Maureen Johnson - The Name of the Star

“I’d like to see you try.”

I sent a low-flying piece of doughnut just inches over the table surface, right at his prefects’ tie.

“Jerome . . . ,” Charlotte said.

“Yes?” he replied, not looking over.

“You know you shouldn’t be doing that.”

“I know many things, Charlotte.”

He turned and gave her a smile and gave me a little shiver. It was pleasantly evil. I remembered now—Charlotte and Andrew had once gone out. Andrew and Jerome were best friends. Jerome probably did know many things. Charlotte simply turned away, as if she had forgotten what was going on.

“Okay,” I said very quietly. “Your powers are a little hot.”

It was as open a declaration as I’d ever made. I waited to see how he would respond. He looked down at his plate, still smiling.

“What’s going on now?” Jazza said, setting down her tea and throwing a leg over the bench.

“We’re annoying Charlotte,” I said.

“Finally,” Jazza replied in a low voice, “a hobby of Jerome’s I can fully support. Carry on.”

I didn’t even mean for it to, but Jazza’s commenting got to me. I started to watch Boo when we sat in the library together that afternoon during our free period. We sat across from each other at a table in the corner, our laptops back to back. I was trying to cram in the writing of the aforementioned essay. This was the first major assignment I’d had for literature—seven to ten pages on any work of my choice that we’d already read. I was doing mine on Samuel Pepys’s diary, mostly because that was the reading I understood the best. Boo had her computer open, but she was reading a gossip site. I could see the reflection in the window.

“What are you working on?” I asked quietly.

“What?” she said, pulling off her headphones.

“What are you working on?”

“Oh. Just reading.”

“What are you doing your essay on?”

“Not sure yet,” she said, yawning.

I gave up and went to get a book. Boo followed me, dawdling along behind me, staring at the books like they were very interesting objects from some other universe. As I made my way to the criticism section, I saw Alistair sprawled in the middle of an aisle, reading. He had his book on the floor and was idly turning the pages with one hand.

“Hi,” I said, switching on his light.

“Hello.”

Boo regarded Alistair with surprise. She immediately walked up to him.

“Oh . . . hello. I’m Bhuvana. Everyone calls me Boo.”

“Boo?”

Boo burst out laughing. Alistair and I just stared at her.

“Sorry,” she said. “I am called Boo. That’s always funny, though.”

Alistair nodded dismissively and turned back to his book.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Boo said. “Really.”

“Is it?” he asked.

“This is Alistair,” I explained to Boo. Then to Alistair I said, “I need a good book on Samuel Pepys.”

“McCalistair. The one with the blue cover and the gold lettering.”

I scanned the shelf for a book that fit this description.

“Rory and I are roommates,” Boo said. “I’m new.”

“Well done,” Alistair replied. “So there are two of you now.”

“Three,” I said. “We have a triple.”

I found the book and held it up to him for confirmation. He nodded. It was huge—a two-hander with a layer of dust on top. I thought we were done, but Boo sat down on the floor next to Alistair.

“Is this your favorite spot?” she asked.

“It’s private,” he said.

“You go,” she said, waving me off. “I’m going to talk to Alistair for a while.”

I had serious doubts about how well that would go down with Alistair, but he raised no objection. If anything, he seemed slightly curious about Boo and her incredibly forthright approach to conversation. Whatever the case, if it gave me five minutes away from her, I was taking it.

I went back downstairs to my table and opened the book. It had a pronounced old book smell, and pages that had been allowed to turn very slightly golden, but not brown with age. Alistair had given me a serious book, one that covered every aspect of Samuel Pepys’s life. It was time to be a serious student, so I found the section of the book devoted to the section of the diary I was reading at the moment and tried to develop an interest. But what I was really watching was the light in the aisle upstairs. It clicked off, and neither Boo nor Alistair emerged, and Boo didn’t switch it back on. They had to be talking, or . . .

It was hard to imagine Boo and Alistair instantly making out, but that actually made a lot more sense than the idea of them having a long conversation. Alistair liked books and emo eighties music and being poetic—and Boo liked the opposite of all of those things.

Her notebooks were there, just inches away from me. I hesitated for a moment, then, using my pen, dragged the one marked Further Maths over to me, keeping one eye on the balcony in case Boo emerged. I flipped open the notebook. Not many pages had been used. The ones that had were covered in doodles and song lyrics and the occasional equation for what looked like good measure. There was no work in it at all, not a single effort to solve a single problem set. I closed the book and pushed it back.

Since I’d already violated her privacy, I decided there was no reason to stop there. I pulled over the history notebook. Same thing. A few scribbled notes, some doodles, but nothing usable. Boo really wasn’t trying, to an alarming extent. Jazza was right. Chances were, Boo would be kicked out soon enough, and we’d get our room back. I wasn’t proud of this thought, but it was the reality.

Boo came out of the aisle above, and I dropped the heavy research book on top of her notebook as she passed along the balcony toward the stairs. Once she was on the stairs, her view was blocked, and I shoved the notebook back to about the place where I’d found it. Boo wasn’t exactly meticulous, so I didn’t think she’d notice if it was an inch or two out of place.

She dropped down in her seat and put her headphones back on. I kept my eyes on the book, as if I’d been reading all along. She had her laptop open, like she was working, but I could see her screen’s reflection in the window. She was watching a soccer match online. We were pretending for each other.

There was something very weird about Boo Chodhari, something more than the fact that she wasn’t doing any work for school. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I had a strong feeling I should be watching her a lot more carefully.

19

SATURDAY MORNING, I HEADED OFF TO ART HISTORY with Boo at my side. Jazza had gone home for the weekend. Boo and I were on our own for a few days. I had been assigned the task of reporting back every single thing Boo did in her absence. I hadn’t told Jazza about the library incident yet, mostly because it really didn’t make me look good. In boarding school, you have to respect other people’s privacy. I couldn’t just say that I’d been looking at Boo’s notes. That violated the unspoken code.

“I still can’t believe this,” Boo groaned as we walked over to the classroom buildings. “Class on Saturday mornings. Isn’t that against the law or something?”

She pronounced the word something like somefink .

“I don’t know,” I said. “Probably not.”

“I’m going to look it up, because I think it is. Child welfare or somefink.”

In the classroom, everyone was milling around with coats on. Today we were taking one of the trips Mark had promised us on the first day.

“Everyone have their Oyster cards?” Mark asked. “Good. So, we’ll walk over to the Tube together. If we get separated, go to Charing Cross. The museum is right there. We’ll meet in room thirty in one hour’s time.”