Blowing out a sigh and chanting "change," softly to himself, Ashe concentrated, focused and grunted, even. Nothing. Not a single thing happened. Head hanging and cheeks flaming, Ashe sat down again. It was no use; he had no talent.
Feeling anxious and a bit nauseous, Ashe sat miserably through two more classes before lunch. "Dude, you're trying too hard," Sali whispered as they walked toward the school cafeteria. Worried that he'd bungled a spelling test and then failed to hear when Mr. Dawkins called on him in Math, Ashe barely listened to Sali's attempt at reassurance. Mr. Dawkins, a werewolf, accused Ashe of daydreaming. Ashe wished it were daydreaming. Or spring break fever, which was affecting the other students.
"Hurry up; we'll miss seconds on dessert if you don't walk faster than that." Sali pushed Ashe to a quicker pace along the polished tile corridor that separated rows of classrooms. Filled with noise and students rushing toward the same goal, the hall was crowded but not impossible for Sali to negotiate. "Dude, lose that funk and let's eat, I'm starved," Sali declared as they stood in line to get their trays. "It's burger day," Sali added, craning his neck to see what was being served. "If you don't eat yours, I'll take it."
"You can have it," Ashe replied listlessly.
* * *
"Ashe, it's not something you can help," Dori's older sister, Cori, sat next to him at the cafeteria table he and Sali frequented. Sali traded his empty tray for Ashe's mostly full one.
Great, Ashe thought. Dori's been talking already. Now it's all over school. They'll all call me empty before it's over.
Eighty-six students attended Cloud Chief combined, with all twelve grades taught in the same building. Sometimes, Ashe watched the two tiny first graders and wondered if he'd ever been that small. After considering it for a moment, he supposed that he had. Ashe liked most of his classmates, but Dori and Wynn would never sit with him and Sali at lunch; there was the unspoken war between them, after all. The others moved in their own circles and seldom included Sali and Ashe.
Cori, a pretty blonde, was a high school junior and four years older than Ashe. She didn't mind talking to Ashe now and then. Cori and Dori's father, Nathan, was a good friend to Aedan, Ashe's father. Both of them vampires, they'd known one another for a long time—long before they'd married and had children.
Vampires weren't capable of having children in the normal sense. Aedan Evans had gone to scientists in the supernatural world and his and Adele Evans’ DNA was combined in a fertilized, donor egg. Ashe was quite familiar with that particular knowledge; his parents explained it carefully to him when he was ten. It was the only way a vampire could have children, and those children could only be born to a shapeshifter mother. Human DNA failed to combine with that of any vampire to produce a child. Cori and Dori, both born in a similar fashion (although their mother, Lavonna, had supplied the egg), had no trouble shifting. Ashe's persistent failures were becoming fodder for school gossip.
"Cori, you're a panther. That's an amazing ability," Ashe acknowledged Cori's gift. "You don't know what it's like to have all of them staring and whispering when you can't do anything."
"Ashe, you're smart," Cori said. "You catch onto your lessons faster than the others. I know that may not sound important right now, but it is. And you can hear better than anyone else in the community. Everybody has a gift; you just have to figure out what yours is." Cori blinked green eyes at Ashe, smiled slightly and picked up her nearly empty tray before Sali could snatch anything off it. Flouncing away toward the tray drop, (mostly to taunt Sali) Cori walked out of the cafeteria without a backward glance.
"Everybody else always knows what I should be doing." Ashe rubbed his forehead.
"Dude, just forget it. Can we go into Cordell this afternoon and help your mom?" Sali gave Ashe a hopeful look.
Ashe's parents owned Cordell Feed and Seed. Sali's seventeen-year-old brother Marco could drive them; he had a car and welcomed any excuse to drive the short distance into Cordell to visit a human girl who worked at the Burger Hut. It was nearly spring break and Cordell Feed and Seed was busy—people were buying plants already. If Ashe and Sali came to help, Adele usually put them to watering trays of seedlings and sweeping the greenhouse.
"I guess," Ashe mumbled an answer to Sali's question. Sali jogged off to find his brother, who sat with a group of friends on the other side of the small cafeteria.
"He says he'll drop us off," Sali was back in no time. Ashe didn't answer; he merely nodded his head.
Ashe wasn't sure he'd live through his last three classes. He did, but barely. When Principal Billings sent for him during the final class of the day, Ashe became more worried. Was it because he hadn't been paying attention in class? His parents would certainly be upset over that.
Principal Benjamin Billings, PhD, werewolf, sat behind a desk too large for his small office, dressed in a three-piece suit and tie. With dark-brown hair that held no hint of gray and brown eyes capable of boring straight through any mischief-bent student, Principal Billings ruled Cloud Chief Combined with a growl and an iron will. If Ashe hadn't known he was werewolf when he turned, he may have guessed that Principal Billings was a bull. With a thick neck and compact, muscular body, Principal Billings evoked such an impression.
"Ashe, take this note to your parents," Principal Billings smiled as he handed the sealed envelope to Ashe. Satisfied over something Ashe couldn't immediately define, the old werewolf leaned back in his leather chair, causing it to creak annoyingly. "Make sure they get it," Principal Billings said with a wave of dismissal, sending Ashe back to class. Sali had an eyebrow lifted, asking the nonverbal question as soon as Ashe slouched into his seat in Social Studies. Shoving the envelope inside his book bag, Ashe pretended to pay attention to Miss Campbell and didn't look in Sali's direction once.
Later, Ashe was glad he was sitting by himself in the back seat of Marco's car on the way to Cordell. The snow had melted off as the day warmed up, leaving only a scattered, well-shaded patch here and there. Sali sat in the front passenger seat, restlessly turning his head this way and that to see everything as they drove past it. Ashe figured it was the wolf in him; Sali liked to poke his head out the window during warmer weather as long as his mother didn’t catch him doing it. Just the thought of Denise DeLuca getting onto Sali for hanging his head out the car window made Ashe smile for a moment.
"Dude, you think your mom will have cookies?" Sali was now peering over the seat at Ashe.