The Blazing Star

By Imani Josey

Sixteen-year-old Portia White is used to being overlooked—after all, her twin sister Alex is a literal genius. But when Portia holds an Egyptian scarab beetle during history class, she takes center stage in a way she never expected: she faints. Upon waking, she is stronger, faster, and braver than before. And when she accidentally

• Language: English
• Publisher: Imani Josey
• Release date: Dec 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781940014807

Imani Josey

Imani Josey is a writer from Chicago, Illinois. In her previous life, she was a cheerleader for the Chicago Bulls and won the titles of Miss Chicago and Miss Cook County for the Miss America Organization, as well as Miss Black Illinois USA. Her one-act play, Grace, was produced by Pegasus Theatre Chicago after winning the 19th Young Playwrights Festival. In recent years, she has turned her sights to long-form fiction, including The Blazing Star series. Learn more at imanijosey.com. 

Book preview

1

Lightning Strikes

What is that on your head?

I whipped around. Dad’s eyes were wide saucers. Hair, I said, panting. I slipped my book bag off my shoulders and let it drop to the floor. The sprint from the bus stop in the thick, May humidity was brutal. I did, however, make it in time.

I see that. My father rose from the seat he’d patiently occupied backstage in the auditorium. But there’s less of it.

I appreciated the hum of the air conditioning before speaking again. My dad made his way to a roll of paper towel situated between refreshments on a nearby table. He tore a sheet and handed it to me. Thanks, I said, taking it and dabbing my moist brow.

I didn’t want you to sweat your hair out, he mentioned of my pressed locks.

I’ll wrap it tonight. My breathing evened before I flashed a smile. Do you like it?

It’s not that I don’t like it, Portia. He eyed my ’do and cocked a brow. It’s different. You and your sister usually—

"We always look like the twins from The Shining." I crumpled the paper towel and strode toward the heavy curtains framing the stage.

That’s an old movie.

Peeking through the gaps revealed the restless faces in the crowd. I like old movies, Rich.

We can be on a first name basis when you pay bills, he grumbled as I tossed the used paper towel in a trash can. I called my father by his first name sometimes to get on his nerves and other times to shift topics without him noticing.

I glanced back as he shook his head. I wasn’t successful this time. I cut my hair a little. We don’t have to look alike all the time.

Well—he added the last of his commentary—it does look nice.

Scheduling a hair appointment before my sister’s early-morning ceremony wasn’t a great idea, but I was going to look how I wanted on the day I’d dreaded for almost three years. My denim capris hugged my round hips, one of the features I was proudest of, but the gloss I haphazardly smeared on my mouth during the bus ride was gone now. The haircut was as good as it was going to get. My hands ran over my clipped strands as the house lights dimmed.

A pale light shone on a row of seats onstage in front of red, velvet curtains. After a few moments of awkward silence, the eight members of the Academic Decathlon team walked on. Applause followed as they took their seats, my twin sister Alexandria at the head of the line. A white, pleated dress flattered her frame.

I flinched when a hand landed on my shoulder. I hadn’t noticed my dad approach. He patted my arm and smiled, a gesture that had put me at ease as long as I could remember. Don’t be nervous for her, he said. She’s been practicing all week.

His focus returned to the stage, but mine remained on him. Neither Alex nor I resembled him much, aside from his wide smile. He did have a great head of hair, thick and lightly salted, and a beard the envy of lumberjacks worldwide. Needless to say, single moms brought him casseroles at PTA meetings. Our principal waltzed toward a podium in the middle of the stage. My dad whispered: Ready?

To stand behind Alex and hold a trophy? Who even suggested this?

Your principal wanted Alex’s family involved in the presentation, he said.

The citywide smartass competition compared participating schools’ scores in math, science, and the humanities. My sister’s team had won the Academic Decathlon a week before. My twin’s individual scores were the highest, not only of the Eleanor Roosevelt team, but in Cook County. This made her AcaDec’s MVP: the Golden Apple champion.

The principal relinquished the podium to Alex. It didn’t take 20/20 vision to see she’d waited a long time for this moment. My sister stepped into the light and reached for the microphone, her dark, pressed hair kissing her shoulders as mine had done only a few hours before. Good morning, she said, as the device returned a claws-on-chalkboard screech. The audience contorted and groaned, but she kept her cool. Good morning, she repeated. My name is Alexandria White.

A whistle sang through the auditorium from a group of boys near the back. My father lurched forward to poke his head through the gap in the curtains. Is this a school or a damn construction site? he growled.

"Dad." I tugged him back.

"The mayor is here."

I peered around his shoulder as a staffer beelined toward the fuss. The teachers got this. I tugged again. Those boys will stop, and Alex won’t. Just . . . watch her.

I somehow angled my father back toward his elder (if eleven and a half minutes counts) daughter’s speech. The spotlight swallowed Alex, but nothing short of the apocalypse would stop her. Since we’d set foot in Roosevelt, she’d toiled to be AcaDec’s first Golden Apple champion in over a decade, the first African-American Golden Apple champion ever.

It was time to hail Caesar.

Please welcome the mayor of our fine city, Alex said, eyes cast offstage. Mayor Wendell Price! Mayor Price emerged from the opposite wing to thunderous applause. He was a rotund man with an effortless smile, the kind of politician you liked no matter his stance on the issues. Alex moved to the side as he took the podium.

Good morning! And thank you, Alexandria. His baritone sailed over the shower of acclaim. Don’t applaud me. Applaud these young people. This is academic excellence before you.

He turned toward Alex, who beamed back. She’d wanted this award for almost as long as I’d dreaded her winning it— having beefed up her pursuit this year. For my twin, the Academic Decathlon was the sun, blotting out everything and everyone.

And this young lady . . . It’s been twelve long years, but we have a Golden Apple champion. His gaze shifted to Dad and me.

Show time. A teacher waiting backstage brought me Alex’s trophy. Where they’d been hiding it, I’ll never know. She placed the thing in my arms and backed away with a wide smile. It was more bronzed than golden and too big to hold gracefully, so my father helped me manage its weight. The crowd electrified as we walked onstage carrying the statuette of a golden apple on a funky vase. My dad handed it over to Mayor Price as my gaze met Alex’s. Her eyes were as wide as our father’s had been.

This is more than lightning striking, said Mayor Price. My twin’s focus jerked back to him. This is hard work and dedication. Alexandria White is our Golden Apple champion!

Both the principal and the mayor presented the trophy to my sister. My dad and I clapped as she glanced at us again. Her teammates popped up from their chairs to crowd around her, stealing her attention once more. I wasn’t sure if she had just won the Academic Decathlon MVP or the Miss America Pageant.

---

The coronation took only a sliver of the Monday morning schedule. When the formalities wrapped, reporters and administrators swarmed Alex and my father, giving me the break I needed. The genius society Mensa inducted my sister as their youngest local member before we hit puberty, and there’d been a lot of these functions between then and now. I’d learned to sneak out or sleep with my eyes open at all of them.

I made my way to my locker, stomach in knots. As I unlocked the metal door, I knew the knots had nothing to do with the hair I’d hacked off. They came from the inevitable finally happening: Alex was the Golden Apple champion, and she’d want to keep twinning. She loved matching our clothes and hair, going to the same parties, having the same friends. Twinning was so important that she’d insisted that whichever prestigious school she attended, I’d attend as well.

The title of Golden Apple champion boasted impressive spoils, one being a scholarship to the University of Chicago. She now had the academic muscle to ensure that wherever she got a scholarship, her twin would also. It was a notion I considered sweet until last month, when I started applications for schools in DC and anywhere else as far away as possible.

"Poooooorrrrrrtiiiiaaaa. My name slithered out of Jaden’s mouth like Parseltongue. A junior, like me, he was in a few of my classes and had pleasant enough features. They contorted, however, during his daily creepiness. Jaden’s last name was Watson, which usually placed his locker about three down from mine. He used that proximity to his advantage. Nice cut, he said as I glanced at him. His brows lifted in the way that made me want to shower. And nice pants."

Jaden, I said. His eyes traveled the short length of my capris. They let you out of your cage today?

I don’t know why you’re so mean to me. He tsked as I rummaged for my history notebook. Luckily, it sat on top of a pile of folders in my locker. If you play your cards right, you can have this body.

I snatched it before slamming my locker door shut. Wouldn’t you rather leave it to science?

Short bursts of laughter sprang from behind Jaden as I unzipped my book bag, threw the notebook inside, and closed it once more. Jaden grimaced and turned as Jason Jones walked up wearing track pants and his letterman. You’ve got a way with women, Jason said, slapping Jaden’s shoulders, maybe a little too hard. Jaden shrugged from Jason’s reach and stalked off, mumbling under his breath.

I threw my book bag on my shoulders. The laughter died down as Jason leaned against the locker opposite me. Nicely done, Miss White, he said.

I smiled. Where are your people? I asked of the usual throng that surrounded him. You can’t be seen speaking to someone without a fancy jacket.

Cheese stands alone. He glanced in the direction of Jaden’s departure. I was going to help you out, but you didn’t need me.

It’s the thought that counts, I said. For all her success at twinning, Alex and I only shared one class during our time at Roosevelt: seventh-period Cultures and Civilizations (née history). It sentenced two types of students to its drudgery: juniors who needed the requirement and seniors who hadn’t deigned to take it as juniors. Jason Jones was the latter.

His gaze traveled to my hair. You’re different today. I touched my locks. It’s nice, he added. What did you think of the ceremony?

What did I think of Alex’s moment, one that made it painfully obvious we didn’t want the same things, that we weren’t twinning? It was nice, I said.

He smoothed his green track pants as my eyes danced over him. The floor-to-ceiling windows amplified stray light bouncing off Jason’s bronzed skin. The track team must have started their practices outside again. Curly spirals of hair hinted at his mother’s Afro-Cuban roots. They deserved it, Jason said, with an easy grin. I’m never going to win a Golden Apple.

Neither am I. But Alex is your tutor, so there’s hope for you. The grin slipped into his signature smile, a megawatt flash of white teeth. My chest tightened. The crush was my indulgence into the utterly ridiculous, spanning exactly thirteen months, seven weeks, two days, and twenty-seven minutes. It marked my discovery of this exception to the human genome studying in my living room. Alex tutored him oblivious to her favor with the universe.

I held his gaze too long, and heat bloomed across my neck. I saw your dad in there, he continued. I was going to say hi, but he looked busy with the—

Attention, I said.

Right, the last time I was at your place he asked me about schools and I was undecided. I wanted to tell him I got accepted to State with an athletic scholarship.

That’s great, I said, even if I didn’t wholeheartedly mean it. As a talented athlete at a school known for academics, he’d inevitably attend some institution for free. But the thought of my remaining year at Roosevelt without him was about as enticing as a lobotomy. I still have to figure out where I’m going.

Oh, I thought you’d go to U of C, he said, confusion tinging his voice. That’s where Alex is going, right?

I shrugged. I guess.

Twins do different things? he asked in mock surprise. What do you have next? his voice was too rich for anyone not hosting a late-night radio program. I’ll walk you over.

I stifled the blush that barely showed through my brown skin. I gripped my book bag straps. I’m heading to— Dear God, what have I been taking all year? French.

I was heading toward the language lab anyway, he said, mouth twitching up.

The knots in my stomach became a twist in my chest as we began the trek. I didn’t understand what had changed. Jason and I never said more than a joke about Alex tutoring him, nor did he ever find a need to defend me from creeps like Jaden. He never walked with me. He never looked at me like that. She’s really excited, isn’t she? Jason asked.

I hadn’t been listening. Who? I replied, having forgotten everyone I’d ever known. Oh, Alex. Right. She worked hard. We’re really proud of her.

I bet, he said. Hey, look. He’d already started toward a nearby stairwell where a staffer impatiently secured a poster to the wall. Though ripped at the edges, the colossal advertisement read A Moment in Time in orange and blue font, the school colors. Under the headline, a silhouetted couple danced on a cloud. I’d hate them if I didn’t want to be them. Oh, he said. Are you going?

To senior prom? I almost choked out. I’m a junior, in case you forgot.

I assumed a senior had asked you.

My laugh was edged. I’m not that cool and even if someone did, it wouldn’t be right for me to go without my sister. Twin thing.

You both have a line of guys waiting to take you.

I slowed my pace. We didn’t plan on going.

We’ll just have to do something about that, he said. Words almost tumbled out of my mouth: What will we do? WHAT. WILL. WE. DO?

The bell rang. Class, I managed.

I’ll see you guys in seventh, he said, before disappearing toward the language lab.

---

 

All day I was light, feminine, as if whatever I touched would turn to sighing flowers. The giddiness was mine to command and impossible to contain. I spun it on a spindle. I washed it through my hair. I rolled back and forth on it like a cat on warm laundry. I’d had a very promising walk with Jason, my own lightning strike, one that hinted that he might actually invite me to his prom. You’re smiling, Alex said as I took a seat next to her in history.

No, I’m not, I lied.

Yes, you are. Something’s up, she said, and focused on me. Is that why you . . . ? she pointed to my mane.

Nope, not answering that. You like it?

Her expression was steady. I have to get used to it, she said. I didn’t know you had a hair appointment. We usually go together.

I didn’t know you had a fancy pin, I said, and pointed at the new brooch at the collar of her dress. In addition to the ugly trophy, she had also received a more attractive, apple-shaped pendant that shimmered against the white fabric. Alex also shone.

As fraternal twins, similar would be the best way to describe us (making Alex’s fixation on sameness kind of masochistic). We did have the family bend to our noses and small chins, but Alex stood an inch taller, and unlike my chestnut eyes, hers were a mosaic of hazel and gold. Without the trademark specs, her shining eyes were striking against her skin.

Nowhere near the same thing. Her face lit up. Oh, yeah. Someone from U of C was there. She wiggled her brows at me. Confirmed both scholarships are in the bag now.

Nice, I said, my voice pancake flat.

Her smile slipped into scrutiny. Portia, something’s up.

I only shook my head. You’re too smart to be this dumb, I replied.

She rolled her eyes and shuffled papers around on her desk. Whatever makes you happy, she said as guilt nipped at me.

My twin focused on her notes and papers, unaware that I still watched her. I needed to tell her we weren’t going to college together, and although the timing wasn’t idea, I needed to do it now. I reached out and tapped her shoulder before I could tell myself not to. A harrowing rush of fear and anxiety welled between my ears.

Miss White and Miss White. Jason’s textured voice grabbed my attention. Alex had also turned at the greeting, and we angled ourselves toward him simultaneously.

Alex spoke first. Hi, Jason, how are you? she asked.

He pushed through the rows, sitting a few seats over from us. I’m good, and congrats! Saw you up there today with the Golden Apple.

Alex nodded in thanks and pointed to her book bag. Gotta get ready, she said before turning to rifle through it. Her ritual required five minutes to prepare for every class, come hell or high water.

But I hadn’t turned away yet, and neither had Jason. His eyes on me, he smiled a big, toothy smile. Portia White, he said, with a wink. Air escaped my mouth, a long sigh from an untied balloon, as he turned to address another classmate on the track team.

Class! Our instructor, Mr. Pomey, rose from his desk to write on the chalkboard. We jumped at his voice and waited straight-backed as he finished writing and faced us. Of the younger teachers, only he wore a daily tie accompanied by one of his myriad pairs of suspenders. He tugged at the day’s blue bands, his auburn hair shaking as they snapped back to his chest.

Ye hath entered this temple of learning to thine own risk and peril, he said. Mark Pomey liked outdated language and odd word pairings—anything that no one would say in real life. Always good-natured, he never accepted we weren’t paying attention, opting to wax poetic about Byzantium as we vandalized our desks with magic markers.

He picked up a few midsized cardboard boxes that had been sitting on his desk. I can’t hold everything for this presentation. His eyes scanned the audience. Portia! he called out, interrupting my less-than-appropriate daydreams of Jason. You have a new hairdo.

I do, I replied.

Am I boring your new hairdo?

Never. Another lie.

Then why don’t you come to the front? I need you to hold one of these boxes. It’s not heavy, he said as I slowly unfolded from my seat. Expeditiously! Don’t dawdle! When I met Mr. Pomey by the chalkboard, he said, My assistant Portia will help us prepare for Friday’s excursion. He handed me the smallest of his cardboard boxes. The museum trip concludes our study of ancient civilizations. Seniors, I’ll enter your grades sooner than everyone else’s. But if you cut on Friday, I will also cut your grade in half.

A stark groan emitted from the room’s graduating contingency. Mr. Pomey laid both of the boxes on his desk again and pulled from the largest a dark case with nicks denting its exterior—some sort of acrylic—from years of use. What’s that? I asked, casually slipping my box onto the desk as well.

He ignored me and scanned his audience in dramatic suspense. Believe it or not, before I came to Roosevelt, I studied archaeology. I met my wife, the curator at The Field Museum, on a dig in Israel where we studied trade routes. The artifacts in this box are on loan from the museum for our research. He flung a piece of cloth at me. Since you put your box down, think fast!

By some miracle, I caught it. My frown deepened. I held up a flimsy headdress that could have belonged with a Halloween costume. This didn’t come from a dig, I said.

Okay, it isn’t authentic, but what would you call this if it were really from Egypt and not Taiwan?

A nemes crown, Alex chimed. My sister’s voice was a quick snap through the classroom. Mr. Pomey’s eyes found her amongst the students. He shot her a look as she feigned innocence. She always had the answer, but it didn’t always stay in her head. Alex, please.

I’ll raise my hand next time, she said.

He sighed, relenting. Well, can you tell us more?

Don’t threaten Alex with a good time. It would be the royal headdress of the Egyptian nobles, she said.

And who would be Egypt’s highest priest and noble?

The pharaoh.

Indeed. Mr. Pomey nodded and turned to address the audience. Many of the pharaohs ruled Egypt from modern day Luxor, which in ancient times went by the name Thebes or Waset. The nemes crown was the famous striped head cloth worn by the pharaohs. They wore many crowns, but this one you most often see in movies.

With a snake in the front, right? Alex asked. Oh, yeah. She lifted her hand as he sighed.

Yes. The snake was a fierce cobra called a uraeus. Now, the nemes crown tied at the back of the head, leaving lappets on either side of the face for ceremonial clothing. Okay, Portia, you can put that down. I did as I was told and turned to leave the front of the room. Wait for a moment, he said, halting me.

There’s more? I asked.

Of course, he replied. Now, cover your eyes and hold out your left hand. I smirked and followed orders as he dropped a cold object on my palm. Okay, you may look. My eyes drifted to a small, blue ornament fashioned like half of a round beetle, engravings on its shell.

I wrinkled my nose. It’s a bug.

It’s an Egyptian scarab, he corrected me. Well, part of an Egyptian scarab. It is solid lapis lazuli, a material highly sought for this bright shade of blue. It would be considered a token of good wishes among the aristocracy, he said as I flicked a nail over the inscription. Be careful with that. I can’t get another one at the mall.

I frowned and turned my focus to the tiny figures on its back. These are hieroglyphs? I asked of the marks.

Yes, the ancient writing style, Mr. Pomey said. We would need an Egyptologist to translate that. He continued with facts about the scarab, turning back to my classmates. My eyes danced between him and the ornament until his words ran together, muffling as if underwater. Enunciate, I wanted to tell him—we had that kind of relationship—but my mouth was the driest sand. My heart raced as needling ripples spread across my palm, tiny pinpricks followed by pulsating heat.

My classmates watched Mr. Pomey, oblivious to my discomfort as the scarab’s shine amplified to painful brilliance, its blue like gleaming waves crashing overtop each other. And in this blazing sheen