A little before one Jack pulled the Jeep to a stop in front of the Archer house, which was only a couple houses up from where the street dead-ended into Lakeshore, with the beach on the far side. He and Vixen were just getting out when Summer pulled up in her Escort, bringing Alan along with her. “So,” Vixen said as the two got out of the car, “did you make any progress on your game?

“Well, a little,” Alan replied. “It’s proving to be more complicated than we thought it would.”

“Projects like that often turn out that way,” Jack observed. “Oh, well, it’s a good way to kill time.”

“It’s a good way to spend time together,” Summer smiled, her grin revealing just a little of why progress on the game was going more slowly than they had anticipated. “So how was the bird watching class?”

“It went pretty well,” Jack reported. “There were more people than I expected, but I think everybody had a good time and learned some new things. We’re going to do another Saturday morning bird watching session in another couple weeks. Let’s go in and see Cody and see what we’re going to find out about college.”

Jack led the way up to the front porch and knocked on the door. In a moment, Cody Archer came to the door wearing Bermudas and a “Southern Michigan University” T-shirt, with Jan following along behind. “Well, Jack,” Cody smiled, “at least this time we get to talk without Frenchy making a pain in the ass of himself.”

“That’ll be nice,” Jack said. He really didn’t know Cody all that well – Jack had been two years behind him in high school, which said a lot about the way the social circles ran around Spearfish Lake High School. He hadn’t seen much of him since Cody had to leave the school at the beginning of his senior year. From what little Jack remembered of him, Cody was a quiet guy, rather serious, and not the kind of guy who stuck out from the crowd. Then, just before Christmas two and a half years before, Cody had proved that there had been a lot to him that most people didn’t know about. “We really appreciate your taking the time to do this.”

“Oh, no problem,” Cody smiled. “It’s been a little dull around here so it’s nice to have someone to talk to. We can go inside, we can sit on the porch, or if you want we could go out and hang around on the beach.”

“Why don’t we just sit on the porch?” Alan suggested. “I think I got enough sun yesterday to hold me for a while.”

“That’s fine with me,” Cody said. “As much as I enjoy being out on the beach, I think I’m to getting a little tired of it. You guys all know Jan, don’t you?”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Jack said as they found seats in the lounge chairs on the porch. In truth, he didn’t know Jan Archer all that well either. While Cody had been mostly unremarkable from what Jack remembered from high school, Janice Archer – well, Lufkin, then – had been unmemorable, just one of those plain, quiet kids who drifted through school without anyone taking much notice of her. Now, Jan was much easier to remember, with long black hair in bangs, a nice tan, and a pretty smile, wearing a hip-length T-shirt that clearly concealed a bikini. She showed no signs of the tragedy that had put her together with Cody.

The story that had echoed around the school in the last days before that Christmas was that Cody had come upon Jan being beaten and raped by her father and brother. Cody had killed both of them with a nine millimeter pistol – virtually no one had known that he was a crack shot with pistol and rifle, to the point of being regional champion in several classes. Now an orphan, Cody’s family had taken Jan in and nursed her back to health. Though they were no relation more than boyfriend and girlfriend, she’d had her name legally changed to “Archer,” at least partly because she didn’t want to be identified with her own family any longer. The word around town was that the two were very, very close and that being legally married wouldn’t have made them any closer.

“So, anyway,” Cody said as the six of them got comfortable, “Mom said that you guys were thinking about going to Southern Michigan.”

“The idea has come up,” Jack explained. “It seems to have several things that the four of us like in a school, and it doesn’t have some things that we’d like to avoid. But we really don’t know anything about the place.”

“To be specific,” Summer said, “we want to avoid going to a school that has athletics as a focus, and we’d rather not go to a church-affiliated school.”

“Well, Southern qualifies on both those counts,” Cody smiled. “It’s the newest and smallest of the state schools. It used to be Hawthorne College, which was a small and rather fundamentalist religious school, until they went belly up. The campus sat empty for a couple years until a state legislator managed to get it picked up by the state system, and it was decided to do a few things that aren’t normal around colleges. Among them is no intercollegiate athletics, although there are some informal intramural teams that aren’t very serious. To show that they meant business about sports, the new science building was built on what was the fifty-yard line of the football field.”

“It’s very career oriented,” Jan added. “There are some liberal arts courses, but no degrees in them. They focus on practical education. Although we’ve only been going there for a year, we think we’re getting much more out of it than we would elsewhere.”

“I heard you’re planning on becoming a nurse,” Summer observed.

“Well, I already am one,” Jan smiled. “You probably know that we finished our senior year in high school in a home-schooling program. That only took us one semester, and since Cody winning his lawsuit required the school to pay for it, we spent the next semester commuting down to Riverside Community College. The following summer Cody went to a police academy while I got my EMT certificate at the same place. That got me ahead of the program enough that I could get licensed as an LPN. That was back in June. I’ll be an RN when we graduate.”

“With that head start and some summer courses we should be able to wrap up down there in another two years,” Cody added. “We’re not sure what happens after that. I’m planning on going to law school, but we both may have to work for a while to build up the funds to do it.”

“It sounds like you’re not messing around,” Alan said. “It would be nice to concentrate our programs and get through in three years, too.”

“You can do it, but expect to work your butts off,” Cody told them. “From what we hear the courses are tougher there than they are elsewhere, and you get more out of them. On the other hand, you don’t have to face as much useless crap, either.”

“This is sounding better and better,” Vixen said. “Do you know what kind of wildlife biology program they have?”

“That one I can’t help you with,” Cody shook his head. “You’d have to check the web site and talk to the people down there.”

“I can say that the biology courses are pretty good,” Jan added. “I know I got a lot out of the ones I had to take. But I’m afraid I can’t help you on the wildlife end, because it’s something I’ve just never looked into.”

They talked for a while longer about the courses offered, and both Cody and Jan offered a few observations, told a few stories, and had a few hints that needed to be looked into.

“It all sounds pretty darn good to me,” Jack said after a while. “I mean, considering that there are several things to check on. But what are the costs like?”

“That’s the fly in the ointment,” Cody said. “Southern is not cheap. In fact, it’s a little more expensive than some of the other state schools. The school is so new that they have almost no scholarship endowment funds, so you pretty much have to pay full price out of your own pockets. It hasn’t been a problem for Jan and me, since our tuition is paid by grants from the Donna Clark Foundation here in Spearfish Lake. They usually don’t offer full scholarships, but we were a special case, at least partly as a result of what happened when Payne pushed me out of high school. Some of that is a little political and we’re not supposed to talk about it.”

“I’ll bet you weren’t sorry to see Payne pushed out,” Vixen smirked. “I heard you had something to do with it, too.”

“Well, a little,” Cody smiled. “And no, I wasn’t sorry in the slightest to see him go, except for knowing that he’s the kind of person who’s going to pop up and be a problem somewhere else, so too bad for the kids there, wherever it is. But as far as my having something to do with it, yes, I did. Unlike what a lot of people in this town say, I wasn’t targeting him when I pulled him over and arrested him for driving under the influence. Since I’ve been home for the summer Charlie Wexler has had me filling in as a part-time officer now and then, and I was covering for another guy who couldn’t make the shift. I just happened to see a car weaving erratically. I didn’t recognize Payne as the driver until I was standing by his car, and it ended up he was loaded to the gills. I knew it was going to cause a problem around town, but as drunk as he was I couldn’t turn him loose with a warning, either.”

“It still seems a little hard to think of you as a police officer,” Vixen said. “I mean, you were in school with us not all that long ago.”

“It surprises me a little to think of it, too,” Cody said, “but I’ve been working as a part-timer in Hawthorne and in a couple other little towns around there since last fall. To be honest, most of the time it’s pretty dull. But getting back to Southern, I’d strongly suggest that all of you make applications to the Donna Clark Foundation for grants. They like career-oriented applicants, so that gives you a leg up. Use me as a reference, and I’ll try to put in a good word for you with the people who make the decisions. You may not get a full scholarship out of it, but every little bit helps.”

“That’s probably worth looking into,” Alan said. “I’m likely to be getting some good scholarships elsewhere because of my grades, but the rest of us may have to struggle a little more.”

“It helps a lot having our tuition paid by the foundation,” Cody said, “but the grants don’t cover other living expenses, and that’s something where we got real lucky, too. Hawthorne College never had many dorms since they never had a lot of students. Southern’s a bigger school now, and there still aren’t a lot of dorms of which a couple they did have had to be condemned. They charge the high dollar for the ones they have, but they don’t force you to live on campus as freshmen and sophomores, either. The kid who turned us on to Southern went looking for an apartment and wound up buying a four-unit apartment building herself. When she graduated she sold it to us, well, us and the folks. The rental on the other three units covers our payments and most of our living costs, which works out pretty well.”

“Sounds like you got a deal on that,” Jack smiled. “I don’t suppose you’re looking to sell?”

“Not for a couple years, and maybe not then if we still have to be working,” Cody smiled. “But next spring we should have an apartment or two empty and available. I’ll be honest: we have to get our expenses out of a rental, but two of you sharing an apartment would be a lot cheaper than living on campus.”

“We have one set of renters who are sharing one apartment for four of them,” Jan added. “That’s got to be a big cost savings.”

“I’ll warn you right now,” Cody laughed. “The rules are no noise, no drinking, no smoking, and especially no drugs. There’s a cop living on the premises who will cause you trouble in a hurry if you try it, but I don’t think the four of you are party animals, anyway.”

“No, we’re not,” Alan said. “We tend to be pretty quiet and study-oriented.”

“You would probably get along pretty well if you decide to come there,” Cody told them, “but you shouldn’t even be thinking of trying to make a decision on what we’ve told you. Look, order the literature, and look over the web site. After school gets started, take a long weekend to come down and check the place out. You’re welcome to stay with Jan and me if you’re willing to bring sleeping bags and air mattresses so you can crash on the living room floor for a night or two.”

“I think there’s a real good chance we may be taking you up on that,” Jack said. “I can see that we’re going to have to take a more serious look at it, and money is still an issue, but it sounds like you’ve got a good thing down there.”

“We think so,” Jan said. “One of the nice things about it is that it’s far enough away that nobody else from Spearfish Lake goes there, so we don’t have the rumors going around about us that we had here. When we’re back in town like we’ve been the past few weeks we have to put up with it, but it’s very nice to be able to hop in the truck and drive away from it.”

Brandy was busy with a yellow legal pad in her living room partway across town from where Cody and Jan Archer were telling tales of Southern Michigan University to Jack, Vixen, Alan, and Summer. Mostly, she was trying to get a handle on the problems she would be facing on Monday; there were a host of them she knew about anyway, and more she was sure she didn’t know anything about. She had a long list of questions and action items on the list, and it really seemed to her like she was in way over her head.

There was one good thing about it, she thought – Hekkinan had been the high school principal for years, so he’d have answers to a lot of her questions. She knew she would have to lean on his expertise for quite a while in order to make a success of the job. There were a number of questions it would be nice to have an answer to now, not Monday. She stewed for a while, then picked up the phone and called the superintendent. “Hi, Coach,” she said when he picked up the phone. “I hope I’m not bothering you on a Saturday afternoon.”

“No, not really,” Hekkinan said. “It’s too hot to try to do anything useful outside, I can’t stand watching golf on TV, and I’m not up to watching the Cubbies get their butts whipped. What do you have on your mind?’

“Oh, a bunch of things I thought I might be able to pick your brain about,” she replied. “Like, do you know if Payne did anything about a replacement for Ordway?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” he replied. “Payne was too busy covering his ass all week to do anything useful. But with the layoffs we had to have last spring, that’s a no-brainer. Amy Lowenthal over at the elementary school is certified to teach high school English, and she was on the layoff list. If she’s still available, call her up and put her in the spot. Tell her we can try to get her back in the elementary school sometime in the future if she wants.”

“I can do that,” Brandy said. “That’s my job and not yours, right?”

“Right. The nice thing with Amy is that she’s already on the staff, so you don’t have to go through all the fooling around with a search committee, and you won’t have to take it before the board, not that they would object. I can’t think of any other holes you have on the teaching staff, but you’ll want to check Monday to make sure we aren’t going to get surprised somewhere.”

“OK, that takes an item off the list and adds one,” Brandy said.

“On the subject of holes in the staff, have you made any progress on the football issue?”

“I think I’ve got a start on getting it under control,” she replied. “I’m trying to keep it real quiet, since I don’t want Weilfahrt to get a heads up.”

“That would probably be a good idea,” Hekkinan agreed. “The odds are that he’ll try to make trouble about it, maybe even take it before the school board a week from Monday, but there are people around this town who don’t realize that they’re not going to be dealing with last year’s school board. It may take them a while to learn that.”

“There’s no question in my mind that it has to be done,” Brandy agreed. “I mean, I was sure of it before, but after some of the discussions I had yesterday and a few things I’ve heard about today, I’m even more sure than ever. Still, I’m not looking forward to actually doing it. I really wish I had grounds to can him other than sheer ineptitude.”

“Well, you have his won-loss record, and it’s not like he has a contract,” Hekkinan pointed out.

“Yeah, but there are all those political issues he’s sure to bring up. Plus, I want the guy I’ve got lined up to be head coach to look like he’s an emergency replacement, not a setup done in advance. That means I’m probably not going to be able to make that announcement before Monday night or Tuesday morning.”

“Good thinking on that, it might blunt things a little,” he replied. “You might want to tip Anissa off on it enough ahead of time that she can get the story in the Record-Herald this week. That might steal a little bit of a march on the rumor mill.”

“I figured that,” Brandy said. “I can wait till Tuesday morning on that, though.”

“So who are you going to have as the head coach?”

“I’ll only tell you if it doesn’t go any further than you and me, all right? You know Rick Kulwicki, out at the Pike? Phil suggested him.”

“Good idea, and I hadn’t thought of him,” he replied. “I figured you were going to stick Danny with the job.”

“I thought about it, but it might get him into more rumor-mill trouble than he wants to handle, and he agrees with me. He’s willing to help, either as an assistant or as head coach for the JVs if it comes to that. I have another couple people I’m planning on asking after the word gets out. There’s already too many people who know about this, and I’m trying to limit the word spreading as much as possible.”

“Boy, good luck on that. You know how the rumor mill is in this town. Look, if push comes to shove, I’m willing to come over and help out from time to time, but for a number of reasons I can’t be a regular coach.”

“I understand that,” Brandy said. “I’m less worried about that part of it than I am about getting ambushed from the backside, and I’m depending on you to cover me there.”

“I’ve got your back on this, Brandy. I told you that in the beginning, and that’s part of why I wanted you in the job in the first place.”

The session with Cody and Jan went on for a long time, although after a while there wasn’t much more to actually be learned. It was fun for Jack and the others to talk with a couple of college students who were as serious about their studies as the Archers were. The session was extended by Jan serving up iced tea all around, which kept things going a while longer. Finally Jack protested that they had monopolized Cody and Jan’s time long enough, so they slowly got around to saying their goodbyes.

Out at the cars Summer said, “Jack, Vixen, I don’t know if you two have anything to do, but I’m thinking it might not be a bad idea to talk this over among ourselves while we all have this fresh in mind.”

“Good idea,” Jack replied, “Let’s head over to the Frostee Freeze and have a root beer or something.”

In a few minutes the four of them were sitting at a picnic table in the shade, which was welcome in the heat of the late afternoon. “I’ll tell you what,” Vixen said. “Whether we wind up going to Southern or not, those are a couple of really neat people who I think I’d like to know better.”

“That they are,” Alan agreed. “God, I remember Jan a little from before that thing with her family, and she’s just not the same person.”

“I don’t have a real clear memory of her from back then,” Summer replied, “but they seem to be a couple of very serious people, and from what happened they have every right to be. The fact that they like Southern tells me a lot right there.”

“Me, too,” Jack agreed. “There’s no way we could make a decision on the basis of what they told us, but I think the place needs a pretty serious look. I didn’t know several of the things that they told us, and I think they’re right, we need to do some more research. But I’ll also tell you what, I think the community college idea we were throwing around yesterday just went on the back burner.”

“We can’t reject it just yet,” Summer pointed out. “There’s the money issue for all of us. Maybe a little less for Alan, but it’s still an issue.”

“Yeah, but maybe they gave us a few ideas on that,” Vixen said. “I really like the idea of us renting a couple apartments from them. Maybe we could squeeze by on just one. That would be worth a fair amount of money over the course of a year, even at the numbers they were throwing around.”

“It has potential,” Alan said, glancing at Summer. “I can’t help but wonder how we’d all get along with four of us in what sounds like a pretty small apartment. There just wouldn’t be much extra personal space, so we’d have to be pretty tolerant of each other.”

“That could be a problem,” Summer agreed, taking Alan’s statement with the double meaning that was meant for her – it meant that Jack and Vixen would have to know their secret, and be comfortable with it, no matter what else happened. “But at least we don’t have to make a decision on it right now.”

“No, we don’t” Jack agreed. “But it is something we’ll have to think about.”

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