As set as Pleione Umino was on Johhny Brown she would have liked some attention from other boys, especially when Maia started her classes at Orinda High. While Pleione had the plain face of her father, Maia was a beauty, resembling her mother’s mother. As soon as she set foot on Orinda’s campus, she had had boys swarming around her like ants on a spilled sugar bowl.
To make matters worse, JB was taken with another new girl, a junior whose family had moved up from Palm Springs. Sylvia Rabensnagel’s father was a golf pro who had taken an offer from a country club in the Diablo Valley. Her mother was a teacher, and she had made sure that Sylvia went to the best public high school she could find. They made good money, but not the kind of money to send their kids to private schools.
Sylvia didn’t look anything like Maia. In fact, she looked rather like Pleione might have if Pleione had been born to a German-Irish couple. Like Pleione, Sylvia had thick glasses, mouse-colored hair, and even wore long skirts like Pleione. The only differences were that she was shorter and Johnny Brown found her interesting.
Since her own love life seemed to be beyond hope, why not mess up someone else's? The athletic director liked Pleione a lot, so when she suggested that little Dexter get to be Owlbert for the whole year, since it was about the only thing he could do with the rest of the school besides ruining the curve, he got the suggestion turned into reality.
Another transfer student for the fall quarter of 2010 at Orinda High was Evan Maxwell. Like Sarah, he felt something like a deserter, and even more out-of-place. Evan was no sports hero, which was the acknowledged role for prominent African students at Orinda High.
There were a few black students who actually lived in or near Orinda, but they weren't his people either. Children of parents with money, they either patronized him hoping his supposed Street Smarts would rub off on them, or avoided him. He got the impression that both types thought he was a grind, a poor boy with no better reason to be in their school than to get an education.
Evan Maxwell was not the only African-American student transferred to Orinda High by dint of good grades and determination, but there were not a large number like him. Further, most were girls. When the black athletes were factored out, among black transfer students the girls outnumbered by the boys maybe two to one.
He wasn't the only one to notice this ratio. One of his fellows in his small category, a politically-bent individual flirting with Islam and Farrakan, said the white masters of the school felt threatened by African men, but were always willing to have their women around. Evan did not like Reuben (or Raheem on his angrier days) very much and did not buy into much of what he said, but on this, he seemed to have hit not too far from the mark. He knew from observation that, unless they got pregnant, more black girls than black boys stuck with school, but not twice as many.
Not all the athletes of African persuasion were functional illiterates, but there weren't that many like Johnny Brown who could hack the work without cheats. In fact, most of the others were at best semi-literate, with learning disabilities, or a scorn for education, or just a lack of education because all time and energy and focus was directed to sport by parents, by coaches, and by friends who saw them as champions. Even Johnny Brown, a genuine Nice Guy, was part of that jock culture, and Evan could never follow him into it.
The other black males in his category (non-jock, non-rich) seemed to share several qualities: They were mostly on the small side, mostly had strong mothers, and mostly well-scrubbed Baptists or Evangelicals--a couple were New Gospel Church. Evan Maxwell was uninterested in having his soul saved in the autumn of 2010, so he kept his distance from these people.
He kept bumping into Pleione and her friend Zoë, getting to know more of them, because he took many of their classes. He also ran into Sarah, usually between classes or at lunch. But the person he wound up talking to more than any other at school was a freak: Dexter Petronius. He needed to be with him a lot for an embarrassing reason: he needed Dexter's help to get through a couple of tough classes. To add to the embarrassment, it seemed to have been Sarah who aimed Dexter at him.
Zoë Kino was familiar to Evan because they had shared a year of middle school, the last. Familiar she was, but not close. Evan wasn't really attracted to her, but she was interesting, and mysterious. She seemed more approachable now, so when an opportunity came late in September to catch her alone, he started up a conversation.
"I suppose you want to know all about how I ran away with my family," said Zoë.
"No. I would have run too, I guess."
"So what do you want to talk about?"
He shrugged. "College? I'd like to go to Harvard or Yale."
She smiled a little crookedly. "How about KO University? I might go there."
"In Japan?"
"Yes," said Zoë. "KO is a wonderful place. People go there to be educated, not just to make friends with the sons of bigshots--or marry them. That is what Todai, Tokyo University, is like."
"And Harvard and Yale are the same?"
Zoë answered with a silence before saying, "From what I've heard of you, you don't seem like a future politician."
"I guess not," said Evan, "but I'd like to go anyway . . . Just who talked to you about me, anyway? I'm not exactly famous around here."
"Mostly Sarah," said Zoë, pulling down her glasses. "I guess she keeps an eye on you for some reason."
Dexter shook his head and moved on.
Evan Maxwell did not think about asking Dexter Pretorius about Sarah's behavior. He didn't really believe it, anyway. Zoë was probably having some fun with him, implying that Sarah might have some special interest in him, like Pleione for Johnny Brown. Then a couple of days later in the school library, while Zoë Kino's words about Sarah were still fresh enough, he noticed something in one of Dexter's notebooks--a drawing. It was more than a doodle. He pointed out the drawing to the little prodigy, and he blushed. "It's Sarah."
"Sarah Uer?"
Dexter nodded.
"Nothing to be ashamed of. It looks pretty good. Looks quite a lot like her."
"Do you really think so?"
"It's better than I could do . . . are you sweet on her, Dex?"
Another flush. "Yes."
"You should show this to her."
"I've shown pictures to her before," protested Dexter.
"Oh?"
"She just said they were 'nice.'"
"And that's all?"
"I'm only twelve, Mr. Maxwell. Sarah is almost as old as you are."
"I've got a year on her," said Evan.
"I think she likes you, Mr. Maxwell."
"Me? We get along like dogs and cats!"
Dexter went on, unaffected, not really looking at Dexter, just looking at the picture. "Her mom told me she couldn't stand the man she married when she first met him. I think Sarah's probably like that. But I don't know. She's just the girl of my dreams. I dream about her all the time."
"Like this?"
"Sometimes."
Dexter's drawing showed Sarah in a long gown, a tiara, and wings.
"Well, she's more like the girl of my nightmares."
Suddenly Evan Maxwell fell off his chair. Standing up, he noticed that Sarah Uer was standing nearby, arms behind her back, wearing a "Who, me?" look.
He didn't notice that Pleione was looking down at the picture in the notebook. In fact, she had not noticed Evan falling down at all . . .