Hot Blooded (Wolf Springs Chronicles) - By Nancy Holder Page 0,50

him, unable to believe what she’d just done. Trick made as if tipping the brim of an invisible cowboy hat and followed Mike and the coach through the exit.

Katelyn took a step toward them, then hesitated. She had to stay under the radar. She remembered back to her first day of school when Cordelia had lost her temper in gym class and nearly bested Mike at chin-ups before she pulled herself together and pretended to be weaker than she was. At the time, Katelyn had thought Cordelia was pulling some Daisy-Mae routine to look feminine and helpless, and it had irritated her. But now she understood that Cordelia had been hiding just how strong she really was. She had to learn to do the same.

Fresh rage roared through her and she shut her eyes tightly, trying to maintain her composure until it passed. Finally, admitting defeat, she lurched toward the girls’ dressing room, her nerves sizzling like livewires.

“You okay, Kat?” asked Dondi, one of Cordelia’s friends from her cheerleader days. She laid a comforting hand on Katelyn’s shoulder as Paulette, from Katelyn’s art class, looked on. “Did Mike say something to you about Cordelia?”

Katelyn chewed the inside of her cheek. So others had seen her go after him. It would get around. Justin might hear about it.

“Yes,” Katelyn said. “You don’t want me to repeat it.”

“No, of course I don’t,” Dondi said firmly. But her eyes were glittering with excitement. Katelyn knew she wanted all the gory details so she could tell everyone.

Some friend you are, she thought. “Good,” she said, leaving the locker room and heading for Mr. Hastings’ office.

After Katelyn explained to Mrs. Walker that she had information on the fight that had just taken place, Mrs. Walker told her to go on in. She pushed on Mr. Hastings’ door, to find the principal seated behind his desk, Coach Ambrose leaning against the wall, and Trick and Mike in chairs facing the principal. Trick looked over his shoulder at her and his eyes widened. He gave his head a shake and she just shrugged.

“Well, here she is, so you can apologize to her right now,” Mr. Hastings said to Mike.

“No f’ing way,” Mike blurted.

“Or you can get expelled for defacing school property and starting fights,” the principal said.

“Damn it,” Mike grunted, his face going blotchy and purple. He took a huge sigh. “Okay. Whatever. I shouldn’t have said Cordelia and all them Fenners are inbred cannibals and they probably ate Mr. Henderson for breakfast.”

Katelyn stared at him in shock. Substitute another word for “inbred cannibals” and add her own fearful suspicion about what might have happened to Mr. Henderson, and Mike might have been perilously close to the truth.

“Okay. Go on back to class, Mike,” Mr. Hastings said to him.

Mike pushed back his chair furiously, and the coach dismissed him with a smile aimed at Katelyn.

“Kat,” he said, “have a seat.”

As she and Mike crossed paths, he flashed her a look of pure, undying hatred. He mirrored exactly how she felt.

Bring it, she thought. I’ll gut you.

But she couldn’t let them know she was thinking like that, so she ignored him and took the chair he’d vacated.

“Now let’s talk about this gymnastics equipment the Sokolovs want to donate to the school,” the coach said, pushing away from the wall. “Which, I must say, Trick, is very generous of your folks.”

“And well-timed,” the principal said dryly, leaning his elbows forward on his desk.

Trick just smiled pleasantly; Katelyn gaped open-mouthed at him while he kept his attention on the principal. She could tell Trick knew she was staring at him and a little smile played over his face.

“Well, Katelyn here’s a world-class gymnast,” Trick said. “Did you hear tell of that? Professional level, and my folks have some connections in that world. They said they didn’t want all that talent to go to waste.”

“Well, that’s mighty fine. You could start a team,” Coach Ambrose said to Katelyn.

She felt a rush of excitement at the base of her spine that nearly took off the top of her head. Yes! It would be like home. Training other people had always helped her stay on top of her game. She’d already had hours and hours of teaching classes, and she was good at it. She’d have a place among her schoolmates. And it would be something that was hers.

Then she checked her enthusiasm. Maybe the Fenners would object. After all, Cordelia had had to quit cheerleading because of Mr. Fenner, she reminded herself.