Peanut Goes to School (Elder Races #6.7)(13)

Doreen Chambers walked around her desk, hand outstretched to Dragos. She said, “Lord and Lady Cuelebre, this is Liam’s teacher, Elora Teaberry. I owe all of you a profound apology. You see, we have a policy that children aren’t allowed to have cell phones at school. . . . And with everything involved with the start of the school year, I simply forgot to tell Elora that we would make an exception in Liam’s case.”

Dragos ignored the principal’s outstretched hand. Instead, he focused on Liam’s teacher. Not only had her expression changed, but she was starting to smell nervous too.

On its own, that wouldn’t be enough to pique his interest, because people smelled nervous around him all the time. However, when he combined her nervousness with Liam’s upset, he didn’t like the picture that was starting to emerge.

Elora Teaberry’s chin came up. “Mr. and Mrs. Cuelebre,” she said stiffly. “Had I been told that your son would be in my class, things might have gone very differently. As it was, I insisted he give me his cell phone, and he growled and snapped at me. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that this is not acceptable or safe behavior—”

Tuning her out, Dragos turned to Pia and Liam. Whispering soft words of comfort, Pia squatted by Liam’s chair. His head lowered, Liam turned in his chair to lean toward her. Pia slipped an arm around him, cupped his shoulder and squeezed.

With an indrawn hiss and a grimace, Liam pulled away from her hug, and everything in the room changed drastically.

Frowning, Pia asked him sharply, “What’s the matter, sweetheart—are you hurt anywhere?”

Liam muttered, “Not really. It’s okay.”

Pia’s eyes flashed to Dragos. Shifting so that she crouched in front of Liam and blocked him from the rest of the room, she went silent. Liam looked at her, nodded then shook his head. They had gone telepathic. She eased the neckline of his shirt to one side to reveal bruises in the shape of fingermarks on one slim shoulder.

“Oh my God,” said the principal, blanching.

Dragos’s silent snarl turned audible. Pia whirled to face Elora Teaberry, her expression blazing with incredulous rage. “You put your hands on him. You shook him?”

The teacher’s nervousness turned to outright fear, and her gaze darted around the room. “Everything I did was in self-defense. Your son snarled at me—he acted like he would bite me. He had partially shapeshifted, and he had claws and teeth—”

Liam said in a clear, strong voice, “You’re a liar. You’re lying.”

Sliding out of his chair, he stood beside Pia’s crouching figure and put his arm around her. To Dragos’s eyes, it looked like a protective stance. Liam was guarding his mother.

Reining in his own rage so that he could at least appear calm, Dragos asked Liam, “What really happened?”

Liam said, “Well, first she said, you couldn’t have read all those books, you’re a liar. And I said, I did too read them, but she never asked me about learning methodology or first-grade literacy, or anything about what was really in the books. Then she said, it’s against the rules to have a cell phone, so you give it to me right now, young man, and I said no, I can’t do that, it’s against the rules. So she grabbed me, and I tried to fight her off, and she shook me, and that’s when I got toothy, and she said, Don’t you dare bite me, you little animal.” He was breathing hard, and his eyes flashed with dark violet fire. “And she got my phone out of my pocket, so I said, give it back. And she gave it back. That’s when I called you.”

When he finished, a stark silence fell as everyone stared at Elora Teaberry, who stood with her back pressed against the wall. “That’s not what happened,” she said faintly. “He growled first. He snapped at me. He thought the rules didn’t apply to him!”

Dragos could hear the lie in her voice. It was so apparent he felt sure the other two women could hear it too.

The principal’s expression was appalled, while Pia looked more murderous than Dragos had ever seen her, and he knew fully well that he had the teacher’s death stamped in the lines of his own face.

“This is so far beyond anything appropriate or acceptable, I have no words,” breathed the principal.

“Well, you’d better come up with a few,” Pia snarled as she surged to her feet. “And ‘I’m so desperately sorry’ and ‘We’re going to press charges’ better be some of the first words out of your mouth.”

It was so charming how Pia’s thinking went straight to the justice system, while he thought of things like vivisection and dismemberment.

Dragos’s gaze dropped to Liam. Now that he had told his story, the boy looked completely calm, even analytical, as he regarded Elora Teaberry. He had stopped shaking, and all signs of his previous upset had vanished.

What was going on in that brilliant, unpredictable, dangerous young mind of his?

Dragos decided to find out. He asked telepathically, What do you think should happen to Mrs. Teaberry?

Liam’s gaze lifted to his. Other kids warned me she would be mean. I want to know if she’s hurt anybody else.

Dragos lifted his eyebrows. That’s an excellent point, he said. I think we should find out, and if she has, we need to contact those children’s parents.

Liam nodded. He had slipped his arm around Pia’s waist, and he leaned against her again. His expression was serious. We need to make sure those kids are okay.