Chapter 13 - Detention

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1998

Robin and I circled each other like sharks on opposite ends of the oval as we hurtled milk cartons and aluminium foil into our garbage bags. As she passed Blair, Mudsey and Jason, they threw empty coke bottles and screwed up balls of paper at her.

'Oi maid! Clean up our mess!' I heard Jason shout. Wow, not even Robin Lewis was immune to their teasing.

As she was bending over to pick up a bottle, she looked over at me. I suddenly had an overwhelming urge to stretch her tattoo-look choker as far as it could go and then let it snap back on her neck.

Bec, Mei-Ling and Penny gave me a sympathetic look as I plodded past them. I waved feebly and drew a deep breath as I approached Blair and his crew. I kept waiting for the wads of paper to hit me, but they didn't come.

All I heard was a remark from Blair - 'Totally bad-arse.'

****

Robin kept pouting as I tried not to fall asleep folding parent-teacher meeting letters in detention. Had she even changed her expression today?

'You know, if the wind changes your face will stay like that,' I warned her.

'If the wind changes, your face will stay like that,' she repeated in a dumb sounding voice.

I had to remember that I really was dealing with a juvenile here. Principal Sutton, for reasons that escaped me, had left us in the care of Ms. Benson, a student teacher. Ms. Benson had already left us to go for a smoke and a coffee. Now she was in the next room talking on the phone to someone she was obviously annoyed at.

'I already told you, I don't want to go there on Saturday night.' Pause. 'Yeah, but the drinks are overpriced and watered down.' Pause. 'He didn't say he'd be there.' Yeah, she was really making sure we weren't getting into any more trouble.

My stack of letters was twice as high as Robin's. Maybe she was a quicker envelope stuffer.

'Hey Robin, how about you start putting these letters in envelopes and I'll keep folding?'

She gave me a sideways look of contempt and ran her fingers slowly along the fold of the letter. She whacked it down on her pile and proceeded to pick up another letter.

'Fine, I'll start stuffing.' I opened the box of envelopes and took out a wad. A smile played on her lips, as if she'd won.

'Robin, why do you hate me so much? What did I ever do to you?'

'Um, helloooooo?' She jabbed a finger at her bruised wrist.

'I mean before yesterday. You hate me so much and for no reason.'

I wasn't expecting miracles here. Certainly not an apology. I just wanted some sort of answer. Instead, the little brat kept her eyes on me as she licked her finger and picked up another letter from the pile.

'No one's here,' I pointed out. 'No one's going to see you talking to me.'

'You're just such a goody-goody.'

Ha! What I'd done in my life would make her head spin. I wished I could tell her some of the stuff I'd done in my life, if only to wipe that smug look off her face. I wondered if adult Robin had ever trespassed onto private premises and gone skinny dipping or hitch hiked from Barcelona to Valencia. Or taken a pill from a woman wearing a strange hat. Or fooled around with a 'stranger' in a dark room full of hundreds of people.

'What's wrong with being a goody-goody?'

'I don't know, it's just nerdy.' She shrugged. 'And it's not like you're my biggest fan.'

'Well, of course I'm not,' I said incredulously. 'You humiliated me at your party.'

'I mean before that,' she said, like it was obvious. 'You've always acted like you're better than me.'

'Excuse me?!' Was this girl for real? 'I think it's the other way 'round.'

'Oh please.' She rolled her eyes. 'Those bitchy little smiles you used to give me, the way you always used to ask me what grade I got in tests. You knew full well that I got way worse than you, even in primary school!'

I didn't even remember doing that. Something I'd learnt when I was in my 20s was that everyone had something they were insecure about - a bad childhood or a hang up about their nose, their body, their intelligence. I mean, our fight yesterday made it loud and clear that Robin had a major hang up about her intelligence, but I had no idea it stemmed all the way back to primary school.

'I never realised,' I said. 'Sorry, I guess.'

'Yeah, I bet you are,' she drawled sarcastically.

'Fine, don't believe me. Still, it doesn't give you the right to be so mean to me. All that stuff you say to me about my weight. I wasn't happy about being fat, you know.'

She was silent for a moment, tapping a folded letter against her lip. Then she winced, as if it physically pained to say what she was about to say. 'You weren't that fat.'

'No, I wasn't. And I worked really hard to get thin and healthy.'

'Yeah!' I was shocked to see how quickly she seemed to perk up. She swivelled around to face me. 'I've always wondered how you did it. How did you get so thin?'

Okay, now I understood. Give a woman a good weight loss story and a connection will form. Trust a girl like Robin to be interested in something like this.

'I thought you had all the weight loss secrets,' I half-teased. 'You shouted them out to me every lunch time.'

'Oh Sammy, just tell me!' She circled her hands, urging me to spill the secret. Didn't anyone realise how slowly I'd lost this weight? I didn't abracadabra myself thin. Hmm, let's see. I could tell her how Atkins or the Paleo diet worked and she'd think I was some sort of diet genius. Or I could be really mean and tell her I did the Cayenne Pepper and maple syrup diet for three years. Or the baby food diet. I had visions of Robin taking out jars of baby food at lunch and she'd forever be remembered as the 'baby food girl' from high school.

But I decided to take the high road.

'Simple, really.' I said with a shrug. 'It all comes down to lean protein, whole grains, some diary, fresh fruit and vegetables.'

She looked confused. 'Lean protein,' she repeated slowly.

'Yeah, like grilled chicken and fish. Egg whites are good, too.'

'Oh. And wholegrains?'

'Wholemeal bread, brown rice, stuff like that.'

'But what do you do if you really want chocolate or something?'

'That's the worst part. I'll usually just have a hot chocolate with skim milk.'

She grabbed a pencil and started writing a list on the back of a letter. I leaned over to see what she was writing.

Chicken – grilled.
Bread – wholemeal, not white!!!
Eggs – no yolks!!!!

I now had visions of giving this girl a diet obsession. 'You don't need to be as strict as me,' I told her. 'You're already very slim.'

She tugged on the hem of her tight white bonds T-shirt and smiled. 'Thanks.'

'What are you girls talking about out in here?' Ms. Benson eyed us suspiciously as she flung the door open.

'Well, we're not killing each other if that's what you're worried about,' I assured her.

'Ha ha,' she said sarcastically. 'If you were, Linda – I mean, Principal Sutton – would kill me!'

I liked this woman, as irresponsible as she was.

'Sammy was just telling me how she lost all this weight,' said Robin. 'She used to be fat, you know.'

'Hey, I thought you said I wasn't that fat!' I exclaimed with a smile.

'You were still big, though,' said Robin matter-of-factly. 'Ms. Benson, she's told me I need to eat wholegrains and egg whites and -'

I cut Robin off. 'Now Robin, I didn't say you needed to eat that stuff, I just -'

'I'm on the cabbage soup diet,' interrupted Ms. Benson. 'You eat as much of the cabbage soup as you want and...'

As she continued talking about the wonders of the cabbage soup diet that had me farting non-stop for two days when I tried it, Robin diligently made notes. I marvelled at just how irresponsible Ms. Benson was. Then again, if Robin farted in class, I'd never stop laughing.

****

Dad had ordered me to come home straight after detention. Well, that wasn't an issue. Where did he think I would go instead? My imaginary boyfriend's house? The local pub? I chuckled out loud and kicked a pebble down the footpath.

I needed music. I craved my phone like I craved chocolate cake and wine. I stopped to dig around in my bag for my discman. It's not like it was hard to find. I mean, it was a massive discman. As I was pulling it out of the bottom of my backpack, a flurry of papers fell to the floor.

'Damn it,' I muttered as I stooped down to pick them up.

'Here, let me help you!' It was the unmistakeable voice of Blair Bradley. Years of that voice causing nerves to stab my insides had made me finely attuned to it. I glanced up to see him jogging over.

'I think I've got them.' I waved the papers in the air and stood up. 'Thanks anyway.'

'S'alright,' he said with a sniff.

'Okay then,' I said, walking away. Blair took it as his cue to walk next to me. The old Sammy would have interpreted his attention to be a cruel joke and possibly mumbled some excuse about forgetting something in her locker in order to escape. But 34 year old Sammy walked briskly down the street, forcing him to fall into pace with her.

Was this my moment to give him a piece of my mind? No, I decided it wasn't. Now there was a chance I was stuck in 1998, I had to think carefully about how I'd give him my revenge.

'You leaving detention?' he asked.

I nodded. 'Where have you come from?'

'Soccer practice.'

'Oh.'

We walked in silence for a minute or two until I remembered that I was 34 and capable of starting a conversation. 'I'm not going to take off my bandaid and show you my scars, in case you're wondering.'

'I was wondering, but that's okay,' he said. 'So how was detention? Did you pull Robin's hair again?'

'You noticed the hair pulling, did you?'

'It was hard to miss. We all thought you'd rip her ponytail right off.'

'Well, she did it to me first,' I said defensively before a laugh escaped my mouth. I must have sounded evil.

'At least you're seeing the funny side,' said Blair. 'You know that most girls are scared of Robin?'

'No? Really?' I put on my most sarcastic voice.

'But you're not.' He glanced sideways at me. 'That's pretty cool.'

'Well, I am pretty cool Blair,' I said matter-of-factly.

'I really do reckon you're cool,' he insisted.

'I wasn't being sarcastic.' I enjoyed the feeling of messing with him a bit.

'That's not what I meant. I mean, I think you're cool and interesting, but I wasn't... well, you know what I mean.' He ran a hand through his floppy Jesse Spencer hair.

Man, it really was incredible what a dollop of confidence could do to change people's perception of you. In that moment, I felt ridiculously lucky. So many people looked back at their adolescence and said to themselves, 'If only I'd known that in high school.' Well, I was probably being given the chance to re-live high school with all the wisdom I'd gained over the years.

'Blair? I have what might seem like an odd question for you.'

'Shoot.' He looked nervous. He probably thought I was going to bring up the spin the bottle night.

'When we were growing up, was I a bitch about my grades?'

'A bitch about your grades?' He turned his palms up. 'I don't know what you mean.'

'Did I ever act like I was better than everyone else because I got higher grades?'

'Who told you that?'

'No one, I just –'

'Was it Robin? She always thought you did. It was Robin who told you, wasn't it?'

'Well, did I?'

'Sort of.' He shrugged. 'I guess. I know I always avoided you when we got our tests back. I never did really well. I still don't.'

'I never realised,' I admitted.

'S'okay.' He shifted his back pack from one shoulder to the other. All the cool kids slung their back packs over one shoulder. I, of course, made use of both my shoulders. 'You don't do it now or anything,' he continued. 'If you did, I wouldn't be talking to you now.'

'Well, I guess that's something.'

'Don't worry about Robin. She needs a tutor but her parents still think she just needs to study more. We've been studying together, but we're both really dumb with maths and English and stuff.'

'Are you and Robin going out or something?'

He shook his head. 'Nah, we're just friends. She's not really my type.'

I thought Robin was every guy's type. I wondered if she knew she wasn't Blair's type.

'So where are you going now?' he asked. 'Wanna hang out at the shops or something?'

Wanna hang out at the shops or something? Despite my confidence, I still glanced around to see if Mudsey and Jason were following us, to discover some sort of evidence that this was a trick. 17 year old Blair Bradley did not ask 17 year old Sammy Day to 'hang out' with him at the shops – and red lipstick and catfight with Robin Lewis couldn't have changed things so quickly. Or could it?

'I can't,' I said cautiously. 'I'm kinda grounded.'

'No big deal,' he said quickly. 'Look Sammy, Mudsey's house is just a couple of doors back, so I'm gonna hang out there.'

'Okay, I'll see you tomorrow.'

Walking down my driveway, I tried to figure out how I could sneakily call Penny to tell her about detention and my odd conversation with Blair. I could always smuggle the phone into my bedroom while mum and dad were watching The Practice, but there was the risk that Ben would see the cord running under my door and dob on me.

I put my hand on the front door knob and took in the smell of mum cooking pumpkin soup and the sound of the intro to Channel Ten news.

And then everything went black.

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