Alive and Well in Prague, New York Chapter One "Okay, honey, this is it!" My mother's voice rang with false cheer, too loud inside the little Honda she was still figuring out how to drive. She hit the brakes and the car slid slightly on the wet pavement. I grabbed at the door for safety but accidentally opened it. Rain sprayed in, splashing on my dress. "Damn," I muttered, slamming the door. I wasn't used to being a passenger any more than she was used to driving. "Even the weather here sucks." "It did rain back home, too, sweetie," she said. Her hands played absently with the silk scarf looped around her neck. She plucked at one of the splatters of paint that stuck to its fringe. "I know the first day is hard, but I'm sure you'll make friends fast." I pulled a napkin out of the glove box and began blotting my dress. "I can't even say the name of the stupid school." I glanced out the window, through the gloomy wet, to the blue letters on top of the ugly brick building: Miloslsv High. "I'm sure there's a great story about how the school got such an unusual name," she said. I snorted. "Seriously, honey! I bet you'll come home laughing about it." "Yeah, that's what's gonna happen," I muttered. I crumpled the napkin and put it back in the glove compartment. "Matisse, small-town living might surprise you. There really is a lot happening here." "What, is there a gallery opening I missed in the Prague Post ?" "Well, it's what Dad needs right now," she said. I looked down at the water stains on my dress as silence filled the car. I willed my mom not to make this morning worse by reminding me of the real reason we'd moved here. I didn't need to think about that before my first day at the lamest high school in existence. "You knowâ€"" she started. I grabbed the messenger bag at my feet and snatched the black umbrella lying next to it. "I'm out of here," I said, opening the door and trying to push open the umbrella to protect myself from the downpour. I succeeded only in poking my cheek and spraying water into the car. "I'll walk home," I said as I shut the door. Her "'Bye, sweetie" was muffled by the rain pelting down around me. I took baby steps up the path toward the main entrance, trying to keep my shoes dry. For the millionth time I considered the terrible irony of moving to Prague, a town named after one of the coolest cities in the world, yet pretty much the most pathetic place I'd been to in my entire life. I still couldn't believe my parents had chosen to leave our home in New York City to live here. We'd been in Prague three weeks and I still kept expecting to wake up in our condo on West Seventy-Eighth Street, with the best movies, restaurants, museums, and galleries a short subway ride away. Instead I woke up to the thrilling possibility of seeing one of the two second-run movies playing in town or eating at the local pizza place, where they didn't even have sun-dried tomatoes as a topping. And the nearest museums and galleries were back home in New York City, about four hours away. It was like moving from downtown paradise to the suburbs of hell. Once I got inside the cramped school lobby, I shook out my umbrella. The walls were a pukey shade of green, and the dim fluorescent lights made me feel like I was stuck in a warehouse. My old school, Upper West Side Friends, was in a gorgeous brownstone, with a big fireplace in the lobby and couches where we hung out before school. You know things are bad when you long for a school lobby. Around me girls shrieked and guys slapped one another on the back. People glanced at me as I strode past. I heard a girl mutter, "Nice dress," and then laugh with her little group of friends. My black vintage Jackie O style was nice; much too nice to be appreciated in this dump. I turned a corner and was practically trampled by a hefty blond hick wearing overalls. He looked like he belonged in a performance of Oklahoma ! "Sorry! Hi there," he called, as he clomped past me, his thick hair sticking out absurdly. I made a wrong turn but finally managed to find my locker. A girl next to me with perfectly curled hair was standing in front of her open locker. I noticed she was taping up pictures of girls with their arms around one another and guys in football gear. She secured the last one, slammed her locker shut, and then caught sight of me. "Hello there," she chirped, bouncing slightly on her toes. "You're the new girl. We haven't had one of those in a while. I'm Sherry. Welcome!" She paused, then skipped off down the hall, leaving a cloud of perfume behind. I sighed as I set my stuff inside my tiny puke-green locker. It was going to be a long day. Sure enough, by sixth period I felt like I'd been locked in Miloswhatever High for half my life. I dragged myself into the art room and sat at the only empty table, a flimsy, paint-splattered contraption that teetered when I put my bag on it. The teacher was a plump woman with frizzy curls. She hugged a few kids before walking to the desk to call roll, another quaint tradition we didn't have at Friends. When she got to my name, instead of tripping over it like my other teachers today had, she looked up and gave me a big smile. "Matisse, what a beautiful name! Did you know there's a famous artist with that name?" Obviously I knew thatâ€"I was named after him! And if she'd had any shred of art knowledge, she would've been more impressed by my last name. Osgood was a name that sent art lovers across the world into a frenzy. But it blew right past this woman, who was still smiling at me. Alive and Well in Prague, New York . Copyright © by Daphne Grab . Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Alive and Well in Prague, New York by Daphne Grab All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. 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