Simon Says

by Alphin, Elaine Marie

• ISBN13: 9780152046781
• ISBN10: 015204678X
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-06-01
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Summary

Charles Weston, an aspiring young artist attending a private arts high school, discovers that being true to one's self means opening the door to both pain and pleasure. Winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Young Adult Mystery.

Author Biography

ELAINE MARIE ALPHIN is the author of Counterfeit Son, which received the 2001 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Young Adult Mystery. She lives in Indiana.

Excerpts

The mirror acts like a frame. But I would never paint on a shiny, reflective surface like that. Canvas draws the paint into it, draws the eye into it, draws the mind into its world. Mirrored glass shows too much, and too little. I came here to get away from games played with mirrors.I always knew there had to be someone else who saw the games for what they were, someone else who hated them as much as I do. That's why I came to Whitman High School for the Arts-to meet this person. Only now I'm not so sure. Why should he care about meeting me?"Well, Charles, are you coming or not?" Adrian demands. His voice fills our dorm room, easy and amused, blue-green tones flecked with golden highlights. "This was your idea, remember."I remember. In the mirror I see sweaty fingers wiping themselves on a T-shirt as if they were paint-smeared, then fumbling to smooth the stretched-out cotton. Above the fingers I see frowning eyes that might be mistaken for angry instead of nervous."Having second thoughts?" asks Adrian.I grab a rust-colored flannel shirt and shrug into it, letting it hang open over the T-shirt. Glancing in the mirror one last time, I meet my new roommate's hazel eyes. Sleek in black jeans and an open-necked gray shirt, a plaid so fine it looks like graph paper, Adrian smiles at me, an ironic smile that masks a brain like a shrink's. No one's been so on-target reading my mind since my mother when I was a little kid, and I don't like it.He cocks his head and raises one eyebrow suggestively over long lashes. If I were to sketch Adrian, I think I'd show him charming his prey. He'd have them trapped, spellbound: a siren wooing Odysseus. It's been two days since I met him, and I already know he can charm anyone, girl or guy. Turns out the guys are the only ones he's interested in.I can't believe he's my roommate-you'd think they'd put something like that on the dorm questionnaire. I'm not sure how I feel about it, actually. I know how I should feel, but I don't. What does that say about me? Maybe...just that I don't care. I didn't come here to meet Adrian. He doesn't matter-he's only a stranger in the other half of the room. He pretends he's interested, but he doesn't know me, for all that shrink's brain of his. He sees only what the school calls me: artist; the way it calls him composer. He's already heard that no one knows what I paint. He probably thinks I'm either the next thing to hit the Museum of Modern Art or the next overrated boy wonder to hit the trash can. But what would he think if he saw my work? Maybe he'd shut off those signals, at least."So let's go," I tell him, sliding my sketch pad into a small backpack and slinging it over my shoulder. I keep my voice light, like I don't care one way or the other about the evening. He doesn't look like he buys it, though. If he's a composer, he probably has a fine-tuned ear. Well, he can hear what he likes. It doesn't make any difference to me.We walk through the muggy Houston eve

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Excerpted from Simon Says by Elaine Marie Alphin
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