Foldvary

ECON 12

Extra Credit

2/22/05

 

“Real Rich”

 

by C. Bonja

 

It was 7:29 and in a minute all hell was about to wake up.

 

ENT! ENT! ENT! ENT! Brea stretched her arms up high above her head and threw the duvet over to head, screaming “MARGE!!”

 

Just then, a short, round middle-aged woman came scurrying through the French doors, across the room and over to the left side of the bed to turn off the alarm clock before it could screech one more time. 

 

Marge pulled the duvet back and quickly moved to the floor where clothes were scattered sparatically around the room. Brea sat up and pulled her eye mask over her head, drawing her arms high up towards the ceiling while making a dramatic yawn. “Humph,” she huffed.

Marge promptly brought her attention back to Brea and started moving pillows away from her path off the bed. “What will you have this morning for breakfast Miss B? Only one more day…”

 

Turning towards her with a pout, “I don’t know…orange juice. Humph. No, I guess make it the works! I had a bad dream last night about daddy getting me a Porsche.”

 

As she was continuing to hustle pillows out of her way, Marge replied “He didn’t get you one?”

“No! He did, that’s the problem! He knows better. He keeps joking about getting one and now it has affected my sleeping. HUMPH.”

 

Brea started moving towards her vanity, picking a bristled brush and pulling it threw her hair. Calmly but with a hint of nervousness, “if he shows up with anything other than a red Range Rover, I just might die.” Brea’s 16^th birthday was one day away and her family and entourage were neck high in birthday demands.

 

It was now 8:30 on Monday morning and Brea was just beginning to sit down to eat breakfast. If she was any other student at Richmond Anderson School, she’d be thirty minutes late, and scheduled for detention. But Brea wasn’t just any girl. She was 15 year old Brea Jenkins, daughter of Lloyd Jenkins and Bridget Harvey. Her parents divorced when she was three and just last spring she inherited a new stepmother, almost entirely made of silicon. When she was a freshman she was enraged because she had to wake up at 7 a.m. to get ready for school so her dad helped finance a computer lab and Brea was given another hour of sleep.

 

Brea’s driver pulled up to the school at 9:04 and headed for her Biology 6 class. She entered the classroom and headed towards her seat, her teacher Ms. Cert gave a nod of recognition and approval and continued with announcements. “All week we are talking about nutrition and the human body, but next week we start a unit on cells – I’m going to bring in some letters my uncle wrote from San Quinton to pass around...”

 

Ms. Cert was a young awkward looking woman with string-thin hair and a wardrobe two sizes too big. She had been a high school graduate in her fourth year of working at Baskin-Robbins when she saw an ad looking to fill 50 teaching positions at a high school in a nearby city. She was broke and obese and the details of the ad were appealing. The requirements listed in the ad: “no classroom experience necessary.” The president of Richmond Anderson School, RAS decided to fire the entire existing faculty to cut costs. By hiring unlicensed teachers, President Blaire was going to have access to almost a million more dollars annually. Sure enough a few interviews later, Richmond Anderson High was overcome with unqualified, unlicensed teachers like Ms. Cert.

 

It was health week and after announcements Ms. Cert lectured for half an hour about the nutrition guide of ice cream flavors, “Nonfat, Lowfat, No Sugar, Reduced Fat, Deluxe, Low Carb, No Trans Fat, Part Skim, Soy, Soft Serve…Fruit ice creams include any of your sherbets or Sorbet, they also have a number of fruit Ices options.” The class fell into a domino of gasps as Marco Lawrence raised his hand and Ms. Cert was stupefied. Marco started to get antsy and then just spit out “Ms. Cert why are all of our biology lectures about ice cream? Shouldn’t you teach us something relevant?” The class was silent but a murmur of “Oooooo” came over the crowd. He had crossed the line, in this school asking questions was against school policy and punishable but detention. Ms. Cert gave Marco a snotty look “Principal Davis will see you now to arrange your detention!”   BBBRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIINGG! The bell announcing the end of the period blared.

 

After class was over Brea walked down the hall passing by freshman lockers and stopped at a vending machine and took notice to a new sign posted near the coin slots.

After skimming the note a smiled curled on her lips and she inserted a crisp dollar bill. Although she was only the sophomore class president, she ascertained more influence over school policies than any of the other officers, faculty members, or parents. It had been her suggestion that Diet Coke cost less because it had fewer calories and the principal approved of any plan that put more money at his disposal. Just last September, Brea had her father give a donation to Principal Davis in order to “encourage” “Pink Fridays” and now the entire student body was required to wear pink every Friday, after all it was Brea’s favorite color. Kids that didn’t wear pink had to serve detention.

 

Brea continued down the hall and a group of jersey-wearing jocks came marching down the hallway chanting “No way, we won’t play! No way, we won’t play!” as they stalked towards her. This was the Richmond Anderson basketball team, or at least what was left of them. When special interests groups complained about needing a place to practice, Principal Davis decided to open the gymnasium for everyone’s use. Janitors gave up trying to keep it clean and well maintained and students wrecked havoc. Dodge ball players smashed three windows, the art class left paint stains all over the floor, the underwater basket weaving group flooded the gym and the wood floor were now warped due to water damaged, the Greek club still hadn’t picked up the broken pieces of ceramic plates, and there was still a giant hole where a bon fire was built for smore practice.

 

Brea received several glares from the players as she passed but she ignored them and continued walking towards Principal Davis’s office noting her stationery on ever few lockers. A month ago Brea distributed her invitations to the whole school and rumors about her party quickly echoed through the halls, Snoop Dawg, 50 cent, a fondant waterfall, Victoria Secret runway show, tattoo artist booth, and vacation giveaways, all of which were true – or at least would be after Brea had her dad make some phone calls.

 

Brea entered the principal’s office and retrieved a spiral pad from her bag, jotted something and handed it to Principal Davis.

1.       The pimply boy that sits 2 away from me in Bio. REASON: putrid morning breath

2.     The entire basketball team. REASON: rioting

3.     3 Blonde freshmen track guys REASON: chewing gum

4.     Marco from Bio REASON: interrupting my day dream 

 

  Mr. Davis looked up after he read it over, “Is there anyone else Brea?” Brea looked up from filing her nails “I’m sure there will be, it’s only 10:30 Henry.” Mr. Davis pulled out a pad of pink detention slips and Brea slipped out of the room. One of Brea’s responsibilities was to “aid” the detention quota. Brea finished out the rest of the day and tacked on 15 more detentions.

 

It was 9:39 p.m. the following evening and after months of planning, $400,000 later, Brea sat alone on a stage surrounded by hot pink balloons, half naked underwear models, dripping chocolate and a blasting D.J. because the entire student body of Richmond Anderson School was serving detention.