Sierra scares every pixel on me.

Let me explain.
 

Sage found THIS in Sierra's room while she was cleaning it up.  And yes, it's exactly what it looks like.  It's a genie lamp. 

Sage says Sierra found it while we were living in Moonlight Falls, when she explored the catacombs there.  Sierra had sworn her to secrecy about it. 

Here's the thing about Sierra, though, that scares every pixel on me (and I don't frighten easily!).  I have absolutely no idea what she is capable of.   Strange for a mother to say that about her own daughter, but in this case it's absolutely true.

I have no idea what she is capable of. 

My other children, for the most part, are an open book, what you see is pretty much what you get.  Sierra, though... I just know there's a well of untapped potential there, both good and bad.  I know that she's whip smart, but I also know she is self-destructive. 

I know someone who was like that.  Me. 
I know someone else like that, too.  My baby brother. 
And I know someone else like that, too.  My older son, Andrew Jr.

But none of us have it to the degree of Sierra. 

You know, Sierra's teacher once told me, that she's either got one of two outcomes.  She's going to win the Simbel prize or she's going to end up in jail for the rest of her life. 

They gave her a nickname at Fort Starch:  "Sierra the Terror."  You got to be pretty bad if they give you a nickname at a place like Fort Starch. 

The biggest reason Sierra scares me so much is because she is me.  Period.  

She is me in every way.  It's like looking in a mirror at my younger self.   

I went through this checklist of the things I did as a child, teen, and young woman and she's either done or still doing most or all of them.  It's astonishing and I'm simply gobsmacked. 

• Exploring catacombs, check.  I didn't find out about that till Sage showed me the genie lamp she found. 
• Few or no friends, check.  Sierra could care less about socializing, much like I didn't.  That's where she and I are similar, she definitely prefers her own company.  Since her childhood she was friends with that girl Camberleigh and I think Cammie still talks to her, but that's just about it.   Cammie seems to get that Sierra is a lone wolf.  Reminds me of my old friend, Ari... where is Ari these days, anyway? 
• Beating up other kids in school, that's a big check, although I got into most of my fights in elementary school.  She's doing it now in high school and is brazen enough to post her victories online.   
• Tomboy, yes, this is a check.  In fact, I think Sierra might be worse than I was, and I was pretty bad. She's definitely more athletic and more into sports than I was.  In fact, despite my high heels, makeup, and professor suits now, I'm still a tomboy.  Get me in a tomb and you'd see.   
• Flunking out of school when you've got super-high test scores, check and check.  I remember my mother had gone to the school and she was talking to my dad about me failing classes.  It wasn't that I was failing classes, I just didn't want to go because I already knew what they were talking about.  When I went to the school for Sierra, they told me that she'd barely been in class the entire semester, and her test scores were so high they were putting her in college-level courses.   In fact, I suspect Sierra has not been challenged in school. 
• Experimenting with the occult.  Check.  When I was a child and teen, my favorite place to sleep was not my bed at home, but at the cemetery, surrounded by the ghosts of the town's past.  I know that Sierra has dabbled in alchemy and was seeing a psychic until I ran that charlatan out of town.   
• Going goth.  Yes, that's a check, too, although her goth stage has lasted longer than mine did.  And her involvement with the scene is much deeper than mine was.  
• Getting sent home by the police repeatedly.  Check.  In fact, the police know her by name, as they knew me by name.  I was pissed off that night I was with Cheesebreath (yes, that's Andy, my husband, best friend and the father of my children) and I was sent home and he wasn't.  He still jokes about it.   
• Bad relationships with family.  Definite check.  My relationship with my mother had deteriorated to the point where we wouldn't speak to each other, and it's still pretty much strained today.  When poor AJ was in the hospital Sierra didn't even bother going to see him, even though she's partly responsible for having put him there in the first place.
• Sexuality issues.  Yes, that's a check, too, I'm not going to lie.  That's exactly what I thought of the night Sierra came out, the night of her prom. 
• Oh and one more thing.  Sierra told me she wants to go to Egypt.  I'm still shaking my head at that one.

At this point I think I'm the only one who can save her.  After all, she is me, only younger and even more extreme. 

College might be her only option. 

I hope it works.   

Sierra's revelation

When I took Sierra to do her college entrance exam, she dropped another bombshell on me.

I was reading over my notes for the next day's class when she approached me.  I was a bit surprised, because Sierra NEVER corners me like this. 

After she'd told me she's a lesbian, I was wondering what else could come out of her hat.  Was she pregnant?  Did she kill someone?  What else could happen that hadn't already?  In the Plumb family, nothing shocks me anymore.  Or so I thought.

"Mom?"

"Yes, honey?"

"Mom, remember that night --"

"What night?"

"The night after we moved to Moonlight Falls, after you took that job as a curator there for their museum.  Most everybody had gone to bed, including you."

Sierra hadn't said 5 words to me since her coming out a few weeks back, so this was coming as a surprise to me.

"Mom, I was abducted by aliens."

I looked up from my book.  "Sierra, what?  Abducted -- what?  Are you serious?"

Sierra said nothing as she looked at me.  Then she recalled that night for me, in such vivid detail, you'd have thought the event had happened yesterday.

"I had just come from the summer festival and I had just finished whipping Jules MacDuff's butt in one-on-one soccer.   He had no chance against me and he knew it.  When I powered my last kick past him, he said, 'You're better than everyone on our team.'  Pathetic little wimp.  Anyway, I had beat him badly, embarrassed him, really, and I had come home to rest."

I vaguely remembered Jules MacDuff.  He was the boy in Moonlight Falls who told Sage he was crushing after Sierra.

Sierra has her dad's soccer-player genes, with broad shoulders, strong legs, and huge mitts that seem like they have Velcro on them.  She's not thin and waifish like Sage and me.  She may well be the best athlete of my kids, even better than her brother AJ.

"I went outside to enjoy the crisp cool night air when suddenly I heard a noise.  I looked up to see what it was...

"I was like, no, it couldn't be...  but it was.  Definitely an alien spaceship."

 

"It beamed a laser down to me.  I tried to run, I tried to escape, but the light was too strong... it scooped me up before I even knew what had happened."

"I don't know the alien's name, and I don't even remember what happened once I was on the ship.  I guess I blocked it out or something.  All I know is that I was gone about an hour earth time."

 Suddenly things started to come clearer for me.  Was this what had happened to my dear little Sierra, what had caused her to change so much and so drastically?  Why she'd withdrawn from all of us, why suddenly she'd become a person I didn't even like?  Why would the aliens pick my daughter?  Why couldn't the aliens take ME instead, if they wanted someone?  She was just a kid.  Pick on someone your own size and age.  I felt guilty that I wasn't there to protect her and to stop this from happening.  I was angry.  These creatures took my daughter away from me, a little girl that in many ways I would never get back.  Sierra was not the same person after the abduction, and probably would never be again.

After talking with her, I had more questions than answers.   But I really think she's going to be okay. College might do her the world of good.

The Academic Life

 

 

When I first started teaching at the university, I barely got students to show up, and those who did were fast asleep through the lectures. 

Now, though, my courses are full to the brim.

 

Even more amusing, I've been told by the university president, Dr. John Simlius, that there's now a waiting list to get into my classes.

 

I'm still the same teacher, with the same methodology and the same syllabus.

 

I have lectures on the material and then I discuss it with the students.

 

 

On Thursdays we have the art labs where we do light drawing around the art building (although a lot of the time when we do it it's pouring rain)

 

 

In the evenings I try to lighten the mood by getting the students together in an informal setting, and sometimes I break out my old acoustic guitar (a gift from my dad when I was a teenager!  Yes I'm that old!)  and entertain them with some songs I learned from him.

 

 

 I'm not any different... so I'd like to know what IS. 

 

Heck, even my son's on-again, off-again girlfriend is taking my class.  Bet I know what you're thinking.   We had knock-down drag-outs over the situation.  But it wasn't that way at all.  In fact, Samantha barely said five words to me the entire semester.  I hardly even saw her.   She came to one lecture and one drawing session -- that's it. 

 

Sierra (cont'd)

If I had to be smoking something when I named my first daughter Sageblossom, to name my next daughter after a soft drink (Sierra Myst), well, I had to definitely be on something. 

Blame my hippie parents.  They named me after a street in Twinbrook.  Twinbrook, of all places.  And Bassy, they named him after a German composer. 

Just after her prom, Sierra told me something shocking.  Well, not really shocking, just a bit surprising.

She told me she's a lesbian.

I've told her point blank that I don't have any problem with her being gay.  What I have a problem with is the rest of her behavior -- her sullenness, her lack of empathy, her lying, her stealing, her sneaking out at night.  And let's not go there about her hair colors.

The day before yesterday, she came home with BLACK hair.  And she's a natural blond, like me.

Now, Sierra's always been feisty.  She's never been one to conform to anything.  She started skipping school in first grade and it just never stopped.   And we tried to get her to stop, nothing Andy and I said or did worked.

Our butler, Max, loved him to pieces, but he absolutely enabled her.  Almost every day I'd find them in the backyard playing football. 

Her latest brush with the law, she beat up a boy so badly, she put him in the hospital.  The reason she said she did that was because, in her words, it 'felt good.'  Then I found out she posted a video of the beating online, she was that proud of it.  In fact it was the video that led to her finally being sent away to Fort Starch -- that and the total and complete lack of remorse for what she did. 

When she went to take her college admissions test, she stopped by the pizzeria and bragged about the size of her rap sheet to two random guys. 
 
One day Sierra came from the catacombs and she had a genie lamp.  To this day she hasn't told us where the lamp is now.  I suspect she sold it. 
Now comes the news that she's tested into college early.  This might be a surprise to a lot of people but not to me.  All of her teachers say she's whip smart but she just refuses to apply herself. 

 

 

Whip smart and won't apply herself... hmm sounds familiar doesn't it?  Let me think.  Oh yeah, that's what teachers told my mother about me.  It's also what teachers said about AJ. 
But it's even more apparent in Sierra's case.  We still don't know who broke our old computer but I strongly suspect it was her.  On her aptitude test she scored high in physical education (no surprise) and technology (also no big surprise). 

Yep that's Murderer's Row... my three oldest kids.  Two have already graduated college - the third, the feisty one with the specs in the middle - is on her way there. 

Sierra

This young lady is my middle daughter, Sierra.  Sometimes I think I don't know where I went wrong with her, because she is an absolute train wreck. 

She's at Fort Starch now, serving her sentence. 

She posted pictures on her Simbook page playing with fireworks in her dorm room.

 

My older daughter, Sage (bless her), found knives and all kinds of stuff in her bedroom in Hidden Springs when she was rooting through it. 

Then, when Sierra went to the university to take her placement test, I found her sitting at the table in the pizzeria with two random college guys bragging about the size of her rap sheet.
"You got a rap sheet?" asked the black-haired guy.  "You're a little pipsqueak."

 

"Professor Cheesman's daughter, right?" asked the copper-haired guy with sunglasses.

"Yeah," she said, introducing herself as Sierra.

"Can't wait till you get here," he laughed.

 

She is PROUD of what she's done. 

 

I don't understand it at all.  And I don't know where it comes from.

 

 

Sure, I admit, I was a wild teen, myself.  Stubborn as anything, wouldn't listen to anyone.  I got busted a few times after coming from the catacombs late at night.  But I wasn't like this.  And neither was my husband.  Nobody in my family, not even Neil, was like this.   And I don't know why she is like this.

 

 

I keep wondering what I did wrong, if I didn't give her enough attention when she was a baby or something, for her to be behaving this way now.   

 

I'm just at a loss for answers.