I had no choice but to go to class. I mean, what was there to tell Father Dominic, anyway, that he didn’t already know? I’m sure he knew it was Heather who’d wrecked the school, and me who’d broken Mr Walden’s window. He probably wasn’t going to be all that happy with me anyway, so why was I even bothering? What I ought to have been doing was trying as much as possible to stay out of his way.

Except . . . except what about Heather?

As near as I could tell, she was still recuperating from her explosive rage the night before. I saw no sign of her as I made my way to Mr Walden’s classroom for first period, which was good: it meant Father D and I would have time to draw up some kind of plan before she struck again.

As I sat there in class trying to convince myself that everything was going to be all right, I couldn’t help feeling kind of bad for poor Mr Walden. He was taking having the door to his classroom obliterated pretty well. He didn’t even seem to mind the broken window so much. Of course everybody in school was buzzing about what had happened. People were saying that it had been a prank, the severing of Junipero Serra’s head. A senior prank. One year, Cee Cee told me, the seniors had strapped pillows to the clappers of the church bells, so that when they rang, all that came out was a muffled sort of splatting sound. I guess people suspected this was the same sort of thing.

If only they had known the truth. Heather’s seat, next to Kelly Prescott, remained conspicuously vacant, while her locker – now assigned to me – was still unopenable thanks to the dent her body had made when I’d thrown her against it.

It was sort of ironic that as I was sitting there thinking this Kelly Prescott raised her hand and, when Mr Walden called on her, asked if he didn’t think it was unfair, Monsignor Constantine declaring that no memorial service would be held for Heather.

Mr Walden leaned back in his seat and put both his feet up on his desk. Then he said, ‘Don’t look at me. I just work here.’

‘Well,’ Kelly said, ‘don’t you think it’s unfair?’ She turned to the rest of the class, her big, mascara-rimmed eyes appealing. ‘Heather Chambers came here for ten years. It’s inexcusable that she shouldn’t be memorialized in her own school. And, frankly, I think what happened yesterday was a sign.’

Mr Walden looked vastly amused. ‘A sign, Kelly?’

‘That’s right. I believe what happened here last night – and even that piece of the breezeway nearly killing Bryce – are all connected. I don’t believe Father Serra’s statue was desecrated by vandals at all, but by angels. Angels who are angry about Monsignor Constantine not allowing Heather’s parents to have her funeral here.’

This caused a good deal of buzzing in the classroom. People looked nervously at Heather’s empty chair. Normally, I don’t talk much in school, but I couldn’t let this one go by. I said, ‘So you’re saying you think it was an angel who broke this window behind me, Kelly?’