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door and join the line that had formed. One by one they arrived, Guy’s classmates, back together after four days apart, the ordinary weekend and the two days preceding that. ‘Recovery days’, the school had called them, a time when children and parents alike could go to the Bartlett Community Center and meet with counselors, free of charge, to express feelings and thoughts about the tragedy.
    Seven families had showed up. The rest of the parents had work, and the majority of children simply stayed home and played video games or watched television. The unspoken consensus was that some tragedies were blessings in disguise.
    When the line outside room 18 was seven long, Michael Prentiss arrived and took his place at the front. As sergeant at arms it was his job to hold the door open once the second bell sounded. He stood on the concrete stoop and slid his backpack off his back. His fielder’s glove was looped to one strap.
    Dozens of eyes, all of his classmates’ and those of some simply passing, focused on the fold of stitched brown leather, and then on Michael. His own gaze stuttered between those cast at him, then found a familiar face nearing. A friendly face. A face that understood.
    “Hey, Bryce.”
    “Hey, Mike,” Bryce Hool said back, taking his place in line.
    Michael eyed the door, then asked Bryce, “How many minutes?”
    Before Bryce could answer, Tommy Barrow, always the first in line, had the sleeve of his coat pulled back and his watch in the clear. “Three minutes.”
    “Thanks,” Michael said, without really meaning it. He reached for the doorknob and tested it with a quick twist. It clicked against internal stops.
    “It’s locked?” Tommy asked. The extended weekend had done nothing to dull the class buttinski’s motor mouth ways. “I’ll bet she’s not coming today. I’ll bet we have a sub.”
    “She’s here,” PJ said, arriving from the opposite direction of her classmates. The north gate, very near the teachers’ lot, was open only in the morning, an accommodation of those few students who lived in the apartments on the far side of Galloway’s orchard. “I saw her car.”
    “That’s right,” Tommy said. “You come in the slum gate.”
    Walter Curtis, passing on his way to room 20, stopped and snickered. “Hey, slummer girl is back.”
    Paula Jean Allenton feared the fists of no one at Windhaven. Nonetheless, she found it impossible to parry the verbal jabs Walter was so deft at dishing out. Quick pokes where it hurt the most. She wanted, really wanted, to introduce Walter Curtis’s pompous jaw to a knuckle sandwich. But discretion was the better part of valor, as she had learned in class, and though valor might not be the proper way to characterize a pop in the face, resisting the urge to do so was definitely an exercise in discretion.
    “Shut up, Wally,” Michael said. From the corner of his eye he saw Joey and Jeff nearing, and saw PJ look to the ground, her mouth tensing.
    “What are you gonna do?” Walter challenged Michael. “Bash my head in, too?”
    Joey and Jeff, picking up enough of the exchange, came up close behind Walter.
    “What’s your coat made of?” Walter asked PJ’s downcast face. “Swiss cheese?”
    “Go to class, Wally,” Joey said.
    Walter turned to face the new arrivals. “You guys are going to jail. You know that.”
    “Go to class,” Joey repeated, closing the distance to Walter.
    More of the class arrived, and, over the heads of the students still moving past room 18, Mrs. Gray looked toward the minor commotion and asked, “Is there a problem, young citizens?”
    Walter backed away, smirking, and joined the flow toward his classroom.
    “No, Mrs. Gray,” Jeff said. “Everything’s fine.”
    The principal nodded and tapped her watch. “Better line up.”
    PJ moved to the end of the line, Joey and Jeff right behind.
    “Don’t let him bug you,” Joey told PJ.
    She cinched the front of her coat, trying to cover the wear marks Walter