Ace's Wild Read Online Free PDF

trickled to line up in front of the short steps. All except Terry and his tormentor.
    “Buster Hayworth,” she snapped. “Line up, please.”
    A murmur rippled through the line of children. Some kids ooh’d, others giggled. Buster came reluctantly around the corner, the shock of blond hair on his forehead standing up straight as it always did, the expression on his face angelic. She’d learned on the first day when he stuck a frog in her desk drawer not to fall for the false sincerity in his big blue eyes.
    “You’ll be staying after class tomorrow. I’d appreciate it if you informed your parents of that.”
    “But, Miss Wayfield, I was only—”
    She cut off the protest with a wave of her hand. “You were only trying to make someone else’s life miserable within
my
earshot, in
my
school. You know that’s not allowed.”
    He opened his mouth. She cut him off again.
    “I don’t want to hear it. You will inform your parents tonight that you will be staying after school tomorrow. No excuses.”
    His eyes got bigger. “My dad will blister my butt.”
    Something she felt needed to be done. “Well, then, maybe the double punishment will make you think the next time before you decide to be mean-spirited to one of your own.”
    Buster scowled. “He’s not one of mine.”
    “He’s a student in this class. That makes him part of your school family. You should be helping him, not hurting him. The world would be a better place if everyone did that.”
    He looked at her askance, hands in his pockets. “You don’t know much about the world, do you, Miss Petunia?”
    She looked back at him. “I know a lot about it. I just don’t accept that what is must always be.”
    He shook his head, gave her one last wheedling smile. She pointed to the line unmoved. He went.
    “Now, all of you sit down and get out your slates and start practicing your alphabet until I get there. You older kids help the younger ones, and Buster—” she stopped him at the door “—I want to see your letters improve. They were very sloppy last Friday.”
    After the last child wandered in, Petunia sighed and went in search of Terrance.
    She found him standing by the back steps, hands still in his pockets and his head still down. He was so young to have so much life beaten out of him. Petunia approached him slowly. Reaching the steps, she tucked her skirts under her and sat down so she wouldn’t tower over him. She’d always found it was easier to do that when she was dealing with children.
    He still didn’t look at her. She was afraid she knew why. Putting her finger under his chin, she lifted his face and barely suppressed a gasp. His lower lip was split open and swollen, and his eye was black-and-blue. The bruise spread down his cheek and followed his jawline to his chin. The kind of mark only a man’s fist could make.
    She didn’t need to ask who’d done this. But the severity of the beating... It was a wonder Terrance’s father hadn’t killed him.
    She touched his cheek delicately. Why did it have to be her student most interested in learning whose world made it so impossible for him to succeed? “What happened?”
    He shrugged. “You know.”
    “Pretend I don’t. Tell me.”
    “Pa got into a game last night.”
    Standing, she took his hand and walked toward the well. “I take it he wasn’t successful.”
    He shook his head. “No, he lost everything.”
    She took a clean handkerchief out of her pocket when they reached the well, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Everything?”
    “Everything.”
    Petunia had never seen such hopelessness in a face of any age. Dipping her handkerchief into the bucket of cool water she’d drawn earlier, she pressed it to his eye. He winced and blinked at her with the other. His hazel eyes didn’t have the artifice of Buster’s, but they had the appeal of sincerity.
    “I’m sorry, Terrance.”
    He nodded and swallowed hard. “I might be leaving.”
    Petunia was probably the only