Sarah peeked up from behind the thick Tomato plants and she saw what she thought was one of her twin brothers. She jumped out with a loud boo. Expecting the playful laugh of a seven-year-old she was surprised to be staring face to face with a man was looking at her in a way she didn’t quite like. She stumbled backwards.
“Where are my brothers?”
“I told them your parents called them in.”
“You’re not supposed to be here.”
“I think I am, I’ve been watching you from my window. You look so lonely. I thought maybe we could get to know each other, just the two of us. You’re so pretty Sarah, you should be treated right.”
She moved back behind another table trying to keep out of his reach and circle him to the one door out of the green house. She made a break for it, and he managed to grab her. She started screaming he clamped his hand over her mouth.
“Shh, shh, I love you; I’m not going to hurt you.”
Sarah’s eyes were wide, and she tried to reach for a trawl.
“We’re going to do what boys and girls do when they love each other. You’ll see, you’ll like it.”
Sarah struggled violently she saw her face in one of the heat reflectors and her eyes flared with a green light suddenly she felt a burning in her hands. She’d never stopped screaming so when she fell to the ground, she couldn’t tell he was screaming too. Her hands had green veins pulsing through them. She crawled away and grabbed one of the hand trawls ready to hit her attacker with it, but he didn’t come after her. She had stopped screaming now and she realized he was screaming too when she turned around, she saw the plants of the green house had overgrown it and he was struggling tangled in Tomato vines they had thickened to an inch in diameter and he was slowly being strung up by them she could see his eyes bulging out of his skull as his screams suddenly stopped because he was no longer able to breath. The plants were starting to pierce his skin in places tearing it open. Sarah screamed again. The usually just annoying prickly white fibers on the plants had turned into vicious thorns. She could see the green veins in her hand growing more and more pronounced. Like they were taking her over. She didn’t stop screaming until her father burst in. He started cutting the vines with a pair of large snippers he’d use for tree hedge and small tree trimming. The plants started actively heading towards him which made Sarah scream louder. One of the vines was wrapping around his ankle. When her brothers piled in the two seven-year-olds started screaming too. Something snapped into place as she saw the plants heading towards her brothers and they suddenly stopped moving.
Sarah sat up straight in bed and she looked at her hands no veins she curled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. It had seemed so real. It only took a few brief moments for her father to burst through the door baseball bat in hand. Seeing no intruder he calmed down and checked the window. He stared at the overgrown row of flowers on the inside of her window.
“Sarah what is the matter hon?”
“Just a nightmare dad sorry.”
“Wow these plants sure love this east facing window. What are you feeding them wonder grow? You were right at dinner we’ll need to transplant them to bigger pots, maybe even move them to the green house. They’re getting too big for their pots.”
Sarah narrowed her eyes at him.
“I don’t remember saying that.”
“No, you were saying that between when you were complaining about your math test and Candace asking you why a boy was wearing a summer dress.”
Sarah sighed and laid back down.
“I’m sorry dad, just had a nightmare.”
“It’s okay, we all have them. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”
She nodded.
“Same one about the killer tomato plants chasing after us or when you were basically losing all cohesion and your molecules were bursting apart?”
She shook her head.
“This was different, there was a man in it he grabbed me…I think he was…”
She shivered.
“You ever seen him before? Maybe you saw someone, and you felt uncomfortable. You’re stressed with your Junior high graduation coming up, exams, and the bullying you don’t tell us about. You’re fourteen now I know it is happening, you aren’t from here and your accent and other things.”
“Why did we come to the states anyway? And why did we leave Minnesota, I was happy in Minnesota why did we move the Arizona its hot then it’s cold then it’s hot. Like every single day. It makes me miss the rain at least in Minnesota we got snow. And I miss playing hockey.”
“Well, you know how my job is, I had a great opportunity here. I had to take it. Your mom’s a lawyer she can pass the bar and work anywhere. And after what happened in Scotland with the family, it’s hard to… want to be there. To many memories for all of us. Go back to sleep you have a big day tomorrow. Last exam, and there is something else… what was it, I know we took the afternoon off work for it what was it, did your mom and I have a hot date…no that’s not it. There is something important.”
He shook his head.
“Sorry this old brain of mine, guess we’ll just go to work after lunch.”
Sarah hit him with one of her pillows.
“The Arizona junior varsity girls state soccer championships. Maybe it’s because they don’t call it football here old man.”
“Oh yes! You know, I think we know someone who’s the starting center-forward for one of the teams, oh it’s my daughter Sarah. MVP for the last two years running, I wonder how she’ll do if she stays up all night because she had a wee nightmare?”
He kissed her forehead. She hit him with her pillow again. He stood up and picked up his bat and moved towards her door.
“I still like hockey better!”
He laughed softly and tapped her light switch turning them off.
“Dream of rainbows and unicorns Sarah-bear.”
“Dream of football pitches and fresh Haggis daddy-monster.”
Sarah fluffed her pillows and laid back down rolling onto her side and sticking her arm under it. She stared at the unicorn poster she’d had since she was five that had traveled from Glasgow, to Minneapolis, to Phoenix in the last six years. She looked up at the poster she had of Minnesota Wild’s Captain. She still played hockey here, but it wasn’t the same. She snuggled into her pillow and looked up at the skates and decided to dream about being on the outdoor rink again with the cold wind blowing in her hair and snow falling around her.
She was in the midst of taking a slapshot to win the Scottish Independent Territories the Gold in the winter Olympics when her phone alarm started going off. She grumbled groggily and walked across the room and turned it off. It had become apparent that part of managing her raging ADHD aside from meds was to ensure she had to actually get out of bed to turn off alarms because otherwise she would just turn it off and forget to wake up. She pulled her nightgown up and plopped down on the toilet and stared at the wall for a while then snapped out of it when she heard her father calling.
“Sarah, why haven’t you started our shower yet?”
She blinked and jumped off forgetting to clean up and threw her nightgown aside and leaped into the shower and turned it on. She tied her hair up and rinsed off and sighed at herself in the mirror. Turning to the side and looking. They were looking bigger or maybe it was just in her head.
“One day I will look like a girl. When it doesn’t matter anymore. When it’s not graduation.”
She sighed and pulled on her mostly unnecessary sports bra. Then tugged on a pair of jeans and a loose-fitting shirt. She sighed again. All the extra fabric in the universe would not hide the fact she was still not hitting puberty like she should. She grabbed her school bag and tablet and rushed down the stairs she grabbed a water bottle her mother had filled with milk for her and started munching on one of the muffins from a bulk store pack. She held it in her mouth with her teeth while she hopped trying to get her runners on.
“Sarah, you’re forgetting something.”
Sarah hopped on one foot while getting her other shoe on and gave her mother a tight hug and spoke with her mouth still full of muffin.
“Love you mom.”
“In the proper Scottish Dear.”
Sarah rolled her eyes. And repeated herself in Gaelic. The muffin fell out and she caught it midair her brothers laughed. She heard pills shaking in their plastic prescription container.
“Meds dear.”
Sarah sighed putting the now half eaten muffin down on the counter and took the bottle and put two of the ADHD meds in her mouth. She went to wash it down with the milk. Her mother waved her hand. Her mother was speaking to her in Gaelic like she usually did. She was Mrs. Keep the mother tongue alive MacCloud.
“Sarah! Water, the milk will stop it from working!”
Sarah rolled her eyes took the glass of water and washed down the two pills. She kissed her mom on the cheek and grabbed her muffin and rushed out the door. She made it to the end of her driveway just as the school bus arrived. She climbed on while still eating the muffin. She held it in her mouth again she readjusted her bag and sat down in her usual spot. She then resumed eating her muffin. Candace was looking at her and whispering to Megan. Sarah put her noise cancelling headphones once she finished the muffin and started studying for her exam which she’d forgotten to do the night before. Her phone started beeping her ears and she pulled the headphones down and let then hang over her neck. She slipped her tablet in her bag. Another one of her coping mechanisms was to set her phone to vibrate when she got to the school so she wouldn’t sit on the bus like an idiot. She looked down and noticed she was covered in crumbs she dusted them off outside the bus.
“Doesn’t matter how much you rub them they’re not going to grow. Why not just cut your hair off and transition?”
Candace started laughing with Megan. Sarah clenched her fist she felt a strong hand on her shoulder. She looked down at Hana her assistant captain for the school soccer team. Hana was shorter by almost a full foot. Sarah was getting close to five foot eight.
“You wouldn’t be thinking of punching her in the face would you oh Captain?”
“The thought might have crossed my head.”
“Do that after the championship game hmm?”
“But it would feel better to do it now.”
“Yes, but then we’d lose the championship because our blonde who I swear should have been born a ginger captain and the best center-forward in the state would be in jail.”
Sarah sighed and hiked her bag up.
“Sarah, you shouldn’t let her get to you, she’s just jealous you’re better looking than her. I mean you’re like the only girl here who doesn’t need make up to pull off that kind of look here. Candace has more pimples on her face then a pig’s ass.”
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Sarah laughed at the image.
“A smile. You ready for History?”
“Am I ever?”
“Like you need to be worried about anything. I swear you cheat. You barely put effort in and there you go perfect score. I mean every time one of the teachers is like Sarah what was I just talking about, or what’s the answer to this question and they haven’t even gone over it and you just blurt out the answer like its nothing. The look on their faces is tragic.”
“No, I’m tragic. If I’m so pretty, why don’t I have a date to the graduation dance?”
“Well Sarah you’ve got what we call a resting bitch face. Boys are scared of you. Like seriously scared of you. I mean you show up at the gym, you add weights to the bar after the football players have been lifting. They think you are going to break them. Also, there is that rumor that Candace started about you liking girls.”
Sarah spun around and Hana grabbed her and spun her around again.
“Easy captain. Game first.”
“Why is she so mean? I’ve never done anything to her, actually I’ve never said more than two words to her. It wasn’t like this in Minneapolis I didn’t have to worry about what I dressed like everyone just dressed in leggings and hoodies and then parkas. No one cared who had boobs or not. People just liked me.”
“Oh dear, were back to the great true north war stories again? This is like defcon one. You need to get your head in the game. History then the real game. I want to get a second state championship before go join some shitty senior high team that thinks the ball goes in their mouth or something.”
Sarah laughed.
“Do you have a date?”
“Mmmm, I don’t want to say.”
“Oh my god you do?”
“Yes, Eddie asked me.”
“I am actually surprised he’s spent the whole year staring at you across the cafeteria and how many times has he come up to you and walked away after mumbling something?”
Hana punched Sarah’s arm.
“He’s shy, don’t make fun of him for that. Hey, I have an idea, pick a boy, tell him that if he doesn’t go to the dance with you, you’ll kick his ass.”
Sarah laughed again.
“Oh, that will not destroy any chance I have at a social life for the next fifty years at all.”
“Well, I figure you have 50/50 odds of them saying yes because they don’t have a date, or the other fifty because you scare them more than their dates. Oh oh, don’t look now guidance counselor alert. So hey, see you in warm up!”
Hana bolted and Sarah looked after whispering her friends name name harshly. Ms. Thomas was approaching, she was an older teacher, but still eager to make a difference. She was shorter than the platinum blonde teenager. Sarah plastered her best everything fine is smile on her face.
“Ms. MacCloud you have been avoiding me, on no less than five occasions I have sent you an email to discuss your future and you have said you’ll schedule something with me, well you have a spare period right now and I am free.”
“Actually, I was going to study for my history exam, in the library and I have the state championships this afternoon. I guess maybe pass my info onto my new school’s guidance counselor and I can catch up then.”
“No, we have to review how your progress with your learning disability plan to confirm the CBT and extra time you’ve been provided have helped or it needs to be reassessed next year. This is about your future, this far more important than a silly soccer game.”
Sarah’s eyes went wide.
“What are you saying Ms. Thomas?”
“I am saying that this learning plan you’ve been avoiding discussing needs to be signed off before the end of the school year which is today at two pm. Go study for your history exam I will explain to your coach why you will not be at the game.”
Sarah rushed to catch up.
“Can’t we just do it tomorrow before graduation?”
“No, it has to be today. Let this be a lesson for you for procrastinating.”
Sarah let lose a string of curse words in Gaelic. The nerve of her Guidance Counselor lecturing her on procrastinating when the thing she was procrastinating from was her ADHD adaptive learning plan ADHD is the procrastination disorder. It’s like the woman had no clue what ADHD was. She stopped and turned to Sarah with her hands on her hips.
“What was that young lady?”
“I’m sorry mom taught me to speak Gaelic first and still makes me use it all the time at home sometimes when I get flustered my brain thinks English and Gaelic comes out.”
“ADHD my left foot, that’s your problem. No wonder you struggle so much with classes having to learn two separate languages. What does she expect of you? You see ADHD is a crutch kids these days use, they peddle these drugs to you and expect them to work miracles without looking at the real causes. I’m going to write your psychiatrist and send him a piece of my mind. CBT, Vyvanse special learning plans, how about we start with making sure your taught proper American English.”
Sarah thanked those meds that Ms. Thomas was ranting about for kicking in, so she didn’t yell at the pushy guidance counselor.
“Can we just discuss the plan now?”
“I wouldn’t want your history mark to suffer Sarah.”
“I just wanted to do some practice exams and see where I was weak, I did all my studying over the week as agreed to in my adaptive learning plan.”
“Well in that case come with me. I do not understand you students getting you into my office is like pulling teeth. You have been avoiding me for this whole year and to think if we had of just talked at the beginning, we could have gotten you an extra year of learning. It’s the problem these foreign families coming to this country trying to force their children to speak the old language.”
Sarah followed her to her office all the while thinking that she shouldn’t be surprised by a woman who has a sticker that reads Keep America American being so obtuse. Sarah was used to instructors approaching her ADHD like it is a made-up learning disability. Sure, she was smart, but they did not seem to understand the amount of energy it took her to just show up to class let alone pay attention or remember to do her homework. Ms. Thomas closed her door and motioned to the seat in front of her desk.
“Sarah, we have done our best to keep you and your teachers on this adaptive learning plan, but I am just not seeing the improvement we would expect.”
She pushed her glasses up on her nose and typed a few things into her computer. She was a one finger, one key at a time person. Sarah wrapped her hands around the edges of her bag how did the woman not know how to type faster? Why was she wasting so much time? Sarah’s knees bounced and at the instant she lost all care for whatever Ms. Thomas was doing and she started thinking about the game she has coming up. She was snapped out of her train of thought when Ms. Thomas hit her desk with a book.
“Excuse me young lady, we are in a meeting. I’m using my valuable time to help you, the least you can do is pay attention.”
“Sorry Ms. Thomas, I was using the time to go over my history essay topics for the exam.”
“When you are in a meeting with someone you should be paying attention to them and not what is coming up after the meeting. Now, where was I? Oh yes.”
She adjusted her glasses and began key hunting again with two fingers. She pressed enter like typing stuff into the computer was a great achievement.
“Ah yes, now you see that is what… You have almost straight A’s. Why do you even have a learning plan? I don’t understand. Let’s just see what the teachers have to say.”
She went back to key hunting with two fingers Sarah’s grip on her bag tightened. She felt like she was going to die of old age before Ms. Thomas looked up one of her teacher’s comments let alone all of them.
“Mmhmm, mmhmm, I don’t understand why you were even allowed to have this Adaptive Learning plan. You have exemplary marks, but these comments certainly do describe you: Sarah is brilliant, if she would apply herself, she would be getting A+’s, the only A+ here is gym class. And mmhmm, if she learns to apply herself, she could get herself an athletics’ scholarship to any school in the country. And Your Math, B, Sarah doesn’t apply herself, I feel that if she would pay better attention in class be an A or A+ student she seems to know more about math then I do, but she doesn’t apply her knowledge. She should have been on the Mathiletes squad this year not wasting her time with Hockey. So basically, you are wasting your potential and this Adaptive Learning plan Ms. MacCloud. What I see here is laziness and us giving you more excuses to be lazy. You will not be able to ride your natural talent and smarts all the way through the four-year high school plan you’ve signed up for. And college, this kind of behavior is out of the question. Wasted potential that’s what all your teachers say about you. So young lady, first off, this.”
She lifted up the adaptive learning plan her parents had worked out with her doctor and the board of education and a real guidance counselor had created.
“Is a crutch you don’t need, I’m going to vehemently recommend against it being continued next year, there are students that need these extra resources and obviously you don’t, and you are going to need to stop being lazy and using this ADHD diagnosis as a crutch, it is a made-up disability and has no place in our psychological textbooks. You should also stop taking the medication. Terrible for you.”
Sarah was getting close to tears. All the hard work her parents and she had put in over the last three years was getting torn away from her. She was glad for the meds that were apparently terrible for her because she felt like if she didn’t have them, she’d be in complete tears now and yelling obscenities at this old lost in the past busy body. Instead, she just pushed her building rage down into her gut and nodded.
“You don’t need this, Sarah. Or the drugs, you are fine, the doctor is just pushing these drugs on you, it’s not your fault you’re just a child. We’ll get this all straightened out. And I’ll be sure to mention on my notes here that your mother should not be filling your head with dead languages. Let’s make a clean break get you out of this place where these doctors are telling you something is wrong with you and it’s not”
She tossed the adaptive learning plan in the garbage. As it hit the bin the computer screen sparked and flashed as did the computer. Sarah jumped back and so did Ms. Thomas.
“Oh my, I don’t think that’s supposed to happen.”
The smoke started to seep out of her computer and the smell of burned electronics filled the air. Ms. Thomas grabbed a fire extinguisher and sprayed the computer. Sarah opened the door.
“Well, I’ll have to go find another computer to make my notes. I guess we’re done for now. Good luck on your exam and Go Bobcats.”
Sarah nodded she wasted no time getting out of the office and to the library. She found an isolated study desk and she found herself grabbing the edges of it and having a mini-panic attack. She was sobbing now and gasping for air she reached for her phone and dialed her dad. When he picked up his phone, he seemed to know something was wrong immediately.
“Sarah-Bear, what happened?”
“Dad, Ms. Thomas is taking away my adaptive learning plan, she says I can’t take the ADHD meds anymore and that I’m just lazy. That ADHD is made up… and…that I’m taking up resource’s others need. I’m going to fail out of school next year and… and…”
Tears were streaming down her cheeks.
“Shh, shh, Ms. Thomas can’t do that, hon, the board of education signed off on it. She has no say in it. She has no right to make you feel bad because you have a learning disability.”
Sarah was gasping for air and still sobbing. She could feel the world closing in on her.
“Sarah hon, Sarah, listen to my voice. You don’t need to panic, everything is fine, if they try to take it away from you, your mom will sue the pants off of them and get that fud fired. Just remember your breathing for Karate, slow breath in, slow breath out.”
Sarah started to breath in and out trying to force herself to maintain a calm pace.
“That’s good Sarah, that’s good. Center yourself. There is nothing you cannot do if you center yourself and focus on the task at hand.”
“Now what were you supposed to be doing?”
“Studying for my history exam.”
“Good now keep breathing like that, get your tablet out and what was the exam on today?”
“The Civil War.”
“And have you already written the answer to one of the essay topics you’re supposed to be answering?”
“Aye.”
She could hear someone calling his name through the line. Her father must have put his hand over the microphone because she could barely make out give me five.
“Sorry I’m such a bourach dad. You go ahead.”
“We’re not done, What’s next?”
“I read my essay answer a few times so I know my main points so I can write out again.”
“Aye Sarah-Bear. I love you.”
“I love you dad.”
“Good luck on your exam, and Sarah-Bear?”
“Aye dad?”
“You’re a champ, no one can take that away from you, go get ‘em!”
“Aye Dad.”
She hung up her cell phone and wiped her tears up and she did just what they’d talked about and pulled out her tablet and she started reading the essay she had written. Not that she cared about the Second Battle of Bull Run or anything about the civil war that the Americans that seemed so consumed by. The exam was a formality for her. Her teacher was obsessed with the different battles of the civil war and when he would debate tactics and they would do the reenactments with miniatures he would call enriched learning she would poke holes in strategies used during the war. She would often challenge herself to see how the south could have won, not that she preferred their outlook at all, she considered them racist scum, but they were the losers so it was fun to see if she could make them winners. Her history teacher was often infected by her tangents. She had impressed him with her apparent knowledge of the civil war, and she’d managed A+ on all her assignments. If she didn’t write the exam she’d get a B-, if she did write it and got a C she’d end up with an A in the class anyway.
She’d always done that. Strategize it is what made her such a formidable sports player, she had the physical ability, but it was her mind that won most of the games. Each play was and interaction was another game to win, another person to outsmart on the field of…battle. It was the same with Karate and her Kung-fu lessons. She usually won not because of her superior physical ability and size but because she would outsmart her opponent. One of her instructors once joked she must have grown up reading the art of war. She looked back down to the essay. She was curious if the strategy she had decided would be better for the Union to follow would have been successful, so she used her allowance to buy a silly civil war strategy game and painstakingly recreated the battle. She was able to prove she would have won if she was the Union general, at least based on the simulation the game had. Of course, she’d also ended up having to use her adaptive learning plan’s extra time to hand in an essay for English that she had written the day after it was due.
She stopped in the girl’s bathroom to wash her face and try and get rid of the redness in her eyes from her crying fit. She looked at herself in the mirror. She tugged her shirt down and pulled her long platinum blonde hair back in a ponytail end wrapped an elastic around it. Her eyes were weird it was the thing she liked least about herself. They had a strange almost silver color to them. They didn’t look natural, and everyone assumed she was wearing contacts. She filled her water bottle up and turned to leave and was face to face with Candace, Megan and Sabrina. The three loved to bully her she wondered what the insult would be this time.
“You know the transgender bathroom is two doors down. It’s the one with the picture of a broom on the door.”
Sarah was once again thankful for the meds she just stood up straighter and walked past them. She’d engaged them in the past and it had just escalated things. She had decided then the best course of action in this battle was to not engage them.
“Doesn’t matter how far you stick your chest out; You still look like a boy.”
They giggled and laughed. Sarah just closed her eyes and moved on. She picked up an exam from her teacher’s desk who looked up at her.
“I’m eager to read your essay.”
“You won’t fail me if I disagree with your statement for it will you?”
“No, but I mark you down a few grades.”
He laughed.
“You have such an asymmetrical way of looking at warfare. Let’s hope Scotland never invades the US hmm?”
Sarah laughed.
“Please, you lot would surrender the minute we lifted our kilts.”
He chuckled.
“Good luck with game. I know you won’t need it on the exam.”