Maureen Johnson - The Name of the Star

She slid a key and an ID across the desk. The ID was a disappointment. I’d taken about fifty pictures of myself until I found one that was passable, but in transferring it to the plastic, my face had been stretched out and had turned purple. My hair looked like some kind of mold.

“Your ID will get you in the front door. Simply tap it on the reader. Under no circumstances are you to give your ID to anyone else. Now, let’s look around.”

We got up and went back into the hallway. She waved her hand at a wall full of open mailboxes. There were more bulletin boards full of more notices for classes that hadn’t even started yet—reminders to get Oyster cards for the Tube, reminders to get certain books, reminders to get things at the library.

“The common room,” she said, opening a set of double doors. “You’ll be spending a lot of time here.”

This was a massive room, with a big fireplace. There was a television, a bunch of sofas, some worktables, and piles of cushions to sit on on the floor. Next to the common room, there was a study room full of desks, then another study room with a big table where you could have group sessions, then a series of increasingly tiny study rooms, some with only a single plush chair or a whiteboard on the wall.

From there, we went up three floors of wide, creaking steps. My room, number twenty-seven, was way bigger than I’d expected. The ceiling was high. There were large windows, each with a normal rectangular bit and an additional semicircle of glass on top. A thin, tan carpet had been laid on the floor. There was an amazing light hanging from the ceiling, big globes on a seven-pronged silver fixture. Best of all—there was a small fireplace. It didn’t look like it worked, but it was incredibly pretty, with a black iron grate and deep blue tiles. The mantel was large and deep, and there was a mirror mounted above it.

The thing that really got my attention, though, was the fact that there were three of everything. Three beds, three desks, three wardrobes, three bookshelves.

“It’s a triple,” I said. “I was only sent the name of one roommate.”

“That’s right. You’ll be living with Julianne Benton. She does swimming.”

That last part was delivered with a touch of annoyance. It was becoming very clear what Claudia’s priorities were.

She then showed me a tiny kitchen at the end of the hall. There was a water dispenser in the corner that had cold or boiling filtered water (“so you won’t need a kettle”). There was a small dishwasher and a very, very small fridge.

“That’s stocked daily with milk and soya milk,” Claudia said. “The fridge is for drinks only. Make sure to label your drinks. That’s what the pack of two hundred blank labels on your school supply list is for. There will be a selection of fruit and dried cereal here at all times, in case you get hungry.”

Then it was a tour of the bathroom, which was actually the most Victorian room of them all. It was massive, with a black-and-white tiled floor, marbled walls, and big beveled mirrors. There were wooden cubbies for our towels and bath supplies. For the first time, I could completely imagine all my future classmates here, all of us taking our showers and talking and brushing our teeth. I would be seeing my classmates dressed only in towels. They would see me without makeup, every day. That thought hadn’t occurred to me before. Sometimes you have to see the bathroom to know the hard reality of things.

I tried to dismiss this dawning fear as we returned to my room. Claudia rattled off rules to me for about another ten minutes. I tried to make mental notes of the ones to remember. We had to have our lights out by eleven, but we were allowed to use computers or small personal lights after that, provided that they didn’t bother our roommates. We could only put things up on our walls using something called Blu-Tack (also on the supply list). School blazers had to be worn to class, official assemblies, and dinner. We could leave them behind for breakfast and lunch.

“The dinner schedule is a bit strange tonight, since it’s just the prefects and you. The meal will be at three. I’ll send Charlotte to come get you. Charlotte is head girl.”

Prefects. I had learned this one. Student council types, but with superpowers. They who must be obeyed. Head girl was head of all girl prefects. Claudia left me, banging the door behind her. And then, it was just me. In the big room. In London.

Eight boxes were sitting on the floor. This was my new stuff , my clothes for the year: ten white dress shirts, three dark gray skirts, one gray and white striped blazer, one maroon tie, one gray sweater with the school crest on the breast, twelve pairs of gray kneesocks. In addition, there was another box of PE uniforms, for the daily physical education: two pairs of dark gray track pants with white stripes down the side, three pairs of shorts of the same material, five light gray T-shirts with WEXFORD written across the front, one maroon fleece track jacket with school crest, ten pairs of white sport socks. There were shoes as well—massive, clunky things that looked like Frankenstein shoes.

Obviously, I had to put on the uniform. The clothes were stiff and creased from packing. I yanked the pins from the shirt collars and pulled the tags from the skirt and blazer. I put on everything but the socks and shoes. Then I put on my headphones, because I find that a little music helps you adjust better.

There was no full-length mirror to gauge the effect. Using the mirror over the fireplace, I got a partial look. I still really needed to see the whole thing. That was going to require some ingenuity. I tried standing on the end of the middle bed, but it was too far over, so I pulled it into the center of the room and tried again. Now I had the complete picture. The result was a lot less gray than I’d imagined. My hair, which is a deep brown, looked black against the blazer, which I liked. The best part, without any question, was the tie. I’ve always liked ties, but it seemed like too much of a Statement to wear them. I pulled it loose, tugged it to the side, wrapped it around my head—I wanted to see every variation of the look.

Suddenly, the door opened. I screamed and knocked the headphones off my ears. They blasted music out into the room. I turned to see a tall girl standing in the doorway. She had red hair in an incredibly complicated yet casual-looking updo, and the creamy skin and heavy showers of golden freckles to match. What was most remarkable was her bearing. Her face was long, culminating in an adorable nub of a chin, which she held high. She was one of those people who actually walks with her shoulders back, like that’s normal. She was not, I noticed, wearing a uniform. She wore a blue and rose skirt with a soft gray T-shirt and a soft rose linen scarf tied loosely around her neck.

“Are you Au rora ?” she asked.

She didn’t wait for me to confirm that I was this “Aurora” she was looking for.

“I’m Charlotte,” she said. “I’m here to take you to dinner.”

“Should I”—I pinched a bit of my uniform in the hope that this conveyed the verb—“change?”

“Oh, no,” she said cheerfully. “You’re fine. It’s just a handful of us, anyway. Come on!”

She watched me step awkwardly from the bed, grab my ID and key, and slip on my flip-flops.

3

So,” CHARLOTTE CHIRPED, AS I STUMBLED AND SLID over the cobblestones, “where are you from?”

I know you’re not supposed to judge people when you first meet them—but sometimes they give you lots of material to work with. For example, she kept looking sideways at my uniform. It would have been so easy for her to say, “Take a second and change,” but she hadn’t done that. I guess I could have demanded it, but I was cowed by her head girl status. Also, halfway down the stairs, she told me she was going to apply to Cambridge. Anyone who tells you their fancy college plans before they tell you their last name . . . these are people to watch out for. I once met a girl in line at Walmart who told me she was going to be on America’s Next Top Model. When I next saw that girl, she was crashing a shopping cart into an old lady’s car out in the parking lot. Signs. You have to read them.