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“Nathan!” I virtually shout. “Nathan said you had big plans to expand the school. To offer more free places to kids in trouble.”
He stops, his head tilting like that blackbird perched on the scaffolding, and it isn’t often that I’m studied like this. It’s usually me who does all the watching before setting pencil to paper. This role reversal is disconcerting. So is his request.
“Tell me about your chaos, Rae.”
Fuck my life. He isn’t going to let me insulting his school drop, is he?
Today really is going to shit.
First, I get a verbal revise-and-resubmit instead of the offer of representation that I’d banked on, then I turn up here with virtually no warning only to find Sol leaving. Now I’m blowing my chance to regroup before heading back to my own version of a front line, because how the fuck else can I describe where I’ve just come from?
This pops out.
“You ever see the movieDunkirk?”
He nods, and I bet he’s picturing landing craft and tanks. Explosions and soldiers from the 1940s.
“My art project is based at one of the beaches in the movie. The kids come from nearby migrant camps.” Those are a whole other kind of war zone. I can hear that this sounds hollow. “Whatever happens on Monday, I’m heading back to draw their stories.”
I’m suddenly worn out.
He must see that—his clipped tone turns gentle. “Let me show you why I ask about chaos, Rae.”
He leads me to a notice board holding photos of students on top of a rocky high point. They all hold up rocks as if they’re lifting trophies, their smiles brilliant.
“Many of our boarding students come from chaotic backgrounds.” He points at a tall, black kid. “Like Teo. He narrowly avoided a spell in a youth offender institution before he came here. He doesn’t trust easily, and now that his best friendis leaving for uni, he’s back to feeling unsettled.” He moves on to point out a redhead. “Same goes for Noah. He’s unsettled because his chaos comes from a brush with gang violence. Friendships feel dangerous to him. That’s why I brought them back to school early to keep them busy and help them both feel needed, but we’re about to have an influx of students from similar difficult backgrounds. What will help them all to bond is something Sol told me you excelled at.”
“Me?”
“You.” He nods. “At friendship-making.”
That’s a kind way of describing my chaotic art sessions, but man, I need this weekend to regroup so badly that I roll with it.
“Y-yes?”
He has to hear my hesitation. Here he goes again, tilting his head, and yeah, I’d definitely draw him as a beady-eyed blackbird with a speech bubble saying, “It certainly looked like your skill set in these photos.” He opens the door to the only dust-free space I’ve seen so far.
This library must be a new addition. It’s bright and modern even if the bookshelves are mostly empty. The noticeboards lining the walls aren’t. They’re full, covered in?—
“That’s me.”
The blown-up photo I head for shows a familiar beach. It also shows me, oblivious to a camera that caught a sandy moment where kids stopped being strangers and became friends with each other.
“Yes,” Luke Lawson murmurs. He takes the stack of books I’ve carried and sets them on a shelf. “I thought it was you, only minus…” He touches his chin.
My own hand rises to a beard I’m not sure yet if I’m keeping. “This must have been taken when I first got there. Soon found out there wasn’t a whole lot of fresh water to waste on shaving.”
He nods. “Nathan said the same when he was there. This is you too?” He points to another shot.
If I’m in this photo, I don’t notice. I’m too busy soaking up familiar little faces as he asks, “This was your friendship-making art project?”
“Isstill my project. I haven’t finished helping them map each other’s journeys yet.”
“You help map their journeys. Why?”
The short answer is so that someone else on the planet would know they existed, but I give him a friendship-related answer. “They don’t all share a language. Drawing their old homes, their toys, the things they left behind shows what they have in common.”
“Then you turned them into heroes,” Luke Lawson says, touching the edge of a cape crayoned on paper.
