LITMIR.BIZ

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come back one day,” she added. “And fight your own dragons.”

      Barrie shivered. “Mine are too big to fight,” she said with an enigmatic smile. “But I’ll root for you. What can I help you do?”

      “Pack,” came the immediate reply.

      As fate would have it, when she contacted her old school system in Bighorn, one of the pregnant teachers had just had to go into the hospital with toxemia and they needed a replacement desperately for a fourth-grade class. It was just what Antonia wanted, and she accepted gratefully. Best of all, there had been no discussion of the reason she’d left town in the first place. Some people would remember, but she had old friends there, too, friends who wouldn’t hold grudges. Powell would be there. She refused to even entertain the idea that he had any place in her reasons for wanting to go home.

      She arrived in Bighorn with mixed emotions. It made her feel wonderful to see her father’s delighted expression when he was told she was coming back there to live permanently. But she felt guilty, too, because he couldn’t know the real reason for her return.

      “We’ll have plenty of time to visit, now,” she said. “Arizona was too hot to suit me, anyway,” she added mischievously.

      “Well, if you like snow, you’ve certainly come home at a good time,” he replied, grinning at the five feet or so that lay in drifts in the front yard.

      Antonia spent the weekend unpacking and then went along to work the following Monday. She liked the principal, a young woman with very innovative ideas about education. She remembered two of her fellow teachers, who had been classmates of hers in high school, and neither of them seemed to have any misgivings about her return.

      She liked her class, too. She spent the first day getting to know the children’s names. But one of them hit her right in the heart. Maggie Long. It could have been a coincidence. But when she called the girl’s name and a sullen face with blue eyes and short black hair looked up at her, she knew right away who it was. That was Sally’s face, except for the glare. The glare was Powell all over again.

      She lifted her chin and stared at the child. She passed over her and went on down the line until she reached Julie Ames. She smiled at Julie, who smiled back sweetly. She remembered Danny Ames from school, too, and his redheaded daughter was just like him. She’d have known Danny’s little girl anywhere.

      She pulled out her predecessor’s lesson plan and looked over it before she took the spelling book and began making assignments.

      “One other thing I’d like you to do for Friday is write a one-page essay about yourselves,” she added with a smile. “So that I can learn something about you, since I’ve come in the middle of the year instead of the first.”

      Julie raised her hand. “Miss Hayes, Mrs. Donalds always assigned one of us to be class monitor when she was out of the room. Whoever she picked got to do it for a week, and then someone else did. Are you going to do that, too?”

      “I think that’s a good idea, Julie. You can be our monitor for this week,” she added pleasantly.

      “Thanks, Miss Hayes!” Julie said enthusiastically.

      Behind her, Maggie Long glared even more. The child acted as if she hated Antonia, and for a minute, Antonia wondered if she knew about the past. But, then, how could she? She was being fanciful.

      She dismissed the class at quitting time. It had been nice to have her mind occupied, not to have to think about herself. But with the end of the day came the terror again. And she still hadn’t talked to Dr. Harris.

      She made an appointment to see him when she got home, smiling at her father as she told him glibly that it was only because she needed some vitamins.

      Dr. Harris, however, was worried when she told him Dr. Claridge’s diagnosis.

      “You shouldn’t wait,” he said flatly. “It’s always best to catch these things early. Come here, Antonia.”

      He examined her neck with skilled hands, his eyes on the wall behind her. “Swollen lymph nodes, all right. You’ve lost weight?” he asked as he took her pulse.

      “Yes. I’ve been working rather hard,” she said lamely.

      “Sore throat?”

      She hesitated and then nodded.

      He let out a long sigh. “I’ll have him fax me your medical records,” he said. “There’s a specialist in Sheridan who’s done oncology,” he added. “But you should go back to Tucson, Antonia.”

      “Tell me what to expect,” she said instead.

      He was reluctant, but when she insisted, he drew in a deep breath and told her.

      She sat back in her chair, pale and restless.

      “You can fight it,” he persisted. “You can hold it at bay.”

      “For how long?”

      “Some people have been in remission for twenty-five years.”

      She narrowed her eyes as she gazed at him. “But you don’t really believe I’ll have twenty-five years.”

      His jaw firmed. “Antonia, medical research is progressing at a good pace. There’s always, always, the possibility that a cure will be discovered….”

      She held up a hand. “I don’t want to have to decide today,” she said wearily. “I just need…a little time,” she added with a pleading smile. “Just a little time.”

      He looked as if he were biting his tongue to keep from arguing with her. “All right. A little time,” he said emphatically. “I’ll look after you. Perhaps when you’ve considered the options, you’ll go ahead with the treatment, and I’ll do everything I can. But, Antonia,” he added as he stood up to show her out, “there aren’t too many miracles in this business where cancer is concerned. If you’re going to fight, don’t wait too long.”

      “I won’t.”

      She shook hands and left the office. She felt more at peace with herself now than she could ever remember feeling. Somehow in the course of accepting the diagnosis, she’d accepted something much more. She was stronger now. She could face whatever she had to. She was so glad she’d come home. Fate had dealt her some severe blows, but being home helped her to withstand the worst of them. She had to believe that fate would be kinder to her now that she was home.

      But if fate had kind reasons for bringing her back to Bighorn, Maggie Long wasn’t one of them. The girl was unruly, troublesome and refused to do her schoolwork at all.

      By the end of the week, Antonia kept her after class and showed her the zero she’d earned for her nonattempt at the spelling test. There was another one looming, because Maggie hadn’t done one word of the essay Antonia had assigned the class to write.

      “If you want to repeat the fourth grade, Maggie, this is a good start,” she said coolly. “If you won’t do your schoolwork, you won’t pass.”

      “Mrs. Donalds wasn’t mean like you,” the girl said snappily. “She never made us write stupid essays, and if there was a test, she always helped me study for it.”

      “I have thirty-five students in this class,” Antonia heard herself saying. “Presumably you were placed in this grade because you were capable of doing the work.”

      “I could do it if I wanted to,” Maggie said. “I just don’t want to. And you can’t make me, either!”

      “I can fail you,” came the terse, uncompromising reply. “And I will, if you keep this up. You have one last chance to escape a second zero for the essay you haven’t done. You can do it over the weekend and turn it in Monday.”

      “My daddy’s coming home today,” she said haughtily. “I’m going to tell him that you’re mean to me, and he’ll come and cuss you out, you just wait and see!”

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