Vixen (The Fox and Hound Book 1)

by Catherine Labadie

  “Basically all the humans are jerks, I got in a spot of bother with the principal, and all of my half-breed classmates hide their animal features to stay as much under the human radar as possible,” I say in summary. This time the yowling noise I hear comes from Hayley herself. I launch into the full details of the story, knowing how to convey the details in a way that will interest her. By the time I finish, she’s just as silent as Eisen was when he heard my story.

  “Well?” I ask. I wonder why everyone I talk to is so stunned by the behavior of humans towards M-DNA people…but then, I remember how shocked and angry I was as events developed this morning, and I under-

  stand.

  “Wow, Sierra, I don’t know what to say,” Hayley says at last. I can almost hear her thinking.

  “You and both of my brothers. Eisen hasn’t told me what he thinks about all of this, Harold won’t know until he comes home from work, and Wade might only know what Eisen is probably telling him as we speak.” I say before sighing again. "Honestly, I don't want to go

  back. It’s too much trouble, and I have a feeling it’s going to get worse. Maybe transferring would help…”

  “Aw, don’t be that way honey! Trust me, from what I hear, transferring is going to be hell for anyone who tries,” Hayley exclaims, trying to soothe me. “Besides, not all the humans disliked you…and even if most of them did, who gives a bother? The Duncan kid seems normal, at least.”

  “Yeah…that’s one out of many,” I tell her. I’m no longer really upset; I simply feel…tired. Worn out from the bigoted attitudes of the humans I encountered today. I’m about to convey these feelings to my best friend, but suddenly the yowling noise from the other end of the phone increases and Hayley’s voice drifts out of the speaker again.

  “Sorry, Sierra, I’ve gotta go,” she grumbles. “There seems to be a family issue here, and much as I’d love to keep talking to you—”

  “It’s fine. We can talk tomorrow, or maybe hang

  out soon?” I say, resigned to her departure from our conversation.

  “Sure,” she says. “I’ll talk to you later—ARABELLA, IF YOU PULL MY TAIL ONCE MORE—"

  The line goes dead and I’m left alone my room.

  7

  If I thought getting out of bed yesterday morning was hard, I had no idea how little motivation I would have to get up today.

  I managed it well enough, though, and my brothers didn’t tease me as much as yesterday morning. Maybe their minimal banter was a product of Harold’s irritated lecture, or perhaps it was the conversation we had last night over our slightly underdone hamburger dinner.

  Eisen drives me to school again, and I think over what advice Harold gave me last night once he was apprised of my day.

  We all have our battles to fight, Sierra, he’d said once we’d finished eating. I remember his posture: elbows on the table, tense posture, and fingers steepled as he considered me with his grey eyes. I expected the ebony fur lining his hands to be raised as a sign of his anxiety, but as usual Harold was professional and cool.

  Life is becoming more difficult for our kind, even after the war that took father…the things that happen in court are turning barbaric, and I know Mother wouldn't have wanted you, Wade, or Eisen involved

  with any of the trouble.

  That’s what Harold wants too: me out of trouble.

  “You’ll be okay, kiddo,” Eisen tells me, breaking in to my reverie as we pull up to the school. This time we both know better than to stop by the front entrance, and since I set up my school SMARTnote account last night without any trouble, I can follow the rules better so no more drama follows me around.

  I hope.

  “Thanks, Eisen,” I say weakly, gazing into my foggy reflection in the car window. I didn’t take as much effort today with how I looked: a little make-up, jeans, my hair curled, and a flowy yellow peasant shirt. But I didn’t hide my ears or my tail. I don’t understand why the others hide their non-human attributes, and I adamantly refuse to do the same.

  I exit with more of Harold’s advice rattling around my head. I know it’s frustrating… believe me, I do. But for you right now, the best thing is to blend in as much as possible. We can’t afford to piss off the authorities, and you…I don’t want you to get hurt.

  I respect Harold’s opinion, but even I can see that sticking my head in the sand won’t stop whatever battle might be looming on the horizon. I'm going to keep under the radar, but I don’t know how much strength I’ll need to bite my tongue and play it safe.

  Entering the school feels akin to returning to prison, more so because the dilapidated lower wing possesses a distinctly institutional vibe. I see a group of all the half-breed students congregating near the doors. I look for Morgan right away, and she’s not hard to spot: her antlers tower over the heads of a few of the other

  students, and I make my way to her directly.

  I can tell something is wrong the minute I reach the doors. These doors aren’t mirrored or shiny; they’re made of chipping, creaking metal and smudged, finger-printed glass. All of the students are still hiding their half-breed traits with their clothes and accessories, but it’s too…quiet. Weirdly quiet, I think.

  “Hi Sierra,” Morgan greets me once I reach her, but her focus is somewhere else.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask. Her smile is missing. I follow her line of vision and see Lyle standing in the open doorway, talking to a well-dressed teacher. I recognize the teacher as the prune-ish one who whispered to Belinda after the assembly meeting yesterday.

  “Is Lyle in trouble?” I ask, taking a few steps forward.

  Morgan grabs my elbow and pulls me back.

  “No, but…you might want to wait until they’re finished to go in there. Just in case,” she says, her forehead crinkling up from serious thought.

  “Why?” I ask. The other students around Morgan and me mutter amongst themselves, and I absorb the angry, hostile atmosphere lingering in the air. “What happened?”

  “Some genius decided it would be a good idea to vandalize the M-DNA wing last night,” someone close to me says and I jump, startled by Ivar’s booming voice. He stands behind me with his arms crossed, glaring at the doors as if they personally offended him. Right as I open my mouth to ask for more details, the faculty member consulting with Lyle—who looks even surlier after their conversation—turns and addresses our group

  of half-breed students.

  “You all may proceed to check-in now,” she says; her thin voice rasps like a smoker’s. “This boy has informed me of the mess in your hall, and it will be dealt with after class hours. Until then, carry on as best you can until the custodial staff can clean up the mess.” Concluding her speech, she walks away with a soldier-like gait, not through the obvious entrance leading into the half-breed hall, but up and around the hill.

  Because it would definitely kill her to breathe the same air as us, I think. Lyle looks as grumpy as I feel, perhaps because he was just called a boy like he was an errant toddler, but I’m still a little confused as to what is going on.

  “Someone really trashed our hall?” I ask Ivar and Morgan as he approaches and rejoins our group. It’s unbelievable; the situation sounds like something that would come out of a shallow teenage book. Ivar suddenly looks uncomfortable, which is funny because a bear who seems afraid of being rude is a comical sight. The crowd slowly files into the hall.

  “Yeah…humans trying to get rid of us,” Lyle growls. I’m beginning to see he has a knack for stating the obvious, but he’s right and it does make me think. I want to see the damage before I judge too harshly, though.

  Somehow I'm still surprised about how bad the mess ends up being. The entire row of lockers on both sides has been coated with thick, tar-like paint in thick layers of uneven lines that look like dirt tracks. Red paint appears in splatters on top of the black, and various

  scrawny feathers of different shades and types have been smashed into the paint. Some of the lockers have ob
scene worlds scrawled on them in more red paint, and patches of mangy-looking faux fur have been glued on along with the feathers.

  “This is pretty intense for school vandalism,” I muse aloud, watching other students attempt to clean off their lockers with paper towels from the bathroom. One locker draws my attention though, because it has far more damage done to it than the others. I walk up to it, my nose wrinkling in disgust. Someone has scrawled the word BITCH at the top of the locker in orange paint, and an orange fox tail—hopefully also faux fur—has been glued right underneath the barely visible locker number. 60.

  I slowly turn around to face my friends.

  “Guess this is me, then,” I say. My voice sounds different, unnatural. I feel more numb than angry, but the underlying fury surfaces in the form of angry tears in my eyes.

  Damn it, I think. Why is it you’re surprised? It’s not even a real mystery to wonder who targeted me for the focus of this prank: it must be the boy who harassed me yesterday. Not that I could get anyone else—any-

  one human—to support my claim. I clench my fists as my gaze inevitably goes back to the mess coating the entire surface of my locker.

  “At least it doesn’t look like it was broken into,” Ivar says helpfully. I examine the door, gingerly brushing my fingers over the stiff paint so I don’t have any more contact with the graffiti than I need to. He’s right, but the tight feeling in my throat keeps me silent.

  “Was that your brother who dropped you off, Sierra?” Morgan asks a bit shrilly, obviously trying to distract me so I won’t fly off the handle. Perhaps she thinks I’ll cry if I think about what I’m seeing for too long, but I’m more angry than sad.

  “Yeah, that was Eisen,” I say. My silence must have made the others uncomfortable; awkwardness clutters the air. These people may be my friends, but we met only yesterday.

  Come on girl, keep it together, I tell myself.

  “We should probably go check in now,” I say, satisfied I can speak normally again. “The last thing we need is to be late.”

  “Right,” Ivar says. I shrug my shoulders, distancing myself from the event so I can move on reasonably well with my day.

  We all head towards the check-in station in our homeroom. I rely on the others for direction, since yesterday we had the assembly meeting instead of gathering in our homeroom, and after that I had to meet with the principal instead of checking in like everyone else.

  “Thanks for the save,” I say to Morgan, lowering my voice so the others don’t have to hear our

  conversation. She smiles at me.

  “Don’t mention it,” she says, patting my arm. “Most of us freaked out too after our first experience with human pranks.”

  “This stuff happens normally?” I ask, then feel stupid for voicing that thought. Of course it happens regularly because it’s always tolerated, I think. Morgan echoes my thoughts as we enter our dingy and tiny-windowed

  class room to check in.

  “Yes, most of the time the humans aren’t too subtle about how much they dislike us,” she says, and I marvel at her nonchalant tone. “This actually isn’t all that bad…one time my mom and I were coming home from a weekend vacation with my grandparents, and our house had been totally trashed. It looked like a group of kids had broken in and had a crazy party, but it wasn’t just a random breaking-and-entering deal. People they smeared food and mud and spray painted awful names and things all over the house.”

  “That sucks…did you guys have to move?” I ask her.

  She shrugs, and her blasé attitude makes her story worse.

  “We didn’t have the money to move, and the insurance wouldn’t cover our repair costs. Lyle’s parents and my grandparents and a few other families like us helped out, so we still live there,” she tells me. “But you’d never know someone had wrecked the place. We did a good job fixing up.” She smiles at me again, perhaps a bit sadly, but I could be imagining that. She enters her ID number into the neat electronic box resting on the teacher’s desk while I stand in line behind her.

  My anger over the situation with the vandalism on my locker hasn’t diminished, but now I feel sympathy for Morgan and pity for everyone else in this room. I’m not ashamed of being a half-breed, but I think my views toward the situation are an anomaly. Everyone else here who is like me is in hiding or, if they can’t hide, resigned to being persecuted for what they are. I don’t

  think life is supposed to be like this, even for us, I think, suddenly very tired.

  The check-in system is easy enough to use, taking no longer than a few seconds. I abandon the machine before the approved screen finishes flashing and hunt for my assigned, alphabetize seat. I notice there's no sign of our teacher as I talk to a few students and find my place between two freshman boys with the last names Larson and Miller. They’re tiny for freshman, and they keep giving me sideways glances. I overhear them quietly discussing my episode with the human bully upstairs yesterday and grimace. Thankfully, however, Shelby is nearby so I don’t have to make much conversation with them.

  “Where’s the teacher for this period?” I ask her. She shrugs and shakes her head; she’s wearing pink today, which inexplicably enhances her poodle-like aspects. Shelby must just be one of those girly-girls, or maybe her poodle traits subconsciously encourage her to look more feminine.

  “He didn’t show up yesterday, but I understand that because we weren’t in here for more than five minutes,” she says. I nod and turn around in my seat, looking for people I know.

  As I see Morgan making conversation with Ivar and another girl with bird features and parrot feathers in her short, blond hair, my mind wanders upstairs to where the humans are. Something about the red in the parrot-girl’s hair reminds me of another redhead: Duncan Ledford. I don't know why he pops into my head, but I wonder what he’ll think of the mess on the half-breed lockers. I don’t think he’d be the type to condone that

  behavior, I assume.

  Part of me is setting up caution signs in my brain telling me not to idolize him, especially because he’s a human. I’m not trying to, and I’m fully aware that a friendship with a human would be risky. But somehow…I don’t think Duncan Ledford feels what all the other humans feel about half-breeds.

  I run my fingers through the waves of my hair as if this would manually remove any thoughts I don’t want. Just as I look up, the room goes quiet as our homeroom teacher enters. The freshmen around me struggle to hide the sudden fit of laughter that sweeps over them, and some of the other students titter nervously as our teacher strides over to the desk. He sways as he walks, and his bloodshot, bleary red eyes scan us with a dull stare.

  My gaze meets Lyle’s—he’s in the back of the room—and we make wry faces at each other. This teacher, whoever he is, looks like he just crawled out of one of those seedy bars adults warn wild kids to stay away from.

  “Hi, class,” the teacher sighs once he situates himself behind the desk. He doesn’t look dangerous, but he tilts around like he’s going to pass out, and that

  appears hazardous. All of us students let out a collective sigh of relief when he plops down onto the antique stool behind the desk. I wonder what this perfectionist, high-level school was thinking when they hired this youth with messy black curls and sloppy clothes to be in charge of a mixed grade half-breed class.

  “You’d think they’d try to make a good impression,

  just in case someone came around to check on the desegregation stuff,” Shelby snarks from her seat, and I hope the teacher didn’t hear. It doesn’t look like he did; he stares at the desk now, his thin, pale lips moving slowly over the syllables of all our names on a list. I agree with her even if I keep my thoughts to myself.

  “Right…my name is Marlow Hynes,” the teacher begins suddenly; his voice is far too loud for the size of the room, and the words slur together. “I am in charge here, so any class events must be approved by me, and…well, I’m sure you all know the drill when it comes to homeroom,” he chuckle
s in a dazed sort of way.

  Everyone incredulously scrutinizes this hung-over, boyish teacher with the glazed blue eyes. My gaze wanders again, landing on Lyle; he squints thoughtfully at our “instructor,” but he glances at me again and his eyes become a little less annoyed. I guess our thoughts flow in the same direction.

  Only the best for M-DNA students, of course, I think with bitter sarcasm. Marlow Hynes reads through the roll again, and the room quiets except for the low chatter of the students. He seems like a drunk and a total idiot, and he hasn’t even been in the room five minutes.

  From what I’ve seen of the other aspects of this school, the administration would only hire someone like Marlow if they wanted to chase away current or potential students.

  Finally, the bell rings at the half-hour mark and there’s a mad rush to the door. I’m glad when I escape the calamity in the M-DNA student hall for my math class upstairs. Perhaps I’m too paranoid now, but it seems to me that Hostetler is doing everything in its

  power to chase me and my classmates away.

  Which makes me want to fight to stay all the more.

  z

  My mind keeps going back over the events of the morning during my last class before lunch. I sit in between Morgan and Lyle in Sociology, and thankfully I know for a fact that I’m not the only distracted one. Morgan fidgets more and more—perhaps because she’s hungry; she told me earlier she doesn’t have time to eat breakfast in the mornings—and I hear Lyle drumming his SMARTpad stylus on the desk behind me. In fact, the entire half-breed section of this class, all six of us seniors, regards the other side of the room with varying degrees of suspicion.

  The same question they must be asking silently has been rattling around my brain for hours as well: who trashed our hall? I have my own ideas about the perpetrators, but even if I decided to share them, I know they wouldn’t do any good. Belinda Harper is not the kind of principal to deal fairly with M-DNA students, as I learned yesterday when I checked my school SMARTnote account for the first time. I discovered exactly how many demerits she’d given me for my small “offense.” I cringe again just thinking about it. 10 demerits just for entering the building by the wrong set