The Name of the Star. Maureen Johnson
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out of the corners of my eyes when Jerome took the seat next to me. This was the first class I had with a friend, which wasn’t that shocking, considering that my friends numbered exactly two at this point. Out of everyone I’d seen, Jerome looked the most out of place in his uniform, certainly compared to the other prefects. His special prefect tie (their ties had gray stripes) was crooked and not quite tightened at the neck. His blazer pockets bulged with stuff—phone, pens, some notes. His hair was the most unkempt—but in a good way, I thought. It looked like he had trimmed his loose curls to just the regulation level, and maybe half an inch beyond. They fell just over his ears. And you could tell he just shook it out in the morning. His eyes were quick, always scanning around for information.
“Did you hear?” he asked. “They found another body around nine this morning. It’s the Ripper, definitely.”
“Good morning,” I replied.
“Morning. Listen to this. The second victim in the Jack the Ripper murders in 1888 was found in the back of a house on Hanbury Street, in the back garden by a set of steps at five forty-five in the morning. That house is gone now, and the police were all over the location where it stood. This new victim was found behind a pub called the Flowers and Archers, which has a back garden very much like the description of the Hanbury Street murder. The second victim in 1888 was a woman called Annie Chapman. The victim this time was named Fiona Chapman. All of the wounds were just like Annie Chapman’s. The cut to the neck. The abdomen opened up. The intestines removed and put over her shoulder. Her stomach taken out and put over the opposite shoulder. The murderer took the bladder and the—”
Our teacher came in. Of all the teachers I’d had so far, this one looked the mildest. The male teachers all wore jackets or ties, and the women tended to wear dresses or serious-looking skirts and blouses. Mark, as he introduced himself, wore a plain blue sweater and a pair of jeans. He looked to be in his midthirties, with tortoiseshell glasses.
“The police aren’t even trying to deny it anymore,” Jerome said quietly, right before Mark took roll. “There’s definitely a new Ripper.”
And with that, art history began. Mark was a full-time conservationist at the National Gallery, but he was coming in to teach us about art every Saturday. We were, he informed us, going to begin with paintings from the Dutch Golden Age. He distributed some textbooks, which weighed about as much as a human head (a guesstimate on my part, obviously, but once the Ripper was mentioned, body parts tended to come to mind).
It became immediately clear that even though this was a Saturday class under the general label of “art and enrichment,” this was not just a way of killing three hours that might otherwise have been spent sleeping or eating cereal. This was a class, just like any other, and many people in it (Mark checked) were planning on taking an A level in art history. More competition.
On the positive side, Mark informed us that on several Saturdays we would be going to the National Gallery to see the paintings up close. But today was not one of those days. Today we were going to look at slides. Three hours of slides isn’t as horrible as it sounds, not when you have a reasonably interesting person who really likes what he’s talking about explaining them. And I like art.
Jerome, I noticed, was a careful note taker. He sat far back in his chair, his arm extended, writing quickly in a loose, relaxed hand, his eyes flicking between the slide and the page. I started to copy his style. He took about twenty notes on each painting, just a few words each. Every once in a while, his elbow would make contact with my arm, and he’d glance over. When class was over, we fell in step beside each other as we walked to the refectory. Jerome picked up right where he left off.
“The Flowers and Archers isn’t far from here,” he said. “We should go.”
“We … should?”
Again, I knew many students at Wexford could legally drink, because you only had to be eighteen. I knew that pubs would be a part of life here somehow. But I hadn’t expected someone, especially a prefect, to invite me to one. Also, was he asking me out? Did you ask people to crime scenes on dates? My pulse did a little leap, but it was quickly regulated by his follow-up.
“You, me, Jazza,” he said. “You should get Jazza to come, otherwise she’ll start stressing from day one. You’re her keeper now.”
“Oh,” I said, trying not to sound disappointed. “Right.”
“I have desk duty at the library until dinner, but we could go right after. What do you think?”
“Sure,” I said. “I… I mean, I don’t have plans.”
He put his hands in his pockets and took a few steps backward.
“Have to go,” he said. “Don’t tell Jazza where we’re going. Just say the pub, okay?”
“Sure,” I said.
Jerome gave a slouchy, full upper body nod and walked off to the library.
9
“Sorry,” she said, turning as I came in. “My cello practice ran late, and I didn’t feel like going over to the refectory. On Saturdays I sometimes treat myself to a sandwich and a cake.”
“Treat myself” was a little Jazza-ism I loved. Everything was a tiny celebration with her. A treat was a single cookie or a cup of hot chocolate. She made these things special. Even my Cheez Whiz had become a little treat. It was more precious now.
Something was beeping on my bed. I still wasn’t used to the unfamiliar ring and alerts of my English phone. I hadn’t even gotten into the habit of carrying it with me because there was no one likely to call me, except my parents. They had been scheduled to arrive in Bristol that morning. That’s who the message was from. I noticed an alarmed frequency in my mother’s voice.
“We think you should spend the weekends up here, in Bristol,” she said, once we’d gotten the basic hellos out of the way. “At least until this Ripper business is over.”
Alarming though Wexford could be at times, I had no desire to leave it. In fact, I was certain that if I did, I would miss crucial things—all the things that would allow me to adapt and last the entire year.
“Well, I have class on Saturday morning,” I said, “then we eat lunch. And doesn’t it take, like, hours to get there? So I wouldn’t even get there until Saturday night, and then I’d have to leave in the middle of Sunday … and I need all that time to do work. Plus, I have to play hockey every day, and since I don’t know how to play, I have to do extra practice …”
Jazza didn’t look up, but I could tell she was listening to every word of this. After ten minutes, I had convinced them that it wasn’t a good idea to leave, but I had to swear up, down, and sideways to be careful and to never, ever, ever do anything on my own. They moved on to describing their house in Bristol. I was scheduled to see it for the first time during a long weekend break in mid-November.
“Your parents are alarmed?” Jazza asked when I hung up.
I nodded and sat down on the floor.
“Mine are as well,” she said. “I think they want me to come home too, but they aren’t saying. The trip to Cornwall would be too long, anyway. And Bristol is just as bad. You’re right.”
This confirmation made me feel a bit better. I hadn’t just been making things up.
“What are you doing tonight?” I asked her.
“I thought I’d stay in and work on this German essay. And then I really need to put in a few hours of cello practice. I was in terrible shape this morning.”
“Or,” I said, “we could go out. To … a pub.