They Rejected My Daughter novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The List
Ruby's name is missing from the math team roster and the principal's door stays shut. Audrey moves her daughter to another school, and a stranger writes to Ruby that she can say who did it.
The roster for the district math challenge was pinned outside the front office, and my daughter's name was not on it.
I had come to drop off a field trip form on the last Tuesday before winter break.
I stood at the bulletin board and read the list three times.
Eight names, typed in a neat column under the school's eighth grade team.
My daughter was not one of them.
She had taken first place at the district qualifier in November, with a score of ninety-eight.
I had the score report in my phone.
The fourth name on the list was Chloe Staniforth.
I had never heard it before.
My daughter Ruby talked about her classmates at dinner every night, and she had never once said Chloe.
I opened the report anyway and looked at the line that said District Rank: 1.
Then I put the phone in my pocket and climbed the stairs to the principal's office.
The door was shut.
I knocked three times.
"Who is it?" a woman called from inside.
"I'm Ruby Sharples's mother."
For a moment nobody said anything.
"Principal Haskins is in a meeting. You can come back another day."
Howard Haskins had shaken my hand at two open houses and never once asked my name.
"I only want to ask about the competition list."
The door stayed shut.
"The math department makes the list. Please take your questions to them."
"The math department sent me to him."
Nothing.
Then the voice came again, slower. "Selection is a full review, Mrs. Sharples. Grades, conduct, teacher recommendations and other factors."
"Other factors," I said. "What are they?"
She did not answer.
I stood there and went through it in my head.
Ruby had never missed a day of school without a note, and she had won the outstanding student award three years running.
Her math teacher had called me last month to say she was certain to make the team.
Whatever the other factors were, none of them were Ruby's fault.
I did not ask another question.
I went back down the stairs.
Her homeroom teacher, Ms. Walmsley, was coming in through the front doors with a stack of folders and a travel mug.
She saw me, and her face dropped for half a second before she smiled.
"Audrey! Let me take that." She reached for my bag, though I was holding nothing but my keys.
"I came to see the roster."
Her smile stayed, but it stopped moving.
"Oh. That. I only found out an hour ago myself."
"Who decided it?"
She looked down one end of the hallway, then the other.
"It came from the front office," she said quietly. "I wasn't in the room. Audrey, please, don't do anything rash. Let me find out what I can."
"Ruby is the best student I have taught in six years," she added, and squeezed my arm.
It was a kind thing to say, and she meant it.
"I'm in no hurry," I told her.
That was true. I never am.
I work in an office downtown and I rarely get to Ruby's school at all.
Her forms all say Sharples, her father's name, and mine says Lund.
In three years nobody at Ridgeline had asked me why they were different.
At five-thirty Ruby came in, dropped her backpack beside the couch and sat on the floor to untie her sneakers.
"Mom."
"Mm-hm."
"You saw the list."
I looked at the top of her head.
"They put it up after lunch," she said. "I'm not on it."
"What do you think happened?"
She stood up and looked at me.
She was not crying and she was not angry. She was very quiet.
"Chloe Staniforth is in my grade," she said. "She gets Cs in math, mostly."
Then she went into the kitchen and ran herself a glass of water.
They had removed the top student in the district and put in a girl who got Cs.
I sat on the couch with my own glass.
The water was cold, and I drank half of it.
Ruby came back and leaned in the kitchen doorway.
"Mom, please don't go to school and start a fight."
"When have I ever started a fight?"
She studied me for a few seconds.
"You don't start them," she said. "You finish them."
She went to her room and shut the door softly.
My coat was on the back of the chair, and in its pocket my second phone began to buzz.
I let it buzz.
I opened my laptop and typed into the browser: Denver Public Schools, mid-year transfer, eighth grade.
It was a short form.
I filled in Ruby's name, her date of birth, and the school I wanted, Cedar Hill Middle, across the district.
Under reason for transfer I wrote: Family preference.
So I filed it.
Near eleven the floor creaked, and Ruby stood in my doorway in her pajamas holding her phone.
"I'm moving you to Cedar Hill after the break," I said. "That's all. I'm not fighting anyone."
She nodded slowly.
Then she held the phone out to me.
"Chloe Staniforth just messaged me," she said.
The text read: I didn't ask to be on that list. Please don't tell anyone I wrote to you. I know who did it.
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