“I don’t even want to hear it,” Lester’s mother said. “I’m very sorry my son has behaved like this, and he will take his punishment like a man. If there’s any more bullying, call us, please.”

The four parents filed out of the room without a backward glance at their kids.

“Now you can go to the bathroom and clean the blood off your face,” the principal told Braden, “and if your folks don’t have any more questions, we’ll all go about our business now.”

“Yes, sir.” Braden stood up and extended a hand to the principal. “Thank you, sir.”

Mr. Wallace shook with him and said, “From now on, son, bring problems like this to me first.”

“Yes, sir, I will,” Braden said. “Mama, I’ll see you and Mack at home.”

The principal pointed toward the other two boys. “You two can sit on those chairs. Our ISS director, Mr. James, will be here in a few minutes to take you to his room.”

Lester and Martin slumped down into the chairs, folded their arms over their chests, and scowled at the principal. Mr. Wallace followed Mack and Lily out of the room and closed the door behind them.

“You’ve got a good kid there,” he said. “I just wish he would have come to me before things escalated to this point.”

“I’ll remind him again about that this evening.” Lily could almost breathe again. Her chest didn’t ache as bad, and the thumping noise in her ears was slowing down. A tiny bit of guilt over the fact that she didn’t even know that Holly and Braden were practicing martial arts still plagued her, but she was sure glad they had.

“Thanks for not putting him in ISS with them,” Mack said.

Mr. Wallace chuckled. “When everyone in school hears that they got their plow cleaned by someone Braden’s size, I imagine they’ll be glad to hide in ISS to avoid the shame.”

“Should I warn the high school principal that my daughter, Holly, has taught herself some martial arts, too?” Lily asked.

“Might be a good idea,” Mr. Wallace said.

Mack put his arm around Lily’s shoulders, and they left the building together. When they were outside, he chuckled and then laughed out loud. “Why didn’t you tell me we had a couple of lethal weapons living in the house?”

“I didn’t even know. Just goes to show that I needed to get out of Austin and get more involved with the kids,” she answered. “Why is that funny?”

“You’d have to be a boy to understand.” Mack walked her to her car. “I’m just glad he took up for himself, and even more glad that he wanted me to be there.”

Our daughter—should I have taken his earlier comment as a premonition about them both? She got in her car and drove back to work. After she’d figured out that Mack was there for support and not to fuss at Braden for breaking the rules, his presence had been a big comfort.

Chapter Twenty

Holly and Braden could argue until the sun came up in the west and the moon fell from the sky, but the look Holly got on her face when she saw her brother’s black eye proved that no one else had better get between them. Lily was sure glad that the school bus stopped at the junior high school before it picked up the high school kids. Holly had threatened to burst into the ISS room, take hold of those two bullies, and finish what Braden had started. If they thought for one minute that they could threaten her and Faith, she’d be glad to treat them to what a girl could do to them.

“And on Valentine’s Day at that,” she fussed. “Me and Braden were going to take selfies of us together this evening and print them for your present, Mama. We rescued a frame from the trash when we first moved in to put it in and everything.”

“I’ll take it, anyway.” Braden grinned and then winced. “It’ll be proof that I got in a fight and won.”

Mack arrived before Holly could say anything. He held three pretty boxes of chocolates, handed one to each of them, saving the biggest one for Lily. “Happy Valentine’s Day to all y’all.”

“For me?” Holly held the heart-shaped box to her chest. “That’s so sweet, Mack. Thank you.”

“I’m opening mine right now,” Braden said as he took off for the kitchen.

“Thank you. We didn’t get you anything at all,” Lily said.

“Yes, we did.” Holly brought a picture from her backpack. “We kinda rescued this frame, too, and we made a collage. Happy Valentine’s Day, Mack.”

Lily noticed that Mack had to swallow a couple of times as he looked at the pictures. “How’d you do this without a phone?”

“I’ve got a camera. It’s kind of old, but it’ll still take pictures, and then the librarian let me print them at school. Do you like it? There’s at least one of all of us in the frame, and one of War Lord and one of Star, and that right there is the mama cat and her kittens at Granny Hayes’s place.” Holly pointed at them as she talked. “That one is of you and Mama in the kitchen. I had to sneak around and take most of them so it would be a surprise. We wanted to take the one for Mama on this very day, but now Braden looks like he went up against a grizzly bear.”

“I’ll love it, anyway,” Lily declared.

“Holly, I’ll trade you my orange chocolate candy for a caramel,” Braden yelled from the kitchen.

“You got a deal.” She headed that way. “But first we got to do our selfie for Mama and then beg her to let us print it out on her printer.”

“Of course I’ll let you,” Lily said. “After all, it’s Valentine’s Day, and what I got for each of you is on your beds.”

They both stormed up the steps and squealed when they found their tablets lying on their beds.

“What’s that all about?” Mack asked.

“They get their tablets back,” she said.

“But not their phones?”

“They still have a ways to go before they earn those.” She set her candy on the foyer table and hugged him. “Thank you for remembering us.”

He tipped her chin up with his knuckles and kissed her. She tiptoed and wrapped her arms around his neck. When it ended, he took a step back. “Best Valentine’s Day ever.”

“Absolutely, the very best ever,” she agreed.

Holly was still fuming at the breakfast table on Saturday morning. “I still think I should get at least five minutes with those punks,” she said as she slathered butter on a biscuit.

Lily was reminded of what she’d read in the journal about Rachel’s temper and determination. If Holly had lived in those days, the law to let women vote might have been passed a lot sooner than it had.

“You don’t need to take up for me,” Braden said. “I can take care of myself.”

“I’m not taking up for you, raccoon boy,” she smarted off. “I need to teach those sorry punks not to threaten me and Faith. If a girl whips their butts, they’ll sure know to leave everyone alone.”

She fussed about it all weekend, but by Monday afternoon she had settled down a little bit. When she got off the bus, she and Braden dropped their school things in their usual places and rushed into the kitchen, both of them talking at once.