1. Rain

I stood at the school gate, shivering in my thin mackintosh, watching girls and boys pour out the school door and down the path. Not Melody, not Becky, not Harmeet. Not Melody, not Becky, not—Alex? It couldn't be him, could it? I tightened the jacket around my shoulders as he sauntered up to me. No, of course it wasn't him. This guy had freckles and light blond hair, cut short. He looked around him, like he didn't want anyone to see. "Are you the little genius?" he demanded, leaning on the fence.

"No," I said. I backed away a bit.

"But you're that music guy Harmeet's friend, right? In lower sixth form, right?"

"Upper," I said.

He grinned. "Stellar. Wait a minute." He wrestled a crumpled paper out of his coat pocket. It was a real coat, with down stuffing and all, and a little logo of a snow-capped mountain on one arm. Here, everyone wore clothes like this. Not like at my primary school. He waved the paper in front of my eyes. "These bastards are like mixing algebra and geometry. Understand any of it?"

I scanned the paper. "This thing here," I pointed, "is a parabolic curve. They want you to use a quadratic equation."

"Lovely lovely," he said. Then, "Okay, what the hell do you mean?"

So I took out a pencil and explained. It would have taken a shorter time if he hadn't kept interrupting me. But at last he nodded, saying "Right right right," and patted me on the head. I must have glared, because he reached into his pocket again. "What's the matter? I'm being nice. Here." He waved a five-pound note in front of my eyes.

"Keep it," I said shivering. "I'm not some kind of math whore."

"Math whore!" he snorted. "Math whore!" He held out his hand. "Nice to meet you, math whore. I'm Dave Purcell."

I crossed my arms. It was warmer that way. "Like the composer?"

"Sure," he said. Finally he walked away and I relaxed.

The rain began to fall, stinging as it hit my face. In another week or two it'd be snow. Where the hell was Melody? I'd told my mum I'd be staying at Melody and Harmeet's house, and she'd said, Good, I'm working the night shift at the hospital. I closed my eyes, picturing Mum in her blue work uniform. Blue for orderlies, white for real nurses and doctors. Suddenly I was angry. She could have been a real nurse or doctor if she hadn't dropped out of school. And why had she dropped out of school? I opened my eyes. Well, never mind. Here were Melody and her twin brother Harmeet, followed by Melody's friend Becky. Becky was holding an armful of books and running, with Harmeet following after, holding the umbrella over her head.

I liked walking with the three of them. It made me feel powerful for once. For a moment I wondered if that was how the gangs from around my old school felt, that they had power in numbers and could do anything. But when Becky lost her grip on the books, Melody and Harmeet rushed to pick them up so they wouldn't get rained on. None of the so-called droogs would do that. They'd probably just rip the books up. With that in mind, I rushed over and rescued the fattest one from the wet grass. It had an old green binding and the spine said Elementary Crystallography. Inside, there were all kinds of pictures of crystals and some not-so-elementary math. Math was Becky's specialty. I did well in it too – I frowned, hoping that this Dave guy wouldn't call me "math whore" for the rest of the school year – but I was more like Melody and Harmeet: my real passion was music.

"Thanks Sonya," said Becky, panting, as I handed her the book. "That's our school's copy. There used to be one in the public library, but it went missing." She adjusted her hood over her brown curls and we walked out the gate into the parking lot.

"Fuck the public library," said Melody, sticking out her tongue to taste the rain. "Mm. Tastes like pollution."

Melody fancied herself the rebel of the group. She was outspoken – at least, she had a tendency to swear at inanimate objects. Like Harmeet, she had black hair, light brown skin, and glasses. Their father was a political science professor at the university, and Melody said the government kept trying to cut his funding. On her coat, which was made up of different-coloured squares, she wore a pin that said "Free Frank Alexander." Frank Alexander was a friend of Becky's grandfather and he was very big in the news right now, at least in the underground news. Just last month he'd been arrested for trying to kill some "teenage brainwashing victim." Whether this was true or not I didn't know, but the so-called victim was Alex Burgess, the same boy who, two years ago... I took a deep breath.

Harmeet looked at me with concern. "You're shivering, Sonya. Aren't you cold in that?"

"Yeah," I said, grateful for the excuse. I liked his voice, too. It was so soft and low. I thought he sounded like that Canadian singer Leonard Cohen, only less growly, but I didn't have the guts to say it to his face. I mean Harmeet's face, not Leonard Cohen's face. I didn't have a crush on Leonard Cohen, he was too old. Not that I had a crush on Harmeet either. Well...

"Look, her face is red," said Becky. "The poor kid is freezing. Where's the car?"

Becky was very motherly, perhaps too much so. With Melody and Harmeet I could forget they were almost three years older than me, but with Becky, not so much. I guess she liked being motherly because, parent-wise, she was worse off than me: both her mother and father were dead. She lived with her grandfather Mr. Rubinstein, who, like my mum, was off working a lot. I guess that's why we both liked going to Melody and Harmeet's house.

Harmeet spotted the car first. It was a small black convertible – not that you'd want to roll down the roof in this weather – but it looked pretty expensive. It wasn't even their parents' car. Mr. and Mrs. Singh had bought it specifically for their children. Right now, only Melody could drive it, but I liked to think that when Harmeet got his license he'd take me out to the Marina to watch the ships go by. Wishful thinking, that. But I did get to sit next to him, because Becky took the seat in front – after giving a couple of her books to me. I read the titles: The Miracle of the Snowflake and The Rhombohedral System. More books about crystal geometry. Becky turned around and said, "The public library used to have these ones too, and guess what, they also lost them. I had to buy these myself."

Melody shrugged. "Like I said, fuck the public library. The librarians seem pretty irresponsible to keep losing books like that."

Harmeet stuck out his tongue like a little kid. "You're irresponsible."

She grinned as the car zoomed out into the road. My head hit the back of the seat, but that was okay since it was soft, all like grey leather.

We were silent for a while and I stared out the window, thinking of a piano piece I'd heard Harmeet play. I closed my eyes. As I heard it again in my head, I pictured the notes on the page. They fell into place like pieces into a puzzle. I'd never seen the score before, but it was easy enough to figure out. It was in E minor, at least I remembered it in E minor, and the same chords repeated a lot. When I opened my eyes Harmeet was looking at me. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I said. I reached into my bag, found my pencil and a blank music sheet, and started writing. After a few measures, I showed him the paper. "What song is this?"

Harmeet took it and squinted. "Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata?" He hummed a little. "No, no, it's Metamorphosis 1 by Philip Glass, an American veck – I mean, American guy. How'd you get your hands on this? I had to order the score online. It was supposed to be at the library but when I went there..."

"...it was missing," finished Melody, looking at him in the rear view mirror. "Fucking libraries." She made another sharp turn and I bumped into Harmeet.

"Excuse me," I said at the same time Harmeet said, "Sorry." Then he went, "You didn't, like, transcribe this, did you?"

I shrugged. I didn't know what "transcribe" meant, but I didn't want to sound dumb. "I just remembered it from when you played it in March."

"In March?" he echoed. "It's December." Harmeet turned to his sister. "Listen, Mel, I don't think I should be teaching her piano. She's too good."

"I am?" I was surprised. And I didn't want him to stop teaching me piano. "But my fingers keep going into the wrong places and you always say I'm not doing it right."

Mel whispered something to Becky and they both started to laugh.

"What?" I asked her. "What did I say?" This whole conversation was getting beyond me. Isn't it normal to be able to write music after you hear it? And what was so funny?

Becky turned to me, looking very motherly. "Never mind. What she said wasn't very, um, appropriate, and you wouldn't understand anyway. We're seventeen, you're fourteen." That would've been the end of it if she hadn't added, "We don't want to corrupt an innocent virgin, right, Harmeet?"

I wasn't prepared for what happened next. Harmeet froze, then glared at her. Melody swerved to the side of the road and jammed on the brakes. Her face was red with anger. "All right, Rebecca Rubinstein, do you want to stay or go?"

Her eyes widened in surprise. "What? What did I do?"

Mel turned to me. Her voice softened. "Sonya, are you okay?"

"Of course," I said, a little annoyed at the whole business. "I don't think she meant to bother me. I don't think she even knows, does she?"

"Oh. I guess you don't." Mel sighed, like a balloon letting out air. "Sorry, Becky, never mind."

"And if she doesn't know, don't tell her," I instructed.

"Tell me what?" went Becky, all bewildered. The stupid look on her face was too much for me to stand. I balled my hand into a fist and swung it at her. It wasn't like a real punch, it was sort of sideways, and I hadn't even meant to hit her until the last second. When she cried out I felt a rush of excitement.

"Who's the baby now?" I said, even as I knew I shouldn't say that, even as Melody looked at me in shock and Becky wiped the blood off her nose.

"You shouldn't hit people," said Harmeet gently. "You can do better than that."

I knew I could do better; his words were like an icepick in my heart. Also, my hand hurt. I hadn't really realized that noses have bones in them until now. I opened the car door – Harmeet tried to grab my bag, but I pulled it away with me – and ran out into the rain. It was pounding on the sidewalk now, making a repetitive noise kind of like the Philip Glass piece, but kind of not.

I ran along the sidewalk, not caring how wet I got. The rain was dripping down my face along with my tears, and a bead of snot dangled from my own nose less than elegantly. I didn't know where the car had gone. It was no use. They were all angry at me. Why had I hit Becky? Why had I liked hitting her? It was true I was corrupted, and it wasn't because I was impure or some bullshit like that. No, it was the violence. Violence was contagious and I had the disease now. Alex had like infected me, and I didn't know what to do.