Eighteen (18) by J.A. Huss
Chapter One
If anger could kill, everyone in this room would be dead. “What do you mean I’m not going to graduate?” I cannot be hearing him correctly.
“I’m sorry, Miss Drake, but you’re short.”
“I’m not short,” I snap. “You just showed me my transcript and I have seven credits more than required for graduation.”
“And I just explained to you,” Mr. Bowman says with forced patience. “You took your last math class”—he looks down at my schedule and his finger traces the line over to the class name—“AP Geometry, in tenth grade.”
“So?”
“So here at Anaheim High School we require you to take one math credit in ninth grade.” He looks at my schedule again. “And you did. You took AP Algebra. And then you needed to take another math credit as an upperclassman. You took both your math credits as a lowerclassman.”
“But I took them both. That’s the important part here. I took both.”
“I’m afraid these are the rules, Shannon. There’s nothing I can do.”
“Well, that’s fucking stupid.” I blurt it out without thinking and I wait for Mr. Bowman to get angry and write me a detention. But he just pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs.
This makes me brave. “It’s stupid,” I repeat. “You’re punishing me for getting my math credits completed early.”
“Well, they might make an exception, except that you spent the first half of your junior year in this…” He looks down at my transcript again. “Alternative school.”
“I was taking graphic web design. It wasn’t some loser school.”
“You didn’t take math.”
“I was done with math!”
“You didn’t take science either. That’s another problem.”
“I took AP Biology.”
“In tenth grade. Not eleventh.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you people?”
Another guidance counselor looks over at me and scowls. Boy, these Anaheim people must be used to the f-word. Back in Ohio, I’d be expelled if I talked to a counselor like this. But back in Ohio I was ahead in credits too.
“So you need to make up PE.”
“I knew that part. You told me that last month. And I have a note from a doctor explaining that my knee was injured last year and it’s still very painful, so I have to sit PE out.”
“You need to make up driver’s ed.”
He ignores my note excuse. I don’t really mind driver’s ed. I don’t have my license yet and it’s already on my schedule, just like PE.
“You need to make up one semester of science and you can take the other one this semester. And you need to make up one full year of math. We don’t have room for you in AP Trig. We don’t even have room for you in regular trig this semester. All the trig classes were cancelled since no one passed the first semester.”
What kind of school has no trig class? But more importantly… “AP Trig? Are you on drugs? I’m not taking AP Trig. Do you see that D there?” I tap my finger on my schedule over the grade I got for AP Geometry. “I only passed that class because my teacher paid a mafia guy to kill his wife while he was out to dinner with the chief of police and was distracted with attempted murder charges. He said if I got an A on the final, he’d pass me with a D.”
Mr. Bowman smiles at me and takes his glasses off. “So you got an A?”
“I did.”
“And stop making up stories like that, Shannon. It makes you look crazy.”
“That story was true, asshole. When you’re living a life like mine, there’s no need for lies.”
He sighs. Loudly, like he’s just about done with me. “The important part of your statement was that your teacher challenged you and you rose to the occasion. I’m confident you will rise to the occasion again.”
Defeat washes over me. Dear God. Can this life suck any worse than it already does?
Why, yes, God says. Yes, it can. You cannot graduate high school, Shannon. Even though you’re seven credits ahead.
I’d get angry, except I’m already angry. I’d yell and scream, but I’m already doing that too. I’d walk out, but what the fuck? I did the work, goddammit. I did the fucking work. How can they punish me for getting it done early?
“Are we in agreement then?” Bowman asks. “You’ll do the extra work?”