Silent Heroes: Wildcat

Chapter 12: Road Trip

"So, an all girls boarding school in South Carolina," I said conversationally, stretched out in the back of Deanna's bright red, four door sedan.  "Where the heck did you come up with that one?"

"That's our standard cover story," Deanna shifted gears and took a hard right, causing me to slide across the leather seat.  "We've been using it for years.  Tends to go over quite well with parents.  Who doesn't like hearing that they have a gifted child?"

"We even have bumper stickers," Shane put in.  "Would have offered some to your parents, but they didn't really seem like the bumper sticker sort."  Tires squealed as the car swerved left.  "De, slow down would you?  This is a school zone."

"It's after three," Deanna replied casually.

I sat up straight, gripping the edges of my seat a little tighter.  "But, won't they have certain expectations now?  What happens when I come home and I'm not any smarter than when I left?  I mean, come on.  I can't speak French."

"Not yet, anyway," Deanna said.

I lifted my eyebrows.  "You mean I'm actually going to learn all that stuff?"

"All that, and then some."  A yellow light was approaching.  Deanna stepped on the gas and shot through the intersection just as it was changing to red. 

"Jeez, woman.  You're going to kill us!"

"Oh, don't be so dramatic, Shane." 

"Next time, I drive."

"Deal," Deanna replied.  She then flicked a lock a white-blond hair out of her face and caught my eyes in the rear-view mirror.  "See, Eve, the village we're taking you to really does have an excellent school.  Great facilities.  Small classes.  And some first rate instructors," for some reason, she said this with a little smile.  "Not only that, but you'll probably find it caters more to your learning style."

"What makes you say that?"

"Let me ask you something, Eve.  How did you find your old school?  Boring?  Frustrating?  Did you have trouble sitting through it some days?"

"Yeah, of course.  Isn't that perfectly normal?"

Shane laughed.  "Well, for our kind it is.  Traditional schooling doesn't sit well with us.  We generally pick up on things really quick, but we also have a very short attention span. A lot of us end up misdiagnosed with ADHD."

"So we keep our lessons short and intersperse them with a lot of physical activity," Deanna said.  "We learn much better that way."

The engine roared as we hit an on-ramp and accelerated onto the freeway.  Deanna cut straight across three lanes of traffic.  The woman drove like the rules of the road didn't apply to her and the speed limit was nothing more than a polite suggestion.

"So, where are we really going?"  I asked, unable to contain my curiosity any more.

"Exactly where your parents think we're going," Deanna replied.  "South Carolina."

"Wait, what?  I thought that was just an excuse to get me out of the house."

"Oh, it was.  There's no such thing as the Foxwood all Girls Leadership Academy.  The building in those pictures does exist.  It's owned by this old millionaire who also happens to belong to a prominent family of wolf-shifters.  Twice a year, he allows us access to the place.  We dress it up to look like a school, bring in a bunch of people to act as students and professors and host a family visiting day.  That's when we invite all the parents to come and see it."

"Helps keep up appearances," Shane added.  "The village we're taking you to is on a nature reserve a few hundred miles away."

I felt a thrill of excitement at his words.  Everything had been happening so quickly I'd barely had time to absorb it all.  Only now that my bags were packed and we were on the road did it really sink in that all of this craziness was actually real.