My Favorite Game

The morning after my blanket party, the staff came in and found me still under my bed. I was pretty bashed up and reluctant to come out, but I did eventually. Guess the promise of food was just too much for me to continue to remain stubborn.

The talk at the breakfast table was non existent. No one could look at me and I had to ask myself if it was because I was that bad, or was it because of their own guilt.

Of course, I tried to tell the staff that I could not identify anyone. I’m pretty sure they thought it was more of a refusal then the honest truth, which was that I did not know who it had been.

We were all taken into the Rec Room and the gathered us up on the stage. After a few minutes of leaving us alone like that, they came back and said that all of the girls would be put on probation if someone didn’t speak up and tell them who was responsible. We sat there for about three hours while the staff tapped their feet and whispered to one another to no avail.

So, all female students were place on probation with the exception of me. I still don’t know what they were thinking of, isolating an already isolated child by punishing an entire group of girls. This did not help me gain any popularity. Here we were about three weeks out from Thanksgiving and the staff had just slapped them all with a punishment, which, by the rules, stated they couldn’t go home unless they managed to get back to the level of Trust.

I slept under my bed for the rest of the weekend. Lori returned to Western Academy that Monday and of course, she was told right away what had happened, she was furious and had no qualms about stating that fact.

I think this was the first time that the staff noticed her protectiveness of me and decided that it could be used to their advantage. They decided right away to move me into Lori’s room and while I felt safer, I also was very fearful that Lori would resent me because of this. She had been alone in her room since I arrived.

However, this was not to be the case and she happily came into my room and helped me move all of my stuff. Not a difficult task since I didn’t have any posters on the wall, or any pictures to take with me, all I had was my clothing that was either hung or folded neatly in my locker.

Lori became more to me then just a roommate. She was not my friend, but, as near as I was going to get it to it in this place. I just could not trust enough to be friends with anyone.

I wanted to tell you about her, what she looked like, the things we talked about, but all I can remember is that every weekend she went home. She was a tiny little thing, even to me and I was only eleven.

The other thing that stands out in my mind is one of my best memories from there.

The way that our room was set up was simple. We both had our beds pushed as close to the windows as we could get them. There was a window sill that stood about a foot up off of the floor. This made for a natural night stand, and, I could see the little house next door perfectly with it’s little lights glowing in what I assumed was the kitchen, not to mention the stars.

Now, let me try to give you a visual. We both had our beds pressed against the same windows, lengthwise. That meant that the foot of her bed was at the foot of mine, with about three feet separating us. We secured a box, or, maybe it was a milk crate, from somewhere and put it in that space, it fit perfectly.

This made for a very handy table and one day after Lori returned home from a weekend pass she carried a brown suitcase, very small suitcase. It was leather bound and had three stripes that ran up the middle on both side. She was very excited about it but wouldn’t say a word about it until late that night when we were in bed.

As we often did, we climbed into bed after pajama’s were put on and teeth were brushed and we waited and soon enough the staff came in to make sure we had lights out. As soon as they left, we would turn around and lay on our stomachs so that we could chat face to face.

This night held a magical surprise as we lay facing each other and she lifted that suitcase up onto our makeshift table and snapped it open, she watched my face as she opened it until it lay open flat.

I stared, and then stared some more before looking up at her.
“What is that?”
”It’s a game”
”What kind of game?”
”The kind you play”
”I don’t know how to play this game”
”Well I’m going to teach you”


And so began my lifelong love of the Backgammon game. Not a single night went by that we didn’t play at least one, if not five or six games. When Lori went home for weekend passes, she would leave it with me and I would play a game by myself.

This year for Christmas (yes, I know it isn’t here yet) a very dear friend of mine asked me what I wanted and I told him that I wanted my own backgammon game and it arrived about three weeks ago.

I’m not sure who was more excited, me or him, it was a pretty close race. He insisted I open it up immediately and I did and I cried. It looked exactly like Lori’s and I was taken back to the good times at Western Academy as I held it in my hands.

Now, sadly, Chris hates to play this game, but, I will not despair, for I have three young children who are more then willing to learn.