Sam slumped in her seat, ducking down into her shoulders as she folded her arms across her chest. She crossed her leg boyishly, one foot resting on the other knee while it bounced impatiently. She wasn’t exactly thrilled about any of this—getting interviewed by some hoity-toity prep academy that she wouldn’t even get into anyway was one of the very few ways to take a day off from her normal dumb-people school and make it unbearable. The only way to make it worse was that, despite her butt numbing for over three hours in the uncomfortable chairs that this dumpy little building provided, she’d been “next” for almost forty-five minutes. Nobody but that dumb bitch Stacy Hannigan could take what had more or less been a fifteen minute meeting with these prep-school snobs and stretch it out by half an hour.
Sam exhaled deeply, her shoulders rose and fell accordingly as the mournful noise left her. There were so many other things she could be doing right now that would have been infinitely more entertaining than prolonging her inevitable rejection from some stupid school she didn’t even want to go to anyway. Normally she’d be in biology class right about now, either giving Mr. Henson the business or taking a twenty minute trip to the restroom, but even going without misbehaving would have been preferable to… this. Sitting out in a waiting room with a bunch of egghead geeks and preppies with her mommy.
“Don’t worry baby, they’re almost to you.” Her mother must have misinterpreted her discontented huff as an anxious sigh, “You’re next, remember?”
“Mom, I’ve been next for an hour.” Sam rolled her big brown eyes as she slumped a little further down into her chair, “This is stupid, let’s just go.”
Sam uncrossed her skinny matchstick legs and pushed against the arms of the chair, starting upright just as her mother placed a stern hand on her shoulder. This stopped her effectively, though not before she shot her mother a dirty look. Her mother retaliated with a slight raise of her eyebrows, which elicited a discomforted noise from the rebellious teen before she slunk back down painfully into the hard plastic seat.
“Honey, don’t say that. You’re never going to know if you got in if you don’t try.” Mrs. Wilsey chastised her daughter
As soon as the words left her mother’s lips, the door creaked open as the familiar tippity-tap of Stacy Hannigan’s high-heeled shoes clacked against the floor. Sam’s arch-nemesis and preppy would-be-warmonger was a rich little bitch who loved to rub her high-class status and good grades and happy family in everyone’s faces. She was a skinny little slip with long blonde hair, a little button nose and had a stupid shit-eating grin on her face all the time. She was practically bouncing out of the doorway, clutching tightly to a pad of papers with a big smile on her stupid face. Her mother came out not long after with a similarly stupid girlish look of glee on her face. Of course that little snob got in.
Sam stared daggers at her rival. She always thought she was so smart, trying so desperately to prove to everyone that she was just so friggin’ perfect. With her good looks and her great grades and her perfect life and her big house and her nice clothes—Sam couldn’t help but hate the crap out of her.
Stacy looked over and caught Sam’s staring, waited until her mother wasn’t watching, and stuck her tongue out, pointing to the papers.
What a stupid bitch.
“Samantha Wilsey?” a matured female voice called from over the intercom…
***
Inside the interview room was just as crummy as the waiting room. It was just some little office building that was obviously rented out as needed—the posters for Buttercombe Academy were taped on with scotch tape, and the banners were hung sloppily. The actual academy was a few states over, in the mountains. Sam had read all about the Academy, courtesy of the welcome pamphlet she’d been sent upon the acceptance of her application.
Sam and her mother sat on one side of the little fold-out table while the representative from Buttercombe Academy sat on the other. She was a big woman, with frizzy blonde hair and a burgundy suit. Sam figured her to be around her mother’s age, somewhere in her late thirties. Her name was Mrs. Tuttle, and she had on too much makeup.
“So Samantha, I’d just like to ask you a few questions before we continue…” began the overdone woman that sat on the other side of the table, “It won’t take long, I promise.”
Sitting across from someone so… not Sam, Sam felt pretty ridiculous. Everyone in the room, even everyone in the waiting room, had come dressed to impress. Sam, confident that she wasn’t going to get in no matter which way she sliced it, had absolutely refused to put on her good clothes just for them to turn into funeral clothes. No dress for her—instead she’d settled for her favorite band t-shirt, a hoodie, and skinny jeans with boots. She still looked great with her short black hair and naturally pretty face; but suddenly Sam felt a shiver as Mrs. Tuttle looked her up and down… judging her.
“Why?” Sam asked gruffly, “Can’t you just tell me if I got in?”
“Just a few simple questions, I promise.” Her answer was practiced and disingenuous, Sam figured that a lot of other girls got pretty pissed at her dragging out this whole process, “I just wanted to know what made you think about applying to Buttercombe Academy? What drew you to us?”
“Dumb idea, right?” Sam’s under-the-breath response was met with a quick jab to her bony ribcage courtesy of her mother, “I-I mean, no reason. Y-You all just looked like a great…ow… school.”
“It was your English classes. Your… literary department. That’s what she keeps calling it.” Her mother said for her, the older Wilsey woman smiling almost obscenely wide, “Sam just loves to write, don’t you Sam?”
“Mom…”
“You wouldn’t believe how many times I caught her staring at that pamphlet you sent her.” Her mother continued, unhindered by her daughter’s flushing face and sopping embarrassment, “I came home from work one night and she was just sitting there on the couch, reading over it for the bazillionth time—”
“Mom!” Sam corrected a little more sternly this time
“She’s actually really interested in your Poetry Club—“
“Okay Mom, Jesus!” Sam had finally had enough and erupted into a fiery red shade of fury, “I think she gets it. I like books, okay? Now just go ahead and tell us I didn’t get in so we can go home already!”
“Samantha!” her mother’s response was equally as volatile, swatting her daughter across the breast, “I am so sorry, Mrs. Tuttle. Sam is just a little… stressed is all.”
It didn’t seem to bother Mrs. Tuttle in the slightest, her perfectly practiced smile still hung steadily between her chubby cheeks. Her eyes hadn’t so much as widened at Sam’s unscheduled outburst, apparently meaning that Mrs. Tuttle had probably seen some much more impressive tantrums in her time as Buttercombe Academy representative. She actually laughed a little, her big breasts shaking as she chortled.
“Oh it’s quite alright, I completely understand. The application process can be pretty… stressful. And it is on all of us.” She tacked on the last one with a raise of her brown eyebrows, the most display of emotion that didn’t seem to be part of her makeup, “But Samantha—Sam, would you rather I called you Sam?—I can’t help but ask… why do you think you didn’t get in?”
Why did she think she didn’t—no, couldn’t get in? Like, ever? Why couldn’t she ever get into some snooty, hoity-toity prep school? Where all the girls were smart and pretty and had trust funds and were catty bitches to everybody? Where some scruffy white trash punk like her would stick out like a sore thumb, and where everyone was just as smart as her too so she couldn’t even have that to make her stand out? Buttercombe Academy: the school for every perfect little princess with a perfect little life who got perfect grades, whose moms didn’t have to work two jobs? The school practically made for snobby bitches like Stacy Hannigan? Yeah, Sam would have fit in right well there.
“Reasons.” Sam’s voice didn’t crack, despite the lump in her throat, “I just… don’t think you’d waste your time is all.”
Sam’s anger slowly faded, and she sat back down. She didn’t take her eyes off of the representative from Buttercombe, simply sitting down in as quiet a way as possible. Her mother was silent, a different sort of silence than Mrs. Tuttle had. The two women stared at the younger girl as she took deep breaths, the redness slowly fading from her face.
“I would never waste my time, sweetie.” Mrs. Tuttle finally said, closing Sam’s manila folder and pushing it towards her, “And whatever those reasons are… I’d suggest you figure them out soon.”
Sam curled a nostril as she felt hot tears well up in her eyes. Here it comes, the final nail in the coffin…
“You’re only allowed to take so much baggage on a plane, dear.” Mrs. Tuttle said with a softer, more genuine smile, “Congratulations Samantha, you’ve been accepted into Buttercombe Academy.”   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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