Jude's Music

Two

The rain continued into Monday, and I was relieved. With school beginning I didn't mind the weather. My sisters were driven off to their small building. Mine wasn't much bigger. I was in the eighth grade. My school covered kindergarten through eighth grade, and my sisters' school was ninth through the end of high school. There were just the two schools in all of Mosspond. I guessed there weren't many kids around, because even the schools that were there were small.

Nothing was eventful that first day. I went to my class. I met my teacher. I was introduced to the students, but I didn't talk to any of them, not really. One with long, curly brown hair sat down in a desk across from me at one point. She said, "Are you new?"

At which point I nodded.

"I'm not," she replied. "I've been here a long time. I'm Jillian Lee. Jill, for short. Like the nursery rhyme, Jack and Jill."

She looked at me expectantly. Her eyes were big and blue. "Nat," was all I replied, trying to smile. I don't think she noticed the attempt, though, because she nodded, rose from the seat, and moved to a different cluster of kids. In a way I was disappointed, but not enough to let it bother me. I had never been one for lots of friends, and I certainly didn't need any now.

I didn't know why I wasn't feeling well the second day of school. Part of me wondered if it was because Ms. Montague was talking about numbers. I wasn't good with numbers. My brain didn't process them right. I wasn't necessarily a words person either, though. I liked to read because it gave me time to be quiet and by myself, but I didn't exactly enjoy writing. Really the only subject I was interested in was science. I liked to think about the organs inside of me and all the different kinds of animals there were. Even plants were more interesting than the numbers I was forced to stare at during math.

Whatever the reason, I wasn't feeling well, so when Ms. Montague went to the door to speak with another teacher I didn't look up from the worksheet before me. I wasn't trying hard to fill in any of the blanks on it. I just took my time, thinking about how I was going to survive math worksheets if we had them every day. My pencil eraser rubbed at a dark spot on the desk.

"You shouldn't do that," said someone to my side. I was surprised to be spoken to. I turned my eyes to see the girl who'd said her name was Jill. She was half-writing something, half-looking at me. "You shouldn't make marks on the desk."

Not really wanting to reply, I said, "She's not watching. I won't get in trouble."

"It's not that," the girl returned with a sigh. "It's just not very nice to the desk."

I chose to ignore her comment. She was strange, I thought. She had her dark curly hair tied up in different-colored ribbons. Her eyes were so big. My own eyes weren't even as large as hers, and I was always told that they were big. Big and black–my mother said. They were really very dark, dark brown, but sometimes, in bad light, they looked black.

Rather sharply, Ms. Montague shut the door. I sensed her irritation, and it made me glance up. There, with the teacher, was a boy. What I first noticed was how tall he was. He stood nearly half a foot taller than Ms. Montague who, I should say, was on the short side. The boy had very dark hair. He looked like he hadn't been in the sun for years. His skin was so white there was almost a bluish hint to it. From my seat, I could see that his eyes were strange too. Just before, I had been considering the darkness of my own eyes, but they were nothing when compared to the boy's. His eyes were so black that they looked like holes right in his head. And even from where I sat, with my back pressing against my wooden chair, I felt their blackness like they were wind.

He wasn't smiling, the boy. His hands were in the pockets of his baggy pants and his light blue shirt was so soaked with rain that it looked several shades darker in some spots. He was skinny too–so skinny it almost looked unnatural.

Ms. Montague motioned for him to sit, and he silently sauntered to an empty desk far from her and placed himself in the chair. Then Ms. Montague went on to answer the math problems we were supposed to have completed.

Not only was it impossible to concentrate on numbers that day, but there was no chance of me putting my attention to anything else either. My stomachache grew even stronger as the minutes ticked by on the clock. I knew part of it was because of the boy several desks behind me, to the right. He made me very nervous, and I hadn't the least idea why. He didn't look like the bullying type, although bullies came in different sorts. I knew that. I had been teased many times. People mistook my quietness for ignorance once in a while. But I never took any effort to prove them wrong. That used to make my mother mad.

Maybe the strange boy was a bully–I didn't know. But that wasn't why I felt what I did. It was something else . . . something very strong. I was scared of him, but I couldn't think of why.

The boy didn't say a word all day. I didn't either, unless I was called on. Even then I didn't like to say anything. I knew I had to answer some questions so I wouldn't get bad grades, but I said only what I had to. The bare minimum. I doubted the boy would have said a word, even if he had been called on (which he wasn't).

Near the end of the day, Jillian whispered, "Nat!" I turned. "When do you think it will stop?"

I glanced at her questioningly.

"The rain?" she added, obviously annoyed that I hadn't understood her.

I turned to the window. It wasn't storming. There was no lightning and little thunder. There was just rain. Steady, steady rain. I didn't know when or if it would ever end. Looking back to my work, I caught a glimpse of the boy. His dark eyes were cemented on the window–locked on the rain. Wondering if he saw something that I'd missed, I gazed again out the window, then back to him. He didn't move. He was in a complete daze. I was curious about him, and I wanted to know what he was seeing.

I didn't answer Jill. I forgot to.

When the bell rang and the school day was done I expected to feel relieved. I wasn't feeling well and I was nervous, so I should have been more than ready to go back to the house. But something pulled a little at me as I stood to go. It bothered me, because I didn't know what it was. It was like when I'd gone into my new bedroom for the first time. Nevertheless, I began gathering my supplies. I went to retrieve my raincoat, which was still damp from that morning.

"Jude Wood," called Ms. Montague suddenly, her voice cracking the silence, "you are to remain after. I need a word with you."

I looked behind myself cautiously. The pale, dark boy was still in his chair, his sullen gaze on the top of his desk. It was him. Jude was his name. I could leave the room now.