Brownies, Anyone?

She was on her best behaviour. She really, really didn’t want anything to go wrong this morning. Last night she had laid out her wardrobe for the coming day. A ritual she had long accustomed herself to. A bit of a time-saver. Learned that from her mother who was always in a great big hurry. Doing that she hadn’t to worry what she’d put together in the morning, and with the time saved she could take a more leisurely shower. Even so, she would almost miss her bus, half the time.

Of course there were other things she had to do, like grab some breakfast, throw a few items together for lunch. Sometimes she’d get so interested in a novel, she’d sneak peeks at it before leaving the house, and just kind of forget the time. Her mother got kind of miserable about having to remind her. At her age, her mother said, she should have a keener sense of personal responsibility. Yeah, sure, Mom.

At her age. Well, she was in her teens, her teeny-teens, half-way through thirteen. She had chosen a white shirt with black jeans, and a crystal pendant, pink crystal in the shape of a heart that she really liked. Then she had changed her mind, because she’d already worn a white tee-shirt the day before. So she kind of reversed things, a black tee-shirt, with brown jeans, and the crystal pendant would be just fine. Even better, come to think of it, on a black shirt. Maybe a little of that blue eye-shadow? That’s another thing; putting on a little make-up took time, to do properly.

A little make-up. She definitely wasn’t interested in slathering herself with the stuff. Nothing on her skin. No lipstick, ugh. Just a bit of colour around her eyes. One of her better features. Her grandmother said she had wonderful hair, but she hated it. Her grandmother was critical of her wearing any makeup. But that’s what grandmothers are like, she consoled herself. When she mentioned this to her grandmother, she had laughed and said “that’s because grandmothers are old”. “No!” she’d responded, without thinking it through, “you’re not old, you’re Grandma.” Eliciting another indulgent laugh from her grandma.

She could get away with anything with her. Not so with her mother. Her mother thinks she knows everything about her, but she doesn’t. She thinks she can look clear through her, read everything in her mind. Whereas her grandmother is always surprised by things she says. Her grandmother always says kids these days are incredibly well taught in schools, they know so much, she can hardly believe it. Her mother says kids these days are incredibly egotistical, just think about themselves, think they know everything, and they’re rude, as well. So what’re you going to do about it? Life, it’s just life.

When she mentions these things to her grandmother, she sighs, and says it’s another world altogether. She just can’t keep up with things. It’s confusing, too fast-paced, and too invested in things that don’t really matter. Peoples’ values are confused and lacking. Who, she says, rolling her eyes skyward, can even understand this generation?

She’s got something there, who can? She still can’t puzzle out herself, why her best friend sometimes seems like a stranger to her. If they’re such good friends - and they’ve known one another for as long as she could remember - how come she still seems like she has some kind of secret agenda that she reserves for herself only. And how is it that she herself doesn’t feel comfortable enough to confide in her when there are things that truly puzzle her? It’s like when she’s at an impasse with some of her math homework and she knows she could call another friend who’se a wiz at math, but she doesn’t want to. Doesn’t want to admit to anyone that she could use some help. Instead, she tackles it, determined to work it through for herself.

Christmas lunch at school today. Following hard on last night's musical-dance performance for parents. A school tradition, just like the pot luck lunch they were having today, open yet again to any parents who wanted to attend. Her mother, of course, wouldn't be there, had to work. Hadn't come last night either, too bushed from everything she had to attend to; single parent, full-time job in the workforce, and another at home.

As for her, contemplating all the goodies laid out on two long tables, she chose to spurn the casseroles and pigged out on the desserts. Like the brownies that looked so luscious. And they were, they were just right, heavenly. With that deep, dark chocolate flavour and moist interior, just the way she likes them. Just the way she sometimes bakes them herself. This time, though, she’d baked a big batch of chocolate chip cookies. She’d take brownies over chocolate chip cookies any day, but she thought the cookies would go further.

She was still smarting over Morgan yesterday snarling at her to ‘shut up!’ when she’d been complaining about Miss McCullough. As though Morgan never does that. As though Morgan isn’t the one who is really the very one person who they could all count on to moan about Miss McCullough and her ranting hysterics, treating them all to those unbelievable melt-downs.

What kind of a teacher is that who can’t even get her act together? And expecting them to, after she screams at them that they’re impossibly stupid. She’s the retarded one, not them. Obviously. So she’d said to Morgan that she could just shut up herself. God, she was so tired of all that snipping and snapping back and forth. Why couldn’t they all just get along? Well, they do, most of the time, but sometimes something just seems to go kind of funny, and everyone acts truly weird.

She was glad to see that today everyone seemed in a pretty good mood. Maybe it was that everyone was looking forward to the open house. A Christmas special, an annual event at the school, where parents who had nothing better to do in the middle of the day would come out and be entertained by their coached kids, and eat all the food that they’d themselves brought over for the group pot-luck.

Not that the kids were looking forward to the parental-presence part of it. What kid is thrilled at seeing their mother or father at their school? There’s always that lurking danger that they’ll pull off some really stupid stunt that’ll make their kid look bad. It’s the thought of all that food, just waiting there; tantalizing their noses, and then their taste buds. That's what got them all excited, frantic to get at those tables.

So of course they all over-ate. Everything tasted really scrumptious. Everyone wanted to try a little bit of this and some of that, and hey, look what’s in that casserole over there! Lemmeatit! They were standing around, groaning, holding their bursting stomachs, and kidding one another about all the weight they’d gained, standing sideways so their bursting guts could be evaluated. At least the skinny kids were doing that. The ones with some flesh on them weren’t that eager to get into that particular game.

She thought that was pretty funny, actually. She had half a mind to tease Sydney, but didn’t, remembering what her mother said about the seriousness of some kids’ preoccupation with looking mean and lean. Sydney was all right, not too bright, and too concerned with her silhouette. Which was kind of crazy, since she was one of the few girls in the class who really didn’t have much of a silhouette. She resembled a notional drawing of a girl; straight up and down. So it was puzzling why she was so into her image.

Anyway, Bryanna and Lorna were standing right beside her when they each decided they’d go for another dessert. Actually, most of their lunch, like hers, consisted of ‘dessert’. With a few exceptions, like pizza slices and macaroni-and-cheese casserole, and a couple of samosas. She decided to go for another brownie, and snapped it up. She didn’t realize, because she wasn’t really looking, that the brownies hadn’t been cut right through and there was a companion piece to the one she held securely between her fingers. The extra piece didn’t quite make it, ending up on the floor. She knew that Bryanna and Lorna had seen what’d happened, but they looked the other way.

A dilemma. A few scenarios raced through her mind. Pick it up and put it back on the plate? Eauuu! Then some other kid would pick it up and enjoy it, never realizing it was full of germs. Couldn’t do that. Pick it up and place it in with the waste? What if the person who’d brought the brownies saw that and thought some ingrate felt their hard work was garbage? Embarrassing to both of them.

This weighing of options seemed to take forever in her mind, but of course she realized that wasn’t the case at all. Finally, she decided she would do nothing. Just leave it where it lay, beside the table, visible enough. Someone seeing it there would dispose of it. Knowing they weren’t the one who knocked it off the plate. And sure enough, when she looked back a short while later, it was gone.

Most of the kids in the class had tried to influence Miss McCullough about their performance time. They were really pretty psyched up right then, they told her, ready to give a terrific performance. Couldn’t they do it before lunch? They should’ve known better, understood that in their interactions with their teacher a kind of automatic reversal occurred; whatever they’d recommend she would resist and do the opposite. A little bit of psychology goes a long way she thought sourly; why couldn’t they ever remember?

So, as events unfolded, it was after lunch when she herded them back into their classroom, gave them a few short, sharp reminders about her choreography and pumped them up with endearments like “don’t make a mess of things like you usually do”, and sent them out on the stage to do their best. They did their best, and suffered for it, moving about as gracefully as a herd of rhinos. Their stomachs were full to bursting. She regretted she hadn’t gone to the bathroom, and thought her physical discomfort was well replicated by the others, evidence plain in their grimacing faces, belying the ‘elegance’ of their performance.

Should’ve known things would turn out like that. Don’t they always?