Taking The Reins - Book 1 of The Rosewoods (teen romance)

Community Service

My academic day finished out with P.E., which I’d looked forward to, since I’d thought it would mean a ride, but I was disappointed to find out that we didn’t get an equestrian unit for a couple of weeks. Until then, we had our choice of football…er…soccer or archery.

Like every other girl I knew, I’d gone through a Katniss Everdeen stage so I’d already done some archery, and I felt like I needed something a bit more active to burn off some steam.  I spent most of the period doing soccer drills with my classmates until I basically fell into a sweaty, exhausted heap; mission accomplished.

What I neglected to remember, though, was that at boarding school, your day isn’t over after your last class; I still had dinner and the evening assembly to get through.

Dinner was fine (and after all that running around, I was starving) but then after that was the assembly about being a good Rosewood citizen. The dean was back at it again, telling us that part of Rosewood’s mandate was to ensure we all became contributing members of our society.

“That’s crap,” Celia said under her breath as she leaned in close to me. “It’s how they get free labor around here.”

I gave her a look, hoping she’d explain, but she just waved toward the stage, like it would be obvious soon enough.

And it was, when the dean went on to explain that we would each find our assignments e-mailed to us at our special Rosewood e-mail addresses that had been issued to us and were on our schedules. Not having noticed it before, I pulled the folded up and dog-eared schedule out of my pocket and sure enough, at the top was my special Rosewood e-mail address.

She assured us that each of our assignments was hand-picked to fit in with our schedules and interests (Emmie, sitting on my other side, snorted here) and was non-negotiable except in very extreme circumstances.

“Death or…death,” Celia said.

“If they really wanted us to contribute to society, they’d give us real volunteer opportunities,” Emmie whispered. “They’d send us out in the community to do worthwhile things.”

“So why don’t they?” I asked.

Emmie shrugged. “Like Celia said, it’s free labor. And also, they can’t have us all scattered around outside the compound; too much of a security issue.”

“Security?” I mean, I knew I might be a security issue, but what about the other kids?

Emmie leaned in closer. “Look around; there’s a lot of money represented by all these kids. If some billionaire’s kid gets kidnapped for a ransom, this school is screwed.”

I wondered if Emmie was a ‘billionaire’s kid’ as she continued. “Our parents pay for us to be safe here—that’s a huge draw, right? I’m sure you saw the security booth at the front gate—and they can’t exactly let us off campus to go be candy stripers or work on a big Habitat project with Joe Public.”

She shook her head. “It makes sense, but it’s still a waste of our talent and abilities. I could do a lot from here, organizing projects and fundraising online, but instead, they’re going to make me work in the kitchen or something and call it ‘community work’ that’s going to make me a better citizen. Right.”

“As long as I don’t get stuck shoveling crap in the stables again,” Chelly said. “It’s like they knew I hate horses and gave me the worst job in the world.”

“I’d love to work in the stables,” I said, suddenly eager to get back to our room so I could check my e-mail, figuring the new girl surely had to draw the short straw and get stuck mucking stalls.

Celia snorted. “If you want to work in the stables, you’ll end up cleaning the giant oatmeal-encrusted pots at, like, five in the morning. That’s just how it works here. And they never let anyone change—because then everyone would, right?”

Awesome. I couldn’t wait.

~♥~

Emmie and I returned to our room after assembly to log into the Rosewood webmail and get our assignments. She sat on her bed, her laptop across her thighs while I sat at my desk, working on my tablet.

“How did that happen?” she exclaimed, incredulous, but as I glanced over at her, I couldn’t tell if it was good incredulous or bad incredulous.

“What is it?” I asked, still trying to get logged in.

She looked up at me. “They put me in student services. School liaison.”

“What does that mean?” I asked. I still couldn’t tell if she was happy or not, but it sounded better than cleaning pots in the kitchen. At least she probably wouldn’t have to get her hands dirty, although I had a feeling Emmie wouldn’t mind physically digging into a project, as long as she was really helping people.

“It means I’ll be working with my counterpart at Westwood to coordinate events: dances, outings, talent shows.”

The slow smile that spread across her face told me this was a good thing. A very good thing.

She looked back down at her computer. “I told them no special treatment, but you know what? Screw it. I’m okay with this, if it’s thanks to nepotism.”

I wondered if juniors at public schools even know what nepotism means, but for girls at Rosewood, it was a way of life; kids get special treatment just because of who they’re related to. Although to be special and stand out at Rosewood, you had to be the upper crust of the upper crust—like have a building donated by your parents.

“What did you get?” she asked, putting her laptop on her bedspread and scooting to the end of her bed to look over my shoulder.

I finally got into my e-mail and sifted through the several automated e-mails from the registrar’s office about drop and pick, school policies, etc, etc, to find the one with the subject line, ‘CSA: community service assignment’.

Holding my breath, I opened it and scanned for the word ‘stables’ or maybe ‘equestrian center’ but no.  I read it from the beginning:

Dear Ms. Prescott, we are pleased to have you be a part of our award-winning community service program where you will give back to your community through volunteership that will help build skills that will last you a lifetime.

Your assignment is located at: The Rosewood Academy’s state-of-the-art laundry facilities.

Please report to your community service mentor: Mr. Ammaturo

At: The Housekeeping office, Main building, Sub-basement B. Tomorrow at 7:00 p.m.

After which, your scheduled hours of service will be: Monday through Friday, 6:00 -7:30 a.m.

The crack of dawn? And laundry? Really?

“Oh, that’s unfortunate,” Emmie said from behind me. “I don’t know what you did to make the dean hate you, but that’s pretty bad.”

And it only got worse.