Episode 11 : You'd Think She'd Learn

Episode 11

You'd Think She'd Learn

Jennifer thinks she gave a quick I have to go over her shoulder, to Enoch, before she left. But, Jennifer's not sure, in fact she's even considering going back to tell him just that. And, then, to leave for good. To run, to saddle up a horse and ride off into the mountains, never to be seen again.

But, before Jennifer could do any of that, Mr Nibbs came whistling down the corridor, his bucket and mop next to him on his Segway – the invisible guard of Offset High.

Never take a janitor lightly, they know everything, and are usually overlooked and that's what makes them so dangerous. When in doubt, it's always the janitor.

Mr Nibbs comes to a halt, spots Jennifer and waves. She nervously waves back and continues on her way to the office.

Before long she finds herself in front of Mr Glasby's closed door. The dark wood contrasts with the metallic name plate on the door – a golden warning, a threat to ward off the nosy. It is the equivalent of the decapitated head of an enemy, proudly mounted on a spike.

An internal image well summed up by the title of Principle.

Jennifer knocks on the door.

"Enter," she thinks she hears someone say, but the voice was soft enough that Jennifer was not quite sure. She slowly turns the handle and pushes the door inward.

"Come in. Come in," Mr Glasby says and tells Jennifer to take a seat. The roundish man is seated behind his desk, his hands folded over his belly as he leans back in his chair, all while still looking at her with pointed, cat-like eyes.

Jennifer walks in slowly, as though any sudden move would warrant an attack of some sort. Before Jennifer reaches the open chair, Jennifer spots her mother in a second seat, next to the one she was to take in, opposite the Principle's desk. Jennifer's mother is slumped against the arm rest, on which her elbow is propped as she rests her head on a half-closed hand. As Jennifer takes in her seat, her mother smiles at her sadly.

His desk is relatively neat. There is a stack of papers in the one corner, a coffee cup near them, a stationary holder to the right and a file, with Jennifer's name on, right in front of Mr Glasby on the table.

Jennifer swallows hard.

For a long second, all three parties regard each other in silence.

"It would be great if someone would say something..." Jennifer says and, as though Mr Glasby had heard her, he starts talking.

"Breathe, Ms Hudstone you are not primarily at fault here. As you well know, your brother has deviated from his normal behaviour over the course of the past few weeks and, as of the last incident, we've seen it fit to take disciplinary action. That is why your parents were called to school today, to discuss your brother's behaviour and formally commence his suspension." Mr Glasby says and suddenly smiles before reverting his face back to its neutral state. "I digress, in the course of our review of Shawn's school records, your name came up a few times. You have built up quite a reputation of not paying attention in class, as well as disregarding homework, skipping class and, occasionally, skipping school. Now," He holds up his hand, opens Jennifer's file, smiles, and looks at her latest marks. "You're clearly a smart girl, it shows in your tests, but your work ethic is lacking. You are not a problem student, but the sooner we catch these types of... problems, the better."

His words wash over her with a cold wave.

"I will talk to the staff, ask them to check up on you. Your mother has also agreed to..." He looks at a spot in the distance. "She's agreed to help the process."

Mr Glasby suddenly becomes very serious and nods to himself, agreeing with his final statement, a statement that would not be made clear to Jennifer until she would arrive home later that afternoon.

***

"Welcome to The Grind, may I take your order?" Jennifer says. She'd thought that time would pass by quickly, as it always does on vacation, but apparently the trick to immortality was to do something that you didn't enjoy at all and then time would completely stand still. Who knew that the fountain of youth was filled with liquid boredom?

Jennifer rings up the order. Another coffee; long, black, with a dash of almond milk. Takes the customer's money and hands them their ticket. Next, she scribbles the order on a piece of paper, with the number, and takes it to the back. Number 259 and it's not even ten yet. To call The Grind popular is an understatement. She walks back to the front window again and starts with the next order.

Mr Glasby's process was nothing more than a plan to teach Jennifer the responsibility that she apparently lacks and the best idea her mother could come up with was to force Jennifer to get a vacation job. But, not only that, Jennifer would have to catch up with all the work she didn't do and report back to her home room teacher, who would relay her progress to Mr Glasby when school started again...

Jennifer takes in a deep breath and rings up the next order. In all the years that Jennifer's been a loyal customer of The Grind, it never dawned on her how exhausting it would be to work there. Jennifer always dabbled with the idea of one day owning her own coffee shop, but after the three days that she's been employed at The Grind, her dreams have officially been dismissed.

Shawn didn't get away without a problem either. Apparently, someone had walked into him, between classes, and a fight broke out. Shawn had lost a tooth and walked away with a few too many bruises to count, that's what you get when you pick a fight with someone twice your size and three years your superior. But, the thing that gets Jennifer is that she thinks he did it on purpose and chose a fight he knew couldn't win – for what reason she doesn't know, but that's the way it seems.

"Jenni-fer!" Ms Cole, Jennifer's boss and the owner of The Grind, yells from somewhere in the back. Jennifer quickly asks one of the other girls to cover for her and walks to the back.

What is it this time?

"Yes, Ms Cole?" She asks in the sweetest tone as she nears the stout woman.

Ms Cole shoves a receipt in Jennifer's general direction and lets go. Jennifer manages to catch the fluttering paper before it reaches the ground. Looking at the paper, Jennifer sees that it's one of the orders she'd written.

Ms Cole places her hands on her hips. "Can you read that?"

"Coffee. Long, black, with almond milk," Jennifer reads.

"Well," Ms Cole says sarcastically. "Either I can't read or you can't write. Your handwriting is awful, leave all those loops to the actual artists. Dismissed."

Jennifer turns on her heal and walks back to the order window. On the way over she smooths out her shirt and tucks a strand of stray hair back behind her ear. Before even looking up she pulls her mouth into a fake smile and starts reciting her line, looking at the floor.

"Welcome to The Grind, may I take your order?" Only to look up and come face to face with Angus. Jennifer knew it was bound to happen, but that didn't prepare her for the shock in anyway.

"One plate of chips, two coffees, long, black... and a packet of skittles," He says, not even attempting to acknowledge that he knows her.

Jennifer rings him up, gives him his number and continues on with her process as though he were just another random customer. They might have been strangers and no one would have questioned it. Claiming to have known each other, on the other hand, would've raised a few eyebrows.

At first, Jennifer managed to stay distracted. But, when she looked across the shop rather innocently, her blood started to boil when she spotted Tessa across from Angus.

Don't fiddle in someone else's pickle jar. Another nugget of Marsha's wisdom returns to Jennifer as she tries to cool her rising temperature.

Jennifer takes a deep breath, unclenches her fists – she hadn't noticed that she'd clenched them – and continues on with her stiff smile. She refuses to look in their direction, she won’t even think or allow herself to speculate about... she will not give Tessa the satisfaction.

Determined to distract herself until they leave, Jennifer busies herself with orders and focuses on fixing her loopy handwriting.

Four orders, nine coffees, three toasted sandwiches and two packets of Fruit-bubbles later, Jennifer's curiosity gets the better of her and she can't help but steal a quick glance over the head of her next customer. Angus is throwing skittles up in the air, only to catch them in his mouth, and Tessa is lazily pecking at her chips.

Neither look particularly happy or sad. On the one hand the situation confuses Jennifer. Hadn't Angus heard what Tessa said? Doesn't he know that she's using him? But, on the other hand, the scene intrigues Detective Hudstone. Jennifer hadn't realized how heavily she'd relied on Tessa's gossip and, having been out of the loop for so long, Jennifer hasn't the foggiest as to what's going on.

Jennifer makes a mental note; she has to stop relaying on gossip as evidence.

Jennifer scribbles down the next few orders half-heartedly, while looking at Angus and Tessa. They're talking, Angus leans in and says something while glancing over his shoulder and then back at Tessa, who is suddenly wearing a very broad smile. He shakes his head, as she rummages through her bag, and looks over his shoulder again only to make eye contact with Jennifer. The only sign of recognition, the only thing left of their shared past – a fleeting glance. But, before Jennifer could think anything of it, Angus gets up and leaves. Tessa doesn't look too happy, but before Jennifer can see what she's going to do, Ms Cole appears next to Jennifer.

Jennifer's heart stops and she pretends to scribble down an order on her notepad as Ms Cole searches for something, Ms Cole quickly finds what she was looking for and makes her way to the back again.

Jennifer doesn't even take a second to breathe before looking over at the corner table again – only to find that it was now completely empty.

She searches the coffee shop, but finds Tessa nowhere.

After helping another customer, Jennifer searches the sea of faces again, but, as before, doesn't find Tessa anywhere. Maybe she'd gone after Angus? On second thought, Jennifer highly doubts it, Tessa isn't the type to run after people – not even Angus Keller. So, maybe she just left?

Half disappointed, Jennifer returns back to her work. She would never admit it, but she did enjoy the distraction – the tiny bit of excitement that their presence sparked.

After taking another order, Jennifer glances at the clock on the wall – 10:30 – and sighs. Her shift ends at one, she still has a long time to go.

"I want to speak to the owner," Someone says angrily, from the other side of the window. Jennifer looks and sure enough there is Tessa, holding her plate while waiting for one of the others to call Ms Cole. Jennifer quickly looks away, so as not to draw Tessa's attention to her. Jennifer feels the urge to make her way to the back, to stay out of view, but at the same time she also wants to eavesdrop.

Before she can decide what to do, Ms Cole appears, making up Jennifer's mind for her and goes back to work.

At first, Jennifer can't hear what is being said, so she starts with the next customer. As she scribbles down the order, their voices become all the more audible.

"We would never," She hears Ms Cole say, trying to keep her voice low, but failing rather amusingly. Jennifer takes step in their direction and their voices become more audible.

"I refuse to pay for this," Tessa says. "I demand a refund. I could have food poisoning!"

Ms Cole tries to shush her, but Tessa keeps raising her voice. A few heads turn and some people start walking away at her remark.

"The health inspector was here two days ago; we don't have cockroaches..." Ms Cole says through clenched teeth. Jennifer's face twists in disgust, that man was part of the reason her first day was so chaotic – she'd prefer cockroaches above the health inspector.

"Well then how did it get on my plate?" Tessa says loudly, more people leave the line.

And, then Jennifer makes the connection. Tessa's trying to get a free meal again... she couldn't go through with her plan the first time, so she's trying it again.

Ms Cole doesn't know how to respond, Tessa's smile broadens – she thinks she's won.

"Well?" Tessa asks smugly and folds her arms across her chest. "How'd the thing get on my plate then?"

"You put it there," Jennifer says without thinking and immediately regrets having said anything.

Ms Cole, who had been standing with her back to Jennifer, slowly turns around and places her hands on her hips. "What did you say?"

"Well," Jennifer says. Tessa's face is one of complete shock, as she spots Jennifer for the first time. "I've caught cockroaches with her before and this isn't the first..." Jennifer continues, only to be interrupted by Ms Cole.

"I have had just about enough of you," Ms Cole says, her round cheeks slowly turn red until even her freckles disappear. "You cannot talk to a customer like that, you cannot accuse..." She takes in a deep breath, to calm herself.

"You will ring up her refund and then I will see you in the back," Is all she says next, before walking away.

Jennifer takes Tessa's receipt and gives her a refund in silence. Tessa simply smiles, still standing with her arms folded. As Jennifer hands her back her money, Tessa chocks her head to the one side, looking at Jennifer for a second before taking the money and slowly placing it back in her wallet.

Jennifer turns around and starts walking to the back, only to hear Tessa say: "Remember next time not to fiddle in someone else's pickle jar, Jenny."

Tessa knows how much Marsha means to her, but Jennifer doesn't look back, she doesn't even stop in her tracks.

Next time she'll make sure to remember.