“Yes, I sent my permission.”
“Okay, I’m leaving right now.”
“Call me as soon as you find out anything.”
“I will.”
“And tell him I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Jesse clicked off the phone and turned to Leo. “Turn her around and pick up the pace a bit. I need to get back to Moonbeam.”
He stared out the window, regretting thatthisparticular day he’d be so far out when Blake needed him. And what in the world could Blake have done to get suspended? He was not a troublemaker. He was a good kid. A great kid.
He shoved his hands into his pockets, impatiently staring at the water slipping past them. To him, it seemed like they were going in slow motion.
Heather tapped her foot, sitting on the hard chair the receptionist had told her to take. Blake was nowhere to be seen. She sat there and watched the minutes tick by on the large, industrial-looking clock on the wall. Did every school in the United States have those? She’d swear the second hand was going slower and slower in its infuriatingly lazy loops around the clock face. At this rate, Jesse would be here before she even got a chance to see Blake.
She couldnotthink of a reason that Blake would be suspended. Not Blake.
After what seemed like an eternity, the receptionist finally told her she could go into Mrs. Grimshaw’s office. Heather rose, squared her shoulders, and went in to see what this mess was all about.
Blake sat in a chair against the far wall. Relief swept over his face when he saw her. “Heather,” he said softly.
She nodded to him, searching his face for some… clue. “Jesse is out at sea. He’s coming.”
Blake nodded, his face a mix of miserable and… mad?
“Take a seat.” It was more of a command from Mrs. Grimshaw than anything else.
She took a seat across from the principal. “What’s going on?”
“Blake has been caught plagiarizing. We take that seriously here at Moonbeam High. We have a strict code of ethics. Plagiarism is always a week’s suspension.”
“What? Blake wouldn’t plagiarize.” She turned to Blake. “Blake?”
“I didn’t.” His face was a stony mask of anger and denial.
“It’s hard to deny it. Here’s his paper he wrote for Miss Brady’s class. She said it seemed different from his other papers, so she put it through the plagiarism detection program.” She handed her his paper.
She looked at it. Saw the paper, his name on it. Saw the big red F.
“That’s not the paper I wrote. That’s not the paper I turned in.” Blake’s voice held an edge of panic.
“What do you mean?”
“Mrs. Grimshaw showed that to me and I told her that’snotthe paper I turned in.”
“You’ll have to come up with a better excuse than that.” Mrs. Grimshaw turned her stern face to Blake. “You can’t deny it. It has your name on it. And there’s no other paper turned in with your name.”
“I can’t explain it, but that paper you’re holding is not my paper.”
“But, Blake—”
Mrs. Grimshaw didn’t let her finish. “You’ll need to take him home now. He’s suspended for five school days. I’ll arrange for his assignments. You can come back and pick them up. He’ll need to do all of them—with his own work this time—before he can return.” Mrs. Grimshaw frowned, her lips pressed into a hard, thin line. “I don’t know what his prior schools were like, but we consider this a serious infraction of our rules here at Moonbeam High. And this will go on yourpermanent record.”
The way she said permanent record sounded ominous and scary. What exactly did that mean? And her look was actually kind of scary… no wonder the rumors circulated about her.
“Blake, let’s go.” She stood.
“But what she says I did… it’s not true.”
