"Well, then, octopoda. Your son's paper said octopuses."

"I know," said Step. "When he asked me the correct plural, I told him octopoda. But then he was still uncertain, because my son doesn't think he knows something until he knows it, and so he looked it up. And to my surprise, octopoda is only used when referring to more than one species of octopus, rather than when referring to more tha n one actual octopus. What Stevie put in his paper is in fact the preferred dictionary usage.

Which you would have known, too, if you had looked it up."

"So I'm human, Mr. Fletcher. I made a mistake."

"As did I, Mrs. Jones, as did I. But the fact remains that the only red mark on this C paper is in a place where you have taken a correct plural and replaced it with an incorrect one. Isn't that right?"

"If you say so," said Mrs. Jones.

"So I'm still baffled," said Step. "How can I possibly help Stevie do better next time? You haven't really pointed out a single thing wrong with his paper-oh, except that he didn't put a plastic cover on it."

"There won't be a next time," said Mrs. Jones. "Your son will never have to do another second grade project as long as he lives. So it doesn't matter, and therefore you're wasting my time as well as your own. Good afternoon, Mr. Fletcher!"

"One more question, Mrs. Jones."

"No," she said. "I have to go home, right now."

"It's just one more question," said Step, mildly. If she didn't stop, however, the tape recorder would definitely come out. She would not be going home anytime soon.

"Very well, what!"

"Who is going to take that ribbon home?"

Mrs. Jones looked at the ribbon that Step was pointing to.

"That is the first place ribbon for Stevie's project, isn't it?"

"It might be," said Mrs. Jones.

"Then who will take it home?"

"If it's the particular ribbon you're referring to, then of course Stevie will take it home at the end of the school year."

"Ah," said Step. "Then what in the world are you going to tell J.J.?"

She blanched.

Stevie's story was completely vindicated now.

"What do you mean?" she said.

"Why, I mean that Stevie's whole class is under the impression that J.J. received that award."

"That's impossible," said Mrs. Jones.

"Is it? Let's call J.J.'s parents and see," said Step.

"I certainly will not bother my children's parents over such a thing."

"Then I'll go to Dr. Mariner's office right now and she and I will place that phone call together," said Step.

"You won't mind, will you?"

Mrs. Jones was barely holding herself together now, Step could see that. She was wringing her hands and he could see that she was trembling. "It's possible that someone might have gotten a false impression. That perhaps someone made a mistake and ..."

No, thought Step. You aren't going to weasel out of this. You're going to say it outright. "You stood in front of the class and announced that J.J. won the prize, didn't you?" he asked.

"Oh, now, don't be silly," she said.

"What if lawyers representing the school board came to your students and asked them how they got the idea that J.J. won the ribbon? What would they say?" Step knew that of course such a thing would never happen, but he figured that Mrs. Jones was not going to be confident of that, not in the state she was in right now.

"I may have said something that gave that impression," said Mrs. Jones.

"May have, or did?"

She looked toward the window, weaving and unweaving her fingers. "I thought that Dr. Mariner had judged very hastily, and so she missed the superior merits of J.J.'s project."

"Ah," said Step.

"If you want," said Mrs. Jones, "I will change Stevie's grade. And of course I will correct the mistake about the ribbon."

Yes, I'm sure you will, thought Step. And then you'll torment and ridicule Stevie even more mercilessly every day until school ends. "No," said Step. "I don't want you to change Stevie's grade. In fact, I insist that you not change it. I want it there on the books, just as it is now."

Mrs. Jones looked at him narrowly. "Then what is all this about? Just the ribbon? Very well."

"The ribbon- yes, that would be nice. You can tell the students that there was a mistake and in fact the ribbon belongs to Stevie."

"Very well, I will do that tomorrow."

"But that's not all," said Step.

"I think it is," said Mrs. Jones. "Unless you changed your mind about the grade."

Step pulled the tape recorder from his pocket, pressed rewind for a few moments, and played it back. It was fuzzy, but it was clear. "... the superior merits of J.J.'s project." Then Step pushed stop.

Her face turned white, and it occurred to Step that perhaps he had overplayed this moment- it wouldn't be very good for anybody if the woman fainted right now.

But she didn't faint. And when she did speak, her voice was stronger than he expected. "That's illegal," she said. "To bug a conversation like that."

"On the contrary," said Step. "It's only inadmissible when it was obtained by a government employee without a warrant. I'm not a cop. I'm just a man who carries around a tape recorder. Besides, I don't intend to use this in court. I only intend to play it for Dr. Mariner and every member of the school board as I put an end to your career."

"Why are you doing this to me?"

"The real question is, why have you been doing all the things you've been doing to Stevie?"

"I haven't been doing anything to him," she said defiantly. "Go ahead and use that tape."

"All right," said Step. He put it back in his pocket and walked around her, through the door, and down the corridor toward Dr. Mariner's office. With each step he became more uncertain. Maybe she really could talk her way out of this. Maybe she understood the system here better than he did, and even this tape recording would end up being worthless. Maybe he had broken his promise to Stevie, that he wouldn't make things worse.

"Mr. Fletcher!" she said. Her voice echoed down the empty corridor.

"Yes?" he said, not turning around.

"There was one more thing that I forgot to show you about Stevie's work."

He turned around and headed back down the hall.

When they were alone again in the room, she looked tired, defeated. "I didn't mean anything by it," she said. "Is that thing off now?"

He pulled out the recorder, took out the tape, and put them back in different pockets.

"I didn't mean anything. I just- it's very hard being a teacher and having parents come down on you all the time. And so when Dr. Mariner called me that night-at home-because Stevie was upset and you were upset, when all I did was make a foolish little joke-I mean, everything I said, he made me say it over and over and over, and it was disrupting the class. So I made a joke-'

"Calling him stupid."

"A joke," she insisted. "And then he tells his parents and you call Dr. Mariner-well I was just sick of it, and when he came back to class I was just so angry the moment I saw him, and so I said things that I shouldn't have said and I'm sorry."

"But you've kept on doing it," said Step.

She started to cry. "I know it," she said. "And I felt bad about it, but I just couldn't seem to stop, I just ...

couldn't seem to stop. And then he stopped raising his hand, and so ... I thought it was over."

"If you thought it was over, why didn't you let him have the blue ribbon?" said Step. "Why didn't you let him have the A on his project?"

"I don't know," she said. Her voice was so small and high, like a little girl's voice. It made Step feel like a bully, like a tyrant, coming in here and pushing this woman around until she cried.

Then he remembered how Stevie had cried. And how this woman had tormented him, and even if she talked now about how she felt bad about it and tried to stop, the fact was that she could have stopped at any time and she did not. She even lied about something as utterly stupid as the ribbon awarded by the principal. Surely she must have realized, in some rational part of her mind, that this could not possibly go undiscovered. That this was far too public, too open for he r ever to get away with it.