The next day in maths I can’t work anything out. The teacher, thankfully, has quickly realized that if I’m ignored I’ll sit quietly and not be any trouble. Annalise is hard to ignore. She answers a question and she gets it right. She answers another, correct again. When she answers a third one, I turn slightly in my seat to glance at her and I am caught again by her looking at me and smiling.
On the third day, in art, someone brushes my arm. A clean, honey-toned hand reaches past me and selects a black rod of charcoal. As the hand moves back, the cuff of her blazer grazes the back of my hand.
“That’s a great picture.”
What?
I stare at my sketch of a blackbird that has been pecking at crumbs on the deserted playground.
But I have stopped thinking about the blackbird and the sketch. Now all I can think is, She spoke to me! She spoke to me nicely!
Then I think, Say something! But all that happens is Say something! Say something! booms in my empty head.
My heart is banging on my chest wall, the blood in my veins throbbing with the words.
Say something!
In my panic all I come up with is, “I like drawing, do you?” and “You’re good at maths.” Thankfully Annalise has wandered away before I say either of them.
She’s the first White Witch outside of my family to smile at me. The first. The one and only. I never thought it would happen; it might never happen again.
And I know I should steer clear of her. But she has been nice to me. And Gran said we should “conform” and “fit in” and all that stuff, and being polite is part of those things too. So at the end of the class I manage to direct my body enough to walk over to her.
I hold out my picture. “What do you think? Now it’s finished.”
I’m prepared for her to say something horrible, laugh at it or at me. But I don’t think she’ll do that.
She smiles and says, “It’s really good.”
“You think so?”
She doesn’t look at the picture again, but continues to look at me and says, “You must know it’s brilliant.”
“It’s okay. . . . I can’t get the tarmac right.”
She laughs, but stops abruptly when I glance at her. “I’m not laughing at you. It’s great.”
I look at the picture again. The bird isn’t bad.
“Can I have it?” she asks.
What?
What would she do with it?
“It’s okay. That’s a stupid idea. It’s a great picture, though.” And she sweeps her own drawing up and walks away.
From then on, Annalise contrives to sit next to me in art and to be on the same team as me in phys ed. The rest of the school day we are split into graded groups. I am in all the lowest ones and she is in all the highest, so we don’t see a lot of each other.
We are in art the following week when she asks, “Why don’t you look at me for more than a second?”
I don’t know what to say. It feels like more than a second.
I put my paintbrush in the jar of water, turn to her, and look. I see a smile and eyes and honey skin and . . .
“Two and a half seconds at most,” she says.
It felt a lot longer.
“I never thought you’d be shy.”
I’m not shy.
She leans in close to me, saying, “My parents said I shouldn’t talk to you.”
I do look at her then. Her eyes are sparkling.
“Why? What did they say about me?”
She blushes a little and her eyes lose some of their shine. She doesn’t answer my question, but whatever they said doesn’t seem to be bad enough to put Annalise off.
Back at home that evening I look at myself in the bathroom mirror. I know I’m smaller than most boys my age, but not a lot smaller. People always say I’m dirty, but I hang out in the woods, and it’s hard to keep clean, and I don’t see what the problem with dirt is. Though I do like it that Annalise is so clean. I don’t know how she does it.
Arran comes in to brush his teeth. He’s taller than me but he’s two years older. He’s the sort of boy I imagine Annalise would like. Handsome and gentle and clever.
Debs comes in as well. It’s a bit crowded. She’s clean too, but not like Annalise.
“What you doing?” she asks.
“What’s it look like?”
“It looks like Arran’s brushing his teeth and you’re admiring your beautiful face in the mirror.”
Arran nudges me and smiles a frothy smile.
My reflection tries to smile back and puts toothpaste on its brush. I look at my eyes as I brush. I have witch’s eyes. Fain eyes are plain. Every witch that I have seen has glints in their eyes. Arran’s eyes are pale gray with silver glints; Debs’s are darker green-gray with pale green and silver glints. Annalise has blue eyes with silver-gray shards in them that twist and tumble, especially if she is teasing me. Deborah and Arran can’t see the glints and neither can Gran; she says it’s an ability few witches have. I haven’t told her that when I look in the mirror I don’t see silver glints, but that my black eyes have dark triangular glints that rotate slowly and aren’t really glints at all. They aren’t shiny black, but a sort of hollow, empty black.
Annalise’s brothers Niall and Connor have blue eyes with silver glints. They are also instantly recognizable as O’Brien brothers by their blond hair, long limbs, and handsome faces. I avoid Annalise at breaks and lunchtimes, as I know if her brothers see us together she will be in trouble. I hate it that they might think I’m afraid of them, but I really don’t want to cause trouble for Annalise, and in this huge school it’s easy to avoid people if you want to.
At the end of the first month it’s drizzling that fine misty rain that quickly covers your skin to let you wash yourself clean. I’m round the back of the sports hall, leaning against the wall and considering the alternatives to an afternoon of geography when Niall and Connor turn the corner. From their smiles it seems that they have found what they are looking for. I don’t move from the wall, but I return their smiles. This is going to be more interesting than the Mississippi delta.
Niall starts with, “We’ve seen you talking to our sister.”
I can’t understand when or where, but I’m not going to bother asking, and I give him one of my “so what” looks.
“Just keep away from her,” Connor says.
They both hang back looking uncertain what to do next.
I almost laugh, they are so inept, and I don’t say anything, wondering if that is it.
It may well have been but then Arran appears behind them and blusters in with, “What’s going on?”
As they turn to him they change. They’re not afraid of Arran, and they’re not about to let him see they have been a little cautious with me.
They say, “Piss off,” in unison.
When he doesn’t, Niall advances on Arran.
Arran holds his ground, saying, “I’m staying with my brother.”
The bell marking the end of lunchtime starts to ring, and Niall shoves Arran on the shoulder, saying, “Piss off back to class.”
Arran is forced to step back, but he then takes a step forward, saying, “I’m not going without my brother.”
Connor is looking at Arran and has half turned away from me, and it is just too tempting seeing the side of his face like that. I hit him hard with my version of a left hook. Before Connor’s body touches the tarmac I sink down low to the ground behind Niall and jab him hard in the back of his knee with my elbow. He falls too, and so dramatically that I only just get out of the way. I am still low, so I punch Niall twice in the face, but I know I have to be quick to go to cover Connor. I rise, kick Niall in the side as he rolls away from me, and get Connor with a boot to his shoulder as he is getting up. Niall, though, is more of a danger, being bigger and much the tougher of the two, and he knows enough to roll away again as I start a run at him. I don’t connect my kick, though, as Arran has grabbed my shoulders, surprisingly powerfully, and is dragging me away. I don’t resist much. I’ve done enough.