Students were bustling around inside, talking as they took their seats. All his life he’d lived in the same house. Gone to school with mostly the same kids, though some had come and gone because of things like divorce, movie flops, and TV show cancellations. But he’d stayed. Until now.
Not able to prolong the inevitable any longer, while Aimee took her seat at the front of the classroom, Matt went over to the scarred wooden desk and handed over the form the woman at the office had given to him.
“Good to have you, Matthew,” said Coach Slater, who was a lot younger than his BHHS coach had been.
He was wearing jeans, a black sweater over a blue shirt, and blue Converse Chucks. He looked kind of like Ryan Reynolds, from all the comic book superhero movies. His tone was friendly but casual, as if he didn’t realize the player who could save Shelter Bay High School basketball was standing in front of him.
He introduced Matt to the class. Some managed a mumbled “hi.” The girls openly checked him out, while the guys were a lot less welcoming.
“You should have been given a lab notebook,” Coach Dillon said.
“It’s right here.” Matt held up the spiral-bound notebook.
“Terrific. Take a seat anywhere.”
There were three empty seats. Two were next to girls whose glossy smiles offered open invitations that were tempting. The third was at the back of the rows of seats. Having learned early in life that kids complained about him blocking their view of the blackboard, Matt chose that one, slouching down on the seat-desk combo, which, like every other one he’d had since third grade, was too small for his height.
“I don’t know how it was done at your previous school,” the teacher-coach said. “But here you’ll only be documenting the actual lab reports on the right-hand side of the page. The left will be used for lectures or class discussion notes. Your first line should be the title I give you. Then the page will be divided into labeled sections, which should always be included, because your notebook will be part of your grade.
“As you’ve undoubtedly learned, physics labs always center on a question that’s being investigated. That question should be written as a purpose statement in the first section, labeled
Purpose
.
“Next is data and documentation. You can use tables, graphs, diagrams, and observations. I’m not looking for an essay here, or even complete sentences. What you will want to do is show your work for each type of calculation you performed and clearly label and document your findings—because they’ll be evidence you’ll use to draw a conclusion to the question you’ve listed in your purpose.
“Then you’ll write your conclusion statement, which always refers to the purpose statement. Again, I’m not looking for an essay or thesis here, although the conclusion should be long enough to answer the purpose question.
“Finally, include any comments on why data may not have proven what you expected it to, variables to the experiment, anything along those lines. . . .
“Any questions?”
Matt looked up from madly writing on the inside cover of the lab notebook. He didn’t think the guy had taken a breath while rattling off all those instructions. “No, sir.”
“Great. So, everyone, listen up,” he called out, stopping the low buzz of conversation that Matt guessed was a lot about him. “Today’s lab is on work, energy, and power, and the question is: ‘What is the effect of varying the release location of a marble along an incline upon the distance which the marble drives a paper plow along a level plane?’
“You’ll write an equation to describe the effect. Presuming that there is one.”
He paused while everyone dutifully wrote the question into their lab books.
“Everyone will be divided into two teams, red and blue. Your purpose will be to determine the effect of the release location—which is the distance from the bottom of the plane—of the marble and determine a mathematical equation describing the relationship between the two variables.”
Another too-short pause to allow for more scribbling.
“Once you’ve determined that, the blue team will release the marble from a given location, which you’ll have to determine, that’ll result in it driving your paper plow a distance of two centimeters. Red team, you’ll drive yours for five centimeters.
“Want to know what reward you’re playing for on this lab assignment?”
Matt had never had a class run like the
Survivor
TV show. He just hoped he wouldn’t end up getting voted off the island, which would be the pits. Like the rest of his life had turned out to be.
“A pizza party,” a guy in the second row suggested.
“With beer,” another said.
“Sorry, pizza’s out since I don’t want the lunchroom ladies to feel I’m honing in on their territory. And you’ll have to wait until you’re twenty-one for the beer.”
“How about a get-out-of-class-free card?” someone else shouted out from the middle of the room.
“Nope. But this is nearly as good . . . a get-out-of-the-next-pop-quiz card.”
That definitely got everyone’s attention. Including Matt’s.
“So.” He held up a rumpled brown paper bag. “Come draw your chips to determine your teams, and let’s get started.”
Slater seemed like an okay guy. Taking a typical lab class and turning it into a challenge was pretty cool. Especially since, being an athlete, Matt enjoyed competition.
But from the way the guy had gotten right down to business, hardly taking a breath as he’d rattled off the lab book instructions, Matt had the feeling that unlike in other science classes he’d had in the past, there’d be no skating in this one.
And if the guy coached basketball in the same way he taught his class, instead of breezing in as a savior, Matt realized that he might actually be made to prove himself on the court this afternoon.
Not that he was worried.
Piece of cake,
he thought as he pulled a red chip from the bag.
8
The Danc
ing Deer Two boutique was located on Harborview, the main street in town. Despite the drizzle, the sight of the tidy shops with their bright wind socks blowing in the sea breeze lifted Claire’s spirits, as it always seemed to do. Although residents of Shelter Bay, for the most part, had a twenty-first-century view of their place on the planet, the town also seemed to be a throwback to another, easier-going time.
When people knew one another, cared about one another, and life moved a great deal more slowly.
Since it was low tourist season, traffic was nonexistent, allowing her to park right in front of the store with its cheerful green-and-white front awning. The bell on the door jingled as she entered the boutique, which smelled of potpourri and, as always, fresh baked goods.
“Oh, you’re just in time.” Dottie, one of the two elderly twins who owned the shop, greeted her. “Doris has just brewed a cup of the tastiest chai tea from Lavender Hill Farm. It’s a black tea with touches of orange and cranberry that makes you think of Thanksgiving.”
“It sounds great. But I’d rather not think about the holiday.”
“I understand,” Doris said, “being that this will be the first Thanksgiving without your mother.”
“I’ll miss her terribly,” Claire said. “But I have to admit that I also miss her cooking every day. I can’t even boil an egg. My poor son’s been living on frozen dinners and takeout, which has me feeling like the world’s worst mother.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t agree,” Dottie said. She patted Claire’s arm with a plump hand. “And I realize that you must have so much on your plate, what with moving to a new place and enrolling your boy in school, but you should consider taking classes at Chef Maddy’s new cooking school.”
“Madeline Durand has a cooking school? Here?”
While Claire might not cook, she was hooked on the Food Channel. It was one of the few things she and her mother had had in common. She’d heard from the real estate woman that the chef was helping her grandmother turn the family farmhouse into a restaurant, but a school hadn’t been mentioned.
“Along with her new restaurant,” both women said together. Claire had noticed, during her first visit to the boutique last year, that they often spoke at the same time, without seeming to notice they did it.
“But she’s Madeline Chaffee now,” Dottie divulged.
“She married her high school sweetheart,” Doris said. She patted her breast. “It was so romantic. Wasn’t it, sister?”
“It was a lovely wedding,” Dottie agreed as she handed Claire a pretty flowered cup of dark amber tea. “On Moonshell Beach. Her husband used to be a summer boy. Now he’s settled down and is working as a contractor.”
“A building contractor?” Claire perked up at that.
“He remodeled Lavender Hill farmhouse for Maddy’s restaurant and cooking school,” Doris said. “He’s also been working like a beaver on the former cannery, which is already home to some lovely shops, with more to come.”
“I noticed that while I was looking for a house to buy.”
Claire didn’t mention having momentarily considered setting up a retail space when the real estate agent had told her about the shops. Until she remembered that would put her in direct competition with the two sisters who’d proven such good customers.
“How are you liking the cottage now that it’s yours?” Dottie asked.
“I love it.”
“It’s on a spectacular piece of land,” Doris said.
“Which is why I bought it. That and the fact that the detached garage is perfect for my glassblowing studio. But I knew at the time it would be too small, and it is. Matt and I are already bumping into each other.” When he wasn’t behind locked doors, avoiding her.
“Oh, Lucas would be able to solve all your problems,” Dottie said. “He put up that display wall for us just last month when we decided to expand our gift shop section.” The wall in question held shelves and a glass display case. “It’s proven very popular.”
“I’m glad it’s working out for you. Especially since it gives me another outlet for my blown glass.”
Claire was used to film people buying her jewelry, but receiving a note from Irish movie star Mary Joyce, asking for a custom piece after she’d bought a more commercial item in this very store, had blown her away.
“That’s something I’ve been meaning to mention,” Dottie said. “You know about our resident whales.”
“They’d be hard to miss.” The whale logo showed up in the windows of seemingly half the businesses in town, and during the tourist season lines of visitors waited at the seawall to board the ubiquitous whale-watching boats.
“Well, we were thinking perhaps you might want to create glass whales for the summer tourist trade,” Doris said. “Not the typical touristy cheap things you can find in all the knickknack shops, but with your usual exquisite quality and attention to detail.”
“We know we could sell quite a few,” Dottie picked up her part of the sales pitch again.
Claire groaned inwardly. It wasn’t that she didn’t know how to blow glass animals. While she’d been learning the craft, she’d taken a lesson from a glassblower at Disneyland, who could turn out Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, Cinderella, or a glass slipper while customers waited. And while the artist had received a great deal of joy from people’s enjoyment of his work, she knew she’d be bored in a week doing such cookie-cutter items.
“That’s something to consider,” she said, keeping her answer as vague as possible for now. “Well, as much as I’d love to stay and visit, I just wanted to drop off this jewelry before stopping by the market for a frozen pizza.”
“You know, dear,” Doris said, “you might want to drop into Farraday’s Fish Monger.”
“Oh, I would kill fish,” Claire said. “I mean, I know it’s already dead. But it’s way beyond my skill set.” As she’d already discovered the hard way, even pancakes were beyond her culinary abilities.
“They’re wonderful at giving you instructions.” Dottie jumped onto the fish bandwagon. “Steamed clams are one of the easiest things in the world to cook, since they sell them already cleaned. And you could buy a nice boiled crab—”
“Or crab cakes,” Doris said. “Maeve Farraday makes them all up by hand with cooked crab. All you have to do is brown them in a pan—”
“Or oven,” Dottie broke in. “Easy peasy. Maeve also makes the best chowder on the coast. They also carry wonderful artisan bread from the Grateful Bread and coleslaw that would finish off a meal nicely.”
Claire was doubtful. Then again, she thought about this morning’s mess of a breakfast and admitted to herself that she couldn’t keep feeding Matt takeout forever. He’d always seemed to enjoy his grandmother’s cooking, and she was already asking enough of him with this move and adjusting to a new school.
It wasn’t as if she wasn’t an intelligent woman. She had, after all, made a nice career for herself with her jewelry making, and although she’d never equal the genius of Chihuly, she was beginning to build a reputation, at least on the West Coast, for her blown glass.
How hard could it be to toss some damn crab cakes in an oven?
“Okay.” She polished off the tea and made her decision. “But if I end up giving my son food poisoning, I’m going to tell him the seafood was all your idea.”
They shared a laugh; then she left the store and headed to Farraday’s at the docks, not far from the bait shop she spotted down the way.
“The trick,” she said as the wipers swished the rain from the windshield in wide arcs, “is not to get the two places mixed up.”
9
Thanks to the unrelentingly perky Aimee, lunch in a new cafeteria didn’t turn out to be the horror show Matt had dreaded. Although it wasn’t any fun feeling like an outsider, sitting at the nerd table, forced to watch the jocks laughing across the large room. It especially sucked when one of the guys strolled in with a hot blonde wearing a fuzzy white sweater that fit as if it were spray-painted on, a pink miniskirt, and pink UGGs. Matt recognized them as the couple who’d been tangling tongues up against the locker. They were—no big surprise—greeted like royalty.
Meanwhile, as far as they were concerned, everyone at his table could have been on another planet. Or invisible.
One of the jocks threw a French fry at another, which started a short-lived food fight, which everyone, including the teacher monitoring the cafeteria, seemed not to witness. Apparently even here in Nowheresville High School, athletes possessed star power.
Which was what had Matt making up his mind. He might have landed in a really small pond, but maybe his mom was right about that making him an even bigger fish.
“How’s it going?” Aimee leaned over and asked him quietly.
“Great.” He told her what he knew she wanted to hear.
Which was mostly true. At least he hadn’t been forced to wolf down chips and a candy bar from the vending machine in a stall of the boys’ restroom.
The hot lunch was billed as seafood mac and cheese, but it smelled like an aquarium filled with dead fish. Fortunately, they also had fish sandwiches and Tater Tots. Even Aimee wasn’t enough of an optimist to try the mystery mac, instead going for a turkey Cobb salad and a Fuji apple.
“I had an idea,” she said.
He took a gulp of milk from the carton. “What?”
“You could always take the late bus, but I’m working on an Oregon history project about Sacagawea with Jenny Longworth. Did you know that she—Sacagawea, not Jenny—was a teenager when she went with Lewis and Clark on their expedition?”
“No, I never heard that.”
“She was. They took her along as a translator, but since she was the only person who’d ever seen the landmarks, they might never have gotten to the coast without her to keep them on the right trail.
“She also helped keep them alive by teaching them about edible plants, nuts, and berries, which Americans and Europeans had never heard of. And she did all that with her newborn baby on her back.”
“That’s pretty impressive,” he allowed.
“She was also the first woman in what would become the United States to vote.”
“I may not know everything about history, but even I know the first vote was in Seneca Falls in the twentieth century.”
“That’s because history tends to overlook people who aren’t white,” she argued. “When the expedition reached the Pacific Ocean in 1805, Lewis and Clark let her vote with the men on where they’d set up camp for the winter. That was more than a hundred years before the Seneca Falls vote.
“Anyway, I was thinking, since I already live across the bridge, and Jenny’s house is just a couple streets away from yours, why don’t I drive you home from practice?”
He’d been about to squeeze more ketchup on his Tater Tots, but that got his attention. “You have a car?”
“Yeah. It’s not new or sexy—well, actually it’s my mother’s old Volvo, which pretty much looks like a blue refrigerator on wheels—but it gets me where I want to go.”
“I thought you were a sophomore.”
“I am. But my birthday falls at the end of this month, so back when I was in preschool, my parents had to make the decision to have me be way younger than everyone in the class, or older. Since my dad was deployed at the time and my mom said she wasn’t emotionally ready to be left all alone again all day, they opted for older. Which, like most things, ended up with mixed results, but the best part is that I can drive.”
“That’d be cool.”
He pulled out his phone and, ignoring the
TURN OFF CELL PHONES
and
NO TEXTING
signs posted all over the school, texted his mom his plans.
As nice as Aimee was, it was bad enough sitting here at Nerd Central. One thing he so didn’t need was his mom showing up and blowing any juice he was bound to get from showing off his wicked ball skills during tryouts.