This time Marlin elbowed her so hard in the ribs that Charlie screamed, “OUCH!”

“I forgot to pack them!” said Fiona. “It was a mistake. It won’t happen again.”

There was another considering silence and then the principal sat up straight suddenly as if deciding something and said, “I’m going to have to call social services and see what they want me to do with you.”

She started to reach for the phone receiver and Fiona was shocked to find her hand, as if by its own volition, clamp down on the principal’s wrist so that she couldn’t lift the receiver. She had never manhandled a stranger let alone an adult before. Natasha gasped. Marlin’s eyes got large and Charlie squealed.

“Don’t do that,” Fiona begged. “Don’t call social services. Please! At least wait and let me tell you the whole story.”

Miss Webster let go of the phone, sat back, and waited.

With many pauses and insertions and interruptions in Fiona’s story by Natasha, Charlie, and Marlin, it all came out.

“There could be nothing,” Fiona summed up, “nothing worse than being split up. You can’t imagine. You can’t imagine what it is to suddenly lose your parents and then find that you are to lose your sisters too. I’ll run away before I let it happen. I’ll run away and take them with me. I’ll run into the woods if I have to. I don’t care what happens to us as long as it happens to us together. If you call social services we will be gone before they can get here.”

“Don’t threaten me,” said Miss Webster. “Just sit there and let me think about this for a minute.”

For the third time there was a long silence but this one was even longer than the others had been. Finally Miss Webster said, “You are wrong on one count. I do know what it is like to lose your family. I ran away when I was only a year older than you. I had an…unfortunate living situation. I ran away and I lived on the street for a long time. Then I turned things around and got an education. I was very lucky. I had a lot of help. And now I’m the youngest principal St. Mary’s By the Sea has ever had.” She blushed as if embarrassed by her outburst of pride, then added, “Not that St. Mary’s By the Sea is very big or has had that many principals.”

“No, but it’s still an achievement!” said Natasha encouragingly as she knew her mother would have.