Double Clutch - Реинхардт Лиз - Страница 3
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“Hello.” I put my hands on the counter and unpacked my biggest smile. I’d worked on my smile a lot in Denmark because, since I had never learned more than a few basic sentences, I found that a big friendly smile (besides marking me as an American) was taken as an appreciated attempt at communication. “My name is Brenna Blixen, and today is my first day.” I handed the lady behind the counter the forms that came in the mail.
“Brenna Blixen.” The secretary had curly red hair and kind eyes that soothed my anxious nerves. “I heard about you. Didn’t your family take off and go to Austria for a while?”
“Denmark.” I sighed. Why did Thorsten have to be from the least recognized of all of the European nations?
“Well, welcome to Frankford High.” She smiled wide. “I’m Mrs. Post, and you can come here if you need anything. Wow, you have a crazy schedule.” She suddenly noticed the paper she held out to me. “You’re going to do Share Time?”
I tried to guess what her tone of voice implied, but I had no idea, so I decided to pretend it was just curiosity, even if it wasn’t. “Yes. Graphic design.”
“You didn’t strike me as a cosmetology type.” She handed me the paper.
I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I just shrugged. “Thanks.” I gave her a little wave and walked out.
“Brenna! Brenna!”
My heart lifted a little. A voice I knew.
“Kelsie!” I cried and we embraced, a real hug this time. Kelsie Jordan was still petite, still had dark, shiny hair and pretty eyes. She also had a plump butt, something she had always hated, but I thought it made her look curvy and sexy.
“You look incredible. Not that you didn’t look great in eighth, but you look really cool now.” She swept her hair behind her ear and a pair of silvery bell earrings chimed sweetly.
Kelsie had changed her style, too. I had a flashback to both of us in polos, shiny jeans and Keds. Today she wore a hippie-type peasant shirt and dark jeans with sandals and a flowery bandana in her long, dark hair. My mom always said Kelsie’s hair line was too low to make her truly pretty, but I think that was just because my mom didn’t like Kelsie. Because looking at her glowing right in front of my eyes, there was no denying how beautiful she was.
“You do, too. Look cool, I mean. It’s weird to be back.” I shifted my backpack and tugged on the edge of my sweater. “It’s like I know everyone, but I don’t, you know?”
“It must be crazy. Let’s see your schedule.” She snatched it out of my hands. “Hey, we’ve got crafts together!” Her head snapped up. “Brenna, they have you down for Share Time!” Her voice didn’t leave me wondering. She was clearly horrified.
“Yeah, graphic design.” I took the schedule back and folded it into a tiny rectangle that I turned over and over in my fingers.
“But you were always so smart.” She held up her hands, at a loss.“Why would you go to tech?”
“It’s just Share Time.” I could feel the scarlet ‘T’ glowing on my forehead and a little, nagging voice in my head wondered if I should have listened to my mother. “I gotta go. I’m gonna be late. Do you know where 204 is?”
Kelsie pointed down the hall, her hand glittering with silver and amber rings, rows of beaded bracelets swishing on her wrist. “Go to the end of the hall, turn left. It’s on the left, the English side. Right side is the art room, so I’ll meet you there third?” We didn’t say anything for a minute, then she pulled me into another quick hug, but this one was a little awkward.
I ran down the emptying hall, determined not to be late to class, and I sat down as the bell rang. Mr. Dawes was a fat, squat man with a ready scowl and a syllabus designed to knock us out from day one. There was a lot I read last year, and a lot I hadn’t. Vonnegut stood out like an old, familiar friend, and the plays by O’Neill sent a shiver down my spine based on title alone. Who wouldn’t fall instantly in love with “Mourning Becomes Electra”? I saw Jane Austen’s name and had the funny feeling we were going to be good friends, and I sighed with relief when I saw Grapes of Wrath, mostly because it had collected dust on my shelf for two years, spine uncracked, but I felt like it was something every American had to read.
A quick glance around the room told me that I was in foreign territory. Frankford High pulled from four districts, and my elementary school was one of the smallest, so I wasn’t going to see too many kids from middle school.
“This is honors English, kids.” Mr. Dawes’s growl made me sit up straighter and cap my pen with purpose. “I don’t accept late work. At all. And I don’t announce every quiz and in-class writing. Stay on your toes.”
He looked slightly like one of Santa’s jolly old elves, just in a really scowly, pissed off mood. He tossed us copies of Lord of the Flies by William Golding and we passed around the sheet where we put our names and how beat up the books were, probably so he could fine us accordingly when we handed them back in. I thumbed through the book, which I’d read before. Even though it was about a bunch of killer school boys, I never managed to get into this one. But I decided it was a fresh year, and the best tactic was to give everything an equal chance, even if it disappointed me before. The boy in front of me turned around and stared at me like I was a fish in an aquarium.
“You need something?” I asked. His direct gaze made me squirm.
“Who are you?” His social graces were so awful they were almost funny.
“Brenna Blixen. Who are you?”
“Devon Conner.” He shuffled his big feet and blinked hard. “Are you new?”
“Kind of.” I watched him bite the inside of his cheek.
“Mr. Conner, Ms. Blixen, why don’t you join your classmates in silent reading?” Mr. Dawes scowled.
I ducked my head over my book quickly and Devon followed my lead. Pissed off a teacher on day one, in first period. Great.
I focused on the story, the boys on the mysterious island, lost and confused and clinging to the order that had dictated their lives in their schools back in England. I felt like I had the sacred conch shell in my hand, my feet on the white sand beaches, Jack and Ralph glaring on either side of me, when the bell jarred me back into the noisy classroom where Mr. Dawes waved a hand, dismissing us.
I had to race across the school, stopping a few times to ask directions before I found my next classroom. I got there last, again, slipping into the chair at the bell. The teacher barely looked up.
This was my AP class, in American government, where I’d be at least a year younger than every other student. My classmates checked me out coolly, a group of sharks just waiting for the chum.
A total of eight students and our teacher, a graying hulk of a man in a too-tight button down who wrote with a ruler, sat in an antechamber around a u-shaped table. The teacher took names with impersonal speed and wrote each one in his plan book with the ruler underneath his pen at all times. It struck me as weird, but the other students were paying no attention, busy organizing notebooks, laying out pens, examining textbooks with sharp, eager eyes. Whoa, alpha class.
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