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Most students thought teachers disappeared into the ether with the tolling of the last bell, and I channeled that belief into my response. "Outside of class?" A place I'd never been, never heard of, my face said. "I think I've seen her in Saturday class here and there. Usually kind of a pain in the tush about it, too, but that's what you pay me the big bucks for, right?" I chuckled.

She did not.

"And nothing beyond that?"

"How else would I know her? From what I hear, she's not exactly Spell Bowl team material." (I coached Spell Bowl in the spring. Too nerdy for the Sterns, too intellectual for Cassie, too low-brow for Tabitha. It was a fantasy-free zone.)

Usually Mrs. Horen let her glasses hang from a cord around her neck. Presently, she raised them to her face. I recognized that maneuver. I'd seen it before in conferences with difficult parents, where she was done listening to them bloviate and was about to lay down the law. I have to say, it was doing work.

Without a word, the princ