“Give it to Mrs. Bingledorf.”
“Would you like me to do that for you?” she offered. “I have to meet with her later today.”
“No, I'll be fine,” I said, not trusting her in any way, given the questions she'd been asking me. “I'll get it to her.”
“Really? It would be no trouble to—”
“I'll get it to her,” I said. “But thank you.”
Her smile flickered. “Anytime. Will you be volunteering here all week?”
“Yep, I'm here through Friday.”
“Well,” she said, tight-lipped. “Lovely. I'm sure we'll run into each other again. Feels like I'm always here. Look forward to chatting again.”
She walked around the opposite side of the table and out into the office.
I still wasn't sure what she'd been doing in the conference room in the first place, but I knew she'd been giving me the third degree, probing for details about the theft. I didn't know why it was any of her business, other than maybe she wanted to gossip with her PTA cronies. But I didn't feel like it was my place to share information that wasn't meant for her. I glanced down at the piece of paper I was holding. I didn't think there was much she could do with a half-completed inventory list of the missing computers, but that didn't mean she needed to see it either.
“Don't worry about Harriet,” a voice said in the doorway.
I looked up. A petite young woman with long blonde hair was smiling at me. She wore a turquoise blouse and a long black skirt with wedge heels. A gold locket hung from her neck and gold earrings winked from her ears.
“She's like that with everyone,” the woman said, stepping into the conference room. “Nosy and bossy. Just smile at her and move along.”
“Glad it wasn't just me,” I said. She looked familiar but I couldn't quite place her. “And forgive me. I can't recall for the life of me your name, but I know we've met.”
She waved it off like it was no big deal. “Don't worry about it. I'm Charlotte Nordhoff.”
The name clicked. “The guidance counselor,” I said, smiling. “We met when I signed Emily up for school. I'm sorry. I'm Daisy Savage.”
She nodded like she remembered. “Yes, that was it. You were worried about Emily being ready because you'd homeschooled her.” It was her turn to smile. “I think you might've done a better job getting her ready than most of our middle schools do with their students.”
I wanted to hug her. As a homeschooler, I was constantly battling insecurities – that I wasn't doing enough for my kids or that I wasn't doing the right things. One of my biggest worries when Emily announced she wanted to go to Prism was that she'd be behind in everything and that I would've been exposed as a failure as a homeschool parent. It was hard to put into words how nice it was to hear something like that.
“Thank you,” I said, trying anyway. “That means a lot.”
“Emily's doing so well,” she said. She fingered the locket around her neck. “A nice kid who does well in her classes. I wish I saw her more often, but it's usually a good thing when I don't.”
“She loves it here,” I said.
She glanced over her shoulder, her pretty features wrinkling into a frown. “Probably because she doesn't have to deal with Harriet very often.” She shook her head. “I'm sure she means well, but having her as the president of the PTA has been a...challenge. I think she believes her title actually puts her on the faculty and she gets bent out of shape when something goes on here and she isn't in the know.” She shook her head again. “Harmless, but a pain in the rear end.”
“I just didn't think it was my place to share anything I knew with her,” I said. “Not that I know much of anything to begin with.”
Charlotte nodded. “And you shouldn't, unless you want it announced to half the parents in the school community. It's none of her business and you can feel free to tell her that. Or let me know if she's hassling you and I'll tell her.” She smiled. “Wouldn't be the first time we've had that conversation.”
I chuckled. “Thanks. I'll remember that.”
“You're welcome,” she said, leaning on the doorframe. “And if you need a place to hide this week, my office is always open. And Ellen out front is a good egg. She can run interference for you and I'm sure she's thrilled that you're here. Poor woman gets worked to the bone each week but she keeps coming back.”
“Good to know,” I said. “Thank you.”
She nodded and pushed off the doorframe. “You're welcome. I'll let you get back to your work here. Just wanted to say hello.”
She waved and disappeared.
I made a mental note to make certain Emily took Christmas cookies to Ms. Nordhoff.
EIGHT
“Sophie and Grace brought home these bottles with brown liquid in them,” Jake said, shaking his head as he got out of the car. “They said it was some sort of super healthy tea or something. I said it looked like sewer water.”
I'd gotten home from Prism around three
“It's kombucha,” Sophie said, holding hers up. Her blond hair was tied back in a loose ponytail , her long bangs hiding her eyes. “It tastes like iced tea. Only a little grosser.”
“And it came from Brenda's mother!” Grace yelled, holding up her bottle.
She scampered over to me and shoved the bottle in my face, within
“Brenda's mother?” I asked. “Really?”
“No, it came from something called a mother,” Will said, the last one to exit the car. He held his bottle with his thumb and forefinger, like he was afraid to touch it. “It's this totally disgusting thing that lives on her counter now. Like an alien or something. Totally creepy.”
“ What?” I asked. “What lives on the counter?”
Will's blue eyes darkened. “The mother of this disgusting drink. Which I am not drinking.”
“Totally looks like sewer water,” Jake muttered.
The kids scampered into the house and Jake stayed out in the garden with me.
“How was your first day of school?” he asked, grinning. He was wearing khakis and a blue button-down shirt that matched the color of his eyes.
“Eventful.” I told him about the stolen computers.
“Wow,” he said, when I'd finished. “That's crazy. All of the computers?”
“All of them.”
“How would someone do that?”
I tugged on a tomato clinging stubbornly to the vine. “Uh, I guess they'd carry them out.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I got that part. But I mean, you'd need a really big car for that. Or a rental truck. Or something. Because that's a lot of computers if it was the entire lab.”
“Which you'd think someone would notice.”
Jake nodded. “Which you'd think someone might have on video surveillance.”
“They're checking that.”
He shook his head. “Tape is probably already lost.”
While I'd viewed Prism with skepticism, he'd openly shared his disdain for it. Not because he was against schooling, but because he'd claimed it felt like a rinky-dink operation from the beginning. He said the word “charter” was code for “parents who have no clue what they're doing” and he'd shared his frustrations about inconsistent teaching, poor communication and the website that never seemed to work. He'd tempered the complaining once he realized that Emily was enjoying it so much, but like with most things that irritated him, he'd usually mutter something under his breath about it when the opportunity arose.
“I have no idea,” I said, dropping another tomato into the basket next to me. “But the computer teacher guy didn't seem all that worried, which was kind of weird.”
“Probably just going to show movies until they get new computers,” Jake said.
I frowned at him. “Stop.”
He frowned back. “Yeah, let's see what happens.” He paused. “On a different note, when is the first time we have the Witt kids here for babysitting?”
“In two weeks, I think. Why?”
“I'm gonna try to schedule a trip or something so I'm not here,” he said. “Maybe for the duration of these trade days or whatever you're calling them.”
“You are very grouchy,” I commented. “Bad day at work?”
“Not at all. I got to their house to pick the kids up and that little tyrant threw a rock at me,” he said, narrowing his eyes.
“Maybe you should try making friends with him.”
“That's what I did!” he said. “I walked up to him on the front porch and said 'Hey, little man, what's going on?' and he said 'You're weird!' and fired a rock at me. I ducked and it hit the front of the car. Add that to the sewer water thing and I'm really thinking I need a business trip to Abu Dhabi or something.”