In a few weeks my new novel “A Tale of Spiders and Canned Soup” will be out.
The blurb can be found here.
“A knock on the open door brought her back to reality. And there Mika was. Light blue eyes, widened as if from exertion and a panting, strawberry mouth. Her hair, a golden messy thing, stood out in every direction as if she had been running against the wind. She was wearing a small green T-shirt that accentuated her slim waist and sinewy arms and combined with baggy jeans she gave the impression of a rag doll. A pretty rag doll. But a rag doll nonetheless.
Pauline shook her head to get rid of her stray thoughts and plastered a professional smile on her face.
“Ms Lister?” The rag doll’s voice was soft and held together despite the breathlessness.
“Mika?” Pauline made a gesture to the chair in front of her desk. “Come in and sit down.”
*
Mika felt her cheeks strain as she met her new mentor’s smile. She sat down on the chair, willing her heart to stop trying to hammer its way out of her chest. She couldn’t believe she was late for her first meeting with her mentor; she could have physically slapped herself. Sorry, Molly, I can’t believe I’m screwing up already. She reached into her pockets and closed her fingers around her keychain. As the edges of the key dug into the flesh of her palm, she felt herself grow calmer.
“Hello.” Apparently her mentor was Australian. “My name is Pauline Lister.”
“Mika Sinclair,” Mika murmured even though Pauline already knew her name. “Nice to meet you.” Her mentor had short brown hair and was wearing a burgundy shirt. She looked nice. Professional and put together.
“You too.” Pauline said curtly. “I trust you found your way here no problem?”
“Yes, yes. I’m sorry for being late.” Mika nodded. And I would have come on time if I hadn’t decided to visit Philip, Becky and Natalie. She sighed when she thought about how her little foster siblings had cried when she said goodbye. She had had to pry Natalie’s fingers from her neck to even be able to leave.
“So I think we should go through the classes you’re having this semester, and you also have some choices to make.”
“Oh?” Mika took out her notepad and a pen and got ready. She hoped that Pauline wouldn’t make her opt out of her health and social care class.
“First, I need to ask you what kind of degree you’re hoping for at the end of your studies.”
Mika felt her face heat.
“Well, I applied for a joint degree of sociology and history, but…” Her face was getting hotter and hotter and she prayed to God that her cheeks weren’t as red as she dreaded they were. “I wanted to exchange my sociology classes for anatomy, and a health and social class.”
Pauline raised one eyebrow.
“It let me do that online.”
“Did it now?” Pauline looked at her own screen and clicked at something. “You need to take at least one sociology class, I’m afraid. Introduction to sociology is mandatory.”
Mika frowned. She had hoped to trick the system somehow.
“Mika?”
She raised her head and their gazes met.
“Why are you studying sociology if you’re not interested in it?”
Because it’s what Molly would have wanted to study.
Mika sighed.
“It doesn’t matter. Can I keep my anatomy class?”
Pauline looked puzzled but didn’t say anything else. She looked at the screen again.
“Yes you can. This semester you can take Introduction to sociology, one history class and one anatomy class.”
Mika nodded. She hugged the key tighter, not caring if it broke the skin. She fixated Pauline with her gaze, pleading her not to ask anything more.
“I can see here that you want to take Vikings class.” Pauline smiled and this time her smile looked more genuine and less out of politeness.
“Yes.” Mika nodded. She had looked at the different history classes the university offered and that had been the least boring one.
“Then I can only congratulate you on an amazing choice.” Pauline looked back at her screen but kept the easy smile.
“Huh?”
“That’s one of mine.””
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