Каран Андерс - The Book of Firsts

Spelling is Australian English.

The first day of the last year of high school brought me a fresh consignment of strangers. The idea that I might know some of this batch for more than a few months had preoccupied me ever since I’d arrived in Helios. With parents who changed countries on average twice a year, there’d been precious little continuity in my life, but the approach of final exams had won me an apartment of my own, and an uninterrupted year at Corascur High, a gateway school to one of the top universities in the world. If I didn’t sabotage myself, I’d be in this city for at least the next six years.

Corascur made this change of pace doubly odd. Both selective and expensive, it was the kind of place politicians and CEOs sent their children. Behind a double-high fence, buildings formed islands among a sea of trees. I spent the morning on the fringe of the junior orientation tour, half-listening to an excess of tradition and rules, and then tucked up the back of an enormous theatre, ignoring the speeches.

Some of it filtered through. Clubs. School trip. A festival. Sports day. A dance. Talk of school spirit, and growing together. These were things that didn’t resonate with me in any meaningful way. I had always been the new girl, the girl leaving at the end of the term, the one who arrived after the festival, or left just before. Even a single year in the same place, with the same people, would be a very new experience. If it wasn’t finals year, perhaps I could appreciate it, but the course I wanted had an annual intake of only fifty, leaving me less confident than usual in my academic abilities. I couldn’t waste energy playing around: this year I would be the boring girl who did nothing but study.

After the speeches, we were released early for lunch and directed to an enormous multi-floor servery capable of dealing with the hundreds of students descending upon it. The main dining hall was vast, with grand arched windows overlooking a slope, and then several tiers of sporting fields. There were currently plenty of free seats, but the place was loud, all clatter, chatter, and scrape of chairs, so I bought a simple cheese sandwich and took a side door.

Past a handful of patio tables there were gardens, and a tangle of hedges. The clipped bushes bordered a number of paths, but I slipped through a gap in the hedge instead, and wandered into a cluster of trees between high walls. This turned into a T-junction dead end which, beneath dense canopy and crowded trunks, felt dank and damp even on a late summer day. I solved that by climbing. Above the heavy lower branches, I found the mix of temperature and peace I wanted out of a lunch place. Then, over the high stone fence, I spotted an even better location: an enclosed rectangle of greenery next to the main administration building, dominated by an octagonal summer house decked out with pink climbing roses. There was even a wooden picnic table in a sunny spot to its right. Just waiting for me.

I immediately jumped down, narrowly avoiding an outdoor café table and two chairs set immediately below, and crossed to the summer house.

Set against the wall of the administration building, it was roomy enough to comfortably fit at least a half-dozen for lunch. The rose trained over it was a pale pink, plump and heavily scented. Wandering around to where the blooms were thickest, I took a couple of photos, and incidentally discovered a faucet beside a wall-mounted coil of hose, and an open window into the summer house. The door was open as well, and, unable to resist, I circled around and stepped into the spacious interior.

To my right a custom couch filled three segments of the octagon. To the left was a shelving unit and desk, along with a wooden chair. The only other furniture was a heavy square coffee table, closer to the window. All very nicely appointed. Perhaps the principal had lunch here?

An array of cups and glasses filled the open sections of the shelving unit, and a kettle sat on the desk next to a leather-bound book. This had a locked clasp, key currently inserted, and I couldn’t resist turning it, and taking a look. Someone had practiced their calligraphy on the title page:

The beautifully flowing script continued in smaller letters below: " Let the Best Player Win ".

Curious, I turned the page, and found a numbered list, the content completely outside of my expectations.

1. Kiss—no other touch. One minute max.

2. Seated massage (fifteen minutes). Clothes remain on.

3. Twenty minutes, above the waist only. Clothes remain on.

4. Strip each other, and exchange three hickeys and one kiss.

5. Missionary.

6. Oral.

7. Doggy.

8. Her on top

9. Face down.

10. On a table.

11. Butterfly.

12. On a chair.

13. Simon Says.

14. Standing up.

15. Sleeping bag.

16. Rough.

17. Fantasy Costume.

18. Bondage and blindfolds.

Bonus. Everything she likes best.

I laughed. It seemed the kind of thing scrubby twelve-year-old boys would write, and yet…not. Wishing I had some idea of the context, I flipped through blank pages all the way to the end, and finally found what looked like a scoring system. But before I settled down to read it, I rested a hand on the desk and felt radiant heat. The kettle. It had been recently boiled.

Hastily, I relocked the book, left the summer house, and managed to get myself to the top of the wall before a murmur of approaching voices told me how close I was to discovery. I hopped as lightly as I could manage to the nearest branch, pressed against the trunk of the tree and, partially concealed by sprays of dark leaves, held myself as still as possible as three boys came through the gate.

"Already more than the expected amount of running off to answer summonses," the first boy was saying. The tallest—at least six foot three—he wore his light brown hair twisted up into a loose half-knot that somehow managed elegance instead of disorder. His voice was gentle, with a soft French accent.

"Much trouble?" the second boy asked. Above average in height, but still at least a couple of inches shorter than the first boy, he wore his sleek black hair stylishly cut, and had, at a guess, Korean or Japanese heritage.

"A minor test of patience," the first replied. "We should postpone trying the Jade Dragon—I don’t want to waste it by hurrying."

The last boy didn’t say anything, drinking from a carton of flavoured milk before arranging his blazer on the picnic table and lying down. This position left him with a dangerously direct view of my tree branch, but all I could do was put my hopes on the shielding foliage, and the fact that his pale blond hair hung over his eyes. Fortunately, I’d kept my own blazer on, since the white uniform shirt would have stood out like a beacon.

Entirely fascinated, I watched the tallest emerge from the summer house with two steaming cups balanced on the leather book. Thankfully he was looking down at the cups, and not up. He passed one cup to the sleekly finished boy, and they dropped out of sight—probably sitting at the café table directly below me.

"Any other issues?" the tall boy asked. "Beyond the obvious."

"The obvious is a rather large point," the second boy said. He had a fabulous voice, deep to the point of mesmerising, despite a dust-dry tone. "But add that the scores should be kept secret until after completion. Knowing how we’ve been rated might change our behaviour. Not that I see any way to stop the girl from marking the one of us she likes most the highest, no matter who has the better technique."