He stroked Liam’s bright, silken hair. Good boy.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Liam said aloud. He looked up at his mom and gave her a crooked grin. “I’ve got a girlfriend.”
Dragos wished he could have taken a photo of that moment, because the look on Pia’s face was priceless.
Maybe things didn’t completely and totally suck after all.
A couple of the guards who had been watching over the school with Hugh came to take Mrs. Teaberry away, but not before Dad stood in the corner with her for a long time in silence. Liam never found out what Dad said to her, but whatever it was, it turned her skin pasty white and made her hands shake.
Briefly, Liam thought he might feel bad about that, but then he didn’t. Sorry, not sorry.
After the guards took Mrs. Teaberry out of the room, Mom, Dad, Mrs. Chambers and he talked. Mom asked, “How do you feel about school now?”
“I like it!” he told her. It had been a busy first day, and going undercover was every bit as interesting as he thought it would be.
“Do you want to come back tomorrow?” Mom watched him closely.
“Yeah. Does that mean I get a new teacher?”
“It absolutely does,” Dad said.
The adults talked for a while, and Liam lost interest. He wandered over to the bookcases that Mrs. Chambers had in her office, and he read a couple of books until they were finished. Mrs. Chambers said, “There’ll be a substitute teacher in his class until I can hire someone else. Again, I can’t tell you how sorry I am that this happened. Elora worked here for years, and I never heard a whisper of anything like this before.”
Liam sneaked a look at Mom, who didn’t look mollified. Her face set, she said, “Sometimes you only hear whispers if you listen for them well enough.”
At that, Mrs. Chambers looked both terribly apologetic and rather offended, which Liam thought was a pretty hard expression to pull off. But she must have thought Mom had a point, because she didn’t say anything.
Soon afterward, they left. Liam would have rather gone back into class, but Mom and Dad decided he’d had enough for one day. Outside, Eva leaned against the bumper of an SUV. Dad held out his hand, and Eva tossed the keys at him.
Dad said, “Thanks. Find your own way home, okay?”
“You got it,” Eva said.
“I’m going to ride in the back with Liam,” Mom said.
Dad smiled at them. “Good idea.”
While he wouldn’t have thought to ask for it, Liam was glad she did. They rode for a while quietly, and when he sneaked his hand into Mom’s, she closed her fingers around his tightly.
Suddenly, she burst out, “I want to punch her evil, lying face.”
Liam caught a flash of hot gold as Dad looked at them, narrow-eyed, in the rearview mirror. Dad said, completely seriously, “I can make that happen.”
It wasn’t really funny, and yet somehow it was. He burst out laughing, and after a few moments Mom and Dad laughed too. Mom raised his hand and kissed it. He wiggled sideways in his seat belt so he could lay his head on her shoulder, and in that moment, he felt completely happy.
She said, “I’m so sorry you ever had to go through that, but especially on your first day.”
“I’m not,” he told her.
She turned to him with a look of surprise. “Really?”
“Yeah. I mean, she made me mad and she sort of scared me for a few minutes, but it didn’t last long, and she shouldn’t be a teacher.”
“Out of the mouth of babes,” said Dad.
“What do you want for supper?” Mom asked him.
He replied, “Lots and lots of spaghetti. I’m starving.”
She chuckled. “Dad and I might eat something else, but you can have spaghetti every night this week if you want.”
So, in fact, everything turned out to be almost perfect.
Almost.
That night he ate so much spaghetti, Mom said he was in danger of turning into a big noodle, which made him laugh so hard, he fell out of his chair. The rest of the school week went well. The substitute teacher was wonderful, a smart and nice man named Mr. Huddleston. After a few days, Principal Chambers came into the classroom to announce that Mr. Huddleston would be their permanent teacher, and all the kids cheered.
Dad told him Mrs. Teaberry went to jail. It turned out she had been mean to other kids, and Dad said that lots of parents were pressing charges. Andrew, Brad and Joel stayed quiet at recess, and they left all the other kids alone.
Mom contacted Marika’s and Perrin’s parents, and one day, they came over for a playdate after school.
Liam had an awesome time. Perrin was an odd, nervous little nerd of a boy, but after he relaxed, he shouted and charged around with every bit as much energy as Marika did. They explored the woods behind the house and played pirates until the sun went down and the other kids had to go home.
So actually life could hardly have been better, except for one thing that weighed and weighed on his mind, until finally, on Friday evening, he couldn’t take it any longer.
After supper, he and Mom made vegan rice crispy treats and together they ate the whole batch. Then, when Mom went upstairs to take a bath, he went in search of Dad and found him reading one of his history books in the library.
Liam wandered over to hang on the arm of his chair. Dad looked at him over the edge of his book. “Something on your mind?”
“Yeah. Maybe.” Liam couldn’t look into his dad’s keen gaze, and he bent his head as he asked, “Can I talk to you in private?”
Dad glanced around the library, but instead of pointing out that the room was already empty except for them, after a moment he said, “Let’s go for a walk.”
Liam swallowed and nodded.
They went outside.
The sun had just set behind the nearby mountains, but it was still hot and plenty light enough. Overhead, the sky was streaked with rainbow colors. It would be a good evening to go flying, except Liam didn’t feel like it.
Dad led him to the path that went to the lake, and soon they walked along the beach toward the half-completed office complex. It was the one place where Mom never came anymore.
Liam darted a thoughtful, uncertain glance up at Dad’s face. While it was impossible to read Dad’s expression, he felt pretty sure Dad hadn’t picked the location by accident.
He said, experimentally, “I like the lake.”
“I do too,” said Dad. Stopping at a stack of concrete blocks, he sat on the edge of the pile and stretched his long legs out. He gave Liam a sidelong smile. “Don’t worry, Mom will get over it. I think she’ll come down here a lot once the building is completed and people move in. She doesn’t let much hold her down, you know.”
Liam nodded and turned to look out over the water, which reflected the rainbow colors in the sky. The lake blurred as his eyes filled, and his mouth wobbled as he asked, “Am I bad?”
In a very quiet voice, Dad asked, “Now, why would you think to ask such a thing?”
Squatting, he picked up a stick to poke at the ground, mostly to hide the fact that his tears had spilled over. “Last Sunday, when I was playing Spy Wyr, I heard you and Mom talking about how I needed school, so I could learn how to control myself.”
Dad stayed silent a moment. He said, “We were on the balcony. Where were you?”
“I climbed up to the beams u-underneath.”
From the corner of his eye, he watched as Dad closed his eyes briefly and said to himself, “I didn’t sense a damned thing.”
He guessed that meant he’d gotten pretty good at his cloaking spell. Ducking his head, he said, “There were some bad boys at school. I made one of them cry, and I scared the other one pretty good. And I meant to. I . . . liked it. Oh—also, I can breathe fire. Watch.”
Holding the stick to his lips, he concentrated on pulling on his Power as he hissed. Heat boiled out of his mouth, along with a lick of flame, and the stick caught fire.
“That’s something, that is,” said Dad in a soft voice. “Can you put it out?”