Amazing how a little girlfriend-laughing time could raise your spirits. Though she did have to struggle not to look at guys below the belt to see if she detected any sock wearers. And just thinking about it made Kylie want to giggle. Unfortunately, Miranda spotted Kylie's stifled smile and, as if guessing what had caused it, the witch snorted with laughter. Then meeting Kylie's gaze, she pressed her hand under her chin and mouthed the words chin up.

Della, across the room, let out another laugh.

"What's so funny?" Burnett walked up beside Miranda.

"Nothing," Kylie said, then feared Miranda would tell him the truth. Miranda was good at blurting out the wrong thing at the wrong times.

Meeting Burnett's gaze, Kylie recalled he could detect a lie, so she quickly added, "Nothing I can share without..."

"Blushing?" he asked, looking from her face to Miranda, who glowed an embarrassed pink. The color almost matched her hair.

Afraid Burnett would want more of an explanation, Kylie added, "It's girl talk."

He held up a hand. "You don't have to explain. I really don't speak girl talk and every time I tried to learn it, I regretted it." He almost smiled and his expression softened with what looked like concern when he met Kylie's eyes. "Sorry I didn't make it back in time to go to the falls."

"It's okay," Kylie answered, and then, call her paranoid, but she asked, "The thing you had to do at the FRU, it didn't have anything to do with me, did it?"

"No," he assured her, sounding honest.

She nodded and then she went for a second question, although she was pretty certain she knew the answer. "No word from my grandfather?"

He shook his head. "I'm sorry." He sighed. "With all the things that have happened lately, I'm glad you're keeping your chin up."

Chin up. The words ran around Kylie's head. Miranda snorted another bit of laughter and faced the opposite direction. Kylie had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. Then Della's chuckle sounded from across the room.

Wrinkling his brow, Burnett looked over at Della, who fell quickly back into vampire mode and wiped all signs of humor from her face. Burnett shook his head and focused on Kylie again. "If you can stop giggling, the new teachers are all eager to meet you."

"Me?" Kylie asked, his comment chasing the grin off her face. She shifted her gaze to the side of the room where the teachers congregated. They were indeed staring at her.

"Why would they want to meet me?" Kylie's I-don't-like-to-be-singled-out phobia reared its ugly head.

"They've heard about you," Burnett said as if it was obvious.

Kylie could only imagine what some of the campers had told them. Then an even worse thought hit. "Heard about me from whom? You mean, since they've been here, right? Right?"

Burnett looked uncomfortable with the questions. He glanced around, almost as if searching for an out, or perhaps searching for Holiday to answer the questions for him. When he didn't spot her, he looked back at Kylie. "I ... Well ... news spreads. People talk."

"People? You mean people outside of the camp? People outside of Shadow Falls are talking about me?"

He looked put on the spot, but he nodded. "Just the supernaturals."

Just the supernaturals? "So, the whole supernatural world knows about me?" The thought made Kylie want to find a hole to climb into. It was bad enough knowing the campers were always on "Kylie alert," waiting to see what her wacky brain pattern was going to do next, but to think she was the subject being discussed everywhere made her supernatural butt extremely uncomfortable.

"Perhaps not the whole supernatural world," he said as if trying to console her, and then hesitated as if reconsidering the wisdom of his answer. "I mean, I couldn't say if everyone-"

"Oh, it probably is everyone," Miranda said. "My mom said they were talking about you at Witch Council last week in Italy. And they didn't even know you were a witch then. You can imagine how they are talking now."

Kylie didn't want to imagine. Her chest suddenly felt hollow. "They were talking about me in Italy? You didn't tell me that." She bit down on her lip. "I'm such a freak that-"

"That's why I didn't tell you," Miranda said. "I knew you'd get all weird about it. And you're not a freak," she added. "You're a protector. And being a protector is huge. Very newsworthy like a natural disaster. Not that you're a disaster. I mean, like good news."

Nothing about this felt good. It felt more like a disaster. Not even a natural one.

"Word of a protector would be something people would talk about. But Miranda's right, it's not a bad thing." Burnett looked at Kylie and obviously read her erratic heartbeat and motioned to the crowd of teachers. "They just want to say hello. Not interrogate you."

Say hello to the camp's natural disaster, aka the freak. Kylie's heart raced.

"It's not a big deal," Burnett said.

Right. Only it felt like a big deal to her. Especially when she looked up and noted all three of the teachers gawking at her. Two were even twitching their brows, checking out her pattern-and their actions had encouraged several of the campers to do the same. She could almost hear the roar of thoughts. Hey, anyone want a good laugh? Check out Kylie's brain pattern again.

She heard someone say something about her still being a witch. Kylie supposed she should feel happy she had a pattern to check out-instead of one of those screwball shifting patterns that really freaked people out. But even knowing that didn't make her anxiety subside. She hated being in the spotlight.