Burn(24)

“Did Jason Inagawa lay a hand on you?” he asked.

“No!” she said, startled into making her voice loud. “He would never!”

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed you two. That you’re clearly more than just friends.”

“Dad, I swear to you—”

“If he hurt you, I would kill him.”

She knew he would. Knew it. Not in the way people say they would kill other people all the time. Seeing her father standing there, right this moment, his body tensed and somehow buzzing with an energy only amplified by his stillness, she knew. He really would kill Jason Inagawa. Or anyone else who dared harm his daughter. This knowledge was surprisingly frightening.

“He would never hurt me, Dad, not in a million years.”

Another few breaths, then the energy was lessened. Not gone, never gone, but less. “I’m not complaining if you two are more than . . . whatever. I’d be the last person telling you that.” Then, more quietly, “If not for the pain I know the world will give you for it.” He looked up at her again. “But he’s not laying hands on you?”

“I swear it. Do you really think I’d ever put up with that?”

He frowned. “No. No, I guess you wouldn’t.”

“I fell, Dad, that’s all.”

“You fell.”

“Yes.”

He walked quietly over to pick up his hat as a prelude to heading out to his farm work. “I wonder where, though,” he said, then left before she could answer him.

“Why did he let me lie?” Sarah asked Jason, finally back in school, in the library again. He had no injury, so he’d had to go back the very next day, pretending nothing was wrong.

“We have bigger things to worry about,” Jason whispered back.

“Is your dad being weird, too?”

Jason shook his head. “No one saw the shirt but . . .” He closed his eyes, took a deep, nervous breath. “I’m going freaky with this, Sarah.”

“It wasn’t your fault—”

“Who cares about fault? I shot him. And then your dragon—”

“Lower your voice—”

“Your dragon,” in a fiercer whisper, “ate him.”

“I don’t understand it either. I still haven’t been able to talk to him.”

“What are we supposed to do, Sarah? Lopez is going to run out of people who didn’t kill Kelby and then where is he going to start looking?”

She glanced around the library. As usual, they were pretty much the only two students in it, aside from Claudia Caswell, who would pull out her own hair and eat it if she didn’t have a book in her sticky fingers. And Miss Archer was . . . Miss Archer was there a minute ago.

Sarah turned back to Jason. “We could tell the truth.”

Jason rolled his eyes, as he did every time she brought it up. “A dark-skinned girl and a Japanese boy accidentally kill a policeman who is then just conveniently eaten by a dragon, who will almost certainly deny everything—”

“We don’t know that—”

“We’d be strung up before we ever even got arrested.”

“This isn’t Mississippi—”

“It’s not a bomb,” Miss Archer said, slapping a newspaper down between them. Sarah was so startled she cried out, causing Miss Archer’s already supercilious eyebrows to rise even farther. “You all right, Sarah?”

“Just . . . You startled me.”

“It’s not a bomb,” Miss Archer said again. “It’s worse.”

“What’s not a bomb?” Sarah said, still shaken.

Miss Archer tapped the newspaper. “The Soviets. It’s a satellite.”

“A what?”

“A machine that orbits the planet. Sends radio waves.” She slowed down for emphasis. “Takes pictures.”

At this, Jason finally looked up. “They’re going to spy on us.”

“What else? They’re going to be able to look right down at us. Any time.”

Sarah and Jason shared a look.

“Eisenhower won’t stand for it,” Jason said.

“And they won’t stand for Eisenhower not standing for it,” Miss Archer said, biting her lip with worry. “And that’s how war begins.” She saw Sarah looking aghast and immediately changed the subject. “How’s the jaw?”

“Sore. But not broken.”

“Count yourself lucky. I had an aunt who broke her jaw and had to have it wired shut. She could only drink soup for three months.” Miss Archer got a dreamy look. “Though she did lose thirty pounds.”

“Will there really be a war?” Jason asked, still looking at the paper.

“I hope not,” Miss Archer said, in a serious voice, which it turned out wasn’t the answer Sarah wanted to hear.

“You should ask him about the satellite,” Jason said as they walked home. “Dragons aren’t going to like being spied on either.”

“I told you, I can’t get near him.”

“I would believe that if you were an idiot, Sarah, but you’re not and we both know it.”

This backhanded compliment made her blush, which in turn made her angry. “Why would he even know?”