Jake raised his eyebrows. “Uh, isn't that what we're sort of used to with Prism?” he asked. “It's all pretty and shiny on the outside, but there seems to be a lot of incompetence on the inside.”

“I know, but still,” I said. I stared at the tomatoes in the basket. “These are big ticket items. I just feel like they should have a better handle on what's gone missing.”

“So ask,” he said, standing up. “Ask tomorrow. Maybe they were just in panic mode today and weren't thinking there was an easier way to go about it. They probably have it scribbled in crayon somewhere.”

I smiled. “You're so bad.”

“I know,” he said, holding out his hand. “Come on. Let's go inside.”

“Are you hungry for dinner?” I asked, letting him pull me up. I'd pulled out some hamburger meat to defrost but hadn't decided what to do with it yet.

“Yep,” he said, kissing my cheek. “Plus, I wanna check fares to Abu Dhabi two weeks from now.”

NINE

“Ellen, does Prism have a business office or someone responsible for school purchases?” I asked.

It was the next morning and I'd slept well, passing out as soon as I hit the bed, my day of volunteering taking more out of me than I'd expected. I struggled out of bed in the morning but managed to get the kids up and dressed and out the door with Jake at the same time as Emily headed for the bus. My feelings were a tiny bit hurt that she still wouldn't consider riding with me, but I was trying to be an understanding parent who was giving her daughter room.

Totally out of character for me.

So I showered, dressed and was in the front office of Prism by nine o'clock, asking Ellen about purchasing.

She smiled nervously. “Oh, my. That's a bit of a gray area,” she said, tugging on the collar of her paisley print shirt.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She pursed her lips, considering her answer. “We had a controller, but she left at the end of last school year.”

“Why did she leave?”

“She wasn't really a controller,” Ellen said, almost wincing. “She'd done some accounting work in the past but she didn't really have the experience necessary to handle our finances. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that until...well, until things got a bit out of hand.”

I nodded, thinking I really wasn't looking forward to sharing that information with Jake. I could visualize his reaction, nodding and smiling, telling me he wasn't surprised at all.

“We haven't replaced the position as of yet,” she explained. “So it's been kind of piecemeal at this point.” She fingered her collar again. “What exactly are you looking for?”

“Well, I just got to thinking that there might be some purchase records for the computers and it might be a more efficient way of figuring out what was stolen,” I said.

She chewed her lip while she thought. “I'm not sure,” she finally said. “Record keeping was part of the problem, so I don't know what we can find. I tell you what. How about if you work with Mr. Riggler this morning to see what you can come up with and I'll do some digging and see if I can find anything?”

“That would be great.”

“I'd tell you we could dig together, but Evelyn phoned in this morning and asked me to make sure you complete the list today. If at all possible,” she added meekly.

I adjusted my purse, shifting it higher on my shoulder. “She's not here this morning?”

“She's meeting with a board member,” Ellen answered. “She spends a lot of time off-campus, meeting with community leaders and board members and reps from the school district. She's as much of a salesperson as she is a pr incipa esident l .” She hesitated. “And I don't mean that in a bad way. She's very good at the sales part.”

I wondered if that meant that she didn't think Evelyn was very good at the principal president part.

“Okay,” I said. “I'm happy to work on it and see what we come up with for an inventory. Does Mr. Riggler have a class right now?”

She tapped at her keyboard, studied the screen, then nodded. “Yes, but you can go down there. I really think Evelyn would like to have some sort of list today.”

“He wasn't crazy about having me there yesterday when the kids were there,” I said, remembering his reaction from the previous day.

“Well, if he has an issue with it, let him know that Evelyn asked you to come down and work on it,” she said. “If he still has questions, let me know and we'll get it squared away.”

“Will do,” I said. But I wasn't convinced Ellen could stand up to a mouse, much less the school's computer teacher.

I set my purse in the conference room, pulled the spreadsheet from it and walked down the hallway to Mr. Riggler's room.

Every face in the room turned to me when I opened the door to the classroom.

Including Emily's.

I smiled at her and waved.

She attempted to disappear in her seat, her shoulders slumping over as she sank lower in her desk.

“Oh, hello, Mrs. Savage,” Mr. Riggler said from behind the podium at the front of the room. “Can I help you?”

“Mrs. Bingledorf asked me to come down and continue working on our project from yesterday,” I said. “She'd like it as soon as possible.”

His cheeks glowed pink as he looked nervously around the room. “Oh, alright. Maybe you'd like to have a seat at my desk and I'll join you in just a moment?”

I nodded and worked my way around the desks and tables, every head turning to follow me.

Except, of course, Emily's.

I slid into his chair and unfolded the spreadsheet and pretended to study it.

“Uh, okay, let's see,” Mr. Riggler said. He glanced at the white board in his room but there was nothing written on it. “So, uh, social media. That's what we were talking about. So let's say you're using Twitter. What are some things you might post as your status?”

There was some quiet laughing and then one boy in the back raised his hand.

“Tim?” Mr. Riggler said, calling on him.

“You don't post statuses on Twitter,” the boy said, a slow grin spreading across his face. “That's on Facebook. You just, like, tweet stuff.”

“Ah, right, yes,” Riggler said, stumbling a bit over his words. He adjusted his glasses. “So what might you twit?”

Another ripple of soft laughter rose from the classroom.

“Tweet,” Tim corrected. “I don't know. Just, like, stuff you're thinking about. Or links to stuff.”

“Links!” Riggler exclaimed, glancing around the room. “Good. I'm glad you brought that up. So how would you Tweet a link? Would you just copy and paste the RUL?”

Tim shook his head and looked down at his desk.

“It's URL, man,” another boy muttered. Louder, he added, “The address is the URL.”

“Ah, of course,” Riggler said, his cheeks flushing. “I'm always getting that confused, aren't I? So would you just copy and paste the URL?”

“No,” a girl said from behind Emily. She wore glasses like Mr. Riggler's. “You should use a link shortener if you're linking on Twitter. Like bit.ly or one of those places.”

“Right,” Riggler said, nodding vigorously. “Because the...URL...address is really quite long and just doesn't look right when you post it on Twitter.”

“Well, no,” the girl said, frowning. “It's because you're limited to the number of characters you can use on Twitter and pasting the whole URL will eat up the character space.”

The pink in Riggler's cheeks brightened. “Right.”

It went on like this for several more minutes, with Riggler suggesting things about social media sites and the students correcting his assertions. Each time they refuted his statements, he'd get a little more flustered and the kids would tune out a little more. By the time the bell rang, I was pretty certain Mr. Riggler was not an expert in social media. And I was definitely sure that no one had learned a thing in computer class that morning.

Emily hesitated at her desk, then walked back toward me. “Why are you here?”