Fearless The King Series Book One - By Tawdra Kandle Page 0,84

you sick?”

I shook my head. “Thanks, no. I just have a headache.”

Jim nodded, looked at me unconvinced. He was a good friend to Michael, and because he knew Michael cared about me, he did too. While I didn’t know Jim as well as I did some of the others in the group, I was aware that he had a wicked sense of humor. And of course, I also suspected that he had more than simple friendly feelings toward Anne.

Thinking about that distracted me from the Ms. Lacusta after-effects. I wondered if Anne realized how much Jim cared for her. And I toyed again with the idea of saying something to her about it. I wouldn’t even really have to listen to Jim, since I could tell just by watching them together that he wanted to be more than just another friend. Considering all of these possibilities kept my mind busy until the end of Speech.

When I walked into English class, I could feel that Mrs. Cook was unhappy about something. She was uncharacteristically brusque with all of us as we straggled into the room, and I heard her think, Not in the mood for this today. Should have just stayed home… I’m not worth much right now anyway. Mrs. Cook was one of my favorite teachers, and it worried me that something might be really wrong. Of course, it was also entirely possible that she was just having an off day. Sometimes it was hard to tell.

Whatever the cause, she announced that instead of discussing Shakespeare’s sonnets today, she was putting us into pairs, and we were to work together to re-write a sonnet in modern language.

I hate group projects, and I stifled a groan. The rest of the class seemed to share my sentiments, but Mrs. Cook ignored us all as she counted everyone off into twos.

“Joe, with Kevin. Amber, with Tasmyn.” She moved through the rows, pointing at each of us in turn.

I saw Amber stiffen. I wasn’t surprised. Given her new and treasured close friendship with Nell as well as her talk with Michael last week, I imagined that being paired with me for anything was a worst-case scenario in Amber’s eyes. But I was also fairly confident that it wasn’t in her personality to buck the teacher’s instructions.

And I was right. Slowly but quietly, Amber moved out of her chair and back toward my desk. The girl who sat next to me had gone to sit with her own sonnet partner, and Amber slipped into her seat just as Mrs. Cook came by again, this time to give us our assigned sonnet, number twenty-nine.

“Oh, that’s one of my favorites!” I exclaimed. Mrs. Cook gave me a quick but genuine smile, and Amber looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.

“Your favorite?” Her voice held all the skepticism in her eyes.

“Yeah, I kind of read these things for fun, sometimes…” I trailed off my voice, realizing in embarrassment how that made me sound. “Anyway, this one’s good, and it’ll be easy to translate.”

“Good,” Amber said, relief evident in her voice. Then she frowned, and I knew she was remembering that I was the enemy. I smothered a sigh and opened my book to find the sonnet.

We worked in relative silence for a while. I didn’t want to do all of it, but Amber was very reluctant to offer any of her own insight. I could feel her confusion and doubt doing battle. My frustration level made it even harder to avoid hearing her.

“So this line—‘Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope’—what do you think? What should we put down?” Amber shrugged, but her eyebrows were knit together, and I could see that she was at least trying.

She knows all this, why doesn’t she just tell me or write it down… not like I can figure it out anyway… stupid assignment… who needs this? Nell is gonna freak when I tell her. Or if someone else tells her… so scared when she’s angry, like she’s not the same person… don’t want her to get mad before the dance with them… going to be a wonderful night, if Nell’s happy.

I gave in as much for my own sanity as for Amber’s. “Do you think it could be… I don’t know, something like, ‘wishing I had the talents that my friends do’?”

Her eyes cleared and the lines in her forehead smoothed. “Ohh… okay. I think I get that.” She ventured a quick glance at me, still not quite