Virginia K. G. Ryder

Little Emily's Family Depravity

CHAPTER 1

It was only a week after my 11th birthday when I was sent to live at Miss Hellview's Private School for Girls.

“Emily, this is best for all of us,” my mother said tearfully, giving me a hug. She handed me the small but expensive suitcase they'd just bought me. “We'll send you spending money every month.”

“I'm so sorry,” I answered, and I meant it. This was my own fault, after all. “Can I come home on holidays?”

“Of course, sweetheart,” my father answered, a little uneasily, I thought. But at least he was finally speaking up. “You'll only be two hours away.”

My father, normally not the openly emotional sort, had tears in his eyes as well. This wasn't easy for any of us. “We love you very much,” he threw in, to which my mom gave him an annoyed glance.

“I know you do, Daddy.”

Miss Hellview's was a boarding school hidden away in an isolated part of southern Alabama, a particular school in that only girls who'd gotten into trouble (not that kind of trouble) were sent there. Bad girls is what I mean, girls whose parents felt they simply couldn't be controlled any other way.

What used to be called wayward girls, I think.

I guess that would apply, though it was mostly my mother, surprisingly uptight at only 29-years-old, who considered me to be a troubled youngster. A child with far more energy than necessary, she said. Sexual energy, actually. In other words, she thought of me as a bad little girl who couldn't keep her legs together.

Which might or might not have been true. On the other hand, I didn't look anything like a bad girl.