Hole in Juan An Amanda Pepper Mystery

One Tuesday. A day without honor or distinction. None of Monday's dread, none of Wednesday's halfway-through-the-week exhilaration, and nobody says, "T.G.I.T.!" The week already felt long. I lurched out of bed, not exactly greeting the day. Insanity of sorts is part of any high school, but lately Philly Prep's version seemed more ominous. Something more serious was in the air, a tension, or subliminal rumbling. I thought of the animals who'd felt the undersea earthquake and anticipated the tsunami, saving themselves by running for the safety of the hills. I'd have done the same if only I could locate the hills. I had spent too much time lately obsessing about it, as if gnawing at nothingness would somehow reveal a solid center. Mackenzie had just about convinced me I was imagining the problem, or at least exaggerating it. After all, I spent my workweek with adolescents, their mercurial moods, their brains drowned in hormones. "Let me get this right: You're sayin' teenagers are odd," he'd murmured. "An' your point is?" I dragged myself to the bathroom and washed and dressed and tried to believe he was correct, and I was inventing a problem. I had to change my standards of what constituted normal and okay. The phone rang, and I raced to answer it. I had a sleeping visitor on the sofabed and didn't want to wake him. It was Carol Parillo, a Philly Prep math teacher and friend. She sounded as if she were phoning from a submarine. "Amanda, I'm sick," she said. Actually, she said "Abadda, I sig," her voice hoarse and congested. "In casehate to do thisbut in casecould you and Mackenzie be at the school party Friday? Just in case?" Given how I felt about school lately, spending extra time with the students was the last thing I wanted, but she sounded so wretched I couldn't refuse. I simply prayed for a miraculous cure for her. Mackenzie pulled on a V-neck sweater the color of merlot. It combined with his salt-and-pepper hair and his pale blue eyes to create an interestingly patriotic trio of colors. Once he'd gotten it settled on his shoulders, he looked at me, his expression quizzical. "Somethin' on your mind, isn't there?" "That phone call . . ." I broke the news as gently as I could. He did not jump up and down in jubilation at the idea of chaperoning a school dance. I should have waited till we'd had our coffee. "An' I'm to go, too?" "Remember the 'whither thou goest' part of the marriage vows?" I searched for my shoes. "Actually not," he said. "I don't think they said that at City Hall." "It's a tradition." "The whither thou goest thing? If you're followin' that script, I think you're supposed to follow me." "Nothe party itself. It's Mischief Night, and this is the keeping-them-off-the-street party." "Aren't you glad you're a cat?" C.K. asked Macavity, who lay curled on the duvet, mostly asleep. The part that wasn't asleep looked bemused. "You don't have to chaperone anything, ever." "Or work," I grumbled. I suspect that when Macavity finally activates himself, he phones the neighbors' tabbies, Siamese, Manx, andRoberts, Gillian is the author of 'Hole in Juan An Amanda Pepper Mystery' with ISBN 9780345480194 and ISBN 0345480198.