*
Roshan dreamed of neon lights streaking past the window of his mother’s car. He dreamed of falling asleep to the hum of a powerful air conditioner. He dreamed of pleasant, gnat-free northern Georgia.
Unfortunately, Roshan was not on his way home yet, and he was not asleep, either. He was marching across an expansive lawn towards a towering, pointed tent that glowed in the night with the light emitted from within. Looks like someone’s having a party, he thought excitedly. He could hear the laughter and chatter from many yards away. He straightened his bowtie and pulled up his black slacks, the new pair that were still a little loose, even with a belt.
Indeed, it was a party of sorts. At last, the competition was officially complete. A couple of days had passed since Painting Day, and the painters were already gone. Their parents had picked them up and whisked them away at the end. There was only a slight chance some of the ones that lived nearby might have returned for the night.
Roshan knew that Brenda was probably already back in her hometown, but that didn’t stop him from quickening his pace as he approached the entrance of the tent in hopes that she was inside.
Even before Roshan entered the tent, he noticed differences in the way things were set up. The porta-potties were still there, but Molly wasn’t sitting at the table by the doorway. The table was not there at all—it had been replaced by a large sign on a wooden easel. In elegant black letters, the sign read, “Welcome to the 2nd Annual National High School Fresco Painting Competition Southeastern Qualifier Exhibition.” What a mouthful, he thought with a smirk.
Upon entering, he was greeted by an entirely different atmosphere than what he’d seen on painting day. Instead of busy teenagers running about in old T-shirts, he found formally-dressed adults chatting and holding martini glasses. A few employees from the catering company wandered among the others with shining platters of hors d’oeuvres balanced on their palms. Coincidentally, they were all dressed in black slacks, white dress shirts, and black bowties, just like Roshan.
Miraculously, the platform where the ceiling painters had stood on painting day had being removed entirely. The only metal beams left standing were the ones that held the frescoes up high above everyone’s head. Electric candelabras hung from these beams, casting both light and shadow on the people below. Giant spotlights on the ground lit up the paintings above. Music was playing in the background like it had been on Painting Day, but this time, it was coming from a live jazz ensemble, not a little stereo.
He was at a loss for words. In a couple of weeks, a few construction workers and a bunch of teenagers had erected a museum in the middle of a big lawn on a small-time college campus. He was just beginning to understand exactly what “young talent” was capable of.
After collecting his thoughts, Roshan began to weave his way through the snazzily dressed adults and find the back wall of the tent. The paintings were labeled with elegant paper cards. Finally, he found the one he was looking for.
“Brandon and Brenda Castillo, Peachtree Ridge High School,” he read aloud to himself. “Third Place.” He touched a finger to the white ribbon, beaming with pride. “That’s my girl.”
The Castillos’ fresco told a story that was best read from bottom to top. Near the bottom, there was a rusty, wind-up caterpillar with metal body segments and two mismatched gears for eyes that looked like it needed to be wound up again. The rust-red and bronze-colored leaves glinted with a metallic shine. Roshan wondered how they’d managed to get them to look so realistic.
Looming above the caterpillar’s head was a long, low-hanging tree branch that ran directly across the center of the painting. The ominous storm clouds in the sky were only visible beneath this branch. Flying high above the caterpillar and the tree was a butterfly with a sleek black torso, binary data wings, and metal antennae on its head. The butterfly had eyes like a sideways colon and a smile like a rotated parenthesis—a face straight out of a text message.
“Sweet,” he said out loud, but only because he knew that no one could hear him over the jazzy background music. “Steampunk meets cyberpunk.” The caterpillar and the butterfly were a great presentation of this year’s theme, which was a super vague one: “Old & New.” The fresco had been titled Conversion.
After checking out a few more frescoes, Roshan located the judges’ table fairly easily. It was situated exactly where the volunteers’ table had been before. It was probably the same table. “Hey Mom,” he said, slipping into a swiveling chair that he found there.
“Roshan, those chairs are for the judges,” she scolded.
“Well, they’re done judging right?” He proceeded to spin in the chair with surprising speed. “Who got first place, Mom?”
“Fresco Eight-C. I highly recommend that you go take a look at it yourself.”
Roshan stood straight up and hopped over the table, much to his mother’s dismay. Just before he could disappear again, his mother caught him by the hand. “Roshan!”
“What?”
“Have you told your father about the chess tournament yet?”
He made a face. “Oh, I forgot.” In reality, he’d been thinking about it since he’d arrived at the competition. He had been hoping that escaping to south Georgia with his mom would give him some time to . . . Well, he wasn’t really sure what he needed the time for. He just wanted to put off confronting his father for as long as possible. “I’ll do it when we get back,” he assured her.
“Roshan.” She removed her reading glasses, clasped her hands together, and looked at him earnestly. “Roshan, you know that your sister and I are very proud of everything you’ve accomplished at all of your chess competitions. And to think that you’re ranked twelfth in the state of Georgia—”
“Eleventh,” Roshan corrected her. “Eleventh in the state of Georgia.” He said it as if it was a curse. “And Anjali doesn’t give a—” He searched for an appropriate word to complete that sentence. “Anjali doesn’t give a rat’s hat about chess.” Most people didn’t.
“That’s what you think. Anyway, I just think you should give your father an opportunity to share in our pride.”
“I’ll tell him when we get back,” he said. And he actually meant it this time. It was time for him to take a stand.
“Don’t forget.”
“I won’t.”
A few moments later, Roshan had successfully wedged his way into the small crowd gathering below Fresco 8C. He and everyone around him stared up at the painting like they would at a cathedral ceiling. When he glanced at the faces of the others, he smiled a little. They looked like children following airplane trails.
Fresco 8C had a very simple title: Painting. Upfront, he noticed two unusual things about the fresco. The first was that the painting was sideways in comparison to the others—instead of painting lengthwise, the group had created their image landscape-style. The second thing he noticed was that roughly half of the painting was in black and white.
Two painters stood before a brick wall. On the black-and-white side, a painter dressed he’d come from the late 1910’s appeared to be finishing a massive war mural. In his mural, soldiers with round, brimmed helmets were jumping out of trenches holding guns with long barrels. On the colorful side of the fresco, the same mural appeared faded and chipped, the soldiers’ faces nearly indistinguishable. It seemed as if time had lapsed from the left of the fresco to the right, because a young person in modern clothing—well, not quite modern, because the jeans and jacket were way too baggy to be from the 2010’s—was painting over the remains of the mural with a can of spray paint. Surprisingly, the modern artist was not writing the name of a gang or even using classic urban graffiti lettering. He was making a multicolored peace sign over the war mural.
“That’s tight,” he heard someone say in praise of the mural. “I like that.” The person who had spoken was a guy with dreadlocks wearing a T-shirt and a pair of cargo shorts. Since he was wearing a backpack, Roshan assumed he was a Valencia State student like Mi
ke and Beau.
He agreed with the college student. The fresco was interesting and original, and it pretty much summed up everything he’d learned at the competition. Making peace often meant making a bold move.
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, I would like to thank my mentor and editor-in-chief Anna DeStefano for all of her guidance, patience, and enthusiasm. Without you, this book would have remained an idea scribbled in the back of a notebook.
Next, I would like to thank my cover artists Mallory Kane and Peter John, my editor and proofreader Emily Sewel, and my publishing technical advisor, the New York Times bestselling author Debora Smith.
I would also like to thank all the friends and family members that waited with bated breath until my childhood dream came to fruition. You always said I would be a published author someday, and now I finally am.
Finally, I want to thank my senior project coordinator Ms. Tracy Rainwater and my faculty advisor Mr. Adam Brown for giving me the motivation and the means to get this done. Nothing cures a bad case of writer’s block like a deadline.
About the Author
CHINYE IJELI was born in Dunwoody, Georgia, and has lived in Lawrenceville, Georgia, since she moved there with her family in 1999. She lives with her parents, older brother, and two younger sisters (a pair of identical twins), and she is currently a high school senior at the Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology. This is her first novel.
About the Author
CHINYE IJELI was born in Dunwoody, Georgia, and has lived in Lawrenceville, Georgia, since she moved there with her family in 1999. She lives with her parents, older brother, and two younger sisters (a pair of identical twins), and she is currently a high school senior at the Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology. This is her first novel.
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