Текст книги "Ten Things Sloane Hates About Tru"

Автор книги: Tera Lynn Childs

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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 13 страниц)

Chapter Two

I choose my first-day-in-hell outfit carefully. Black skinny jeans, a black I <3 NY tank, black combat boots, and a black knit beanie. I accessorize with a stack of black and silver bracelets on my left wrist and silver spikes dangling from my ears. And I pull everything together with a thick ring of black eyeliner and extra coats of mascara.

If I have to spend any part of my senior year stuck in Nowheresville, I want anyone who sees me to know I’m doing it under protest.

When I walk downstairs, Mom is waiting.

She glances up from her phone, takes one look at my mourning blacks, and asks, “You’re not wearing that?”

I say asks because I choose to interpret it as a question. I’m pretty sure she meant it as a statement. Or maybe an order.

Considering I’m about to start my senior year half a country away from my friends and my home, she can cut me some slack on the “appropriate dress” debate.

“Yes,” I say, daring her to make this an issue.

She looks like she wants to argue, and part of me hopes she does. I feel like I have this huge supply of tension bubbling just under the surface. It would feel really good to release it in a huge fight with Mom. Unless she wants to physically drag me upstairs and force me into more colorful clothes, I’m sticking to my mourning blacks.

She relents, shakes her head, and returns her attention to her phone.

My entire body relaxes. Sure, the fight would have eased my tension. For a minute, anyway. Then it would have only made things worse.

Mom and I never used to fight. As far as moms and teenage daughters went, I thought we were doing pretty great. I could talk to her about almost anything. But then The Incident happened, and all that changed. What few conversations we’ve had since have been arguments.

Without a word, she turns and walks out the front door, expecting me to follow. I do—begrudgingly—wishing I could think of anything that might stop this freight train that is senior year in Austin from plowing right over me. But if I haven’t been able to come up with an alternative in the two weeks since she and Dad sprung this plan on me, I’m probably not going to think of one in the twenty-seven steps it takes me to get from our front door to the passenger side of the car.

I resign myself to my fate. For now.

Mom and I have had our awkward silences in recent months, but the one on the way to Austin NextGen is epic. Her lips form a thin white line, her shoulders rigid and hands gripping the wheel like it’s a life preserver.

For the first time, I really wish I had my driver’s license. Anything to avoid this unending awkwardness.

I open the map app on my phone and pull up directions to the school. The distance from the blue dot to the red pin is fifteen miles. Great.

To pass the time, I turn to stare out the window.

It’s weird to be going to school in a car. I’ve been taking public transport since the second grade. Buses in elementary school and junior high. Subways since I started at SODA. And now…car. This is definitely a step down.

I have always loved studying the crush of people on the morning commute. Too-cool-for-eye-contact businessmen reading the Wall Street Journal. Secretaries and personal assistants wearing utilitarian sneakers, their impractical pumps stowed in handbags the size of a hot dog cart. Janitors and cleaning ladies on their way home from the overnight shift. Public school kids joking and shouting way louder than the adults can stand.

This is like traveling in a bubble.

We go down a couple of suburban streets and then, when we’re out of our neighborhood, merge onto a major-looking freeway.

The traffic is insane. What should geographically be a twenty minute drive has taken forty-eight already, and we’re still two miles from our exit.

If the cars were people, this is what rush hour on the subway feels like. But there’s no sense of human connection, no interaction. Everyone isolated in their own little bubble, singing along with the radio or talking on their phones. Way too many are trying to text and drive, nearly running other cars off the road as they swerve by.

It’s so…empty.

Yay Austin.

Mom’s knuckles tighten on the steering wheel even more as a jerk in a Beemer nearly takes off the front of our car in his rush to get to the fast lane. I know she drives when we travel and when she goes away on business trips, but she’s lived in New York for more than two decades. What if she can’t handle this kind of driving anymore?

She darts to the right, taking advantage of the opening the Beemer left, then dives onto the off-ramp. Maybe driving in madness like this isn’t something you forget how to do.

After we take a right at the light, the traffic eases up and Mom relaxes. I check the progress on my phone. We’re only a few blocks away from the school.

I let my head fall against the window of our new car. We’ve only been here three days and already we have a house full of unfamiliar furniture, a kitchen full of pricey dishes and silverware, and a shiny new Toyota in the garage. At least the car is only a lease. I would have been fine sleeping on an air mattress and eating takeout, but Mom says it’s more economical this way.

I think she just wanted a shopping spree.

The flashing blue dot on my map moves closer and closer to the red pin. Closer to my nightmare. T-minus three minutes. Two minutes. One minute.

We turn a corner, and we have arrived at our destination.

I don’t know what I expected the school to look like, but this image would never have entered my mind. All shiny glass and angular steel. Geometric shapes and colorful panels in primary colors. Like a Mondrian painting. All modern, new, and contemporary.

How is anyone supposed to feel creative in such a clean, soulless building?

When Mom pulls into the visitor parking by the front entrance, I reach for the handle, ready to jump out while the car is still rolling to a stop. But the door is locked and before I can find the unlock button, Mom has the car in park and places a hand on my shoulder to stop me.

“Sloane.” She closes her eyes, like she’s composing herself. “Honey, I know this isn’t how you planned to spend your senior year.”

Really? I want to shout, This is as far from how I should be spending my senior year as I am from home right now!

I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of starting a shouting match, so I bite my lower lip to keep from screaming.

“But after the stunt you pulled, your father and I agreed that you needed some time away from New York,” she said, as if deciding my entire future had been no big deal.

There were fights. All summer there were fights. Huge, endless arguments between him and Mom, them and me, even, at one point, between Dylan and me. But of anyone in this family, my brother is the least to blame.

The fights had been pointless. At least from my side, anyway. No one listened to anything I had to say. I made one bad decision, and suddenly my opinion didn’t matter anymore. They figured it out for themselves and then presented me with the result. And a one-way ticket to Austin.

I cross my arms over my chest.

“Look at it this way,” she continues. “You always say that art is inspired by experience. Think of this as a whole new experience for you to draw from. Your art will benefit.”

“My art,” I say, carefully keeping my tone even, “is inspired by the city.”

She smiles. “Maybe you will find new inspiration here.”

As if. As. If.

“I know this is hard for you.” She starts to reach for me but drops her hand back into her lap. “But I want you to give it a real shot. Go in with an open mind. Just…try.”

“Why?”

“Why?” she parrots.

I turn to face her. “What’s in it for me? I go in with an open mind, give it a shot… And what do I get? To go home? To get back to my friends and the school I love?”

I’ll tell you what: zilch. My prize will be to continue my punishment indefinitely.

The parents, on the other hand, can pat themselves on the back for making the right decision, Dad gets me out of his hair for a while, and Mom is able to spend quality time reliving the college days with Mrs. Dorsey. They’re the winners. But what about the kids? Dylan has to spend an entire year without his big sister to back him up, and I have to stay spread out on the rock with an eagle pecking away at my liver every single day. Awesome for them, not so great for us. No thank you.

Mom stares at her hands.

I reach for my backpack and the door handle.

“Okay,” she says, “we’ll make a deal.”

Great. A deal. That’s what she’s best at. Litigation attorneys are paid big bucks to negotiate huge deals for their clients. Settlements, accidents, wrongful death… She’s one of the best in the world at getting big payouts for whomever is covering her fee.

Too bad in this case I’m her opposing counsel.

“If you give Austin NextGen a real chance,” she offers. “A real chance. Make it through the first quarter with decent grades and no trouble with your teachers or the administration, and we can revisit the idea of you going back to New York to finish out your school year.”

I don’t blink, don’t breathe, don’t dare do anything that might make her take it back. This is it. This is exactly what I want. Exactly what I have been fighting for ever since I learned about The Plan.

It takes me a second to get my racing hope under control.

“Do you mean it?” I ask.

Mom is an attorney and a litigator. Twisting the truth is practically a job requirement.

She nods. “Of course.”

I look up at her, knowing that I’ll be able to tell if she’s lying. “Promise?”

She hesitates only the merest fraction of a second before saying, “Promise.”

I hold her gaze for a beat longer, daring her to look away and expose a lie. My heart thundering, my lungs fighting the control I’m forcing over my breathing. My entire body is dying to celebrate, but I don’t want to show any weakness.

Mom’s olive green eyes meet mine without flinching.

Finally, she asks, “Do we have a deal?”

“We have a deal.” Oh God yes, we have a deal.

“Good.” She pulls the keys out of the ignition and grabs her purse. “Now let’s go get you enrolled.”

Principal Haverford’s office looks like the lobby at MoMA. All gleaming white and crisp modern furniture. The entire back wall is windows. Nothing like the comforting den of Headmistress Maggie’s office at SODA, with the overstuffed couch, scarred wooden desk, and student-painted portraits of the last six headmasters on the wall behind her.

No welcoming vibes in this ice box. I highly doubt Principal Haverford will let me call him Principal Ben.

I will anyway.

“You have an impressive portfolio,” he says, flipping through the presentation on my tablet. “Very bold and expressive.”

Mom scowls at me as I slump lower in my seat.

Then again, she could be scowling at Principal Ben’s words. Having a lawyer and a businessman for parents and a science nerd for a brother makes conversations about my art practically impossible.

Mom looks at my work and calls it nice or pretty. She can’t understand what he means by bold and expressive. She can’t understand how that gives my sometimes-fragile artist’s ego a reassuring pat.

What Mom does understand is grades. Quantifiable numbers, tests with right and wrong answers. To her, they’re all that matter.

“Sloane was on track to graduate with honors at the School of Drama and Art,” she says, her voice reeking of butt-kissing. Like she has to convince him to admit me, to overlook my recently rocky past.

Like the big fat check she and Dad are writing for tuition doesn’t wipe that all away.

Principal Ben nods as he stares at my tablet. He folds the cover back into place and then pushes it across the table. He flips open the paper file.

“Yes, I can see that Sloane was an excellent student,” he says, scanning the paperwork.

Was being the operative word. My grades second semester junior year took a big dip because of all the court time at the end of the year.

Here it comes.

The Incident. Bad Influences. Delinquency Spiral. I’ve memorized Mom’s entire speech. I heard it enough over the summer to do a spot-on recitation of the Utter Disappointment of Elizabeth Whitaker.

Throw in Dad’s sudden emotional distance and Dylan’s sympathetic winces and you’ve got my summer trifecta.

My What I Did This Summer essay would basically be an outline of all the ways I let down my family.

“Principal Haverford,” Mom begins, ready to plead my case or make assurances or write another check, but he waves her off.

“We have students from diverse backgrounds,” Principal Ben says, closing my folder and pushing it to the side. “Diverse experiences. Every artist has a past. Sometimes a troubled one. Austin NextGen prides itself on a clean slate policy.”

Mom beams. She couldn’t smile harder if I suddenly announced my intention to give up art and follow in her legal footsteps. Or Dad’s business footsteps. Or even Great-Gramma’s teaching footsteps.

“Let’s leave the past in the past,” he says, “and create a better future.”

I don’t know whether to laugh of gag. Create a better future? What kind of hippie, touchy-feely nonsense is that? No principal just forgets a student’s criminal past.

“Now.” Principal Ben pushes back from his desk, stands, and grabs my folder. “Let’s get your class schedule from Agnes.”

As he crosses to the door, Mom leans over to me. “He’s giving you a chance, Sloane.” She pushes to her feet. “Don’t blow it.”

Way to be encouraging, Mom.

I follow them into the main office, where Principal Ben is handing my folder to a young man behind the reception desk, and a middle-aged woman with dreadlocks is pulling something off the printer.

“Pssst.”

I turn at the sound and see Tru sitting in a red knockoff Mies van der Rohe chair by the door. Unlike the tee and jeans he wore last night for his rooftop acrobatics, today he looks like he’s auditioning for a J-Pop boy band. Black pants and blazer, white dress shirt with the top three buttons undone, and a skinny black tie that hangs loose and low over his chest. I can’t fault him for his color palette.

His hair still looks like it proudly defies all grooming attempts.

Seeing him only confirms what I suspected last night: he is too attractive for his own good. As if his ego needs the boost. Where last night’s moonlight threw his features into sharp geometry, the light of day softens the edges. Transforms dark and edgy into movie star perfect. Like he should be in Hollywood, filming the latest teen-book-into-movie instead of whatever he’s doing in the NextGen office.

Even the harsh glare of the fluorescents doesn’t diminish his beauty.

The earnest look on his face almost makes me smile. Almost.

But then an image of Brice flashes in my mind, of his face with that same earnest expression that made me believe in him, that suckered me in. I won’t fall for that act again.

Besides, the last thing I need, just when Principal Ben is giving me a clean slate and Mom is giving me a chance to earn my way back to New York, is to be seen talking to Tru.

I spin to face the counter, showing him my back.

“Whitaker,” he hisses.

I discretely flash him the finger.

“Here you go,” Principal Ben says, handing me a freshly printed paper. “Your class schedule.”

I scan the lineup. Most of the classes are expected. Core subjects, like modern lit, chemistry and trig, and my art specialties, advanced graphic design and 3D rendering.

Classes at NextGen are on a block schedule, with the basic core classes meeting Monday-Wednesday-Friday and the art classes on Tuesday-Thursday with a big free block for studio time or study help.

“What’s this?” I ask, pointing at the last class on my core day schedule.

“Ah, senior seminar,” Principal Ben says, grinning. “That is our experimental class. Taught by a different teacher each year, every class is created collaboratively and unique to the student makeup.”

I blink at him, trying not to wince.

“Trust me,” he says, patting me on the shoulder. “You’ll love it.”

Mom grins bigger than Principal Ben. “It sounds wonderful.”

“Here’s a map,” Agnes, the woman with dreadlocks, says, slipping a green paper over my schedule. “I’ve marked all of your classrooms.”

“Thanks.”

“And your locker is here,” she says, pointing to a star on the map. Then at a sequence of numbers at the bottom. “That’s your combination.”

I nod. “Looks like I have everything I need.”

Principal Ben pats me on the shoulder. “Kyle, let’s see if we can find someone to show Sloane around,” he says to the guy behind the counter.

Kyle glances at the clock. “The office assistants should be here any minute.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” I say, not wanting to be shackled with the welcoming committee. “I’m good with maps. I’m sure I can—”

“I can give Sloane the grand tour,” Tru says, suddenly appearing at my side.

My entire body tenses.

Mom scowls as she takes in the rumpled clothes, the messy tie, the careless hair. He must be her picture-perfect example of a bad seed.

Principal Ben doesn’t seem to have the same qualms. “Thank you, Truman,” he tells Tru. Then to me, “You’re in good hands. No one knows the school better.”

Tru’s smile is even more blinding in the daylight.

I see how it is. Tru is one of those guys who has all the adults—except his parents, obviously, and mine—eating out of the palm of his hand. Uses his charm and good looks to make sure no one sees beneath the surface. Principal Ben looks like he wants to give him a medal of honor.

“Great,” I say with no enthusiasm.

Tru bends in a half bow, his arm extended dramatically toward the hall. “After you, neighbor.”

I roll my eyes and start for the door.

Mom grabs my elbow. “Don’t forget our deal,” she whispers.

“I won’t.” My only chance of getting back to New York before college? I’m definitely not blowing that.

Chapter Three

The moment we are past the glass walls of the office—aka out of sight from Mom and Principal Ben—Tru grabs the schedule out of my hand. When I try to snatch it back, he wraps an arm around my shoulders and squeezes me close on one side while holding the schedule away to the other.

“Jackass,” I mutter as I elbow him in the ribs.

“Let’s see,” he says, ignoring both my physical and verbal jabs. “Advanced graphic design and 3D rendering on art day. Modern lit with– oh, Lufkin is a total windbag, but he’s a pushover on grading.”

Since Tru has several inches on me, and clearly my elbow assault is having no effect, I twist myself out of his arm and let him have the damn schedule. I don’t need it to get to my first class. It’s Tuesday, which means art block, and I start in advanced graphic design.

I scan the map Agnes gave me. Several buildings make up the campus, all arranged around a central lawn. It feels more like a small college than a high school.

I’m looking for something that indicates where my first class might meet.

“Trig with Martinez will be the hardest class of your life,” Tru continues as if I’m paying attention. “Danziger loves chemistry far more than any human should, and senior seminar is a bunch of touchy-feely find-yourself bullshit, but at least it’s a cakewalk.”

He hands back my schedule and then oh-so-casually jumps up to smack the exit sign hanging from the ceiling as we pass by a door that leads to a concrete courtyard.

“Visual arts are in Sushi Hall.”

“Sushi Hall?”

What kind of building name is that? I don’t see it listed anywhere on the map.

“Building C,” Tru explains. “They all have nicknames.”

Building C. I find it on the map. The last building on the right, in the southeast corner of the campus.

“The six academic buildings are officially Buildings A through F,” he says. “But we Austinites could never conform to something so pedestrian as alphabetical naming.“

I shake my head as we keep walking.

“Good morning, Mr. Dorsey,” a middle-aged woman says. Black chopsticks poke out of her blue and green dyed hair.

“Morning Ms. Getty.” He leans in to give her a quick peck on the cheek. “I dig the new colors.”

Ms. Getty blushes and makes a shooing gesture. “I’ll see you in cinematography this afternoon.”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

We round a corner into another hallway, and I can’t help but be a little bit in awe of the charmer beside me. After everything Mom said about Tru, I expected an unrepentant troublemaker who was on every teacher’s and administrator’s shit list. Is it possible that the unrepentant troublemaker has actually reformed into an honest-to-goodness good guy?

No way. I’ve known enough bad boys in my life to know that they never change their ways.

“What?” he asks when he sees me looking at him strangely.

I half laugh. “You have them all snowed, don’t you?”

“What do you mean, New York?”

“I mean,” I say, gesturing back toward the blushing Ms. Getty and the beaming Principal Ben, “you have them all believing you’re some kind of perfect boy next door.”

His brown eyes sparkle with mischief. “Are you suggesting I’m not?”

“I’m suggesting you’re a con artist of the highest—”

“Tru Dorsey.” A girl with platinum hair that hangs long on the right and is shaved close on the left steps into our path.

She looks angry and more than tough enough to take Tru in a fight. I prepare myself to get out of the way.

“Aimeigh,” Tru says, his arms and his smile wide, “how was France?”

She punches him in the shoulder. That’s my kind of girl.

I move a step to the side.

“You never sent me the footage from graduation,” she says, and for the first time I can sense the teasing under her dark image.

“Oh shit,” he says, “I totally forgot.”

“Tonight,” she warns.

“Absolutely.”

She flicks a glance my way. “Who’s your friend?”

He looks at me, like he suddenly remembered that I’m there. “Aim, this is Sloane, fresh from New York City.”

“That’s Aimeigh,” she says, “with an e-i-g-h.”

She extends her hand and I take it.

“Sloane,” Tru continues, “Aim’s the school documentarian. Do not get on her bad side unless you want to be immortalized in eternal humiliation.”

Aimeigh shakes my hand. “Don’t listen to him,” she says with a smile. “I only have a bad side.”

I can’t help but crack a smile in return.

“I am also ArtSquad captain this year,” she says.

I’ve never heard of that. “ArtSquad?”

“Like an academic decathlon,” she explains, “except for art.”

“Oh. Cool.”

“Hey, Aim,” Tru asks, “you have AGD first period?”

She nods. “Yeah, why?”

“So does Sloane.” He tries to wrap his arm around my shoulders again, but I dodge out of the way. “I was going to show her…”

“But you have elsewhere to be?” Aimeigh finishes.

Tru gives her a big hug. “You’re a rock star.” Then, to me, “Catch you later, New York.”

I roll my eyes as he starts walking backward down the hall, the way we came.

“Send me that footage!” Aimeigh shouts before he reaches the corner.

He mock salutes and then he’s gone.

“Come on.” She turns to me. “AGD is this way.”

Just as I thought. The moment anyone to impress is out of sight, Tru ditches me onto the nearest available person. “Unshocking.”

“What?” Aimeigh says as we head for the pair of glass doors at the end of the hall.

“Him,” I say, jerking my head back the way he fled.

“Tru?” She flashes me a genuine smile. “He’s the best. Can’t rely on him to send the footage he promised at the start of summer, but there’s no one I trust more behind a lens.”

Even Aimeigh thinks he’s all goodness and heart? Maybe I really am wrong about him. Maybe Mom and his parents are wrong, too, not that they would admit it. Mom would still kill our deal in a heartbeat if she knew I was even having a second thought about him.

Aimeigh pushes through the doors, into the outside. “So, New York, huh?”

The lawn before us is crisscrossed with sidewalks like some geometric coloring book. Without having to pull it back out, I picture the map Principal Ben gave me. Paths lead from Building A, across to Building D, diagonally to Buildings E and E, and right to Buildings B and C.

“Yep, New York,” I say as we make the turn that will take us to Building C and advanced graphic design.

“Which PS did you go to?”

I bite back a retort. People watch a few TV shows and suddenly they think they know everything about life in New York. Not everyone goes to public school, takes afternoon tea at the Plaza, or gets mugged on their way through Central Park.

“School of Drama and Art,” I say.

Aimeigh lets out a two-note whistle. “Impressive. So NextGen isn’t a big change, then?”

I shrug. What can I say? NextGen is a huge change? Austin is a huge change? My entire life is in upheaval? Just because they are both art schools doesn’t make SODA and NextGen educational equals.

SODA is unlike any other school in the country. In the world. Graduates are pretty much guaranteed acceptance and financial aid at the best art and design schools in the world: Juilliard, Tisch, RISD, Parsons, the School of Visual Arts. At SODA, my post-graduation plan to study animation at the School of Visual Arts was a no-brainer. Now it’s suddenly in question.

That and the fact that Mom is determined that I will attend a Real College so I can get a Well-Rounded Education.

“What’s your favorite museum?” Aimeigh asks. “I’ve always wanted to visit the Guggenheim.”

Apparently her attempts at small talk are limited to asking me about New York, but since the city is my favorite subject, I’m good with that.

As I tell her about the Dia:Chelsea on our way to Building C, I scan the lawn, study the other students milling around in back-to-school excitement. At first glance, they don’t look all that different from students at SODA. There are definitely the recognizable archetypes.

The hippie-dippie free love types, with their peasant skirts, patchwork denim, and waist-length dreadlocks.

The wanna-be beatniks in skinny ankle jeans, patent oxfords, and bored expressions. Even a beret or two.

The poser urban core, whose bling and footwear probably cost more than the entire monthly income of the Queensbridge Projects.

I’m not denying my own privilege, but at least I’m not pretending it doesn’t exist.

“In here.” Aimeigh yanks open the door to Building C and leads the way.

It looks like a garden variety school hall. Sections of lockers broken up by classroom doors, drinking fountains, and bathrooms. But instead of walls, the space above the lockers is glass. The hall is full of light.

I pause for a moment, stunned at how bright the space is, at how the sun bounces off every surface. It’s literally glowing. As much as I don’t want to like anything about this place, I want to breathe in the rays.

Aimeigh yanks open the door to the second room on the left.

“Mrs. K is the best,” she says as I catch up with her.

From the moment we walk through the door, I know that advanced graphic design at NextGen is going to be top notch. The setup is spectacular. There are eight tables in the center, each with two chairs, light boxes in the corners, and a strip of plugs in the middle. Along two walls, computer workstations with huge flat-panel monitors display hypnotizing screensavers and a scroll of text that reads: To design is to communicate clearly by whatever means you can control or master.—Milton Glaser

There is an interactive whiteboard projection screen at one end and a counter full of art supplies, everything from pencils and markers to sketchbooks and scratchboards at the other. It’s like playtime for graphic designers. Everything we could possibly want or need to unleash our creativity. I feel inspired just walking into the room.

Almost all of the seats are already filled, and a tall woman with shiny black hair and purple-framed glasses is writing something on the whiteboard.

15 minutes free sketch

I nod to myself. This, I can do. No matter how much things change, how upside-down my life feels, how far from home I really am, it can always come back to the art.

I slip into the last open chair next to a girl with shoulder-length brown hair who is studiously drawing circles in a sketch book. Seconds later, I have my stylus in one hand and my tablet open to a drawing app.

“Mrs. K likes us to warm up with traditional materials,” the girl next to me says. She points to the art supply bar at the back of the class. “There are sketchbooks in the lower left cabinet.”

With a sigh, I put my tablet away and fetch the old-school tools.

As I slide back into my seat, I say, “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

She keeps sketching circles, and the more she adds the more it’s starting to look like a wormhole or something.

“I’m Jenna,” she says, not looking up from her circles.

I pull the cap off a red marker. “Sloane.”

“You’re new.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Did you just move here?”

I study the paper for a second, try to come up with a concept, and then just go for it, swiping red across the page in a swooping curl. “Yep,” I say. “From New York.”

New York. The Big Apple. There’s my inspiration.

I follow up my first swoop with another in the opposite direction. With an idea to follow, I lose myself in the design. Shiny red skin. Green and black stem. Some shading. A long shadow stretching across the—

“Time,” Mrs. K calls. “Supplies down, everyone.”

I lean back and evaluate my little apple. Not bad for a fifteen-minute free sketch.

“Welcome to the first day of advanced graphic design. I’m Mrs. K,” she says, “and I see a lot of familiar faces here, and a few new ones. For those of you who are new to NextGen or new to me, I like to start each class with a free sketch, followed by a presentation.” She looks at Circle Girl. “Jenna, can you start?”

Jenna holds up her drawing, swinging it in an arc so the entire class can see. “I’m Jenna Nash.”

“Very nice,” Mrs. K says. “I like your use of repeating shapes.”

Jenna sits back down, beaming.

Mrs. K shifts her gaze to me.

I stand and hold up my apple drawing on display. “Sloane Whitaker. New Yorker.”

The teacher takes a step closer, like she’s trying to get a better look. “Very nice.” She squints. “I like the texture in your shading. And the bold color choices.” She smiles and looks at me. “You like Rothko?”

I nod. “But I like Kandinsky more.”

“So do I.” Her face cracks into a smile. “Welcome to NextGen.”

As she turns her attention to the next student—a boy with flaming orange hair he wasn’t born with and a piercing in every possible location—I sink back into my seat. Well, if I’m going to be stuck in Nowheresville for the time being, at least I have a design teacher with taste.