She's a Spoiled Brat

Lanie

Trailing my finger down the page, I found the girl’s stats. Raven Marx. Seventeen. A senior at South Seattle. Had some disruptions the previous year, including skipping classes and talking back to teachers. The last few weeks, though, things had gone further south. She’d taken to cussing in class and threatening other students with harm.

Moving past Raven’s file, I read the few other ones in the folder. Just judging from the family information on the other pages, I got a sense of why the kids were likely having troubles. One boy’s father was in prison, and another’s parents were going through divorce.

There was more information on all the kids, but I left the detailed reading for another time and moseyed my way down the hall. There were coworkers to meet.

Too soon, the teacher’s lounge was in front of me. With sweaty palms, I opened the door and went in. Two women not much older than me stood talking in the little kitchen area, and a man with salt-and-pepper hair hunched over a big folder in a chair by the window.

The man didn’t so much as look up, but the women glanced my way, and I realized one of them was Robin from the office.

“She’s just hopeless,” the other woman was saying. “Raven’s never going to change because she doesn’t have to.”

My ears practically twitched. A tidbit on a student! With my social anxiety dissipating, I made my way over to them.

“Robin, right?” I offered my hand to the other woman. “I’m Lanie Jacobs, the new counselor.”

“Destiny Rodriquez.” She shook my hand and smiled at me. “I teach music.”

“I couldn’t help but overhear. Were you talking about Raven Marx?”

“Ugh.” Robin made a face. “The one and only.”

“I just glanced at her file. I saw she’s been having some trouble recently.”

Destiny sighed. “Trouble would be a light way of putting it.” She took a swig of whatever was in her mug. “I need to get ready for second period. Nice meeting you, Lanie.”

I gave her a little wave and turned back to Robin. “Raven is sent to the office a lot?”

“Yep,” she tartly replied, turning around to fill her ceramic mug with coffee from the nearby pot. “She’s pretty close to getting expelled, most likely.”

“Hm.” I frowned. “Do you have any idea why she’s acting out? I didn’t see anything in her file about—”

Robin swallowed a hot sip and shook her head. “You’re not going to find anything special in there. The girl is a spoiled brat. Plain and simple.”

My stomach twisted at the unfair term. Calling a person a brat was an easy way of glossing over an issue. No one acts out for no reason. Even if a kid is used to always getting what they want, they still deserve help. Spoiling creates bigger issues that affect a person for the rest of their lives.

“Thank you.” I smiled politely, feeling it was time to retreat. “I should get back to work. See you around.”

Halfway back to my office, my cell phone vibrated in my pocket. Stealing a look around to make sure the hall was empty, I pulled the phone out and accepted Erica’s call.

“Hey,” I whispered.

“How is the first day?” Erica squealed.

Reaching my door, I slipped into the safety of the office where I could talk in peace. Taking a personal call at school would probably not bode well for my success there.

“Good.” I slipped into my seat. “Already have a few kids on my radar.”

“Is that good or bad?”

I chuckled. “We’ll see. I was just in the teacher lounge, and one of the women in the office told me about this girl, Raven Marx. Called her a brat. God, I hate that word.”

“Raven Marx?”

“Uh-huh.”

“That name sounds familiar.”

“From where?” I laughed again as I powered up the computer. Time to see if the last counselor left any useful tidbits of information on the desktop. “Since when do you hang out with high school kids?”

“No,” she said seriously. “I have heard it from somewhere. Marx. Where’ve I heard that name?” In Erica’s background, people chattered and phones rang. Her office was always buzzing with activity. I’d visited it a few times, and my head had nearly exploded from the energy. Kindergarten was one thing, but the advertising branch of an accounting firm was another. As the baller head of the department, though, Erica took the craziness all in stride.

“The only Marx I’ve heard of is Andrew Marx,” she said. “You know who he is?”

“Uh-uh.” I scrolled through the documents on the computer, finding some pictures from a school play the year before and lots of files regarding the district’s behavior policies.

“Is that a no?” She went on, not waiting for an answer. “Andrew Marx is the CEO of Marx Investments. It’s the top investment firm in the US. Has been for years.”

“Oh. Cool.”

I couldn’t have cared less.

“But I doubt that’s his daughter at your school. He probably sends his kid to private schools.”

“Yeah. Could be a distant relative,” I mumbled, still perusing the computer’s files.

“Okay. I gotta go. Text me later.”

“Kay. Bye.”

We hung up, and I concluded there was nothing that useful on the computer. Nibbling on my lip, I pulled Raven’s picture out again. Something about it just wouldn’t leave me alone.

It was that intense gaze. That had to be it. Raven Marx looked like a fighter, the kind of girl who would only act up if she had a good reason. Really, that needed rephrasing. She seemed like the kind of girl who would only act up if she had a bad reason—if something was really wrong in her life.

I needed to find that reason out.