Amber Silverblood: Silverpack

Chapter Thirty Seven

"Get your butt in here!"

"You've got to be kidding me," I muttered.

Slowly, like they'd rehearsed it beforehand, the other students all turned to look at me. My face burned with embarrassment. I tried to think of something clever to say that would distract them from whatever judgmental little thoughts they were thinking, but my brain refused to focus on anything except for how badly I wanted to curl up and die.

"Amber," one of my classmates said, pointing at the sign, "are you and Mr. Ragg, like..."

Without thinking, I put my hand over her mouth. "Shush, please. Thank you."

"You can get in serious crap for that," said another. He was already backing away from me like I had the plague. I turned on him, resisting the urge to growl.

"I am not..." I sputtered. "We're not... doing..."

I could tell by the faces they were making that they didn't believe me. Part of me wanted to act nonchalant, flip my hair, and ignore these losers. What did they know about me? What did I care what they thought?

... Yeah, no, that's bullcrap.

"I- I missed more than a month of school!" I exclaimed without thinking. I paused. I had just spat out the first thing that came into my head, which is usually a recipe for disaster. This time, though, I wanted to pull my brain out of my skull and kiss it, because that was perfect!

"I didn't get any homework done while I was gone," I went on, sticking to my guns. "My grades are, you know, in the toilet right now. Mr. Ragg said he'd give me some extra tutoring." I scratched my head. "So... yay for learning?"

To my relief, the other students seemed actually to buy my alibi. One by one, they turned and made their way down the hall toward the computer lab, until only I and a couple others were left.

"I don't think Mr. Ragg wrote that," one of them said, leaning in closer to the door, as if that would reveal any clues. "Why would our history teacher say that history is stupid?"

"Maybe 'cuz it is," the other one said. He was tall and broad shouldered, probably on the school football team. He grabbed his friend by the shoulder and hauled him away, but just before he went around the corner he turned back, winked, and gave me a thumbs up.

"Have fun!" he said, and then he was gone.

My face burned again, and I swore then and there that if I found out there were rumors going around about me and Mr. Ragg, I was going to hunt that meatheaded jock down and... I paused, trying to think of a proper punishment.

Castration sounded good.

Unfortunately, I thought, turning back around to look at the classroom door, I had something way worse than history class waiting for me in there. Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself for whatever was going to come next, and opened the door

I was immediately struck by the scent of cooking meat.

"You'd better get in here," a familiar voice called to me. "I'd hate to give you a tardy slip."

The view that greeted me wasn't what I'd been expecting. Instead of a room full of chairs, desks, and the smell of dry erase markers, I found myself staring into what looked like somebody's apartment.

"Okay," I said, stepping inside and closing the door before anyone could wander by and see, "I'm here. What do you want this time, Dex?"

"For you to wipe your feet on the mat before you come any further in," he answered from somewhere further inside. "I just vacuumed."