The Name of the Star - Maureen Johnson [50]
“But it’s the electricity, I think,” Jazza went on. “I think that the—”
There was a pounding at our door—the kind of heavy thump, thump, thump you might get during a friendly police raid when they come at your door with a battering ram. Jazza jumped a little and mouthed “the kettle, the kettle!” but Boo was already opening the door. Call Me Claudia was standing there, resplendent in a bright plaid dress.
“Bhuvana!” she boomed. “Call me Claudia. Settling in all right?”
“Brilliant, yeah,” Boo said.
“Coming in midterm can be quite difficult. I assume you two will do everything to help her along?”
Jazza and I nodded and mumbled our yeses. Claudia lingered for a moment, a widening smile on her face. She was staring at Boo as if Boo were the source of true Enlightenment.
“Excellent hockey skills,” Claudia said. “Truly excellent.”
“I was captain of mixed hockey at my old school, yeah.”
“Excellent. Well, finish settling in. You know where I am if you need me.”
Boo closed the door behind Claudia. “See?” she said. “No problem with the kettle! So what do you lot do around here?”
“We study,” Jazza said. “And there’s tea and cereal down the hall.”
“For fun?” Boo said.
Jazza was stumped.
“We can’t go out much,” I said. “Studying. Stuff like that.”
“What school were you at before here?” Jazza asked politely.
“Just the local sixth form. But it’s not that good and they thought I was advanced and all, and my gran is paying, so they moved me here.”
Boo dumped out an entire bag’s worth of sequined pillows. Jazza’s gaze moved over all of Boo’s things, the electronics and clothes and accessories. I did the same, trying to figure out what she was looking for—and I saw soon enough. Something was missing. Books. There were no books at all.
“What subjects are you taking?” Jazza asked.
“Oh, same as Rory. French and, um . . .”
Boo flopped down on the ground and stretched herself long across the floor to reach the front pocket of her bag and plucked out the already crinkled schedule. She rolled onto her back to read.
“. . . further maths, literature, art history, and normal history.”
“Are you doing A levels in all of those?” Jazza asked.
“What? Oh, yeah. Well, maybe. Yeah. Some of them.”
Jazza and I sat on our beds on opposite sides of the room judging our new roommate, who was now doing some leg stretches and flashing us her blue lace underwear in the process. Boo went right on talking, unaware or unconcerned by any awkwardness. Mostly, she talked about television shows I didn’t know or had only heard of in passing.
There was nothing wrong with Boo. She was certainly friendly, and I was in no position to judge anyone for their attitude toward their work. Wexford wasn’t the toughest school in England, but it wasn’t the easiest either. Boo’s attitude toward her classes just wasn’t quite right. You didn’t just show up a month late, then roll around on the floor, barely aware of what subjects you were taking.
But then, I realized, I had no idea what happened in England. Maybe it was completely normal to do just that. I was the outsider, not Boo. I’d built up an illusion in this room with Jazza—an illusion that this was home, that I understood the rules here. Boo, quite accidentally, made me remember that I understood very little, and at any moment, the rules could change.
18
GATORS ARE JUST SOMETHING YOU HAVE TO ACCEPT where I come from. Most don’t go anywhere near the houses, even though there are lots of delicious children and dogs there. Every once in a while, though, an alligator has a lightbulb moment and decides to take a stroll and see the world a bit. One day when I was eight or so, I opened the back door, and I saw this thing way at the end of the yard. I remember thinking it was a big black log—so, of course, I went down to look at it, because what’s more exciting than a big log, right? I know. Children are stupid.
I had gotten about halfway down the yard when I realized the log was moving toward me. Something in the primitive part of my