The bells chimed. Students hurried between classes, across the quad. And as Kat crawled into the backseat of the limo, she couldn’t help feeling slightly sad, or as sad as anyone could feel about losing something that wasn’t rightfully theirs to begin with. She leaned back and sighed, “Well, I guess that’s over.”
And it would have been…if another voice hadn’t said, “Actually, it’s just beginning.”
Kat jumped. In the dim light, she hadn’t noticed the figure sitting at the other end of the limo’s bench, smiling back at her.
“Hale?” she asked as if the boy might be an imposter. But then a very different question crossed her mind. “Hale, what are you doing here?”
“I thought you might need a ride.”
“The headmaster’s office called me a car.”
He shrugged, indifferent but amused. “And here I am in a submarine.”
As the limo pulled out of the school’s circular driveway, Hale turned and looked out the window. Kat watched him take in the grounds, a faint smile on his lips as if there were no place on earth he really had to be. Kat sometimes wondered if that kind of self-assurance was something only very old money could buy. Then she wondered if it was something you could steal.
Hale waved as the gates of the Colgan School faded into the distance. “Good-bye, Colgan!” He turned to her. “Hello, Kitty Kat.”
“Hale, how did you know I was…”
But Kat didn’t finish. Suddenly, she wasn’t in the back of a limo—she was sitting on a hard chair, staring at the black-and-white surveillance footage of someone in a hooded sweatshirt running across the quad. She was looking at the image of her own student I.D. magnified on a TV screen. She was watching Headmaster Franklin hold a crumpled vanity plate above his head for all to see.
“Hale,” Kat sighed. “The headmaster’s car? Really? That’s not too clichéd for you?”
“What can I say?” He shrugged. “I’m an old-fashioned guy. Besides, it’s a classic for a reason.” He leaned against the window. “It’s good to see you, Kat.”
Kat didn’t know what to say. It’s good to see you too? Thanks for getting me kicked out? Is it possible you’ve gotten even hotter? I think I might have missed you?
So instead she settled on, “Did my father put you up to this?”
Hale exhaled a quick laugh and shook his head. “He hasn’t returned my calls since Barcelona.” He leaned closer and whispered, “I think he might still be mad at me.”
“Yeah, well, that makes two of us.”
“Hey,” Hale snapped. “We all agreed that that monkey seemed perfectly well trained at the time.”
Kat simply shook her head. “You got me kicked out, Hale.”
He grinned and gave a slow bow. “You’re welcome.”
“You trashed the headmaster’s car.”
“W. W. Hale the Fourth bought that car for Headmaster Franklin, or didn’t they mention that? Granted, it was to make up for a fire that W. W. Hale the Fifth allegedly started in the eighth grade—before they suggested that all current and future W. W. Hales continue their educations elsewhere—which worked out just as well since I’m at the Knightsbury Institute now.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“My father got a letter just last week telling him that I have become a model student.”
“Congratulations,” Kat said, doubting it.
“Yeah, well, I’m the only student.” He grinned a very Hale-like grin. “Of course, the downside of attending a fictional school is that our lacrosse team sucks. Anyway, if the Colgan School wanted to be technical about it, I trashed my car.”
She studied W. W. Hale the Fifth. He looked older than sixteen, with messy light brown hair and golden skin, and a first name that, despite two years of effort, Kat had never learned.
“I doubt they’d see it that way, Wesley?” she guessed.
Hale smiled. “Not. Even. Close.”
So far Kat had been through all the Wa’s she could think of, but Hale hadn’t admitted to being Walter or Ward or Washington. He’d firmly denied both Warren and Waverly. Watson had prompted him to do a very bad Sherlock Holmes impersonation throughout a good portion of a train ride to Edinburgh, Scotland. And Wayne seemed so wrong that she hadn’t even tried.
Hale was Hale. And not knowing what the W’s stood for had become a constant reminder to Kat that, in life, there are some things that can be given but never stolen.
Of course, that didn’t stop her from trying.
“So, how long before you broke into the student records office?” Hale asked. “A week?” Kat felt her cheeks go red. “But you didn’t find anything on me, did you?” He raised an eyebrow. “Kat,” he sighed her name. “That is so sweet. And innocent. Naive looks good on you.”