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CHAPTER ONE
"Welcome Back"
It was raining so hard the first day of school that Crandall could barely see the numbers on the sides of the buildings. "I'll probably be late for first period, but I can't walk any faster in this rain with this stupid book bag and rain hood over my head." he thought as he struggled to keep his new clothes and hair dry.
There were a few other students running frantically to get out of the rain. Most of them had already gathered in the cafeteria because the courtyard was one big, soggy puddle, and the covered walkways provided no protection at all from the blowing rain. Some students went directly to their first period class, where the teachers cringed as they watched as students dragged mud, muck and heavy, water-soaked parkas over new carpets or freshly waxed floors. Wet book bags leaned up against classroom walls to dry even though no one really believed the loose leaf paper in their new binders would be useable after such a drenching.
Schedules that were mailed to students during the last week of July were now transparent rags with unreadable, gray smudges. Every teacher knew that each student would need a second copy before the end of class.
Crandall was not accustomed to Florida's "rainy season". He had just moved from New Jersey where he lived with his father, until his dad married a woman with four younger children, and the house became too crowded. He chose to move to the South to live with his mother, his aunt, and grandmother. He didn't mind the idea of living in a house full of women, but the heat and humidity of a summer in Florida was more than he had expected. Now this almost constant rain! He was beginning to feel as if he had stayed in the shower too long with all of his clothes on. Summer in New Jersey had never been this uncomfortable..or this long.
With his vision blocked by the hood of his raincoat,
Crandall only saw part of the other student before she ran into him. She was running to get undercover from the rain, and there was no way for him to avoid the collision. He didn't fall, but did drop his book bag, which she reached down to recover. She wore a yellow slicker and what appeared to be a long black, satin scarf. But the scarf turned out to be her hair. It was soaking wet and hung in one long shining, sheet straight to her elbows. It was the blackest hair that Crandall had ever seen. Since part of her hair hung over her face, he didn't notice that she wore a patch over one eye until she stood up to hand him his bag.
"Oh, I'm always doing that!", she cried. "My left side is my blind side, and I keep running into whatever is on my left. I hope I didn't hurt you"
"Well, I certainly wasn't expecting to be mugged on my first day" he tried to laugh and saw that she clearly did not get the joke. He noticed now that her uncovered eye was green with small flecks of gold, the kind of eye that he would later describe as hypnotic. "I'm new here, can tell me where my first class is?", he said as he held out his damp schedule for her to translate.
"Hey, we have first period together, Mr. Beecham, 8th grade science. He has been here forever. He was here when my mother was a student...can you believe that?" she laughed. "I'm Sierra, Sierra Forest. Follow me."
"I'm Crandall Dent, but just call me Sam. Everybody does."
They walked together through the slowing rain just as the first bell rang.
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