Life Through a Lense

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Ah, nothing like going to parent-teacher conferences as a twenty-two-year-old, especially when your little sister decides to ditch you and the teachers think you're just another student. Although, I have to admit that the looks on the teachers' faces are priceless when they find out that I'm actually a guardian and not a lost senior. I've even seen some students that I had when I went here. 

"You're sister is a brilliant student, it's just a matter of getting her interested in actually attending class," Mr. Blake, Ivy's AP Biology teacher (aka my remedial biology teacher my senior year who was having a hard time trying to pretend he didn't remember me).

"The last time I checked, she had a solid A- in this class," I reminded him. 

"Ivy is one of my favorite students, so I pretend to not notice when she slips out early or slips in the middle of class- but she always manages to turn in all the work and know when there's going to be an exam," he said. "Quite frankly, I think she's bored because she's not being challenged by the material." 

Huh, I barely passed remedial biology and now here Ivy was 'bored' in AP Biology because the material isn't difficult enough. However, in art and English, my teachers always loved me, but I'd read Ivy's poetry and her attempts at art (and it was horrifying). How the hell did we come from the same genes? 

"So what's that supposed to mean?" I asked. 

"Maybe next school year she does a concurrent program with UCLA instead of coming to regular school," he suggested. 

I cringed. Ivy had already skipped a grade in elementary school. I didn't know how I felt about her going to college a year - technically two- years early. Then again, she had started kindergarten at six because she hadn't turned five in time the year before so maybe that evened things out? 

"Graduate high school early?" I asked uncertainly. 

"No, no," he objected. "Concurrent programs are kind of like AP, you get college credit while still in high school, except for the fact that she actually physically goes to the campus in order to take college classes." 

I sighed a bit of relief. So she'd be in college but not really. Good, I was really not ready for her to grow up yet. There were times I couldn't wait to move her into her college dorm room (god forbid she lived at home during college), but other times that I couldn't believe she could drive yet.

"Any suggestions for me?" I asked Mr. Blake. 

"I have a teenage daughter myself- just a couple more years to go," he said, although it sounded more like he was assuring himself more than me. 

"Thanks, Mr. Blake," I said, adding 'I guess' silently to myself. 

Before he had time to bring up my own time in high school, I step out of the classroom to let the next set of parents (who also gave me a strange look). I liked confusing people. Most people probably saw that I was too old to be a student here, I didn't have a staff nametag that all staff members were required to wear at all times, but I was also way too young to have a child here- unless I'd had Ivy when I was six. 

I looked at the last name on the list. 

Mrs. Grunwald, my old American Government teacher.

Fuck me. Could I ditch class too? I looked at myself in the window of the darkened libraries. She was so old and probably senile by now that she probably wouldn't even recognize me anyway. 

*** 

Well, I was wrong. Not only did she remember me, she thought that I was somehow still a student here (that would make me a super, super, super, super senior). It took at least five minutes to convince her that I was Ivy's guardian and not one of her friends trying to come to parent-teacher conferences for her.