Monochrome Army Reboot

ONE: Starr

It's the first day of school, and I'm dreading it.

Now, this sounds like a cliche book, right from the get-go. Well. I can assure you it's anything but. Anyway. Read on.

Well, Addi will be there, of course, which makes it slightly better. He's waiting by the door for me, on his tiptoes to see over the steady stream of high-schoolers flooding the halls. We're both starting our junior year, but I'm four months younger than him.

Addi catches sight of me and begins frantically waving. I hide a grin and shift course, heading in his direction.

Someone bumps into me and mumbles, "Sorry," with a gentle pat on my shoulder. I look over at the perpetrator trying to come up with a smart remark.

The person is a boy, around sixteen, I think. He has a slim build, slightly Oriental eyes the color of the sky on a cloudy day, and a mess of blue-black hair that hovers between curly and wavy.

I blink at him and say, "Sure, yeah," and continue toward my best friend.

"Hey, kid." Addi whacks my arm and solemnly says, "I missed you."

I laugh. "You saw me yesterday, Addi."

He shrugs. "You're my best friend."

Addi's been my best friend since sixth grade when we met in the choir. He's got a fantastic voice and he tells me mine is just as good but I don't believe him. He's always had the same grin, same face, and relatively the same feathery brown hair. Same glittering, amused brown eyes. Same everything, always.

He links his arm through mine and steers me off to our lockers. We've asked for our lockers to be next to each other, and it's happened so far. We both get our notebooks for Trigonometry which I'm extraordinarily excited about. I've always been a little bit ahead of everyone else, and so has Addi. Over the summer we decided we were going to take the class together.

We arrive at the classroom and Addi says, "I don't really have this class."

A little prickle spikes the edges of my brain. "But you said- '

"I know, I know. And you're gonna hate me, but you have to learn to be independent." Addi gives me a gentle push. "I promise you'll be fine. Who knows, you might make a new friend. I'll be here after class, okay?" Addi points. "I'm right next door."

And he walks away.

Panic seeps into my thoughts as I go into the classroom, my vision blurring with tears. I blink fast and sit in the only empty seat, the row right behind the front.

I open my notebook and try to slow my breathing. A quick sketch proves helpful in this department, so I begin covering the first page in doodles. Sure enough, a few minutes pass, and I can breathe again.

I'm half-listening to the teacher (whose name I can't remember) when everyone opens their notebooks and a tap on my shoulder makes me jump.

I turn, irked, to my right to see the boy who bumped into me.

"I'm terribly sorry to trouble you, but would you lend me a pencil?" He gives me a winning smile.

I take a pencil out of my pocket and hand it to him.

"Many thanks."

I realize the appropriate response would be to say "No problem," or "You're welcome," or "Anytime." But I wouldn't do it anytime, like at lunch. Why would I give him a pencil then? So that one is out of the question. And I see now that it is in fact a problem because I gave the boy my second favorite pencil and who knows if he'll give it back.

At this thought, I can't manage any words, so I press my lips into a tight line and nod at him.

For the remaining twenty-eight minutes of this class, I agonize over the second-best pencil in the boy's grasp. I can't very well ask for it back; that's a whole new level of bizarre.

Instead, every three minutes, I glance over at him and check on my pencil.

Finally, mercifully, class ends and I rush out into the hallway, gulping cool, not-classroom-carpet-scented air. True to his word, Addi is there waiting for me.

"Addi! I gave him the wrong pencil and he isn't going to-" I frantically cling to his arm.

"Slow down." Addi pats my hand. "Who was it?"

"Here's your pencil back. Much appreciated." The dark-haired boy holds it out, eraser towards me, another gregarious grin on his face.

I take it, and in the spirit of conviviality, offer my hand for him to shake. "I'm. . . Starr. With two r's." I stumble over the words like I always do.

He grasps my hand with self-assured firmness. "Madison E. Deiai." He says it Dye-ee. "I recently moved from Saskatchewan. And who's your friend?"

Addi shakes hands with him. "Addi Clark. No offense, but we have to get to Chemistry."

"I'm taking AP classes too. I have AP Physics next period, though."

"After that?" Addi talks to Madison Deiai as if they've known each other forever.

"Homeroom with a female whose outrageously foreign name I'm going to shorten to Mrs. O."

"Oh, good. You can go with Starr," Addi gives me a nudge in the direction of Chemistry.

"You don't have homeroom with me?" I squeak.

"Trigonometry and Homeroom are the only separate classes we have, okay?" Addi soothes. "Plus you're doing fine. You lent someone your second-best pencil and now you have a friend."

I look over at Madison, who walks like he's in a music video. One step forward, then his heel comes back up. He is bold and brash; I can tell by the way he carries himself and the perpetual, confident smirk that turns up the edges of his mouth.

"You're a dancer," I say, surprising myself.

"How did you know that?" Madison looks just as disconcerted as me.

Addi snorts. "She's a regular Sherlock Holmes."

"No. Just how you . . . are, that's all. It's really quite obvious." I shrug, uncomfortable with this new boy and his intrusion.

"How I am?" Madison scrunched up his nose.

"You. . . I don't know." It wasn't exactly a parlor trick, but I just met this guy. I'm not going to spill all my secrets. He's going to think I'm crazy.

See, I'm going insane. It's like I can hear people's thoughts. Which is impossible. But for real, like just now, with Madison? I could practically hear his voice in my head. Addi thinks it's fantastic, but I'm about ready to claw out my brain. It's not a constant stream, more like bits and pieces (thank God). Why am I telling him anything?

I shrug again as we enter the Chemistry classroom. I sit down and shift my gaze to Madison, standing outside the classroom. The way he looks at me makes me uncomfortable, his eyes following me like magnets to iron.

He raises an eyebrow, asking a silent question. It sounds like he says, "Who are you?"

I didn't say anything, because I'm pretty sure it was all in my head.