His eyes wide, Angel gazes at the flowing green lawn, the rushing waterfall, and the enormous structure ahead of him. Riverdale Boarding School, it says. He knows as little and as much about the school as is possible for a woefully underinformed (but curious) boy of twelve years. He knows that there are students of each gender, that students must wear uniforms, and that the school is really a religious school, even if it doesn't say so upfront. He knows that his mother is sending here because she doesn't know what else to do with him, that he's been acting very strange lately and she wants him to "sort out" his life.
"Mom?" Angel asks, tugging on his mother's jacket. "Can I come home for Christmas?" He isn't as needy as he is acting, but he figures that his mother probably wants to hear this, that he is terrified of being away from his loving guardian.
With a sad smile that, to Angel, looks a little fake, his mother smiles. "Of course you can, Angel," she says lovingly, and lays a hand on her son's shoulder as they walk. "And I'll visit you whenever I can. I don't want you to miss me, love, but I think that this is best for you."
Trying, even in his own head, not to sound like a two-year-old, Angel thinks angrily, What's best for me. Shouldn't I be able to decide that?
When the two reach the door to the school, Angel sighs and decides he's going to have to start acting gentlemanly if his intention is not to be expelled. In a gesture of pure weariness, he wraps his hand around the doorknob and pulls the door open for his mother. "After you," he mumbles, and slouches in behind his awe-stricken mother.
The first thing Angel notices upon entering the school is that, well, it's different. It isn't a religious academy at all. While the outside of the campus is lush and prim, the inside is… unlike anything Angel has ever seen before.
Paint-splattered walls catch the boy's attention immediately, but with children both older and younger than he darting around with toys and costumes, nothing can hold Angel's attention for longer than a minute. Not a single child is wearing anything identical to another studen'ts outfit, and the only thing in sight that so much as vaguely resembles a book is a large pile of magazines whose pages have been torn up and are currently being used in a tee-ball game in the center of the lobby.
"Um," says Angel, bewildered. "You said this was a Catholic school."
His mother, however, is already at the front desk, filling out a form. When a moment later she lets the pen clatter to the table, she turns warmly to her son. "Impressed?" she asks smugly.
"Floored," Angel replies dryly.
With a smile, a young woman with spiky purple hair steps out from behind the front desk. "Hi, Angel," she says brightly to the little boy. "I'm Maya Tonisu. I'm the principal here."
"Hi, Ms. Tonisu," Angel says politely.
The woman laughs. "No, no," she chuckles. "Just Maya, please."
His face scrunched up as he struggles to comprehend that simple request, Angel nods. "Okay," he says, and tries the name out on his tongue. "Maya."
"There, you're catching on," she says brightly. "Is there any particular name you want to be called?"
Slightly confused, he explains, "Um, my name's Angel."
With another warm laugh, Maya tells him cheerfully, "Here at Riverdale, we strongly believe that children should be able to form their own identities. So if there's anything you want to do to alter your personality – the way you dress, the name you call yourself, whatever – we want you to feel perfectly comfortable with that."
Angel looks down at his shoes. "Well," he says, "I don't like sneakers…"
"Take that up with your mom, then," Maya suggests. "I'm sure she'd be happy to give you some spending money for while you're here."
Angel's face bursts into a smile. "Wow! Really? Wow, thanks, Mom!" He jumps up. "Hey, where's my room?"
Maya reviews notes in her hand, which are, in fact, not written on orderly pieces of paper. In fact, instead of holding an organized piece of paper, Maya's notes are etched on her palms in ink. "Well, Angel, it would seem that you are in room five-twenty-five. Which is odd, actually, because it usually works that we room boys in even-numbered rooms and girls in the odd. But as you can see, organization isn't too tight around here, so we probably just slipped up. No problem."
A look of growing wariness stretching on her face, Angel's mother announces, "We requested a double room. So Angel's roommate… will be a boy, right?"
"Oh, I'm sure," Maya says brightly.
Room five-twenty-five is, in fact, inhabited by a wild, bright, fiercely passionate twelve-year-old girl named Maureen Johnson. Chuckling to herself, Maya apologizes for the error and explains that "the secretary probably read the name 'Angel' and thought you were a girl." She promises to repair the situation as soon as possible, but then Angel's mother takes Maya aside and tells her something in a low, urgent whisper. After that, Maya returns and tells Angel that "I think you'll probably end up staying here with Maureen, Angel – unless you have any objection?" Angel is, in fact, extremely curious about this roommate of his, and does not object.
"Sure," he says, and settles down on the room's sole unoccupied bed.
Maya and Angel's mother exit then, leaving Angel to stare at the walls and admire Maureen's sparkling belongings. Said roommate is peering at him oddly, so Angel politely stands up and holds out his hand to her. "Hi," he says charmingly. "I'm Angel Dumott Schunard. They're roomming me with you, I guess."
Angel does not know what he is expecting from this girl. It could be anything from a formal greeting to a snotty expression of dislike. He waits patiently for her response, and is floored when Maureen leaps into the air. "Oh!" she squeals. "This is going to be great! My mom and siblings kept telling me I might get a bad roommate who was mean or rude or obnoxious, but you're great! I mean, boys aren't as annoying as girls can be, like, no offense to girls or me or anything, but yeah, we can be pretty annoying. You won't be, right?"
Angel's eyes are huge as he responds, "Um… no. I'll try not to be."
"Great!" Maureen squeaks. "We're gonna get along great. I'm Maureen Johnson, by the way."
Angel nods. "Angel Dumott Schunard," he answers, and extends a hand for her to shake.
Maureen giggles. "Wow, you really are new. Look. Here at Riverdale, we're not like that. We're all little artists and stuff, not… little businessmen. So keep your hand inside your sleeve, fifty-dollar pen inside your shirt pocket, and smile. Okay?"
"Okay," Angel sighs, and sounds enormously relieved.
"Okay," Maureen echoes. She suddenly jabs a finger at a door. "See, that there is my closet, and next to it is yours. On that other wall, that's our bathroom, and it has a shower, but you can take a bath in it too if you want. Also, I'm sorry I took the good bed, but I was thinking I might get a roommate who was really nasty and might tease me about it, and besides, the sheets look better on this bed than that one. I tried." She giggles. "Anyways, as soon as you're unpacked, you should totally come meet my friends, and I'll show you around campus. Okay?"
Angel nods. "Great," he says.
"Great."
---
Over the course of the next few months, Maureen and Angel wreak havoc upon the school. "For a liberal school with an emphasis on the arts," Maureen proclaims in mid-November, "Riverdale sure doesn't take too highly to people painting toilets."
"Can you really blame them?" asks a particularly jealous dormmate of Maureen and Angel's, a spoiled girl whose roommate is not half as fascinating as either Maureen or Angel.
"Yes," Maureen shoots back. "I can. If I want my toilets colorful, I'm going to paint them that way."
Angel quickly learns from his best friend and begins adapting his behavior to suit his environment. While at home, "please" and "thank you" were required vocabulary terms, Angel now knows how to saunter proudly into the dining hall three and a half minutes late and still get the first serving of mashed potatoes. Rather than wearing pristine, uncomfortable clothes, Angel opts for looser, gentler articles of clothing. He does not hesitate to play "makeover" with Maureen in their room, provided that the door is locked and that she doesn't mix ugly colors. Sometimes, he'll try to walk around in his best friend's shoes to get a feel for what it's like to be a girl, and develops a new sympathy for Maureen when he attempts to walk in heels.
It is nearly Christmas break when Angel, now nearly thirteen, encounters something extremely puzzling. While playing some bizarre fantasy game with Maureen, he collapses onto the bed (as his character, dying). Maureen unexpectedly reaches over and sits beside him, acting the part of the heartbroken best friend who would do anything to save her partner in crime from dying.
Then she kisses him.
Angel turns his head abruptly to face the wall, not even realizing what he is doing until it has already been done. Maureen gapes at him, the perfect picture of an aghast twelve-year-old whose affections are not returned, until Angel points out, "I like guys."
"Oh," says Maureen. "How do you know?"
Angel shrugs. "I just do."
"Okay, then," Maureen says, and the game continues.
Four days later is the Christmas dance, the eve of the last day before Christmas vacation. Maureen's father sends her money with which she purchases an extravagant dress, its lavish appearance more suited at a wedding than a school dance. Angel rolls his eyes, but is willing to admit that it is probably the nicest dress he has ever seen in his life.
While Maureen is buying matching shoes, Angel creeps over to his roommate's closet and examines the contents. Sure enough, scatterbrained Maureen neglected to bring her dress along on the shoe-shopping jaunt. Angel stares at the dress for a good long time before sighing deeply, tossing his clothing to the ground, and carefully taking the dress from the hanger.
He tries it on, and as it turns out, his tiny frame matches Maureen's perfectly, save for his being perhaps a bit shorter. The dress fits like a dream, and Angel twirls around in it for several minutes before…
As cliché as it is, there is a knock at the door.
Angel rushes to remove the dress from his body, struggling with the zipper before he can at last manage to slip out of it. "Who is it?" he asks urgently, kicking the closet door shut and grabbing his own clothes, hands shaking. As he tugs his sweatpants on, the voice confirms that, yes, it is Maureen.
"Come on," she whines. "Let me in. I've seen you naked before, it's no big deal."
Angel hurriedly yanks the door open, a hint of mascara still adorning his eyelashes – but that's it. "Hi," he says cheerfully, his voice cracking in the greeting.
Maureen sees the closet door open a crack, looks Angel up and down, and asks, "Did it fit?"
Angel grins and admits, "Yeah. Perfectly."
"Awesome," says Maureen, followed by, "So do you want to borrow it over break?"
Angel's eyes widen. "Could I?"
Maureen shrugs. "Sure."
---
At the dance, Angel would love to say that he danced the night away with one particularly charming, thoughtful boy with gorgeous eyes and beautiful grace in his waltz or tango. Instead, it turns out that Riverdale dances are, like everything else at Riverdale, casual and relaxed.
"Hey, Maureen?" he says as his best friend returns from an extremely energized dance with Angel's flavor-of-last-month, Darian.
"Yeah?" she asks, sinking into the chair beside Angel's.
"You want to come over sometime over break?"
Maureen shrugs. "Sure," she says, and throws her caramel-colored curls over her shoulder. "I'd like that."
Angel grins. "Excellent. We can go boy-watching."
"And didn't you say you had a Jacuzzi?"
Angel laughs. "Now you're talking," he says with a smile.