“It’s been four hours, and if I hadn’t put a smoothie in your hand and the straw to your lips, you would be a dehydrated husk right now.”
“Four hours?” Dani hadn’t noticed. That happened sometimes when she worked on math. While time ticked by so slowly she could scream when doing history or English—nothing was more boring! She already knew English anyway! She spoke it every day!—math time sailed by. Her mother might complain about her lack of interest in football, but she loved that she didn’t have to worry her youngest child was getting into any trouble when she was quiet. Not like Dani’s brothers. When they were quiet . . . something very bad was about to happen and Mom was about to send a whole lot of money to a whole lot of angry parents.
“Four hours,” Tock confirmed. “I have to be honest, though. I didn’t really notice. I was reading this book on . . . never mind. Let me see.”
Dani pushed her notebook across the table. While Tock looked over Dani’s work, Dani checked on Princess—she was fine. Asleep on the floor next to her feet—and the pups’ crate. The crate sat on a chair, and Dani could see they were sleeping, too. But she’d need to find a place to let them nurse from their mother. Dr. Maurice had already sent a long-term feeding schedule, and Dani would need to look that over to learn when to transition the pups to more solid food.
She knew she wasn’t supposed to be so involved in the care of these animals. As far back as she could remember, her mother had been telling her that dogs were nothing but “behind-sniffing losers that do nothing but beg and whine and eat. You’re better off getting a goldfish as a pet.” Dani didn’t know if she believed her mother. She only half listened to her on most days. But her wonderful math teacher rescued animals. She had four dogs, five cats, a three-legged squirrel, a one-eyed racoon, and a very aggressive duck. Her dogs were all pit bulls, and she’d brought one in as an example of the good that could come from rescue work.
Dani had avoided the creature at first. He was big and slobbery and his breath smelled really bad. But he kept coming to her. At first, she didn’t know why. She hadn’t been welcoming and she knew the dog understood her true nature. But then she realized that two of the students—a boy and a girl—were making it uncomfortable. Kind of hurting it. The pair’s love of bullying was the reason Dani avoided them herself. They were jerks. It was the same day her teacher had also brought the aggressive duck—where she’d found a muzzle for that thing, Dani didn’t know—and she wasn’t paying as much attention as usual to her dog. When the dog came over once again, Dani understood it wanted her protection. Without even thinking about it, she gave the animal just that. The same way her daddy and her uncles would. They never talked about it or made a big deal of it, but when some parents got crazy angry at her school soccer games or someone needed to be walked to their car after a late school function, her daddy was always there. So that’s what she did. She turned into a protector. Of course, the situation did turn into a fight with those two kids, and they all got detention afterward, but that was fine. It was worth it.
“I marked the ones that you need to work on,” Tock said, pointing at Dani’s notebook. “There are only two of those, so you can get that horrified look off your face. You clearly grasp the concept of fractions now, so accept that you will still make mistakes and fix the ones that are wrong. Then, we’ll move on so you don’t become an obsessive psychopath that no one can stand to be around. Now . . . are you hungry?”
Dani was going to roll her eyes and tell Tock not to be like her dad, always worrying about Dani eating. She’d already had breakfast! But then she remembered it was actually almost one o’clock and she was, in fact, hungry.
They didn’t have to go anywhere to get food, though. They’d decided to move from the coffee shop hours ago when they realized how busy it was. People coming and going, needing a caffeine fix. Eventually, they’d located a corner table in the back of the food court. It was the perfect spot. There was an outlet right under the table, so Tock could use her phone without worrying about a dead battery and the table was big enough so that Dani could spread out her textbooks and notebooks. Plus there was space for the dog and puppies so they didn’t get in anyone’s way.
After they were all comfortable, Dani lost all track of time until Tock asked about what she might want for lunch.
“Burger and fries?” Dani suggested.
“Sure. What do you want? Bison? Gazelle? Zebra’s always good. Oh . . . and with cheese or without?” When Dani simply stared, Tock nodded as she walked off. “Right. For the baby cat, beef it is.”
Dani carefully closed her notebook and textbooks and slipped them into her backpack. She put her pencils and eraser into the pink case her father had given her, taking a moment to organize them by size, and zipped it into the backpack’s front pocket. When she was sure everything was secure inside the bag, she put it on the floor against her chair, bending at the waist to make certain she placed it exactly, perfectly on the—
The sound of the crate being opened had Dani sitting up straight in the plastic chair. Some kid she didn’t know was holding one of the puppies. He stared at her with dark gold eyes; wild blond hair that appeared to have never been touched by a comb hung in his face. He kept jerking his head to get the strands out of his eyes. Two other boys with matching eyes and hair stood behind him, watching.
Princess snarled a little and Dani pressed her hand against the back of the dog’s neck to calm her.
“Cute,” he said, lifting the pup. “How much?”
“How much for what?”
“To buy. I want to buy a puppy.”
“They’re not for sale.”
“Then let us play with them. Just for a little while. We’ll be right over there. You can even watch us.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I said so.”
Dani was getting angry. She hated when boys got pushy. It happened all the time at school, and more than once her mother or father had to go in to talk to her teacher about “Dani’s aggression problem.” It seemed her aggression problem was the fact that she didn’t let boys her age push her around.
“I don’t know why you’re being this way,” the boy argued.
“He said he’d pay for it,” one of the other boys told her. “Just give it to him.”
“No.” She tried logic. “They’re too young to be away from their mother.”
Practically snarling at her, the boy holding the puppy asked, “Why you gotta be so difficult?”
Okay. She was done with logic. It was really making her mad that the kid kept pushing, expecting her to give in. Except. . . Dani didn’t give in. Ever. She was a Malone.
“Put the puppy back in the crate,” Dani ordered.
He snorted. “Or what?”
“Or”—Dani slammed her hands against the table and stood—“I’m going to climb over this table and rip your face off!”
The three boys reared back at her bellow, but before they could bolt off with the puppy, Tock was there. She didn’t run over either. It was as if she just . . . appeared.