Even though Julie now taught third grade in the Keaton Elementary School, her relationship with its principal, Mr. Duncan, hadn't improved a whole lot since the time he accused her of stealing the class lunch money fifteen years ago. Although her integrity was no longer an issue with him, her constant bending of the school rules for her students was a permanent thorn in his side. Not only that, but she plagued him to death with innovative ideas and when he nixed them, she rounded up moral support from the rest of the town and, if needed, financial support from private citizens. As a result of one of her notions, Keaton Elementary now had a specially designed educational and athletic program for physically handicapped children, which she'd created and was constantly altering with what Mr. Duncan viewed as typical, frivolous disregard of his preestablished procedures. Miss Mathison had no sooner gotten her handicapped program under way last year than she'd gone on another—stronger—tangent, and there was no stopping her: She was now waging a private campaign to stamp out illiteracy among the women in Keaton and the surrounding area. All it had taken to set her off on this crusade was the discovery that the janitor's wife couldn't read. Julie Mathison had invited the woman to her own house and started tutoring her there, but it soon evolved that the janitor's wife knew another woman who couldn't read, and that woman knew someone, who knew someone, who knew someone else. Within a short time there were seven women to be taught to read, and Miss Mathison had pleaded with him to let her use a classroom two evenings a week to teach her students.
When Mr. Duncan had protested sensibly about the added cost of utilities to keep a classroom open at night, she'd sweetly mentioned that she'd speak to the principal of the high school then. Rather than look like a heartless ogre when the high school principal yielded to her blue eyes and bright smile, Mr. Duncan had agreed to let her use her own classroom at Keaton Elementary. Soon after he capitulated on that, the irritating crusader decided she needed special learning materials to help speed up the learning process for "her" adults. And as he'd discovered to his everlasting frustration, once Julie Mathison had set her mind on some goal, she didn't stop until she found a way to achieve it. Sure that she was right, that some important principle was at stake, Julie Mathison possessed a stubborn resiliency combined with a boundless, energetic optimism that was as remarkable as it was annoying to him.
She'd been frustratingly single-minded about her handicapped kids, but this literacy program was a private quest of hers, and nothing he said or did was going to deter her. She was determined to get the special materials she needed, and he was certain her need for two days off in order to go to Amarillo had something to do with finding the money to pay for them. He knew for a fact that she'd persuaded the wealthy grandfather of one of her handicapped students—a man who happened to live in Amarillo—to donate funds for some of the equipment they needed for the handicapped program. Now, Mr. Duncan suspected, she intended to try to prevail upon the unsuspecting man to donate funds to support her women's literacy program.
That particular "fund-raising" penchant of hers was what he found most distasteful and most embarrassing. It was completely undignified when she went "begging" for extra funds by appealing to wealthy citizens or their relatives. In the four years she'd been teaching at Keaton Elementary, Julie Mathison had managed to become the proverbial thorn in his side, the blister on his heel. For that reason, he was completely immune to the fetching picture she presented as she got to her feet and waved her students into the locker room, calling instructions to them about the game next week. With her face scrubbed clean of makeup, as it was now, and her shoulder-length chestnut hair pulled off her forehead and held in a ponytail, there was a glowing wholesomeness about her and a youthful vitality that had fooled Mr. Duncan into thinking she was sweet, pretty, and uncomplicated when he hired her. At 5'5" tall, she was fine-boned and long-legged, with an elegant nose, classic cheekbones, and a full, soft mouth. Beneath gracefully winged dark brows, her large eyes were a luminous indigo blue, heavily fringed with curly lashes, eyes that seemed both innocent and gentle. As he'd learned to his misfortune, however, the only feature on that delicate face of hers that gave a real hint of the woman beneath was that stubborn chin of hers with its tiny, unfeminine cleft.
Mentally tapping his foot, he waited until his troublesome young teacher had finished dealing with her "team," smoothed her sweat suit, and raked her fingers through the sides of her hair before he deigned to explain the reason for his unusual after-school visit to the gym. "Your brother Ted called. I was the only one upstairs to answer the phone," he added irritably. "He said to tell you that your mother wants you to come to dinner at eight o'clock and that he'll give you Carl's car for your trip. He—ah—mentioned you were going to Amarillo. You hadn't said that when you asked for the time off for personal reasons."
"Yes, Amarillo." Julie said with a smile of bright innocence that she hoped would put him off but merely put him on his guard instead.
"You have friends up there?" he said, his brows snapping together over the bridge of his nose.
Julie was going to Amarillo to meet with a wealthy relative of one of her handicapped students in hopes of persuading him to donate money to her literacy program … and she had an awful feeling Mr. Duncan already guessed it. "I'm only going to be gone for two school days," she evaded. "I've already arranged for a substitute to take my classes."
"Amarillo is several hundred miles away. You must have important things to do up there."
Instead of responding to that thinly veiled query about her purpose for the trip, Julie shoved up the sleeve of her sweatshirt, glanced at her watch, and said in a rushed voice, "Goodness! It's four-thirty. I'd better hurry if I'm going to go home, shower, and get back here in time for my six o'clock class."
* * *
When Julie emerged from the school building, Willie Jenkins was waiting beside her car for her, his small face furrowed in a deep frown. "I heard Mr. Duncan and you talking about you going to Amarillo," he announced in the incredibly gravelly voice that made him sound like a grown man with laryngitis. "And I was wondering, Miss Mathison—I mean, am I going to get to sing or not in the Winter Pageant?"
Julie suppressed a smile. Like his older brothers, Willie Jenkins could play any sport and play it well; he was always picked first for every team; he was the most popular kid in the lower grades, and so it rankled him sorely that he was last choice when it came to anything that had to do with music. The reason he was never given a singing part was because when Willie opened his mouth to belt out music, he emitted sounds that sent the entire audience into paroxysms of helpless giggles.