The Dead Boy's Guide To Second Chances

bonus chapter: part 1

Four Times Oliver Sallow Got Caught Staring at Finn O'Connell
(+1 Time He Didn't Look Away)

1. First Day

Fifteen years old. School number seven. Town number six.

Blissby is the second-smallest he's been sent to so far. It took all of twenty minutes for Mrs. Wal—Gabby to drive him from one end to the other, pointing out all the highlights on their way. A Costco. Three chippies out of which only one makes decent fries (he can't remember which one; he hopes it won't be relevant later). A park. A Sainsbury's. The school.

Oliver tried to remember it all like he's going to be tested on it later, but it was hard. In his mind, the streets overlap with the roads of the town he's been to before, and the one before that. The first few weeks are always the worst. He still has to get used to the new rules, the new sounds, the new smell clinging to his clothes now that they're being washed with someone else's laundry detergent. You would think that, with constant change, change becomes a constant. It doesn't. Every time, he forgets just how awful it makes him feel: lost, adrift, like a frightened animal that has been moved to a different enclosure and might perish from the stress. Or whatever it is that zoo animals do.

"You're going to like it here, Oliver," the headmistress tells him. Oliver realizes she must've been talking to him for a few minutes while he was staring blankly at the bookshelf behind her. "We're glad to have a bright kid like you at our school. Your English marks over the last few years have been remarkable, especially considering..."

She trails off, glancing at Mr. Walker as if asking him to fill the ensuing silence. When he only looks at her questioningly, she looks at Oliver again.

"Yes," is all that Oliver says.

"And you're sure you want to start with classes right away? You don't need a few days to get settled?"

"No," says Oliver. "I'm all right." Probably.

"Right." She claps her hands. "Let's show you around a bit then, shall we?"

Oliver nods. He pulls back his shoulders as they leave the office. It's the afternoon; the last class must've just ended. The corridors are teeming with teenagers, a claustrophobic press of bodies that part only reluctantly for their headmistress. Oliver can feel the eyes on him as he walks between her and his foster father, like a convict being shown to his cell.

He's had a growth spurt over the summer, and now he seems to stick out of the crowd like a sore thumb. His platform boots—still a little too big for him; he has to wear two pairs of socks so he doesn't slide around in them—squeak faintly. The safety pins on his trench coat rattle with every step he takes. The leather still smells like the charity shop where he found it; he had to hide it under a bunch of ugly sweaters to make sure no one took it before he'd scraped together enough money to buy it. Now, he buries his hands in the pockets and keeps his head held high. He's too tall to hide and too smart to try. All he can do is don his armour and bear it.

The school, he has to admit, is nice. It looks older than any of the ones he's visited before. The hallways have character, even though they're marred by hideous lockers and posters for stupid clubs he categorically refuses to become a part of.

He's relieved when the headmistress leads them outside and toward a separate building.

"The library," she tells him as she opens the door.

Oliver steps across the threshold—and halts so abruptly Mr. Walker almost runs into him.

"Whoa," his foster father comments.