The Name of the Star - Maureen Johnson [49]
“I’ve never boarded before,” she said, shoving handfuls of red and purple lace underwear into a drawer. “This is all new to me. Never been away from home.”
“Me neither,” I said.
“Let’s see . . .” She pulled out a wrinkled schedule from her pocket and passed it over to me. I pulled out my own wrinkled schedule from the front pocket of my bag. They were completely identical.
“I guess we do the same stuff,” Boo said, smiling. “Looks like we have hockey now.”
She produced a hockey stick from the rubble, as well as a proper mouth guard—a fancy, fitted one, not the kind you boiled, like mine. She also had the shoes and the pads and a bag to carry them all.
Once we arrived at the field, Claudia gave Boo a short test to determine her level of experience, and it was clear from her reaction that Boo was the girl she had been waiting for all her life. Boo was an athlete. She was fast, she was strong, she was coordinated. She ran up and down the field with that stick like a thing born to run up and down a field with a stick. She nailed me in the face guard with a ball. My new roommate was a champion.
“We play every day?” she asked excitedly as we returned to Hawthorne.
“Every day,” I answered miserably.
“That’s brilliant! We didn’t have much sport at my old school. Sorry about your face. Is it all right?”
“It’s fine,” I said. And it was fine, even though the shock of the blow had sent me flying backward and it had taken two people to help me get up.
From there, we returned for our quick showers, then we had one hour of further maths, which Boo did not like at all. All the confidence of the field drained from her face. I walked her to dinner and introduced her around. Jazza, of course, was gushing and polite, but I could see her taking in the details—the earrings, the stripe in the hair, the sound of Boo’s voice. I couldn’t tell what Jazza was thinking, but from the wideness of her eyes, I sensed faint alarm. Boo was not like us. Boo didn’t read Jane Austen in the tub or play cello for fun. Even with my limited knowledge of English accents, I could hear the rough edges of Boo’s voice. Her accent was urban. She put “yeah” at the end of her sentences.
Boo, for her part, greeted everyone warmly, and she shared my love of meats. We got almost the same meal—sausages and mash with extra gravy. She wasn’t a delicate eater. I liked that.
“You’ll have to take those earrings off, Bhuvana,” Charlotte said from across the table. “Earrings have to be close to the ear—studs or small hoops only. Sorry.”
She didn’t sound even remotely sorry. Boo eyed her, then removed the earrings and set them on the table next to her spoon.
“You’re head girl?” Boo asked, picking up her knife and chopping up a sausage.
“Yes. You can come to me any time you like to help you get settled in.”
“I’m all right,” Boo said. “I have these two.”
She indicated Jazza and me as if we had been friends all our lives.
“And it’s Boo,” she added. “Not Bhuvana. Boo.”
Boo didn’t exactly flex her muscles or punch her fist into her palm, but there was a certain pulling back of the shoulders that suggested that Boo was used to dealing with things in a very different way than Charlotte was used to. It wasn’t hard to imagine Boo grabbing hold of Charlotte’s updo and putting her face down in a plate of mashed potatoes. It was not difficult to imagine this at all.
“Boo,” Charlotte repeated coolly. “Of course.”
Back in our room, Boo continued to unpack. Jazza watched in silence, staring at the pile of heels and sneakers Boo had just dumped out of a plastic bag.
“So, yeah, I was in Mumbai, and I got really sick . . .” She pulled an electric kettle out of a pile of clothes.
“We’re not really supposed to have that in here,” Jaz said worriedly.
“It’s just a kettle,” Boo replied with a smile. “I’ve got to have my tea.”
“Well, me too, but—”
“I’ll hide it, then.”
Boo shoved the kettle on