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never done a good job with “Shenandoah” for Mr. Rudkin. Neither he nor they had cared enough to find the charm in the old folk song. But today it sounded absolutely ghastly. Batty knew what was going on, because it had happened before. Several of the boys were singing off-key on purpose. Mr. Rudkin had never been able to figure out who was making the awful noise—those were the classes during which everyone spent lots of time with their hands in the air for silence.
    They’d barely gotten through the second line about longing to see Shenandoah when Mrs. Grunfeld made a slashing gesture across her throat.
    “Cut,” she said quietly but with such authority that everyone stopped singing, even the off-key singers, whom Mrs. Grunfeld now pointed to, one at a time. “You, you, you, and you, move to the first row, where you will stand quietly while the others sing. You’ll be allowed to rejoin the singing only when you request it. Please note that I didn’t say
if
you request it, but
when.
And I believe
you
will be the first to request it, Mr.…”
    “Lowenthal,” said Henry. He couldn’t believe they’d been caught.
    “Good. Now the rest of you must move, too. Thosewho can sing without sending dogs into fits, stand on the left, and those who think you are a little better than that, move to the right. And if the tallest stand at the back and the shortest at the front, I will be able to see all your faces.”
    The next few minutes were a confusion of giggling and pushing as everyone sorted themselves out according to their perceived abilities and relative heights. Batty and Keiko moved together to the far right and down to the second row, because Batty wasn’t tall and Keiko was a little shorter. To Keiko’s regret, many of the boys ended up on the left, probably hoping that they might later be tested against a dog.
    “Now let us try again,” said Mrs. Grunfeld. “And please, everyone, stand up straight. Your lungs can’t work when you’re slouching like teenage reprobates.”
    The fifth graders straightened up until they were more telephone poles than reprobates.
    Oh Shenandoah,
    I long to see you,
    Away, you rolling river.
    Oh Shenandoah,
    I long to hear you,
    Away, I’m bound away,
    ’Cross the wide Missouri.
    “Cut,” said Mrs. Grunfeld.
    This time there had been no misbehaving boys, and Batty thought that Hound, at least, would nothave been sent into fits. She was curious to see what this interesting teacher would do next.
    “Second row, just the four girls at the end, please. Start again.”
    The four at the end were Keiko and Batty, and two girls from a different class, Melle and Abby. They all exchanged nervous looks—none liked being the center of attention. Batty liked it least of all. She bent her knees to look shorter and shook her hair in front of her face.
    “Now, please.” Mrs. Grunfeld blew into her pitch pipe again.
    The girls got through two entire verses before they were cut off. In silence they waited for a verdict, but to their collective relief, none came. Mrs. Grunfeld simply smiled and went on.
    “Thank you, girls. I think I’ve had enough of rivers for now. What other songs have you been working on?” She read from a list on a music stand. “ ‘All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight,’ ‘The Song of the Volga Boatmen,’ ‘Swanee River.’ They
all
seem to be about rivers.”
    A helpful boy in the front row explained. “Mr. Rudkin thought we could learn geography while we were singing.”
    “How much geography have you learned so far? That’s what I thought. Forget rivers. We will begin with a song that teaches you nothing.”
    The remainder of the class sped by. Mrs. Grunfeld started them off with a deliciously silly song called“That’s Amore.” After that they sang “Twist and Shout”—for which Mrs. Grunfeld demonstrated how to do the dance called the twist, explaining that some music was inextricable from dance, and here was a good example. By this time, the