13 to Life (26 page)

The dog’s muscles bunched as it launched into the air. It was like seeing some nature show where the lion goes straight for the throat. I didn’t feel like I was there at all. My mind couldn’t accept there wasn’t a television screen wedged between myself and severe bodily harm.

Teeth snapped as it soared toward my face, a taunt urging me to run—to give it a challenge. But my feet were stuck to the
gym floor as if I were mired in freshly set cement. And then the world before me blurred and I saw an arm thrust out just inches in front of my nose. The move stirred the loose strands of my hair. An open hand connected with the dog’s broad chest and hurled the snarling beast away, tossing it as if it were an angry child’s discarded doll.

The dog yipped, landing gracelessly on the slick gym floor. It charged again, barreling toward my protector, not heeding the officer’s orders. I turned my head to see who endangered themself on my behalf. My world moved. So. Slow-ly.

The dog was nearly upon us when Pietr dropped into a runner’s sprinting position, his face at the same height as the dog’s oncoming jaws.

My eyes widened, witnessing and wonderstruck at the insanity of it—

And then, nearly nose to nose, Pietr grinned at the dog, his lips sliding back to show his amazingly perfect teeth, his eyes cool and fixed.

In the space of a single heartbeat, I thought I saw Pietr’s teeth lengthen.

The dog yowled, feet scrabbling to stop its progress in panic, its eyes wide with a sudden fear that matched my own. With a howl of terror it turned, lost its footing once, and scrambled madly away, leaving a trail of yellow liquid. The K-9 unit didn’t stop its retreat until it was safely on the other side of its handler’s legs. It cringed there, trembling and whining.

Beside me Pietr straightened and stood, running a hand through his hair. My eyes flicked from his calm expression to the awestruck spectators. The whole student body seemed frozen. Stunned.

Behind me I heard someone softly whisper, “
That
was totally bad-ass.”

Pietr had saved my life and earned himself a reputation.

The state police officer thought so, too. He said something to Perlson and I watched the VP approach as Mrs. Hahn got the rest of the class seated.

“Come on, you two,” he said to Pietr and myself. “We need to do a thorough search. That was a
drug-sniffing
dog.”

I had to agree with the statement, if not the inflection. Whatever the quivering canine amounted to now, it
was
a drug-sniffing dog just a few minutes before I crossed the gym’s glossy threshold.

“So, Pietr, you haven’t been with us but a brief while and already we’re headed to my office,” Perlson commented as he ducked out of the gym and headed down the hall. “Miss Gillmansen”—he looked in my direction—“I sincerely hope you aren’t interested in joining my frequent fliers club.”

“Mr. Perlson,” I began, “I honestly don’t know why that dog freaked out.”

Perlson eyed me skeptically. “It was a
drug-sniffing
dog. One would presume . . .”

I stopped dead in the echoing hallway. “Mr. Perlson. I know my behavior’s been—”

“Erratic?” Pietr offered a bit too helpfully.

“Yeah. Thanks for
that
.” I refocused, chewing my bottom lip. “But I don’t—I haven’t
ever
—done drugs. I have enough in life messing me up without looking for ways to
get
messed up.”

Perlson examined my face, my posture, weighing my words against my body language, and I thought I saw his eyes soften a bit. “I think we need to conclude this in the privacy of my office.”

I nodded, stepping in front of Perlson and deciding to lead the way to whatever Fate had in store. Pietr easily stretched his legs to keep pace, and in a moment we were just out of easy earshot of Perlson.

“What the heck
was
wrong with that dog?” I asked, still facing straight ahead. “K-9’s are so well trained. . . . It’s beyond bizarre that it acted that way.”

“My sweater. I told you,” Pietr said in a tone that made me think this was all absolutely normal for him. “Some dogs like me and some dogs don’t.”

I kept my feet moving forward as I fought the impulse to turn, reach up, and strangle Pietr. Even the rare dog that didn’t
like
me had never tried to rip my throat out. I shoved the office door open, sort of hoping it would spring back and catch Pietr by surprise, but it merely wheezed slowly toward closing. Another disappointment in a string of them.

As grateful as I was he’d saved me from the suddenly crazed dog, still I was ticked he wasn’t telling me everything. He was
lying
to me. That really got on my nerves.

I stopped at the door to Perlson’s office and he stepped between us, opening it.

“Take a seat.” He leaned on his desk, arms crossed as we sat, settling mutely before him. “We need to wait for a police officer of some variety,” he explained. “Used to be that any teacher or administrator could do a search. But now?” He smiled grimly. “We wait for someone with additional legal authority and hope you’re only carrying drugs and not bombs.”

I slouched forward, playing with the hem of the sweater Pietr’d loaned me. It was so large it draped across the middle of my thighs.

“Is that the new style?” Perlson asked, looking with suddenly discriminating taste at my mismatched outfit. This from the man wearing a tropical orange polo shirt.

“There was a water fight in art,” I explained. I looked up at him, answering the unasked question as it surely formed in his mind. “I didn’t start it.”

“Collateral damage,” Pietr assured.

“Did you—?” Perlson appraised Pietr.

Pietr shook his head. “I loaned her my sweater.”

“Hmm,” Perlson said with a crisp nod. I could see he was thinking. I just didn’t know
what
he was thinking.

It wasn’t long before Officer Kent arrived, drinking a cup of coffee, radio rumbling on his hip. “Strangest thing,” he said to Perlson, at first ignoring us. “Seems the dog couldn’t get itself back together. It just lay with its chin on Officer Paul’s boot, whining.” His lips pushed together, making a line that was white along its edges. “Paul said he’s never seen anything like it. His K-9’s always done amazingly well. Seems worthless now.”

He finally spared us a glance. “Okay. Let’s start with you, big guy. Hmm. Rusakova,” he remembered. “Switching from long bouts of truancy to drug dealing?”

Pietr said,
“Nyet,”
the word sharp.

Officer Kent shook his head and motioned for Pietr to stand. “Turn your pockets inside out.”

Pietr obeyed, reaching into his pants pockets and pulling them all the way out, the linings winging out at weird angles.

The officer snorted and looked at me, too. “Your turn.”

I had to tuck the sweater’s very bottom into my mouth to reach my pockets. I tugged them out with a little effort.

“Shoes and socks,” the deputy instructed.

I popped them all off, making a mental note either to stitch up the hole in my left sock or toss out the pair altogether. Going with the theory that no one was going to see it, anyway, was
obviously
not working.

“Hmph,” the officer said.

“Are we done?” Pietr asked levelly.

“Nope. Put your shoes and socks back on. We’ll head to the
nurse and she’ll have you strip to make sure nothing’s tucked into any undergarments. Normal procedure,” he assured.

“Great,” Pietr snarled the word.

“What?” I teased Pietr as I hopped back into my sneakers. “Didn’t you always dream of being
normal
?”

He actually laughed. “Hardly. Normal is so—average.” He chuckled, retying his shoe. He looked at me then—this recent addition to our school, this guy who had just saved me from a lunatic dog—and the smile on his lips finally reached his eyes again. I hadn’t realized he’d been smiling without them for the past few days—until now. The transformation was remarkable.

I smiled, too, blushing.

“Come on, you two,” Kent snapped.

Together, in more ways than we had been even just this morning, we headed to the nurse’s office for a strip search, Kent frowning between us.

Opening the door, the nurse glanced at Pietr briefly, but her eyes stayed on me. She grunted. Yeah. She’d definitely pegged me as trouble. I doubted this visit would change her mind much. I smiled at her, anyhow.

She shook her head and disappeared into the room’s back. Referred to as the “nurse’s suite,” the name definitely conjured images of larger, homier spaces. The reality was the suite was one of the smallest rooms in the school, with one sink, an old soap dispenser, a rescued refrigerator, a dilapidated desk, and two poorly designed closets. And five filing cabinets, none of which matched another.

The nurse wheeled out two metal frames sporting curtains I was pretty certain dated from before either Pietr or me were even a spark in our parents’ eyes. Schools always got stuck using things that reminded me of the old war movies Mom and Dad used to watch, sitting on the couch after Annabelle
Lee and I were supposed to be asleep. Constant budget cuts made schools even more like the war zones they so easily became.

The curtains were positioned to mirror each other, and the nurse pointed. “You. There. You. There.”

We took our places.

“Take off all your outer garments,” she instructed.

Officer Kent mentioned looking through our lockers and left as we obeyed. Shoes and socks again. Jeans. Pietr’s sweater.

I laid it all on a chair behind my curtain. The door opened again.

“How’s everything going in here?”

“Fine, Officer Paul,” the nurse muttered. “What? God.” The nurse coughed. “What is that smell?”

“Sorry. My K-9 hit my boots.”

“It peed on you?” she asked, scandalized.

“It peed everywhere,” he admitted.

“Well—” I heard her shoes squeaking as they carried her between our curtains. “I can’t stomach that.” She reached the room’s opposite end and I heard her grunt. I peeked out as a window squealed open and a breeze blew in.

Suddenly the curtains were not sufficient for maintaining privacy. Each peeled back, flapping. And I was looking at Pietr. Looking at me.

With a
yip,
I yanked my curtain back into place, hands shaking as I held it solidly across the frame.

“Oh!” I heard the window slam shut. “You!” She surely meant the state cop. “Out!”

The door opened and closed again.

I heard Pietr laugh, saying, “ ‘Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain’!”

I was trembling. But chuckling at his well-timed
Wizard of
Oz
quote. I remembered once reading that when a person blushes, all of their exposed skin turns pink. I believed that like I never had before. Because standing there in only my underwear, I felt as if I were on fire.

The nurse bustled over and shook her head, this time in apology. She rummaged through my clothes before hastily giving me the okay to put them back on. That was when I finally let go of the curtain. I began to laugh. Across the room and again firmly behind his own curtain, Pietr echoed my laughter.

How bad could it have really been? I mean, I went swimming every summer, and each year as I grew, the suits I had to choose between at local stores seemed to shrink. Surely what Pietr had seen hadn’t been more than what he’d glimpse at any beach—right?

I heard a similar rustling of clothes and knew Pietr had gotten the okay, too. And what did seeing Pietr nearly naked make me think? That he was a boxers, not a briefs, sort of guy? So what? Seriously. It was bizarre, but I knew that seeing Pietr like that, no matter how amazing he looked—it couldn’t change anything between us.

The curtains were wheeled away, leaving Pietr and me doubled over, tying our shoes, unexpected mirror images. I laughed again, now at the absurdity of it all.

Officer Kent reported our bags and lockers were clean and he simply didn’t understand why the drug-sniffing dog had flipped out. Pietr shrugged, acting like he, too, was clueless.

But I knew it had to be something to do with him. I just couldn’t figure out what.

“Hey! You dropped your ID,” I said, picking up the card.

“Thanks. It must have fallen during the search,” Pietr said, putting his hand out.

But I took a moment to look at it. “Wow. You actually look okay in
your
ID photo. Except for the massive red-eye issue.” I looked even closer. “Your eyes almost
glow
red.”

“The flash caught me by surprise—it was rough.” He chuckled. He moved his outstretched hand, probably trying to get my attention.

And just as I was getting ready to hand it over, his birthday caught my eye. “Your birthday’s just around the corner.” I eyed him suspiciously. “You’ll be
turning
seventeen? You look older.”

“Yeah. I’ve heard that before.”

I set the card in his palm as Officer Kent delivered his next piece of great news. “Your parents”—his eyes snagged on Pietr—“
guardians
, have been called and should be in the office waiting.”

“You’re kidding.” I knew he wasn’t. “What did you tell them?”

“The truth.”

My jaw was set. Kent could easily tell I needed more information.

“That there was an incident involving a drug-sniffing dog.”

“
Not
that I was nearly the
chew toy
of one?” My voice cracked in disbelief.

Officer Kent turned. “Let’s get this over with.”

The news easily threw me into a black mood. So did the fact that Pietr’s birthday was just days away and he’d never mentioned a word of it to me. “Are you having a party?”

“What? Oh. The birthday.
Nyet
. We don’t really do that.”

“Are you a Jehovah’s Witness?”

He laughed and my mood lightened.
“Nyet.”

“So what are you going to do for your birthday—how are you going to celebrate?”

“I don’t think it’s much to celebrate,” he said.

His tone seemed different. Heavier. Haunted.

“My birthday’s on the first. I always have some sort of bash,” I added. “I’ll invite you. It’s not long from now, either.”