“You know what it usually means when a kid changes overnight like that,” Sam had said worriedly to Phyllis when they were discussing the circumstances. “Drugs.”
“Not always,” she’d told him. “Ronnie comes from a good family, a good background.”
“That doesn’t always make a difference,” he had said with a doleful shake of his head. That attitude was far out of character for Sam and told Phyllis just how concerned he really was.
“I don’t have any problem with her staying here, and neither do Carolyn and Eve. We’ve talked about it. Sometimes a change of scenery will make all the difference in the world. And it might be fun having a young person in the house again.”
“It’ll be different, that’s for sure.”
Phyllis wasn’t sure it would be all that different, since part of the time Sam was pretty much a big kid himself . . .
That had been in July. In August, the Dobsons had come to see Phyllis and Sam with their news—and their request for help. Once Phyllis and Sam had agreed to take over as long-term subs for Molly and Frank and the principal at Courtland had agreed to it, it hadn’t been difficult to make arrangements for Ronnie to attend the same school. On the first day of classes, all three of them had walked into a new school. New not only to them, but to everyone else there. It was actually kind of exciting.
Things had settled down into a routine, of course. Even though the students had changed in some ways since Phyllis and Sam last taught, kids were still kids, and teaching was still teaching—although Phyllis didn’t remember the teachers having quite as much paperwork to do when she was at the junior high. She had taught eighth grade there, only one year younger than freshmen, but there seemed to be a world of difference between those eighth graders and the juniors and seniors she saw walking the halls at Courtland. Most of her students were sophomores, with a few juniors mixed in, sort of halfway between her former students and the near-adults who would be graduating in another year.
Sam had had it a little easier, since he had taught and coached at the high school level for many years, although most of his career had been spent at Poolville, a much smaller school. The sheer size of Courtland had been an adjustment for him.
“It’s like bein’ in a shoppin’ mall,” he had told Phyllis. “Wings goin’ off here and there and different floors and people everywhere.”
“That’s what schools are like these days, I guess,” she had said.
“Big schools. I don’t mind doin’ this to help out your old friends, but I sure wouldn’t want to come back to it full-time.”
Phyllis thought about everything she enjoyed about retirement and said fervently, “Me, either.”
Now, on this morning in early October, they were all fortifying themselves with coffee while Raven wandered around under the table, rubbing against everyone’s legs in turn. The cat was affectionate and well-behaved—as long as Buck wasn’t around. Raven wasn’t quite as friendly to dogs as Molly and Frank had claimed. All it had taken was one barking, growling, hissing, spitting encounter between the Dalmatian and the black cat to prove that. The confrontation had ended with Buck retreating and howling in pain from the scratches on his nose, and since then the humans had been careful to keep the animals apart.
“You know it’s Friday the Thirteenth next week, don’t you?” Ronnie said.
Carolyn turned from the stove where she was moving pancakes from the pan to a stack on a plate and said, “It is? I hate to hear that.”
“Are you superstitious, Mrs. Wilbarger? I’m a little surprised. You don’t seem like the type.”
“Superstitious? Not at all! But everyone else in the world seems to be, and I get tired of hearing about it.”
Sam said, “There’s gonna be a dance at school, right? I saw posters about it, sayin’ how you can buy tickets from student council members.”
“Are you going, Ronnie?” Phyllis asked.
“To a school dance?” Ronnie made the question sound like it was the most ridiculous idea she had ever heard.
“Yeah, I suppose that wouldn’t be a very cool thing to do, would it?” Sam said.
Ronnie shrugged. “It’s all moot. Nobody’s asked me, and nobody will.”
“You don’t know that,” Phyllis said.
“Yeah, I pretty much do.”
“No reason you can’t go anyway,” Sam said. “You’ll have plenty of friends there. You don’t have to have a date.”
Ronnie arched an eyebrow eloquently and said, “Plenty of friends? Not exactly.”
“You’ve made friends. I see you sittin’ at a table in the cafeteria with the same bunch of kids every day.”
“Yeah, they’re all right. But they’re not really the type to go to school dances, either.”
“Ah. Outsiders. Like the book.”
“What book?”
Phyllis said, “You don’t read The Outsiders in English class?”
“Yeah, no, I never heard of it.”
Phyllis and Sam looked at each other. Earlier, Phyllis had said that the more things change, the more they stay the same, prompted by the fact that not only were she and Sam getting up and going to school every morning, they also had to make sure Ronnie got up and made it to class, too. That brought back memories for both of them, reminding Phyllis of her son Mike and Sam of his daughter Vanessa.
But some things did change, like blue hair and assigned reading in English classes . . . and friends with cancer.
Phyllis was solemn the rest of the morning as she got ready to go. The odd circumstances of the past few years, when she had found herself mixed up in a number of murder cases, meant that she had seen more than her share of death and tragedy.
But in the end, she thought, everyone’s share was the same, wasn’t it?
Chapter 3
Thankfully, she had put those dark thoughts aside by the time she got to school.
Most of the time, Phyllis drove her Lincoln and Sam took his pickup, because they might have different things scheduled after school and it was just easier to have two vehicles, even though they lived in the same house. Ronnie usually rode to school with Sam, although sometimes she went with Phyllis, and she rode home with whichever one of them was more convenient for her. Sam had learned to coordinate this with text messages, which was new for him. He was pretty computer-savvy but had never done much texting until now.
Phyllis parked in the faculty lot behind the school and enjoyed the cool autumn breeze as she walked inside. Huge, fluffy white clouds tumbled through the sky. Fall was one of her favorite times of year. As she had gotten older, she’d come to enjoy the extremes of winter and summer less and preferred the more moderate climates of spring and fall.
The walk into the school was the last time she would be outside until she went home that afternoon, unless she left the campus during her conference period, which was rare. The rest of the time would be spent in the climate-controlled building, where there wasn’t much to see except brick, concrete, tile, and steel. There were very few windows in the school, and those were tall and narrow and didn’t provide much of a view. Phyllis missed being able to see the outside world, even though she knew from experience that if there were windows, some students would spend all day staring out through them.
Ray Brooks, the school’s full-time security guard, was standing beside the entrance closest to the faculty lot. A stocky man in his thirties with already thinning brown hair, he nodded to Phyllis as she came up to the double glass doors.
“Good morning, Mr. Brooks,” she said.
“Mornin’.” The curt response was all she ever got from him. Brooks wasn’t unfriendly, he just wasn’t friendly and never seemed to be glad to see any of the teachers or other school staff. Phyllis didn’t feel slighted since he was that way with everybody.
Or maybe not everybody, she thought as she went inside. From what she had heard, Brooks had dated at least one of the single female teachers in the past, although there didn’t seem to be any scandal attached
to the rumors.
“Good morning, Phyllis,” a voice called through the open doorway of one of the classrooms she passed. It was next door to Phyllis’s room, although she supposed that technically it was Molly Dobson’s room. Molly had never taught there, however, and Phyllis had, so for now, at least, it was her room.
She paused and looked in at the woman who had greeted her. “Hello, Frances,” she said. “How are you this morning?”
Frances Macmillan laughed and blew back a strand of graying blond hair that had fallen over her glasses. “Overwhelmed,” she said. She’d been standing beside her desk, but she came over to the open door as she went on, “But why should today be any different?”
Frances taught AP World History, as well as a couple of classes of regular World History. She was also the student council sponsor. During the week of staff development before school started, which Phyllis had attended even though strictly speaking she didn’t have to, being a substitute, she and Frances had met and hit it off immediately. Frances was twenty years younger, which still made her old enough to be a well-seasoned veteran of the educational wars. Phyllis had come to her for advice about dealing with high school students on more than one occasion, and Frances had been quite helpful.
“Anything in particular have you frazzled today?” Phyllis asked now.
Frances pushed her glasses up. “It’s this Friday the Thirteenth dance. You know, the one that the student council is putting on next week.”
“Of course. In fact, we were just talking about it at home this morning.”
“Oh?” Frances smiled.
Phyllis suddenly realized she might have stepped into a trap. But it was too late to retreat now, and anyway, she wasn’t sure she wanted to.
“I could really use some more volunteers,” Frances went on. “It’s the one Friday during football season when we don’t have a game, and people are taking advantage of that to do other things.”
“Like have a dance,” Phyllis pointed out.
“Well, yes, but that’s not the only activity going on. So I don’t have as many chaperones as I really need, and I’d really love to have someone provide some snacks, maybe a bowl of punch . . . I was hoping I’d see you this morning, since with your background . . . I mean, you must have dozens of wonderful recipes for cookies and other goodies. Maybe hundreds.”
Frances was talking fast, probably trying to get her whole pitch out before Phyllis could say no. Phyllis wanted to tell her to slow down. She’d been halfway expecting Frances to approach her about this.
“I can probably do that,” she said.
Frances looked surprised. “You mean bake something for the dance? Or chaperone? Or . . . dare I hope it? . . . Both?”
Phyllis had to laugh at her friend’s dramatic phrasing. “I think I can manage both,” she said. “I can probably get Carolyn to help me with the baking, too, and I believe Sam would be glad to chaperone with me.”
“I’m sure he’d do anything you asked him to, but I wouldn’t want to inconvenience either of you . . .”
“It’s no trouble,” Phyllis assured her. “When we were talking about the dance this morning at breakfast, I thought then that it might be fun to go. I haven’t been to a school dance in, well, ages and ages.”
“This is just wonderful. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”
“I should probably check with Sam to make certain he’s all right with it, though. Although I’m pretty sure he will be. I just don’t want to speak for him . . . too much.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll let you know later.”
Frances nodded, put a hand on Phyllis’s arm, and squeezed. “Thank you. I’m thrilled to have someone with your reputation involved.”
For a second, Phyllis thought the other teacher was talking about the notoriety that had begun to follow her around during the past few years when she had found herself involved in those sensational murders.
But then she realized Frances must mean her reputation as a baker. It was true that Phyllis had either won or finished high in various recipe contests, often in heated but friendly competition with Carolyn. Also, she had been writing a column for the magazine A Taste of Texas, although recently she had begun to think that it might be time to retire from that. It was nice to be known for something other than ferreting out killers, though.
“I’ll talk to Sam at lunch and then check back with you later,” Phyllis promised.
“That would be great. Ready for today’s classes?”
“Always.” If there was anything Phyllis had learned from her many years of experience as both a teacher and a baker, it was how quickly everything could fall apart without proper preparation.
◄♦►
Phyllis and Sam had the same lunch period. It had just worked out that way; they hadn’t asked for the arrangement, and they wouldn’t have. Lunch schedules, like everything else, needed to be set up in the best interests of the students. That wasn’t always how things were done, of course, but at least it was a reasonable goal.
Neither of them had cafeteria duty this week, so when Phyllis had gotten her food, she carried the tray toward the table where Sam always sat. His classroom was closer to the cafeteria than hers was—by the length of a whole wing, in fact—so he was nearly always there first.
That was true today, too. She spotted him near the end of the table, sitting next to a dark-haired, very attractive young woman who was smiling and laughing at something Sam was saying. Amber Trahearne was one of the other math teachers, and she had befriended Sam and helped him out during the first few weeks of school, just as Frances Macmillan had given Phyllis a hand.
Phyllis wasn’t jealous, exactly, but it was impossible not to notice how young and pretty and, well, downright perky Amber was, even though she knew that neither Sam nor Amber would ever have any sort of romantic interest in the other.
“Hi, Phyllis,” Amber greeted her before Sam could say anything. “Sam, scoot over and make room for Phyllis.”
“Yeah, that’s just what I was doin’,” Sam said as he moved his tray. Phyllis sat down on his right. Amber was on his left. Sam looked back and forth between them and grinned. “Mighty good company.”
The noise level in the cafeteria was high, as usual in a school cafeteria, but Phyllis heard the self-satisfaction in Sam’s voice. Despite his overall level-headedness, he wasn’t immune to the appeal of an attractive young woman’s attention.
Amber leaned forward and said across Sam to Phyllis, “Sam was just telling me he’s forgotten all of his advanced math, but I’ll bet he hasn’t. It would all come back to him if he started using it again.”
“You’re wrong there,” Sam said, shaking his head. “I barely understood calculus and trigonometry when I was studyin’ ’em. Shoot, I even called it triggernometry startin’ out. I figured out enough to pass, but that’s about all. Today, I don’t have even the foggiest notion of what a cosine is, unless it’s one sine sittin’ next to another sine.”
Amber laughed again. Phyllis wanted to tell her it wasn’t that funny, but what would be the point? Let her pretend-flirt with Sam. At this late date, it wasn’t really going to matter.
Anyway, it didn’t have anything to do with Sam. That was just Amber’s personality. She was bubbly and outgoing, and with men that came across as flirtatious. With her looks, it couldn’t really do anything else. Her attractiveness was enhanced by the expensive designer clothes she wore, the fancy bags and matching shoes, like the outfit she had on today. Jacket, bag, and shoes were all decorated—although not ostentatiously—with gemstones.
“I’ve been trying to talk Sam into giving me a hand with the math team,” Amber went on. “I think he’s got a natural talent for general mathematics and number sense.”
“I couldn’t ever do the calculator,” Sam said. “These ol’ fingers of mine won’t move that fast. When those kids on the calculator team get to goin’ on those things, I can’t even see what they’re doin’.”
“It’s just a matter of practice. But with number sense, it’s all up here.” Amber tapped a finger on the side of her head.
“I do that and I just get a hollow sound.”
That drew another laugh from the young teacher, and despite herself, Phyllis began to feel a little annoyed. She said to Sam, “Frances Macmillan talked to me this morning about the dance next week. She was hoping I could make some snacks for it . . . and that you and I would be chaperones.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I said I’d be happy to do both of those things. I didn’t promise that you’d do it, though.”
“Would’ve been all right if you had,” Sam said. “That’s sounds like fun.”
“So you’re going to be at the dance?” Amber said. “Now I’m glad I agreed to volunteer, too.”
That didn’t work out exactly as she had planned, Phyllis thought . . . but it would be all right. And Amber had just as much right as any of the other teachers to help out at the dance.
Still, they were talking about Friday the Thirteenth. Maybe she was a little superstitious after all, Phyllis realized as a vague sense of unease stirred inside her.
Chapter 4
She didn’t get a chance to talk again with Frances Macmillan until after school, but she went next door to Frances’s classroom then and told her that she and Sam would definitely volunteer to be chaperones at the dance.
“That’s fantastic,” Frances said. “What about the snacks? Do you have any ideas?”
“Well, since the dance is going to be on Friday the Thirteenth, the first thing that popped into my head was chocolate mint brownies decorated with black cats.” The whole concept of the day being bad luck had led her to think about Raven and how black cats carried that same association. “I also thought about something we could call Killer Sugar Cookies. Those would be sugar cookies with white icing and spots of red icing sprinkled over them . . . like . . . blood . . .”
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