The Mimosa Tree by Antonella Preto

lack of study is really getting to her.
    â€˜If we get the readings now we can catch up,’ she says.
    â€˜We?’
    â€˜I’m serious, Mira. If you haven’t been doing any readings then you are falling seriously behind. You need to catch up or you are going to fail your classes!’
    â€˜And that would be a bad thing?’
    â€˜Mira! I’m being serious!’
    I rub my eyes.
    â€˜All right. Let’s just get the readings and go get some lunch. I’m starving.’
    She turns and starts to walk again, this time trusting me to follow. ‘I don’t think you’ll have time. Not today.’
    â€˜Fine by me. Let’s just get the reading things tomorrow then,’ and I change direction towards the cafeteria. But like a bat operating on sonar, her hand reaches back and takes a firm grasp of my sleeve.
    â€˜You won’t have time to eat. As it is, we’ve only got an hourto photocopy four weeks of readings.’ She looks up to the sky, puts her palms together like she’s praying. Great. So Felicia believes in the god that hovers above us too. ‘Can it be done?’ she says.
    I look up too and give a little prayer of my own. ‘Please, I’m so hungry,’ I say but I am sure neither God nor Felicia have heard me. If only my mother had heard me, then I could be sure a plate of food would materialise instantly.
    I follow her up some steps towards a tall, concrete building with brown-glass automatic doors. At the top step she pauses and turns to speak to me, her hands on her hips and her eyes concealed by dark shades. Behind her the doors open as a student approaches and a gust of refrigerated air blows towards us. Everyone is speaking in a hushed tone. Everyone, that is, except Felicia.
    â€˜Do you know which floor has the education books?’ she says.
    My blank stare matches the state of my brain.
    She rolls her eyes, and I am beginning to wonder what it is about me that illicits this response from almost everyone I know. She leads me to a counter where she leans across to speak quietly to a like-wise quietly speaking person, and after a moment a hand gesture communicates the floor number we require. I follow her to the elevator.
    She takes me over to a cubicle and forces me to empty the contents of my backpack on the desk. She is not even slightly amused by the amount of chocolate wrappers I need to pick out of the pile. She doesn’t even crack a smile when the stale crusts of a sandwich are uncovered under another sheet. Once I’vepicked all the rubbish out we get to work unfolding, or more accurately, un-scrunching paper to find my course outlines and identify what I need. Felicia pulls a pen and paper from her own bag and writes down all the titles we need to find. Her handwriting is small and neat, just as I expected. Fortunately, she doesn’t feel a need to dot her ‘i’ with a little circle or love heart. It’s brain-numbing work that personally, I would rather have left undone. After noting the readings of only two of my five classes I begin to appreciate my faith in denial.
    â€˜How do you stay so calm?’ says Felicia, looking up from her list.
    â€˜This is just how I do things,’ I say stuffing the sheets she has already gone through back into my bag.
    She nods like she understands. ‘I always have to work so hard. You must be really smart.’
    â€˜I don’t think it’s got anything to do with smart,’ I say, quickly filing an assignment description with a deep shove. ‘It’s more a matter of not caring.’
    She looks up at me questioningly. ‘You don’t like to study?’
    â€˜Whatever gave you that idea?’ I say, waving some crumbled sheets at her and she laughs.
    â€˜But you did so well at school. Via tells me you were top of your class.’
    I sigh as I remember high school. It was only a few months ago, but already it feels like years. ‘It was