First Days

  I took two pencils out of my book bag and put them on the desk. “I didn’t want to show him this,” I said. I fingered my hair, combing it back and then twisting it into a small bun behind my head. I stuffed the two pencils into my hair like hair sticks. A couple of strands close to my face fell out but I pulled them behind my ears.

  Luke beamed, his wide lips curling up. “Hey. I want that.”

  I dug two more pencils out of my bag. I held them out to him but he twisted in his chair. Did he expect me to do it? I bit my lower lip and combed my fingers through his hair. He sighed. I did a quick twist, stabbing the pencils into the bun. A lock of hair fell away but he tucked it behind his ear. His appearance was different. It was like I was finally seeing him with short hair. His brown eyes looked bigger, and his smile was brighter.

  The girls across the classroom narrowed their eyes at us but I ignored it.

  North was slumping in his seat, tracing his fingertip on the edge of the desk. I glanced at him but North was looking at the other students.

  The door opened again. A tall, lean man with a tight set jaw and hollow cheeks walked in. He was wearing thick, brown-rimmed glasses, his head was shaved clean. The muscles under his light gray suit looked bulky.

  “Principal Hendricks,” Mr. Ferguson said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m just making rounds today. Saying hello,” he said. He smiled at the rest of us. “Don’t let me interrupt.”

  Mr. Ferguson stood straighter and everyone in the room was quiet as he finished up roll call. There were school announcements over the loudspeaker but my focus was on the principal. His gaze settling on Luke and North.

  After the announcements were over, the room started a low hum of chatting. Principal Hendricks walked over to us, standing over my desk. “Aren’t you boys from the Academy?”

  He knew? I glanced at Luke.

  “Yes, sir,” Luke said. “Although I thought we weren’t supposed to mention...”

  “Where are your uniforms?”

  Luke blinked at him.

  “Uniforms?” North asked.

  “I thought your school had uniforms.”

  Luke and North exchanged glances over my head. What was going on?

  “Well,” Luke said, scratching the back of his neck. “We do have a dress code, I guess.”

  “Hm,” the principal touched the knot of his pale gray tie. “I believe there may have been a misunderstanding.”

  The principal thanked them and walked out of the room. Was he really only there to talk to Luke and North?

  “What was that about? Did he expect you all to wear uniforms here?” I asked.

  North frowned. “I don’t think so. I thought our job was to blend in as much as possible. We weren’t supposed to stick out.”

  “It’d be too dangerous for us to start wearing something like that,” Luke agreed. “We’d be isolated out quickly.”

  North mumbled something even I couldn’t hear, folded his arms and put his head down on the desk.

  When the bell rang again, we all stood up. We found a hallway that led outside. North’s first class was at trailer thirty, almost all the way at the end of the row. I walked between him and Luke, following the sidewalk that lead away from the main building.

  “Who was that guy?” North asked. “The one that kept looking at you?”

  My face heated. I didn’t have to ask which one. I knew exactly who he meant. “I bumped into him at the mall one day.”

  “You mean that day with Silas and Victor?” he asked. His eyes widened and hands clenched. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “North,” I said, my fingers brushed his arm to get his attention “He backed off when you two showed up.” It surprised me he heard about that. How much did the boys tell each other about me? Did he tell the others about what happened yesterday?

  “Yeah,” Luke said. “We don’t have to worry. Sang’s schedule is covered and he didn’t seem that interested in her.”

  North’s lips pursed. He walked us to our trailer.

  “I’ll wait for you,” I said to North, “so we can walk to the next class.”

  He nodded and turned away. I kept an eye on him until I lost him among the other students.

  Luke put a hand on my shoulder, urging me inside. “He’ll be fine,” he said. “You might not have noticed, but he’s pretty scary looking. No one’s going to mess with him.”

  I widened my eyes at him. “I’m supposed to be worried he was going to get messed with? I was just thinking he was walking too slow and he might be late to his next class.”

  Luke’s eyes lit up and he grinned like he wanted to laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  He said nothing and opened the door for me.

  U nusual C lassmates

  Luke and I found seats near the back of the room together. Kota entered a minute later, falling into the seat in front of me and adjusted his glasses. “Oh good,” he said, looking at Luke behind me. “I was worried you wouldn’t make it.”

  “Traffic was crazy,” Luke said.

  Kota glanced at our seats and the others that were still available in the room. “Let’s change this.”

  Luke shrugged. “You’re the boss.”

  “He is?” I asked. Kota’s orders were strange to me and it was weird to hear Luke acknowledge them.

  They exchanged glances and Luke laughed. “We’ve been friends for so long, we’re just used to him bossing us around.”

  “I don’t boss you around,” Kota said. “I make suggestions.”

  “We’re too nice to say no.”

  The looks that passed between them told me there was more to this. Was Kota really in charge in some official way from the Academy? I pursed my lips, biting back the questions.

  Kota pointed to three seats. Luke sat in the last one near the back. I sat in front of him and Kota sat in front of me.

  “I’m always in the middle,” I said. I wasn’t really complaining, just making an observation.

  “How can you say that?” Kota said, turning around. “We just started.”

  The bell started to ring as Gabriel rushed in the door. He collapsed into a seat to my left. “Walking from the second floor is a bitch,” he said.

  “Gabe,” Kota’s tone was warning enough.

  Gabriel shrugged, putting his hand on his chest as he breathed heavily. His red tie was flipped over, revealing the Gucci brand label. He smoothed his hand over his chest to straighten it. “You try getting down those stairs. You’d let one slip, too.” His head twisted and his crystal blue eyes narrowed at me. “Nuh uh,” he said. “Hand them over.” He snapped his fingers and pointed to my hair.

  “Kota,” I whispered.

  Kota turned to look at me and the pencils in my hair. His green eyes lit up. “It’s cute.”

  “Nope,” Gabriel said. “I’ll take all your pencils if you don’t get it out of your hair right now. I want it down.”

  I twisted my lips, tempted to ignore him. I felt a hand near my hair and the bun loosened. Luke handed back my two pencils. He kept the ones in his own hair. I dropped the two pencils on the desk. Luke ran his fingers through my hair to undo the twist.

  Gabriel grinned, satisfied.

  The class started and we were handed an agenda and a list of books we were to read outside of class with instructions to take special tests that were in the library.

  Ms. Johnson stood in front of the room. The trailer walls were a faux wood panel and with her brown dress, she almost blended in. She was thin, pale, with curly dark hair cut short around her ears. “I know you don’t have your books yet, but that doesn’t mean we have time to slack off. I need everyone to take out some paper.”

  There was a subtle collective groan and a lot of shuffling. I reached for my bag, pulling out two of the notebooks and two pens, handing a set to Luke behind me before he finished poking me in the shoulder to ask.

  He blinked as I handed it to him. “I guess we did need
to bring stuff.”

  “You can keep it,” I said, “if you want.”

  He smiled at me in a way that made me shiver. I turned around as I didn’t know how to respond.

  Ms. Johnson put her hands in the air in an effort to quiet the class. “I don’t have a loud voice so I can’t talk over you.” She paused to allow the class to quiet down. “Today, I want a poem. We’ll be starting with poetry and I want you to write a poem for me.”

  Another wave of groans swept through the room.

  “I know kids don’t like poems but I know you’ve heard of at least one in your life. I want one original poem from each of you by tomorrow morning on my desk. You can start now.”

  I stared at the blank page in front of me. A poem. I tried to think of the last one I had read and couldn’t remember. They all had to rhyme, didn’t they? I wished I could read a few first to get an idea of what I wanted to go for. How long of a poem did it have to be?

  The sound of scratching filled the room as pens and pencils were applied to paper. I managed to write my name on my page and started with writing pretty words that I liked in a curly cursive lettering.

  I felt a nudge at my arm. I glanced up to see Gabriel holding up his notebook. He’d drawn the word “poem” into a rose unfolding into bloom. It was so lifelike that if it wasn’t for the fact that it was in pencil, I would have thought it was real.

  My mouth popped open in surprise. I wrote something quickly on my paper and held it up for him to read.

  I thought you said you weren’t good at art?

  He smiled and then wrote something back on his page, holding it up. It isn’t good.

  I wrote back. You’re crazy. It’s beautiful. You belong in art class.

  He beamed. I admired his smile and the way his ears turned a red, almost matching the ruby studs in his lobes.

  “Unless you’re willing to read what you have to the class, I want eyes on your own paper,” Ms. Johnson said. While she was smiling, she clearly meant her threat.

  We both tucked our heads down, grinning. Gabriel wasn’t too bad. He might have stolen my hair clip and was demanding, but he was fun.

  Sometime during the writing session, I felt Luke touching my hair. I wanted to check to see what it was but I felt Ms. Johnson’s eyes on me and after getting caught with Gabriel, I didn’t want to risk having to stand up in class.

  When the bell rang, Kota got up, said a quick goodbye to all of us and dashed out the door. I looked to Luke and Gabriel. They both shrugged.

  Outside the trailer, Luke went on to his next class and Gabriel stood by with me as I waited for North.

  “You don’t have to wait,” I told him. “I should be okay standing here, right?”

  “I know,” he said, grinning. “I’d feel better though.”

  I reached up to tug my hair behind my ears. Part of me hoped he would get the hint and give my clip back but he didn’t seem to notice. “Will you be late?”

  “Will you stop worrying about me?”

  “But if your class...”

  He reached out with a straight hand and gave me a light chop on top of my head. “Stop it. I’m not going to be late.”

  “Late for what?” North said, approaching. Being so much taller, he stood out among the rest of the students. He had his hands in his pockets and walked up to us. He looked at Gabriel. “What are you doing to her?”

  “Nothing!” Gabriel hiked up his book bag and waved to us. “See you at lunch.” He started off alone toward the trailers.

  I watched him leave. Maybe I didn’t have to worry about North, but did I have to worry about Gabriel?

  “He’ll be fine,” North said as if reading my worries on my face. He wrapped an arm around my neck and pulled me around until we were walking together toward the building.

  “How was class?” I asked him, trying to ignore the sensation to shiver at his touch.

  “Nathan’s right. Public school is a pain in the ass.”

  We ran up to the second floor together. Nathan was waiting for us, sitting in the back with two empty seats in front of him.

  “It’s about time,” Nathan said. “I about gave up holding these seats.”

  “Switch places with me, Nat,” North said.

  “I want the back, though.”

  They both stared at each other. Faces became stern. I hesitated to sit down, not sure how to handle this.

  “I could... I could sit in the back,” I said. I tried to give a cheesy smile, hoping they’d settle down. Would humor bring their tempers down or just irritated them more? Where was Kota when I needed him?

  Their eyes slid to me and they seemed to relax. North took the front seat. I sat in the middle again with Nathan behind me.

  “What happened to your hair?” Nathan asked me as we waited for the geometry teacher to finish passing out some papers.

  I reached for the back of my head, feeling something like braids or twists. “Luke happened.” I tried pulling one around but the lock of hair I grabbed was too short for me to stretch where I could see.

  Nathan laughed.

  “Let me see,” North said.

  I turned myself around, showing him the back of my head. He laughed, too.

  “Is it bad? It’s purple or something, isn’t it?”

  “It’s loops.” North pulled a strand around to show me how Luke had twisted it so much at the tips that it made a natural loop and held together.

  I smirked at it, taking the strand from him. I used my fingernails to comb through the lock to brush the loop out.

  The teacher started talking so I had to sit back. Nathan started pulling the other loops, trying to untwist my hair. “You’ve got to watch out for Luke,” he whispered to me. “He does this shit all the time.”

  The geometry teacher passed out some worksheet homework for us to get started on that night and gave us our book assignments for the week.

  North slumped very low in his chair and leaned back. His head was almost back against my desk.

  I leaned, looking over his face. His eyes were closed. “Tired, North?”

  “Mmm.”

  “You stayed up too late.”

  He grinned. “Yup. There’s this girl named Sang, and she’s a terrible influence on me.”

  I giggled loud enough that it caught the attention of some of the others around us. I blushed and pretended to focus on the worksheets we were supposed to be doing. Luke and North might have been step brothers, but they were so different, and not in a bad way.

  After geometry ended, Nathan walked with me to the music room.

  “What’s Mr. Blackbourne like as a teacher?” I asked him. My heart was thudding as I remembered Mr. Blackbourne and his A-perfect face and stern, steel eyes. It was exciting to me to finally get to learn to play something but I wondered how I could possibly focus on music when someone like Mr. Blackbourne would narrow his critical gaze on me.

  “He’s fair,” Nathan said. He walked close to me in the corridors. His arm brushed against mine and on occasion the backs of our hands touched but he never reached for it again like he did that morning. Why was I thinking I wanted him to? “He can be very strict. Just remember: he yells because he cares.”

  My mouth popped open. Yelling? I wasn’t so sure how I would handle someone like that trying to teach me a musical instrument. In the past, I had a few teachers who liked to yell when students weren’t paying attention and I always felt so numb when they did. I couldn’t focus on the rest of class when it happened.

  Nathan held the door to Music Room B open for me but let go to let it swing shut when I was inside, saying goodbye. I missed him instantly, wishing he could have stayed a moment or two.

  Music Room B was smaller than I expected. It held a single upright brown piano on the far side of the room and had a couple of rows of chairs surrounding a dark green chalk board against the wall. Mr. Blackbourne sat at the bench of the piano. He played a jazz piece. I stepped further into the room, my fingers twisting around the st
raps of my book bag as I listened to him play.

  He seemed to be lost in the music for the moment. His fingers flowed over the keys with an artistry that I was awestruck to witness. Even with the clunky upright piano, he seemed to pull off magic.

  His eyes caught mine and he stopped playing. The corners of his mouth dipped softly. He stood and walked around the piano, straightening his red tie. His striking features had me urging to stare but I was terrified to do so. As he looked at me, my spine stiffened and I willed myself to remember my posture.

  “Miss Sorenson,” he said as a greeting, touching the corner of his dark rimmed glasses. It was hard to think of him as a teacher. He looked barely nineteen. It was his stern expression that made him seem older.

  “Mr. Blackbourne,” I replied. I put my bag down on one of the chairs. The bell rang and the room was still empty. I felt my throat closing but I swallowed. “Where is everyone else?”

  A brown eyebrow rose. “Else?”

  “The other students.”

  “There aren’t any others. I can’t teach a classroom to play. Just one.”

  My face radiated heat and my finger touched at my lower lip, pushing toward my teeth. I was going to be his only student this year?

  He stood at the front of the room. I wasn’t sure what to do. I froze, my hands clasped behind my back.

  “You didn’t bring a violin,” he said. It was almost a question, but he asked as if he knew what my response would be.

  “I’m sorry,” I offered. There wasn’t much more for me to say. The truth was I hadn’t approached my parents about this class. I had been waiting for a good time but with the recent argument with my mother, I wasn’t sure when this would happen. Part of me had thought the school would have one for me, like my sister could borrow one of the extra flutes from our old school when she didn’t bring hers. He couldn’t have expected me to get one so soon, could he?

  Mr. Blackbourne didn’t seem fazed by this. He crossed the room to the bench of the piano again and brought out a black case. He positioned it on top of the piano and opened it to reveal a beautiful ebony violin. The tuning pegs were encased in gold plating. The fingerboard and the chin rest was a lighter shade of gray. Elegant perfection.