Miss Thompson stood at the chalkboard with her back to the class; the words “Oral Report” printed neatly over her head. He eased the heavy door closed.

  “Corvan’s here, ma’am.” Billy Fry’s voice broke the silence like the brash call of a raven. Corvan’s jaw clenched as he headed toward his assigned seat.

  Miss Thompson did not turn around. “You’re late again, Corvan. You will stay after school to write lines.”

  Corvan headed toward his desk at the back of the room. Normally, the shorter kids sat closer to the front, but Miss Thompson had agreed to let him sit at the back with the older children, one row behind Billy. As he walked up the aisle between the desks, the bully shook a fist and mouthed a nasty slur but one row over, Corvan caught a flicker of sympathy in Kate’s eyes.

  Miss Thompson’s voice pulled him up short. “Since you’re already standing, Corvan, you might as well give your oral report about what you did this past summer.”

  Oral report? She must have given the assignment on one of the days he came in late. Corvan racked his brain for a topic as he dragged himself to the front of the class. It had been a boring summer as there was not enough money to go camping in the mountains. The weather had been unusually hot and dry, and his father had stayed in the cellar most days or had gone to explore the caves by the river.

  But … something significant had happened the past week, something the others would find interesting. Coming alongside Miss Thompson’s desk, he turned to face the class and found everyone was looking intently at him. Straightening his shoulders, he cleared his throat. This was his time to impress them with a fantastic tale, and this time it was completely true.

  “This summer,” Corvan said, pointing out the side window, “I discovered strange tracks around the big rock in our field; three toes with claws and sometimes a tail dragging behind. The tracks would come and go at night from our rock into the fields and sometimes lead into town.” He hitched up his pants. “I had to find out what it was up to, and make sure everyone was safe.”

  Kate frowned at him, and Corvan paused. He was going to tell Kate about the tracks when they were alone, not here in front of the whole class. The rest of class, however, were fully engaged and waiting for him to go on. A few of the younger children at the front began to fidget nervously, and the ones at the back were leaning forward to hear more. He’d never had the entire school so intent on what he was saying. He took a step to the front of Miss Thompson’s desk and lowered his voice.

  “Last week, I finally saw it up close. It was a lizard, this high!” He held a hand up past his waist. “There were dark blue markings around its chest and face, and it walked like this, upright on its hind legs—”

  Miss Thompson’s ruler smacked her open hand, and Corvan whirled around. “Corvan, the assignment was an oral report about your summer vacation, not another of your tall tales.” She shook her head. “You know as well as I do, there are no three-foot-high blue dinosaur-like lizards around here. This is the 1950s, not the Mesozoic era. After school, you will write that out on the board one hundred times.”

  She continued talking to the class, reassuring the students that dinosaurs went extinct a long time ago and were not roaming through their town at night.

  Could she be wrong? Corvan thought. In a recent story in one of his favorite science fiction magazines, the Mad Scientists club had hatched a dinosaur egg. His own town was close to one of the largest deposits of dinosaur bones in the world. Was it possible for an egg to be preserved deep underground and then hatch when it was pushed to the surface by the spring thaw? Was that why the lizard was so large and walked on his hind legs?

  “Corvan!” Miss Thompson’s voice pierced his mental fog. “How many times do I need to tell you to sit down?”

  Corvan flinched as he looked up to rows of giggling classmates. His face burned as he walked dejectedly to the back of the class. True to form, Billy Fry stuck his foot into the aisle. Corvan jumped over the boy’s leg, stumbled against his own desk, and scattered his pencils across the back of the room.

  Easing himself into the seat, he opened his desk and hunched down to hide behind the lid. At a touch on his leg, he peered over the top. Kate was leaning back to him from the next row, one of his pencils in her hand. Corvan smiled at her and mouthed “thanks.” Closing his desk, he took the pencil and unwound a narrow piece of paper wrapped around it.

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  We need to talk. Meet me at the fort after supper.

  Corvan looked up and nodded eagerly to Kate. Now he could tell her all about the lizard and get her help in finding out where it might be hiding.

  He was about to write back when the thin strip of paper disappeared into Billy Fry’s grimy hand.

  “Billy, what are you up to now?” A weary Miss Thompson walked up the aisle.

  Billy grinned at Corvan, then he turned around. “Sorry, ma’am, but Corvan’s writin’ notes in class.” He held the strip of foolscap up to the teacher.

  She took the paper from Billy. Corvan slouched further into his chair.

  Miss Thompson checked the handwriting and turned to Kate. “Miss Poley, you will also stay after school today and write one hundred times on the blackboard, ‘I will not pass notes in school.’”

  “I can’t, Miss Thompson,” Kate pleaded, her voice trembling. “I have to clean the house before my mom gets home.”

  Miss Thompson’s posture softened, but Billy Fry mouthed a few nasty words about Kate’s mother behind the teacher’s back. Kate’s eyes blazed, and Miss Thompson’s back stiffened. “Then today you will eat your lunch inside with the younger children and write your lines.”

  Corvan’s heart sank. Kate never ate lunch with anyone else, as she rarely brought any. He always made sure that the second sandwich his mother put in his lunch box found its way into Kate’s hand.

  Pink crept up Kate’s cheeks as she pushed her shoulders back.

  A smug grin spread over Billy’s face. “I bet her mom spent all her money for lunch at the bingo hall,” he snickered.

  Miss Thompson whirled about and the crack of wooden ruler breaking over Billy’s head brought everyone to attention —except Kate. Kate was halfway up the aisle before the pieces hit the floor.

  “Kate!” Miss Thompson’s voice brought the girl up short at the classroom door. “You do not have permission to leave class.” Her tone eased. “Please take your seat. We can talk about this later.”

  Kate’s lower lip quivered and she pulled her bangs even farther over her eyes. She had cried only once in front of Corvan. There was no way she would let the class see her tears.

  “I don’t need permission to leave because I’m never coming back.” In a flash, she was out the door, leaving the students in stunned silence.

  Corvan ground his teeth and stared at Billy as the boy rubbed his head. What right did Billy have to make fun of Kate’s home life? It wasn’t like living alone with his grouchy father on their run-down farm was any better. If he had the strength of one of his comic book heroes, he’d make Billy pay for all the misery he caused others.

  But he was no hero. He hadn’t even stood up for Kate and responsibility for his part in passing notes in class. Once again, he had given in to his fears. He slumped further into his desk, rested his hands on his knees and looked under his eyebrows at Kate’s empty desk.

  A dark cloud hung over Corvan for the rest of the day. Fortunately, Billy left at lunch, complaining of a headache. To avoid taunts about his “imaginary blue lizard”, Corvan listlessly ate both sandwiches by himself in the dugout of the ball diamond, just as he done in the days before Kate came to town.

  After lunch, Miss Thompson announced she needed to be gone the following day, and that meant there would be no school that Friday. If Kate stayed true to her note, she might show up at the Castle Rock while her mom was at work. The surprise long weekend was looking brighter.

  As soon as classes were over, Corvan wrote his assigned lines on the chalkboard with fervor. He did not want to waste precious moments of freedom. By the time he was finished, his fingers were cramped into a claw. On his way out, Miss Thompson called him to her desk.

  “Corvan, I am aware of how Billy teases you and I will do my best to see it stops, but you add fuel to the fire when you tell the class such an outlandish story about a giant lizard.” She leaned toward him. “Honesty is a basic building block of a successful life. Think of your father, Corvan, and try to follow his example.”

  Corvan nodded but couldn’t look her in the eyes. Mumbling an apology, he turned away and dragged his feet out the door.

  On the walk home, he turned her words over in his mind. She was wrong. Honesty was not the best policy. Sure, his father had a reputation for being an honest man, but people took advantage of his father’s integrity or mocked his dad behind his back. Billy’s father, Mr. Fry, nicknamed him Tonto, referring to the Lone Ranger’s sidekick, and made jokes about his height, as he was the shortest man in town, most likely the whole county.

  Unfortunately, Corvan had inherited his father’s skin tone and stature. He was a good ten inches shorter than any of the other kids in his grade, and that gave the larger boys ample opportunity to make his life miserable. In the past he had tried to win their respect by telling them fantastic stories from his science fiction magazines, but now had only earned him a reputation as a liar.

  He kicked a stone up the gravel road. By tonight, the whole town would be laughing at his description of the lizard and talking about his latest big lie.

  Stopping at the top of their lane, he put a hand on the fencepost and looked back toward the schoolyard. It was time to stand up for himself and not back down from what he knew was the truth.

  He nodded to himself. Tonight, I’m going to catch that lizard and prove to everyone it’s real.