Beyond the corner of Main and High Streets and the buildings that clustered around it, a narrow dirt road led to a broad clearing in the pine woods that was the Pine Hill School playing field. The road edged the school yard and ended at a weathered wooden building of two stories. The next morning, as Maggie trudged up the road toward the schoolhouse, she saw several small children playing a keep-away game in the field.
A little girl bundled up in red pants, red wool jacket, and knitted red gloves paused in her chase and pointed. “Hey, look! There she is!”
“Told you, told you!” a boy shouted. “Never seen her before, have you?”
“Well, I have. She’s staying with Mr. Cruz.”
Maggie waved at Nicky, then hurried down a graveled road at the side of the field that led toward the building. She climbed the wooden steps, her annoyance growing. This was proving to be something like a “bad hair” day. Except that her hair was as usual, hanging straight to her shoulders and behaving. But something else must be wrong with her. A few minutes before, as she walked up Main Street, a couple of people had actually poked their heads out of shops to look at her. She became so self-conscious that she stopped at a plate-glass window to check herself. Nothing was wrong that she could see, but that hadn’t made her feel any better. Now, straightening her shoulders, she pulled open the heavy oak door.
Inside, she paused, looking for a door marked Office. There was none. Directly in front of her, she saw a broad L-shaped staircase with a large narrow window at the first landing. To her left, a pair of double doors was marked Auditorium. On her right, a hall with several doors on either side extended to the back of the building, where another large window framed the pine forest.
A floorboard squeaked as she walked down the long hall to the first door. She turned the knob slowly, opening the door a crack. Peering through the crack she saw rows of stationary desks, the old-fashioned kind with sunken inkwells, facing a faded green blackboard and an ancient teacher’s desk. The room was empty. Two more doors opened into deserted classrooms. She turned away, bewildered. There had to be students. At least six, anyway, according to Greg. She paused in the center of the hall, listening. Somewhere in this big building there were people; she could hear the muffled sound of voices. With a shrug she decided that she would have to try all the classrooms, no matter that she was beginning to feel like Goldilocks. But as she walked toward another door, a booming voice stopped her.
“Young woman! Where do you think you’re going?”
Maggie whirled around. “I was looking for—” Surprise interrupted her thought and her words. Standing near the foot of the staircase was a frail old man wearing a dark business suit. His white hair glistened in the sunlight that slanted through the window at the landing. She scanned the hall for the owner of the big voice, but found no one but the old man. “Was that you calling me?” she asked, taking a cautious step forward.
“Certainly,” he boomed. “Hurry, hurry, come along.” He opened a door at the side of the auditorium doors and turned around to look at her. “I’ve been waiting for you, Margaret Cruz.” Now he sounded petulant. “Victor assured me that you would arrive here at nine.” He reached into a vest pocket and brought out a round gold watch. “It is now five minutes after nine.”
“I’m sorry,” Maggie said. “I didn’t realize it would take—” The old man’s disapproving look stopped her. He waited for her to pass through the door, then closed it behind her.
Morning sun streamed through two large windows, illuminating the dark heavy furniture that crowded the small room. A blue rug spread beneath ornate table and chair legs and an immense polished desk that fronted the door. He walked slowly around the desk and motioned her to sit in a straight-backed chair facing it.
“I’m Mr. Wagner,” he said, “Headmaster of this school.”
“I’m glad to meet you,” Maggie said.
Mr. Wagner stiffened. “Sir,” he said curtly.
“Sir,” he repeated. “You will always address me as sir.” Maggie nodded and moved uncomfortably on the chair as he went on. “You are being admitted here today as a courtesy to your grandfather. Please remember that. Accepting a student without appropriate records or extensive testing is not our usual way. We may be privately funded, but there are state standards to which we must adhere.” He reached across the desk for a pen and held it over a blank form.
“Your name is Margaret, Margaret Cruz?”
“No, no, it’s not. My name is Margarita, Margarita Cruz. But everybody calls—”
“That’s quite enough!” he boomed. “Margarita? Margarita? I shall call you Margaret. Now …” He straightened the paper before him. “ … You are a junior. Is that correct?”
“Yes … sir.”
He completed the form, asking her age, her birth date, and other questions. “Report to Mrs. Gilliam upstairs in Room 204,” he said, handing her a bright yellow sheet. As he did, a grandfather clock struck the quarter hour. “You have already missed ten minutes of Civics and Government. Go quickly.”
Maggie jumped up. At the door she turned, started to say “Thank you,” and then changed her mind. She closed the door quietly and started up the stairs, reading the sheet in her hand. It was a hall pass. “To All Hall Monitors,” it read. “Margaret Cruz may travel freely from the Office to Room 204. Time: 9:14 a.m.” It was signed Bertrand Wagner in a small tight hand.
At the top of the stairs she looked around for a hall monitor, but saw no one. She shrugged. Obviously, there was no need for a pass. Maybe, she thought with an irrepressible little grin, there is no need for Mr. Wagner either. She opened the rear door of Room 204 and slipped inside. Here, too, the rows of desks were empty. But near the front, half a dozen students and a plump gray-haired woman were seated in a circle of chairs.
The woman looked up, smiled, and said, “You must be Margaret. Bring up a chair and meet everyone.” Her glance went to the yellow pass in Maggie’s hand. “I see Mr. Wagner has made you legal.” There were muffled snickers from the students.
A solidly built, brown-haired boy jumped up and, with a broad smile that seemed to say “Welcome,” pointed to his chair and winked. Maggie sat down and he brought another chair and pushed it into the circle beside her.
He whispered, “Hi, I’m Spence.”
The boy next to Spence, tall and thin and wearing glasses held together at the temple by black electrician’s tape, said he was John. Then came a stocky girl with red hair who said, “My name’s Nance—not Nancy.” Next to her was Catherine. “Cat,” Catherine said with a grin at Maggie, and Maggie, recognizing the girl from the bridge, grinned back. Hal, probably the Hal who had flubbed geometry, came next and then a tiny dark-haired girl who was almost lost in a bulky gray sweater introduced herself as Anna.
Mrs. Gilliam said, “Welcome, Margaret. It’s not often that we have visitors.”
“Thank you,” Maggie said. “But I’m not really visiting. I’m supposed to be starting here today.”
“Starting here?” the redhead said. “You mean you’re going to live here?”
Anna shot Nance a disgusted look. “Don’t be stupid. Who would want to do that?”
A blush deepened the color of Mrs. Gilliam’s already ruddy face. “I thought … well, I thought … I just assumed Mr. Wagner was confused.” She cleared her throat. “Well, then, welcome once more, Margaret.”
“Maggie, please.”
“Maggie it is,” Mrs. Gilliam said. “Now, let’s get back to the Supreme Court.”
After a discussion of the merits of checks and balances in government, Mrs. Gilliam moved right into geometry. Maggie was sorry for Hal. He was completely lost. “Hal, stay with me,” Mrs. Gilliam said when the rest of the students went out into the playing field for what they called physical education, but was more like a recess.
Nance clung to Maggie’s arm as they walked downstairs. “We’re usually in the gym,” she said as they walked outside, “but we’re so sick of being indoors—oh, good! Now you’re here, we’ll have even sides for volleyball.” She pointed to the far edge of the playing field where Cat was tightening a volleyball net.
“How about the guys?” Maggie asked. “They’d play, wouldn’t they?”
“Sure. But no coed sports. The school board won’t allow it. And the school board’s made up of Bremmers only, so …” Nance raised her hands in a gesture of defeat.
“The Bremmers?” Maggie said. “Do they run—”
“Hey!” Cat interrupted. “Hurry up! Time’s a-wasting!”
Maggie’s question remained unfinished. An awkward game of volleyball with made-up rules had begun. The tension she’d felt since meeting with Mr. Wagner was gone. The girls, including dour Anna, seemed more relaxed, too. Until a loud, shrill bell rang. Then they all stiffened.
“Oh, blast!” Cat said, quickly snagging the volleyball and racing toward the building. “I’ll never make it back on time. Tell Mrs. Gilliam I have to put the ball away. Tell her to square it with the head … with Mr. Wagner.”
Anna raced after Cat, and Nance grabbed Maggie’s arm. “Come on!” she yelled. “We don’t want the headhunter to get us.” Maggie, sensing her urgency, ran along with her, saying nothing.
When they reached the building, Nance pulled open the heavy door and, once inside, stopped, took a deep breath and whispered, “No more running. Now we walk up the stairs as if we had all the time in the world.” Just before they reached the second-floor landing, Nance nudged Maggie. “There he is.”
Mr. Wagner stood across the hall, a pad and pen in hand. The headhunter, of course.
“Whoo!” Nance whispered. “We made it.”
“We get a mark in that little book of his. It’s even worse if we run up the stairs.”
“Two marks?” Maggie said with a grin and Nance nodded.
“And two marks brings us closer to Janitor of the Week,” she said.
“Gotcha,” Maggie said and they walked sedately into Room 204.
An hour later the minute hand on the wall clock in their classroom clicked to twelve o’clock just as the school bell rang. In the distance, the church bell, too, began tolling the hour.
Anna, hurrying past Maggie on her way to the door, muttered, “This is about as exciting as it gets in Twisted Creek. Enjoy.”
Cat tapped Maggie’s shoulder. “Don’t mind Anna. She’s in training for the diplomatic corps. I’ll show you where we eat. You brought your lunch, didn’t you?”
“No,” Maggie said, “I goofed. I thought you’d have a cafeteria. I guess I could walk home for lunch.”
“No way,” Cat said. “You’d never get back on time. Anyway, you can have half of my sandwich.”
They walked together to where the upstairs hall led to an open space. “This eating area’s for the upper grades,” Cat told her. “Lower school eats directly below us, near their classrooms.”
Loud bantering laughs and voices rose from where twenty or so boys and girls were seated at three long tables. Somebody threw a wadded-up brown paper bag into a trash can as Maggie and Cat walked in. A boy’s voice shouted, “Doesn’t count! It nicked the rim.”
Maggie and Cat slid into chairs at the nearest table. “This is Maggie Cruz,” Cat told the rest of the occupants.
“Hi,” Maggie said and looked around the table. They were all younger kids, freshmen, she guessed. At the far table were the rest of Mrs. Gilliam’s class and three other boys and a girl. The seniors. But where was Greg? Then she saw him standing by one of the windows that framed a magnificent view of the pine forest with its patches of melting snow.
Greg was deep in a whispered conversation with a girl who had long, honey-colored hair. As Maggie looked, the girl shook her head briskly, her hair swinging smoothly back into place as she jammed her hands into her pants pockets. Greg turned and looked out the window. Finally, he shrugged and said, “Come on, let’s have lunch. We’ll talk later.” The girl nodded, and they took a couple of chairs at the next table.
At their table, Maggie noticed that Greg didn’t seem to like the way things were going. He frowned.
Then Cat put half a sandwich in front of her and said, “I hope you like tuna.”
“I do. Thanks. I’ll buy the drinks. Where’s the machine?”
“What machine?”
“Soft drinks. You know.”
“In Twisted Creek? We’re lucky if someone delivers groceries, including tuna, up here once a month. Nobody’d bother to run up here to service that kind of a machine. Matter of fact, finding soft drinks at Bremmer’s is something of a miracle. Everybody scrambles for them.”
“Oh. Like when the delivery trucks call a strike in the city,” Maggie said.
“No,” Cat said, shaking her head, “worse. Trust me.”
“Really? But if they deliver stuff everywhere else, why not here?”
“For one thing, the road. You just drove it. Can you picture two big trucks meeting on it?”
Maggie thought of the sharp narrow curves, the gashes in the asphalt, and nodded. “It would be murder. But why don’t they fix the road? Isn’t the state or somebody supposed to do that?”
“That’s another story,” Cat said and turned to reply to the girl next to her.
Maggie chewed contentedly on the tuna sandwich. It was all right that Cat hadn’t answered her. She was glad to be alone with her thoughts. So there were no Sprites or Diet Cokes. Who cared? She was here in Twisted Creek, and she was going to stay here. It’s true, she told herself, and looked around the room for proof. My grandfather’s great. He knew how I felt and he persuaded my mom. School’s going to be okay, too, even if it is different. I like Cat. Maybe she’ll be my friend. Nance, too. And John and Spence and even Hal seem awfully nice. So now all I have to do is persuade those pesky roosters to sleep a little longer.