Back home in Chicago, Austin had not played board games since he was six and tired of Candyland. His grandparents still loved them, however, and were delighted to have a third player. Austin didn’t exactly mind Parcheesi and Monopoly; it just wouldn’t have occurred to him to do that for fun. Often, after dinner, he and his grandparents played Clue. There would be a plate of Macey’s grandparents’ soft molasses cookies, which folded like pancakes over Austin’s fingers, turned back into dough against his tongue, and then melted down his throat. Just last night, the possible murderers in Clue had been strewn across the board, with their possible weapons in their possible rooms. “Your move, Aus,” his grandfather had said cheerfully.

My move, thought Aus now, thinking of bankers and fire.

And was it my grandfather with the gas can in the barn?

Or was it Macey’s grandfather with the match in the car?

8

Mom’s classmate Bonnie, who had become a chemistry teacher in honor of Mr. Sibley, telephoned Macey. “I called my parents,” she said. “They retired to San Antonio. They love it there.”

“How nice,” said Macey, casting around for something to say about San Antonio.

“I remember Mr. Sibley so well,” explained Bonnie, “and I didn’t remember a fire, so I asked my parents. It was arson, they said, to drive him away.”

Bonnie’s parents remembered. And Bonnie cared enough to telephone them and ask. So why didn’t Macey’s mother remember? Or care enough to ask?

“But it didn’t work,” said Bonnie. “Mr. Sibley stayed the entire school year. He never batted an eye.”

Stella Miller had made Mr. Sibley sound whipped, but Bonnie’s parents made him sound like a man of courage. “Why didn’t you remember?” said Macey. “Wasn’t there publicity and rumor and gossip?”

“My parents said Mr. Sibley never discussed it. Can you imagine the self-control? Think of all he lost. Car, dishes, blankets, neckties, papers. Stuff he could never replace—photos and collections. But he never mentioned the fire to his classes. He went on being a teacher and did not let it interfere.”

“That’s incredible,” said Macey. “How come he wasn’t sobbing, or had bandages on his arms or borrowed shoes on his feet? How could he not have said to his kids, ‘This awful thing happened to me’?”

“Truly,” agreed Bonnie. “If that happened to me or one of my students, my classes wouldn’t even let me mention chemistry. We’d talk about our pain. My parents said that back in the fifties you didn’t talk about ugly things, and this was ugly, so no grown-up discussed it. Not with their kids and not with each other; and it wasn’t in the newspaper, either, because the purpose of the paper was to make the town look good, so it wasn’t the kind of story they wrote.”