Maid for My Nemesis novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Gavel
The headmaster hands Hattie's office to the founder's heir in front of the whole school, and that night he knocks on her door with a job offer.
The headmaster tapped the microphone twice, and four hundred students went quiet.
I sat in the front row of the Kestrel Hill auditorium with the president's sash across my chest.
My mother had ironed my blazer at five that morning, because it was the opening assembly.
I was eighteen years old, and I had been class president for exactly eleven days.
"This year is our Centennial," the headmaster said.
"One hundred years ago, the Whitcombe family built this school with their own hands and their own money."
I knew that already, because their name was carved over the front door.
"To honor that, the Board of Trustees has amended the student charter."
A few teachers shifted in their seats.
"For the Centennial year only, the office of class president will pass to a member of the founding family."
My stomach dropped.
"Julian Whitcombe, would you come up, please?"
He came out of the second row slowly.
Julian was tall, with straw-colored hair that fell over his forehead and round tortoiseshell glasses.
His uniform was pressed so sharply it looked ironed onto him.
Every girl at school had a theory about him, and none of them had ever heard him laugh.
He did not look at me as he climbed the stairs to the stage.
The headmaster smiled at me with all of his teeth.
"Hattie, we thank you for your service. I'm sure you understand."
Somebody in the back row laughed.
I understood perfectly well.
The president's office came with a desk, a gavel, and the Student Steward award.
The award was nine thousand dollars a year, paid out weekly, written right into my scholarship agreement.
It was my mother's rent, and my brother's winter coat, and the reason I could afford a place here at all.
I looked at the sash on my chest.
Presley Hargrove sat two seats down, and she was not even trying to hide her smile.
She was the vice president, and she had wanted this office since freshman year.
Her father sat on the Board of Trustees, so she had to know something I did not.
I could have cried right there, in front of everybody.
Instead I stood up.
The auditorium went so silent I could hear the heating vents.
"Headmaster, is that a vote?" I said.
"It's a charter amendment, Hattie."
"Did the students vote on it?"
"The Board has the authority."
"Then that's a no," I said.
Somebody gasped, and I did not care.
I lifted the sash over my head.
I folded it in thirds, the way my mother folds dish towels, and I walked up the stairs to the stage.
Julian stood at the podium with his hands clasped, looking at a point above my head.
I set the sash on the podium in front of him.
Then I picked up the gavel from the lectern, because it was mine until the second I handed it over.
I held it out to him.
His blue eyes finally met mine, and I saw something in them that I could not read.
"Congratulations," I said, loud enough for the microphone.
"It looks great on you. Try not to lose it."
He took the gavel without a word.
His fingers were ice cold.
I walked off the stage and down the center aisle with four hundred people watching.
I did not run, and I did not look back.
Ruby caught up with me in the hallway, her dining hall apron still on.
"Hattie, oh my gosh. Oh my gosh, that was incredible. I'm going to kill them."
"Don't," I said. "I need you to help me think."
I did not think until the bus ride home.
That was when my phone buzzed with an email from the scholarship office.
The Student Steward award had been reassigned, effective immediately.
Nine thousand dollars, gone, before lunch.
I did the math twice on the back of my hand, because I did not want to cry on the bus.
My mother and I lived over a laundromat in Torrington, with my twelve-year-old brother.
Rent was due on the first.
Without that money, we were short by four hundred dollars a month, starting in November.
I climbed the stairs to our apartment and found my mother at the stove.
"You're home early," she said.
"They gave my job away," I said.
Her wooden spoon stopped in the pot.
I told her everything, and she listened without interrupting, the way she does.
"Well," she said finally. "We'll figure it out. We always do."
She was lying, and I was lying back when I nodded.
At nine o'clock, someone knocked on our door.
My brother went to look through the peephole, and then he turned around with a strange face.
"Hattie," he whispered. "It's a rich guy."
I opened the door.
Julian Whitcombe stood on our landing under the bare bulb, in his school coat, holding a plain white envelope.
He looked like he had walked the whole way.
"What do you want?" I said.
"I came to offer you a job."
"I have a job."
"You had one," he said. "I'm sorry."
He did not look sorry.
He looked like a boy about to step off a roof.
"I need a maid," he said, very low. "Two hundred fifty dollars a week, cash."
My mouth fell open.
"Nobody finds out," he said. "Not your friends. Not the school. Nobody."
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