All These Things I've Done (Birthright #1)(4)

I lit a candle for my father.

I prayed that Hell wasn’t so bad, even for a murderer.

I missed them both so much.

My best friend, Scarlet, was waiting for me in the hallway outside the chapel. ‘Nice work skipping fencing on the first day, Miss Balanchine,’ she said, linking her arm through mine. ‘Don’t worry. I covered for you. I said you were having scheduling issues.’

‘Thanks, Scarlet.’

‘No problem. I can already see exactly what sort of year this is going to be. Shall we go to the dining hall?’

‘Do I have a choice?’

‘Yes, you could spend the rest of the school year hiding in the church,’ she said.

‘Maybe I’ll even become a nun and swear off boys forever.’

Scarlet turned to study me. ‘No. Your face wouldn’t be good in a habit.’

On the walk to the dining hall, Scarlet filled me in on what Gable had been telling people, but I had overheard most of it already. The most important points were that he had broken up with me because he thought I might be a caffeine addict, because I was ‘kind of a slut’ and because the start of a school year was a good opportunity for ‘taking out the trash’. I comforted myself with the thought that if Dad had been alive, he probably could have had Gable Arsley killed. ‘So you know,’ Scarlet said, ‘I did defend your honour.’

I was sure Scarlet probably had but no one ever listened to her. People thought of her as the crazy drama girl. Pretty and ridiculous.

‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘everyone knows that Gable Arsley is a horse’s backside. The whole thing’ll blow over by tomorrow. Everyone’s only talking about it because they’re losers with no lives of their own. And also, it’s the first day of school so nothing else has happened yet.’

‘He called Leo a retard. Did I tell you that part?’

‘No!’ Scarlet said. ‘That’s pure evil!’

We were standing in front of the double doors that led into the dining hall. ‘I hate him,’ I said. ‘I really and truly hate him.’

‘I know,’ Scarlet agreed, pushing the doors open. ‘I never knew what you saw in him in the first place.’ She was a good friend.

The dining hall had wood-panelled walls and black-and-white linoleum tiles like a chessboard, which made me feel like a piece in a chess game. I saw Gable seated at the head of one of the long tables by the window. He had his back to the doors, so he didn’t see me, though.

Lunch that day was lasagne, which I have always detested. The red sauce reminded me of blood and guts, and the ricotta cheese of brain matter. I’d seen guts and brain matter for real so I knew what I was talking about. In any case, I wasn’t hungry any more.

Once we sat down, I pushed my tray towards Scarlet. ‘You want?’

‘One’s more than enough, thanks.’

‘All right, let’s talk about something else,’ I said.

‘Other than—’

‘Don’t you say that name, Scarlet Barber!’

‘Other than the horse’s backside,’ Scarlet said, and we both laughed. ‘Well, there’s a most promising new boy in my French class. Actually, he kind of looks like a new man. He’s all, I don’t know, manly. His name’s Goodwin but he goes by Win. Isn’t that OMG?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Um, it stands for something. Dad said it used to mean, maybe, “amazing”? Or something like that? He wasn’t sure. Ask your nana, OK?’

I nodded. Scarlet’s dad was an archaeologist and he always smelt like garbage because he passed his days digging up landfills. Scarlet went on about the new boy for a while but I wasn’t really paying attention. I couldn’t have cared less. I just nodded occasionally and pushed my repulsive lasagne around my plate.

I looked across the dining hall. Gable caught my eye. What happened next is somewhat blurry to me. He would later claim that he hadn’t, but I thought he sneered at me, then whispered something to the girl sitting to the left of him – she was a sophomore, maybe even a freshman, so I didn’t know who she was – and they both laughed, and in response I lifted my plate with the uneaten, though still scalding-hot lasagne (all food was required by law to be heated to 176°F to avoid the bacterial epidemics that were so pervasive), and then I was running diagonally across the black-and-white linoleum floor like a bishop gone mad and just like that Gable’s head was covered with ricotta and tomato sauce.

Gable stood, and his chair toppled over. We were face-to-face, and it was like everyone else in the dining hall had disappeared. Gable started to yell, calling me a string of names that I won’t bother to repeat here. I’d rather not type a whole long list of curse words.

‘I accept your condemnation,’ I said.

He moved to punch me but then he stopped himself. ‘You’re not worth it, Balanchine. You’re scum like your dead parents,’ he said. ‘I’d rather just get you suspended.’ As he left the dining hall, he tried to wipe off some of the sauce with his hand, but it didn’t do any good. It was everywhere. I smiled.

At the end of eighth period, I was delivered a summons to appear in the principal’s office after school.

Most everyone managed to avoid getting into trouble on the first day of school so there weren’t that many people waiting. The door was closed, which meant someone was already in the office, and a long-legged guy I didn’t know waited on the love seat in the foyer. The secretary told me I should have a seat.