Storm and Stone

by Joss Stirling

  Raven’s eyes swept the room. Though she was standing in the shadows, her late entrance had attracted attention from the girls. A number of them glanced her way then started whispering together. She could imagine what they were saying: there’s the thief. We always knew it was her.

  Which one had left the picture, she wondered? It was horrible to think someone had spent their afternoon working out how to upset her. Her money was on Hedda and her gang but, really, now she knew what the girls thought of her—the school’s trailer trash—she had begun to see enemies everywhere. No one had stood up for her: she would always remember that.

  The boys, thankfully, seemed oblivious to the undercurrents in the room. When she caught the eye of Adewale, a friendly Nigerian boy in her year, he just grinned back and returned to his conversation. Shame there was no room at his table.

  Not wanting another battle, she avoided taking a seat with any of the girls. Her normal place by the serving counter was occupied so she slid into a spare chair at the same table on the far right. It was a good place to watch the room and had the advantage that she didn’t recognize the two boys already there, so they at least should be ignorant of the undercurrents.

  ‘Hi. You new to Westron?’ she asked brightly, pretending she wasn’t worried by the atmosphere in the dining hall. She was attuned to danger, thanks to past experience in a rough school, and somehow the situation had subtlety changed. She was no longer so sure she was safe. It might not be drug-dealing seniors she had to worry about in the corridors here but something was … well … off about Westron post vacation. Worth thinking about later, but for now she turned to give the newcomers her attention.

  The tousled-haired one on her right ignored her, apparently engrossed in a Sudoku puzzle. Extreme level. Great. She had put herself next to an Ultra-Geek—admittedly a handsome one. Hoping for rescue, she peered beyond him to the other stranger on Sudoku boy’s far side.

  ‘Hi, I’m Raven.’

  This time her greeting did not fall on deaf ears.

  ‘Hey, Raven. I’m Joe Masters.’

  Not only did Joe have a lovely deep voice, East Coast accented like hers, but he had a smile that felt like the sun coming out to brighten her overcast day. His hair was shaved close to the scalp and his skin tone was only a couple of shades darker than hers. Total effect? Gorgeous.

  ‘So, you … er … just joined us, Joe?’

  ‘Yeah. We started today.’

  We? Did that mean he came as a package deal with Sudoku? ‘Oh. Awesome. I hope you settle in OK. I mean, it’s a strange time to come, so late in the academic year.’

  Joe tapped the fingers of his left hand lightly on the table, a pianist practising the bass line. ‘Couldn’t be helped, Raven. We got expelled from our old school.’

  Raven wondered if he was joking; he seemed so cheerful about the fact. ‘What?’

  ‘The professor here blew up the labs. I was just an innocent bystander, your honour.’ Joe’s eyes were laughing at her expression.

  ‘Oh, er, yeah right. Of course, you were. Totally.’

  His expression told her he appreciated the irony. ‘I always blame him. He never takes the trouble to defend himself. Do you, Kieran?’ He nudged his friend.

  ‘Hmm.’ The boy filled in the grid with lightning speed. Raven suspected that he had to be making up the answers but when she surreptitiously checked the first box she couldn’t fault it.

  Waiting staff appeared with the first course, which entailed a dangerous ladling of hot soup over the shoulders of the students. As most of the servers were poorly trained locals drafted in for the meal, the older students knew to lean well back. The Sudoku boy did not take evasive action but impressed Raven by flicking up a napkin to intercept the drops with no seeming pause in his concentration.

  ‘Is he always like this?’ Raven asked.

  Joe smiled indulgently. ‘Hard to believe but yes.’ He broke a roll into pieces.’ You think he hasn’t noticed you but you’re wrong.’

  ‘Yeah right.’

  ‘No, it’s true. Hey, Key, stop that and say “hi” to the nice girl sitting on your right.’

  ‘Pathetically easy. I don’t know why I bother.’ The boy dropped the paper onto the floor between their chairs.

  ‘You bother because if your poor brain doesn’t have something to work on it starts to cannibalize its own cells out of sheer boredom.’

  ‘Hmm. Not very scientific but you might have a point.’ Sudoku sat up straight, revealing he was exceptionally tall. He had an enviable crop of loose chestnut curls and a face of angles and planes like some sculptor’s exaggerated version of ‘bone structure: British aristocracy’. Raven was reminded of a thoroughbred horse, all restless energy and skittishness. These two made the rest of the boys in her year look plain. She predicted that they were either going to be wildly popular with the guys who wanted to hang out with them, hoping to be at the front of the line for the girlfriend surplus, or—and this struck her as more likely—envied for being so fit.

  ‘So turn your gargantuan mind on your dinner companion, Key.’

  As Kieran looked worth the extra effort, Raven decided to help by restarting introductions. ‘Hi, I’m Raven.’ She held out a hand.

  He glanced at it, then took up his soup spoon instead. ‘I know who you are.’

  Raven let her hand fall to her lap. Fine, be like that, Mr Arrogant. Clearly, he had put her in the surplus category already. That stung. A lot. ‘So, I get it: I say my name and now you know everything there is to know about me! Gee: no need to say hello back or ask me about myself. Gosh, darn it, you must be so clever!’

  Joe chuckled at her sarcasm. ‘That’s Kieran Storm for you. And believe me, he does know you—height, weight, life history. He probably even has a shrewd idea of your … um … shoe size.’ He winked.

  That seemed unlikely. The boy had not met her gaze yet, let alone given her feet or other parts any attention.

  ‘I think I’m getting a fair picture of your friend, Joe. Six three, maybe six four. White British. Too intelligent for us mere mortals. Posh education at one of those English schools called public when they are private—Eton, Harrow or equivalent—until he was expelled.’ She said the last with relish. She would have liked to have seen that.

  Joe was highly amused. He stirred his tomato and red pepper soup in a circle, mixing in the crème fraîche. ‘Go on.’

  Raven made a guess. ‘He needs you to dress him.’

  ‘Right on target,’ crowed Joe. ‘That’s me: his valet. How did you know?’

  ‘You’re wearing a Ralph Lauren suit … ’

  ‘A designer second,’ Joe slipped in.

  ‘And your friend has one too … ’

  ‘I know a very useful guy.’

  ‘But his shirt is probably bummed from his dad’s or younger brother’s wardrobe as it doesn’t fit—too short in the sleeves. I figured he threw it on this morning before coming here and since then he’s been hard at work on his Sudoku until you forced him into the only decent suit he has. He couldn’t be bothered to put on the matching shirt like you did and you decided the battle wasn’t worth fighting. Am I close?’

  ‘Hey, Key, you’ve got a rival. How many points does she get?’

  Kieran raised his eyes to Raven’s face for the first time. He had eyes of an uncanny pale jade green, almost alien in their intensity. Her heart did a little flip of shock as she recognized the visceral attraction she had felt from the beginning had just got ten times worse. Moth, her; flame, him: result, singed wings.

  ‘Not bad.’ His voice wasn’t cold, more deep and distant, as if it were a struggle for him to remember to relate to little Earth people like her.

  ‘And that, Raven, is high praise from my man here. Congratulations.’ Joe shook her hand across Kieran’s meal then let go.

  ‘Thanks.’ Raven took a sip of her soup, attempting to regain her balance. ‘So what did I get wrong?’

  Kieran crumbled a piece of bread with his long fingers a
nd scattered them on the surface of his soup. He shot another glance at her then concentrated on his bowl. ‘It’s my shirt. I’ve grown.’

  Joe nodded. ‘Yup, he never goes shopping for clothes. He will wear something until it falls apart or we hide it from him.’

  ‘Who’s “we”?’ asked Raven.

  Joe looked troubled for a moment. ‘The boys at our old school. Yeah, them guys.’

  ‘But you got him the suit?’

  ‘It was given to me. We both share a generous … ’ Kieran searched for a word. ‘. . . Godfather.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind one of those,’ said Raven, thinking of her phone. ‘So I did only “OK” then. Let’s see what you know about me.’ She was intrigued what he would pick up as she was convinced she had not registered on his girl detector.

  Kieran finished his soup before replying.

  ‘Go on: the suspense is killing me.’

  ‘As you wish.’ Kieran pushed the bowl away and leant back in his chair to study her—to really study her. Raven had the feeling that no one had ever looked so closely at her before. It was like he was some human form of MRI scan, revealing all the layers.

  ‘Fire away.’ She crossed her arms, a little worried as to what she had invited.

  ‘Raven Stone. Seventeen. Granddaughter of the school caretaker, Robert Bates. You have been at the school for three years, which explains why you use both British and American English idioms. Parents deceased. One parent an American army officer—father most likely. Yes, yes, of course the father as the mother was British. Idiot.’ He hit his forehead. ‘Father was African American and proud of his heritage from the civil rights movement, but that is so obvious I apologize for mentioning it.’

  ‘How did you … ?’

  Joe shook his head, warning her to let Kieran continue.

  ‘You are five three and would like to be taller. Size 8—or about American size 6, though the conversion equivalent is not exact. You don’t have much money, shop at Oxfam, buy Fairtrade, read real books rather than eBooks. Shall I go on?’

  He was good: she had to give him that, but Raven was irritated by his calm dissection of her habits and person. ‘How do you know all this? Have you been in my room or something?’

  ‘No. Everything I need to know is right here.’

  ‘I suppose you know my shoe size too, Detective Storm?’

  His eyebrow winged up at that sarcasm. ‘Size 5. I can make an educated guess at other measurements if you wish.’

  Joe swallowed a laugh.

  ‘No thanks,’ Raven said quickly.

  ‘And you have had a fight with that red-haired girl over there about … ’ Kieran brushed the bridge of his nose with a long forefinger, ‘. . . about her ridiculously large handbag.’

  Raven was far from amused. ‘I think you’d better stop before you spill all my guilty secrets.’

  ‘Oh, you’re not the kind to have guilty secrets. You are an open book—usually honest, preferring to be direct and physical rather than subtle and devious, but under that surface show of strength, there is a hint of shyness and fragility, such as now when you prefer not to meet my eyes.’

  Naturally that meant that Raven had to force her gaze to challenge his. She immediately regretted it as his eyes seemed to draw her in like some kind of Star Trek tractor beam taking her little ship in tow of his Enterprise.

  Joe put a hand over Kieran’s mouth. ‘You’d better stop, my man, before she plants a fist in your face.’

  Raven looked down at the crumbs on the table top. ‘How do you know about the fight—and all the rest?’

  Kieran did not appear to understand that he had embarrassed her. He was enjoying the glow of his cleverness. ‘That was simple: your clothes speak for themselves—label cut out at back of dress, cotton tag end still hanging so recent second-hand purchase. Bead work from Bangladesh. Fair guess that they were bought together as you matched them as an outfit, so that suggests Oxfam rather than a home-based charity. There is a branch in town. As for the fight, the girls over there have been looking in your direction continually since you came in—most comments have been directed to the redhead and she has been clutching that bag to her side all night as if expecting you to rip it away from her.’

  He was right: the tote was back. All that fuss over something that wasn’t even stolen! ‘The jerk—she hadn’t lost it at all!’

  ‘She did misplace it,’ Kieran continued. ‘It had been removed by your grandfather when he found it under the table during clear up from lunch. He put it in the school secretary’s office and asked her to tell the girl who owned it to collect it. I heard the secretary call the redhead over on my way in today.’

  So that was why they still blamed her. They probably now thought her grandfather was in on her career as a thief, covering for her when she got caught.

  Resentment fought with curiosity and curiosity won. ‘How did you know we had a fight?’

  Kieran paused as his bowl was taken away and the second course of lamb and new potatoes was placed in front of him.

  ‘You have a slight scratch on the side of your neck that suggests a girl fight,’ he gestured with his trim nails, ‘and a rather fine bruise over your left eye. Actually, now I think about it, were there two of them? Yes, there were. You and two girls—probably after lunch judging by the age of the bruise.’

  She watched with fascination as he dissected his meat with surgical precision. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Your phone. It got broken or stolen.’ He chewed on the lamb, piece by careful piece.

  Raven put down her fork. ‘How on earth do you know that?’

  ‘Because that girl over there has been waggling her iPhone at you. The gesture suggests she has something that you do not.’

  ‘Wow, well done,’ Raven said flatly. ‘So you are, what? Sherlock Holmes’s love child?’

  ‘Impossible. He is a fictional character based on the real life Joseph Bell, a medical lecturer from Edinburgh who pioneered … ’

  ‘Enough information, Kieran. She was making a joke,’ Joe said softly.

  ‘Thanks, you can get back in your box now.’ Raven gave up on her meal. If her behaviour was going to be put under a microscope, she’d prefer it to be by a friend and in private. ‘It was nice meeting you, Joe.’

  Joe caught her sleeve. ‘Before you go, Raven, was he right about the civil rights movement?’

  Kieran snorted and added another teaspoon of mint sauce to his meal.

  ‘Yeah, actually he was.’

  ‘Bracelet,’ muttered Kieran.

  Raven turned her silver wrist band so Joe could see the inscription. I have a dream.

  ‘Clearly an American piece from the 1960s referencing Martin Luther King’s speech; date suggests a family heirloom.’

  It was the last present her father had given her before he deployed out of country and into the path of a roadside bomb. Raven put her hand over it protectively.

  ‘It’s a nice piece,’ Joe said.

  Kieran swallowed his mouthful, appetite sharpened by the display of his intellect. ‘Actually, it’s only silver plate which means it’s not worth much.’

  ‘Actually, it’s worth everything—to me.’ Raven gave him her back and walked out.

  ‘Oh, well done.’ Joe gave Kieran an ironic round of applause. ‘Way to go.’

  Kieran was still processing the punch he had felt when he’d first noticed Raven, a boxer spinning from the knock-out not yet flat on the canvas. He made himself catalogue details to regain his mental balance.

  The waiter began clearing the plates. He had long nails on his right hand, short on the left—guitar player in his spare time, then.

  ‘Are you listening to me, Key?’

  ‘Huh?’ Kieran followed Raven with his eyes, noting she was rather neatly put together. He wondered what it would be like to touch her hair—in the interests of scientific enquiry of course. He sipped some water and sat back as the dessert was put in front of him. He excavated the apple pie; the
pastry had been made out of vegetable fat and margarine—not butter.

  Joe gave him a shove. ‘I despair of you sometimes.’

  ‘Why? What have I done now?’

  Table manufactured in Sweden. Cutlery in Sheffield. Plate not silver, like the bracelet.

  ‘Key, did you or did you not just totally piss off the first female we’ve spoken to since arriving here?’

  Kieran blinked at his friend, struggling to comprehend. Give him advanced algebraic equations any day, human maths never added up satisfactorily. ‘She asked me to tell her what I knew about her so I did.’

  Joe punched him in the ribs. ‘Don’t you ever edit what you say? Check it for the offence it might cause?’

  Kieran rubbed the sore spot on his side. ‘Explain.’

  ‘You basically told the girl she was a fight-prone charity case dressed in rejects whose prized possession was nothing more than junk.’

  ‘But that’s the truth. I don’t see why people can’t face up to it. And I did not say it like that.’

  Joe pushed his empty plate aside and accepted dessert from a waitress with a clever compliment that had the girl smiling. He turned his attention back to his friend. ‘Look, Key, there’s truth and there’s truth. Some things are OK to say right out—“gee, I like your dress”, or “oh my, you’re a pretty thang”. Other stuff, you keep to yourself—“hey girl, you’re dirt poor”, “man, you are one ugly bug”. Got it?’

  The hall door closed behind Raven.

  ‘She wasn’t ugly.’

  Joe rested his chin on his hand and sighed. ‘I’m giving theoretical examples. And no, she wasn’t. I’d call her very cute.’

  ‘Not just cute. Really … nice looking.’ That didn’t do her justice. He had never had such an instant tug of attraction to anyone before.