Worlds' wackiest trailer trash (PART I)

It was a Friday afternoon, 2:26, the last period for the school week; a period my junior English class has taught me to fear. During this period in the past I have had full rubbish bins thrown at my head, I have been pushed into tables and I have watched in horror as students assaulted one another in a variety of inventive and truly violent ways. This is a period that has never gone well; but on this particular day an eerie calm set in which is usually a sign that when it snaps its going to be a big one.


I marked the roll, set the work and there was not the usual barrage of complaints... my God they were just sitting there doing what they'd been told and then all of a sudden something cut through the silence; it was an electronic rendition of some crappy top 40 pop song I had tried my best to ignore but couldn't help but recognise... a mobile phone. Before I could react Ami was out the door, her phone to her ear. It was against the rules but to hell with it, if this was the worst thing that was going to happen I could surely let this slide.


She had been outside for about ten minutes when I decided to stop worrying about it and get on helping the other students who were struggling with the days task when I felt someone tugging at my shirt sleeve... it was Ami:

AMI: That was my dad, he's out of jail and he said he's coming down from Broadford to kill me.


It's moments like these I wished I was an accountant... these are the things you can't be trained for, these are the things you never see on Boston Public. It is very difficult to know what to do in these situations, I knew that Ami was a compulsive liar but then I also knew that her dad was a bikie and a drug dealer and an all round unsavoury character. Ami grew up in a bus on a caravan park, her father was usually in lock up and her mother spent her time doing drugs and running a revolving cast of replacement daddies through the folding doors of their decommissioned passenger coach. Every time their dick got soft, their credit card redlined or their drugs ran out it was time for a new father figure.


I was thrown trying to formulate a plan but... what the fuck could I possibly do?!... standing there (most likely looking very stupid, possibly talking to myself) when all of a sudden the bell went and the room emptied out almost instantaneously. I walked out into the breeze-way, no Ami, checked the lockers, the bike shed, the school bus depot... she was gone. On my way back to my desk I passed the welfare co-ordinator, Liz and decided that this is the one person who had to know what to do.

ME: Ami got a phone call from her dad. He's out of prison and he says he's going to kill her.
LIZ: And what am I supposed to do about it... it's the weekend, just go home!


Sometimes my job can be so rewarding, it's one of those professions where you go home at night feeling like you've really made a difference!