I RAISED MY CHIN and straightened my shoulders as well as I could in the tight-fitting blazer. Lottie was right—this really was not our first time at a new school. We’d been through much worse already. At least this time we knew the language of the country and could speak it, which had not been the case in Utrecht, for instance. Although Mom insisted that anyone who knew German and English could understand Dutch as well (yes, sure, and the Earth is flat, Mom!).
Because people could speak English almost everywhere our respective parents took us, they’d decided to turn Dad’s German surname of Silber into Silver for Mia and me, and that was one thing at least to make life easier here in London for us. And we certainly needn’t be afraid of meeting a millipede in the toilet, like in Hyderabad. (I still sometimes dreamed of that creature—it was longer than my forearm, and worse than that, it had looked at me with its horrible millipede eyes.) No, everything here was so hygienically germ free that you could even sit on the seat of the toilet without worrying. The Frognal Academy for Boys and Girls was a private school in Hampstead, a posh part of London, which meant that the kids didn’t have to be searched for weapons in the morning with metal detectors, as in the junior high I attended in Berkeley, California, three schools ago. And certainly there must be nicer students here than the girl who’d been assigned to show me around, who was staring at me as if I smelled bad. (Which I didn’t—I’d showered for quarter of an hour longer than usual on account of that cheese.)
I could only hope Mia had a nicer “big sister” to show her the ropes.
“Is Liv short for Livetta or Carlivonia?” mine asked.
Is it what? Was she trying to make a fool of me? No one in the world was called Livetta or Carlivonia, were they? On the other hand, her own name was Persephone.
“Olivia,” I said, feeling annoyed with myself because, under Persephone’s critical eyes, I kept wishing Lottie had bought my school uniform in the right size after all. And that I had my contact lenses in, instead of wearing the nerdy glasses that, along with my stern ponytail, were supposed to correct the impression given by the too-short skirt and the too-tight blazer. Which they did.
The headmistress had wanted Persephone to be my big sister because, as a glance at our schedules showed, we had almost all the same classes. Just moments ago, in the headmistress’s office, she had been giving me a friendly smile; in fact, her eyes had been positively shining when the headmistress told her that I’d lived, among other places, in South Africa and the Netherlands. But the light in them went right out again when she asked were my parents diplomats or did they own a diamond mine and I had to say no, neither of those was right. Since then she had switched off the smile and kept wrinkling up her nose instead. She was still wrinkling it up. She looked like one of those grumpy monkeys in Hyderabad who stole your breakfast if you didn’t watch out.
“Olivia?” she repeated. “I know at least ten Olivias. My friend’s cat is called Olivia.”
“Well, you’re the first Persephone I’ve ever met.” Because that’s a name you wouldn’t even call a cat.
Walking on, Persephone tossed her hair back. “In our family, we all have names out of Greek myths. My sister is called Pandora, and my brother is Priam.”
Poor things. But a lot better than Persephone, all the same. Since she was looking at me as if she expected an answer, I said quickly, “And all your names begin with P. How, er … practical.”
“Yes, and they go with our surname. Porter-Peregrin.” Persephone Porter-Peregrin—good heavens above!—tossed her hair back again and pushed open a glass door that had posters and notes stuck all over it.
A glittering movie poster in particular caught my eye. The film was called Autumn Ball. Under the gilt letters of the title, a couple were dancing through a sea of colorful leaves, he in white tie and tails, she in a pink tulle evening dress. The showing was on October 5, and tickets could be bought at the secretary’s office. I loved movies, but I wasn’t going to waste my money on silly high school romances like that. You always knew how the film was going to end after five seconds.
There was no more peace and quiet on the other side of the glass door. We were suddenly surrounded by students all streaming through the halls at the same time. At Frognal Academy the lower, middle, and upper school were all under the same roof, and I automatically looked for Mia’s shock of blond hair. It was the first time in years that we’d been at the same school, and I’d made sure to impress upon Mia that she ought to mention, in passing, that her big sister could do kung fu—just in case any of the students tried anything funny.
But Mia was nowhere to be seen. I had some difficulty following Persephone through the crowd. The personal part of our conversation seemed to be over now; obviously she didn’t want any more than necessary to do with someone who shared her friend’s cat’s name, and whose parents weren’t diplomats and didn’t own any diamond mine either.
“Lower school canteen.” Now and then she pointed somewhere and cast words over her shoulder in a singsong tone, without bothering about whether I heard them or not. “Middle school and upper school cafeteria both on the first floor. Toilets there. Computer rooms are lilac. Natural science labs, green.”
Another glass door covered with posters. Once again, the words Autumn Ball stood out with tasteless prominence. This time I stopped to take a closer look. Yes, it looked like a film of the worst kind. The girl in the picture was looking soulfully at the guy she was dancing with, while he seemed to be forcing a smile, looking a little envious of the tiara she was wearing, when all he had was a nasty side-parted hairstyle.
But maybe I wasn’t doing the film justice and it wasn’t the usual high school garbage with the malicious blond cheerleader, the charming but superficial football captain, and the impoverished, beautiful outsider with a heart of gold. For all I knew, Autumn Ball was a spy thriller and the pink tulle dress, the soulful smile, and the silly tiara were just camouflage so that the girl could outwit the boy with the side part and get the key to a safe full of secret papers that she could use to save the world. Or else the guy was a serial killer and had it in for high school girls.…
“Forget it!” Persephone had obviously noticed that I wasn’t behind her anymore and had come back. “The ball is for the upper school. If you’re younger, you only get to go if someone invites you.”
It was a few seconds before I caught on to what she meant (I had to come a long way back from the serial killer). Persephone used the lag time to take a lip gloss out of her pocket and pull off the top.
God, how silly of me. Autumn Ball wasn’t a movie but plain reality. I couldn’t help laughing at myself a little.
Beside us, a few of the students began playing with a grapefruit, throwing it back and forth. “It’s a traditional ball to commemorate the year when this school was founded. Everyone has to wear Victorian costumes. I’ll be going, of course.” Persephone was touching up her lips. At first I admired her for doing it without a mirror; then I realized that it was a colorless lip gloss, so it didn’t matter if she smeared it right up to her nose. “With a boy who knows my sister. She’s on the ball committee. Hey, stop that, you idiots.” The grapefruit had shot past overhead, just missing her. What a pity.
“But there’s a Christmas party for all the classes,” Persephone added graciously. “You and your little sister can…” At this point she stopped talking—indeed, she stopped breathing. She just stared past me, like a Hyderabad monkey turned to stone while putting on lip gloss.
I turned around to find out what had made her stop breathing. Well, at least no UFO had landed. Instead I saw a group of older students, all standing out from the crowd in a similarly striking way. They were four boys, and almost everyone in this corridor was staring at them. They were deep in conversation, and while they were strolling casually along, they did so in step with each other, as if in time to music that only they could hear. All they needed was slow motion and a wind machine to blow the hair away from their faces. They were coming straight toward us, and I wondered which of them had turned Persephone into a pillar of salt. As far as I could judge at first glance, it could have been any of them, provided she fancied the tall, blond, athletic type. (I didn’t, myself. I had a weakness for dark-haired, brooding guys who read poetry and played the saxophone and liked to watch Sherlock Holmes films. So far, unfortunately, I hadn’t met many like that. Oh, all right, I hadn’t met any boy like that yet. But they must be out there somewhere!)
The most conspicuously good looking was the second from the left, who had golden-blond curls framing a perfectly proportioned, angelic face. Even at close quarters, his face might have been made of porcelain, without any pores showing in his skin—in fact, unnaturally perfect. Compared with him, the other three looked more normal.
Persephone uttered a hoarse, “Hi, Japscrsch.”
She got no answer. The boys were much too absorbed in their conversation to honor us with so much as a glance. And presumably none of them was really called Japscrsch.
The grapefruit came flying back, and it would certainly have hit Persephone Pillar of Salt right on the nose if I hadn’t lunged forward to intercept it. To be honest, it was more of a reflex action than a deliberate good deed, and the stupid thing was that one of the guys from the Club of Casual Blonds (the one on the extreme left) had the same idea or the same reflex himself, so our shoulders collided in midair as we jumped to catch it. But it was in my hand that the grapefruit landed.
The boy looked down at me. “Not bad,” he said appreciatively. His sleeve had slipped up as he reached for the grapefruit. He quickly pulled it down again, but not quickly enough for me. I’d read the words tattooed inside his wrist: numen noctis.
He grinned at me. “Basketball or handball?”
“Neither. I just felt hungry.”
“I see.” He smiled, and I was about to rethink the kind of guy I fancied and throw him over in favor of the tall, tattooed type with pale skin, tousled honey-blond hair, and slate-gray eyes, when he added, “You’re the cheese girl from the airport. What sort of cheese was it again?”
Okay, so I didn’t rethink. “Entlebuch Biosphere cheese,” I said with dignity, stepping away from him. He wasn’t all that good looking anyway. His nose was too long, there were dark shadows under his eyes, and his hair looked as if it had never known a comb. I knew who he was too: the guy who had fallen asleep so unnaturally fast on the flight from Switzerland. Although he now seemed wide awake. And extremely amused.
“Entlebuch Biosphere cheese. That’s right,” he repeated, with a mean kind of chuckle.
I looked past him with deliberate lack of interest.
The porcelain angel had moved away, but one of his friends had stopped beside Persephone. He looked familiar to me too, but I had to stare at him for at least five seconds before I worked out why, and then I almost squealed out loud. Incredible! It was Ken standing in front of me! The life-size, flesh-and-blood version of the Barbie doll’s boyfriend that our great-aunt Gertrude had given Mia for Christmas. Shaving Fun Ken, to identify him properly. (Aunt Gertrude’s presents were always good for a laugh. She’d given me a set of iron-on beads.)
Persephone, anyway, had come around from her rigidity far enough to be able to breathe and roll her eyes again. Her cheeks were unnaturally red, but whether with anger or lack of oxygen I couldn’t tell. The boys who had been playing grapefruit-ball had deliberately disappeared.
“New friend of yours, Aphrodite?” inquired Shaving Fun Ken, pointing to me.
Persephone’s cheeks went a little darker red. “Oh, hi, Jasper! I only just noticed you,” she said in a voice that sounded almost normal (in her case, that was tremendously blasé), only a little shriller than before. “My God, no! Old Cook the headmistress gave me the job of keeping an eye on her. New student—Olive something or other. Her parents are missionaries or some such thing.”
Or some such thing. I looked at her incredulously through glasses that were evidently suitable for a missionary couple’s daughter. Was that the only alternative to diplomats and diamond-mine owners that occurred to her?
Shaving Fun Ken looked me up and down, rubbing his stubbly chin. I absolutely needed to show him to Mia: the likeness was astonishing. (Ken has a date with Barbie. His three-days’ beard is bothering him. Help him to shave it off.)
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Didn’t you hear her? Olive Something Or Other,” I said. (Barbie is rather annoyed by the way Ken is behaving. He normally has better manners and doesn’t look quite so lecherous. So she has no intention of telling him her real name.)
Once again he stroked his chin. “If your parents are missionaries, I bet you’re still—”
“We’d better get moving,” the boy from the plane interrupted him, taking his arm quite roughly. “Come along, Jasper.”
“I suppose it’s okay to ask.” Obviously Shaving Fun Ken could hardly take his eyes off me. “Nice legs, anyway. For a missionary’s daughter.”
I opened my mouth to say something (as if he was likely to know a single missionary’s daughter, the big show-off), but before I could, Persephone had clutched my sleeve with her hand. “We’ll have to get moving ourselves. We have chemistry with Roberts, and she won’t like it if I’m late on the very first day.”
I stumbled as she hauled me forward, but all the same I was glad to be moving, because I couldn’t think of the perfect put-down of an answer.