When You Believe by Deborah Bedford Read Free Book Online

inappropriate happened between you and your student, Charlie?” She had never meant to take it this far. She
     had only meant to feel him out before she went to the principal.
    He pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers and stared at her in disbelief. “Why would you even ask that?”
    “Because she says it has.”
    His body reacted first. He straightened, arched his spine, as if the shock coursed through him like electricity. “What?”
    “You heard what I said.”
    “She’s accusing me?”
    “Yes.”
    She could see he wanted to pound something. He wheeled away, slapped a row of lockers, then hung his head. He did a hard,
     Army-style pushup against the wall.
    Slowly, as if it was all he could do to contain his anger, he turned toward her. He stood with his chin raised and his jaw
     square. He threw words as if he was throwing dirt clods in her direction. “If she told you that, she’s lying.”
    Yes,
yes
.
Oh, yes, I know.
Of course I know she is.
    “I shouldn’t be worried, should I, Lyddie? This isn’t going to be a problem, is it? She’s just some messed-up kid.”
    “There are a lot of people who might not think she’s messed up at all.”
    “Well,” he asked without missing a beat. “Do you?”
    Her chin jerked up. She stared at him.
    “Oh, Charlie.”
    This time he did hit the wall, leaning hard against the flats of his hands. He held the flex as if he could shove all of his
     anger and frustration into the wall of the school.
    Oh please do something better than that,
she wanted to beg him.
Say something that will make it easy for me to stop this right here.

CHAPTER FOUR

    Lydia eased open the door to Mrs. Brubaker’s second-period advanced-algebra class that Wednesday morning. Through the crack
     she could hear chalk clicking fervently on the blackboard. “In this case—”
Tap tap tap
went the chalk. “—
degree
refers to the largest exponent of the variables in a polynomial. For example, if the largest exponent of the variable is
     3, as in Ax-cubed plus Bx-squared plus Cx, the polynomial is of degree 3.”
    Sunlight blazed in through the windows. Rows of students slumped at haphazard angles in their seats, the full weight of their
     chins propped on their elbows. Whitney Allen, the captain of the Rattler-Den dance team, focused her complete attention on
     the ribbon dangling from one hank of her hair. Behind Whitney, Adam Buttars drummed his yellow No. 2 pencil against the open
     pages of his textbook. With sleight of hand, Cassie Meade slipped a note across the aisle to Will Devine. Will socked it away
     with a magician’s stealth and dexterity.
    “There you have it,” the teacher said to the chalkboard. “When you have x to the n plus x to the n-minus-1 plus x to the n-minus-2,
     the equation is of degree n. Any questions about that?” Followed by a dull, unresponsive silence.
    Lydia waited a full twenty seconds before she whispered “Knock, knock” and poked her head inside the door. In a hushed voice,
     “You mind if I interrupt?”
    The chalk rolled into the tray. “No problem.” Judy Brubaker straightened and dusted off her hands.
    “I need to see one of your kids in the counseling office. You mind?”
    The algebra teacher pulled open a drawer, took out a stack of peel-off hall passes. “Which one?”
    “Shelby Tatum.”
    “I’m afraid I can’t do that.” Judy dropped the pad of passes inside the drawer again and Lydia’s heart plummeted to her toes.
     “That one came through as an unexcused absence this morning.”
    “I see.”
    “Sorry. No Shelby today.”
    Lydia hurried back down the hall to the office, her sandals making a rapid
ker-snap ker-snap
on the floor. “We don’t have an excused absence for Tatum?” she asked as she passed the first row of metal workstations.
    Someone called after her, “Nothing from a parent yet.”
    Lydia headed straight for the multi-use file cabinet in Mayhem Central, which is what the teachers called the