"The fifty-dollar materials fee. The teacher keeps asking. Can you just send it?"

"Fifty dollars?" Her pitch shot up instantly.

"Queenie, I give you five thousand a month and that's not enough? Now you're coming to me with your hand out for more?"

I swallowed the anger down. "It's a school fee. Collected from everyone. It's not part of the living allowance."

"Collected from everyone, so it has to be paid?" She cut me off. "How do I know your teacher isn't just skimming money on the side? I'm telling you right now, without an official receipt stamped by the school, you're not getting a cent. Go ask your teacher for one. When I see it, I'll transfer the money."

I froze for a moment. My voice dropped to almost nothing. "Mom. It's fifty dollars. Not five hundred."

"Doesn't matter how much it is. Rules are rules."

The line went dead. Clean. Final.

I stood in the hallway, phone in my hand, and for a long moment I had no idea where to go.

I forced myself back into the classroom, found the homeroom teacher, and stammered out the words.

"Ma'am, my mom asked if she could get… a receipt with the school's official stamp?"

The teacher looked up, her expression blank for a second before her brows knitted together.

"A receipt? For a materials fee?"

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

A few classmates who'd been crowded around the teacher's desk went quiet.

Then the whispers crept in.

"Wow, she needs a receipt for fifty bucks? Does she think the teacher's scamming her?"

"Her mom gives her five grand a month and she's making this big a deal over fifty dollars. Either her mom's insanely cheap, or the money never actually reaches her."

"She probably blew it all herself. Why else would this be happening?"

I stood there and let every word slice through me.

The teacher went to the administrative office, got the stamp, and came back. She pressed the receipt into my hand. There was something in her eyes, a flicker of pity she almost managed to hide.

I took a photo of the receipt and sent it to my mother.

Less than thirty seconds later, fifty dollars landed in my account.

I kept my head down, paid the fee, turned around, and walked out. That was when I opened Brody Abbott's social media.

His latest post was from noon today.

In the photo, he was hugging a pair of brand-new limited-edition sneakers, grinning at his reflection in the mirror like he'd won the lottery.