A couple of weeks later, Stan had another competition in France, coming in fifth. He was frustrated because he wasn't getting on the podium, but he still brought home some prize money, good news because he was incurring expenses for next season already. He'd chosen music and was having his costume hand made; it would cost several thousand dollars, and the choreographers were working on a program to highlight the athletic aspects that he was so good at. They were doing all this now because these things were in demand and it wasn't wise to wait. But the week after the competition, he hurt himself in training, a groin pull which required medical attention and therapy and massages. Stan was cranky and I avoided him, not that this was too hard, until he was able to get back on the ice.
Trig was making my life a nightmare. The teacher came in early twice a week to help those of us who were struggling, but I wasn't making much progress. I had no idea how I was going to deal with pre-calc next semester if I couldn't get trig. I was barely hanging onto a C average.
On a day where Mr Sloane didn't offer a trig help session, Stan took his car in for an oil change and brakes, so I followed him to the Brakes Plus. Mom said he could take my car so he could get to the rink and he could pick me up at the library after my shift was over. I didn't like it, but it wasn't a long walk from school to the library, and there were a few restaurants nearby where I could get dinner after studying, before my shift. But after the library closed, my brother was nowhere to be seen. I waited a half hour, but he never showed up. I walked home, taking a longer route that was better lit. I was pretty mad by the time I got home, and Mom made the mistake of asking about my day. She rubbed her forehead, and when Stan got home--finally, clearly having forgotten about me--asked him where he'd been.
"I went out with some of the other skaters," he said breezily, and it sounded like he had a great time. And why not? Everything was going his way.
"You forgot your sister at the library," Mom said tersely.
"Oh, sorry, Del," he said immediately, not sounding sorry at all. "But it's not that far away, anyway."
"That's not the point," Mom said. "You were supposed to pick her up so she wouldn't have to walk home in the dark. That was why we said you could drive Dad's car today."
Stan exhaled. "This is a safe town, Mom. Nobody's going to rape her." I was so mad that I ripped my keys out of his hand and stomped off to my room. I didn't stick around to hear Mom's response.
The next day I was at Grandpa's car ahead of Stan and sitting in the driver's seat. He tried to get me out so he could drive, but I told him that if he didn't want to have to walk to the car place he needed to get in now. He was pissed, but he got in and I drove in silence. I dropped him off and left as soon as he came outside with the keys.
When I got to school, I had a thought and Googled the crime stats for the area that included the library. There were only a few reported crimes; a couple of vandalism complaints, a domestic disturbance, and a burglary. I hunted down the school security officer, a policeman on permanent assignment, and asked him if there had been any crimes that hadn't been formally reported, explaining that sometimes I walked home from the library.
"There was a call from a homeowner who thought somebody was in the back yard," he said thoughtfully. "And a woman thought she was being followed, but the responding officers couldn't find anything." He smiled at me. "The town is pretty safe, but there's no point in taking unnecessary risks. Stick to the streets with more traffic and lights and you should be fine."I thanked him and thought about what he'd said as I walked out to the parking lot. Just because a cop couldn't find anything didn't mean that the woman hadn't been followed or there wasn't somebody in the back yard. Or that there were incidents that hadn't been reported. It was the weeknight that Dad was home for dinner, so we all sat down. The table seemed a little crowded with all of us there.
"How did you do on that quiz, Delia?" Dad asked, helping himself to the steamed vegetables. "It was in your science class, right? Chemistry?"
"No, Dad, chemistry was last year," I said patiently. "Earth science. And I got an A."
"Good, honey," he praised me. I opened my mouth to ask for some advice about trig, but he moved on to Stan, who was happy to talk about his classes and what was going on up at the rink. His main competitors in the country came from two other skaters, one of whom also trained at the rink, John Tang. One of the French men trained there too, and one of the Spaniards, a Belgian, and a Canadian were probably going to change their coaches next season too.
Stan was really competitive, and I wondered how that worked out at the rink. "Doesn't it bother you to be sharing your coach and all with your competition?" I asked curiously. He smirked at me.
"My competition is myself," he said patronizingly. "I land my jumps, skate a clean program, I can medal. All I can do is my best, and it's helpful to get a push in motivation from the other men." Mom and Dad beamed at this unexpected maturity. I wondered if it came from the coach. "Besides," he said more soberly, "this is a fantastic opportunity. I'm not going to do anything to jeopardize that."
As October progressed, we had a routine. Dad didn't have to work his second job on Wednesday or Sunday mornings, and Mom was usually home on weeknights by six, although sometimes she did a little overtime. We ate dinner around six thirty, but I worked six to nine Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, and nine to three on Saturday. Stan was usually up early for work before school, up at the rink after school, and he was usually home by dinner. He was up at the rink on the weekends too, doing dry land training as well as work on the ice.
I was making some friends, kind of casual, but it was nice to have somebody to go to the movies with or do something fun. But I was thrilled when Grandpa came to visit for parent-teacher conferences. He got a hotel room nearby because we didn't have a guest room, and I picked him up at the airport.
"It's so good to see you, Grandpa," I said as I squeezed him in a hug.
"Missed you, punkin," he said , hugging me back, and we chatted as I drove him to his hotel to check in first, then to the condo. We had an early dinner together so that I could make my shift at the library, and there was some unusual family chatting when I got home; Mom was usually tired and doing some work and Stan did his homework after dinner. Grandpa went back to the hotel after Dad got home and they greeted each other. I read later than usual; parent-teacher conferences were the next day, which meant that the teachers were doing in-service something, whatever that meant, during the day and students had the day off. Yay! I slept in, then spent more time on homework, working ahead, and using some on-line resources to try to figure out trig. Grandpa took me to lunch, then helped me with homework for a bit--he knew a lot but was also helpless in the face of trig--then we went out and explored the town for a few hours. Then we went to dinner and he dropped me off at the library. He went to meet my teachers and Stan's, and made it back to the library before closing. I was returning a cart after shelving and saw him talking to the circulation director, who was my immediate boss. I had time to shelve one more cart of adult fic before closing if I moved fast, so I just waved as I went by.
I trotted out of the library as soon as we got the closing done and Grandpa smiled at me, closing a book. "Forgot my book on the airplane," he said ruefully. "So Frank checked out this for me on your card."
"Do you need another book?" I asked. "You're here for a week, that won't keep you for long." We chatted about the library, and he said that Frank was very pleased with my work and said that I had a lot of initiative. That made me feel good. At the condo, he came up with me and reported to Mom about the conferences.
"All of Delia's teachers had good things to say," he said over cups of decaf, (why bother?) and reading his notes. "Ms Sanchez, her English teacher, and Mr Tiller, her earth sciences teacher, were especially pleased with the quality of her work and her class participation. Her gym teacher didn't have much to say, but that at least means that she's not getting into trouble." He patted my hand and grinned. "Her French teacher says she's far ahead of the other students and would like to have her do more independent study because she's not being challenged at her current level. Her history and coding teachers also had nothing but good things to say. That trig teacher, though. He doesn't seem engaged with the students or by the act of teaching. He said she's struggling but has a C average, comes in for extra help. Can you get her a different teacher for next semester, Janie?"
"I don't know, Dad, but I'll look into it." He patted her hand. "But why am I just now hearing that you're having trouble with the class, Delia?"
I rolled my eyes a little. "I told you before, Mom," I said impatiently. "But nobody asks how I'm doing very often, and Dad mostly asks about Stan's skating."
She flushed a little. "What did Stan's teachers have to say, Dad?"
"They were pretty much uniform, honey. They said that Stan turns everything in on time, that he has solid C averages, that he behaves himself in class despite his popularity with the other students, and that he could be doing much better with a little more effort."
"But I'm sticking to the deal, Mom," Stan said quickly. The deal, made when he was in middle school, was that he could participate in figure skating as long as he stayed out of trouble and got at least a C average. That wasn't much of a challenge for Stan; he picked things up easily and wasn't taking any kind of advanced work or even college prep. As far as I knew, he only did homework and written assignments, not really studying. That reminded me, I needed to sign up for a prep class for the ACTs and SATs. I also needed to research schools and see if I really needed to take them both. The SATs were supposed to be easier.
With a start, I realized that the conversation was over and Grandpa was getting ready to leave. He said he'd come by to get me for school, but Stan said he'd take me, so Grandpa said he'd see me after school.
In French, my teacher set me up at the back of the classroom with one of the language learning computers so that I could make progress on my knowledge of the language, and for the first time, I wondered why I should bother. I'd never even left the country, and I should have taken Spanish to be practical. In earth sciences, though, Mr Tiller announced a project, to be completed with a partner. I looked around covertly, wondering who I could get to partner with and praying it wouldn't be some deadbeat where I'd end up doing most of the work.
"The class will be creating an annotated geologic timeline. I will be assigning partners" whew! "and a part of the timeline to each partnership. Your job is to present the major hallmarks of each section in an interesting manner. The level of detail must be deeper than Wikipedia and you must use at least three credible, scientific sources. Avoid dwelling on the low-hanging fruit--everybody knows that there were dinosaurs in the Jurassic, for example--and tell us things that we don't know." He went on to explain how to determine if a source is credible and then assigned partners. I found myself with John Park, a quietly cute guy who looked familiar, and we were told to research the Archaeon Era, the whole thing. I looked at Mr Tiller in horror--I thought from what Grandpa said that he liked me--and he just smiled. "This eon is a challenge, but I have confidence that the two of you will create an interesting presentation." After all the partners were assigned, the class shuffled itself so that the partners could sit by each other and start to work.
"Looks like we'll have to focus on the geology," John said glumly, looking at our textbook.
"Maybe we can discuss whether plate tectonics was working at that time. I'm pretty sure that we're not going to find much about life forms during this time," I said. "I wish we could bring our cell phones to class, we could start with Wikipedia at least to see where we might explore." We agreed to survey sources tonight and talk tomorrow.
It wasn't until I was closing my locker after school that I remembered why John looked familiar. I saw him at the rink when we were there for family day. He competed as John Tang, one of Stan's main rivals.