"Not 'Ariana'?"

"'Miss Pennington,' he said, and I said, 'Me too, thanks; and Ian, can't we ask her to dinner sometime?'"

"That did it," Thomas said. "No way to back out of that."

"Well, he tried. He said, 'Oh, Daph, Miss Pennington has a very busy schedule,' but she said, 'Please, it's Ariana. And I'd love to come.'"

"Goody," Agatha said.

"Except...Ian is so backward."

"Backward?"

"He said, 'To tell the truth, our family's not much for entertaining.'"

The other two groaned.

"But Miss Pennington told him, 'Oh, I wouldn't expect a banquet!' and then she laughed and put her hand on his arm again."

"She's nuts about him," Thomas said.

"Except Ian moved his arm away. In fact every time she did it he moved his arm away."

"He's playing hard to get."

That made Daphne and Agatha look more cheerful. Thomas was the social one, after all. He was almost frantically social; he could skate so deftly through any situation. He was the one who knew how the world worked.

On the night Miss Pennington came to dinner, their grandma fixed roast beef. (The Bedloes confined themselves now to foods that didn't require much preparation: roasts and baked chicken and burgers.) She had trouble holding utensils, and so she let Agatha make the gravy. "Pour in a dab of water," she instructed, "and now a dab more..."

Thomas was setting the table, arranging the good silver on the place mats their grandma had already spread around. He came to the kitchen with a fistful of forks and said, "How come you've got nine place mats out?"

"Why, how many should we have?" their grandma asked.

"It's only us and Miss Pennington: seven."

"And also Mr. Kitt and the woman from your church," their grandma said. "That comes to nine."

Mr. Kitt needed no explanation; he was the authentic, certified vagrant who'd been more or less adopted by Second Chance last winter. But the woman? "What woman?" Thomas asked.

"Why, I don't know," their grandma said. "Some new member or visitor or something, I guess. You'll have to ask Ian."

The three of them looked at each other, "Rats," Daphne said.

"I'm sure we'll like her," their grandma told them. "Ian said as long as we were going to all this trouble, we might as well invite her. And we've never had Mr. Kitt once; Ian says you're the only people in church who haven't."

"Yes, but...rats," Daphne said. "This was supposed to be just Miss Pennington!"

"Oh, don't worry, we won't neglect your precious teacher," their grandma said merrily.

Last week they'd heard a new neighbor ask their grandma how many children she had. They'd listened for her answer: would she say two, or three? What did did you say when a son had died? But she fooled them; she said, "Only one that's still at home." As if the people who stuck by you were all that counted, as if anybody not present didn't exist. you say when a son had died? But she fooled them; she said, "Only one that's still at home." As if the people who stuck by you were all that counted, as if anybody not present didn't exist.

She probably thought it was fine for Ian to grow old all alone with his parents.

The first to arrive was Mr. Kitt. Mr. Kitt wasn't really a vagrant anymore. He had a job sweeping floors at Brother Simon's place of business and he lived rent-free above Sister Nell's garage. But people at church still traded him proudly back and forth for meals, and he continued to look the part as if he felt it was expected of him. Gray whiskers a quarter-inch long shadowed his pale face, and his clothes always sagged, oddly empty, even when they were the expensive tailored suits handed down from Sister Nell's father-in-law. On his feet he wore red sneakers, the stubby kind that toddlers wear. These made him walk very quietly, so when he followed Daphne into the living room he seemed awed and hesitant. "Oh, my," he said, peering around, "what a family, family type of house."

"Ian's not home from work yet," Daphne told him. The three children had been asked to make conversation while their grandma changed. Thomas said, "Won't you sit down?"

Mr. Kitt settled soundlessly on the front four inches of an armchair. "Last night I ate at Mrs. Stamey's," he told them. (Sister Myra's, he must mean. He refused to go along with the "Sister" and "Brother" custom.) "She served me a porterhouse steak her husband had cooked on the barbecue."

"We're just having roast beef," Agatha said.

"That's okay."

Their grandpa came down the stairs. In the doorway he stopped and said, "Why, hello there! Doug Bedloe."

"George Kitt," Mr. Kitt told him. He rose by degrees and they shook hands. Of the two men, Mr. Kitt was the more dressed up. Their grandpa wore his corduroys and the wrinkled leather slippers that had no heels. "Can I fix you a drink?" he asked Mr. Kitt.

"No, thank you. Drink has been my ruin."

"Ah," their grandpa said. He studied Mr. Kitt a moment. "You must be the fellow from Ian's church."

"I am."

"Well, my wife will be down any minute now. She's just putting on her face."

He took a seat on the couch next to Agatha. Agatha hadn't dressed up either-Agatha never dressed up-but Thomas and Daphne had taken special care. Thomas's heathery pullover matched the blue pinstripe in his shirt, and Daphne wore her favorite outfit: a purple gauze skirt that hung to her ankles and a man's fringed buckskin jacket. She was twisting the silver hoop in one earlobe, a nervous habit she had. One of her crumpled black boots kept jiggling up and down. "Did you remind Ian to come straight from work?" she asked Agatha.

"I reminded him at breakfast."

"I sure hope Miss Pennington doesn't get here before he does."

"Who's Miss Pennington?" their grandpa asked.

"My teacher teacher, Grandpa. We told told you all this." you all this."

"Oh. Right."

"My fifth-grade teacher."

"Right."

"Fifth grade?" Mr. Kitt asked, looking anxious. "I detested fifth grade."

"Well, you won't detest Miss Pennington," Daphne told him.

"Fifth grade was long division," Mr. Kitt said. "I used to erase holes in my paper."

"Miss Pennington's super nice and she lets us bring in comic books on Fridays."

The front door opened. "Here he is!" Daphne cried. But the first to enter the living room was a heavyset young woman in a business suit. Ian followed, carrying his lunch pail. He said, "Sorry if we're late."

We? The children looked at each other. The children looked at each other.

"This is Sister Harriet," Ian said. "She's new at our church. Harriet, this is my father, Doug Bedloe. You know Mr. Kitt, and I guess you've seen Thomas and Daphne at services. Over there is Agatha."

If Sister Harriet had seen them, they had not seen her; or else they'd forgotten. She was extremely forgettable. Her lank beige hair hung down her back, gathered ineptly by a plastic barrette at the nape of her neck. Her face was broad and plain and colorless, and her suit-a straight jacket and a midcalf-length skirt-was made of some cheap fabric without texture. Also she didn't seem to be wearing stockings. Her calves were blue-white, chalky, and her bulging black suede flats were rubbed smooth at the widest part of her feet.

"Oh, Mr. Bedloe," she said, "I'm so pleased to meet you at last. And Mr. Kitt, it's good to see you again." Then she went over to the children. "Thomas, I sat right behind you in church last Sunday. I'm Sister Harriet."

She held out her hand to each of them in turn-a square, mannish hand, with the fingernails trimmed straight across. There was a moment when the only sounds were shuffles and sheepish murmurs. "Um, how do you...nice to..." Then their grandma arrived. She was always slow on the stairs, gripping the banister heavily as she descended, but she must have guessed this evening that she was needed; for before she'd even entered the living room she was calling out, "Hello, there! Sorry I took so long!" This time the introductions went the way they were supposed to, with everyone talking at once and little compliments exchanged. "Isn't that a lovely pin!" Grandma told Sister Harriet, picking out the one attractive thing about her, and Sister Harriet said it used to be her great-aunt's. Then the doorbell rang and Ian went to admit Miss Pennington.

Miss Pennington looked just right. She was one of those people who seem to know exactly what to wear for every occasion, and tonight she had not overdressed, as other women might, nor did she make the mistake of shocking them with something excessively informal and off-dutyish. She had on the flowered shirtwaist she had worn all day at school, with a soft flannel blazer added and a double strand of pearls at her throat. The way she moved through the group, greeting everyone so pleasantly, even Mr. Kitt and Sister Harriet, made the children grin at each other. When she came to Daphne, she gave her a little hug. She might as well be family.

The talk before dinner, unfortunately, centered on Sister Harriet. It appeared that Sister Harriet came from a small town near Richmond, and at first she'd found Baltimore a very hard place to make friends in. "The company where I work is as big as my whole town," she said. "At home it was a tiny branch office! Here they have so many employees you just can't hope to get to know them all."

"What company is that?" Miss Pennington asked her.

"Northeastern Life. They handle every type of insurance: not only life but auto, disability-"

"Insurance? But aren't you a nun?"

"Why, no," Sister Harriet said.

Mr. Kitt started laughing. He said, "Ha! That's a good one. Nun! That's a good one."

"It's just what we call each other in church," Sister Harriet told Miss Pennington. "Ian's and my church. We call each other 'Sister' and 'Brother.' But you can say 'Harriet,' if you like."

"Oh, I see," Miss Pennington said.

The three children looked down at their laps. How irksome, that "Ian's and my." As if Ian and Sister Harriet were somehow linked! But Miss Pennington kept her encouraging expression and said, "I imagine church would be an ideal place to make friends."

"It surely is," Sister Harriet told her. And then she had to go on and on about it, how nice and down-home it was, how welcoming, how in some ways it reminded her of the little church she'd grown up in except that there they'd held Prayer Meeting on Tuesdays, not Wednesdays, and they didn't approve of cosmetics and they believed that "gosh" and "darn" were cuss words; but other than that...

While Sister Harriet talked, Ian smiled at her. He was sitting on the piano bench with his long, blue-jeaned legs stretched in front of him and his elbows propped on the keyboard lid. One last shaft of sunlight was slanting through the side window, and it struck his face in such a way that the peach fuzz on his cheekbones turned to purest gold. Surely Miss Pennington would have to notice. How could she resist him? He looked dazzling.

At dinner Mr. Kitt offered an account of his entire fifth-grade experience. "I do believe," he said, "that everything that's gone wrong in my life can be directly traced to fifth grade. Before that, I was a roaring success. I had a reputation for smartness. It was me most often who got to clean the erasers or monitor the lunchroom, so much so that it was whispered about by some that I was teacher's pet. Then along comes fifth grade: Miss Pilchner. Lord, I can see her still. Brassy dyed hair curled real tight and short, and this great big squinty fake smile that didn't fool a person under age twenty. First day of school she asks me, 'Where's your ruled paper?' I tell her, 'I like to use unruled.' 'Well!' she says. Says, 'In my my class, we have no special individuals with their own fancy-shmancy way of doing things.' Right then and there, I knew I'd hit hard times. And I never was a success after that, not then or ever again." class, we have no special individuals with their own fancy-shmancy way of doing things.' Right then and there, I knew I'd hit hard times. And I never was a success after that, not then or ever again."

"Oh, Mr. Kitt," Miss Pennington said. "What a pity!"

"Well now, I, on the other hand," their grandpa said from the head of the table, "I was crazy about fifth grade. I had a teacher who looked like a movie star. Looked exactly like Lillian Gish. I planned to marry her."

This was a little too close for comfort; all three children shifted in their chairs. But Miss Pennington merely smiled and turned to Ian. She said, "Ian, I hope you you have happy memories of fifth grade." have happy memories of fifth grade."

"Hmm? Oh, yes," Ian said without interest. He didn't look up from his plate; he was cutting his meat.

"Did you attend school here in Baltimore?" she asked him.

Her voice was so bendable; it curved toward him, cajoling, entwining. But Ian merely transferred his fork to his right hand, seeming to move farther from her in the process. "Yes," he said shortly, and he took a bite of meat and started chewing. Why was he behaving this way? He was acting like...well, like a laborer, in fact.

Finally their grandma spoke up in his place. "Yes, indeedy! He went all twelve years!" she said brightly. "And you know, Miss Pennington-"

"Ariana."

"Ariana, I I was a teacher, back about a century ago." was a teacher, back about a century ago."

"Oh, Ian mentioned that."

"I taught fourth grade in the dark, dark ages."

"Me too," Sister Harriet said suddenly.

Everyone looked at her.

"I taught seventh," she said. "But I wasn't very good at it."

Ian said, "Now, Harriet. I bet you were excellent."

"No," she said. "It's true. I just didn't have the-I don't know. The personality or something."

Well, that that was for sure. The three children traded amused sidelong glints. was for sure. The three children traded amused sidelong glints.

Leaning forward so earnestly that her bolsterlike bosom almost grazed her plate, Sister Harriet said, "Every day I went in was such a struggle, and I had no idea why. Then one night I dreamed this dream. I dreamed I was standing in front of my class explaining conjunctions, but gibberish kept coming out of my mouth. I said, 'Burble-burble-burble.' The students said, 'Pardon?' I tried again; I said, 'Burble-burble-burble.' In the dream I couldn't think what had happened, but when I woke up I knew right away. You see, the Lord was trying to tell me something. 'Harriet,' He was saying, 'you don't speak these children's language. You ought to get out of teaching.' And so I did."

"Well, my goodness," their grandma said, sitting back in her chair.

But Ian was regarding Sister Harriet seriously. "I think that was very brave of you," he told her.

She flushed and said, "Oh, well..."

"No, really. To admit the whole course of your life was wrong and decide to change it completely."

"That does take courage," Miss Pennington said. "I agree with Ian." And she sent him a radiant smile that he didn't appear to notice.

Was he blind, or what?

This past Easter, one of the foreigners had dropped by with his younger sister who was visiting from her college. She might have stepped out of the Arabian Nights; Arabian Nights; she was dark and slim and beautiful, with a liquid, demure way of speaking. Twice her brother had made pointed references to her eligibility. "High time she find a husband and settle down, get herself a green card, develop some children," he said, and he told them it was up to him to locate a suitable husband for her, since his family still believed in what he called organized marriage. But Ian hadn't seemed to understand, and later when Daphne asked if he'd thought the sister was pretty he said, "Pretty? Who? Oh. No, I've never cared for women who wear seamed stockings." she was dark and slim and beautiful, with a liquid, demure way of speaking. Twice her brother had made pointed references to her eligibility. "High time she find a husband and settle down, get herself a green card, develop some children," he said, and he told them it was up to him to locate a suitable husband for her, since his family still believed in what he called organized marriage. But Ian hadn't seemed to understand, and later when Daphne asked if he'd thought the sister was pretty he said, "Pretty? Who? Oh. No, I've never cared for women who wear seamed stockings."

They should have known right then that no one would ever meet his qualifications.

"Seconds, anyone?" their grandpa was asking. "Mr. Kitt? Miss Pennington? Ian, more roast beef?"

"I wonder," Ian said, "how many times we dream that kind of dream-something strange and illogical-and fail to realize God is trying to tell us something."

Oh, perfect. Now he was turning all holy on them. "Ariana," their grandma said hastily, "help yourself to the gravy." But Miss Pennington was watching Ian, and her smile was glazing over the way people's always did when the bald, uncomfortable sound of God's name was uttered in social surroundings.

"It's easier to claim it's something else," Ian said. "Our subconscious, or random brain waves. It's easier to pretend we don't know what God's showing us."

"That is so, so true," Sister Harriet told him.