CITY OF BONES

“And his arm looked like an eggplant,” Clary muttered to herself in exasperation. The drawing just wasn’t working. With a sigh she tore yet another sheet from her sketchpad, crumpled it up, and tossed it against the orange wall of her bedroom. Already the floor was littered with discarded balls of paper, a sure sign that her creative juices weren’t flowing the way she’d hoped. She wished for the thousandth time that she could be a bit more like her mother. Everything Jocelyn Fray drew, painted, or sketched was beautiful, and seemingly effortless.

Clary pulled her headphones out—cutting off Stepping Razor in midsong—and rubbed her aching temples. It was only then that she became aware that the loud, piercing sound of a ringing telephone was echoing through the apartment. Tossing the sketchpad onto the bed, she jumped to her feet and ran into the living room, where the retro-red phone sat on a table near the front door.

“Is this Clarissa Fray?” The voice on the other end of the phone sounded familiar, though not immediately identifiable.

Clary twirled the phone cord nervously around her finger. “Yeees?”

“Hi, I’m one of the knife-carrying hooligans you met last night in Pandemonium? I’m afraid I made a bad impression and was hoping you’d give me a chance to make it up to—”

“SIMON!” Clary held the phone away from her ear as he cracked up laughing. “That is so not funny!”

“Sure it is. You just don’t see the humor.”

“Jerk.” Clary sighed, leaning up against the wall. “You wouldn’t be laughing if you’d been here when I got home last night.”

“Why not?”

“My mom. She wasn’t happy that we were late. She freaked out. It was messy.”

“What? It’s not our fault there was traffic!” Simon protested. He was the youngest of three children and had a finely honed sense of familial injustice.

“Yeah, well, she doesn’t see it that way. I disappointed her, I let her down, I made her worry, blah blah blah. I am the bane of her existence,” Clary said, mimicking her mother’s precise phrasing with only a slight twinge of guilt.

“So, are you grounded?” Simon asked, a little too loudly. Clary could hear a low rumble of voices behind him: people talking over each other.

“I don’t know yet,” she said. “My mom went out this morning with Luke, and they’re not back yet. Where are you, anyway? Eric’s?”

“Yeah. We just finished up practice.” A cymbal clashed behind Simon. Clary winced. “Eric’s doing a poetry reading over at Java Jones tonight,” Simon went on, naming a coffee shop around the corner from Clary’s that sometimes had live music at night. “The whole band’s going to go to show their support. Want to come?”

“Yeah, all right.” Clary paused, tugging on the phone cord anxiously. “Wait, no.”

“Shut up, guys, will you?” Simon yelled, the faintness of his voice making Clary suspect that he was holding the phone away from his mouth. He was back a second later, sounding troubled. “Was that a yes or a no?”

“I don’t know.” Clary bit her lip. “My mom’s still mad at me about last night. I’m not sure I want to piss her off by asking for any favors. If I’m going to get in trouble, I don’t want it to be on account of Eric’s lousy poetry.”

“Come on, it’s not so bad,” Simon said. Eric was his next-door neighbor, and the two had known each other most of their lives. They weren’t close the way Simon and Clary were, but they had formed a rock band together at the start of sophomore year, along with Eric’s friends Matt and Kirk. They practiced together faithfully in Eric’s parents’ garage every week. “Besides, it’s not a favor,” Simon added, “it’s a poetry slam around the block from your house. It’s not like I’m inviting you to some orgy in Hoboken. Your mom can come along if she wants.”

“ORGY IN HOBOKEN!” Clary heard someone, probably Eric, yell. Another cymbal crashed. She imagined her mother listening to Eric read his poetry, and she shuddered inwardly.

“I don’t know. If all of you show up here, I think she’ll freak.”

“Then I’ll come alone. I’ll pick you up and we can walk over there together, meet the rest of them there. Your mom won’t mind. She loves me.”

Clary had to laugh. “Sign of her questionable taste, if you ask me.”

“Nobody did.” Simon clicked off, amid shouts from his bandmates.

Clary hung up the phone and glanced around the living room. Evidence of her mother’s artistic tendencies was everywhere, from the handmade velvet throw pillows piled on the dark red sofa to the walls hung with Jocelyn’s paintings, carefully framed—landscapes, mostly: the winding streets of downtown Manhattan lit with golden light; scenes of Prospect Park in winter, the gray ponds edged with lacelike films of white ice.