CHAPTER 7

Chapter 7

Something in common? Oh yeah

DANIELLE

The first week passed peace and quiet. I continued to go out and Linda always was across the street to attract my attention, shaking the hand in the air.

It’s Friday morning. I am preparing to go to school. Rucksack on the shoulders, cookie between the teeth and I go out.

I close the door behind me and I hear that someone is calling me. I look up, and I see her which is saying hello to me.

“Danielleee, helloooo. Come on, we are waiting for you, we are going to breakfast in a little place up here before to go to school.” she screams, ignoring that all neighbours are in front of their houses, ready to go to work.

How much this little girl is cheeky. A grimace brushes my face. I hope that she didn’t see it. We get into the car.

“Good morning girls. Where must I take you today?” Doctor Breenly says, looking at us through the rear-view mirror.

“Good morning to you. Surprise us, dad. Today, the lessons start one hour later. We have a bit of time. Where can we go in forty-five minutes?” Linda exclaims as if she is talking with her steward. She turns towards me, and she smiles to me.

“What? Will we start one hour later? And why? And why am I just hearing about this? You could send me a message, I would gladly wake up later.” I ask, surprised.

“They said while you were busy with your head trips, you were often, yesterday. It often happens, I don’t remember a year in which it didn’t happen” she frankly replies with the smile on her lips.

While we are speaking, Linda’s father got moving, but Richard ‘IamTooCoolToGoWithYou’ Breenly isn’t here. Why? Where is he?

Maybe they start the lessons later, and he is still in his bed, blissfully happy like a newborn baby.

Uh the bed. Maybe also I, yeas in the bed, in his bed. Uh, no, no, what I am saying, in mine, in mine. God, what kind of thoughts.

“Wonderful car, Mr Breenly” I say, trying to talk and to think about anything else, above all.

“Do you like this ‘thing’? Richard suggested to me, and honestly, it is quite manoeuvrable. What do you think about it?” There, we think anything else.

“Well, it is a 3,6 litres Turbo so, a ‘thing’ with 400 horsepower, 0 to 100 in 4,8 seconds. For spending about 85 thousand Euros, well… even if I prefer BMW or AUDI, they have...”

“Oh my God, aren’t you speaking like Richard, right?” the doctor snaps, interrupting me. “No, please. Speak about other things, talk to me about nail polishes, nails, hairs, waxes, I am also disposed to hear about period blood, but not engines.”

“They would have a lot of things to say, right dad? By the way, he said yeas for the private lessons. I spent hours to convince him, and he extorted me some favours, and honestly, I don’t know how I could ever repay him, but he accepted. Cooool. You must only make arrangements.” Linda informs me.

Yes, coool, yuppie. No, wait, what? Is she joking? I don't need repetitions. I must only remember the things.

Between laughs and little jokes, we finally arrive at the ‘little place’, as she calls it.

“You must be ready in forty-five minutes, remember, I will pick up you up and I will take you to the school. Be good and don’t pick anyone up.” Andrea orders. This man is wonderful, very attractive and determined in his choices. If I must compare him to someone, Christian Grey of the book Fifty Shades is the right choice, for sure.

“Thanks dad, we will be ready, I promise you” Linda informs him, and she is all set to give him a kiss on the cheek.

Damn, they have a beautiful relationship. I am envious. I would want to be in her shoes, even though it is bad to say it. I would want to give a kiss on the cheek to my father, or maybe if he could take me on Friday morning to some breakfast with a friend.

Maybe, the last time that I have had the ‘pleasure’ to see him… God, I don’t remember it.

“You are daydreaming with your little head who knows where, as usual. Come on, Dan, what do you want for breakfast?” the perfect little girl scolds me, uncensored, as if she wouldn’t daydream.

“Come on, do you always have to scold me? Ugh, you are terrible. A juice, that’s all.” I answer her, bothered.

“Hahahaha, how funny you are when you are sick. Well, how are you getting on with the new school and with the neighbours? Especially, with neighbours’ sons?” she sniggers. “Or rather, with the son” she asks, insistent. “Listen, I have an idea for tomorrow” she continues, “would you like to sleep at my house? In this way, we have more time to know us. And I would like to show you a thing”.

Oh my God, she wants that I sleep at their house. What can I do? I must ask permission, to sleep in a new place and with my nightmares, this thing isn’t nice at all. I will end up to sleep in the bathroom, and there is Richard. “I hope you will say yes and forget that there is my brother. Then I believe that he will go with some friends, one of those stupid boys. As usual, besides. Please” she continues, answering to my question, as if she is reading my mind. Now, nobody can stop her, she talks as if she knows me for so long.

“I must ask permission. I know that you live across the street, but they must give permission. It isn’t a bad idea. Ma-maybe we could be best friends.” I say without thinking. The last sentence has jumped out from my mouth without connecting to the brain. A classic for me.

“Wow, best friends? Well, yes, maybe, I really need it, that is, I would like” she replies, raising the eyebrow.

Forty-five minutes quickly passed, too quickly. We pay and we go out to wait Doctor Breenly.

When he arrives, I see that there is also the young master. Ugh, I must suffer those dirty looks again. Maybe if I sit behind him, this will not happen. As before, Linda seems to read my mind, and she facilitates my will to sit on the brother’s side. I am sure I can cheat the vicious cycle of the dirty looks. I sit triumphant, and with a smile on my face, I look up, I see his reflection in the rear-view mirror. I open my eyes wide. Good idea, Danielle, very good.

RICHARD

There she is, there is her also. Bollocks. I feel like I am a babysitter. Why is she so special?

I don’t know the reason, but I thought at her all night, trying to imagine the reason why Sem asked me to ‘protect her’ and what she did. I looked at the ceiling, and her face continued to appear in every corner. I don’t know why she was frightened of me, but… but what? Oh, heck. Damned sick mind.

“Later, dudes.” dad says.

They say goodbye to him, and we go towards the classrooms. No sign of Lucas, thanks goodness. He took my advice to stay at home, avoiding other problems with Danielle and Linda. I only hope that they will never know this trouble.

“Breenly.” Sem calls me. I turn back and I see the boy running towards me. But what the heck.

“What do you want, Stunton?”

“Tell. What is happening? Where is Lucas?”

“He will be at home. Or rather, it’s better for him” I sneer, stealing the cigarette from him. I take a hit off a cigarette before he steals it from me.

“What has he done?” he sniggers. I give him a dirty look, while he laughs with me.

“Nothing.” I sniff up with my nose and I kick a little stone. I feel his eyes on me. “I was able to stop him, okay? He was going to mark Brown” I reveal.

“What?” he asks. He puts his hands between the hair, pulling them lightly, he turns.

“He must stay away from her, fuck!” he mostly swears, silently.

“It will be very difficult, considering that Brown is in this school. But why is she so special to be protected?”

“Believe me, there are things about her which is better not to know. And this is the reason why it is necessary to protect her.”

“Listen, or you tell me or I will not risk my life for a girl which honestly needs only to be fucked more frequently”.

He opens his eyes wide, and he is going to reply.

“Breenly, in my office. NOW.” a voice stops Sem to rage against me. I look up and I see the headmaster at the window of his office. I smile to him and I say hello to him with the hand.

“Good morning. What’s the weather like there?”

“Don’t make jokes. You must give some serious explanations.”

“About what?” I continue with my ingenuous smile.

What the heck have I done now?

“Don’t be so naive. You are risking the expulsion this time.” he threatens.

Fuck. I become serious and I look down, towards the nearly empty square, searching for him. Here, he is. I smile only because I understand. I wait that the headmaster closes the window.

“SANTOS!” I scream. The crowd gets out of the way, and they leave him alone, at the mercy of my fury. I look daggers at him and he whitens. Well done, you do it right. My legs quickly walk towards him, which is looking around him, searching for a help. “You are dead”.

“Run, Santos, run” Sem screams, trying to be serious.

He makes me smile because he perfectly impersonated Forrest Gump’s voice.

DANIELLE

The lessons quickly passed, they are so simple. Only one lesson is intolerable, not for the matter, but for the crabby teacher.

Literature, the literature teacher resents me, whatever. She is the only one who taught to my brothers, and she never misses a chance to say the usual sentence: “Your brother would be ashamed of you, Miss Brown, if he knew the stupidities that you say. Now he was a good student” it is always the same thing. Always making comparisons between me and them.

“Brown, what nonsense is this? Your brother...”

“Yes, yes, he would be ashamed, but you know, Miss Sold, you must specify. Maybe Mark, but Jackson would give me a high-five” she opens her eyes wide, she stands up, and she beats the palms on the desk.

“To the headmaster’s office. Now!” she screams, angry.

“Okay” I answer, infuriating her even more.

Good, to the headmaster’s office, the last hour of the fifth day of the first year in a new school. It seems a very good year. I believe that even Jay wasn’t able to do this.

I go all over the corridor and I arrive in front of the door of the headmaster’s office.

“Sit down over there. The headmaster is arriving.” his secretary informs me.

I sit on the chair and I lean the head against the wall. The door suddenly opens, making me jump. Behind it, a man in his 40s appears, he visibly has a receding hairline and well-dressed. He looks at me and he smiles. I am embarrassed, is he smiling to me? Why?

“Who are you?” he asks me.

“Danielle Brown, Miss Sold sends me here.” I say very shy. I don’t know what to expect. I never went to the headmaster.

“Danielle Dream Brown? Jackson’s and Mark Brown’s sister?” he asks, surprised. I nod “John Brown’s and Annie Long’s daughter?” he continues to ask, and I continue to nod. “It’s an honour to meet you, to know the Brown brothers’ heiress and also of my old friend, as well as the financier of this school. Please, take a seat.” and he lets me sit on the chair, while he sits in front of me. “Tell me what it happened with Miss Sold. If I remember correctly, also your brother often visited me, thanks to her.” he wittily sniggers. Why is he amused by this? After telling him that, for my opinion, she is upset with me whatever, he turns, and he takes from the cabinet behind him, a dossier with something written that I can’t see because it is covered by his hand. In that moment, the door violently opens wide and someone enters without asking permission.

I suddenly turn for the curiosity and I see him. Oh my God, what is he doing here?

RICHARD

In the headmaster’s office again, that cretin Santos blurted out everything instead to shut up as I said to him… ordered… but this is another thing.

I only hope that lesson was enough for him, moreover, I wasted time with him. It’s not important to have copied some data, I have done worse than that.

I suddenly open the headmaster’s door and… Oh my God, that stupid little girl, Linda’s friend, is here.

I pluck up courage and I sit in the chair near her, I hope that the headmaster will give one of his stupid and banal punishments, and he sends me outside, but that utter fool, aged before his time, he is unperturbed.

Maybe this is the punishment, to be here with her. Hateful arse-licker. If he even knew what I know about him.

“Well, I can only say that you beat your brother for a day. He would be proud, and he would give you the high-five, as you said. Congratulations. As punishment to have talked back to Miss Sold, you will wait here until the end of the lessons, that is twenty minutes. About you, instead,” he turns towards me, deigning me of his perverse look “I called you hours ago. I don’t know what you want to do this year, but let’s not beat any record as your friend here. You get good grades, or rather, you are above the standard of the classroom, let’s not ruin them with the usual and wrong behaviour. You aren’t saving from the expulsions this year. As punishment, you will stay here, to keep her company, until the bell will ring.” he orders to us while he reads again the dossiers. “Hold, read everything that those scoundrels of your brothers have done and then you will decide what you want to do. Continuing study and making something, or deviating from it and back talking. Here, you have the example of both things. Take a look at it all.” he replies, throwing the dossier on the desk.

But, does he want that I see the private documents of Brown brothers that I am a stranger, even if those dossiers are like a Bible and everybody has a copy at home, and to her that…? But I don’t if this thing is legal.

In any case, after doing this, he goes out of the office. She promptly stands up, she takes the papers, and she starts to leaf through them.

“But, what are you doing? Do you really want to read the things of your brothers? Do you know that it is illegal to flash the documents as he has done? But, above all, it is a punishable crime to read them.” I say to her with a dismayed look.

“It is a lesser charge, mine. If you read them, you could be prosecuted, the age doesn’t help you. Less and less of the headmaster, in any case.” she makes a strange face. “Do you really think that I don’t know anything? Do you think that I am so stupid?” she answers me back. She hissed me, nobody has ever done. Nobody was ever able to do it or nobody has ever had the courage to do it.

DANIELLE

I remember Linda’s words of the day before. ‘His aim is to be hated.’ Or something like that. My memory is very bad.

Good, two up for me. I sit and I open the folder called J.B. There are inside all data in detail, all behaviours, all marks and other things about Jackson. Wow. Demerits and the expulsions never end.

“Violent behaviour towards the teacher and a student. But, what did this fool do?” I say, amazed.

“Ah yes, the beginning of the fifth year. The best fact year ever” he laughs. He knows more things compared to me, for sure.

“Caught in ambiguous poses when he was in the girls’ bathroom.” to name a few.

He continues to laugh and to shake his head. I open the second folder called M.B. His dossier is impeccable. Neither a demerit, nor a delay, or a bad mark. Except for a unique demerit at the end of the last year.

“Instigated fight? But, are they stupid?” I think aloud.

“Uh, this is legendary...everybody remembers it even now.” he replies again.

I don’t understand how Mark could have this demerit, I must investigate, for sure. That’s for sure.

“What do you choose? The misunderstood genius able to mortify you with the words and the look, a little bit like you, or the lifetime tough which has a sweet character, deep down.” I ask him, amused, but if he doesn’t want to listen to me, he only stares at me, incredulous. “Then?” I ask him again as a sign of challenge.

“You are out of your mind. You know that it is a crime, and you do it. I don’t want, put down.” he replies in a bothered way. Maybe I exaggerated.

“Can I ask you something? But, answer me honestly” I murmur very shy, after he sits well on the chair.

Hurrah! I spoke again without thinking. But, what have I?

“No”.

“Okay, why did you stop Lucas yesterday? Why did you interfere? Why did you wag your finger? You are famous to mortify the people, why didn’t you just let him do it?” I insist also if his no is categorical, but I want to know it.

“Point one: the question was one and not four. Point two: what didn’t you understand of a simple monosyllable? No, no, no and no” he replies.

He becomes annoyed, but I want to know. I want to know what he says to him, and I can’t ask or tell to Linda, for sure. How can I get him to talk considering that this boy thinks he is the most important boy of the world?

Well, one like that is at home and it works with him. Then I suddenly close the folder, I fold my arms and I give him the sulky face, it always works with Jay, he isn’t able to resist too long.

RICHARD

What does she do? She understands my weak point, I am screwed. I must get out of it in some way. Her sulky expression, her chewing at the side of her lower lip, her pose as an angry child is so… makes me want to cuddle her and to clasp her in my arms and...to kiss her. What?

What is it wrong in me?

The next thing is that she nervously stamps her feet, like a little girl.

“Stop” I murmur, trying to look away, not to run into her look, and so I will be touched, I don’t want let her know my mood, above all. But, she doesn’t listen to me, or rather, I believe that she is amused.

It’s a shame that her fun lasts a little longer considering that mine is about to start. The twenty minutes ended, but she didn’t realize that. In fact, the bell is ringing. I stand up and I abandon her there, in her mood of nosey-little girl.

I try not to think at her, I am just angry with Santos and her sulky face doesn’t help me. I find me smiling at the emptiness when her image comes back to my mind. Stop, I must be serious.

I must go to see how the situation is with that damned shit. If he understood, once and for all, that he must not to go against me, I am in charge.

DANIELLE

Resigned, I take the folders with me and I go towards the classroom to take the rucksack, but Linda did it for me. How much she is curious. But, I omit some details as usual. It isn’t necessary that she knows all.

In the car, I remember of that famous rear-view mirror, and then I intentionally sit behind the passenger’s seat. Oh yes. I will make your life difficult, my dear Richard ‘IAmTooCoolToTellYouTheTruthSoIEscape’. I smile at this thought so stupid. After all, he doesn’t terrify me, he amuses me, and I am sure that he will never be able to terrify me.

Everything goes well, he sits in front of me, he quietly sits well on the seat, he furtively looks in the rear-view mirror, he looks in front of him, and he opens his eyes wide when he notices something different.

He looks again in the rear-view mirror, and he meets my look. I smile, amused and he changes the expression. I bite my lip and he half-closes the eyes. I imitate him and he shakes his head, amused. The casual-but-meaningful glances say everything and nothing.

I understand that I can continue my ‘game’. I fold again my arms and I stare at him, doing the sulky expression again. He is amused. He smiles, and he shakes his head, looking away several times. I close the eyes and I put my head back, leaning it against the seat. I take a deep breath, I put my head up and I see him, which is staring at me with indifference. We continue to look at us until home. Linda is strangely quiet and she doesn’t speak.

Once home, Richard is the first to get out of the car, and he is the first to enter without turning back.

I don’t know how far I can go with him. He has some clear eyes, without any type of nastiness. He only has a hard shell. In any case, or he ‘frees’ me, or he will give me the coup de grâce. Well, I will discover it with the time.