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“Toby, let me walk you out,” I said. “I can tell your dad how you did today.”
Toby picked up his bookbag. “Am I in trouble already?”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, did you?”
He looked dubious. “I don’t think so?”
“Then you’re not in trouble.”
We both put on our coats and walked down the hall toward the front entrance.
“I know you didn’t really get to participate today since you had other schoolwork,” I said to him. “But I don’t want you to miss out. Did you think about what you might want to do for our big project?”
He shrugged. “What if I don’t want to do any of that?”
“Well, that’s not really an option,” I said. “It’s a group effort. But there will be a lot of different ways to help.”
“Whatever, I don’t care.”
I pondered the problem of his disinterest. I needed to find a way to engage him in this project. I could simply focus on his schoolwork, get him up to speed, and send him on his way. In fact, I probably would do that with Phoenix. But Toby could really benefit from the program.
Right now, he was new in town and feeling adrift after his family circumstances changed. But if I could get him excited about something—especially something that made him feel more connected to the town—he might start to feel more at home here.
“What’s one thing you like about Granville?” I asked him.
Toby looked confused by the question. “I don’t really like it.”
“Nothing at all? Not the chocolate shakes at the diner or the park downtown or…”
He shrugged. “I like my grandma’s house. She’s always nice, and so are her friends. She’s always got cookies or cake or something good to eat, and her house always has hot water.”
“Okay.” The hot water comment threw me a little, but I could work with the rest. “So you like grandmas. That’s actually great, because if there’s one thing Granville has, it’s a lot of great grandmas.”
Toby smiled tentatively. Score.
“I think I have an idea for this project that you might actually like.”
“Like what?”
“Well, talking to grandmas for a start. That doesn’t sound so bad, does it?”
“I guess not…”
“No one knows our town’s history better,” I said. “But first, you’ve got to get caught up better in your regular classes. Otherwise, you’ll be stuck spending your time here making vocab lists instead of hanging out with grandmas.”
He pulled a face, and I wasn’t even fazed by the skepticism. Some of my smartest students were the ones who pushed back. Toby Rhodes was going to be a challenge, but I could already see the potential in him.
If he was anything like his dad, he was going to be a force to be reckoned with. Even before officially meeting Hunter, I’d heard the stories of the smart jock who’d gone off to college before getting swallowed by the big world outside rural Nebraska. It was a common story in a town like this. Brain drain, they called it, and a big part of the reason the city was pushing its Shrinkage plan.
I just wished it didn’t put so much pressure on schools to treat kids like test scores instead of the amazing humans they could be. Like Toby. He was teeming with potential, but he needed more study time to realize it.
“There he is,” Toby exclaimed. “Finally!”
He pushed through the glass doors, and I followed, breathing in the brisk air and steeling myself to keep up a professional mask once I was face-to-face with Hunter again. Seeing him every week, gorgeous and tempting and untouchable, was going to be a hell of a test of my willpower.
CHAPTER5
HUNTER
