Kate felt a burning in her neck. Sheesh. Some things never change. “Well, I
suppose that's practical…but have you considered getting an art major? Or something in graphic design?”
Stacy's shoulders shrugged. “I might take some classes in college if I have time. But I'm not sure if my dad would go for it.”
“Well…I'd be happy to talk to him. If you like.” Okay, where did that come
from? She didn't even know this family.
Stacy paused what she was doing and looked up. “You would?”
“Sure. I like art, too. Do you remember—have you heard of My Little
Pony?”
Stacy cocked her head. “The toy?”
“Yup.” She waved her hand through the air. “I painted a full mural on my wall. When I was a kid. All eight ponies, with a rainbow, grass, a bridge over a
creek.” She rubbed her chin with her finger. “I think I even had Queen Chrysalis
up there somewhere.”
Stacy smiled fully for the first time, dimples forming on her freckled cheeks.
“Wow.”
Kate laughed. “Yeah. Pretty geeky, huh?”
Stacy returned to her work. “I don't know. Sounds kind of cool.”
Kate leaned on the table with her elbows. “Well, I thought it was. At least then. I switched to business and graphic design for college. Got to be practical,
right?”
“I guess.”
The girl seemed disappointed. It reminded her of the tone her parents had used when she said she was going to art school instead of college. Except this was in reverse. “I did do a lot of art in high school, though. Even entered the Scholarship Fair.”
There was a new brightness in Stacy's voice as she turned. “Really? Did you
win?”
Kate almost winced but kept her smile. “Not really. But things turned out fine.” Hadn't they?
“My art teacher is making me enter the fair. She says my project is really good.”
Kate nodded. “Judging from what I saw, I bet it is.”
“It's a really big painting I did of my farm. I painted it on barn wood.”
Wood. Good. That should be rocket-proof. “I hope you win,” Kate said.
Stacy just nodded.
Kate's eyes wandered to the yellow-papered bulletin board in the hall, filled
mostly with class notices. They rested on a collage of photos pasted on green poster board: Peter and his class outside somewhere, laughing, playing, making
faces. She smiled. “Where was that taken?”
Stacy turned to see what she was looking at. “Oh, that. That was our field trip at the beginning of the year. Mr. Clark took us out to Palisades Park to shoot off some rockets we had made in class.”
“You made rockets?” Her stomach flipped once. Again with the rockets.
“Yeah—Mr. Clark said it was an experiment on combustion and propulsion.
We did it with the physics class. It was fun. He's really cool.”
“He's certainly something.” Kate remembered the scorched marks on the
floor of the treehouse.
“Yeah. The school didn't have any money for it, but he paid for it all himself,
anyway. Then he took us all out for ice cream.”
Kate scanned the rest of the photos. She found one with Stacy, small smile,
