Spoiler
This is something I wrote to practice my first person writing and dabble in the Edgy Young Adult genre. Edgy young adult are, trendsetting (and upsetting) novels of teen lives. Some swearing.
“Are you deaf?” The attendant looked down at me.
I swallowed hard.
“Dump your gear on the conveyor belt and step forward so we can scan you.” She adjusted her glasses and waited.
There were other latecomers behind me so I had to hurry up. I put my duffel bag and backpack up onto the belt and stepped forward. The security woman began waving her wand down my right leg. It whined on my left leg. Taped to my ankle was a 3 inch kitchen carving knife.
The security woman pulled up my trousers hem and snipped the tape. She dumped the knife in the Confiscated Contraband box.
A few newbie’s behind me mumbled to each other. The mumblers were first time reformers. This was my second reform school. The wand whined at my mid section. “Belly piercing,” I said lifting my tank top to show her.
She nudged her head and I passed her, stepping out of the light of a florescent ceiling lamp.
The security boy unzipped my backpack. He tried not to make eye contact, but it was hard to resist checking out the girl whose duffel bag contained a Swiss army knife, smaller pocket knife, numerous shaving blades and an apple juice bottle filled with beer. He searched through my pencil tin; sure I was hiding something in there too.
“It’s just pencils dude.” I huffed.
He slid the backpack towards me.
I threw it over my shoulder and leaned against the wall near the others who’d already passed the security check. The guy after me looked like one of those emo rockers who wear skin tight pants, black tees and sport numerous piercings on their faces. His guitar came through the scanner and he took it off the conveyor belt.
The security boy finished searching through his bag and dumped a handful of condoms in the contraband box.
“Trying to ruin all my fun Chewbacca?”
I sniggered, turning my eyes to the plaque on the entrance hall wall. The lump in my throat disappeared. The polished silver plaque read: Helping reform troubled youth since 2002.
“This your first time?”
I slowly turned my head. “Second. You?”
“Second school, fourth time here.” He leaned coolly against the wall next to me. “I’m Dean.”
“Anna.” I picked up my duffel bag as the group moved down the hall for the tour.
“I can go back to my old room, Shaz?” Dean pushed himself off the wall.
“Yeah, off you go,” the attendant said.
There were only six of us now. We were shown past the common room and cafeteria and last to the Dorms. Apparently they were double bunked so everyone had to share with someone, except for those who weren’t fit. If I had something like ‘rage blackouts’ on my record maybe I wouldn’t have been stuck with some strange girl.
The attendant showed me to my dorm last. “Here’s your room. 12a, remember, corridor 2.”
She knocked on the door. “Open up Lindsay.” The door eventually squeaked open. “Your new roommate: Anna. You’ll show her around tomorrow for classes.”
“I suppose.” She folded her arms and looked me up and down.
“Dinner’s in ten minutes, don’t be late otherwise you won’t eat. Fill her in on the rules.”
Shaz left the corridor.
Lindsay stepped aside and waved her arm into the room. “Welcome to the Looney Bin. Left side’s mine, right side’s yours.”
I dumped my bags on the bed and sat down. It squeaked, but the mattress didn’t sink down to the bed frame slats, and the thin quilt didn’t feel scratchy.
“The rules in this hovel are simple. No sex, no drugs, no alcohol and no violence.”
“So swearing is fine?”
“Well.” She pulled on a cardigan. “They might pull you up for it now and then but they usually don’t give a shit. Come on.” She went to the door. “Or all the decent food will be gone.”
I shut the door and followed her down the corridor. A group of girls went past whispering and eying Lindsay. At least they weren’t looking at me. The cafeteria was full now, unlike five minutes ago when the only ones in here were the cooks and the odd teacher.
Lindsay grabbed two trays and handed one back to me. “You want the lowdown?” she asked.
I looked at the food in the metal trays, trying to figure out which colour of slop I wanted. Yellow-grey, green, brown? Disgusting. “Yeah why not.” I was losing my appetite. I did eat earlier though. The social worker had taken me to a Chinese take away place to discuss my new arrangements. I liked her. She was the nicest one I’ve had to deal with so far. Usually they were all uptight bitches who just palmed me off as quickly as they could so they could get to their next case.
Lindsay started shovelling salad onto her plate – the only thing that looked like something.
I did the same.
“Alright, for starters you need to stay away from all the food except for salad and fresh stuff like fruit and vegetables. Anything else like that.” She pointed to a metal tray of what was labelled: Spaghetti Bolognese. “It’s all leftover crap from what the teachers didn’t eat the night before. You’ll get food poisoning, I swear.”
“Got it. Fruit and veg only.”
We walked through the tables looking for a spare pair of seats. “Sure you don’t want some big juicy meatballs on your plate, Linds?” A girl said as we came to her table.
Lindsay didn’t answer. We passed the group and took a seat two tables from them.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“Nothing. So there is a 9pm curfew, but no one complies. By eleven the security will usually come and march you back to your room but until then you do what you want, basically.” Lindsay began picking at her salad with her fingers.
Was I supposed to eat with my hands?
“Oh.” Lindsay looked up. “No plastic knives permitted – this chick once scratched up a girl’s face with one.”
This place sounded worse than the fucking streets. “What about forks?”
“You can take your chances, but they wash and reuse them.” She pulled a face.
“Hands it is.” I picked up a leaf of lettuce, crispy and moist. “There anything to drink?”
Lindsay chewed on a cherry tomato. “On the left there are cups and jugs of drink, sometimes there’s cans of soda. Oh –” She swallowed the tomato she’d been sucking on. “Stay away from the ‘orange juice’.”
“Okay. You want a drink?”
She shook her head.
I weaved through the tables up to the front of the cafeteria. On the far left by the wall were stacks of foam cups and three jugs. Two were empty lying on their sides. The other, I checked, was orange juice. Or, what looked like orange juice and smelt like something else entirely. Lindsay said there were cans of drink but I couldn’t –
“Behind the counter.” Dean stepped in beside me and leaned over the counter. He pulled out some cans of drink from the hidden shelves and handed me one.
“It ain’t even cold.”
“Nah, this place is a dump.”
“Thanks anyway,” I said.
I turned and began walking back to my seat.
“So...” He followed me. “You’re bunking with Lindsay.”
“Yeah,” I said plainly. He was silent for a few moments and I eventually looked back at him.
He smirked. “Well, good luck with that.”
I stopped and watched him walk the opposite direction from my table and head back to his somewhere near the front of the cafeteria. A girl looked at me, having overhead. Lindsay sure was popular, I assume not in a good way. When I got back to my table a guy walked off. He’d been chatting with Lindsay. She put something in her shorts pocket and smiled at me.
I sat down and opened the can of passionfruit soda. It tasted foul, but was better than nothing.
