New Boy by Tracy Chevalier

Author:Tracy Chevalier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Published: 2017-05-16T04:00:00+00:00

One of the hardest moments in a new student’s day is finding a place to eat in the cafeteria. It’s rushed and chaotic, and there are no assigned seats, so everyone sits with their friends. But a new student doesn’t have friends yet, so there is nowhere obvious to sit. Osei had been through this before, and knew there were two ways to do it. You could go in first and sit at an empty table and let them come to you. That way you didn’t make the mistake of sitting with potential enemies, or of trying too hard to push yourself onto a group. They got to choose you, which they preferred. On the other hand, there was also the risk that no one would sit with you, that you’d end up alone, a ring of empty seats around you like a no-man’s-land surrounding a radioactive dump.

Or you could hold back, stand at the end of the line so people were already sitting and you chose where to slot yourself in. If it was crowded there were usually only a couple places left, and the people sitting there didn’t have the option to get up and move and leave you stranded. But a lot of times the only vacant seats were with the unpopular kids: the weak, the stupid, the smelly, or those who are disliked for some mysterious reason that no one understands. It wasn’t a great idea to start out your school life sitting with them, because whatever it was that was stuck on them got stuck on you too.

Osei had tried both options, and usually went for the second. He preferred to have some control over what happened, or at least be able to predict it. If he was going to end up with the outcasts, he could at least choose his fate.

Today he didn’t have much choice anyway, as Dee had held him back to get his address and phone number so that she could call him about doing something, and maybe come over after school one day. She hadn’t offered hers, he noticed. He didn’t ask why he couldn’t go to her house, because he knew why: he was not a parent pleaser. His experiences going home with other boys to play had not been successes. There was the shock at his skin color, the silence, and then the over-politeness from the parents. O was never asked to stay for supper.

He and Dee had remained behind, talking, until she saw the time and cried, “Mom’ll kill me for being so late!”

His own mother would chide him for being late but not much more; she saved her shouts and tears for more important things. But Dee’s mother seemed to have a hold on her. Grabbing her bag, she had been about to race off, but then looked around and kissed him before hurrying away. Though brief, the gesture made him grin. He couldn’t believe his luck that a girl like Dee wanted to kiss him.

The moment she disappeared, the world flattened and darkened.

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