Take My Advice

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

When I got to my bedroom, I took a moment to center myself. My parents had seemed pretty serious, but I just couldn't go there right now. What I needed to do was get to work-I had assignments coming up, articles to write, Colby to daydream about, and if I didn't get started, I'd fall way behind. 

I've learned through a whole lot of trial and error (read, searching frantically for things in the middle of the school hallway while dumping stuff all over the floor and basically making a fool out of myself) that the key to success is organization. That's why as soon as I got to my room every day, I dumped my backpack out on my bed and arranged everything into neat piles. There was the "books I need for tonight's homework" pile, the "books I won't need until later, so why am I even bothering with them now" pile, my "things I have to carry with me because if I don't, I'll need them" pile-this would include nail clippers, lip gloss, gum. The necessities of life. And then there was the garbage pile. Notes, wrappers, that kind of thing.  

I was about to scoop up all the paper scraps and throw them away when I noticed one I hadn't seen before. It had been folded into a triangle. Curious. When I unfolded it, I saw that it still had a jagged edge from being ripped out of a spiral notebook-a serious pet peeve of mine. Anyway. As I read, I stopped worrying about the edge and almost forgot to breathe.

Dear Jill,  

I hope you can tell me what to do. Nobody can know this, but my dad's a drunk and he's been hitting my mom. Last night I tried to stop him and he beat me up too-I think he might have broke a rib. It hurts really bad. Anyway, I don't know what to do. I know you have to print all your letters in the newspaper, but maybe you could make up a question that sounds good to go along with your answer to this one, if that makes sense. 

That was all. No signature-nothing. The writing looked like a guy's-they never seem to care what their handwriting looks like. And of course I'd noticed the bad grammar, but it was more than that-this was way over my head.  

My advice column was just for fun. I handled things like choosing a nail-polish color for prom and dealing with crushes. I didn't do "real," and this felt very, very real. 

Except what if it wasn't-maybe it was a prank, a little extra something to go along with the Dr. Jill posters. I had taken more than my fair share of teasing about my column-wouldn't this fit right in? But even as I thought about throwing the note away and pretending it didn't exist, I knew I had to do something. It wasn't in me to ignore a cry for help. 

I grabbed my phone and called Ms. Young, my student advisor.  

Ms. Young runs the newspaper. Colby likes to think he's really the boss, and for the most part, we go along with it because things just go more smoothly that way. But Ms. Young has the final veto on everything we do, and she's the one who reads the questions for the column and forwards them to me. Obviously, this one hadn't come through her.  

"Hello?"  

"Hi, Ms. Young. This is Jill."  

"Hey, Jill. What's up?" I'd only call her after school if something was wrong, so her tone was friendly and yet guarded.  

I didn't want to get into too much detail on the phone, so I said, "Someone slipped me a note today and I need some help with it. Can I meet you a little early tomorrow, like right before first period?"  

"Sure, I'll be in my office. Do you need anything else? Are you okay?"  

"No, I'm fine. Thanks, Ms. Young."  

After I hung up, I paused to think. Just how had this note gotten in my backpack? I carried it with me just about everywhere, and I would have noticed if someone had been pawing through it. I'd have to ask Amanda if she saw anything-but she would have told me already. Weird.