The wheezing, huffing bellow of an out-of-shape history teacher making his approach filled the hallway. The crash must have interrupted his sacred lecture. The one I was supposed to be listening intently to right at that very moment.

“Miss Moore!” Dick Click managed between gasps. His beady eyes bugged out at me. Not only was I not in his precious class, I’d just destroyed school property.

Oprah was right, I got my whisper, got my pebble upside the head, got my brick, and now I was about to hit my brick wall.

It was just as well; it’d only make the inevitable happen faster. And I was ready. “I know, I know. Principal’s office.”

Dick was still barking lectures at me as I walked past him. I couldn’t hear him, though. In the movie of my life his sound was turned off and the Foo Fighters were cranked.

For the fourth time in as many weeks, I found myself waiting in Principal Teasley’s office. When the door opened, I expected Catherine Giles to come in with some advice about how using physical release to achieve emotional release doesn’t mean to destroy school property.

But the person who followed Principal Teasley brought chills to my arms.

In his dark gray suit and shiny black shoes, Mr. Kitzler had that straight-from-the-office look. I knew Teasley had to call him and let him know what I’d done to his expensive memorial. I just hadn’t expected Mr. K. to drop everything and come rushing over.

“Serena, this is Keith Kitzler. I believe you owe him an apology.”

Mr. K.’s salt-and-pepper movie-star hair danced atop his deeply-tanned-by-many-rounds-of-golf face. He looked me over, in the same regretful way he had at the funeral. “I never saw it before,” he said.

“I’m sorry I broke the statue. I’ll pay for it. I just …” I started into my little speech, but Mr. K. held up his hand and gave a small shake of his head.

“Stan, would it be possible for me to have a word in private with Serena?”

Principal Teasley’s face wrinkled as he balked at the idea, but I guess when the guy who’d paid for nearly every wall in the school asks for a favor, you comply. “Um, well, Serena, are you comfortable with this?”

“Yes,” I said, because I really didn’t think Mr. Kitzler would do anything crazy with all these witnesses, and besides, I needed to say some things to him that were none of Principal Teasley’s business.

“Okay, I’ll be just outside the door,” he said with a nervous smile.

After the door latched shut, Mr. Kitzler walked in front of me. I stayed in my chair. For some reason it felt a little safer.

“I can’t believe how much you look like her.” He looked over my face framed with the same black hair as his daughter’s. “You really do.”