The Healing Power of Sugar: The Ghost Bird Series: #9 (The Academy Ghost Bird Series) (41 page)

I lifted my hands up, motioning toward the road. “He put the masks on your house, right?”

“He said he did,” Kota said.

“And then again? The second time?”

“I don’t have confirmation on that.”

“But…” I fought my brain for the connections I’d made before. “He left his phone at his house, hidden, and took another one with him. He said it was an Academy job and it wasn’t.”

“And Mr. Blackbourne asked him about it,” Kota said. “He said he wanted to be alone. He was dealing with…something.”

I pressed my lips together. “What did he say?”

“That it was personal.” He came toward me and put a palm on top of my head as he looked at me. “Sang, he’s not Volto. He got knocked out at Victor’s house.”

“By Muriel,” I said. “He could have been…” I paused, questioning my own suspicions, my thin evidence. There were a whole lot of accusations, and I was trying to pick out the clearest evidence that would support what I was thinking. Even when I hoped it wasn’t true.

Kota shook his head harder this time. “And he was accounted for when you were kidnapped.”

I quieted, unable to account for that. Maybe there was an explanation but I hadn’t had time to think on it. “He’s just…”

“Been acting strangely?”

I breathed in deeply, another nod. “Yeah. And there’s…circumstances.”

“Weren’t there circumstances as to why you got suspension?” Kota asked.

I took a step back, surprised he would bring this up now. “What?”

“When Ms. Wright looked at your records and accused you of skipping classes, why didn’t you tell her the reasons you had for not being there? You didn’t go into much detail.”

“Because…of the Academy stuff, and…”

“Sang,” he said, his lips moving up in a sympathetic smile and his eyes brightening. “Don’t you see? Of course it looks to you like there’s something funny going on. He
is
acting strangely. You’ve been acting oddly, too. Ms. Wright saw a girl who was absent from class, who never even tried to defend herself as to why she was gone. Well, you did defend a bit, but you offered nothing to her that would have explained yourself. What conclusion could she have had except to think you were skipping?”

“Yeah…”

“So if Luke seems like he’s doing something funny, should we go around accusing him? Or find out what’s the truth is? There’s probably some very reasonable explanation.”

I knew the answer to that. “Shouldn’t we do that now?”

“Maybe not,” Kota said. He came forward kissed the top of my head, and guided me toward the door. “I’ll let Mr. Blackbourne know he seemed upset, but for now, maybe we should give him a break. Okay?”

It had to be enough for now. I felt terrible for talking about Luke in such a way. I wasn’t sure he knew my thoughts about him being Volto, but it was clear he had been interrogated about what had happened. After the week he’d had of being yelled at by North, maybe he’d simply had enough.

For the rest of the day, I did what they needed me to, though quietly. No one said a word about Luke to me. Either Kota kept it to himself, or the others weren’t going to talk to me about it.

It didn’t alleviate the guilt or the questions I had about Luke. It sounded like Luke had been asked by some of the others about his actions. He didn’t answer us directly, he simply ran off.

What was he hiding?

UNPREDICTED

B
y Monday morning, I was so tired, I was sure I got dressed, ate a quick breakfast and got into Kota’s car without ever opening my eyes.

It was my first day on a new schedule, at least until Mr. Blackbourne could figure out how to change it again without creating more problems.

I was told by Kota that Mr. Blackbourne would follow me via the cameras for the day and that someone would always be there to meet me at the end of each class and escort me to the next.

From this point on, I had to attend every class, every day.

Mr. Hendricks supposedly would be in today to continue his scheme to draw attention away from himself. Kota suspected it was his exit plan, that Mr. Hendricks would wait until someone looked like he was going to jail or at least close, and then scoot out of town.

That was the theory, anyway. Mr. Blackbourne and the others planted some false dirt for Mr. Morris to hand over to Mr. Hendricks. They wouldn’t tell me what it was and I suspected not all of them were made aware of exactly what it was.

We returned to school Monday morning. Anticipation weighed on me. The boys put their uniforms back on this time. They hadn’t gotten together to discuss what to do about uniforms, so the consensus was to simply continue to wear them.

When we passed people by walking in the hallways, I was alert, focusing on everyone, and no one. I passed by familiar faces. Karen waved quietly to me from across the hall. I spotted Jay talking with someone I didn’t know.

I stopped to look at Jay, wondering if I should go talk to him.

Kota squeezed my hand and tugged me along. He seemed aware of what I intended and then quietly was telling me not to.

Maybe he was right. I wasn’t really awake yet. Confronting anyone at this point probably wasn’t something I personally should be doing.

During the morning wait for homeroom, I was leaning against Silas, the only one of the boys I was safe to lean against during school hours. He held me up while I rested my head against his arm. He and Nathan were surprised they hadn’t gained any weight from the Thanksgiving food, while Kota tried to explain thermodynamics and why they likely hadn’t gained any actual fat.

I wasn’t really listening to them, my mind focused only on trying to follow the new schedule. I tried memorizing it, but then two minutes later after I put the paper away, had to pull it back out when I realized I couldn’t remember where to go after English.

Too much stress over the weekend.

Luke was there, too, although he was quiet. I looked for signs that he knew what I’d said about him to Kota, but he gave no indication of it.

During homeroom, I put my head down on my desk. What felt like two minutes later, Luke was nudging me awake.

“You okay?” he asked. “You look pale.”

I nodded, thinking I was simply stressed and overtired. “Just tired. Maybe a little anxious about the new classes,” I said.

“Don’t be.” He grabbed my book bag for me and he and North walked with me toward class. “Don’t even worry about it. Your teachers won’t know what to do with you, and will try to simply get you to join in where they are. You might have slightly different reading and assignments. We’ll catch you up. Collect what you need. Kota will sort it out after school.”

I appreciated him talking so nicely to me. I wanted to talk to him about yesterday, but I didn’t want to get into it right now.

I tried to pretend that homework was all I was worried about. I followed the boys outside to walk along the path toward the trailers, and to our English class. Luckily this one I shared with them hadn’t changed. Unfortunately, I was still tired and out of it. Maybe I needed another coffee. The one I’d had this morning didn’t seem to be working.

Ms. Johnson asked everyone to split up into different groups, except she chose the groups. “You all seem to pick the same two or three people every time. Let’s change it up a bit.”

Groans erupted from the students that we didn’t get to pick our own groups, but that didn’t change her mind. She counted off teams. I ended up in a group of mostly girls.

There were eyeballs on me, but I was too tired to care.

“Suspension,” was whispered among a few of them.

Maybe it was because it was all four of us that had been gone: Me, Kota, Luke and Gabriel. Was Ms. Johnson notified I’d been stuck in suspension? Would she have told the class?

What did it matter to them?

Everyone got to work. For a while, I just listened to my group debate how they were going to do the project. I had my head propped up in my hand, looking over the material of some old American short story, pretending to read it.

Suddenly, during the discussion, my stomach rumbled and twisted. I sat up carefully, examining what I was feeling. Were my nerves getting to me? I needed to calm down, to listen to the others and not worry.

Minutes creeped on. The girls talked, still debating on what they were going to do and how they were going to divide up the work. I pretended to be listening, but I began to sweat. Why was it so hot in the classroom? I took off my jacket, needing to feel something cold against my skin.

I sank down, resting my head against the desk. It was cool to the touch but it wasn’t enough.

“Sang,” someone called.

I picked up my head slowly, looking over my shoulder.

It was Gabriel, looking upset and concerned.

My next focus was at Kota on the other side of the room. He had stood up to look at me over the heads between us. I didn’t see anyone else. I didn’t even care that they were all staring. I was wondering why they wanted my attention. Had something happened?

Kota focused right at my eyes.

I didn’t remember the next moment until later, and even then it felt like a hazy dream. Kota was flying over desktops, rushing right over to me.

“Kota Lee,” Ms. Johnson called in a stern voice. “What are you doing?”

Kota ignored her and put a cool palm across my neck. “Sang,” he said in a soft tone, and then urged me to stand up, supporting me under my elbow. “Why didn’t you tell anyone you were feeling sick?”

Sick? Oh. I’d thought I was just hot and nervous and overtired. Did I have a fever? And how had he known from that distance? I wanted to ask him to check and make sure.

It took a lot of effort to get my muscles to move to allow me to stand up. I wanted to sink to the floor and take a nap.

“What’s wrong?” Ms. Johnson asked.

Kota turned to her with a soft smile and reassurance in his voice. “It’s no problem, Ms. Johnson. Looks like she’s sick. I may have to take her home; I’m her ride.”

Ms. Johnson frowned. “Do you need to take her to the office to call her parents?”

“Her dad’s out of town on business,” Kota said. “And her mom’s in the hospital.” He tightened his hand on my arm. “I’ll come back to school. Just let me drop her off at home. She probably has the flu. It’s been going around.”

Ms. Johnson conceded, asking him to check in with the nurse before leaving school. Some of the kids moved away as I moved past, making comments about not wanting to get sick.

Kota grabbed my jacket and assisted me toward the door, leaving behind our bags. “Don’t worry about them,” he said. “Gabriel will get them. I’ve got my keys. Let’s go.”

Out in the cold air, I felt better, at least not as hot. I didn’t even need the jacket. When he tried to put it around my shoulders, I waved it off. “I don’t want it,” I said.

“I’d say you should,” he said, “but it is probably better you cool your body off a little.” He kept a hand on my back, walking me toward the school. “Sweetheart, why didn’t you tell anyone you weren’t feeling well?”

“I didn’t know,” I said quietly. “I just thought I was hot. And nervous about the new schedule. And tired...” I moaned, stumbling a bit but catching myself. “I really shouldn’t leave. She said if I was absent one more day...”

“You can’t be at school with a fever,” he said. “I’m hoping it’s the flu and not something worse.”

I didn’t even want to know what he thought worse was. I should have been more concerned with staying, but then I started shivering, my body suddenly too cold.

Kota stopped just before we reached the doors to go inside the school. He held me by my upper arms for a minute, looking me over. “You okay?” he asked. “Are you going to make it?”

It wasn’t like I had much of a choice. I couldn’t just sit down on the concrete sidewalk, as tempting as it was. For a second, I wondered if Ms. Wright would allow me to sit in suspension again. At least there I might get away with a nap and my body would be in a seat like she wanted.

Maybe I’d spend forever in suspension. That seemed reasonable at that moment.

Kota held open the door for us to get through, but the moment we were inside, he let the door go and swiftly picked me up.

My head spun at the movement and I held on tighter to him. “Kota...”

“You looked like you were going to fall over,” he said. “Let me take you to the car.”

“We should go to the nurse.” I tried to release my grip, hoping it would worry him less. “I can let her take my temperature and write a note. Ms. Wright will call the school board if I don’t do things right.”

He sighed and changed direction. Would he have really just left school without letting anyone know?

It seemed like Kota took forever to get to the nurse’s office. I wanted to suggest I could walk, as it was a short distance from where we were, but I was so tired...

He did let me go right outside the office’s front door, although he held on around my waist. “Maybe I’ll leave you with her,” he said. “And bring the car around closer. I’ll get someone to come stand by close while I’m gone.”

I couldn’t imagine who might do that, except for maybe Dr. Green or Mr. Blackbourne. Everyone else was still in class.

The nurse was busy checking the temperature of another student when we walked in. She took one look at me and then nodded curtly before returning to the other student. “You see that?” she said to her. “
That’s
a sick girl. I can tell already without taking her temperature. You’ll have to come in looking like that to fool me into thinking you’re sick.”

“I didn’t say I had a temperature,” the girl said, frowning as she looked at me, her hands pressed to her belly. “I...my stomach hurts. Cramping.”

“Then I’ve got Midol and a cot for fifteen minutes.
Fifteen
minutes only, you understand?” She shook a finger at the girl. “Your face is way too familiar to me for me to fall for this again and again. And don’t think you can fuss at your male teachers like last time. Periods are not your vagina ripping out of your body. And believe me, if you had endometriosis, you wouldn’t be standing, let alone sitting around, able to complain about it. The other thousand girl students at this school manage to get to school without incident.” The nurse turned to us.