"Better you than me," Jane said with relief.

After Shelley went home to start her project, Jane checked the answering machine and found a message to call Todd's math teacher, Miss Milton. That was ominous. She returned the call and was told the teacher was in class, but would call back on her break. When Miss Milton called, she wouldn't commit to what she had to say without

a face-to-face meeting. They set it up for immediately after school that afternoon.

Jane did a couple of loads of laundry. Up and down the basement stairs. When all the kids were gone, she was going to convert their bathroom upstairs to a laundry room. Clothes tended to lie neglected in the basement. And they often came up smelling ever so slightly of kitty litter in the winter, when Max and Meow didn't go outside much.

What on earth was the teacher after her for? she wondered as she sorted darks from lights and came up with too many darks for one load and too few lights for a full load. Todd's best grades had always been in math. That wasn't saying much. They were usually B's and the rest were C's. And the way he was staying in his room in the evenings and actually studying… it couldn't be terrible news, could it?

Jane hadn't met this teacher yet. School had started only a short time ago, and the dreaded parents' night when they had to sit in little chairs and be bored senseless hadn't occurred yet. But when Jane found the room, the chairs and tables were normal size for the older kids. The teacher met her with a smile as they introduced themselves.

"Mrs. Jeffry, I'm sorry to inconvenience you this way, but did you hear about our testing this year?" Meeting a blank look, she went on, "We don't normally test first thing, but this year we wanted to get a handle on what we were up