"No way, kiddo." But just the same, she felt Katie's

forehead. "They'd all think you were afraid to come to school if you stayed out today. Besides, I'm going to be gone all day."

It was the wrong thing to say… again. "Mom! Why do you have to treat me like such a baby. I could stay home by myself."

Jane remembered Staying Home By Myself from her own school days. "No deal. Hop out."

The phone was ringing when Jane came back in the door to her kitchen after delivering the grade schoolers. It was Detective Mel VanDyne, the man she was dating in an extremely sporadic fashion. "Jane? I'm glad I caught you. Listen, about Saturday night…"

"You're canceling."

"Sorry, but I've got to. It's a follow-up to that drugs in the schools seminar I taught last week. It seems that…"

"It's all right," Jane said, even though it wasn't. She'd bought a new outfit.

"How about Sunday night instead?"

"Sorry. I'm busy."

There was a silence Jane hoped wasn't patently disbelieving. Well, she was busy on Sunday night. All Sunday nights, in fact. There was always at least one child who had to have help on a report that had been assigned a week earlier, another who couldn't find a precious article of clothing he/she had to wear the next day, and one who decided to practice some musical instrument next to the phone that a sibling was speaking on. It was that way every school night, but for some mysterious reason Sundays were always the worst. Not that she had any intention of letting a sophisticated bachelor know what sort of things she was busy with. She'd been dating Mel off and on

(more off than on, to her regret) for two months and he was still wary of her extraordinarily maternal life-style. He always seemed half-afraid she was going to lose her head and pack him a lunch or drive him to a piano lesson.