Doctor Dash

Chapter 34

He didn't get it. Lex was still pouting over the conversation he had with his father earlier. It didn't seem fair to him that his father could reveal their whole big ghost secret to his teacher, but he wasn't allowed to say anything about it to his best friend. Lex sank lower in his seat, arms folded as he glared at his desk. His father said it was a complicated adult thing that he was much too young to understand. Lex got that as an adult, Kwan was probably better at keeping secrets. The whole Xander blurting out the secret about Cujo didn't help his case that his friend could keep their family secret.

Lex rubbed at his nose as an itch came over him. All day he kept having that nagging feeling of an oncoming sneeze, and the pressure of it was starting to make his head hurt.

"Are you okay?" Xander asked, frowning as he tilted his head and leaned forward to get a good look at his friend's face.

"I'm fine," Lex grumbled and leaned his folded arms on his desk before he rested his head on them.

"You don't look," Xander frowned even more, "fine."

"Why's he all grumpy?" Denise asked after hearing their quiet conversation. She sat on the other side of Lex and leaned in close like Xander to join them.

"I'm not grumpy," Lex muttered, wishing that they would leave him alone about it. His hands curled into fists. It was moments like this that he really hated his father's ghost half. He hated having ghost powers because he had to keep them secret even from his best friend. His father's best friends got to know about his ghost half from the start. He knew he was still young, but he did know the importance of keeping their ghost halves a secret. He knew there were ghost hunters out there, like his grandparents, that would love the opportunity to capture a ghost and study it. The fact that they were humans with ectoplasm mixed into their DNA would make them a rare find for ghost hunters. But it was so frustrating not to be able to share that side of him with his friend.

"Did we do something to make you mad?" Denise asked with a worried look in her eyes.

Xander leaned in closer to Lex and lowered his voice. "Are you upset about Cujo?"

Lex lifted his head, guilt stabbing at him when he saw that miserable look entering Xander's blue eyes. He shook his head. "No, I'm not mad about that." When it came out, he feared his father would be angry at him for telling Xander about Cujo. He was more worried about being punished than upset at his friend. Things slipped out sometimes, and he couldn't really blame Xander for wanting to stand up against a bully.

His gaze drifted across the room to where Jeremy sat at another grouping of desks. Beside him sat his old friend Vincent. Things seemed to have changed ever since the day their class got the bunny. He didn't catch what their teacher talked about with the bully, but after that day, he started noticing Jeremy acting differently. The boy still slipped up and acted like a jerk to the other students in their class, but he seemed to be making the effort to change, like when they were drawing and he and Billy both reached for the same crayon, Jeremy actually let the other boy have it rather than snatching it out of Billy's hands and saying something mean to him. Lex didn't know what happened in the bully's life, but if Jeremy was changing into a better person, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing that it happened.

"Then why are you mad?" Xander questioned, still with misery in his eyes.

"All right, class," their teacher announced before Lex could respond that he wasn't mad, at least not at his friend. "Um," Kwan scratched at the back of his head, seeming a bit lost at what he was going to say. When he thought about it, Lex realized that happened quite frequently ever since his father told his teacher about their ghost powers. The bell rang, and Kwan sighed, rubbing at his forehead. "Good work today, everyone. Remember to show your parents those papers I passed out about the end of the year play."