‘Omigod!’ she cried. ‘Have you heard? Aren’t you psyched? We are going to have a bitching year.’

Bitching. All right. I said, calmly, ‘I look forward to working with you.’

‘Look,’ Kelly said, suddenly all business. ‘We have to get together soon and choose the music.’

‘The music for what?’

‘For the dance, of course.’ I could hear her flipping through an organizer. ‘I’ve got a DJ all lined up. He sent me a play list, and we have to choose what songs for him to play. How’s tomorrow night? What’s wrong with you, anyway? You weren’t in school today. You’re not contagious, are you?’

I said, ‘Um, no. Listen, Kelly, about this dance. I don’t know about it. I was thinking it might be more fun to spend the money on . . . well, something like a beach cookout.’

She said, in a perfectly flat tone of voice, ‘A beach cookout.’

‘Yeah. With volleyball and a bonfire and stuff.’ I twisted the phone cord round my finger. ‘After we have Heather’s memorial, of course.’

‘Heather’s what?’

‘Her memorial service. See, I figure you already booked the room at the Carmel Inn, right, for the dance? But instead of having a dance there, I think we should have a memorial service for Heather. I really think, you know, she’d have wanted it that way.’

Kelly’s tone was flat. ‘You never even met Heather.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘that may be. But I have a pretty good feeling I know what type of girl she was. And I think a memorial service at the Carmel Inn would be exactly what she’d want.’

Kelly didn’t say anything for a minute. Well, it had occurred to me she might not like my suggestions, but she couldn’t really do anything about it now, could she? After all, I was the vice president. And I don’t think, short of expulsion from the Mission Academy, I could be impeached.

‘Kelly?’ When she didn’t answer, I said, ‘Well, look, Kell, don’t worry about it now. We’ll talk. Oh, and about your pool party on Saturday. I hope you don’t mind, but I asked Cee Cee and Adam to come. You know, it’s funny, but they say they didn’t get invited. But in a class as small as ours, it really isn’t fair not to invite everybody, you know what I mean? Otherwise, the people who didn’t get invited might think you don’t like them. But I’m sure in Cee Cee and Adam’s case, you just forgot, right?’

Kelly went, ‘Are you mental?’

I chose not to dignify that with a response. ‘See you tomorrow, Kell,’ was all I said.

A few minutes later, the phone rang again. I picked up, since it appeared I was on a winning streak. And I wasn’t wrong. It was Father Dominic.

‘Susannah,’ he said, in his pleasantly deep voice. ‘I do hope you don’t mind my bothering you at home. But I just called to congratulate you on winning the sophomore class—’