"A whole month," said Stevie, his voice sounding dead.

"Think of it this way" said Step. "Think of it as if you had been convicted of a crime you didn't commit.

You aren't guilty, you didn't do anything wrong, but the system worked wrong and you got convicted for it and now there's nothing you can do except hang on and live through the last month of your sentence. And then you'll get out and you'll never have to see Mrs. Jones again. And next year you'll be in the middle school and there'll be a whole bunch of new kids from other schools-everybody will be new, not just you. Next year will be better. You just have to live through this year."

"Don't talk to Mrs. Jones," said Stevie. "Please."

"Trust me, Stevie," said Step. "When I talk to Mrs. Jones, I will make things better."

Clearly Stevie did not believe him. It frustrated Step, made him almost angry, that his son didn't believe that he could do it. But Step had taken a good little while before he believed in Stevie, too. Turnabout is fair play.

When he left Stevie's room a few minutes later, he found DeAnne leaning against the door of the room they shared, right across the hall. She looked grim as she opened the door and led him inside. She closed the door.

"You heard?" asked Step.

"I couldn't stand not to listen," she said. "I've been so worried."

"Well, then, you know everything." He laughed bitterly. "At least now we know why he was so desperate to believe Sister LeSueur's flattery. If the kid's been hammered at school, he's got to be starved for praise."

"Do you really believe his story?" asked DeAnne.

"I think so," said Step. "Partly at least. I've got to."

"But what about the librarian? Step, I know the librarian wasn't lying. She's the sweetest woman, she sounded like she really loved Stevie. She talked about how he comes in during recess every day and reads, and she talked about his project with such pride." Then DeAnne stopped herself. "Listen to me. I'm standing here telling you that I would rather believe a woman I only met this morning than my own son."

"We don't believe something out of loyalty" said Step. "We believe it because it sounds plausible to us.

And Stevie's story didn't sound plausible until he told so much more of it that it began to fall into place. For instance, why should the librarian have been lying? Maybe she was telling the truth. Maybe Stevie's project did win first place, and maybe Mrs. Jones simply lied to her class about it."

"Oh, Step, she couldn't possibly imagine that she could get away with it, could she?"

"Who knows?" said Step. "There are a lot of crazy people in the world."

"But not teaching school."

"Why not? I mean, all those crazy people in mental institutions, they weren't born there. The day before they were in the asylum, they were outside the asylum, and a lot of them probably had jobs, and some of them were probably teachers. You don't think teachers could go crazy? Heck, they probably have a higher percentage than most, when you think of what they go through. So maybe she's just three months away from getting committed because she has come to hate children so deeply. Like a disease inside her. And this year she found a scapegoat, somebody she could pour out all that bile and venom onto, and it was Stevie."

DeAnne shook her head.

"It's possible," said Step. "I've at least got to find out."

"You made a promise to Stevie that you can't keep," said DeAnne.

"Oh, I'll keep it," said Step. "One way or another."

"How can you stop her from punishing him even more as soon as you're through talking to her?"

"If necessary I'll go to class every day."

"She'd never permit that. The school would never permit it."

"A parent, observing his child's class?"

"You'd lose your job."

"I'll quit the job!" said Step, and to his own surprise he was talking loudly, angrily. He brought his voice back down, spoke quietly, intensely. "I will quit the job. I hate the job. The job is keeping me from being a decent father to my children. The job is killing me and my family. Screw the job."

DeAnne visibly recoiled from him. "Step, please," she said.

It made him irrationally angry, to have her get upset at him for his language when he was talking about something that actually mattered. "Oh, don't you like the way I said it? The word screw is too rough for you?

It's a euphemism, DeAnne. You can't get mad at me for using a euphemism! I mean, I could have said-"

"I'm not mad at you for saying screw, you dunce! I'm not mad at you at all, and don't be mad at me either, I can't stand it!" She burst into tears. "You were about to say the f- word! You were about to say that to your own wife."

"What is this about?" asked Step. "You were mad at me, I know you well enough to know what it looks like, you were mad at me for saying screw and-"

"So I was! For one stupid second! And then I realized it was stupid and I'm sorry, I can't help getting some look on my face for one split second, I don't deserve to have you swearing at me!"

"What are we doing?" said Step. "Why are we fighting?"

"Because our son has been tormented in school and we didn't do anything to help him-"

"How could we? He didn't tell us-"

"And we're both so angry we want to beat somebody up and the only person within easy reach is each other." DeAnne stopped talking for a moment. Then, to Step's surprise, she laughed. Laughed and lowered herself to the edge of the bed.

"OK, share the joke with the rest of us in this room," said Step.

"I was just thinking-this is so stupid, it isn't even funny ..." She wiped tears away from her eyes.

"I know, I can see how funny it isn't," said Step.

"I just thought, when I said we're so mad and the only person we can reach is each other, I thought, `Let's go beat up Sister LeSueur."'

She was right. It wasn't really funny, and yet Step had to sit down beside her on the bed and laugh and laugh.

Step didn't actually ask for permission to leave work in the middle of the day. He just leaned his head into Dicky's office and said, "I'm taking lunch at two-thirty this afternoon because I have to go meet with my son's teacher after school."

"Your wife can't do that?" asked Dicky.

"Dicky," said Step, "it's my lunch hour, and I'm taking it at two-thirty. I'm only telling you because I want you to know where I'm going to be during that time period. I wasn't asking permission.

Dicky made no argument, just shrugged and gave a sort of half smile that made Step say to himself, You're too sensitive, too prickly Step. Dicky didn't mean anything by what he said, and you jumped all over him.

Then, at twenty after two, as Step was sliding his microcassette recorder into his right pants pocket just prior to leaving, Dicky buzzed him on the phone. "Come by my office, please," he said.

"I'm on my way out," said Step. "To lunch."

"On your way, then, please stop by my office."

Step felt a sick dread in the pit of his stomach. Is he firing me? Because I spoke rudely to him? Impossible.

Or maybe Ray Keene found out that I snuck a copy of my employment agreement, and so he thinks I'm looking for another job and so I'm being sacked because of that.

Instead, Dicky was all smiles when Step came into his office. There was another man there, a tall, thin fellow with a dark complexion and a sepulchral face that would have been rather fright ening if he hadn't been smiling so broadly. In fact, his head was so narrow and his smile so wide that it looked for a moment as if he really were, literally, grinning from ear to ear. A mouth like a Mup pet, though Step.

"Meet Damien Weinreiter," said Dicky. "We're interviewing him for that programming position we have open."

"Oh? I didn't know we were looking for a programmer." Step never knew when they were hiring or firing people-he wasn't exactly part of the personnel process.