Page 27 of Hilarina and the Ogre

“Then you’re letting us handle it on our own?”

The words alarmed Krinkle like nothing else. “I don’t want any violence.”

Trenton’s look had the man shriveling a little, though it seemed neither had much more to say to the other.

“Come,” Trenton said to Hilary, “we’re done here.”

They spent the rest of the class on the window with the heater. When the bell rang, Trenton took a moment to finish his paragraph, then looked up at Hilary and offered the usual hand out to take his bag. “Ready?”

They were halfway to their place in the parking lot when Trenton got the call, though he made no move toward it until he was nudged to pick it up.

“I’m not going today,” was the way Trenton answered the phone. The boy really needed lessons in human interaction. There was a brief pause, and then, “I don’t know. I’m busy.”

The person on the other end was still trying to speak when Trenton hung up.

Hilary was almost impressed. “That’s got to be the worst thing I’ve ever witnessed.”

“I told you I was rude.”

“Who was that? A friend?”

“Someone from the dojo.”

Dojo. It was a strange word, and one he probably hadn’t heard before in real life. Still, it stirred a vague reminder. “You do martial arts, right?”

“Aikido.”

Hilary didn’t know what that was, but it sounded impressive. “Like kung fu?”

“It’s Japanese.”

“Fancy.”

Trenton’s lips curled a little. “You’re cute.”

That might have flustered him. “Don’t patronize me.”

“I wasn’t.” And he hadn’t been. That was why Hilary was flustered.

He tried to get the conversation back on track. “Have you been skipping out on the dojo, then?” But the answer was obvious. Between work, tutoring, and following him around, Trenton didn’t have time for anything else.

“I can go whenever.”

“Then you should go now,” Hilary decided.

“Is this your way of getting out of math?”

“FUCK math.”

Those lips curled again. “I put both our textbooks in my bag this time just in case of another defenestration,” the boy said.

It was another word Hilary had never heard before, but he wouldn’t give Trenton the satisfaction of asking what it meant. “You shouldn’t skip. If you stop doing something involving physical skill, even for a short time, it becomes hard to—”

“I want to be with you.”

Hilary somehow managed that one without a heart attack. Maybe that was what left him cocky enough to say, “Then I’ll come with.”

Trenton stopped. And it made the surrounding air stiffer, heavier all of a sudden. When Trenton realized it, he grabbed for Hilary’s hands. “Yes.”