Prologue - How I Spent My Summer Vacation

I’m not sure why we’re putting ourselves through this Ms. Kulak. I’ve been in your class for three years. By the grace of the perverted sense of humour of Mr. Cowan, I have faced English class in this room every single year of my high school experience. And every year when we get back from our summer vacation, you ask for the same essay… How I Spent My Summer Vacation. And every year my answer is the same. I spent my summer vacation at my Grandparent’s Ranch outside Fort McMurray, Alberta.

There is nothing new or exciting to report. I spend every summer there. I don’t have a choice in the matter. It’s where my parents shipped me every year at the end of June so they could have some “time alone” from the time my little brother died when I was ten. When really, I knew full well that they used to ship me off so that Mom could go back to fucking the pool boy and so that Dad could go back to banging his secretary. Which they so think that I don’t know about, but really, I’d have to be a moron not to have figured it out by now. Dad’s been fucking every one of his secretaries since my little brother died, and Mom’s been doing the pool boy or the gardener or the pizza delivery guy ever since in retaliation. I maybe young, but I am not totally clueless.

So there’s nothing I can tell you about my Summer Vacation that you haven’t already heard the past three years. But I can tell you how I spent the second semester of last year, since we both know that I totally didn’t spend it here, thanks in large part, to your meddling in my life, and informing my parents that you believed something was not “right” about my home life. Oh and the whole “anti-social behaviour” thing.

Not that I’m bitter about it or anything. I’m really not Ms. Kulak. I mean, it’s just that your comments made my parents decide to send me to live with my Great-Aunt Amèlie in Rimouski, Quèbec so that they could “deal” with their issues. First of all, I didn’t even KNOW that I had a Great-Aunt Amèlie. Let alone one who lived in Rimouski. Secondly, their idea of “dealing” just in case you care, was to get a divorce without telling me, so I came home to that pleasant surprise yesterday. Now my Dad is engaged to his latest secretary (like that’s going to last), and Mom is sleeping with Coby Scott (yes the Coby Scott who is currently sitting two desks over and one desk behind me) in case you care. (Oh and I’m not supposed to know about Coby, but my Mom has always been pretty obvious about her affairs.)

But still Ms. Kulak, I’m totally not bitter. Because the six months I spent going to school in Rimouski, Quèbec, were the greatest six months of my life. Don’t get that look on your face (you know the one you give me every single day when you think I’m being a sarcastic bitch, but you can’t say anything to me because you’re my teacher), because I’m actually serious.

However, just in case you don’t know anything about Rimouski (and you probably don’t), here’s the down-lo just for you. It’s a completely French speaking community on the east side of the St. Laurewnce (or the Saint Laurent as they call it in Quèbec). There is no one there who speaks much English at all. Which was just absolutely wonderful for me, seeing as how I spoke so much French and all.

So I get on a plane on a cold December morning… the 31st of December 2003 to be exact, at 6:45 am and fly from my more then comfortable Airdrie, Alberta home, to a small town in Quèbec that I know nothing about. I get to leave all my friends… including my boyfriend, Coby Scott (just in case you’d forgotten about that, since he’s now having wild monkey sex with my mother) behind. Not to mention my parents… knowing full well that I had been the only thing keeping their marriage together since my little brother died.

I was going to be missing a lot in the time I was gone… and I didn’t even know how long I was going to be gone. My parents hadn’t told me. They said they’d send for me when they were ready for me to come. Send for me. Like I was a dog or something to come when they called. So you were right Ms. Kulak. My home life wasn’t normal, but it was mine, and now it’ll never be the same.