Before It Rains

And he kissed me. Just imagine that.

***********

“What? Noooo way.” I looked at my mom and shook my head. “There is no way you’d ever do that to me!”

“I’m not kidding, honey bug,” she told me. “I’m really sorry but we just don’t have enough money right now to have six kids running around the house.”

“Running around the house? I just sit in my room and do my homework for Pete’s sake!” I cried.

“It’s not that, Sam. I just can’t find the money anywhere to keep six kids all still in school at my house.”

“But you can pay for boarding school?” What? She had to be paying a ton of pocket money we didn’t have to send us to this crazy place!

“You’re being sponsored. They give you money so that you can go there because your grades are so good.” she explained.

“But why can’t you just get them to sponsor me to go to public school?” I wailed. “I’m still getting the money... it’s practically the same thing!”

“It doesn’t work like that. If there was a way to keep you here, I’d do it in a second, but I’m out of options. You and Ruben will like it there. Go and pack, sweetie. You’re bus for Connecticut leaves tonight tomorrow morning.”

I just caught the last words she’d said and ran up to my room, slamming the door behind me. Maddy was lying on her bed, book in hand. She looked up when I came in. Okay, so it wasn’t completely my room. I had to share with my little sister. Maybe that would be a good thing about leaving this place. I’d get to share a room with someone my own age.

“Hey, Mad, you want to get the black suitcase out from under your bed?”

“Um, yeah,” she rolled onto her stomach, reached under the bed, and pulled out the suitcase, the biggest one we had. She slid it across the floor to me. “Why d’you need it?”

“Mom’s sending me away... to boarding school. Me and Ruben.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Does that mean I get the room to myself?” she asked me.

“Maddy!”

“Oh... sorry,” she muttered.

I grabbed the suitcase from the floor and opened the top three drawers that belonged to me.
I grabbed all my clothes out, already stacked neatly inside, and put them in the suitcase. I looked around. What else was I going to need? This wasn’t like a one week vacation or something. It was a yearlong one. I had just packed my I-pod, a gift from Gram and Gramps at Christmas, when there was a knock at the door.

“Go away!” I shouted. Maddy opened it anyway. It was Ruben.

“Hi,” he said. “What are you packing?” He looked over into my suitcase.

“Everything,” I told him. “We aren’t coming back until November.”

“Right,” he said, and left again. I finished packing, throwing a box of peppermints, three books, my candy stash, my Sudoku book and a couple of pens into a separate bag for the bus. It was going to be a long ride to Connecticut.

*******

What Mom didn’t tell us was that the bus was leaving at seven in the morning. At five she was standing over me, shaking me out of my covers.

“Five more minutes,” I moaned.

“You don’t have five minutes, Sam.”

“Four?” She whipped the covers of me and I sat up fast.

“We’re leaving for the bus station at 6:15 and you need to be ready. Go get in the shower... NOW.” She could’ve at least been a little nicer about it. She was, I thought, sending me North for a year against my will and instead of sucking up to me, she was yelling at me to get
in the shower. Nice move, Mom.

We left at exactly 6:14 and not a minute after. The ride to the bus station was only half an hour, but it seemed like a lifetime. I could only imagine how the ride up to the school was going to feel.

“Now I’ve got something for both of you...” my mom trailed off, handing us each a box. It was heavy and as I took the tape off it, I could see a gray laptop computer inside.

“Gee, um, thanks Mom,” Ruben said, looking at me and rolling his eyes. I was right about her trying to be a suck up, I had just predicted it a little early.

“Now, Gramps programmed the computers so you can get your email and instant messaging at school. Email me as soon as you get there, okay? Okay?”

“Yes, mother dearest,” I said, my voice oozing sweetness and goody-two-shoes. She looked over at me and raised her eyebrows.

“Look Sam, I know you aren’t happy about it, but please, please try to make the best of it. For me?” Did she think that little plug at the end was really going to get her anywhere? I was about to say something back, God knows what, when Ruben took over. He had always been the more tolerant of Mom out of the two of us. Maybe it was because he got three minutes as an only child before I showed up.

“All luggage going to Parkerson Station please. Get out your tickets please!” a voice called from ten feet away. It was a huge man wearing a blue shirt with the bus company logo on it, and I assumed him to be the driver. Ruben and I each hugged Mom and gave the man our two suitcases, which he flung under the bus, and our tickets.

The bus was pretty much empty and Ruben and I grabbed two adjacent seats in the middle of the bus on the right side. And something told me as he slid in first, that he picked the seats just so we wouldn’t have to be on the left side and way goodbye to Mom.