Girl in the Shadows (Shadows 2)

work, do the exercises, and then we'll go over them

together to be sure you understand it all."

Echo watched us, clearly annoyed about the

time he was devoting to me. She interrupted us

continually with questions we both knew she didn't

have to ask. He exchanged a knowing look with me

and directed himself more to her.

"I'm glad you're not filling your ears with wax

today," he whispered. "Although, I'll admit now, it

wasn't a terrible idea. In fact," he confessed. "we did

similar things in school to prepare for teaching the

disabled."

It felt good to get compliments from him. My

self-respect was like a crumbled house of cards. It

would take a lot of patience and glue to build it up

again. I bore down on the assignments, motivated

more than ever to do well. Time flew by. Mrs.

Westington called us to lunch and at lunch Tyler was

more chatty, directing himself to me now almost as

much as he did to Echo. He asked me questions about

Memphis, about my earlier life, and about the shows

Uncle Palaver and I did on the road. Wisely, he

included Echo in everything, relating my answers to

her. I could see she was torn between wanting me as a

friend and wanting all of Tyler's attention as well. We returned to our work, but halfway through

the afternoon. Tyler surprised me with a bag. "What's this?" I asked, and looked in to see the

batteries I would need to install in Destiny.

"I thought it might be a good idea to visit the

motor home and show Echo how you get the doll to

perform."