Camping on the Borderline (Completed)

Prologue: The History of Madeline (Part I)

Prologue

The History of Madeline (Part I)

I received a phone call from my father two days ago. Apparently, he would have no other choice but to send to get me, if I got expelled. What he didn't know was that I wanted out since the day I had arrived. He had his mind set on a good education for me, and I didn't have the heart to tell him, no, I didn't want to go.

I was in 7th grade when my father decided, that he wanted me to go to the same boarding school in London as my cousin Cameron. I still blame my aunt and uncle for giving him the idea. They made him think the school was heaven on earth. Sure the school was very sophisticated, but it reeked with snooty rich brats, and I hated it from the get go. I had been scoffed at, pushed, and shoved before school had even started the first morning.

Cameron had been there for four months, before I got there. He's the one who taught me the how, and how-nots of skipping class, and sneak out of our school bedrooms. The main goal was to go to exclusive parties off campus. I admit I was a goody-two-shoes before I got there, but all of that change after I started hanging out with Cameron.

 Cameron was one grade higher than me, therefore; forcing me to make new friends. Cameron hated and respected me for being hailed the more hard-core trouble-maker, hands down. We were detention royalty, and fighting for number one on Pemberley Academy's most wanted, depending on who you were asking. Fridays after school were the worst, well, only we actually came to detention.

It was common knowledge that Cameron was only sent off because every public school he went to, he was kicked out of. Cameron was too big of a problem to deal with for free, so his parents went with Plan-B, a private school. They thought about closer private schools, but opted out when they figured it would be the same thing, as long as his friends were close by. What they weren't aware of, or couldn't come to terms with, was that he was, indeed, the problem.

I knew a few of Cameron's friend because they went to my school, and football camp every year. My father was, and is the football coach, and director of the camp. It's unfortunate that when I was younger, I had no other choice, but to be dragged twelve weeks out in to the wilderness. I'm still not surprised at the thought of what I would've been willing to do, not to go. I remember that awful day when my Dad got hired as the head coach, like it was yesterday.

The company he worked for had gone bankrupt, and my Dad had been out of a job for more than a couple of months. He never really liked being an electrician, however; no one was banging down doors looking for football coaches, so he took what he could get. He started working at Barson Electrics a year before I was born. He did what he could, and got really good at it after a while, but his heart was never in it. He would always say, meeting Mom there made it all worth it, because in the end, he got me. My mother had worked as a sales representative in the same company and as the story goes, one faithful day, they met by accident. That's the only story about my mother he'll tell me.

I can't remember anything about my mother. I only know what she looked like from the pictures my father had shown me. He never really liked to talk about her. I've never returned to my mother's grave after the funeral. I remember one time I ran away after a big fight with my Dad, and I roamed the cemetery for hours brushing snow off tomb stone looking for her name. I couldn't stop crying, all I wanted to do was talk to her. After almost four hours my father found me laying by a tree almost unconscious from the cold. He took me to the hospital, but he never told me were the tomb stone was. After that day I stopped asking questions altogether about my mother, no matter how much I wanted to. My mom died a year after I was born. I couldn't really grieve for her because I never really knew her. I did grieve the idea of not having a mother. The days when a girl just wished she could hug her mom, because her first day at school went bad, or just someone to go to the mall with. My father tried his best to fill both places at once, but it just wasn't the same. Ever since I could remember it'd been my dad and me. We only had each other, and after a while it got easier, until the day he was jobless.

Those months were really tough. I never knew what it was like to be poor, but I sure got a glimpse. I can remember that time so well because it ended on my 8th birthday. My father had tried to make a cake, and it ended up burning. I had made the mistake of thinking it was chocolate, when he took it out of the oven. After looking at it for a while all we could do was laugh, the poor cake was vanilla. After we cleaned up the phone rang. He was still chuckling when he went to pick up the phone, and answered the person on the other line must have said the wrong thing, because as they spoke his face went hard. I could barely hear his voice, as it had dropped to a whisper. All I heard him say towards the end was, "no you can't talk to her" really loud slamming the receiver down. He stormed out into the garage, and the phone rang again. I waited for him to come back to answer the phone for the second time. I was going into the living room to answer the phone when I heard him come back in. I quickly retreated back to the kitchen. I heard the ringing stop, and the click as he picked up the phone and screamed,

"I said, No! So stop calling." I almost fell off my seat from the scare, but after a moment of silence he responded.

"No Mr. Davidson this is not a bad time at all. I thought you were someone else calling." he chuckled, clearly embarrassed.

There was another silence, and I, being the nosy person I was, left the kitchen to see what was going on. As I walked in, my Dad was sporting the biggest grin I had ever seen on him.

"Yes sir, I can start Monday." he replied to the man on the phone. When he said good-bye he ran to me, and twirled me around in the air. He always did that when he was happy about something.

"I got the job Maddy. I'm the new football coach!" He hugged me tightly, and I smiled. I was happy that my Dad was finally happy. All those months, I knew he was miserable. He tried to hide it from me, but I always knew.

"Maddy I'm going to get you the best birthday present ever. Anything you want, I promise." He said excitedly.

"Anything?" I replied matching his grin, with a hint of an evil smirk.

"I know that look, anything reasonable, young lady." He replied in his oh-so fatherly tone, and his pointing finger.

I looked at the floor in an act of feigned remorse.

"Okay Daddy." I smiled a sweet smile, running off to play in the yard. He would get me what I wanted. With Dad I always got what I wanted. A tad spoiled? Maybe! Little did I know, after that day my summers would be replaced with, football camp, and boys.