Excerpt: Expedient Lies

Lyra poked her fork into the squash on her plate. No, she didn’t poke her fork into it. She poked her fork at it. It rebounded with surprising speed. She stared gloomily at it, “Mom, isn’t squash supposed to be soft?” She asked slowly, pushing the burnt orange lump around on her plate. Delia glanced up at her, having made no more headway with her own lump of squash, “Hmm, try taking a knife to it,” she suggested.
Lyra jabbed her fork at it as hard as she dared; only to have the squash slip off her plate and slide halfway across the table. Lyra sighed and set down her fork. “I give up,” she said, exasperated. Delia set her knife down too, it wasn’t working as well as she thought it would. She stared at Lyra’s squash lump, sitting in the middle of the table, “Okay, I promise I’m not going to try and cook squash again.”
“Good. Now, what is so important that you kicked Adelaide out of the house for the rest of the day? Couldn’t you have waited until she cooked Dinner at least?”
Delia shrugged, “I probably should have. I haven’t cooked anything in so long.” She pushed her plate to the side folded her hands together in front of her on the table. “I’ve decided to send you to an equestrian boarding school.”
Lyra narrowed her eyes at her mother, “A what boarding school?” she demanded.
“An Equestrian boarding school. You know, equestrian. Horses. They have a lot of horses at the school and the students learned to ride and they take the students to shows and everything.” She paused her for a moment, “I thought you might enjoy it. You’re signed up to go this coming school year.”
Lyra glared at her, “Horses? Dogs are big nasty animals themselves, but horses? Horses are massive nasty animals!” She pushed her chair back from the table and stood up, she planted her hands on the edge of the table and leaned forward, “Did you say you thought I would enjoy it? You know that I hate animals. Why would you sign me up for any such thing!”
Delia smiled lightly at Lyra, “Well, it’s a very nice school. And they have Counselors and everything.” And you can stay there the whole year ‘round. Lyra glared at Delia for a while. “I won’t go,” she stated, quite clearly. Delia’s smile grew wider, “It’s too late, the tuition is paid and it is non-refundable.” Here, her voice grew hard, “So whether you like the idea or not, you are going to that school!”