Hello! I would like to point out a few things:
-If you have read the summary that I put up in chapter one, this chapter already been covered and you can go to the next chapter. The next is chapter 3 and it's when Marilyn's finally in Dalton.
-There might be a few Madilyn's instead of Marilyn's in the story. I apologise. That was her name at first, and I might have missed a few going back through the story. They should all be gone by chapter five.
-If you'd like longer chapters, never fear. I have longer chapters coming up in the future. As well as more characters and some shenanigans. Yaaaay :P
-This is my first story and is probably crap. But it's alright for me and I am proud of it.
So enjoy chapter two of Marilyn's Adventures At Daton Academy!
'How the crap am I going to tell my parents about this?'
'Am I going to end up back at public school?'
'How could I try to be responsible and then end up with such failure?'
These were the thoughts running through Marilyn's head on the drive back home.
'Well, I guess it wasn't really my fault. I thought it was less money and had very good reason to think that. Every website and pamphlet and paper I read said the same low-ish price. Then again, I could've at least thought of finding a more recent website or something. GAH. I guess I'll just KEEP RESEARCHING. Dang it. If I have any luck, I might have overlooked a school somewhere.'
Somehow she did have luck as she pulled into the driveway, walked inside, and turned on her laptop. When she got herself comfortable on her desk chair, she pulled up Google™ and searched 'Non-Expensive Private Schools'. It automatically brought up ones closest to her area. There, a bit down on the list on the Google™ search, was a school called Dalton Academy. 'I actually missed one? This place looks pretty nice..' she thought leaning in closer to her laptop screen and seeing the pictures on the homepage. The first thing she checked was if it had archery. She clicked the link to the curricular page, scrolled down and 'It...does have archery? I'm getting really lucky now…and a pretty good shooting area too! Wait, check the price! An updated price.' She reminded herself.
She went to the schools joining information and found the price for a year: $3,100 + tax. 'Whoa! That's not too bad. It's still kind of steep, but not near as bad as Harwoods.' "This is great!" she said aloud after seeing at the bottom of the page that the website was updated just last week. 'But, there's got to be a catch somewhere.' Looking through all of the information, she came across 'dorming.' On the website was written: "If you or your child is uncomfortable about them dorming with other males, we have single dorms available for a slightly higher price." 'Okay…that's kind of odd, usually it is same sex pairing. But it doesn't make me uncomfortable anyway. I wonder why they didn't mention being uncomfortable with girls too.' There was the answer. Right at the top of the page below Dalton Academy was 'All Boys Learning Institutions.' This was an all male school. Ooooof course it was. 'How did I miss that? And in bold lettering, at the top of the page!' She sighed and held her head in her hand, elbow on the table. This was hopeless. 'I guess I have to go back to useless public school.' A small crazy thought flashed across Marilyn's mind. It was more of a joke thought. 'Haha, what if I disguised myself as a guy?'
Her eyes went wide and she lifted her head. 'That's…not such a bad idea.' said one part of her. 'That's a stupid and terrible idea! It's not like you could even get away with that!' said another part. 'Or maybe you could..' She smirked a bit at the wicked idea. 'What's the harm?' 'There's plenty of harm! Loads of things could go wrong!' 'Yeah right, like if I get caught my life would end. I've been way too hard on myself, why can't I just let go, and have fun? Even then, it might end up working somehow.' 'Uh huh…like it would work. And you have to be at least a little hard on yourself sometimes!'
"Oh, God, I'm starting to think like Gollum talks." said Marilyn aloud. "I need to call someone. Wait…I don't have any friends to call. HOLY CRAP, Yes I do." She jumped up from her desk, knees cracking on the way up, and grabbed her phone from her purse. Quickly she dialed the number on a small piece of paper that was also in her purse. "Ronald! I have a crazy idea!"
"Ouch! Jeez kid, still hung over thank you very much."
"Sorry. Is this a bad time?"
"Not really, but I didn't expect you to call this quickly. Miss me already?"
She sighed. "A bit. Can I ask you something?"
"Only if you ask quietly."
Marilyn told Ronald about finding Dalton, and possibly disguising herself to make it in there.
"You're insane."
"Thanks, those are just the words I needed." she said with sarcasm.
"Well it's true. And you do know that you can't just wear different clothes right? There are loads of papers to sign; you have to give them your birth certificate, ECT ECT..."
"I think someone in the staff won't mind sneaking me in."
"It seems a slim chance that that would happen Marilyn." She sighed and collapsed on her bed still holding the phone to her ear. She had lost all hope in finding a school. 'Back to wonderful public school we go.' she thought sarcastically. A couple of seconds passed before Ronald sighed and spoke up again.
"But, seeing as I know some people who know some people at Dalton, I can possibly help you get in."
"You..you would do that for me?"
"Sure. It'll give me something to do other than my job and watch heroes…and drink."
"Oh thank you! Thank you thank you thank you so much Ronald! This is great."
"You seem very chipper about this situation."
"Well I really don't have another good choice. If it all fails, then I'll end up with only public school as a choice. I'm not giving up hope just yet. I need to stop over analyzing things anyway. You never know, it could be fun."
"Heh heh, I wish I knew more people like you."
"I'll take that as a compliment Ronald." she smiled to herself
"Well then, go for it."
"Alright. I really can't thank you enough Ronald. I'll uh…talk to you later then."
"Of course. It's no big deal. Bye kid."
It was at about 4:00 that Katherine got home with Liam. She had just picked him up from school. She placed her purse on the counter and Liam ran up to his room. She then saw the food lying out in the kitchen. Marilyn was cooking dinner. The woman moved her hand over the bowl of green beans. "What's all this?"
"Green beans." said Marilyn simply.
"Don't be smart."
"Sorry. I'm making dinner. I haven't in a while."
"Wonderful. I'm beat."
"Work didn't go well?"
"No, it went well. Just a long day. Soooo many phone calls." she said dramatically.
"Haha. Yeah. When does Dad get home?"
"In a few minutes."
Later, after her father got home, they all were seated around the table eating meatloaf in a ketchup sauce, green beans, and canned biscuits. She wasn't entirely sure how to start the conversation.
"So, how did your interview go Mad?" asked Howard while lifting his head from his plate.
"Yeah I'd like to know too Sweetie." said Katherine.
'Well I guess that's a way to start it. Eh, I can't even begin to lie to them, I'm just going to tell them what happened.'
Marilyn explained the whole ordeal, and the events of the day leading up to getting back home.
"Oh honey, I'm so sorry that happened." said Katherine with a sad expression.
'Well that's not the reaction I expected. I thought more alone the lines of "What? Marilyn! IRRESPONSIBLE FAAAAAAILUUUUUURE!.."'
"There's no need to be sorry, it's my fault anyway. I miss read the price or something." said Marilyn. Everyone seemed pretty depressed and looked back down at their plates. Even Liam seemed a bit sad.
"So what are you planning on doing?" asked her father cautiously. "Do you maybe have an idea? Are you going back to public school?"
"Oh gosh, I hope not." A small smile was reaching Marilyn's lips. "Actually, I somehow found another school." Her mom and dad looked back up. "What? Wow!" exclaimed Katherine. "Where?"
"I overlooked it when I found Harwoods. It's a place called Dalton." 'Please don't know it. Oh, I hope you've never heard of this school.'
"Is it a good clean school?" asked Howard, ever the cautious one.
"It is a very good looking school with great classes. Even more surprising, it has archery. And, it's much less money, right around the planned budget."
"Well, that's amazing Marilyn! Have you planned an interview yet?"
"I already set it up with the front desk lady. It's in four days. Sorry Liam, I'm here for at least another few days." Liam moaned his disapproval, and then (after compliments on dinner and goodnights) Marilyn started cleaning up the mess dinner left. 'That was…a bit too easy.'
Things were going quite well after that night. Marilyn was heading to town. She had to go to the salon and get a haircut, a boy's haircut. Oh joy. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, the haircut. She needed one anyway. And this could be a fun experience. She signed in at the salon, and got put in a chair at once. Marilyn looked through a boys hair cut magazine until a tall ebony woman with bouncy hair walked up to the chair. "So what can I do for you honey?" she asked with a happy voice. "Little off the top? Trim? Bangs?"
"Actually I'm going for a different style, a…very…different style. I'd like a cut like this." Marilyn pointed to a medium clean choppy boys cut that was swooped slightly to the side. "Hmm..You don't really seem like the 'emo' type cut to me hun."
She blushed a bit. "Well, it's not exactly supposed to be 'emo'. Maybe just cut the bangs a bit shorter than in the picture. But keep the color." 'This is absolutely crazy.'
"Alright baby, I got you covered." And away she snipped. Her long hair was falling away at every angle she could see. 'This is insane, and it's not happening. No, it's definitely happening. Oh gosh. It's never been this short. Mom and Dad are going to kill me. Or at least ground me. Ah..I'm still a teenager. I can get away with something like this. I just hope people don't get the wrong ideas.'
"So, why the sudden change in look dearie?"
'Why does she have so many 'pet names' for me? This woman doesn't even know me. Agh, jeez Marilyn, stop over analyzing it.'
"Um, well, certainly odd reasons. I can't really help it though."
"Honey if you're gay that's alright. I do 'butch' (she did air finger quotation marks) haircuts all the time. No one's going to judge you. Well, I certainly won't. In fact I have a flaming friend! If he ever came in here, the place would blow up from the flame and aerosol mix."
She laughed a bit at that until she fully remembered the beginning of what she said. "What? No, no no no no. I'm not gay. I just needed this cut."
"Oh, alright then. I'm sorry for intruding. I'm just a gossiper." "Oh, that's alright."
"You're almost done babe. Just a few more snips, and let's comb this out…and done." She turned the chair around to face the mirror.
"Holy crap."
"Oh no…you hate it."
"No! No…it's…it's not bad. It's just…different." She ran her fingers through her newly styled short hair. It had a really cool feel to it, and it really didn't look that bad. She was already looking kind of guy-ish. "Thank you very much, I think this will work just fine." She could have just done a wig for the interview, but figured it would look a bit too fake. She hoped her parents wouldn't all of the sudden start to take notice in all these changes, but they were both quite busy from work anyway. It was either work, sleep, eat, or tv. Although there's no way they wouldn't notice the hair.
All three of her family was staring at it when she walked through the door later that night. Marilyn simply said "I uh… I got a haircut." and walked upstairs. She closed her door and took a deep breath. She had been practicing using a slightly deeper voice over the past few days. Saying simple things like 'Hey.', 'How are you?' and 'Thank you.' She also worked on her stance, and mannerisms. This was insane. But she was already too deep into this. Tomorrow was the interview.
Short, nice, awkward. These were the three words to describe both that morning, and the interview that followed. As far as she saw, Dalton was a beautiful place with nice classes and teachers. The interview went quite smoothly. Only the checking of the grades, attitude, and past schooling and she was set to go.
Due to Ronald's help there was a school board member who knew the whole thing. She was the happy type that would go along with anything. Sarah is her name, a beautiful but slightly short red headed woman. She seemed firm but delicate. When Marilyn met her at Dalton's front door she thanked her profusely for helping her and keeping her secret. Sarah just said "No problem. This should be fun." and winked.
Long story short, she made it in. When she got home, she walked into her room, closed the door and leaned against it with a long sigh. "Finally. Not exactly what I had in mind a few months ago...but this will most certainly work." And she started packing up her room. It really didn't take long, the car was packed and her room was empty (other than a bed and a dresser) in a matter of hours. Here she was standing in front of her parents, about to leave. They looked sad. "You do know I'm not exactly 'leaving the nest' yet, right? I'm not going to college yet."
"It's close enough." said her mother softly.
"I picked Dalton because it wasn't a far away as a cheap one a while from here. I'll come every holiday and then some."
They seemed happier after this statement.
"We love you very much. Be careful and call us all the time honey, okay?" said her dad as more of a statement than a question.
"Of course. I love you guys. Thank you for this chance…really."
She hugged them and Liam, and started to head out of the door.
"Marilyn?" Katherine had walked forward and held her hand. "We are so proud of you. You were really responsible." Her eyes started to water.
"Yeah, like I was really that responsible." She wiped her eyes. "But thank you."
"Gosh, just take a compliment." said her mother jokingly and then she chuckled. Marilyn laughed a bit too.
Marilyn smiled, waved one last time, and then jumped in the car and headed towards Dalton.