Kate Stone had put me in charge of last spring’s graduation. I’d worked my fingers to the bone. For weeks, the graduates-to-be had watched caterpillars spin silken cocoons and waited for them to gradually emerge as butterflies. Once the butterflies appeared, the kids took turns adding sugar water to tiny cups with eyedroppers and soaking flowers in it to feed them.

Thanks to my brilliant timing, the butterflies were fluttering around in their butterfly gazebo on graduation day, locked and loaded and stashed out of sight in the shade of a grove of pine trees. When the time was right, Gloria picked up her ukulele and began playing “Fly Me to the Moon.” Lorna and I ceremoniously placed the butterfly gazebo in front of the graduation podium. The butterflies soared magically over the crowd.

And then one by one, they started dropping like flies.

It was so bad that Kate Stone told the parents that the school psychologist would be available all weekend. We’d actually had to find a bar a few towns away to drink our end-of-the-school-year pomegranate martinis.

I blinked the horrific memory away. “Don’t any of you dare say the B word.”

June’s china doll blue eyes filled with tears. “I still dream about the carnage. And I still remember their names. There was Tinkerbelle and Wings and Flutter and Flopsy and Justin Bieber and—”

“Get a grip,” I said as I handed her a tissue.

“In summation,” Lorna said, “particularly for our two new colleagues who missed the graduation debacle, you’ve got a lot riding on this holiday performance.”

“Thanks for the understatement.” I cleared my throat. “Okay, the biggest obstacle I see is that it’s all been done before. I mean, how can we come up with a holiday performance that’s fresh and fun, while keeping it politically and religiously correct, inclusive, heart-warming—”

“And all the rest of that crap,” Lorna said.

I nodded. “Exactly. And let’s not forget that we have to make each and every Bayberry parent think that their child is the real star of the show.” I scratched my head with both hands, as if I might dig my way to a good idea. I took a moment to consider the possibility of suet as a deep hair conditioner that might go viral, forced myself to stay focused.

“I mean, just take me out to pasture and shoot me now,” I finally said.

“Just a thought,” Ethan said, “but I made something new for our classroom that we might be able to use as a jumping off point.”

I was already wiping the suet off my hands.

“Halleluiah,” I said. “Lead the way.”

Chapter Seventeen