The The Name of the Star Read Online Free PDF Page B

seemed to be expected. Laws were different here. You could drink at eighteen in general, but there was some weird side law about being able to order wine or beer with a meal, with an adult, at sixteen. I was still mulling this over when I noticed that the speech had ended and people were getting up and putting their trays on the racks.
    I spent the night watching and occasionally assisting Jazza as she began the process of decorating her half of the room. There were curtains to be hung and posters and photos to be attached to the walls with Blu-Tack. She had an art print of Ophelia drowning in the pond, a poster from a band I’d never heard of, and a massive corkboard. The photos of her family and dogs were all in ornate frames. I made a mental note to get more wall stuff so my side didn’t look so naked.
    What she didn’t display, I noticed, was a boxful of swimming medals.
    â€œHoly crap,” I said, when she set them on the desk, “you’re like a fish.”
    â€œOh. Um. Well, I swim, you see.”
    I saw.
    â€œI won them last year. I wasn’t going to bring them, but . . . I brought them.”
    She put the medals in her desk drawer.
    â€œDo you play sports?” she asked.
    â€œNot exactly, ” I said. Which was really just my way of saying “hell, no.” We Deveauxs preferred to talk you to death, rather than face you in physical combat.
    As she continued to unpack and I continued to stare at her, it occurred to me that Jazza and I were going to do this—this sitting-in-the-same-room thing—every night. For something like eight months. I had known my days of total privacy were over, but I hadn’t quite realized what that meant. All my habits were going to be on display. And Jazza seemed so straightforward and well-adjusted . . . What if I was a freak and had never realized it? What if I did weird things in my sleep?
    I quickly dismissed these things from my mind.

5
    L IFE AT WEXFORD BEGAN PROMPTLY AT SIX ON Monday morning, when Jazza’s alarm went off seconds before mine. This was followed by a pounding on the door. The pounding went down the hall, as every door was knocked.
    â€œQuick,” Jazza said, springing out of bed with a speed that was both alarming and unacceptable at this hour.
    â€œI can’t run in the morning,” I said, rubbing my eyes.
    Jazza was already putting on her robe and picking up her towel and bath basket.
    â€œQuick!” she said again. “Rory! Quick!”
    â€œQuick what?”
    â€œJust get up!”
    Jazza rocked from foot to foot anxiously as I pulled myself out of bed, stretched, fumbled around filling my bath basket.
    â€œSo cold in the morning,” I said, reaching for my robe. And it really was. Our room must have dropped about ten degrees in temperature from the night before.
    â€œRory . . .”
    â€œComing,” I said. “Sorry.”
    I require a lot of things in the morning. I have very thick, long hair that can be tamed only by the use of a small portable laboratory’s worth of products. In fact—and I am ashamed of this—one of my big fears about coming to England was having to find new hair products. That’s shameful, I know, but it took me years to come up with the system I’ve got. If I use my system, my hair looks like hair. Without my system, it goes horizontal, rising inch by inch as the humidity increases. It’s not even curly—it’s like it’s possessed. Obviously, I needed shower gel and a razor (shaving in the group shower—I hadn’t even thought about that yet) and facial cleanser. Then I needed my flip-flops so I didn’t get shower foot.
    I could feel Jazza’s increasing sense of despair traveling up my spine, but I was hurrying. I wasn’t used to having to figure all these things out and carry all my stuff at six in the morning. Finally, I had everything necessary and we trundled down the hall. At first, I