Never Have I Ever Chapter 1
You have heard of Devi Vishwakumar. Indian-American, confined to a wheelchair for three months after the death of her father?
This is Neale Thomson, daughter of Professor John Thomson of CalTech.
And I am Michael Flatley, Irish American, world-renowned Irish dancer. But, of course, you are intelligent enough to not need this fanfic to be narrated by a once-famous personality needing to top up the pension fund.
And, it could well be done with me, John McEnroe, another Irish American. But, nothing relates to tennis in this, so, go ahead, Lord of the Dance.
What you have to know about Neale is that, weirdly, she doesn't want to be in America. Her father brought her with him to the professorship he had earned rather than leave her at home in England. Who wouldn't? Nland of the free, home of the brave? I just don't understand where the girl's coming from.
Neale is an only child, and John is her only parent, her mother dying recently of cancer. And that's where I come in. Michael Flatley, lifetime achievement award and services to Irish dancing.
Not a day went by when Clara O'Neill Thomson did not remind her daughter that she was Irish, that she herself was Irish, and that, had she not met her father, physics professor Thomson she would be back there now, in her beloved country.
Irishness was in Neale like blood, and yet she had never been there, did not know if she even had family there and thought upon the country as a fantasy dream, much as did the current president of the United States.
So, when Clara had died, Neale upper sticks from her home in Banbury and went with her father to California, leaving behind all of her friends. She had no choice in the matter.
"I have found a very good school for you, Sherman Oaks High School", her father had told her one day, after on-campus tuition had failed, the international school - also failed, and a semester at Hartman Hill had also failed - her father had actually had to leave a faculty meeting, board the plane back to London and remove his daughter's luggage before she would disembark, after absconding through a school window.
"Kamala Vishwakumar tells me her cousin goes there. It's an Ivy League feeder."
No discussion, no argument against her beloved father. So she would go to Sherman Oaks and miss her friends even more. No psych talks or counselling for Neale, no thought about how she might be feeling about her mother dying.
"Yes, father," Neale told John Thomson, before leaving him in his study, in their on-campus accommodation. It would have to do, destined as she was for Cambridge and to follow in the Thomson footsteps. Why her father felt he had to take a job at CalTech was beyond her, when Christ's had offered him a perfectly decent professorship there.
Peters, she presumed, had bent his arm, Dr. Elgin Peters of the neuroscience department, a long term friend.
"Jimmy, I'm staying here," Neale told her friend Jemima, after she closed the room to her door.
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Ben Gross should thank Neale Thomson. It's thanks to her that, instead of Columbia, another college called instead.
Neale Thomson, who had come been brought against her will halfway across the world to a place she didn't know and wanted to get away from just as soon as she possibly could. How Ben's life future life would be linked to Neale's old one is several chapters away. Neale hates this place.
This place is the San Fernando Valley and specifically, Sherman Oaks.
Hair always up, always in jeans and boots, a band t-shirt and a plaid shirt, usually tied around her waist, she kept herself to herself. At the International School, she had been called the Ice Maiden.
Did I say how much she hated being in America?
Neale had had no-one to stay with back in England, even if she had stood up to he father. One had offered her a bed. But Neale needed her dad, and she suspected this being "dragged halfway round the world" business meant her dad needed her. She at least could be useful and lab prep for him - it was therapeutic and was working in a place she would end up working in the future anyway.
Or would she? Cambridge, where all Thomsons had gone eventually to research physics, was just a flicker at the end of a tunnel she now didn't know she would be travelling down. At Sherman Oaks High, the study was geared to passing to get to Ivies. The curriculum was so different for Neale to English schools, the minute she had showed up at Hartman Hill she knew her dad had a different plan for her.
She could just get back home, and begin again. Live with Jimmy, ignore her mum's disapproval.
But it would never be the same - her mother had taken eighteen months to die of cancer and Neale, an only child, had spent a lot of time at her aunt's, who had promptly upped sticks and moved to Boston, promptly meeting an American man and got married, them both moving to Australia.
Running away. Just as her father had done, Aunt Emily's advice, renting out their house - their house! Where had grown up with her mother and father and two cats and one dog! Where Jimmy was just a stone's throw away - Neale knew, she'd tried it. Jimmy's mum had been cross and had shouted at Neale's mum, whereupon her beloved mother had made her apologise and clear up the mess, and replant the geraniums. Neale hated geraniums.
Professor Peters had mentioned to her father that this high school led to Ivy League universities. Given that Neale had been pulled out mid-GCSE year, she was more angry than relieved. Americans graduated aged eighteen, no exams two years before that. And all of them stayed on.
At least the culture was familiar to her. Until she had tried to live it. Homecoming, Halloween, Thanksgiving were not the same as movies and TV and the Christmas they had just lived through was the hottest she had ever experienced.
"No chance of snow?" Jimmy, her best friend, had asked, when she facetimed her on what was Christmas morning for Neale but was the evening for Jimmy in the UK.
"None," Neale had told her. That was when Jimmy heard the unexpurgated story of Neale's life since August, and had offered her a bed.
"Mum won't know, won't care," Jimmy told her. "I'm on my own here - they have booked a holiday in May half term - don't care that I have exams. I should "know it all by now"," Jimmy told her, air quoting.
"I miss you, Jimmy," Neale told her friend. Jemima neared the screen and gave pulled out her tongue using her fingers at the sides of her mouth. Neale felt a warm glow in her stomach, before the sinking feeling of her real life.
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And a week later, Neale Thomson began at Sherman Oaks High, California, which was nowhere near, in fact, anything like a high school from TV or the movies. Except for the building. The building was gorgeous, early 20th century architecture. All American school buildings looked like one another, built anywhere between the 1890s and the 1930s, chic glamour exuded from them effortlessly, with large halls and space and light, as if somewhere there was a plan to give the future generaton a place to excel.
Her dad dropping her off by the kerb and waving her in, driving off with the promptness only Professor Thomson could pull off.
"So you're the Brit?" A boy approached, clean-cut, expensive trainers, bag slung casually over his shoulder.
"Can you direct me to the headteacher's office, please?" Neale asked him.
"I said, are you the Brit?"
"I'm a Brit," Neale confirmed. "And you're American, yes?" It was meant to be sarcasm. But it didn't land like that.
"Well done," the boy said to her. "You're in the land of the free now," he added. "Ben Gross." He grabbed the door, ignoring the "What the - " and rolled eyes, not least from Devi Vishwakumar who had, unwittingly, caused Neale Thomson to come to Sherman Oaks High.
"Land of the free?" she confirmed, and pushed on the door after Ben Gross held it open for her.
"Well, this way to the...headteacher's office..." he told her, imitating her terminology. Noticing the followers, he took a step back and pointed to Neale's back, and mouthed, "The Brit" to them all, then a thumbs up.
It was the best Neale would get from Ben Gross, for a while, anyway. By the end of the day he would have insulted to her face. By the end of the week, he would have set her up and watch her fail, and by the end of the semester he would have turned on the charm and used her for nefarious, self-centred interests, involving Devi and the UN to backstab her.
And by the summer, she would be running away again to a plane, back to Jemima and her home and biscuits that were cookies that she would drink with a cup of tea, and chips which were fried potato that went with fish and Cadbury's chocolate and football with a round ball and eleven players per team, and being able to drink legally and pubs with real ale.
Her home. Which wasn't here, the southern district of Los Angeles, California.
But it wouldn't be the same as last time. Ben Gross would be involved.
And Devi Vishwakumar.
And Paxton Hall-Yoshida.
And Eleanor, and Fabiola, and Aneesa, and Trent. And the swim team, the robotics team, the drama club, the chess club...
...sll were involved.
But there was only one that mattered.
If only Neale knew what it was she was getting herself into, she might well have turned round at the front door and legged it out of there.
But she didn't. Instead, she kept her cool and trusted the young man who had approached her to take her to the head.
"Right, sorry, the "principal"," Neale corrected herself. And walked with Ben Gross, and half the school behind them, down the hall to see the headteacher.