A Cab Called Reliable by Patti Kim Page B

flicking cigarette ashes onto my head and telling me to bend over, he said he would drive me to my junior high school every morning. When I told him some girls laughed at my green jeans, my father said that he would buy me blue ones although green was a good color. When I told him my English teacher secretly drank Scotch out of her Dr. Pepper can and often fell asleep before finishing her sentences, and Miles the janitor was caught masturbating behind the trash bins during my lunch period, and the only thing my depressed algebra teacher ever talked about was his recent divorce, and some of the older students did not yet know the difference between a noun and a verb, a prepositional phrase and its object, the subject from the predicate, and I began bleeding, my father folded the Korean Times onto his lap and told me to pack, because we would be moving to Morning Glory Way in Potomac, Maryland.
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    On Halloween, my father enrolled me in my new school, called Weston Junior High, a five-minute walk from our new home. He walked me through the main entrance, dropped me off at the door of the main office, and reminded me to turn on the rice maker when I got home. Handing me a ten-dollar bill for lunch money, he asked if I had washed my hair in the morning because it looked oily. Looking at the other students passing in the hallway, he told me my blue jeans fit well on me and that I was a smart girl. I turned the knob of the door, said good-bye, and went inside.
    When the school secretary asked what my father’s employment was, I told her he was self-employed, a proprietor of some sort, had his own business here and there. When she asked what my mother did for a living, I told her she passed away when I was three years old from cancer.
    â€œIt’s just my father and me,” I said.
    â€œYour counselor will be Mrs. Hubbel. She handles all the students whose last names begin with A through E. She’ll have your schedule. Her office is right there,” the secretary said, pointing my folder at the door with a paper jack-o’-lantern. “Once you see her, you’ll be all set for your first day.” I took my folder and waited outside Mrs. Hubbel’s office. The paper jack-o’-lantern had sharp, jagged teeth, and dangling arms and legs made from black yarn. “Honey, you can go ahead and knock. Go ahead and knock,” the secretary said, shaking her bangled wrist at me.
    After my first two weeks of school, Mrs. Hubbel got it into her head that I was a troubled adolescent and made me meet with her daily for fifteen minutes to get to the bottom of all this. I had stolen a bottle of Giorgio perfume from the gym locker of a cheerleader, whose father was the president of Woodward & Lothrop. I had written pornographic love letters to Melissa Fintz, who ate her peanut butter and apple sandwiches alone in the cafeteria while reading useless teenage love stories. During gym, I had kicked the soccer ball into Jane Jordan’s face when a game wasn’t yet in session. I had cheated on my science quiz by sitting on my notes about cumulus clouds. I had torn off birthday balloons and streamers from someone’s decorated locker. I had stolen books from the library.
    Pitchforked veins grew from the pupils of Mrs. Hubbel’s gray eyes.
    She sat me next to her behind her desk. From her leather-upholstered, swiveling recliner, she leaned down at me and said, “If you want to succeed here and in your life, you must focus, concentrate, and apply yourself. My dear, you must apply yourself. I know adjusting to a new school is difficult, but you were not meant to be a delinquent.” When I returned her advice with a blank stare, she grabbed my shoulders, shook me, and looking me straight in the eyes said, “Do you know how brilliant you are? Apply yourself.”
    She made me play games with her. Word association. When she said “blue,” I said “sky.” When