Halifax (4 page)

The principal turned his attention back to the paperwork before him. “I see from your transcript, Farrell, that you were a star basketball player at the International School.”

Farrell looked over at Rom. It was obviously the first he’d ever heard about that, but he wasn’t going to let on. He sat straight up in his seat. “Yes, sir. I
love
basketball.”

“I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve taken the liberty of signing you up for our team,” Whitaker told him. “Fall tournament under way. We sure could use the help.”

“Great,” Farrell said, pretending to be excited. “That’s great. Thanks.” Farrell glared at Rom. Rom shrugged his shoulders and turned his attention back to Principal Whitaker.

“Straight A’s, awards, Rom skipping two grades, the highest recommendations from your teachers,” Principal Whitaker said, reading off a list of accomplishments that never happened. “I have to say, Mrs. Halifax, for a single mother with three adopted kids, you’ve really done an incredible job.”

Mrs. Halifax. That would be the other person in the room. She had sat quietly—until now. Now, she seemed to be growing in her chair. Growing closer to the principal, at least. She was a large woman. A woman of commanding presence with a look so sharp it could cut you in two. She was the mother of Farrell and Izzy and Rom. They were Farrell and Izzy and Rom
Halifax
now. Halifax was their new surname and this woman was their new mother. This new mother was, by the way, African American—something Farrell and Izzy and Rom were most definitely not.

“What makes you think they’re adopted, Mr. Whitaker?” Mrs. Halifax, or
Mom
as the kids called her, asked. She was angry. She pointed in the principal’s face, shaking her long finger at him. “I find that incredibly insulting.”

The principal began to turn red. He was either embarrassed or frightened—or both. “I’m sorry, I just thought, I just, I…” he stammered.

“It’s not the 1940’s, Mr. Whitaker,” Mom told him. “This is America. Families come in all shapes and sizes—and colors! Get used to it!”

The Halifax siblings and their new mom left the principal’s office and stepped into the morning madness of Lexham Academy. High school students rushed past, all wearing the blue and red Lexham uniform. Their blazers each had a faux, ancient, coat-of-arms patch sewn on the breast, as if the school were sanctioned by European royalty and home to the Knights of the Round Table.

Mom grabbed Rom and pulled him into a smothering hug. “You have a good day, Rom,” she told him. “And you call me if any of these creepy, private school going, penny loafer wearing, little snots give you any trouble. I’ll be down here in five minutes flat to beat them senseless.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Rom said, smiling up at her, enveloped in the aura of her motherliness.

Mom threw her purse over her shoulder and marched down the hallway and towards the front doors of the school. Students parted before her, scurrying out of her way. She was a tsunami pushing everything and everyone from her path.

“Well, I’m glad we now have a mom who seamlessly blends into our environment causing absolutely no disruption whatsoever,” Izzy said as she watched Mom plow through the front doors and out of the school.

“I’m sorry,” Rom said. “But I only had enough parts left to make an African American mom. You get me more parts and I’ll be happy to make any kind of mom you want.”

“Why did you put on my transcript that I played basketball?” Farrell asked, annoyed.

“This school has the number one ranked basketball team in the state,” Rom replied. “There was a sixty-eight percent better chance they would accept all of us if one of us was a basketball star.”

“But I don’t play basketball,” Farrell reminded him.

“Then you’ll have to learn,” Rom said. “It’s a simple matter of physics, Farrell. The surface molecules cause frictional force on a ball that you control with velocity and the management of gravity and projectile motion.” Rom barely stopped to breath. “The ball is generally on an unchanging parabolic path. Simply manage pressure and friction and you manage the ball.” There. It was easy.

“Thank you, Rom, that’s very helpful,” Farrell said and then turned to his sister. “Getting any feelings from anyone, Iz?”

Izzy was baffled as she looked at all the students. “It’s so hard with teenagers. I can’t tell if anyone is weird because
everyone
is weird.”

Rom held up his Etch-A-Sketch and pointed it down the hallway. Silhouettes of human figures could be seen walking on the toy’s monitor, nothing more than black outlines on a grey background, like cartoon sketches in motion, nothing glowing or blinking or seemingly out of the ordinary.

“No one is wearing a screen,” Rom whispered. “If our alien friend has a disguise, it’s not a standard issue one.”

Farrell looked over Rom’s shoulder at the monitor of the Etch-A-Sketch. A group of very shapely figures strutted across the monitor, moving towards them. Izzy reached over and angrily pushed the toy down to reveal the flesh and blood figures headed their way.

“Oh great,” she said sarcastically. “Here come the catty cheerleaders. Let the abuse begin.”

A group of Lexham Academy cheerleaders made their way down the hall. They were mostly blonde and all skinny and each wore a short, white, pleated skirt and a too tight white turtleneck sweater with a large red
L
on the front. The lone brunette, Shana Rowen, an alpha female queen bee overflowing with confidence and attitude and gleaming white teeth, led them.

“New kids,” Shana said as she and her posse stopped in front of the Halifax siblings. She looked them all over once and then looked Izzy up and down for emphasis. Then she most unexpectedly turned nice. Sincere even. “Welcome to Lexham! Just tell us if you need any help at all settling in. We’re here for you!” The others smiled enthusiastically.

“Thank you,” Farrell said with a smile of his own. It was a smile that annoyed Izzy to no end.

“And don’t forget,” Shana continued. “Big game this week! We hope you’ll be there to help us cheer the team on!”

“Sounds awesome,” Izzy said flatly.

“Have a great day!” Shana exclaimed.

“We will,” Izzy shot back with a lack of earnestness.

As they walked away, short skirts swinging from side to side and long fake-tanned legs carrying them down the hall, the last cheerleader in the group of six turned back to look at Farrell. She was the blondest of the bunch and the prettiest. There was something about her that set her apart from the others. It wasn’t just her beauty but something in her eyes. They were sad. Even when she smiled there was still a faint veil of melancholy that hung over her. She was Nora Evans and she was commanding all of Farrell’s attention.

“The cheerleaders are nice,” Izzy said in disbelief. “Something is most definitely wrong here.”

“I think I like this school,” Farrell said softly, saying it before he could stop himself from saying it. He continued to watch Nora as she turned away from him and caught up with the other cheerleaders. “Yep,” he continued. “This is most definitely an interesting place.”

Rom sat down at his desk in the first row in ninth grade algebra. The other students couldn’t help but stare at him. Not only was Rom the new kid in class but he also looked like he was eleven years old.

A girl in the seat behind him leaned forward and tapped Rom on the shoulder. Either she was very tall or Rom was very short, but just sitting in her chair she was taller than him. “Hey, are you, like, one of those kid genius guys?” this Tall Girl asked.

“No,” Rom replied. “I’m just a normal child much like yourself.” Rom straightened the paper and pencil on the desk in front of him. It would be easier to act normal if Rom actually knew what normal was.

Mrs. O’Brien, an elderly teacher who had been giving math lessons at Lexham Academy for what looked like the past two hundred thousand years, entered the classroom and all the students stopped their talking and gawking and gum chewing and sat up a little straighter in their chairs. Rom was already sitting up straight.

“Good morning, class,” she said. “Happy Monday.” She didn’t look happy. She looked tired, but she was trying. Every year she expected to find that one student who would remind her why she had wanted to be a teacher in the first place. Looking down at the eager young Rom Halifax, she thought he might be the one. “I’m sure you’ve all noticed we have a new student in our class. Everyone, this is Rom Halifax. He just transferred to Lexham from Uruguay. Isn’t that fascinating?”

“Yes, it is,” Rom said. He wasn’t afraid to speak up. “It’s home to 3.46 million inhabitants and has the sixtieth highest GDP per capita in the industrialized world.”

A few of the other students laughed at Rom but Mrs. O’Brien shut them up with a withering look. It was a look they had all seen many times before.

“Well, Rom, you have such an unusual name,” Mrs. O’Brien said. “Is it short for Romulus?”

“No,” Rom said.

“Is it a nickname?” Mrs. O’Brien asked.

“No.”

“It’s just so…unique,” the teacher told him.

Rom leaned forward towards the old teacher. He wanted to make sure she heard him. “Actually, being a teacher, I’m sure you know that Rom is the fourth most common name in the universe, behind Rayolinian, Sanlasha—and Bob.”

Mrs. O’Brien sighed deeply and began to clean off the dry erase board. Rom, it turned out, was not going to be the boy who reminded her why she wanted to be a teacher. He was going to be the boy who reminded her why she wanted to retire.

Izzy walked into a science classroom that looked like every other science classroom she had ever been in—and she had been in many. Public school or private school, they were all the same. There was inevitably some type of mobile hanging from the ceiling that depicted the known solar system with Earth and Mars and the others rotating around the Sun in the random direction of whichever way the air conditioning was blowing. There was the ubiquitous periodic table of all earthly elements taped to the wall that always aggravated Izzy with its incompleteness and a countertop full of beakers back by a chemical-stained sink that saw more mess making than scientific discovery.

It was no wonder to her that American students were falling behind students in other counties in their knowledge of science. They didn’t even learn what they
thought
was true about the universe let alone what really was true. If only they knew what was out there, out beyond Jupiter and Saturn and the dissed and downgraded former planet Pluto, maybe they would be more excited about learning.

Izzy looked around the classroom at all the students. They were so bored they didn’t care about the new girl in class, let alone what the life cycle of a cell was or why Au was the symbol for gold on the periodic table.

Izzy took a seat in the second row as the last students filed into the classroom. As she settled into her chair she tried to casually look around, to gauge her fellow students. They were the usual bunch, a cross section of high school life, jocks and geeks, the pretty and the pathetic. Nothing she hadn’t seen before. No one stood out—except the boy in the next to the last row.

Every time Izzy turned around, he was looking at her, directly at her, not even trying to hide the fact that he was looking at her. He had a strange little smile on his face. It was a smile that said
I know something you don’t know
. It was unnerving. He wasn’t like the others. Instead of the requisite blue blazer, he wore a large green army jacket over his uniform. He had dark, messy hair that was long enough to flirt with an infraction of the Lexham Dress and Decorum Guidelines. He could have been good looking. If he wanted to. If he cared. But he didn’t seem to. He was splayed out in his chair with his legs blocking the aisle, not a thought for anyone else as they stepped over and around him to get to their seats.

“Hi, I’m Carolyn Holcomb,” a girl said as she thrust her hand in front of Izzy to shake, startling her. Izzy turned away from the boy in the next to the last row and looked up to see a smiling face. It was the pleasantly round and slightly plump face of Carolyn Holcomb, a girl wearing either too much or not enough make up, depending on which part of her face you focused on. She was trying a little too hard to be a misfit with her cat’s eye glasses and frizzy hair. She was a girl who took pride in not fitting in, probably because she had no chance of fitting in in the first place.

“I’m Izzy Halifax,” Izzy finally replied, shaking Carolyn’s hand.

“Welcome to hell, Izzy Halifax,” the girl said as she plopped down in the empty chair beside Izzy. “I’ll be more than happy to be your tour guide. I can tell you who you should be friends with—me, for instance—and who you should steer clear of. And I’m talking about students
and
teachers. There are some seriously warped people around here.”

“Well, since you mentioned it, the guy a couple of rows back, in the green jacket?” Izzy said. She motioned over her shoulder. “I think he’s kind of staring at me.”

Carolyn didn’t try to be discreet at all. Her head whipped around and she stared right back at the boy. He didn’t flinch one bit.

“Oh that’s just Bobby Ramirez,” Carolyn said with a sigh. “He’s been voted ‘Most Likely to Become a Serial Killer’ two years in a row. Avoid being caught in a dark place with him and you should be okay.”

Izzy couldn’t help but look back at Bobby Ramirez one more time. He probably wasn’t really looking at her. That would be too creepy. When she turned back, though, he
was
looking at her, his eyes intensely locked on hers, not turning away, not blinking. Izzy quickly looked away. Whatever feelings she was beginning to pick up from this boy she pushed away with a shudder. Bobby Ramirez scared her.

Lexham students rushed around the hallways between classes, visiting with friends, flirting, and joking around. Rom stood before his locker and organized his books and belongings in perfect rows and piles. He was given a locker on the top of two rows of lockers. It was a locker that should have been for a senior or at least someone taller. Rom struggled to reach the small shelf at the top of the locker where his red Etch-A-Sketch had been thoughtfully placed by Izzy that morning.