Chapter 5: The Pickup List

Behind me, two mothers had stopped talking.

The line at the front desk had gone quiet in the way a line does when something more interesting than a sign-in sheet has started.

"Who changed it?" I asked the secretary.

"I'm not supposed to say."

"I'm not asking you to break a rule. I'm asking who stood at this desk on Saturday afternoon."

"The school is closed on Saturday," she said. "It was done by email."

"From whom?"

She glanced down the hall.

I turned around.

Dorothea was coming toward us in her good wool coat, with her purse over one arm and the principal at her elbow.

She had a plate of cookies in foil.

She looked, as she always did, like someone about to be thanked.

"Joanna, dear," she said. "I hoped we'd avoid this."

"Did you send the email?"

"Bryce was too upset to write it, so I helped. That's what mothers do."

"Did he tell you to?"

"He didn't have to."

The principal put on her professional face.

"Mrs. MacIntosh," she said to me, "the school can only follow the guardians on file. If Mr. MacIntosh wants to amend the list..."

"Then call him," I said. "Right now. Put him on speaker in front of me."

"That isn't necessary," Dorothea said.

"It's one phone call."

The mothers behind me had gone completely silent.

Dorothea looked at the principal, and the principal looked at the secretary.

The secretary dialed.

Bryce picked up on the fourth ring, and I could hear a conference room behind him.

"Mr. MacIntosh," the principal said. "I have your wife here. She says she's been removed from Milo's pickup list."

A pause.

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