Page 127 of Grin and Bear It

“Just what do you think you saw?” Tyson asked in a deadly voice.

“Your nephews… they…” She frowned, then stared at us, seeming to take us in, the breadth of our shoulders and the size of our bodies, as if for the first time. “You… you knew?”

“Happened earlier than we’d hoped because the boys were under a lot of stress,” Tyson replied. “But yeah, we knew. We know.”

We watched the two of them put two and two together.

“So you’re… You shift…”

The man pointed his finger at us, brows drawing down into a frown, but his pupils were huge, his breath coming in fast as he tried to get the words out.

“You know exactly what we are,” I said. “And that’s why we’re here. That information can’t get out.”

“Well, it’s too late for that!” June spluttered. “You can’t have two boys turn into bears in front of the whole school and hide that.”

“Can’t we?” I stared at one, then the other, the bear shifting under my skin. The cubs were in danger and he couldn’t stand for that, not for another second. “What did kids actually see? Was it wild animals, ones that don’t even exist in Australia? Or was it two emotionally traumatised boys losing their shit because of what they’ve been going through?”

I stepped forward, the men I called brothers doing the same, until the fronts of our thighs pressed into the desk and by the stink of fear coming off both of them, I was willing to bet it didn’t feel like much of a barrier.

“Because if it was real, if people could really turn from human to bear…” The words trickled out past my teeth, more growl than voice. “Well, it’d be real bad if creatures like that knew your home addresses.”

I didn’t want to threaten them, didn’t want to push their backs against the wall, but mine was already there. I’d do whatever I had to, to keep my family safe. I watched their eyes go wide and staring, caught the way they stared into our faces, searching for the lie.

But they wouldn’t find one. I’d creep through the bushes of their shrubbery, slink into their backyard and scare the ever-loving fuck out of them, if that’s what it took, and I saw as they realised that. The principal swallowed hard, then laced his fingers together as he leaned back.

“Yes, well, it does all sound ridiculous when you put it that way.” He looked over at June. “The authorities didn’t seem inclined to believe the story we told them when they came to the school, and all the video evidence we’ve been able to collect was hazy at best.”

“But the students—” June started to say.

“Will be reassured that it was all an elaborate prank gone wrong,” the principal said firmly.

“That will only work if the boys don’t come back.” June’s eyes bore into ours. “You can’t bring them back to this school, not with how… volatile they are.”

“What do you expect them to do?” Cole snapped. “They’re fifteen. They need an education.”

“The state has some very good distance education programs for students who struggle with mainstream schooling,” she said primly. “I suggest you contact the education department directly to set up an intake meeting.”

“Distance education?” Tyson’s brows creased. “You want to kick the kids out of their school—”

“We don’t expel students,” the principal said, shooting June a meaningful look. “That can only be done by the minister himself.”

“But if you want this… version of events to be circulated,” she said, her lips thinning. “Then this is the only way forward.”

“No.”

We all spun around to find Ellie standing there, a stricken expression on her face.

“Ms Jennings, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the premises.” Suddenly June was right back in her seat of power, rising from her seat and spearing our mate on the end of her cold gaze. “I think we can both agree that you have no place amongst the staff at Greenbank.”

“No…” As Ellie spoke, I turned towards her, reaching for her hand, but she shook her head violently. “I mean, I worked that out for myself already. It’d be untenable…” She frowned then pulled in a breath. “I don’t care about me. It’s the boys I’m concerned for.”

“Well, as you are not one of their guardians—” June started to say, a cold tone in her voice.

“The hell she isn’t.” June’s eyes were dragged down, catching the way Cole’s hands went to fists, his forearms shaking with the effort of holding himself back. “If anyone’s stepped in to make sure the boys needs are being met, it’s Ellie.” He let out a sigh then, some of the tension leaching out of him. “Better than me, at least.” He turned to stare at Ellie then. “No matter what happens, no matter what it means for her, she keeps trying to do right by the boys.” But when he turned back to the two of them, all the softness was gone. “Better than you two fucks, that’s for sure.”

“Now—” the principal started to say, but Ellie cut through all of it.

“Don’t. Fuck…” She raked a hand through her hair. “How many PDs have I sat through, how many directives have I listened to making clear our legal and moral obligation to help kids with additional needs. Growing up speaking another language, having some kind of mental, physical and psychological disability, a trauma background or just a kid who struggles for some reason. You make sure we write programs that explicitly deal with how we are meeting the needs of those kids, make sure we learn new evidence-based strategies to use in the classroom, take people to task when we don’t use them. So…”

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