Amber Silverblood: Silverpack

Chapter Eleven

I swear, I must have sat there for ten minutes just staring at Dex before he waved his hand in front of my face.

"Helloooo? Earth to..." he glanced down at the sheet of paper in his hand. "Amber Pace, right? Is that your name?"

I nodded, my mouth still hanging open.

He raised his eyebrows, like he was waiting for something. Then, leaning across my desk, he whispered loud enough for everyone to hear, "This is the part where you say, 'here!'"

"Uh, here?" I mumbled.

"Excellent," he said, standing up straight and marking my name off the note in his hands. "Grace Marcher?"

"Here."

I watched him for a few seconds, moving from one side of the room to the other like there was nothing weird going on, and then I heard the snickers coming from behind me. My face started to burn, and I fought the urge to look back at them. In typical Dex style, we'd only been in the same room for a minute and he'd already managed to humiliate me in front of everyone.

"As you may have guessed," he said, swaggering back to the front of the class, "Mr. Ragg is sick, so I'm filling in for him today."

"I just thought you ought to know that there's going to be a sub in history class today."

My face went from red to pasty white in less than a second.

"Ed, you can go straight to hell," I grumbled under my breath.

"If you would all be so kind as to open your textbooks to page 394, we can get started," Dex said.

I watched him with eyes narrowed as he turned to the whiteboard and began writing on it, only looking away long enough to turn to the page he'd said. It was right in the middle of a chapter we had covered months ago. I wasn't the only one who realized this.

"Um, sir?" one of my classmates said, holding up her hand. "We've—"

Dex raised a finger. "Ah, ah! I didn't give you permission to speak, Chelsea."

She lowered her hand a little, looking puzzled.

Dex nodded his approval. "Good. Ask your question."

"We've already—"

He cut her off again, "Nuh uh, Simon didn't say!"

I clamped my mouth shut. It was the only way to hold in my groan. Seriously? He was doing Simon Says jokes? I mean, not that I expected him to be a paragon of comedy or anything, but... Simon Says?

Chelsea's face started to turn red now too.