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ponytail swaying, “knocks his glasses clean off, and then he’s so mad, he makes these fists and—”
    â€œWhat we need in Africa,” Dreaper said, “is cyborgs. Enhanced humans.”
    â€œWith jetpacks on,” Cam intoned.
    â€œRobots.” Dreaper frowned at his cards again. “Just program them, ‘Kill bad guys.’ Our men and women can come home, go back to farming, selling cars.”
    â€œMy point exactly.” Mahinda winked. “The criminals will lay down their arms in the face of superior technology.”
    â€œWhat time’s the assembly?” called Ange Helms, our clunky-heeled-shoe home ec teacher. But passable ankles, Mahinda had once muttered.
    â€œNot ’til 11:15,” said Cam. “But I might bring him through some classes if he’s here early. Coming over from McCook.”
    â€œWhat assembly?” I asked.
    â€œIt’s not on your watch, don’t worry about it.” Cam raised his prodigious eyebrows. “But, say, Giller, want to swing by Sunday and watch some Steelers? Jacksonville, right? What a joke.”
    â€œSorry, I’ll have to pass,” I said. “But thanks.”
    â€œAh! Already spoken for. I’ll have to be quicker next time!”
    I shuffled over to the empty coffee machine and dumped the soggy filter in the trash. We didn’t have a single plan for Sunday, but I didn’t want to be burdened with a lot of friends if and when we moved to another town. And I liked to send the kids downstairs to play Wii on Sundays while I watched the games, so I could jot the stats down on my own. All last season, stretched on the bed beside me, scarf around her head, Lydia had rooted for Cincinnati just to be obstreperous, and, boy, their receivers had had hands like feet, right from Week One. They really had looked sick.
    At 8:45 we stood outside the cafeteria exit, the eleventh-grade boys in long shorts and girls in crop tops even though it was cold for October, possible snow smelling raw in my nostrils. Jordie, Devon and Todd had called in absent so that left me with fifteen for the field trip, and no sign of my parent volunteers.
    I did another head count but the skater kids were playing leapfrog or something so I got twenty the first time, then twelve. Couldn’t blame the skater kids if they kept warm. I watched through the shrubs for anything yellow that might swing into the parking lot. This would be my first visit to a plastics factory too, and I was holding onto the thinnest hope that I might be able to teach something. Well, we all thought the chemicals pouring into those moulds smelled evil and must slowly be killing the world, sure, so you can all quit going to the dollar store to buy Frisbees and sunglasses, all right? We won’t know for a thousand years exactly how that crap will pervert nature at the most fundamental level. Kids will happily scrawl “pervert” in their notebooks regardless of context.
    â€œHey, hey, Megan.” Clint, all in denim, leaned past my elbow. “What up, girl?”
    â€œCome onnnnn , make it come!” moaned Megan Avery in her sequinned-butterfly cardigan. “Did you know we’re missing appliqué in home ec today?”
    â€œTeachers don’t run the buses,” I said, then noticed the kids wandering across the parking lot toward the swaying magnolias—they enjoyed many noon-hour cigarettes in there at their campfire ring overlooking a trickling culvert—so I squared my shoulders for the day’s first authoritarian holler.
    â€œSo I’m not ridiculously late!” called a svelte woman in a black tracksuit, skipping across from a green Taurus wagon. “Oh, Megan! Which teacher is this?”
    â€œIt’s Mr. Giller,” said Megan. “Dr. Reid’s off sick.”
    â€œBowel resection. I’m Pete Giller, his substitute.” Jesus, had she thought Kirsten McAvoy would be the sub? “Glad