The walls in Kings Row were very smooth.
Maybe that was a weird thing to notice. Every room in Nicholas’s new school had some feature that struck him as unbelievably luxurious, but the walls were literally all around. Since that was, like, the point of walls.
In any of his old schools, or the many apartments he and Mom had lived in, the walls had always been in rough shape. Wallpaper so old it was worn away, strips torn off or damaged by water so that the paper turned a mottled brown and peeled off by itself like a rotten sentient banana. Or just cracked drywall, the usual scuffs or dents from a doorknob slamming into a wall too hard or a plate being thrown. Nicholas had figured that was how walls were. Nicholas had never thought about it much, until he came to Kings Row and woke to see a stretch of perfect white wall gleaming in the morning light beside his bed every morning. Every morning, the wall made him think: Where the hell am I?
He didn’t belong here. But it was nice, and he wanted to stay.
On the other side of Nicholas’s bed was a blue shower curtain, patterned with ducks, to separate his and Seiji’s halves of the room. Seiji had put it up for privacy, and because Seiji couldn’t deal with the sight of Nicholas’s face or the mess on Nicholas’s floor early in the morning. Even with the curtain, this room was the biggest Nicholas had ever slept in. Nicholas had figured the curtain was a good idea at the time. That was when he and Seiji hadn’t been getting along. But now—though they were still rivals—they’d recently agreed to be friends.
When they’d first met, Nicholas thought Seiji was the worst person and the best fencer he’d ever met. He hadn’t been able to get Seiji out of his head. All he’d been able to think about was getting into Kings Row and beating Seiji someday. Then they’d both come to Kings Row, been forced to be roommates, and Nicholas had got to know Seiji better. He still wanted to crush Seiji on the piste, but Nicholas thought being friends was going to be awesome.
Buddies probably didn’t need a strict separation of personal space. When Nicholas saved Seiji a seat on the team bus, Seiji didn’t mind when Nicholas’s stuff or limbs went everywhere. Well, Seiji sighed and snapped at him a lot, but Nicholas was pretty sure that was just part of their thing.
Nicholas pulled aside the curtain and peered out at the orderly part of the room. Seiji, already wearing his ironed-looking blue pajamas, was sitting on his bed with a book on his lap. Even propped up against a pillow, Seiji had weirdly excellent posture, as though someone had trained him by making him balance a book on his head. Or possibly his posture came from being super good at fencing. Seiji’s face was intent—he was very focused in everything he did—on his book. He had a little bedside lamp with a twisty neck that cast a tiny gold pool of light on the side of his face and the open collar of his pajamas. The moonlight was a silver outline around his black hair. Seiji, Nicholas’s new friend.
Nicholas had never had friends before Kings Row. He and Mom were always getting evicted. Finding new cheap places around the city meant switching school districts. It was tough to make friends when you were always on the move.
Here at Kings Row, for the first time in his life, Nicholas got to keep people around. He had his first friend, Bobby, who was little and vivid and as wild about fencing as Nicholas was himself. And now he had Seiji, too.
Seiji lifted his almost-black eyes from the page. “Nicholas. Stay on your side of the room. Do not move the curtain.”
“Um, yeah,” said Nicholas. “Right. That’s the way we still do things, obviously.”
Seiji nodded with unconcealed impatience. Nicholas walked into Seiji’s side of the room.
“Nicholas! That is the exact opposite of what I said to do.”
“Yeah, totally.” Nicholas wandered over to Seiji’s bookshelf. “I thought maybe I could borrow some of your books to help when I’m writing my essay about childhood. You’ve gotta let me! Because we’re teammates, and we’re bonding.”
They had to write these essays, but Nicholas wasn’t awesome with words. The only thing he’d ever been good at was fencing. Fencing words were used to describe conversation all the time—parry, riposte—so he should be able to figure out language eventually. Other fencers could do it: Seiji spoke really well, using words that stung Nicholas or sliced into him like real swords (I’m so far ahead of you, I’m surprised you can see me at all, Seiji had told Nicholas the first time they met, and that burn made Nicholas try getting into Kings Row.). It wasn’t just Seiji: Coach Williams spoke, and the world shifted in Nicholas’s mind. Their captain, Harvard, knew exactly when to reassure and when to command. Aiden never shut the hell up.
And one look at Jesse Coste and you knew he’d never wanted for anything in his life, including the right word at the right time.
So, Nicholas could do it, too. He was good at fencing—not great, but someday he was gonna be great. And he wasn’t good with words, but someday he could be.
Nicholas read the titles on the spines of Seiji’s books. Seiji had lots of books about interesting stuff, like the rules of fencing, the history of fencing, and famous fencers.
Seiji breathed out hard through his nose. “There’s no need to go through my things. We have a school library.”
Nicholas hadn’t known that.
“Of course, their section about fencing is utterly inadequate,” mused Seiji.
“Well, there you go,” said Nicholas. “It’s inadequate. Nothing I can do about that, Seiji!”
Utterly was a fancy way of saying totally, he was pretty sure. Nicholas didn’t see what was wrong with just saying totally, but he made a private note to write utterly in his essay. The way I grew up was utterly fine. Yep, that sounded good.
“I still don’t want to do team bonding,” Seiji muttered.
“That’s great news, Seiji.”
A look that wanted to be startled began on Seiji’s face, and then was sternly repressed.
“Team bonding lessons are part of fencing,” Nicholas explained. “When you suck at team bonding, I’ll beat you. So will Harvard.”
Seiji closed his book.
“And Eugene!” Nicholas continued triumphantly.
Seiji’s eye twitched.
“It’ll just be you and Aiden, coming in dead last at team bonding, and Aiden doesn’t even attend matches,” Nicholas said with scorn. “Embarrassing for you. Don’t worry; I guess you can still be my rival. Even if you suck at team bonding.”
“I’m going to crush you at team bonding!” Seiji snapped.
“That’s the spirit!” said Nicholas. “See? We’re bonding already.”
Seiji’s books were lined up in an orderly fashion like soldiers. Some of his possessions were lined up in front of them, as though they were guarding his library.
“Don’t disarrange the books.”
“Oh, are they arranged in some special way?”
“… Alphabetically?”
“Weird,” said Nicholas.
There was a book called The Twenty-Six Commandments of Irish Dueling. That sounded cool. Nicholas reached for it, but Seiji’s books were packed together so tightly he actually had to force the book out. The bookcase rocked, and a watch in a little case tumbled from the top shelf and hit the floor. A different book fell down and struck Nicholas’s foot. Nicholas, hopping in wild dismay, stepped on the watch. The plastic case cracked. When Nicholas hastily removed his foot, he saw that the watch inside the case had cracked, too.
The whole disaster took about five seconds.
Seiji sounded calmly pleased to be proven right. “I knew you would do something like this.”
“Um,” said Nicholas. “Oops. Sorry. I’ll pay for that! Or I’ll get it fixed or something!”
Seiji sighed dismissively, opening his book back up. “All right.”
That made Nicholas feel much worse.
There were plenty of guys at Kings Row who would’ve got very nasty about Nicholas daring to touch, let alone break, their stuff. Seiji wasn’t like that.
Seiji’s words might cut, but he didn’t say them to cut. Seiji wasn’t Aiden, whom Nicholas never paid attention to. When Aiden spoke, all Nicholas heard was: Blah, blah, blah, I’m a snotty rich kid who talks too much. Nicholas had never seen Seiji get any pleasure out of being cruel. That was what made Seiji’s words cut deep. Nicholas knew Seiji meant what he said.
“I’m real sorry.”
Seiji waved a hand, not looking up from his book. “It’s fine.”
Nicholas put the broken watch in his pocket, searching through his mind a little frantically for something that could make this better. The times Seiji and he got along best—well, the only times they got along at all—were when they were fencing or training.
“Wanna come train with me?”
“No, I can’t help you right now. I’m staying here so I can perfect my essay about my childhood,” said Seiji. “As I intend to excel at team bonding.”
Nicholas wondered if he should point out that staying here by himself and not coming to train with a teammate was the total opposite of team bonding, but he’d already asked Seiji to come with and Seiji had turned him down. Why should he help out Seiji? It would be really funny when Coach told Seiji he sucked.
“Not gonna happen, Seiji,” he said instead.
“I will decimate you at team bonding!”
Nicholas waved a hand over his shoulder as he left. “No way.”
He took a detour on his way to the salle, as he usually did, to the cabinet full of trophies and photos of famous former students. He headed right for the plaque Kings Row had won during the match that got them into the finals for the 1979 state championship.
Even the glass of the cabinet glistened, clear and clean. Nicholas’s breath fogged up the glass, making a little blurry patch of imperfection.
Nicholas was the only thing in this school that was in rough shape. Even the lawns here seemed made of smooth green velvet.
Hey, Nicholas thought as he looked up at Robert Coste’s face in the old photo under the glass, shining with victorious happiness and almost as young as Nicholas was now. Even to himself, he didn’t dare think Hey, Dad.
But that was what Robert Coste was. Robert Coste had had a fling with Nicholas’s mom and left her before either of them knew Nicholas was on the way.
Robert Coste was his dad. One of the greatest fencers of his generation. Of all time. Surely there was something of him in Nicholas. Surely that was why he’d loved fencing so much, from the very start when he’d hassled Coach Joe into teaching him.
I’m doing okay, Nicholas thought, telling his dad stuff about his day the way he’d heard other kids say stuff about their day on the phone to their parents. Coach had an awesome idea about team bonding. I think I’m going to rock at it! Seiji is not gonna rock at it.
He’d studied this picture of Robert Coste carefully, time and time again, since he’d started going to Kings Row. Robert was tall and blond and polished, like a trophy made into a person. Nicholas didn’t look anything like him. Jesse Coste, the guy with the name and the training, had gotten the face as well. But fencing mattered more than faces.
Nicholas was so absorbed in staring at Robert Coste that he didn’t notice a couple of older boys behind him until one shoved into his back, sending him stumbling a few steps down the hall away from the cabinet.
“Don’t think you’re going gold anytime soon, new kid!”
Nicholas rolled his eyes as the Kings Row guys passed him, talking in pretend whispers that were intended for Nicholas to hear.
“Can’t believe he’s on the team, even as a crappy second reserve.”
The other guy sniggered. “I heard his last coach was basically a hobo.”
Nicholas threw the guy against the wall.
He’d had to trail Coach Joe all around his tumbledown old gym back in the city, bugging the coach to teach him how to fence. Coach Joe hadn’t wanted to train Nicholas, but he had, and he’d done it the best way he knew how. Now that he had Coach Williams, he understood Coach Joe hadn’t been exactly all a coach should be, but it wasn’t as if Nicholas were the ideal student. Coach Joe had texted Happy birthday, kid, hope you had a blast a couple of days after Nicholas’s last birthday. He was the only person who’d remembered it at all. Coach Joe was great. Nicholas whirled his fist around, already imagining the satisfaction when it connected with this smug idiot’s jaw.
Then Nicholas remembered if he got caught fighting, he’d be thrown out of Kings Row. It had never mattered before. One school was pretty much the same as another. Nicholas had nothing to lose.
Thinking of all Nicholas had to lose now—real fencing, Seiji, Coach Williams, Bobby and Eugene and Harvard, being at his dad’s old school—it would matter a lot.
Nicholas took a deep breath and stepped back. Stepping back didn’t come naturally to him, and he didn’t like it.
“Watch your mouth,” Nicholas muttered. He didn’t care what they said about him. They were mostly right about him, but they could leave Coach Joe alone.
After a moment, he remembered to unclench his fists. Both the boys wore slightly startled expressions, but after a moment they shrugged off whatever was holding them back and resumed their swagger down the hall.
“Sorry, didn’t realize the hobo was like a father to you!” the older boy scoffed over his shoulder.
Nicholas waited until they were gone, then made his way toward the salle. Coach Joe wasn’t anything like Robert Coste.
Nicholas’s father being one of the greatest fencers of all time hadn’t mattered to Mom. She’d been mad that he’d hit it, quit it, and skipped town with his fancy friends. That was all she ever said on the subject. Robert Coste was just one more in the list of men who’d let Mom down, a passing mention in a string of drunken bitterness.
The only one his father mattered to was Nicholas.
Sometimes Nicholas imagined that the truth might matter to Robert Coste, too. Some day. Not right now, obviously. But one day, possibly, when Nicholas was so great at fencing that he was officially acknowledged rivals with Seiji, and he had lots of trophies. Maybe after they won the state championship, the way Coach wanted. Nicholas might then casually hint at the facts, and Robert Coste would immediately be like, Wow, my son—makes total sense. I’m so impressed… if only I’d known before; would you call me Dad?, and Nicholas would be like, No need to make a big deal of it or anything; I’m doing fine, Dad.
Those half-formed dreams hadn’t ever coalesced into a real plan of action. They’d seemed even more far-fetched once Nicholas had laid eyes on Jesse Coste. The son Robert knew about, the son he’d had with his wife and who’d grown up in his, no doubt, fancy house. The son Robert Coste had trained to follow in his fancy Olympic footsteps. Jesse, the guy Seiji wanted to fence with, because Jesse got everything.
One look at Jesse, and the rainbow-bright bubble of Nicholas’s dream had burst.
You have this shiny pedigree dog you’re super proud of, but hey! Guess what. Here’s some unimpressive mutt on the doorstep. Exciting, right?
No.
Nicholas shook his head as he walked into the salle, feeling slightly sick at the thought. He met Harvard and Aiden on their way out and brightened. Their captain was the coolest.
“Hey,” said Harvard, continuing to be the coolest, and hit Nicholas in the shoulder in a bro way. “Getting some training in? You’re better every day, Cox.”
“Blah, blah, blah, freshman, blah,” Nicholas heard Aiden remark. “Blah, blah, blah, hair, blah.”
Nicholas knew Aiden thought he was ignoring him on purpose, but Nicholas actually found it really hard to concentrate on what the guy was saying. He got this particular sneering lilt in his voice, and Nicholas knew he was gonna say something to indicate that Aiden was so great and Nicholas was such garbage. Nicholas couldn’t help it, his attention slid away like—what was the phrase Coach Joe used?—water off a duck’s back. Nicholas had heard that kind of stuff plenty of times before.
Nicholas gave Aiden a blank look. Aiden was shaking back his fancy hair, wearing an angry expression. Nicholas wondered what Aiden had to be mad about. Aiden didn’t usually seem ruffled by anything. And he’d just been training with the captain, which must have been really fun. Aiden always had someone to train with.
Harvard and Aiden were best friends, people said, who’d known each other since they were little. Imagine having someone you got along with that well, who stuck around that long. Especially someone as great as Harvard. Aiden had no idea how lucky he was.
It must be awesome to have a best friend. Nicholas had never had one, but maybe Seiji would be his best friend someday? Yeah, Seiji probably would.
He carefully put Seiji’s broken watch to the side as he grabbed his mask and épée.
He chose his piste and moved into an étude, going over the footwork Coach had insisted he practice. Nicholas was left-handed, and Coach said that could be a huge advantage, but he had to know how right-handed fencers moved, too. He tried out right-handed advances and retreats; advanced, retreated, advanced six times and remembered to retreat once, reached the end of the piste and spun, advanced, retreated, and went into an advance lunge.
Nicholas allowed himself the luxury of moving fast and forward, the way he wanted. He fenced with imaginary partners to work off his restlessness, trying to make himself tired enough to settle into training.
Coach Joe had always said it was important to keep in shape, so Nicholas used to run laps around the block until it was dark, even though the neighborhood was lousy. If you moved quickly, that wasn’t a problem. Safe within the unblemished walls of Kings Row, Nicholas fenced with shadows and heard the thunder of his own heart echoing through his body, just like his feet falling hard as he raced down the cracked sidewalks of his city.
Keep moving, Nicholas. If you’re fast enough, none of it can catch you.