CHAPTER ONE

NOW

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30

There were times when I’d look at my father and think: This is the day. This is when the ogre within finally awakes.

He gets this look where he closes his eyes and breathes in very slowly through his nose. He was doing that now. He was centering himself.

Dad has a terrible temper. Or so he’d always told me. I’d never seen it. He had never hit me, never yelled at me. But he’d raised me on stories of the anger he keeps inside—an awful ogre. “I do everything I can to keep it in, Jenny,” he’d said a million times. When I was little, I totally bought that. Now that I’m sixteen, I think the ogre is just a metaphor.

Sitting in the school office next to Dad, I really, really hoped I was right.

Black-and-orange streamers hung everywhere, the closest thing the school had to Halloween decorations. A row of office assistants sat behind a waist-high wall, all of them typing away at their desktops. Or at least pretending to. Each assistant had flashed a look in my direction. And not one of those looks was sympathetic. They practically hated me.

I practically hated me.

Dad and I were waiting to get called into a meeting with the principal and other senior school staff. Two vice principals and some school board members. If anything was going to unleash Dad’s hidden anger, this was it.

“Did you write the letter to Mr. Ashbury?” he asked me in the same soft voice he reserved for prayer.

I fished an envelope out of my bag. “I haven’t had a chance to deliver it yet.” Largely because I’m a huge chicken. I’d been really tempted to wait until Mr. Ashbury wasn’t in his room, then throw it on his desk and run.

But, no. I had to look Mr. Ashbury in the eye when I gave it to him. It’s an honor thing.

Dad’s second-generation American Hmong. That means his parents came here straight from Laos. It also means he grew up in a household that stuck very rigidly to our culture’s traditions. But he was the youngest of his siblings. Somehow those traditions didn’t rub off on him. He allowed himself to be Americanized more than anyone else in the family. Dad didn’t completely turn his back on where he came from. He just liked to pick and choose the things from our culture that meant something to him.

Just my luck, one of the things he’d chosen to keep was a strong sense of family honor. And since Dad didn’t really talk to his parents or siblings anymore, our family was just him and me. And I think I threw that family honor in the toilet.

Dad didn’t open his eyes. “Write it soon.”

I nodded and shoved the envelope back into my bag. What I didn’t say was, That’s if they let me anywhere near Mr. Ashbury when we’re done here.

Mr. La Clair, the principal’s secretary, answered his phone. He muttered into the mouthpiece and hung up. “Mr. Vang, Jenny ... Principal Boyle will see you now.”

I gagged on a breath and turned it into a cough so no one would suspect how close I was to puking. But Dad knew. He opened his eyes and put his hand gently on my forearm. It was meant to be assuring. It was meant to tell me not to be afraid.

What it really told me is: do not fear the ogre today. And that was what I really needed to hear.

We went down the hall to a small conference room. Principal Boyle, the vice principals, and two school board members crowded around the far end of a long table. Dad and I sat on the other end.

“Thank you for taking time off work to come in today, Mr. Vang,” Principal Boyle said. I’m sure she said it just to make me feel guiltier. Which I didn’t know was possible. “I won’t take up too much of your time. As you know, we have a very serious situation. It’s important that we send a clear message that this sort of thing won’t be tolerated here at Monona High. We’ve talked about the best way to approach this and think we’ve come up with a fair solution.”

Then Principal Boyle turned and looked directly at me.

“Jenny, you’re being suspended for two months.”