Where'd You Go, Bernadette

The first document in Part 1 of Where’d You Go, Bernadette, is Bee Branch’s report card for her eighth-grade classes at Galer Street School in Seattle. In accordance with Galer Street’s progressive policies, the students receive grades of “S” (“surpasses excellence”), “A” (“achieves excellence”), or “W” (“working towards excellence”) (7) in place of conventional grades. Bee has earned straight “S”s; her teacher, Mr. Levy, notes her kindness, humor, and helpfulness, as well as her love of learning. Mr. Levy also notes that Bee is applying to attend boarding school on the east coast. This is followed by a brief section narrated by Bee, in which she tells her parents that she has earned the graduation present they promised her when she began school, and that she has chosen a family cruise to Antarctica. Her parents reluctantly agree. Bee’s mother, Bernadette Fox, subsequently confesses her fear of travel to her “virtual assistant,” Manjula Kapoor, who is based in Delhi. Bernadette says that even leaving the house is “something [she doesn’t] much like to do” (10), but nevertheless asks Manjula to arrange the trip, forwarding all the information necessary to do so, including credit card numbers.

An email to Galer Street parents from consultant Ollie Ordway—“Ollie-O”—reminds them that the school’s current lease, on a building in an industrial park next to a seafood wholesaler, expires in three years.