Mr. Hodges’s face flushed with rage, but he had no choice but to stand down. He turned to Coach Hickham, who was sitting behind his desk, silently studying a play chart. “Uh, you know, Jimmy, if you got anything to add here, now might be a good time.”

Hickham glanced over the top of his reading glasses. “You gentlemen seem to be doing just fine as it is.” He went back to the charts.

Mr. Hodges said, “Gallbreth, did you see what happened to Cole Logan today? Do you know what it took for him to show up at that rally and say what he said?”

“I am afraid I wasn’t in attendance.”

“Of course not. You were too busy sitting in your office, coming up with rules and shit.”

“I was in my office tending to the business of running this school. I thought that perhaps someone should, seeing as how you were preoccupied on the basketball court, parading around with a microphone. I did, in fact, read the police report in full, and it is on that report that I am basing my judgment.

“You’re not really suggesting that I tell the people of this town that we’re tucking tail because a couple vandals decided to get cute with us.”

Mr. Gallbreth raked a hand across the lip of his flattop. “That is precisely what I am suggesting.”

“But—”

“But what, Mr. Hodges?”

“Everybody’ll think we’re cowards!”

“There is nothing cowardly about prudence.”

“Prudence? Whoever did this is pissin’ in our faces. Whether it was someone from Stanton High or not, I say we go over there tonight and tear the limbs off the entire goddamn team!”

“That attitude, Mr. Hodges, is precisely the problem with this school: misguided priorities. May I remind you that this is first and foremost a learning institution?”

“Sure, but that don’t mean football shouldn’t get its share.”

“I suppose it is that sort of thinking that allows you to justify the misappropriation of funds you agreed to in July?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I am talking about the seventeen hundred dollars that was transferred from a worthy philanthropic endeavor to the purchasing of new game jerseys for a football team that received identical new jerseys just last season.”

Mr. Hodges frowned. “Are you talking about that bird thing?”

“It is not just a bird, Mr. Hodges; it is an Atlantic Puffin, a threatened species. Those funds had been painstakingly collected by the Environmental Science Club to help pay for its survival.”

“Well, forgive me, Gallbreth, but if you ask most folks around here what’s more important, our boys looking sharp on the field or the survival of some goddamn bird that they can’t even hunt in these parts—”

“For the last time, it is not just a bird; it is an Atlantic Puffin.”