Chapter 13

After Kai's birthday, Misako and Garmadon decided it was time he went back to school. However, because of his nasty accusations, Kai was moved to a different school from where Krux worked. When he arrived the vice-principal led Kai to a classroom full of four to five-year-olds. He was very nervous and was gripping his red, plastic, dragon printed lunchbox tightly.

"Quiet in class!" The teacher, a nice middle-aged woman called and the children fell silent. "We have a new student with us today; he's a bit older than you but he's never been to school before, so I want you to be extra nice to him, do you understand?" All of the children called out in agreement as the teacher lead Kai to the front of the class.

"Class, this is Kai Smith, and what do we all say to him?" She smiled as they all called 'Hello' before she looked down at him. "You can sit yourself down wherever you want honey."

"Sit here!" A little called and Kai silently shuffled over to her table...

Despite the fact Kai was a little unsure about this new school, he soon relaxed. The teacher was kind and he'd even befriended a few of the students. The children were confused about why a teenager was at their school, but they found him funny and sweet. After school had ended, the teacher took Kai outside to the curb where the yellow school buses were parked. Once there, Kai tilted his head in confusion at all the kids running onto the yellow school to go home.

The only vehicles he had seen were cars and ambulances when he was still living at the hospital.

"Kai, this is John." The teacher smiled as they walked up to one of the buses where a large, friendly-looking man was driving. "He's already been told where to drop up off so don't worry." She reassured the teen. Kai smiled nervously as John and the teacher helped him onto the school bus. After almost ten minutes of driving John finally pulled up outside Garmadon and Misako's house. When they got there Kai looked through the window and saw Jay and Misako waiting outside for the brunette.

"OK Kai, this is your stop," John said as he helped the teen off the bus and Jay pulled him into a hug.

The second the ginger-haired man let go of him, however, Kai ran and grabbed onto John's arm. Poor John froze and looked to Misako and Jay, not knowing what to do. He needed to get back on the bus, but he didn't want to push the teen off in case he upset him. Jay and Misako laughed before trying to pry the boy off the bus driver's arm...

"Seriously?!" Zane snickered as Jay laughed loudly. Zane tried not to, but he couldn't help but laugh as well as Jay told him what had been going on that day. He had to do paperwork so he couldn't have been there for when Kai came home or help them get the brunette off the unfortunate bus driver.

"Yeah, it must have taken us both almost two whole minutes until we finally got him loose, he really wanted to ride on that bus again." Jay laughed from inside the shower.

"How did the bus driver take it?"

"Oh, he was great, a really nice guy," Jay reassured as he finished in the shower. Zane just chuckled as he went to brush his teeth and the next day Zane went over to Garmadon's house again to continue Kai's lessons. While Garmadon was recording them Zane showed Kai some cards with words on them and told him to put them in order of a sentence. Kai smiled innocently and started moving the cards around. When he finished he looked up at Zane with a large smile on his face, but Zane had to hold back a sigh of disappointment.

The cards were nowhere near the right order for a grammatically correct sentence.

It seemed like Kai knew what the words were, he just didn't know how to put them in a sentence.

"OK Kai, I want you to try again and this time think carefully." He said. Kai tried again and as he was thinking Zane took a quick glance behind him. There were two people from the Institute of Mental Health sitting there, taking notes as they watched Kai carefully. The government had sent them to make sure the grant they had given to the hospital wasn't going to waste. Zane couldn't help but shudder at their judgemental looks. When Kai was first discovered the Institute of Mental Health had given the hospital the funds so they could teach him how to speak and behave like a normal person.

"Where duck?" Kai suddenly asked, snapping Zane out of his thoughts. The young researcher looked at the cards again and sighed heavily when he saw that they were wrong yet again.

"Why don't we take a break?" He suggested. For the rest of the day, Zane and Kai relaxed and played games. Zane kept trying to get Kai to finish his lessons to try and impress the inspectors, but the brunette was more focused on his favorite rubber ducky toy. That night, after the inspectors had left, Kai was in his room, fast asleep. Harumi and Lloyd were watching TV in the living room. Garmadon, Zane, and Misako were out on the patio, talking about the people from the institute.

They all had some scotch with them and Garmadon had a face of thunder.

"I showed them all the film material I had recorded, they sit there and watch it for about an hour and then they asked me 'so where's your research'?!" He exclaimed as he paced in front of his wife and Zane. To say he was angry was an understatement.

"Well that is what they are paying for, isn't it?" Zane frowned as Misako went back inside to get some more drinks. "Garmadon, do you think we're in danger of losing the grant?"

"No, I don't think so."...