Saturday 27 February 2016

Saturday, February 27, 2016 -

Ali at the Academy

by Katie Bradford
Published: Jan 13, 2016
Words: 33,489
Category: teen, institution
Orientation: M/F
Click HERE for further details and purchase options.
OPENING EXTRACT
Ali sat in disbelief at the Nichols' kitchen table trying to figure out how she got herself in this new predicament! Her school books were lying all over the table and sitting next to her was the most tyrannical, authoritative man she had ever met!! He was far worse then any of her teachers and, believe it or not, worse than Officer Burns!

"Come on, Alison ... start writing," Mr. Pullman snapped, tapping her paper with his finger.

"I'm thinking," Ali replied, making sure there was no sassiness mixed in with her response.

She had already been paddled several times by this horrible man for talking back to him. If he even thought she was smarting back, she'd be bent over the table and smacked on her bare bottom!

She was thinking, but not about her English paper which was what she was supposed to be thinking about. Her mind was on last Friday afternoon. Her father had hardly said a word to her in the truck on the way home, but once they were in the house he had promptly sat her down and proceeded to tell her about how she and Katie would both be spending their two days of suspension the following week.

He explained how there would be two administrators from the Brookhaven Academy of Behavior that would be coming to spend those two days with the girls, in their own homes of course. These administrators would ensure that the girls would complete the assigned work given by their teachers for the days missed, even though the assignments wouldn't count. Their main focus, however, was on the student's attitude and obedience.

Ali was floored when her father told her all about the academy. It sounded crazy. How could there possibly be a real place like that?

He also said that unless she straightened up and flew right, she was going to spend her entire Spring Break at the academy. There was no way she would be spending her Spring break at that place! He could forget it.

Once he was through yelling at her, he had sent her to her room where she'd ended up spending the rest of her day. Her mother brought dinner up to her room, glaring at her the way only a mother can, and her father came in to carry the tray away thirty minutes later.

Her weekend was just as bad. She worked from sun up to sun down, doing odd jobs around the house for her parents, and ate and slept.

She'd basically filed everything her father had said about the academy in the back of her mind, thinking it was all just talk to try and scare her. So when Monday came and Mr. Pullman rang the bell at six in the morning, Ali was shocked.

Her mother came and woke her up, telling her Mr. Pullman wanted her downstairs and ready to work in twenty minutes!