uncharacteristic of him. I’m not sure he’s ever spent
that much consecutive time with...anyone.”
Camille didn’t remember what ‘consecutive’
meant, but now seemed a bad time to mention it. She could guess
close enough.
“ I will assume that having
been in his care for so long, you have come to understand certain
truths that the general populace is uninformed of. I will assume
that because of this, you do not trust me, a human.”
Camille’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not
why.”
“ The oblivious ones are much
more pliant,” she commented. “Miss Graham, for example, could have
a bright future with us. All we ask is a little obedience, a little
loyalty.”
“ I’m with Gabriel,” Camille
stated.
“ At present, it seems
that Gabriel wishes you to be with us,” she bit off his name. “So. Tell me
the days of the week.” Her eyebrow arched in challenge.
What? Huh? Right now?
Uh... “Monday, Tuesday...” Camille’s brain
twisted. “Thursday...”
Her lip twisted in distaste. “Remedial
English,” Umino decreed. “If you can’t handle conversational
English by the end of the semester, you’re out. I don’t care who
your guardian is, we have standards to uphold. Also, you will only
speak English on this campus, from here on out.” She passed Camille
a sheet of paper.
Camille gazed up at her in horror.
“ Immersion is the best
teacher,” she said dryly. “Perform, or I will send you to public,
and all your darling mentor’s efforts will have been wasted. Public
has no idea what to do with someone like you.”
“ Someone like
me?”
“ Surely it’s obvious,” Umino
said. “We’re the only ones qualified to educate
monsters.”
Camille stood abruptly, chair scraping.
“ Don’t be so dramatic,” she
observed, unimpressed, “or I’ll put you in theatre too.”
Gabriel picked her up outside the school,
the powder-blue junker idling loudly. Mostly powder-blue - one of
the doors was white. He would have been easy to spot even if he
wasn’t the only one waiting up front. A couple of cars were parked
in the back of the school lot - she assumed it was teachers staying
late.
She slid into the passenger seat, letting
her bag hit the floor and the door slam shut in one fluid motion.
She didn’t even want to look at him right now. This was all his
doing.
“ I’ve never picked a kid up
from their first day of school before,” he said, in his oblivious
way. “I think you’re supposed to tell me all about your day. Tell
me you made lots of friends and a cute boy asked you out and your
idiot English teacher gave you too much homework.”
At least now she could speak her own
language. “I am not going back in there,” she stated flatly, back
to Japanese at last.
He sighed, putting the car in gear. “No,
see, that’s not how it works. Talk about how you traded food with
other kids in the cafeteria.”
“ What am I, seven? And who
cares about cafeteria food?”
“ Well I do. If they’re not
feeding you properly, I’ll have to put in a complaint with the
school board. Wait, do I need to join a PTA now or something? Does
Havenwood have a PTA...?” he mused.
“ You are ignoring me,”
Camille fumed.
“ I’m distracting you.
There’s a difference.”
“ Either way you’re not
listening. I don’t want anything to do with the other students.
They’re either completely oblivious, or they’re tools of the
principal. Sheep and wolves.”
Gabriel’s expression sobered at her
metaphor. The light ahead changed to yellow, then red. The car
slowed and came to a stop at the intersection.
“ She called me a monster,”
Camille said.
Gabriel took a slow breath and ran his hands
through his fine, jet-black hair, looking up at the stoplight.
“Damn. Already?”
“ She wants me
gone.”
“ Ohhhh no, kiddo. Not in the
slightest. Very much the opposite. She knows what her family would
do to her if she let us get away. She may not like us, but by no
means does she