Finding Sky (2 page)

We pushed open the door to the office. The receptionist stood behind the counter, glasses attached to a chain around his neck; they bounced on his pink sweater as he stacked the mail in the teachers’ pigeonholes. He managed this at the same time as drinking from a takeaway coffee cup.

‘Ah, you must be the new girl from England! Come in, come in.’ He beckoned us closer and shook Sally’s hand. ‘Mrs Bright, Joe Delaney. If you wouldn’t mind signing a few forms for me. Sky, isn’t it?’

I nodded.

‘I’m Mr Joe to the students. I’ve a welcome pack for you here.’ He handed it over. I saw that I already had a school swipe card with my photo. It was the one taken for my passport where I looked like a rabbit caught in headlights. Great. I slung the chain around my head and tucked the card out of sight.

He leant forward confidentially, giving me a whiff of his flowery aftershave. ‘I take it you are not familiar with how we do things here?’

‘No, I’m not,’ I admitted.

Mr Joe spent the next ten minutes patiently explaining what courses I could attend and what grades I needed to graduate.

‘We’ve made a timetable here based on the choices you made when you filled out your application but, remember, nothing is set in stone. If you want to change, just let me know.’ He checked his watch. ‘You’ve missed registration, so I’ll take you straight to your first class.’

Sally gave me a kiss and wished me luck. From here, I was on my own.

Mr Joe frowned at a crowd of loiterers by the late book, scattering them like a collie herding recalcitrant sheep, before leading me towards the history corridor. ‘Sky, that’s a pretty name.’

I didn’t want to tell him that we chose it together only six years ago when I was adopted. I’d not been able to tell anyone my birth name when I was found and hadn’t spoken for years afterwards, so the Social Services had called me Janet—‘Just Janet’, as one foster brother had joked. This had made me hate it more than ever. A new name was meant to help make a new start with the Brights; Janet had been relegated to my middle name.

‘My parents liked it.’ And I hadn’t been old enough to foresee how embarrassing it could be on occasion with my surname.

‘It’s cute, imaginative.’

‘Um, yeah.’ My heart was thumping, palms damp. I was not going to mess up. I was so not going to mess up.

Mr Joe opened the door.

‘Mr Ozawa, here’s the new girl.’

The Japanese-American teacher looked up from his laptop where he’d been running through some notes on the interactive white board. Twenty heads swung in my direction.

Mr Ozawa looked over the top of his little half-moon glasses at me, straight black hair flopping over one lens. He was good-looking in an older guy kind of way. ‘Sky Bright?’

A snigger ran through the class but it wasn’t my fault my parents had not warned me when we picked my name. As usual their heads had been full of fanciful images rather than my future torment at school.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I’ll take it from here, Mr Joe.’

The receptionist gave me an encouraging nudge over the threshold and walked away. ‘Keep smiling, Sky.’

That was so going to happen when I felt like diving for cover under the nearest desk.

Mr Ozawa clicked to the next slide entitled ‘The American civil war’. ‘Take a seat anywhere you like.’

There was only one free that I could see, next to a girl with caramel-toned skin and nails painted red, white, and blue. Her hair was amazing—a mane of gingery brown dreadlocks falling past her shoulders. I gave her a neutral smile as I slid in next to her. She nodded and tapped her talons on the desk while Mr Ozawa passed round a handout. When he turned away, she offered her palm for a brief brush rather than a shake.

‘Tina Monterey.’

‘Sky Bright.’

‘Yeah, I got that.’

Mr Ozawa clapped his hands to gain our attention. ‘OK, guys, you’re the lucky ones who’ve chosen to study nineteenth century American history. However, after ten years of teaching juniors I have no illusions and I expect the vacation has driven all knowledge from your brains. So, let’s start with an easy one. Who can tell me when the Civil War started? And yes, I want the right month.’ His eyes scanned a class of expert head-duckers and came to rest on me.

Bummer.

‘Miss Bright?’

Any American history I had ever known vanished like the Invisible Man taking off his suit, piece by piece, leaving me a blank. ‘Um … you had a civil war?’

The class groaned.

I guess that meant I really should’ve known that.

At recess, I was grateful that Tina didn’t abandon this clueless Brit despite my dismal performance in class. She offered to show me around the school. Many things I came out with made her laugh—not because I was being funny, but because I was being too English, she said.

‘Your accent’s neat. You sound like that actress—you know, the one in the pirate films.’

Did I really sound so posh? I wondered. I’d always thought I was too London for that.

‘You related to the Queen or something?’ Tina teased.

‘Yes, she’s like my second cousin twice removed,’ I said seriously.

Tina’s eyes widened. ‘You’re kidding!’

‘Actually, I am—kidding I mean.’

She laughed and flapped her face with her file. ‘You had me for a moment there; I was getting worried I’d have to curtsey.’

‘Go ahead.’

We helped ourselves to lunch from the canteen and took our trays into the dining hall. One wall was composed entirely of windows, giving a view of the muddy playing fields and woods beyond. The sun was out, silver-plating the peaks a glistening white, so some students were eating outside, gathered in groups arranged roughly by style of clothing. There were four years in this high school, ages ranged from fourteen to eighteen. I was in the eleventh grade, the so-called ‘junior’ year below the senior class of those graduating.

I waved my can of fizzy spring water towards them. ‘So, Tina, who’s who?’

‘The groups?’ She laughed. ‘You know, Sky, I sometimes think we are all victims of our own stereotypes,’ cause we do conform even though I hate to admit it. When you try to be different, you just end up in a group of rebels all doing the same. That’s high school for you.’

A group sounded good: somewhere to take cover. ‘I suppose it was the same back where I came from. Let me guess, those lot are the jocks?’ These had featured in every film I’d seen from
Grease
to
High School Musical
and were easy to spot thanks to the team strip for lunchtime practice.

‘Yeah—the sports mad ones. They’re mostly OK—not many fit guys with six-packs, sad to say, just sweaty teenagers. It’s mainly baseball, basketball, hockey, girls’ soccer and football here.’

‘American football—that’s like rugby, isn’t it, except they wear loads of padding?’

‘Is it?’ She shrugged. I guessed then that she was not sporty herself. ‘What do you play?’

‘I can run a bit and have been known to knock a tennis ball about, but that’s it.’

‘I can handle that. Jocks can be so boring, you know? One track minds—and it’s not girls they’re thinking about.’

Three students walked by, discussing gigabytes with serious expressions worthy of Middle East peace negotiators. One twirled a memory stick on a keyring.

‘They’re the geeks—they’re the clever ones who make sure everyone knows it. Almost the same as nerds but with more technology.’

I laughed.

‘To be fair, there are also other bright ones—they’re clever but wear it well. They tend not to hang together in packs like the geeks and the nerds.’

‘Uh huh. Not sure I’ll fit in any of those groups.’

‘Me neither: I’m not dumb, but I’m not Ivy League material. Then there’s the arts type—the musicians and drama people. I kinda fit in there as I like fine art and design.’

‘You should meet my parents then.’

She clicked her nails on her can in a little drum roll of excitement. ‘You mean you’re
that
family—the ones coming to Mr Rodenheim’s Arts Centre?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Cool. I’d love to meet them.’

A group shuffled past, boys with trousers hanging off their butts like mountain climbers clinging to an overhang with no safety rope.

‘That’s a few of the skater dudes,’ snorted Tina. ‘Enough said. I mustn’t forget the bad boys—you won’t see them hanging round here with us losers—they’re way too cool for us. Probably out in the parking lot right now with their groupies comparing, I dunno what, carburettors or something. That’s if they haven’t been suspended. Who have I left out? We have some misfits.’ She pointed to a little group by the serving hatch. ‘And then we have our very own skiing fraternity, special to the Rockies. In my opinion, that’s the best game in town.’ She must have seen my worried expression because she hastened to reassure me. ‘You can be in more than one—ski as well as be a jock, do the play and get the best grades. No one has to be just one kind of thing.’

‘Except the misfits.’ I glanced over at the group she had indicated. They weren’t really a group, more a collection of oddballs who had no one else to sit beside. One girl was muttering to herself—at least, I saw no evidence of a hands-free headset for her phone. I felt a sudden panic that I would be among them when Tina got tired of me. I’d always felt something of an oddity; it wouldn’t take much to knock me over into the group of the seriously weird.

‘Yeah, don’t mind them. Every school has them.’ She opened her yoghurt. ‘No one makes a big deal about it. So what was your last school like? Hogwarts? Posh kids wearing black gowns?’

‘Um … no.’ I choked on a laugh. If Tina could’ve seen us at lunch in my comprehensive, she would not be reminded of Hogwarts but a zoo as two thousand of us tried to fight our way through to the cramped dining hall in forty-five minutes. ‘We were more like this.’

‘Great. Then you’ll soon feel at home.’

Being new is something I’d had a lot of experience of in my life before Sally and Simon adopted me. In those days I had been shuffled from home to home like a chain letter no one wanted to keep. And now I was back to being a stranger. I felt horribly conspicuous wandering the hallways, map in hand, completely at sea as to how the school functioned, though I guess my obviousness was all in my mind; the other students probably didn’t even notice me. Classrooms and teachers became landmarks to orientate by; Tina a kind of rock I could cling to when I washed up in her area from time to time, but I tried to hide this as I didn’t want to put her off developing friendliness into friendship from fear that I would crowd her. I went hours without talking to anyone and had to force myself to ignore my shyness and make conversation with my classmates. Still, I had the impression I’d arrived too late; the students of Wrickenridge High had had years to form groups and get to know each other. I was on the outside, looking in.

As the school day drew to a close, I wondered if I was always going to be doomed to this feeling that life was a shade out of focus for me, like a poor quality pirated film. Dissatisfied, and a little bit depressed, I made my way out of the main doors to head home. Threading through the crowds pouring out of the building, I got a glimpse of the bad boys Tina had mentioned at lunchtime. Caught in a shaft of sunlight in the car park, there was nothing fuzzy about these guys, though they certainly looked illegal. There were five of them, lounging against their motorbikes: two African-American boys, two white guys, and a dark-haired Hispanic. At any time, any place, you would have identified them immediately as trouble. Their expressions matched—a sneer at the world of education as represented by all us good students dutifully filing out on time. Most pupils gave them a wide berth, like ships avoiding a dangerous stretch of coast; the remainder shot them envious looks, hearing the siren call and tempted to stray too close.

Part of me wished I could do that—stand there, sure of myself, flipping off the rest of the planet for being so uncool. If only I had legs from here to eternity, quick cutting wit, looks to stop people in their tracks. Oh yeah, and being male helped: I could never carry off that hipshot look, thumbs linked in belt loops, kicking the dirt with my toe caps. Was it natural to them, or did they calculate the effect, practising in front of the mirror? I dismissed the thought quickly—that was something losers like me would do; they surely had such inbred coolness they were their own little ice age. The Hispanic fascinated me in particular—his eyes were hidden by shades as he leaned, arms folded, against the saddle of his bike, a king in his court of knights. He didn’t have to struggle with the conviction that he was lacking in any way.

As I watched, he mounted his bike, revving it like a warrior prodding a monstrous steed awake. With brief goodbyes to his companions, he shot out of the car park, other students scattering. I’d give a lot to be on the back of that bike, dismissing the school day as my knight whisked me home. Better yet, be the one driving, the lone superhero, fighting injustice in her skin-tight leather outfit, men swooning in her wake.

A gust of self-mocking laughter stopped my random thoughts.
Just listen to yourself!
I chided my overheated imagination. Warriors and monsters; superheroes? I’d been reading too much Manga. These boys were a different breed from me. I was not even a blip on their radar. I should be thankful that no one could see inside my head to know just how fanciful I was. My grasp on reality could seem a bit shaky at times as I let my daydreams colour my perceptions. I was plain old Sky; they were gods: that was the way of the world.

 

I drifted through school for the next few days, gradually filling in the blanks on my map and learning the way things were done. Once I’d caught up with the work, I found I could cope with my classes, even if some of the style of teaching was unfamiliar. It was way more formal than in England—no first names for the students, all of us seated in individual rows rather than in pairs—but I thought I had adjusted OK. So, lulled into a false sense of security, I was unprepared for the rude shock of my first gym lesson.

Mrs Green, our evil sports teacher, sprang a surprise on the girls early Wednesday morning. There should be a law against teachers doing that so we at least had time to get a sick note.

‘Ladies, as you know, we’ve lost six of our best cheerleaders to college so I’m hunting for new recruits.’ I was not the only one to look crestfallen.

‘Come now, that’s no way to react! Our teams need your support. We can’t have Aspen High out-dancing, out-chanting us, can we?’

Yes we can
, I chanted under my breath in Obama-Bob-the-Builder fashion.

She tapped a remote control and Taylor Swift’s ‘You belong with me’ started to blare over the loudspeakers.

‘Sheena, you know what to do. Show the other girls the steps for the first sequence.’

A lanky girl with honey-blonde hair loped with antelope grace to the front and began what looked to me a fiendishly difficult routine.

‘See, it’s simple,’ declared Mrs Green. ‘Fall into line, the rest of you.’ I shuffled to the back. ‘You there—new girl. I can’t see you.’ Precisely: that had been the idea. ‘Come forward. And from the top—one and two and three, kick.’

OK, I’m not completely hopeless. Even, I managed to do an approximation of Sheena’s moves. The minute hand on the clock crawled towards the end of the period.

‘Now we’re going to step it up,’ announced Mrs Green. At least someone was enjoying herself. ‘Get out the pompoms!’

No way. I was not going to shake those ridiculous things. Glancing over Mrs Green’s shoulder, I could see some of the boys from my class, already back from their run, were spying on us through the window in the sports hall canteen. Sniggering. Great.

Alerted by the attention of the front row to what was going on behind her, Mrs Green twigged that we had an audience. As smooth as a Ninja, she swooped on the boys before they knew what had hit them and dragged them in.

‘We believe in equal opportunities in Wrickenridge High.’ Gleefully, she thrust pompoms in their hands. ‘Line up, boys.’

Now it was our chance to laugh as the red-faced males were forced to join in. Mrs Green stood at the front assessing our skill—or lack of it. ‘Hmm, not enough, not enough. I think we need to practise a few tosses—Neil,’ she picked out a broad-shouldered boy with a shaved head, ‘you were in the squad last year, weren’t you? You know what to do.’

Tossing sounded OK. Chucking pompoms was better than shaking them.

Mrs Green tapped three more recruits on the shoulder. ‘Gentlemen, I’d like four of you up front. Make a cradle of your arms—yes, that’s it. Now, we need the smallest girl for this.’

No, absolutely not. I sidled behind Tina, who loyally tried to look twice her normal girth, pompoms on hips.

‘Where’s she gone—that little English girl? She was here a moment ago.’

Sheena spoilt my plan to hide. ‘She’s behind Tina, ma’am.’

‘Come here, dear. Now, it’s quite simple. Sit on their crossed hands and they’ll throw you into the air and catch you. Tina and Sheena, bring a crash mat over here, just in case.’ My eyes must have been like saucers, for Mrs Green patted my cheek. ‘Don’t worry, you don’t have to do anything but point your hands and feet and try to look as if you are enjoying yourself.’

I eyed the boys with distrust; they were looking at me closely, possibly for the first time, estimating just how much weight I was carrying. Then Neil shrugged, making his mind up. ‘Yeah, we can do this.’

‘On the count of three!’ bellowed the teacher.

They grabbed me and up I went. My shriek probably could’ve been heard in England. It certainly brought the basketball coach and the rest of the boys running in the belief that someone was being brutally murdered.

I don’t think Mrs Green will be picking me for the squad.

Still in shock, I sat at lunch with Tina, barely eating a thing. My stomach had yet to return to earth.

‘They got a fair bit of height on that toss, didn’t they?’ Tina flicked my arm to interrupt my blank stare.

‘Oh. My. God.’

‘You make a lot of noise for such a small person.’

‘So would you if a sadistic teacher decided to torture you.’

Tina shook her mane. ‘Not going to be a problem for me—I’m too big.’ She thought it funny, the traitor. ‘So, Sky, what’re you going to do with the rest of your recess?’

Spurred out of my stupor, I dug out a leaflet from my welcome pack and put it between us. ‘I thought I’d go along to the music practice. Want to come too?’

She pushed it away with a wry laugh. ‘Sorry, you’re on your own. Me, they don’t let me near the music room. Glass shatters when it sees me coming with my mouth open. What do you play?’

‘A couple of instruments,’ I admitted.

‘Details, sister, details.’ She beckoned with her fingers, drawing the words out of me.

‘Piano, guitar, and saxophone.’

‘Mr Keneally is going to die of excitement when he hears. A one-girl band! Do you sing?’

I shook my head.

‘Phew! I thought I was going to have to hate you for being sickeningly talented.’ She dumped her tray. ‘Music’s this way. I’ll show you.’

I’d seen pictures on the school website but the music suite was much better equipped than even I had hoped. The main classroom had a glossy black grand that I was already itching to get my hands on. Students were milling around when I entered, some strumming on their guitars, a couple of girls practising scales on flutes. A tall, dark-haired boy with John Lennon glasses was changing the reed on his clarinet, his expression serious. I looked for somewhere inconspicuous to sit, preferably with a good view of the piano. There was a space next to a girl on the far side. I made towards it but her friend sat down before I could.

‘Sorry, but this seat’s taken,’ the girl said, seeing I was still hovering at her shoulder.

‘Right. OK.’

I perched alone on the edge of a desk and waited, avoiding meeting anyone’s eye.

‘Hey, you’re Sky, right?’ A boy with a shaved head and complexion of rich roast coffee took my hand, giving it a complicated shake. He moved with the easy grace of the long-limbed. Put into one of my comic book dreams, he’d be called something like Elasto-man.

Stop it, Sky, concentrate.

‘Um … hi. You know me?’

‘Yeah. I’m Nelson. You met my grandma. She told me to watch out for you. Everyone treating you well?’

OK—so he wasn’t like Mrs Hoffman after all, way too cool. ‘Yes, everyone’s been very friendly.’

He grinned at my accent and dropped down beside me, putting his feet up on the chair in front. ‘Awesome. I think you’ll have no problem fitting right in.’

I needed to hear that because just then I was having doubts. I decided I liked Nelson.

The door banged open. Enter Mr Keneally, a hefty man with the ginger hair of a Celt. Doodling on my pad, I immediately had him tabbed: Music Master, Harbinger of Doom to all disharmony. Definitely not a candidate for spandex.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began without breaking step. ‘Christmas is coming with its usual alarming swiftness, and we’ve a big programme of concerts scheduled. So you can all expect to let those little lights shine.’ I could hear his signature tune now: lots of drum and building tension, a kind of revved-up version of the ‘1812’ overture. ‘Orchestra starts on Wednesday. Jazz band Friday. All you budding rock stars, if you want to book the music rooms for your own band practice, see me first. But why do I bother—you know the drill.’ He dumped the papers down. ‘Except perhaps you.’ Music Master had brought his X-ray vision to bear on me.

I hate being new.

‘I’m catching up fast, sir.’

‘Good for you. Name?’

Hating my parents’ whimsical choice more and more, I told him, receiving the usual giggles from those who’d not met me before.

Mr Keneally frowned at them. ‘What do you play, Miss Bright?’

‘A bit of piano. Oh, and guitar and tenor sax.’

Mr Keneally rocked on the balls of his feet, reminding me of a diver about to take the plunge. ‘Is “a bit” some English code for “really good”?’

‘Um …’

‘Jazz, classical, or rock?’

‘Er … jazz, I suppose.’ I was happy with anything as long as it came on a stave.

‘Jazz, you suppose? You don’t sound very certain, Miss Bright. Music is not take it or leave it; music is life or death!’

His little speech was interrupted by the arrival of a latecomer. The Hispanic biker sauntered into the room, hands thrust in pockets, his mile-long legs eating up the floor as he strode to the windowsill to perch next to the clarinettist. It took me a moment to get over the surprise that the biker actually participated in any school activities; I’d imagined him above all that. Or maybe he’d come just to make fun of us? He leaned against the window as he had his saddle, ankles crossed negligently, an expression of amusement on his face as if he’d heard it all before and no longer cared.

All I could think was that they don’t make them like that in Richmond. It wasn’t so much that he had the poster boy looks, it was more to do with the raw energy that rippled under the skin, pent-up rage like a tiger pacing a cage. I couldn’t tear my eyes away. I was by no means the only one affected. The atmosphere changed in the room. The girls sat up that little bit straighter, the boys were put on edge—all because this godlike creature had deigned to come among us mere mortals. Or was it the wolf among the sheep?

‘Mr Benedict, so kind of you to join us,’ Mr Keneally said in a voice dripping with sarcasm, his previous good humour chilled. A little scene flashed through my head: Music Master facing up to the Wicked Wolfman, weapons a bullet spray of notes. ‘All of us are thrilled you’ve torn yourself away from your no doubt far more important schedule to make music with us, even if your arrival is somewhat tardy.’

The boy quirked an eyebrow, evidently unrepentant. He picked up a pair of drumsticks and rolled them in his fingers. ‘I’m late?’ His voice was deep as I had imagined it, a shrug of bass tones. The clarinettist bravely elbowed him in the ribs, a reminder to behave.

Mr Keneally’s buttons were definitely being pushed. ‘Yes, you are late. I believe it is a custom in this school to apologize to the teacher if you arrive after they do.’

Drumsticks stilled, the boy stared at him for a moment, his expression arrogant like some young lord contemplating a peasant who dared correct him. Finally, he said, ‘Sorry.’

I had the impression that the rest of the room gave a subtle sigh of relief that conflict had been averted.

‘You’re not—but that’ll have to do. Watch your step, Mr Benedict: you may be talented but I’m not interested in prima donnas who don’t know how to treat their fellow musicians. You, Miss Bright, are you a team player?’ Mr Keneally turned back to me, dashing my hopes that I’d been forgotten. ‘Or are you afflicted with the same attitude as our Mr Zed Benedict?’

A very unfair question. This was a battle of superheroes and I was not even a sidekick. I’d not yet spoken to the Wolfman and I was being asked to criticize him. He had the kind of looks that made even the most confident girl a little in awe of him and, as my self-esteem was way down at rock bottom to start with, what I felt was closer to terror.

‘I … I don’t know. But I’ve been late too.’

The boy’s gaze flicked to me, then dismissed me as no more than a fleck of mud on his Wolfman superboots.

‘Let’s find out what you can do. Jazz band fall in.’ Mr Keneally shot music out like Frisbees. ‘Mr Hoffman, you take the sax; Yves Benedict, clarinet part. Maybe you can prevail upon your brother to delight us all on the drums?’

‘Of course, Mr Keneally,’ John Lennon specs replied, shooting the biker a dark look. ‘Zed, get over here.’

His brother?
Wow, how did
that
happen? They might look a little like each other but in attitude they were on different planets.

‘Miss Bright can have my place at the piano.’ Mr Keneally caressed the grand fondly.

I really
really
didn’t want to perform in front of everyone.

‘Um … Mr Keneally, I’d prefer—’

‘Sit.’

I sat, adjusting the height of the stool. At least the music was familiar.

‘Don’t mind the prof,’ Nelson muttered, giving my shoulder a squeeze. ‘He does this to everyone—tests your nerves, he says.’

Feeling mine were wrecked already, I waited for the others to settle.

‘OK, take it away,’ said Mr Keneally, sitting in the audience to watch.

With the first touch, I knew the grand was a honey—full toned, powerful, capable of a great range. It relaxed me as nothing else could, providing a barrier between me and the rest of the room. Getting lost in the score chased off my jitters and I began to enjoy myself. I lived for music in the same way my parents did for their art. It wasn’t about performance—I preferred to play to an empty room; for me, it was about being part of the composition, taking the notes and working the magic to weave the spell. When playing with others, I was aware of my fellow performers not as people but as the sounds: Nelson, smooth and loose; Yves, the clarinet player, lyrical, intelligent, sometimes funny; Zed—well, Zed was the heartbeat, powering the music along. I sensed he understood the music as I did, his anticipation of shifts in mood and tempo faultless.