“Why did they have to make the school so big?”
I offer no reply to my sister’s complaint, only peering up at the bricked structure through the sparkling windshield of my new car. We’re both frozen in the seats, looking at the students clad in designer wear and sporting highlights right and left.
Looking at the pricey, pricey cars surrounding us. Porsches and BMWs fill the parking lot. And the only Honda is mine. And compared to the sleek, clean lines and the (custom) paint jobs of the other cars, the Honda—secondhand, no less—is a carcass amongst nice, fat slabs of meat.
Now, I was a beggar. Cars were the first impression for a person. Didn’t get the right car? You’re in with the geek squad.
I check my watch, and then hurriedly I turn off the engine, “We’re going to be late.”
My sister, Anna, manages to get out stiffly of the car. She’d been popular in our last school because of her singing ability. I’d been popular as the soccer captain, and on the honor roll. But my mom had wanted us to move, to try and get us a better life, she said.
And we’d moved. Just like that.
And we knew the real reason.
We get our backpacks, walk together towards our new life.
The schedules we get are completely different, with the exception of the same free period and the same lunch. The first class for me is English, which I adore. The teacher is nice too, a pretty blonde who lets me sit quietly in the back, saying she’ll figure out a seating chart later.
The next class, labeled simply as Music, is one I’m apprehensive about. I’m paired up with an attractive Latina for a music project that I’m given a packet about and we head to the off-campus recording studio building. There I discover that my partner, whose name is Helen, has a voice that can rival my sister’s and several vocal superstars.
“Wow.” I gawp at her. She’d just hit something like the octave above E—maybe higher and right now she’s smiling at me awkwardly. She’s obviously not one to vie for attention.
“Well, you’re…you’re really good.” I stutter.
“Thanks,” she replies, blushing.
She also explains to me that we have to create a full album and that we have all year to do so. The winning album has a chance to be picked up by record labels. Also, we discover we have the same Math, History and Science class. We sit next to each other in the next class and walk together to the cafeteria. She introduces me to her friends and one of them, with the name of Courtney, latches on me like a leech, trying to get into my boxers before the lunch period ends.
It’s when I’m resisting another advance from her that my eyes land on the boy at the table opposite from us.
He’s incredibly handsome, with his blonde hair haloing the sunlight filtering through the windows. His eyes are dark chocolate-brown, and sparkling. And it’s only a moment later that they lock with mine. His laugh fades and his full mouth compresses in a defiant grimace. I smile back and he relaxes a bit, one corner of his mouth curling up.
“Riley!” Helen shouts at me and I jump.
“What?” I snap.
“Courtney just asked you what you were looking at.”
“Oh…um,” I jerk my chin at the strange boy. All the table turns to look. Including me. He’s laughing again, hands flying in gestures that vaguely look like a form of sign language. But how could he do it so fast?
“Oh, him.” Helen smiles. “That’s Tyler Dunham. He’s the most popular deaf person here.”
“There’s a deaf clique here?”
“Yeah.” Courtney’s talking now. “They’re like, a bit weird. Keep to themselves and everything. Never come to dances. None of them talk.”
“Some of them talk fine!” Helen disagrees. “Anyways, Tyler’s easily one of the richest people going to this school. The parents paid for him to come here ‘because they want him to be in a deaf social group and we’re among one of the biggest attractors of deaf kids, other than Washington School for the Deaf.
“I’ve worked with him in my sophomore year in Music. The guy has a gift for songwriting. The lyrics he wrote were completely beautiful. But they required a lot of dramatics. He told me that he likes dramatic songs, because he can hear the change in pitch more.” Helen shrugged. “He was nice.”
Courtney doesn’t butt in this time and Helen digs in her book bag, bringing out her iPod. She turns it on and scrolls through to a specific song, then hands me the earbuds.
“This is the song he wrote,” she said. “He was really excited when I told him I would put it on here.”
I put in the earbuds, and then I press Play.
The chatter of the cafeteria socializing is drowned out by the first haunting notes of a pipe organ, followed closely by Helen’s voice, singing a down-tempo, somber melody.
The lyrics are truly beautiful, and Helen singing them makes it an incredible feast for the ears. The church organ, plus the understated thrums of bass and a breathy clash of cymbals near the end isn’t part of what I normally listen to, but there’s something about the lyric content and the way that Helen sings it that makes it spellbinding.
“Wow,” is all I can say when the final organ note wavers and fades into silence.
Helen laughs, “You like it?”
“Hell, yeah!”
Helen laughs some more. “I’ll tell him that.”
“You will?”
“Duh, ‘cause we have next period with him.”
Riley was a very developed character and I can see his personality by the way you write about him. Maybe you could give some subtle description on how he looks. Something like this: 
