Striking A Chord (Out of Tune Prequel)

5: Striking A Chord

Home from my jaunt to Toronto with some other fab Wattpad authors. It was so amazing to meet them and the Wattpad team! 

Anyhow, to business: the external link goes to my blog page for Out of Tune where you'll find links to where you can pre-order it. It's out this Thursday! Aaaah! Only one more chapter to go after this!

I hope you like this chapter :)

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Chapter Five

The tiles are so highly polished that you can hear the squeak of sneakers as people try to be respectfully quiet, and the voice of a tour guide – probably at the other end of the wing – echoes back to us, talking about the influences of a particular painting.

Scuffing my sandal against the shiny tiles, I look down at my faint reflection and grimace. My hair looks really red in this light. I hope it doesn’t actually, and it’s just the ivory-swirled-with-beige color of the tiles that’s making it seem so bright.

Allie sighs heavily, impatiently, on my right.

Josh’s thumb absently brushes the back of my hand, on my left. I look down at our interlocked hands, and smile. When I bring my head back up, I catch Poppy scowling at the two of us (me and Josh, not me and Allie), but when she sees me looking back at her, her head whips round to look at our teacher. Poppy’s a girl with shiny, blown-out brown hair everyone just knows is an aspiring cheerleader, even if they don’t hear her talking about how she’s going to be head cheerleader before she graduates. I wonder if she’s jealous of me being with Josh – so many people (I know at least one guy) have a crush on him.

It makes me feel kind of smug, that someone like her has reason to be jealous of someone like me.

I like being popular. At least, a little bit popular.

I like not being invisible anymore.

Paper rustles. Worksheets are being handed out.

We’re on a field trip for our history class at the town’s museum.  I haven’t been since a field trip in the fifth grade, and everyone’s glad of the afternoon out from school.

 I take one of the worksheets as Allie passes the pile onto me and then pass them onto Josh. I start paying full attention to what our teacher’s saying – just in time.

‘In your pairs, you’re going to go around the museum and fill out the worksheets. These aren’t easy things – not like, ‘What year was the painting with the man in the green hat done?’ – you guys aren’t eight-year-olds. I’m going to want paragraphs. But, like I said, you’re allowed to work in pairs. Collaborate. See if two heads really are better than one. This is going to be worth ten per cent of your grade, so don’t think this afternoon is an excuse to play hide and seek or hook up behind the statues.’

This is followed by a few sniggers, and our teacher, Ms Lewis, turns up one corner of her mouth. ‘I didn’t graduate high school that long ago, guys. I know what happens on these field trips.’

I look at the questions on the sheet, while she hands over to the tour guide to tell us more about the museum and some of the artifacts here and where to find certain things (namely, fire exits and restrooms).

2. What is the historical significance of item 41.A? How would it have been used in WWII?

7. Who is featured in the painting by Hansen? Give a brief biography.