and I reached for the tea towel which I pulled away to find Mums phone.
“MUMM” I screeched forgetting it was just me in the house. I flicked her the screen up and down, but then looked at the screen, it read ‘New message from Rick Coleman.’ I scrolled down the inbox to see almost every text was from the same Rick guy, and me. I read the unopened one, my face became blank , my stomach was eating me up.
Mr Coleman is dating my Mum.
