The Walker’s Game

CHAPTER TWO

The next morning had come and I just finished doing the dishes when my step-mother rush in the kitchen to tell me that I have other chores to do before I go to school. “I’ll be late if I finished the laundry first.” I said when she told me to do the laundry first before I go to school. She stared at me and it had given me the look of ‘finish-it-or-I-will-finish-you'. I just rolled my eye in front of her and before I walk passed her she held my arms tightly, that I could feel her nails digging onto my skin. “Don’t you dare show your attitude to me like that you little sh.it. Remember, you are just living here with us, you chose us, you choose this life. So you either follow this life along, or go running back to your mother, if she will accept you.” Except for Kathryn. She knows who my real mother is. But she chose not to tell her children, so it would not fear them that I am higher than them. She believes that the reason I chose them is because my mother choose the Prime Minister’s family, rather than her own daughter. I don’t know if she is right, or she is wrong, but she’s always wrong about everything.

I’m in the middle of doing the laundry when dad stops me. “Go change now Serah. We’ll be late.” Dad said when he saw me doing the laundry instead of preparing myself to school. “Kathryn said-” “Don’t think about her right now. I’ll handle her. Just finished preparing, you have an exam to prepared for.” He interrupted me and kisses my chick. The only person I care about, and cares about me, is my dad. I don’t know what would happen if he is not with me right now, maybe I’ll suffer more than I suffer right now from their hands.

“Honey, expect for me to be late tonight. You know that today is the parade of the Prime Minister and I am pretty sure it’ll be traffic on the way home.” Dad says to Kathryn and kisses her with goodbye when the three of us already finished preparing for school. Dad sometimes takes us to school, sometimes not if he needs to be early in his work as a computer manager. My father loves technology, he is a genius when it comes to them, he can download data without using the internet, he can hack a computer, he can create model with just his keyboard… He loves science, he really does, but what entertain him the most are, Riddles! Puzzles! And I… inherit that to him.

Today is the Prime Minister’s birthday, and his last year being the Prime Minister. So they have this event, like a parade where him, and his whole family, which by the way is including Avery, my mother where they will roam around, wave hands and have this interview at the end about how he feels next year, when a new voting will determine who to seat in that position.

I was about to sit at the passenger’s seat, when Pearl throw her arm at the door and stared to me. “You always get the back seat.” She said and smile at me. I can still remember what they did yesterday. I couldn’t even open that up to my dad. I sat at the back where her little sister Trisha is already seated with her headphone on. Trisha is just silent, like dead silent. She doesn’t talk to anyone, because she’s deaf.

We all had to adjust for her, learning the sign language, but sometimes, she is just lazy enough to talk to us in sign language that she needed to type her mind in a phone and sent it to the family’s group chat,which we also made it for her.

After we arrive at school, I straight up went to Mr. Yale’s class who is also our exam proctor for today. Mr. Yale is the oldest teacher in the academy, he is known to be strict in good way, he controls his student by being strict, teaching them that our life depends on our choices, that life is full of puzzles that we must solve in order to unlock the new chapter of our life. He also hates cheating in his class. I’m at the last row of the questionnaire about Human brain “It is the outer layer of the brain that plays a critical role in higher cognitive functions such as thinking, perception, language, and consciousness. It also houses the sensory and motor areas responsible for receiving and processing sensory input and initiating voluntary movements…” I whispered the question to myself only for me to hear it. I have been thinking deeply because I might be tech genius, but I am not a science genius. I hate science, I love math. Science bores me, like it is killing me to boredom, math kills boredom.

While re-reading the question, Czarina called me. I look at her and she is mouthing a word that I couldn’t understand. She rolls her eyes and started writing at her paper…The only problem about me, is I am easily distracted, when I am curious.

She showed me her paper for me to read what she wrote, but the only thing I can see is mess up lines. “She is copying my paper Mr. Yale!” And that’s when I know that I am in trouble. “Seraphine Avery Ford! At the office, now!”

“i am not cheating! She showed me her paper -”

I couldn’t even finish my sentence when Principal Gates interrupted me. “But you still look at her paper.” He said in his serious tone. Mr. Yale leave me here in this office with him. I do not have a problem with the principal, it is just I am always here and he never listens to me, I felt like I am invalidated. I remember getting purposely hit in the face while playing volleyball, and I just wanted to get back, and I was the one who got detention, for a week. And Czarina? The worst girl you could write in my story? Well, she just roam free with just a warning. “Looking at someone’s test is called cheating, whether you copy their answers, or whether you just look at them…” He added.

He open the drawer of his desk and get something from it. A file with my name written on it. “For the past years Ms. Seraphine Avery Ford-”

“Just Serah Ford.”

He glance at me and disregarded what I corrected and continue talking. “Ms. Seraphine Avery Ford, you’ve been in this office, for quite some time now… And cheating is the worst thing that will be added on to your record… And I want your parents to come tomorrow, for a conference about your behaviour…” He still continued stating my full name, in narrow words. I look at him and I just wanted to cry at the moment. Why is he doing this to me? I haven’t done anything wrong, instead I have done everything I can to make my school record clean. How could I have a scholarship for the University of Melbourne if I have a bad record? “Why do you need my parents now, Principal Gates? My behaviour is okay. I am a victim of bullying here as you can see, but you are not doing anything to prevent it. I do not know what I have done for this school to hate me so much.” This is getting ridiculous now, it’s like, someone really wanted me out of here.

“You’ll be expelled Ms. Ford. And We have to talk about that to your parents.”

My whole body is in state of shock from what I heard, and I know for a second, my mouth is open like a fish waiting to be fed. Just because I look at that girl’s exam I am getting expelled? So I am not getting any solution rather than expelled? I haven’t even been suspended every time ‘I got into trouble’, so why in direct expulsion.

I was about to talk when he pauses me by lifting up his one finger to answer the call from the telephone. He looked at me with some shock, like he couldn’t believe what he is hearing. He slowly put the telephone down and for a second, we are quiet. He opens hi mouth and he wants to tell me something but he is stuttering to the point he couldn’t even mold a sentence from his tongue. I was just looking at him with confusion, but still hatred from what he told me.

He immediately faces the mic that controls the announcement speaker of the entire school and start talking.

“Everyone. Listen. All Class dismissed until further notice. The Prime Minister has been assassinated.”