Dark Night

Interview

"Some guy threw a bunch of pipe bombs and some dynamite into the gym," Paul said flatly. I reached over and patted his arm. It had been even more upsetting for him than for me. "We had to go into lockdown. And that's when John hurt his ankle, escaping when the police cleared the hall." Starry's hand tightened on my shoulder.

"But nobody was hurt during the explosion?"

"No," John said tersely. "The kids in gym that period were outside because it was a really nice day."

"And what came from your evaluation, Starry?"

"That my sister could have died, and I've been so focused on skating that I don't really know her. She's smart, fun, and incredibly tough. She'll be going to college next year, and all that potential would have been wasted. So while I take skating very seriously, in comparison, it just can't be the most important thing in my life. It gave me a whole new perspective." I managed to keep my jaw shut. Fox Mulder was right. There is weird shit out there, and obviously pod people were part of the government coverup. "Even though I haven't always treated her like I should, she helped me strengthen my skating because she's very observant and analytical and came up with the idea for my music. So I'm sorry that it isn't a gold medal, because she is directly responsible for my successes this season." I found myself warming up to the pod person and wondered if I was a bad person for wanting to keep it.

"She pointed out weaknesses in my skating too," John said mildly. "And she did it in such a way that I finally realized why my coaches have been after me to be less introverted."

"How did you two meet?" Williams asked me, gesturing between me and John.

"Earth science," I said promptly. "The teacher assigned partners for the class projects." I smiled at John. "And we just became friends. I'm a library page and I met Paul sitting in the stacks. He taught me how to skateboard."

"And that's not weird to you, Starry?" My brother shook his head.

"Nope. Tang and I are friends, we train together and do some things off the ice. This isn't a sport where I can actively prevent somebody from scoring, like baseball or football. You're kind of competing against yourself, can you skate a clean program, is your difficulty high enough, are you good enough.  You have to do your best, and hope for the rest. Delia's friends with whoever she wants, and frankly, John's lucky to have her friendship."

"So, John. Your music choices were unorthodox in comparison to your usual style. How did you choose your music this year?"

"Well, I wanted something extroverted and different, so Sing, Sing, Sing fits the bill. It's really tough because it's so up-tempo but I like a challenge. And when I was looking around for music for the long program, I checked out all my friends' playlists. One thing I noticed was that everybody has at least one Queen song somewhere. Delia has a playlist just of Queen songs, which gave me the idea. And it turned out to be really fun."

"What about you, Starry?"

"Originally I was skating to two classical pieces, and it was an unmitigated disaster," he said, shaking his head regretfully. "Delia was talking to me about music, I don't remember what, I was panicking about sucking so bad, and she remembered 2Cellos, and she put together a rough idea with the vocals from the AC/DC song and a bagpipe version. Ekaterin was able to take the idea and run with it. She did a fantastic job. Mikhal worked really hard to help me learn the new routines and suggested ways to help me interpret the music. The rest is history."

"Whoever mixed that is amazing," I said. "It's a really fun composition."

Then Williams had some questions for Paul and John, about their family and Paul's skateboarding. I enjoyed listening to John tease Paul and his spirited comebacks.