Tumbling: Möbius Strip, #1

By Janna Willard

Falling with Style.

 

Talia thought she was living the dream, moving to Calgary for school at 13, somewhere that would accept her autism and unreliable speech without question. That dream became a nightmare when someone she trusted sexually abused her.

Now, a year later, she's finally getting her life back together, just in time for the trial. Talia is determined to tell the truth of what happened, even if it's her tablet that does the talking.

But the trial is far from her only problem: her father, whom she hasn't seen in years, wants to be part of her life again; and her mother, who has done nothing in the last year, has declared she needs to be there, even though Talia has managed fine without them.​​
Reliving her trauma and knowing she'll have to face her abuser shatters her, and her dreams become nightmares.​​
Will Talia hold onto the truth and testify, or will she break completely?​

 

Tumbling: A Mӧbius Strip Story

Mӧbius: an alternative school where students with and without disabilities are supported to define and achieve success on their own terms. They all have baggage, whether or not they live in residence, and dealing with that can be difficult. Staff and students are in it together, and nobody has to carry their burden alone.​

• Language: English
• Publisher: Janna Willard
• Release date: Oct 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215633380

Janna Willard

Janna Willard grew up in rural Alberta and has lived in Ontario and BC, and currently calls rural Saskatchewan her home. She began reading at the age of three and never really stopped; by the same token, she began writing at the age of two and never really stopped. After a detour or two that included a Bachelor of Music in Composition and a ten-year career as an autism early interventionist, she found her calling as a copyeditor and returned to writing fiction.

Book preview

Chapter 1

When I left my mother’s home at 13, I decided to reinvent myself. She insisted on calling me Natalie all the time, no matter what.

So I changed my name.

Not legally, because that would require parental permission and she wouldn’t give it and Dad wasn’t around. But I introduced myself to the people at my new school as Talia, and I told Jessica, the Director, not to call me Natalie anymore.

Jessica just nodded like she’d been expecting me to do this, and then she started calling me Talia.

I chose it because Dad used to call me Tally, back when he lived with us. He still did, when I saw him, but I hadn’t seen him in over a year so I didn’t know if he would still do so when he saw me again.

Talia was enough like Tally to piss off my mother but enough different that I didn’t feel like people were taking something special between me and my dad.

It’s been over a year, and one of my tests for whether or not to trust someone is seeing if they switch to calling me Talia if they know my given name is Natalie.

Mom hasn’t made the switch yet, not that I’m surprised.

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Thursday morning English class. We’ve just started our book projects. Usually we do novels that the teacher assigns us, but this time we got to choose our own books, and they had to be biographies. I’ve got Off Balance, by Dominique Moceanu, Rosemarie’s reading Ballerina, by Misty Copeland, and Tim would be reading about Matisse if he wasn’t off wandering around the room. He does that pretty regularly.

Tim returns to our table and sits down in his usual spot, across from me and Rosie. Mary, my aide, looks up from the report she’s working on when he jostles the table. He grins at her and she sighs, then goes back to her work.

How’re you guys doing? he asks.

I glance up. Okay, I say. Shorter words are easier; I don’t feel like using my tablet when I’m supposed to be reading a book. Anyway, I’m using it to take notes as I go.

Fine, Tim. Just like last time. Are you going to read your book? Rosie’s voice is tense. She gets annoyed when she’s interrupted. She really likes to read, even though it’s hard for her to follow sometimes.

Yeah, I guess I will. It just looks boring, is all. Tim slumps forward in his seat, staring mournfully at at the hardcover book in front of him on the table. I notice that his short brown hair is sticking out at odd angles from the top of his head. I wonder if he even combed it when he got up this morning. He sighs, and I catch a whiff of the onions he must have eaten with his breakfast—or maybe last night’s dinner. I wrinkle my nose.

Well, why did you choose it then?

Tim sits up a little and lifts the book in his hand. It was the only one I could find about Matisse. There weren’t any about Kandinsky.

Rosie glances at me and rolls her eyes, shrugging a little. She never stays mad at him. Did you ever think of choosing someone else?

Tim purses his lips. No...

Okay, well, you could have seen if there was something about Rick Green, maybe. He has ADHD and you like watching reruns of History Bites. That’s an understatement; Tim has every episode on DVD and watches at least one every day, no matter what. Or I know for sure that Howie Mandel wrote a book about his life a while ago.

Tim gets a thoughtful look on his face. You’re right. Maybe I’ll ask Mr Harper if I can change my person and read something else.

He starts to push his chair out from the table again, but Mary catches his eye and he relaxes. Well, maybe I’ll ask after class. I guess I should at least try this one, right?

Rosemarie ignores him, focusing on her book. I raise an eyebrow, trying to look stern. Tim shrugs and picks up his book. He opens it and begins to read. Gradually he leans backward in his chair, and I can tell that the front two legs are off the ground already. He’ll probably get caught up in reading now and leave us alone for the rest of the class, which means peace and quiet at last. Well, unless he manages to tip his chair over backward like he did last week. He’s lucky he’s still got all his limbs, the number of times he’s done crap like that.

I sigh and return to my own book. No point worrying over Tim; he’ll be fine or he won’t, and nothing I can say or do is going to have an impact.

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At the end of the day, the three of us make our way to the front foyer. Tim meets up with his tutor there and they head to the library. Mrs Compton is there to take us—Rosie, me, and Sylvie—home.

Mrs Compton is Rosemarie’s mother. She’s what I always wished my mom had been. She just has that mother aura about her, you know? She works from home, editing text books for an educational publishing house. Me and Sylvie live with the Comptons. Sylvie came when she was five, about two years ago, when her mom sent her to Möbius—our school—from Montreal. I came from Toronto and lived in residence for a couple of months, but then stuff happened and I couldn’t stay there anymore. Since I was already friends with Rosie, the Comptons redecorated her older brother Adam’s room and I moved in.

What’s special about the school that we’ve come from across the country? It’s a charter school just outside of Calgary, and we get a pretty individualized education. More than we’d get in regular public school, anyway. Everyone gets accommodations to meet their needs, even if they don’t have an official diagnosis, and we’re encouraged to use our interests to help guide our studies.

So far so good; the only thing that’s gone wrong, so far as I know, is what happened to me last year when I was living in residence.

But I don’t like to talk about that. I want to forget it.

Except I can’t, because we’re going to trial soon.

And I definitely want to testify.

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Anne Fowler. That’s the name of the lawyer Dad hired to represent my interests during this trial. I’m still not sure why he felt it necessary, but there it is.

Or rather, here we are. Mrs Compton and I. After dropping Sylvie and Rosie off at home, we came to the office for the first meeting. Next Thursday we meet the Crown Prosecutor for the first time. There’s all this trial prep to do.

Anne—she says to call her Anne instead of Ms Fowler—is a redhead. Her hair is that dark orangey-brown that’s not quite auburn. She’s got it pulled up into a ponytail that swishes when she moves. The ends keep brushing against the collar of her blue shirt. She’s wearing a light grey suit with a skirt, not pants. I notice because the only other woman I’ve ever known who wears skirts all the time is my mother.

She brings us into her office. There’s a round table in the corner with some padded chairs set around it, and her desk is across the room. It’s covered in papers and file folders. Her laptop is on the table with a pad of paper and a pencil. Someone has put a trolley next to her seat, with a couple of carafes and a jug of juice. There’s also a plate of cookies, and of course the usual cream and sugar.

Would you like anything to drink? Anne asks as we sit down.

I nod. Juice would be good, something cool in my dry throat. Mrs Compton asks for a cup of coffee.

While Anne is getting the drinks and moving the cookies to the table, I pull out my tablet and get it set up with the keyboard attached. My communication app is pretty good, and Mrs Compton helped me set up a couple of pages to use with the lawyer last night, but sometimes the words on the board aren’t quite right and I need to type them. The most useful thing about the pages is that they can help me find the words I need to say. It’s like seeing them triggers something in my brain that lets words out.

Anne looks at both of us, and then she says to Mrs Compton, Today is really just a preliminary meeting. I understand that next week you’re meeting with the Crown, and your meeting with him will be similar to your meeting with me. There isn’t a preliminary hearing in this case, as the Crown requested direct indictment to save Talia from having to testify more than once. She moves her gaze to me. If she wants to testify, that is.

Of course I want to testfy. The volume on my tablet is still set where I need it for school, so I can be heard when I answer or ask questions in class. I turn it down quickly and repeat