У меня завтра (уже сегодня) начинается новый семестр у Джека. Пишу домашку...

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The mechanical bird sang its late night song and retreated back to the everlasting esnarement of the wall clock.

It's nine already? Shit! I'm bloody late!

Amanda closed the tap and shook the residue water off of her soaked fingers. She grabbed the towel from the rail under the cupboard, and turned to face mum who stood at the kitchen portal, a folded paper in her hands. She already had her turquoise silk nightgown on, and a matching night cap with a cute little bonnet on top.

Amanda undid the apron ties and peeled the bib off her chest, revealing her party dress, a sparkling silver paillette thrift wonder with a mini-skirt and a deep V-neck which began somewhere around her sternum. Mum gave Amanda a contemplating look over her multifocus reading glasses.

"I'm done with the dishes." Amanda said. "Can I go now?"

Mother didn't say a word. She just stood there, silently blocking the exit. Her slender pale face was sort of neutral, but only "sort of". Am knew it. She was in for a lecture about something-something propriety, and how girls these days were losing their class and how the feminists were taking it way too far with their so-called liberties, and, sure enough, about the tough spot Am was putting her family in, cause apparently, her middle name began with an "S" now and ended with an "L", a "U" and a "T" respectively. So every single person in this bloody town felt as though it was their duty to remind Am's mum about her daughter who had the freakin' audacity to date boys and feel good about it! Yeah, all of those nasty feminists! If only it weren't for them! Am would've been a good girl then. A chaste girl. A girl who can spell.

P-r-o-p-r-i-e-t-y.
M-o-d-e-s-t-y.
V-i-r-t-u-e.
Jesus-fucking-Christ!

"Well?" she asked again and shivered, her bare shoulders getting chilly.
Mum pushed the glasses up with her index finger, and cleared her throat.
She said, "Actually, I would ask you to stay in tonight."

And so it began.

"Excuse me?" Amanda rolled her eyes.
"Your father and I have been talking. . ." her mother said. "And we've come to a unanimous conclusion--"
"Unanimous." Amanda smirked. "Wow!"

It was the same lecture always; mum would place her arguments in the same bloody order, and Amanda knew the lines as well as "Mary had a little lamb", and "its fleece was white as snow". She just wanted it to be over soon, so by the time she freed herself and made it to Liam', B&C would be clean enough to still notice her looks. She didn't have much time by the way. Those two were probably getting high already. And as they were reaching their normal level of stoned, they couldn't care less about Amanda's pretty paillettes, her skirt length, or how deep her V-neck ran. And she wanted that. She wanted them to notice, and she felt like that option was slipping through her fingers by the minute.

Mum pushed her glasses up once again and went on with the rest of the usual, "Your father and I both have a strong opininon about those kinds of . . . raves. They simply aren't suitable for teenage girls of your class."

Class, huh? Box number one. Tick.

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