Macey looked away from Stella Miller and toward Aus, but he was staring out the window to let her know this was her interview, not his. She said, “Who hated him most?”

“Oh, the parents. They didn’t want their children to answer to a Negro. Back then you said Negro. If you were polite. People in this town are always polite. You’ve got to imagine a world where colored people weren’t worth much but teachers were worth a lot. Weren’t paid a lot, but they got respect. It’s the other way around now. But back in the nineteen fifties, you expected your child to obey the teacher. Respect the teacher. Grow up to be like the teacher. And now the teacher is a Negro? Nope. Can’t have it. So you take the child out of the school—or you get the Negro to leave. Simple.”

So Ginger’s parents had chosen the first way. Taking the child out of school.

And what way had Cordelia Clare’s parents chosen?

Macey held herself very still. “Mr. Sibley taught only one year,” she said to Stella Miller. “Did he leave because of the fire?”

“Sure. Who wants to live someplace where you really and truly aren’t wanted?”

Maybe Mr. Sibley had not known he really and truly wasn’t wanted. What a way to find out. “Do you remember anything about the fire?”

“No. But you could ask the fire chief. In 1959 that would have been Vinnie Raspardo. He’s still alive.”

Macey’d read that in the newspaper and forgotten it. “Who do you think set the fire?” she said.

Stella Miller shifted her great weight and stared at Macey. “What did you say your name is?”

Stella Miller remembered her grandparents well, remembered the Fents well, too. So Macey changed her name. It shocked her to hear a fake name come out of her mouth. “Marcy Smith.” She did not look at Austin. She could not imagine what he thought of her now. She could not think of an explanation for this lie. She had lied to the clerk in the voting office, too.

“And what is this project for?” said Stella Miller.

“Black History Month,” said Macey, although that was February and this was April. “You know, the town’s first black teacher.”

Stella Miller said, “Okay, so you don’t play bridge. What can you play? Gin rummy? Canasta?”

“I can play double solitaire,” said Austin.

He and Stella Miller played double solitaire. Stella Miller won. Dealing out cards for another game with incredible swiftness, she said, “Who set the fire? It’s an interesting question. They never investigated, as far as I know.”

Never investigated? That was impossible. Of course they investigated.