His face had gone pale.
He looked away.
I turned back to Dr. Prentiss.
“I’ll leave,” I said, “when my grandson has finished eating his breakfast.”
I picked up my coffee cup. Somebody had already filled it.
“Not one second before,” I said.
Dr. Prentiss’s jaw tightened.
He looked at me. He looked at Caleb, who was staring up at him with wide eyes.
He looked at the two hundred people watching.
“Very well,” he said quietly.
He turned and walked away. Toward the front of the room. Toward a woman in a red suit standing
by the stage. The chair of the academy’s board of trustees, I found out later.
Caleb was looking at me.
“Grandpa,” he whispered. “Are we going to get kicked out?”
“Probably,” I said. “Go get your pancakes.”
He got up. He walked to the buffet table. Every head in the room turned and watched him go.
