By the time Kenny made her way outside, the parking lot was empty. Her thoughts raced around in her head. How long had she spent in there with Miss Kaylee? What triggered the Darkness? Was she going to be skipped up a grade? Then her mind turned to Gabriel. Would he still be waiting for her? What if he thought she had forgotten him? Was she still his friend?

Kenny had too many questions and not enough answers.

A lump began to form in Kenny's throat. She pushed her thoughts of the K1 classroom away, knowing she would dwell on them later. After deciding to at least get some of her questions answered, the girl sprinted to Gabe's house to see if he was still there.

Gabriel was sitting alone on the grass in his backyard. He looked up at Kenny as she ran towards him, slumped over with disappointment. However, his lonely eyes seemed to light up once he saw Kenny. He popped up faster than a piece of toast shooting from a toaster and came toward the fence to greet her.

"Hi, Kenny!" Gabriel smiled and dropped his glove to sign his words. "I thought you weren't going to come. What happened?"

Kenny tried to swallow the lump in her throat. She could barely think, but with shaky hands, she managed to sign back, 'My teacher needed to talk to me for a few extra minutes.'

"That was a long time. You've been gone for almost a half an hour. What did you guys talk about?"

Kenny's eyes began to sting, and she looked away from Gabe. Half an hour? No wonder Miss Kaylee had seemed to jump from addition to Calculus. Kenny must have worked her way all the way up to high school mathematics on the chalkboard. The young girl bit back the panic rising in her chest and swiftly wiped at her eyes, but by then, Gabe could already tell something was wrong.

"Is everything okay, Kenny? D-do you want me to get my mom?" He was worried enough to forget to sign as he spoke.

'No, I'm fine,' Kenny signed in response. She didn't want to make a big deal out of something that could possibly be nothing. Plus, Gabriel's mother was completely deaf in both ears. The woman knew sign language better than the back of her own hand. Kenny had trouble understanding her, as she signed faster than a cheetah running after its prey. It would simply embarrass the young girl and upset her more to have to ask Gabe's mother to repeat what she had signed over and over again.

"Are you sure?" Gabriel asked, trying to look Kenny in her eye.

The girl nodded. 'Can we play catch now?'

At the mention of catch, Gabe relaxed and opened the gate for Kenny to come inside. He handed the young female her glove, and the two played as they always did. Kenny willingly let herself forget about school and the Darkness. She lived only in that moment with Gabriel, in his backyard. However, because of their late start, it quickly got dark. Kenny had to go back home much sooner than she'd liked.

"Goodbye, Kenny! See you on Monday!" Gabe waved, and Kenny waved back.

If Kenny had known this was going to be the last time she saw Gabriel for a while, she might have hugged him. She might have told him about the Darkness and explained the reason why she had been crying. She might have even spoken to him, very quietly told him goodbye. However, Kenny hadn't known. All she did was wave for a brief moment before she left, leaving behind nothing for Gabe to remember her by.

****

"Someone get the door!" Ms. Greenwood shouted from her room. "I'm expecting someone, which means come upstairs and stay quiet, all of you!"

Children downstairs in the living room groaned, packing up their things to move them into the small compartments called their rooms. Kenny closed her book and got up to go get the door. Anywhere other than Snowcoast, this action would have been unsafe for a five-year-old. However, the only people who ever came to the foster home were Patrick the mailman or Ms. Greenwood's on again, off again boyfriend, Henry. Patrick had already come to drop off a package earlier that morning, so Kenny was expecting Henry to be standing in the doorway when she unlocked the heavy wooden door.

She was heavily mistaken.

"Oh, hello, Kendall!" Miss Kaylee beamed at the shocked young girl. "Is that A Game of Thrones? I don't believe that's an appropriate book for a girl your age to be reading."

Kenny hid her book behind her back, a blush creeping onto her cheeks. What was Miss Kaylee doing there at the home? On a Saturday? She froze as she remembered the day before. This was it. Miss Kaylee was going to tell Ms. Greenwood about everything that had happened.

"Miss Anderson!" Ms. Greenwood sauntered toward the door, obviously trying to show her affluence (well, her uncle's affluence) off. A diamond choker was clipped around the woman's neck, and she wore a sweater that she had previously said was "more than it would cost to buy Jesus himself."

Kenny stood in the doorway and stared dumbly at her teacher. She didn't move until Ms. Greenwood tapped her harshly on the shoulder, reminding her she should be upstairs. Only then did she hurry up the staircase, and she scurried into her brother's room.

"Andrew!" the young girl exclaimed after closing the door.

The teen looked up from his desk, hearing the distress in Kenny's voice. "What's wrong?"

"My teacher's here, and I think she wants me to be advanced a grade or two."

Andrew gave Kenny a funny look. "Are you serious? Isn't...isn't that a good thing?" he asked. "That Kindergarten crap is too easy for you. You could do my homework without trying, much less read Eric Carle books over and over again."

"B-but," Kenny stuttered, struggling to find her words, "what if people tease me?"

"For what?"

"Being...smart!" Kenny answered, exasperated.

Then tell me," Andrew calmly replied, "and I'll scare the kids off for you. Besides, how far is she going to skip you? Eleventh grade?" Her brother snorted and went back to his work.

Kenny groaned and began to pace the floor. What if she was skipped all the way to eleventh grade? How would Andrew scare eleventh graders off? He was only a sophomore in high school, and a lanky one at that. He'd barely been able to go to school without having a panic attack before he started taking Zoloft in the evenings, and if he forgot one night...she'd be alone. A five-year-old, alone in a high school hallway where all of the girls who used to skip rope and some of the boys who used to play soccer all whispered about her pigtails. The more she thought about it, the more Kenny's eyes started stinging and the faster her chest began to heave. No more than a minute passed before Andrew finally got up from his chair and crouched beside her.

In a gentle voice, he said, "Hey. Breathe. You'll be alright." Then, when she looked unbelievingly at him, he added, "I have something to show you."

Andrew led the young girl out of his bedroom and down the hallway, stopping abruptly at Jackson's room. Kenny almost ran into him, but she managed to keep her balance as the boy opened the door. The two walked into the messy area, Kenny following Andrew as he picked his way through dirty laundry piles. Jackson was away at his Young Engineer's Club meeting, and his roommate was hanging out somewhere else, so the room was empty.

"Right here." Andrew stopped near an air vent and pointed to it. "If you lay down, you might be able to hear what's going on downstairs."

Kenny lay on her stomach and scooted next to the vent without any hesitation. She placed her ear against the cool metal, listening as hard as she could. It wasn't long before she separated the two voices of the women downstairs from the clicks and bangs of the air conditioning.

"I hear something!" Kenny gasped. Andrew smiled at the girl's excitement and nodded silently.

"As you can see, Kendall is a very special child...." That was Miss Kaylee!

"Well she does spend a lot of time at the library," Ms. Greenwood drawled. "I try to promote learning here. I want the children to do their best so they can become wealthy one day—like me!" The woman laughed as if that was a silly coincidence rather than something she'd planned to say.

"Um, well, that's very...nice of you." Miss Kaylee cleared her throat. "Anyway, I'm here today to speak with you about Kendall's education. I don't think she belongs in Kindergarten."

"Oh! Is this about grade skipping?" Ms. Greenwood inquired. "Would you like to move Kendall to first grade?"

Here it was. Kenny pressed her ear even harder against the cold grate. She held her breath as she waited for Miss Kaylee to answer.

"No." Kenny breathed a sigh of relief. Nothing was going to happen. She was still going to— "I would like to take her to Virginia with me."

Kenny's jaw dropped.

"What do you mean?" Ms. Greenwood asked, probably looking as surprised as Kenny felt. "Isn't this about school?"

"Yes. There's a school in Lexington called the Academy for Gifted Children that would suit Kendall's academic needs. We'd leave tomorrow if she came; I do apologize it's on such short notice. However, you'd be still compensated for fostering her, and the school is free for children as gifted as she is. Do you think you might be interested?"

At that exact moment, the A/C turned on. The blast of warm air not only concealed the two voices but also rushed against Kenny's ear. She cried out and pulled away from the grate, cradling her auricle with her hand. Andrew helped her off of the dusty floor and looked at his sister's earlobe to make sure it was okay.

"Well?" he asked when he was done. "Did you hear anything?"

Kenny looked up at her brother tearfully. "I don't think I'll be going to CCC anymore."

Because if there was a way—a legal way—for Miss Greenwood to send Kenny away and still be paid, there was no doubt she would be interested.