Page 39

CHAPTER 38

THURSDAY AFTERNOON, WHEN he’s supposed to be working the speed trap out on Highway 20, Chester is instead stomping up the steps to Kokanee Creek High School. The secretary wouldn’t tell him what the matter was when she called. Just said: If you can just come to the office, Chief Greene. Mrs. Simon wants to speak to you.

What is it this time? he’s thinking as his boots ring down the hallway. He’s expecting the worst, of course. Holo biting and drawing blood. Kai ambushing someone in the hall. The two of them jumping a kid who made the mistake of insulting wolves.

Chester’s seen how strong Kai is, and Holo’s probably not much weaker. But if they hurt someone, whose fault is it really? Theirs—or his, for sending them to a place where everyone knows they don’t belong?

He strides down the long hallway to the office, cursing himself for his stupidity. Why did he ever think this would work?

The secretary, Suzy Garcia, waves him toward the principal’s door.

Kai and Holo are already in the office. Holo looks confused. Kai looks defiant. Chester’s jaw clenches.

We had an agreement , he thinks, feeling the fury growing inside him. No acting like animals!

He turns to Mrs. Simon. He’s angry at her, too. Hasn’t she dealt with unruly kids before? Can’t she handle these two for a measly six hours without calling him in to deal with whatever mess they’ve made?

“What’d they do?” he demands. He just wants to get this over with.

Instead of answering, Mrs. Simon hands him a piece of paper. Chester takes it, but he doesn’t know what he’s looking at. There are rows of numbers and percentages and graphs. He sees a lot of 99s.

“What the hell is this?” he asks.

“I’ll ask you not to curse,” Mrs. Simon says prissily. “It sets a bad example.”

Chester supremely resents being told what to do. But he reminds himself that he needs to be civil to this woman; he’s the one who handed her these two feral kids. With exaggerated politeness, he sets the paper back on her desk. “Sorry, what the heck is this?”

Mrs. Simon slides it into a folder on her desk. “We had state-mandated testing last week,” she says. “Kai and Holo’s scores were… surprising.”

“Look,” he says, “you know they haven’t been in school before now. They’re smart kids—they’ll catch up. You just have to give them a chance.”

Mrs. Simon gives him a thin-lipped smile. “That’s not the kind of surprising I’m talking about, Chief Greene. What I mean is, their scores blew everyone else’s away.”

Chester’s first feeling is disbelief. It’s quickly followed by chest-swelling pride. Their scores blew everyone else’s away!

Maybe he shouldn’t feel this way—they aren’t his kids—but right now he’s as proud of them as he would be if he had raised them up himself. “Well,” he says gruffly, “that is surprising.”

“Thanks a lot,” Kai grumbles. “I guess you thought we were stupid or something.”

“Because we’re not,” Holo says. “We know all kinds of things. You think Spanish is hard? We had to learn to speak Wolf .”

Mrs. Simon tucks the test scores into her desk. “Though they still struggle with appropriate behaviors, Kai and Holo are excellent students. They remember everything. And they’ve clearly been educated by…”—here she glances over at the sullen-looking teenagers—“ someone .”

“Or some thing ,” Kai mutters.

“How do you do it?” Chester asks them.

Kai looks up at him, her expression resentful. Her mood’s been dark ever since the visit to Hardy’s farm. “Are you asking how we live up to this school’s low expectations?” she says. “It’s simple. We don’t have our faces in our phones all the time. We pay attention. We listen. It’s what we’ve always done.”

“I think they were homeschooled,” Mrs. Simon says over Kai’s head.

Kai rolls her eyes.

“We were woods-schooled,” Holo retorts. He grabs a Rubik’s Cube from Mrs. Simon’s desk and starts twisting it around. “Wolf-schooled. World-schooled.”

Mrs. Simon looks for a second like she’s going to scold him, but then she turns to Chester. “I’m sure it’s challenging, taking care of these two,” she says. “But they’re doing much better than I ever would have expected.”

“Again,” Kai says bitterly, “thanks a lot.”

“I’m very proud of them,” Mrs. Simon goes on, ignoring her. “It’s seeing improvement like this that keeps me coming back to this job.”

Chester smiles at Kai and Holo. “Good job, you two,” he says gruffly.

Holo grins back. Kai doesn’t. But Chester could swear he sees the tiniest hint of a gleam in her eye. Maybe she’s not quite as hard as she pretends to be , he thinks. That wouldn’t be a bad thing.