by M. A. Hinkle
At the top of the front steps was a group of three boys. I only noticed because the black boys were twins, wearing nametags though they didn’t dress alike. The boy on the left wore his hair in purple dreadlocks. His nametag had Zach crossed out; beneath it, he had written Lando. The second twin was wearing a full suit, a bowtie, and oxfords, and his nametag had Alex crossed out with FN-2187 below. The boy in the middle, the white one, had dark curly hair, and he couldn’t seem to stand still. Alex snapped his fingers in rhythm and hummed a single note, and then the boys launched into “God Only Knows.”
Yes. By the Beach Boys. Totally a cappella, complete with three-part harmony.
I knew almost nothing about music anymore. When we discovered Morgan was a virtuoso, my parents stopped making me go to lessons. I used to dance, but fuck that.
Nevertheless. These kids were good. I could tell they’d been singing together for a long time by the way their voices moved around each other. The boy in the middle sang the lead because he had the best range, but they all had a moment to shine. It was amazing. Slash surreal.
I watched for a minute, but I had shit to do. I was almost through the doors before I noticed Morgan had stopped to listen. He was checking his phone, but one hand tapped against his bag in rhythm, and he was mouthing the lyrics.
Everyone else coming up the steps walked past the guys, as though this happened at every school in the world. Some of them waved, and the white boy waved back without missing a note. When a girl made finger guns at him, he actually spun on his toes, and the twins moved aside to give him room without reacting.
Okay. Now I was staring. But I couldn’t leave Morgan by himself, and he seemed determined to listen to the last bar.
“I think we did pretty good for not practicing for two weeks,” said Zach.
“We can do it faster,” said Alex. He noticed Morgan, who really was studying his phone now. “Hey, new kid.”
Morgan made the mistake of making eye contact. He was incapable of not responding to a statement directed at him even though he couldn’t talk to new people. “Uh—”
“Can you sing?” Alex asked.
Morgan held up the violin case.
“Oh, damn. We’re trying to find a bassist. See you around.” And he turned back to his brother and the other boy.
Morgan was about to have a heart attack, so I grabbed his arm and pulled him up the rest of the steps. Because the warning bell had already rung, everyone else was inside. No one but the trio were there to see, and they were huddled together, whispering to one another.
When the doors closed behind us, I let go of Morgan. “Breathe.” I kept my voice low enough so only he could hear me.
Morgan obeyed, which was good because he was turning red.
I glanced around to make sure no one was watching and touched his shoulder. “Are you sure you’re going to be all right? Still time to back out. I’m stuck here, but Cherrywood Prep would welcome you back with open arms. Mrs. Simmons might even give you a lap dance.”
“I’m fine. It’s just…different here.” Morgan squared his shoulders and marched down the hall toward our lockers.
DIFFERENT DIDN’T EVEN begin to cover it.
I hadn’t had to sign up for any arts programs, only the same stuff I’d taken at Cherrywood, but the lack of explicit arts education didn’t matter. In French, we didn’t have the usual boring examples of boring kids named Jacques doing boring things; we read classic works of French poetry. In English, we were studying Julius Caesar, but rather than going around the classroom reading it out loud, students volunteered to act the scenes out, with the teacher correcting their understanding of the text as they went along. And in Trig the word problems featured famous characters from literature avidly discussing the unit circle.
Not the real problem, though. I had no idea how to deal with the kids. For one thing, this place didn’t have a dress code, so nobody wore real people clothes. Pretty much every kid had a piercing somewhere, and their jeans and T-shirts were all artfully ripped and drawn on. Nevertheless, Morgan came in dressed for a business meeting at noon. I, on the other hand, had pulled out all the stops. Combat boots? Check. Artfully destroyed Clash T-shirt? Check. Jacket covered in safety pins? Check.
Yet it was all for naught—they were so goddamn friendly. No matter how much I practiced my X-Men laser eyes glare, I still got where are you from and why’d you transfer here and what’s your arts thing? By third period, I was ready to consume a freshman whole like a pit viper so people would stop talking to me.
Eventually, I figured out how to turn the questions to my advantage. Where are you from? I’m from around here, but this is my first year attending high school, not juvie. Why’d you transfer here? I got expelled from my last school for reprogramming the intercom system to send subliminal messages about civic responsibility and direct action. What’s your art thing? Abstract paintings on the side of buildings exploring the inevitable fall of capitalism.
MORGAN AND I had the same lunch period, so as soon as I got out of French, I went Morgan hunting. He didn’t care for being in the front of lines or having to choose where to sit, so he never headed straight to the cafeteria. He wasn’t hiding by the orchestra room doors, nor was he by his locker. The bathrooms were next on my list, but I wanted to grab my own food first. If Morgan was throwing up, I’d lose my will to eat, and being a teenage menace worked up an appetite.
By the time I got to the cafeteria, it was already full. I searched for an empty table, debating whether to sit by the mural of famous jazz performers or to sneak outside and bask in the cruddy spring sun.
Then I spotted Morgan, sitting with the kids from this morning. Actually sitting with them—he was in the middle of their circle as they traded things from their trays and lunch bags. Morgan wasn’t participating, per se, but he also wasn’t bolting with his hand over his mouth.
I could have walked over there and sat. Mad at me or not, Morgan would have made room.
But I would screw it up. I’ve ruined friendships for Morgan before. Not on purpose, but the kinds of people who wanted to be friends with Morgan were brown-nosers or unbearably prissy—usually both. They gravitated to him because they sensed he wouldn’t ever talk over them, so they babbled on about themselves and their rich parents until the heat death of the universe.
Thinking back, I shouldn’t have been so surprised about Morgan hating Cherrywood. But I’d attributed his constant discomfort as inevitable. He knew all the kids were all fake, and I thought he’d made peace with it.
Therefore, I went to sit outside because I was self-aware, not emo. I’d assumed Morgan would run for cover at the first unexpected conversation, but hey, less work for me. And I actually ate my lunch. A plus all around. Yep. Definitely.
MORGAN AND I had study hall together too, but I wasn’t expecting to see him. It was his practice hour for the solo ensemble competition at the end of the year. Even if he hadn’t picked a piece yet, as a card-carrying overachiever, he’d still want to work on something they were playing in orchestra.
And. He was mad at me. But I was trying not to think about it. Today had been weird all over, and I didn’t want to wonder how things would be at home. Morgan was going to ignore me some more and. You know. It would suck. Not saying I was guiltless, but still.
The library was crowded, so I picked a table in the very back. Only about four hundred kids went to this school, but it seemed as if there were more because every common area was so small. I’d just finished digging through my backpack, hoping my homework would transform into something more interesting, when Morgan sat next to me.
Morgan was never cool as a cucumber—or any vegetable—in social situations, but the way he fidgeted with his stuff told me he was at the end of his rope. He took out a stack of sheet music. “Which piece do you think I should do for my solo?” he asked, as though I had, in ten-odd years of listening to him master an instrument, learned anything about said instrument. And as though we weren’t fighting.<
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“Which one did you play for your audition for orchestra?” I asked. I wasn’t a fan of looking gift horses in their mouths. Actually, I wasn’t a fan of horses at all, but never mind, long and terrible story.
He made a face at one of the pieces. “‘Meditation.’ But I want to do something more interesting.”
“You realize I am the worst possible person to ask, right?”
“I want somebody who doesn’t know anything about music to help me. The orchestra director is nice, but he’s traditional. He wants me to play pieces I already know so I get a better score.” He propped his chin on his hand. “Anyway, you can read sheet music. Which one of these is interesting?”
The sheets made my eyes glaze over. “At this point, you’re going to get a blind pick. Especially since I know you know which one you want to do.”
By the way he narrowed his eyes, I knew I was right, but he wasn’t going to admit it.
“I was thinking about ‘Ave Maria.’ I could really experiment with the emotion rather than show off how well I can stretch my fingers. Or there’s ‘Girl with the Flaxen Hair.’ It’s—”
“The most amazing piece of music ever written for violin.”
We both turned at the same time. The white boy from this morning was standing by the stacks. He squeaked—actually squeaked—and dropped his book. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud!” he whispered. Well. He was trying to whisper, but he was still talking in a regular tone of voice. “I just heard you guys talking about it, and, uh, you’re sitting at my table and—”
My first instinct was to say, And you decided to butt in?
Then I glanced at Morgan. He’d gotten halfway to his feet. Judging by his reaction, hanging out at lunch hadn’t been his idea. Ah. Hence why he was trying to make nice with me. Therefore, I needed to ignore my self-sabotage instinct and make nice with him back.
“This is your table?” I said to the boy.
“There’s my bag,” said the boy, pointing. I hadn’t even noticed the backpack on the opposite side of the table, tucked on a chair barely out of sight.
“Uh—” said Morgan. He meant: We’ll move as long as you promise to never ever look either of us in the face again.
The boy was cute, if you were into human puppies. I wasn’t, but I was trying to make a fresh start, which meant no puppy kicking. “For fuck’s sake, would both of you sit down? This is high school, not the Old West. We don’t have to duel over where to sit. Morgan just has to move his crap so we can all use the table.”
Morgan sat immediately and swept the sheet music back into his bag.
The boy sat, slowly, as if I’d told him there was a bomb under the table and we had to act natural so the terrorists wouldn’t realize we knew. “So what’s your name?” I tried to keep my voice light.
The kid seemed confused. I focused on arranging my math textbook and notebook. For Morgan’s sake, I didn’t want to tell him to beat it, even though the more people I scared off, the fewer people would bother me, and the less chance my fist would wander into someone’s face.
Not that I’d punch this kid. A) He’d fall over like a fainting goat if I yelled at him, and B) he had such chubby cheeks I would bounce off.
“It’s Felix. Felix Eglamore.” He was clearly waiting for the other shoe to drop. People always did, as though I had an arsenal of shoes to throw when I only had two, and those were staying on my feet in case I needed to beat a swift retreat.
“Good,” I said, numbering the side of my paper. “My name is Gareth. Don’t call me Gary. This is Morgan. I don’t think there are stupid nicknames for Morgan.”
Felix blinked. He did have one thing going for him—gorgeous eyes. “Cool. So…did you guys just move here?” His voice cracked as if he’d been called on to declaim Mark Antony’s funeral speech.
I’d have to come up with new metaphors. Kids around here would shiv each other for the chance to recite Shakespeare.
I opened my mouth to answer and then decided the odds I’d say something rude were about 60/40, so I nudged Morgan. “Morgan? Would you care to contribute to the conversation?”
Morgan took in a deep breath, as if we were about to jump out of a plane without a parachute. “We’ve lived in town our whole lives, but we had to switch schools.”
Okay, I’d have to behave myself, because we hadn’t even been here the full eight hours, and Morgan was talking in complete sentences to people who weren’t teachers. One could imagine he was part of his peer group, not an undercover cop failing to pretend to be seventeen.
Felix. If I was being nice, I’d have to call this kid Felix. Though who named their kid Felix anymore?
But I couldn’t talk. With my dad’s fondness for Welsh, I was lucky my name wasn’t Cymri.
Felix nodded, apparently taking Morgan’s terror in stride. “Uh. Great. Are you settling in okay?”
Morgan stared at the table, displaying all the signs of a Morgan brain lock up. If no one stepped in, he’d stand there until the end of time, a robot faced with an unsolvable logic problem.
I had been trying not to study the kid too closely, because conspicuous niceness gave me hives. People with a modicum of manners and/or tact usually sensed Morgan wasn’t comfortable and shut up all on their own. Felix didn’t, which meant he was either dense or something else was going on.
And, as it turned out, Felix was watching Morgan like…well, like he was a flame, and Felix was a moth. I’d seen it enough to know.
Morgan hadn’t noticed, so it fell to me to pull his ass out of the frying pan. I opened my math textbook. “He does, but if you keep asking him questions, he will choke to death on his nerves. And if you keep talking to me, I’ll say something mean, because you don’t seem to have noticed I’m an asshole. I think we can all do our homework in silence.”
“S—sure.” Felix took out his physics textbook.
I turned my focus to writing out my trig problems. I was decent at math. With a genius for a brother and a professor for a dad, I couldn’t afford not to be. My mom had gotten everywhere with her looks and her charm, but A) she killed herself, and B) I had no charm. So a good academic career it was.
I ignored Felix, even though he kept sneaking glances at Morgan through his lashes. Morgan didn’t see because he hadn’t once lifted his eyes from his copy of Madame Bovary. (Nor had he turned any pages, but he’d doubtless already finished the book and was only rereading it to be in line with the rest of the class.)
Nope. I was focused on my unit circle.
Then Felix turned his textbook upside down but continued to stare at the page equally as intently, squirming around like there was an anthill under his chair.
“Are you Luna Lovegood?” I asked because I could only stifle the volcano for so long. Honestly, this was a fine outburst. No swear words or anything.
Felix cringed. Then he relaxed. “Uh—I have dyslexia.” He said it almost apologetically. “Turning the book around makes it easier to read sometimes. But physics is never easy. For me. I’m sure it’s simple for some people. Who aren’t me.”
I blinked. Then I folded my arms again—because I was thinking, not because I was trying to project warning coloration. “Oh. Sorry I asked.”
Morgan shifted—he’d been frozen the entire time, so I noticed. “Did you have something to say, Morgan?” He shook his head, but it only meant he didn’t want to talk, not that he didn’t have anything to say. “I seriously want to know. What did I do this time? As far as I can tell, I asked a question, he answered me, done. Social interaction over.”
Morgan pushed his chair back and walked away, keeping his head down so his hair hid his expression. I stared after him, stunned. Usually I had some idea of what lines I’d crossed.
I pushed a hand through my hair. “Goddammit.”
Felix squeaked at the swearword. I glanced at him—I hadn’t meant to be sharp, but judging by the way he flinched, it was. And. Well. Judging by the way I looked at everything. There was resting bitch face,
and then there was me.
“Are you guys fighting?” Felix asked. Then he slapped his hands over his mouth.
The question didn’t surprise me. Morgan appeared ready to cry even when he was happy, so people assumed we hated each other. But the way Felix said it—like he couldn’t imagine two family members fighting. Like it was shocking.
“You obviously don’t have any siblings.” I waited for him to flinch again, but I still hadn’t said anything horrible. I was setting a new world record in anti-asshole Olympics.
Felix shook his head, still covering his mouth as if he was afraid to blurt out the location of the Holy Grail.
I wasn’t unused to people fearing me. I knew how to handle myself in a fight, so the reputation was deserved. But it didn’t make it any nicer. “I’m not going to bite you. Cut it out.”
Felix lowered his hands and put them on his knees. “It’s just—” He stopped, mortified.
I raised my eyebrows at him.
Felix dropped his eyes. “I’m really bad at dealing with conflict. I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.”
I wrinkled my nose. “You don’t have to be sorry about it if it’s the way you are. I’m just a jerk, and apparently you’re just nice. These things happen.”
Felix twisted his fingers together, staring at his upside-down textbook without seeming to see it.
Other people had filters, and it drove me batshit—it made it more obvious when I lost my temper. I raised my eyebrows higher. “Yes? Do you have something else to say, or are you actually going to explode?”
He blushed, but it was a reflex, not real embarrassment. “I was—I was wondering if you were going after him or anything.”
“Seriously?”
Felix nodded.
Crap.
I found myself talking again, but for once, I wasn’t digging the hole deeper after hitting rock. Possibly. This was uncharted territory. “He’s not mad at you, if you’re worried about it. You happened to show up at his social interaction limit.”
Felix screwed up his face. “I wasn’t. I mean—I don’t enjoy it when people are mad at me, but I didn’t want him to be mad at you either. Twins should get along.”