I drew back my hand a little, then pushed it forward again. Again, my hand stopped like there was Plexiglas between my hand and his head.

I tried the left hand, making David raise his shoulders and shut his eyes again, but the same thing happened, so now I was standing in front of him with my hands poised on either side of his face.

This time when he opened his eyes, he looked at my hands in confusion. “Um . . . Harper? Are you gonna hit me or not?”

I stood there, looking at my hands and at his face between them. I still really wanted to hit him, but it was obvious that I wasn’t going to be able to.

So I dropped my hands and raised my chin. “No, I’m not.” I let my tone say, Because I am totally a better person than you and hoped he hadn’t noticed the fact that my hands didn’t seem to work when it came to slapping his face.

“Ooookay,” he said slowly, and I heard someone stifle a giggle behind him, so I had a feeling this bizarre little story would run right next to my apology next week.

“I’ll see y’all later,” I mumbled, grabbing my book bag and trying not to run out of the room.

The bell rang as I ran down the hall, passing the bathrooms. There was no police tape across the doors, so that was a good thing. As I turned the corner to go down the history hall, I glanced in Dr. DuPont’s room. Mrs. Hillyard, a substitute teacher I’d had a few times, was standing at the front of the class. All the stuff in the garden had pretty much convinced me that my fight with Dr. DuPont had been real, but I was still super relieved to see Mrs. Hillyard. There had been a tiny (okay, not that tiny) part of my brain that had been terrified of coming to school and finding Dr. DuPont and Mr. Hall there like nothing had happened.

But they were definitely gone and I was definitely a superhero . . . er, Paladin. Hadn’t that thing with David proved it? If I was guardian and protector of the Grove, I couldn’t just run around slapping people in the face. My body actually wouldn’t allow it; that’s how good I was now.

Or maybe it was just David.

That thought leapt into my brain and I stopped in my tracks. Hadn’t the Paladin definition said that we were guardians of places or people? But why would David need a Paladin unless there was some group dedicated to removing the world of self-righteous jerks, in which case I was totally on the wrong side?

Then it occurred to me that there was a pretty easy way of figuring out if it was just David I couldn’t hurt or people in general.