Haunted Read Free Page A

done,” Father Dom said, rifling through Paul’s file, “to prevent his being admitted. His test scores, grades, teacher evaluations…everything is exemplary. I am sorry to say that on paper, Paul Slater comes off as a far better student than you did when you first applied to this school.”
    “You can’t tell anything,” I pointed out, “about a person’s moral fiber from a bunch of test scores.” I am a little defensive about this topic, on account of my own test scores having been mediocre enough to have caused the Mission Academy to balk at accepting my application eight months ago when my mother announced we were moving to California so that she could marry Andy Ackerman, the man of her dreams, and now my stepfather.
    “No,” Father Dominic said, tiredly removing his glasses and cleaning them on the hem of his long black robe. There were, I noticed, purple shadows beneath his eyes. “No, you cannot,” he agreed with a deep sigh, placing his wire rims back over the bridge of his perfectly aquiline nose. “Susannah, are you really so certain this boy’s motives are less than noble? Perhaps Paul is looking for guidance. It’s possible that, with the right influence, he might be made to see the error of his ways….”
    “Yeah, Father Dom,” I said sarcastically. “And maybe this year I’ll get elected Homecoming Queen.”
    Father Dominic looked disapproving. Unlike me, Father Dominic tended always to think the best of people, at least until their subsequent behavior proved his assumption of their inherent goodness to be wrong. You would think that in the case of Paul Slater, he’d have already seen enough to form a solid basis for judgment on that guy’s behalf, but apparently not.
    “I am going to assume,” Father D. said, “until we’ve seen something to prove otherwise, that Paul is here at the Mission Academy because he wants to learn. Not just the normal eleventh-grade curriculum, either, Susannah, but what you and I might have to teach him as well. Let us hope that Paul regrets his past actions and truly wishes to make amends. I believe that Paul is here to make a fresh start rather like you did last year, if you’ll recall. And it is our duty, as charitable human beings, to help him do just that. Until we learn otherwise, I believe we should give Paul the benefit of the doubt.”
    I thought this was the worst plan I had ever heard in my life. But the truth was, I didn’t have any evidence that Paul was, in fact, here to cause trouble. Not yet, anyway.
    “Now,” Father D. said, closing Paul’s file and leaning back in his chair, “I haven’t seen you in a few weeks. How are you, Susannah? And how’s Jesse?”
    I felt my face heat up. Things were at a sorry pass when the mere mention of Jesse’s name could cause me to blush, but there it was.
    “Um,” I said, hoping Father D. wouldn’t notice my flaming cheeks. “Fine.”
    “Good,” Father Dom said, pushing his glasses up on his nose and looking over at his bookshelf in a distracted manner. “There was a book he mentioned he wanted to borrow—Oh, yes, here it is.” Father Dom placed a giant, leatherbound book—it had to have weighed ten pounds at least—in my arms. “ Critical Theory Since Plato ,” he said with a smile. “Jesse ought to like that.”
    I didn’t doubt it. Jesse liked some of the most boring books known to man. Possibly this was why he wasn’t responding to me. I mean, not the way I wanted him to. Because I was not boring enough.
    “Very good,” Father D. said distractedly. You could tell he had a lot on his mind. Visits from the archbishop always threw him into a tizzy, and this one, for the feast of Father Serra, whom several organizations had been trying unsuccessfully to have made a saint, was going to be a particularly huge pain in the butt, from what I could see.
    “Let’s just keep an eye on our young friend Mr. Slater,” Father Dom went on, “and see how things go. He might very well