Page 12 of Her Passionate Hero

“Lucky, congratulations. You’ve hit the suspension trifecta. This time I’ll call your dad over at the plant.”

He sat up in his chair. “You can’t suspend me. You haven’t heard my side.”

“I can. I am. You’re out. David and Carlos quit dragging your feet.”

She watched as they double-timed it down the stairs to stand in front of her. “Tell me what happened.”

Carlos got a sly look on his face and looked up at a stunned Lucky. “It was his idea,” he said, pointing to his friend.

“Isn’t that convenient,” Aliana drawled. “Tell me the truth.” She used her voice like a whip. “Who put the animal excrement in the tubas?”

“What?” David said.

There was murmured laughter in the music room. Breanne turned red.

“Yeah, I don’t understand?” Carlos said innocently.

“Feces?” Breanne said helpfully.

“Breanne, they understand the word. They’re the ones who filled the tubas full of dogshit. Now they will clean them out, then pay for a professional cleaning, and David and Carlos will be suspended for three days. Meanwhile, Mr. Unlucky will be suspended for a week, and kicked out of your class permanently with a failing grade.”

“You can’t do that. I need this grade, otherwise, I have to go to summer school,” Lucky whined.

“Should have done what I asked you to, now shouldn’t you? Lucky, do you want to try for expulsion, or are you going to kindly join your friends down here with me, and we all take a nice walk to my office?”

She watched as the student got up and walked toward her. He looked like he had been poked with a cattle prod.

Good, her job was done.

***

So bright and shiny, how could he be related to Mateo? Nicolas Garcia stood in front of her, excitedly waving his essay in front of her.

“Ms. Dunbar submitted it to the Library of Congress six months ago for their literacy contest! It’s a finalist,” he cried. There were tears in his eyes. Nicolas was big at fifteen, already bigger than his brother and a lot smarter. Why couldn’t Mateo leave him alone? She hated that Nicolas’ brother was so intent on dragging him into Los Demonios. She hated that name. She hated their logo, even more, the picture of the demon was so evil looking, it made her shiver every time she saw it, not that she would ever admit it.

“Nicolas, that is excellent.”

“I think you had something to do with it,” he said astutely.

“The selection was made on merit,” she assured him.

“I mean the contest. They didn’t do that last year. It was your idea to have them submit our papers, wasn’t it?”

Yep, smart. His smile faded.

“What happened to you, Ms. Novak? Why are you wearing a bandage?”

She looked him straight in the eye, and said, “I was in a small car wreck this weekend.”

He looked at her for three heartbeats, then asked, “Are you going to be okay?”

“Of course, it was a minor accident. The doctor said I was fine.”

His brown eyes darkened. “The school can’t afford to have something happen to you, you need to take care of yourself.”

“We were talking about you,” she smiled. “Tell me more about your paper.”

“It was on George Orwell. I had to write him a letter and tell him how his book, Animal Farm, impacted me.”