Our Song (5 page)

“Oh,” I whispered.

Faculty families always got their room and board for free, and their class tuition was heavily discounted. So I'd never thought about how expensive it was for the regular students. Now I felt like a jerk.

“So . . .” I searched for another topic and decided, lamely, to go the way of the big green
V
. “What's your reason for being a vegetarian?”

“It's kind of corny,” he said. “My family had a potbellied pig for a while.”

“No, really?!” I said.

Jacob laughed.

“I know, it's goofy, but my dad's allergic to dogs and cats, and he really wanted us to have a pet,” he said. “So he got us this tiny little pig—Sally. She was really cute, I've got to admit. She was white, just like the pig in
Charlotte's Web
.”

“And then what?” I said apprehensively. I could tell this story wasn't going in a good direction. Did Sally end up as their Christmas ham?

“Well, let's just say that if you want your potbellied pig to stay little and cute,” Jacob said, “you have to keep her on a very strict diet. Sally got sort of huge. We eventually had to give her to a petting zoo.”

“Oh, that's so sad,” I said.

“No, it's not,” Jacob said matter-of-factly. “Sally's much better off there, and she makes a lot of kids happy. We go visit her every once in a while. And now, none of us can go
near
a ham sandwich. It's been five years since we had Sally, and even my dad hasn't
caved. And this is a guy who used to put bacon on
everything
, even ice cream.”

“Wow, go Sally,” I said with a laugh. “But what about chicken and steak and stuff?”

Jacob shrugged.

“My family eats those things, but I just don't want them anymore. Once you start imagining your pork chop with your pet's face on it, it's pretty easy to make that connection with all meat. It wasn't hard to give it up.”

“Oh yeah,” I said, even though I seemed to be having trouble forgoing fried chicken for one lousy meal.

I took a bite of pickled beet and tried not to wince at its vinegary sweetness. Then I switched back to the broccoli casserole, chewing miserably. Despite the fact that the casserole was creamy and cheesy and sprinkled with fried onions—not exactly prisoner's rations—I, once again, felt trapped.

If I was home,
I complained to myself,
I could be eating whatever I wanted right now. I wouldn't be pretending to be a vegetarian or a blacksmith. I could just be me.

On the other hand, the me at home was a Finlayson.

I could never escape that.

If I were anything like Jacob,
I thought,
I wouldn't want to escape it. I'd be psyched to see my name in liner notes, even if nobody reads liner notes anymore. I'd think of Camden as a gift, not a jail.

Maybe I'd look forward to hanging out with a bunch of other fiddlers in Nanny's log cabin classroom.

Maybe I'd even be up for a duet with this way-too-earnest vegetarian who had ocean-colored eyes and a thing for mayonnaise and Southern accents.

Maybe . . .

But the fact was, I
wasn't
anything like Jacob. So, I told myself, there wasn't any point in thinking about those things.

Chapter
Five

U
ntil the next day, my
first day of class, I'd never actually seen what went on in the dark, mysterious blacksmithing barn. I'd only glimpsed the plumes of black smoke emerging from its stovepipe chimneys. And I'd heard weighty, rhythmic clangs coming through the grimy, half-open windows. Most of all, I'd seen the blacksmithing students around campus.

They always seemed to sit together in the dining hall (definitely not at a vegetarian table). Their skin always had a sooty, sweaty sheen. Their nails were permanently rimmed in black, and their hair was dusted with ash.

I'd felt like such a badass when I'd signed up for the class. Nothing seemed more different from playing the violin than pounding on molten metal with a very large hammer.

But now, as I slipped through the tall, heavy barn doors, I did not feel tough or brave. I felt small. And for a girl who'd hit five feet seven inches before I even stepped foot in high school, that was a feat.

Everything in the barn seemed to be oversize—the long, thick-legged tables with blackened steel tops, the two massive, blazing forges, the hammers and tongs and other tools dangling from a network of hooks on the wall. The students, too, were big. The kind of big that made you wonder if they'd gone through puberty at age ten. They looked like they all played football when they weren't at Camden—any position that tackled. Either that, or they operated all the heavy machinery on their families' farms. They had meaty arms, enormous, clompy boots, and chins that were mottled with either scruff or soot.

There were no other girls.

When I arrived, the guys were already busy grabbing tools and carving out workstations. They clearly were returning students who knew what they were doing.

“Look who we have here!” said a man who was clearly the instructor. He'd spotted me cowering by the doors. “You must be Annie's granddaughter. When Mrs. Teagle told me you were taking my class, I couldn't believe it. You're going to risk your fiddler's fingers in here?”

Reflexively I curled my hands into fists and slipped them behind my back.

“Um, what?” I said. “I thought losing fingers was more of a woodworking thing.”

“Relax,” the man said, laughing as he clomped over to me in his big, lace-up boots. “We haven't lost a finger in years! Now as for thumbs . . .”

Then he laughed again. I didn't know if he was joking or just thought losing a thumb was funny. When he held out his hand to shake mine, I couldn't help but take a digit count. No fingers were missing, which eased my mind a little bit.

The fact that his hand was also as big as an oven mitt and covered with scars and burns—well, that ratcheted my nerves right back up.

“I'm Stan,” the teacher said. “But all the boys call me Coach.”

“Nell,” I said, smiling nervously.

“Okay, Nell, seeing as how I'm not letting you anywhere
near
a forge today,” he said, “I'm not gonna send you back to your room to change. But tomorrow, I want to see you in close-toed shoes and a shirt that's not so . . .”

Coach seemed at a loss for words as he regarded my tank top, which had several panels of ruffly fabric cascading down the middle of it. It was one of my favorites, because it created the illusion of curves I didn't really have.

“Flammable,” he finally said.

I'd actually tried to dress appropriately for the blacksmithing class. I'd paired my tank with denim cutoffs and sturdy walking sandals, and I'd clipped the front bits of my bob away from my face with a couple of glittery hairpins.

I regarded the other students, who were giving me glances
over their piles of heavy tools. Their faces looked either curious or curmudgeonly—it was hard to tell through the flinty gloom. They were all dressed pretty much exactly alike.

“So, the plaid shirts and overalls,” I asked Coach, “that's not just fashion?”

“It's not at
all
fashion,” Coach said.

“Hey!” called one of the boys, who was pumping air into one of the forges with an old-fashioned bellows. “Speak for yourself, Coach. I think I look
fabulous
.”

Deep, throaty laughter rippled around the echoing space, and I joined in.

But the laughter died down quickly when it came time for me to actually join the class. At Coach's instruction, I went to grab some hammers and tongs from the tool wall.

Two of the guys were still there. One of them had a thick unibrow and dark sideburns that never ended. Literally, they snaked across his full cheeks and joined together beneath his nose. He looked about eighteen, but his mustache looked more like thirty.

The other boy had biceps so big they strained the seams of his plaid shirtsleeves.

Their tools made heavy, clanking sounds as they lifted them off the hooks on the wall.

“Hi,” I said, giving the two guys a little wave that was so girly, it made me cringe. “Um, I'm Nell.”

“Yeah, we heard about you,” said hams-for-arms, easily
hoisting a hammer that looked more like a ten-pound dumbbell. He shot a quick glance in Coach's direction, and I wondered if Coach had warned them before I arrived to be nice to the fiddler's granddaughter. “Listen, don't take this the wrong way, but what the heck are you doing here?”

“Yeah, look at that scrawny arm,” mustache guy said, pointing at my bare bicep. “You're gonna get hurt.”

“I'll be fine,” I said, sticking out my chin.

“No, you won't,” he replied, and all laughter went out of his black eyes. “You're gonna suck up all of Coach's time because you don't know what you're doing.”

I grabbed one of the smaller hammers off the wall and tried not to grunt at its unexpected weight.

“Seriously,” I said. “Don't worry about me. You just do your thing.”

“Our thing?” Ham-arms said. “Uncensored? Because let me tell you, I just used the word ‘heck' for the first time in my life, and I
didn't
like it.”

“Yeah, bring it,” I blurted. “Swear all you want. I can take it. I don't want things to be any different just because I'm here. And I promise I won't get in your way.”

“Uh-huh,” muttered mustache guy. “I'll believe that when I see it.”

“You'll see it,” I said to his very broad back as he headed toward the forge. “Promise.”

•  •  •

Here's what I'd learned by the end of my first day as a student blacksmith:

• Mustache boy was named Clint, and ham-for-arms was Joe. The other guys in the plaid crew were named Michael, Jack, and Anthony. Jack was my age, but most of the other boys were seniors in high school. Clint, the oldest, was twenty and worked on his family's farm in South Carolina. (I'd been right about the farm thing.)

• Once I insisted, they did indeed use words a lot stronger than “heck.”

• They were strong. Really strong. And in comparison, I was as floppy-armed as Olive Oyl. I know this because that's what the guys called me after they saw me wield a hammer.

• Pounding molten metal? It's excruciating. But also kind of fun.

• Clint had been right—I did get hurt.

I didn't lose a thumb. I only burned the side of my palm when I rested my right hand on a hot anvil.

I snatched my hand away and bit my cheek to keep from crying out. Then I kept the burn hidden at my side until class was over. Luckily, that happened only a few minutes later.

As I headed for the door, Coach clapped me on the shoulder
and said, “Our girl did all right on her first day, didn't she, guys?”

They responded with a grudging grumble of agreement, which only made me feel guilty.

Finally, after promising Coach that I'd show up the next day in boots and a simpler (if not necessarily plaid) top, I dashed back to the dorm to shower. The burn was one big blister by then, and it hurt badly when the warm water ran over it.

I knew exactly what a burn like this needed—antibiotic ointment and a gauze bandage. I'd packed neither. I was sure that Nanny had, though. Grandmas always remembered that kind of practical stuff when they traveled.

But if Nanny learned that I'd singed a single arm hair in my class, let alone gotten a nasty burn, I knew she'd get all mother hen on me and try to make me drop out. I wouldn't be surprised if Coach and the rest of the plaid crew backed her up.

But here was what I'd realized a moment after the burn happened, once the initial searing pain had subsided into a mere painful throb: I really wanted to stay in the blacksmithing class. I didn't know exactly
why
I did, but I did.

Maybe I wanted to fall in love with ironwork. I might even discover that I had a hidden talent for it. That way, nobody could argue that I was destined to be just another fiddling Finlayson.

Maybe I just wanted to get some muscle definition in my noodle arms and learn some new swear words.

Or maybe . . . I had something to prove to myself. I wasn't sure what that something was. I bet if I mentioned it to Annabelle,
she'd give me a dozen theories, all in a dialect of psychologese that I couldn't begin to understand.

But of course, I
wasn't
going to discuss my desire to keep blacksmithing with Annabelle, or with anybody else. If I kept my burn a secret, I wouldn't have to fight to stay in the class. I could just show up the next morning and keep on going.

So how was I going to hide this two-inch long blister from everyone? Simple.

I would break into the infirmary.

The infirmary was just a little office in the lodge, located off the long corridor between the lounge and the dining hall. The door didn't even have a proper lock on it. It was just one of those deals with a push-button lock in the interior knob and a hole in the exterior one. Poke around in that hole with a bobby pin—much like the ones that were jabbed into my hair—and
pop
, you were in.