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For the first time in years, he allowed himself to believe. Maybe?just maybe?there was hope for him and Lissa. Hope for them all.
The school bell rang out loud and clear, indicating the end of the school day.
Katie let out her breath in a long sigh of relief. In her lap, wedged tightly between her skirted thighs, her fists relaxed. She'd made it through the day without getting laughed at.
Beside her, Savannah was busy collecting her books and restrapping them together. Katie scooted back in her chair and stood up. Staring down at the books spewed across her desk, she reached shakily for the shortened leather belt.
Concentrate, she told herself. // ain 't that hard. It can't be. Everyone else does it all the time.
Course, everyone else did lots of things that came hard for her.
With exaggerated care, she began stacking her books in a pile atop the open strap.
"Savannah? Katie?"
She froze. It was Miss Ames's voice.
"Yes, ma'am?" Savannah answered.
Katie swallowed reflexively and forced her chin up. Miss Ames was staring right at her. She felt a shiver of fear at the hardness in the teacher's eyes.
Miss Ames walked crisply toward them, her heels clattering
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rapid-fire along the wooden floorboards. Each click-click-click hit Katie like a slap on the cheek. At her sides, she clutched the heavy wool of her skirt and twisted it nervously.
Miss Ames held out a small scrap of paper. "Savannah, I want you to take this home to your mother. I expect her to call on me in the next few days about?" her disapproving gaze cut to Katie "?your sister's deplorable laziness."
Katie whimpered quietly and pinned her gaze on the scarred wooden tabletop.
"She ain't lazy, Miss Ames. She works real?"
"Don't tell me my job," Miss Ames interrupted with a sour look. "I've been teaching longer than you've been alive, and believe me, any child who can't read by the age of seven is just plain lazy. Or stupid."
Savannah reached sideways and clasped Katie's trembling hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.
Katie clung to her sister's hand. Tears of shame and humiliation burned behind her eyes. The blackboard blurred into a charcoal-colored smear against the wooden wall.
"Run along now," Miss Ames said, whirling around and striding briskly back to her desk at the front of the classroom.
Savannah swept up Katie's books and strapped them together in a practiced movement that made Katie feel even more stupid and clumsy.
"Let's go, Katie." She clutched the books to her chest and led her sister into the aisle.
Katie kept her head down and tried desperately to stop crying as she stumbled along beside her sister. She stared hard at her feet, watching each step and trying not to trip. Down the aisle, through the doorway, along the sagging wooden steps, and onto the soft new shoots of grass.
"You can look up now," Savannah said softly. "Everybody's gone."
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Katie forced her trembling chin up. The fenced, treed school yard blurred into a wash of green grass and blue sky.
"Miss Ames is wrong. You ain't lazy. You're just ..." "Stupid." The humiliating word burst from Katie. "No!" Savannah's books fell from her arms and hit the
dirt with a thud and a puff of dust. She whirled around and
dropped to her knees, grabbing Katie by the shoulders.
