Read Laurinda for Free Online Page B

Winona Ryder appeal, she was more the Nicole Kidman kind of pretty, the kind that only other girls made a fuss about. She had curly doll hair and pink cheeks, as if someone had slapped her twice. She looked like one of those imitation Franklin Mint porcelain dolls, with the features painted a couple of millimetres above the grooves – the ones that would turn on you when you went to sleep at night.
    When Ms Vanderwerp handed her the correct document and requested the Year Eight outline back, Chelsea showed Ms Vanderwerp that she had torn it into four pieces.
    How had she managed that, I wondered, when I hadn’t heard the sound of paper ripping?
    “Chelsea White!” scolded Ms Vanderwerp. “Now, tell me, why on earth did you do that?”
    “You gave us the wrong class outline, Ms V,” Chelsea replied innocently. “I didn’t think you needed this anymore.”
    “Well, I did need it!” protested Ms Vanderwerp. Next to me, Amber Leslie was calmly peeling her cuticles. Ms Vanderwerp had been the careless one, and Chelsea was making her pay.
    That was when I learned a very important early lesson: here at Laurinda, mistakes meant annihilation.

A t recess, I was called to Mrs Grey’s office. I had not spoken to her since our “interview” almost a month before. Her office was as bare as when I had first seen it, and when I sat down, I had the curious feeling that I should have asked her for permission.
    “So, Miss Lam. How are you finding your first day?”
    “Fine,” I replied.
    “You know, you are our inaugural Equal Access student,” she said. “That means you are the first one we have ever had.”
    “Yes, Mrs Grey,” I answered.
    “You are aware that Laurinda is making a big investment in you? In committing to fund your education for the next three years, we are gambling on an unknown quantity.”
    “Yes, Mrs Grey.” And then, “Thank you, Mrs Grey.”
    “What does your father do?” she asked me point-blank.
    I was appalled by the directness of her question – and by how much adults thought they could get away with when they were dealing with minors and there was no one else in the room.
    “Dad works.”
    “Where?”
    “At Victory.”
    “What’s that?”
    “A carpet factory.”
    “What about your mother? Home duties?”
    I nodded. I didn’t want to tell her about the sewing.
    “Do you speak English at home?”
    “No,” I answered.
    She gave me that smile again. “Now, Miss Lam, tell me what books you studied last year.”
    “ So Much to Tell You .”
    She looked at me blankly.
    “By John Marsden.”
    Her brow furrowed. She’d clearly not heard of it and was not interested. “What else?”
    “ Romeo and Juliet .”
    “What else?”
    “ Stand by Me . But that wasn’t a book.” I wasn’t sure why I added this. “It was a film.”
    “Ah, yes, based on a Stephen King novel,” remarked Mrs Grey, in the same way a person might say, Ah, yes, that ingrown toenail, part of my foot . “You are aware that at Laurinda we don’t study movies ?”
    “Yes.”
    “And we don’t study any books considered young adult literature. For instance, your John Marsden.”
    So she had heard of him.
    “ Romeo and Juliet is a play we study in our first year of high school. We consider it a good introduction to Shakespeare at the elementary level.” She paused. “Now, I don’t blame you for your school’s choice of reading, but here at Laurinda we are a serious academic college, as evidenced by our English curriculum. We study the classics – Dickens, Austen, the poetry of Donne, Keats – as well as contemporary classics – Brecht, Graham Greene, Edith Wharton, Fitzgerald, Miles Franklin, Patrick White.”
    I nodded mutely. Aside from Dickens and Austen, I had no idea who these writers were.
    “We think it is wise for you to participate in a bridging course.”
    I wanted to protest, did you not read the reference that Mr Shipp gave me? Lucy Lam is one of our strongest English students. Her