Out of my two flatmates, one—Finley—has already left the house to turn up early for her Polytech course and the other—Rosa—is sleeping in, safe in the knowledge that no uni student would be seen dead out of bed before nine.
They leave my mornings nicely uninterrupted, though their banter would be a welcome change to my thoughts as I stack my bag with textbooks and the school-issued Chromebook.
McKenzie High School is only a fifteen-minute walk from the flat. The lowest decile school in the poorest suburb of the city. The government can afford to subsidise our housing—with strict stipulations—since no one else is keen to live nearby.
I tuck my mousy brown curls behind my ears, most of the just-past-shoulder-length hair held back with an elastic and pull my hoodie until it flops over my forehead, leaving my hazel eyes to peep out of the shadow. My big mouth—both a literal and figurative description—has got me into trouble on more than one occasion, and as I walk past the school gate, I remind myself to keep it shut wherever possible.
Once through the entrance of the main school building, I make for the school secretary, who directs me to the guidance counsellor’s office.
Half an hour later, my attention wanders as Margot Warren—call me Marge—drones on about the dress code, the wider school curriculum, and how to come to her with any problems because ‘that’s what I’m here for.’
Since she’s the school counsellor, I already know that, and it makes me suspicious that ‘Marge’ keeps selling the point to me. Like she’s trying to reassure herself she’s needed.
“Most of your courses will be internally assessed,” she says now, as though that’s a special arrangement she fought the entire board of McKenzie High School to win for me. It’s more surprising some still rest entirely on the end-of-year exams. Music, for one, but what future employer is going to see that on my resume and think the marks were worth the effort?
No one. That’s who.
“Dee will show you around the grounds and get you settled into your first classes.”
“I don’t need anyone to show me around.” It’s a hard fall to go from signing myself into school—with my own fully grown-up eighteen-year-old adult signature—and being escorted around like a five-year-old attending school on her first day.
“Dee’s a lovely student and knows everything about everything.” A nervous laugh follows the statement along with a cautious glance, like she’s waiting for me to agree before committing.
“I can find classes by myself.”
“But you don’t need to because Dee is showing you around.”
Okay. Maybe I underestimated the woman. Turns out there’s a bit of steel in her backbone after all.
“The most important point”—really? She took till now to mention it?—“is that we won’t tolerate any truancy. I understand your school record has been a bit up and down, but to qualify for the housing subsidy, we need you to show you’re committed to the program. That means you’re in school every day you should be and if there’re any changes to your employment, tell me or Ms Leone”—my social worker—“immediately.”
‘A bit up and down’ is a lovely way of saying that this is the fourth high school I’ve attended in the past two years. That’s a record, even for my peripatetic arse. The point the lovely woman appears to be missing is that none of those changes were initiated by me.
Oranga Tamariki—the Ministry for Children—were the ones who decided my residences should resemble a pinball machine, tossing me from one side of the city to the other in a desperate attempt to find a permanent mooring.
The only place I found a home was with Tessa, after I’d turned everything else in my life to shit with a newfound penchant for drugs. For two years, we were sisters—would have been even if we lived separately, that’s how closely we bonded—but now that’s gone, too.
After losing her, turning eighteen and easing myself out of the system was a relief.
But I nod. This meeting has dragged on long enough without me deliberately extending it just to score points. “You can count on my commitment,” I say with a broad smile. “No one wants to make this work more than I do.”
There’s a lot of truth to that. Not just keeping in contact with my baby sister, but if I hold things together until the end of the year, I’ll be in university, and everything will be different.
My poverty won’t be a unique selling point, it’ll be a communal experience for at least half the students. The fact they can always run off to the bank of Mum and Dad and I can’t, won’t be as glaringly obvious as it is right now.
Nine months. Easy-peasy.
“Trying to talk me off the job, were you?” a gangly redhead with a serious case of the freckles asks me the moment I walk out of the room.
“Dee, I presume?”
She nods. “And in case you’re wondering, although I am as awesome as Warren thinks, I’m mainly doing this because it’ll get me out of first period. In fact, if you walk really slow, we can probably swing that to two.”
My first class is physics and my second is English, so I’m game. I tap my thigh. “Now you mention it, I have an old war wound that still gives me trouble. Probably should count me out of middle period, too.”
I create an exaggerated limp as I fall into step beside her.
“Your name’s Lilac?”
