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all their instructors. Her boss was the Bull. Their headmaster, the Bear. They’d tagged her Spaniel the day she – running late – had shown up at school with her shoulder-length hair curling about her shoulders. She’d never made the mistake again but the moniker had stuck.
    Sarah looked about. If memory served there was a nice pub that specialized in fish and chips two blocks west, near the intersection of King’s Stable Road and Lothian Road. All kids like French fries, right? “OK, boys, this way.”
    The pub, awash in dark wood and stained glass, reeking of ale, fried fish and tobacco, hadn’t changed in her ten-year absence. The hostess warily eyed Sarah’s boisterous crew then led them to a private room at the back of the pub. As the boys settled around the long trestle table and tried to convince her that just one Guinness wouldn’t kill them, Sarah opened her menu. Mmm, Arbroath Smokie and stovie tatties. She hadn’t had smoked haddock in years. Haggis? No. Forfar Bridies –
    “What’s Hotch-Potch?” Ty Clark III wanted to know.
    She grinned. “A thick mutton stew. It’s good.”
    He made a face.
    To her left, Peter asked, “What’s in ‘authentic Shepherd’s Pie’?”
    Sarah looked over the top of her menu at their school’s star soccer player. “Think about it, Peter. What do shepherds tend?”
    “Oh.” He went back to studying his menu.
    In the end, they ordered six servings of fish and chips, five colas and one Guinness. For her. Their next stop was Edinburgh Castle. She could only pray the castle’s armour displays would still be standing when they left.
    “Miss Colbert, do you have a boyfriend?”
    Bryce’s question startled not only her but his classmates who, laughing, slapped his shoulders. She didn’t have a boyfriend – never had. She’d spent the last twelve years either caring for her mother who’d had Alzheimer’s or attending night school to get her degree. But that was none of their business. “Why do you ask?”
    He shrugged. “You’re always at school, never—”
    Booooooommmm!
    The violent explosion knocked them off their benches. The wall separating their private dining area from the main room collapsed around them. As they cried out, tried to make sense of what was happening, the customers in the front of the pub, buried beneath collapsed timbers, brick and glass, screamed.
    Sarah, choking on smoke, her ears ringing, scrambled out from under their upended table. Reaching for her nearest charge, she shouted, “Bryce, are you OK?”
    “Yes … I think.” He wiped ash and tears from his eyes as he struggled to his knees. “What happened?”
    “I don’t know how but we’ve got to get out of here.” Flames were consuming what little remained of the front of the building. People continued to scream. As the fractured ceiling above them groaned, she grabbed the edge of the table. “Help me lift this!”
    Together they shoved the table away and found the rest of her students, choking and bleeding. Peter Elgin was the first to come to his senses. As he staggered to his feet, he took hold of Ty’s arm and pulled. When his friend remained rooted where he’d fallen, Peter shouted, “Help me!”
    Sarah crawled over rubble, grabbed Ty’s left arm and hauled the stunned kid to his feet.
    Tears streaming, Peter told her, “His parents died like this.”
    Sarah nodded, frantically searching for a way out. “I know … in Indonesia. There, behind you. There’s a door. Take him out that way. I’ll follow with the others.”
    She had her students on their feet and at the doorway before realizing the door didn’t lead to a back alley as she’d hoped but into a cellar. Bitter bile rose in her throat. “Shit.”
    Peter called from the bottom of the stairs. “Down here, Miss Colbert! There’s a way out.”
    At the bottom she found Peter and Ty standing hip deep in rushing water.
    “Oh, God. A water main must have broken.” Above them rafters screeched then