I had
big plans for that money. I was going to save it up, teach
violin lessons to little kids, maybe buy a digital
camcorder or a
new camera. Maybe some
darkroom equipment.
I'm doing the addition in my head right now: maybe $125 for the new locks. The
textbook was probably $30, then the bag which I had just bought, $25. The
cellphone cost $150 when I bought it, and then lots of miscellaneous things too. My wallet, maybe $5 inside. My bus pass. My agenda. A bunch of pens, an empty
Mentos wrapper. A handful of
Ricola, a pad, a CD that I burned two nights ago for a project. My brother's old calculator, $25.
$360 of my birthday money, all because I was stupid and lazy and I didn't put my fucking purse in my
gym locker.
Ms. Long says that someone was probably hiding in the showers or something, then when we went to class took all the bags and walked away. Not all of them... some of us.
The feeling when it skips that house, skips that house, then comes after you.
I don't have any idea who took it. I will probably never get it back, not the cute bag with the
peace patch on it, not the note that I got from Mrs. Seiderman when I was accepted onto the
Academic Bowl team.
A deck of hotel cards I bought in
Philadelphia last August.
It's stupid, I'm stupid. Someone out there has my
pretty bag and I don't know what they're doing with it. Sitting at home, dumping it out on a
coffee table, shaking the last empty Mentos wrapper out of the bottom? Looking through my wallet, reading the notes inside, maybe reading my agenda and knowing that I had a violin lesson today and there's a
bio test on Friday.
Who does this? Was it a student? An adult, sneaking into the
girls locker room of a high school for a few hundred dollars? Someone who really needs the money?
Someone with children, someone alone. Someone rich but having fun. Someone poor. Tall or short or scared or anything.
Anyone did this. Anger, for me, for them, for someone who didn't help them before, for my parents, for being so self righteous.
"Emily, sit up. Everyone can see in the car."
"I don't care."
"They can tell you're crying. Jackie's in the van next to us, she's looking at you."
"That's too bad."