Mr. Knowle looked as if he had to restrain himself from reaching across the desk to slap Chris for his impertinence. “That is of no matter.”

“It is to me. None of my kids’ parents has expressed that concern to me.”

“Well, of course not. That’s one of the duties of a principal—to listen to and analyze complaints put forth by parents.”

“I’d like to speak with them. I believe I can convince them that I am every bit as much of an American as they.”

Mr. Knowle leaned forward, his pallid forehead moving upward at the preposterousness of Chris’s presumption. It was rumored that he had been kept in darkness during his long imprisonment, and his skin was never able to take the sun again. Most of the school year, his office blinds stayed drawn against the sunshine, reinforcing the speculation. “I doubt that very much, Mr. Brandt. Many of the families of Stephen F. Austin’s pupils are from ancestors who have lived in the area since the land-grant days.”

“So have mine,” Chris shot back, prepared to defend his point ancestor by ancestor if need be.

Avery Knowle relaxed in his chair, again patting his fingertips together, and smiled in self-satisfaction. “Ah, well now, that’s where your family differs from theirs,” he said. “Your family has remained loyal to their German roots, whereas the founding families of whom I speak have always remained true to the ancestry of their birth, which is America.”

Chris’s ire rose. “You have investigated my family?”

“I have, Mr. Brandt—with the board’s permission, of course, given the tenor of the times. The members acted rather hastily in hiring you in the first place without a thorough background check. I believe your employment came about at the behest of one of your former professors, a Dr. Connor Trent, and a man of considerable influence in Austin.”

Mr. Knowle moved his head so that Chris had to blink from the light reflected off the principal’s rimless lens. The source came from a lance of sunlight allowed in through the opening between the window and edge of the blind. He wondered if the man had discovered the angle as a means to blind the person in the hot seat. Chris adjusted his chair and said, “Professor Trent’s recommendation was valuable, yes, but I’d like to think my academic and athletic credentials were primarily responsible for my employment.”