Black Tuesday by Susan Colebank Page A

grudge for a day, maybe two.
    And leave her alone for a day, maybe two.
    Her living her hermit life. Ellie living her life. Where the biggest worry her sister had to deal with was “Does this shirt match these shoes?”
    â€œI’m busy.” She pulled her comforter up to her chin and turned up the volume of Three’s Company . Bad eighties TV was all she needed right now.
    Mind-numbing TV after the mind-numbing day she’d just had at the Outreach place. Learning the phone system. Being given a manual about how to talk on the phone to teenagers in crisis.
    Playing solitaire on the computer when Maria left her alone.
    Ellie opened the door to the dark room and took in the flashing lights coming from the set. “Yeah, I can see that.”
    â€œWhat do you want?” Jayne didn’t take her eyes off Jack and Janet trying to explain to Chrissy how to make toast.
    She felt something fall onto the blanket covering her legs. “I saw this in the mail. Thought you’d want to see it before Mom and Dad.”
    Ellie was already at the door by the time Jayne picked up the white envelope. She saw the green palm tree in the upper left-hand corner and knew exactly what it was.
    Crap . D-day had arrived.
    â€œDon’t know why I bothered. It’s not like you’re watching my back or anything nowadays.”
    Ellie mini-slammed the door before Jayne could say what was in her thoughts but what hadn’t quite made it to her mouth. I haven’t watched your back, you ingrate? I’d like to see where you’d be without me. Pregnant and full of STDs, that’s where you’d be!
    Whoa, where’d that come from? She didn’t hate Ellie. She just ... she just couldn’t be in the same room with her right now.
    Jayne glanced at the white envelope addressed “To the parents of Jayne Thompkins.” It was now or never.
    Before she could talk herself out of it (it being a federal felony to open someone else’s mail and all), she tore open the envelope with more force than she’d intended, ripping part of the carbon copy inside.
    Four C’s. Two B’s. A 2.3 GPA. She checked the name at the top. Maybe it was Ellie’s report card. Nope. Jayne felt like a massive hand was strangling her windpipe.
    Four C’s. And two B’s.
    Before that Tuesday, she’d had over a one hundred percent in all of her classes. But then again, it had only been a couple of weeks into the fourth quarter.
    The room around her blurred as her chest began to burn and tears raced down her face. Then she did the only thing she could think of. She started tearing up the report card into smaller and smaller pieces until it looked like confetti. Even then, she tried to tear the pieces some more.
    But she knew it wasn’t that simple. The grades were still out there, in some computer system, in some permanent record. For a nanosecond, she entertained the idea of getting someone to hack into the high school computer system.
    Yeah, Jayne, then you can have a real felony on your record.
    She picked up the shredded paper from her down comforter. Her mind wandered back to the last time she’d gotten her report card. She’d been ecstatic and had put it on her bulletin board along with every single report card she’d ever gotten.
    Ellie called the board her A-hole Award Board. Jayne hadn’t cared. It made her feel good to lie in bed and stare at the board and think about her future.
    But now? What was the future? What in the hell did four C’s and two B’s get you? A job at Mickey D’s scrubbing toilets?
    She cupped the pile of paper between both her hands and dragged herself into her connecting bathroom, the muted cream color doing nothing to calm her nerves. She dumped everything into the blue water of the toilet and flushed.
    Two flushes later, the four C’s and two B’s were gone. At least, the evidence was.

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