The classroom was stuffy and Hannah had all she could do not to yawn. She’d been out late last night, watching footage of the film with Ross and the cast at the inn, and that was when Lynne had asked her if she’d play the high school English teacher in today’s classroom scene.

Hannah had her fingers crossed that Burke would be able to pull off his role in less than a dozen takes. Lisa had recruited Herb to help her at The Cookie Jar and they’d both told Hannah to go ahead and have fun, but she couldn’t help feeling she was shirking her share of the work.

“Are you ready?” asked a teenage boy, and Hannah turned, expecting to see one of Jordan High’s sophomores. But although she’d been hailed by a teenager’s voice, it was Burke who was standing next to her.

“Did you just say something?” Hannah asked, hardly daring to believe her ears.

“Yes. Are you ready, Miss Bowman?”

Hannah answered the question with a smile and a nod. This might work out after all. Burke certainly looked like a teenager, and his voice was absolutely perfect. Now if he could only act like a teenager, they’d be through with the scene in no time at all.

“Places,” Lynne called out and Hannah walked to the front of the room. She had only one speech, but Lynne had told her that it was important because it set the tone for the whole scene.

“Lights

and action!”

Lynne cued Hannah, and Hannah delivered the lines in her best schoolmarm voice. “All right, class. I have papers to grade at the table in the back, so for the remainder of the period I want you to study Mending Wall by our own poet laureate, Robert Frost. If you have trouble understanding any of the allusions, ask Jody. If the last test is any indication, he has a better understanding of Frost’s work than any other student in this class.”

Hannah picked up the sheaf of papers on her desk and walked, in her gray tweed suit and sensible shoes, to the table at the rear. The moment she had cleared the last desk at the back of the rows, students began to lean over in the aisle and whisper.

Lynne waved her to her chair at the table and Hannah sat down. She spread out her papers and pretended to be engrossed in grading them, her red pencil moving over the paper and making a checkmark and an occasional comment, but she knew she’d be present only in the wide master shot and no one could actually see what she was doing. She, however, could still see the class and the quiet but threatening interaction between Jody and the rest of the students.

“Think you’re so smart, huh?” the boy with the yellow shirt hissed.