Sanaam appeared in the kitchen on Tiw’s Day morning, clutching a package of cold cuts. “I told your mother I was going to help you make sandwiches, but please say I can come to school with you and help you give the lesson about the dog, Mag-Pirate. She’s trying to slay a hydra up there and I can’t cope.”

“Every head you take off, it grows two more?” Erik asked, clutching the jelly jar.

Sanaam smiled at him. “You still have those monsters I drew you?”

Erik looked sheepish. “I lost a couple. Not a real hydra?”

“Mom still wants to kill racism and she’s on a research binge.” Maggie shrugged. “I guess it’s like a hydra. I feel for you, Dad, but we’re bringing people with cool modifications and you don’t have any.”

He dropped the cold cuts and pulled up both sleeves. “Gold tattoos! Huh? Huh?” He nodded, grinning. “The first decorative metal mergers were performed by Ruotsing warriors, probably inspired by the scarring from early reparative metalwork! I’m a world traveller, I can talk about these things!”

“Daddy, I love you,” Maggie said gently. “But I sense this lesson drifting farther and farther from the dog. Like, literally a thousand miles north at this point.”

Sanaam emitted a high, thin noise like a slow leak and deflated over the kitchen table. He lifted his head as if it weighed a hundred pounds and gazed at her. “But I’m so excited to see you teach, and you said I could come in the fall, and it’s fall now and I’m just going to be here two more days and then I’ll be gone for three whole months or even more!”

He began to bargain, with increasingly theatric desperation, “I’ll sit at the back and I’ll be really quiet if you want me to. You can tell everyone I’m not your father. I’ll pretend I’m a lost circus freak! Your mother can make me invisible! I live a lonely life and I just want to see my baby girl grow up. Include meee!”

Maggie smirked at him, hand on hip. “You really mean, if you don’t get away from her for a little while, Mom’s going to notice how crazy she’s making you and smack you on the ceiling like you fed chocolate to a dog?”

He nodded pathetically. “Uh-huh.”

She blew a strangled breath through her collapsing smirk and then leaned against the counter, cackling and shaking her head. “Okay! Okay, okay. You can come and help carry the sandwiches. Just leave the Ruotsing warriors out of it unless the dog doesn’t show. You brought me cold cuts and no mayo.” She pushed her way past him, still intermittently giggling and shaking her head.

Erik looked Maggie’s father up and down. “My uncle is way better at pretending stuff to get people to do what he wants. She didn’t buy you were sad for a second.”

Sanaam beamed at him. “Still got what I wanted. Erik, remember this. Store it away for the future.” He began opening drawers in search of a bread knife or the equivalent. “A woman appreciates a man who can make her laugh.”

Erik cast a nervous glance sideways. He pointed upwards “Even… her?”

Sanaam winked. “I’ll never tell.”

◈◈◈

They waited for Lola at the bus stop. It was on the way. They’d pick her up and then she could come home with them and wait for Milo to get back from work.

Erik detected a blonde figure in a fashionable mauveine dress waving at them from the top deck before the bus even turned the corner. She said something, or possibly just “Woo!” before disappearing. A moment later she burst out of the exit door on the side, holding a large paper bag aloft. “You brought sandwiches, so I brought… Wow, you’re humongous.”

Sanaam bowed. “I answer to humongous, but I prefer Sanaam. Ann might’ve told you it’s ‘Sam,’ but don’t get me confused with the dog.”

Lola shook his large hand with both of hers. She was wearing a set of green driving gloves. The paper bag dangled from her arm by the handles. “You’re a darker shade of brown. I guess you already know all about me. Is this Maggie?”

Maggie bowed. “Pleased to meet you.”

Lola bowed likewise, grinning. “I feel like we’ve already met. I admit, I was expecting you to be a hundred feet tall and glowing with arcane power…”

Erik tugged on her shirtsleeve and got her to turn. He reached up and brushed back her hair, noting the fine pink and white scars, and the subtle blue dent under her left eye. “No makeup?” he said.

“Lipstick and eyeliner, honey, don’t expect me to go out naked,” she said. “But I said I’d show you one of these days. What do you think?”

He signed her a thumbs up. “Still pretty. Different-pretty.”

“You’re sweet, Eyeball Buddy,” she said. They’d decided Erik wasn’t quite a siege buddy, since he missed most of it. “So where’s this school?”

◈◈◈

“Gee, I expected more…”

“Books?” Maggie said with a grin. “Walls and a roof?”

“…more tech!” Lola cried. “Ann told me it was outside. She and Milo are right next door and this is a project! People can walk right up and take that stuff. Where’s the alarm system? It can’t all be intent lines, the area is huge. It needs a retractable awning. What do they do when it rains? That chalkboard is pathetic. Why doesn’t it have an interactive projection three times that size that can display text and photographs at high resolution? Then you don’t need books… Well, maybe one.”

She crouched and lowered her voice, “Is it optical magic? Are they hiding it so the cops don’t shut it down?”

They all stood staring at her for a few moments.

“Miss Garofalo,” Maggie said, “the first magic storm that blew through here would take out the whole works and blow up the bridge.”

Lola narrowed her eyes. “So we need a mechanical solution. Have you considered a series of elaborate traps that would be triggered by anyone weighing more than the average child? We can give the teacher a map.”

She tapped her eager fingers together. “Then we can slowly replace the school supplies with better models and let the thieves weed themselves out, improving the system if there are any failures.”

“She reminds me of your mother,” Sanaam said fondly.

“I-I can’t even…” Maggie turned. “Erik, she’s your friend.”

“The kids take stuff too,” Erik said. “It’s because they’re hungry and they need stuff. Keep working on it, Lo-Lo. I bet you figure it out.”

“What about moving the whole thing to — Oh, my gods.” Lola dropped the paper bag and staggered back a step.

Seth had paused his lesson, which already seemed to be dog-related, and was approaching to help the newcomers distribute the expected sandwiches. “Maggie, it’s so good to see you again! Welcome to school, everyone! You must be…”

Lola sidled up to him and muttered behind a hand, “Are you in hiding?”

“Pardon me?”

“I won’t say anything if you’re in hiding. Are you in hiding?”

“Um.” He hesitated, and his usual smile dissolved. He lowered his voice, “In what sense?”

She whispered, “Aren’t you Commander Taggart?”

“Ah-ha,” Seth said. The smile returned but it was pained.

Erik scuttled forward and yanked on Lola’s arm. “No!”

She shook Seth’s hand with a smile. “I’m mistaken. It’s the glass eye. Visual disturbances. Happens all the time. Totally my fault. I’m sorry, mister.”

“No, miss,” Seth said. “You’re not mistaken, but that person doesn’t need to hide. He’s an Invisible. How did you meet, uh, him?”

“Oh. I was in the infirmary for a while. He used to…”

Seth groaned and put both hands over his face. “No. I know. I know. I was there the whole time. I’m so incredibly sorry about that. It was disrespectful. If I had any way to stop him, I would have. I always wanted to go back down and apologize, but I thought you’d all throw your bedpans at me or something. I should have let you. I really am sorry.”

“Oh, no. Hey.” She hesitated a moment and then put her hand on his arm. “It wasn’t so bad.”

It was pretty bad and she probably would’ve thrown a bedpan at him, but she didn’t know “Taggart” wasn’t a real person at the time.

She smiled at Seth. “It was really boring down there most of the time. He was like a little ray of oblivious sunshine. Pack up your troubles and smile, boys, that sort of thing. Like he accidentally dropped in from some other war. A cute one.”

He stiffened and pulled away. “It’s not appropriate to tell a bunch of people who are missing pieces and knee-deep in their own blood and… and things to cheer up and get back to work, miss. I must also say, it’s inappropriate to employ children in a war. You can’t be more than twenty.”

She grinned. “I can be a little more than that, and you wouldn’t have been able to fire me if you tried. I was a starcatcher!” She saluted, then thumbed her nose with a snicker. “The army kidnapped me to put me back together, and then the Grey Wall cut me off, so I was stuck with ‘em.”

She leaned in a little closer and spoke behind her hand, aping subtlety like a music hall act, “Honestly, I’m just so relieved you didn’t like the guy either. Whew!” She fake-wiped the sweat from her brow. “There is no way I could keep it together around him for a whole lesson. He wasn’t down there for two minutes and he had me thinking, ‘Well, if guys like that are in charge of this travesty, we’re gonna lose for sure!’”

She laughed — but only briefly because Erik yanked on her arm again. “Huh?”

He was shaking his head.

Sanaam spoke, “Miss Garofalo, Seth knocked himself out holding that guy, and a lot of others, because they asked him to and they needed him. Let’s not trivialize it.”

“No, please, let’s,” Seth said. He picked up Lola’s paper bag. “Thank you, Mr. Sadiq, but I never should have been there. It was all extremely pointless. Extremely pointless. Are these cupcakes?”

“Yes. They said they were bringing sandwiches.” She saluted again, weakly, the right way. “Thank you for your service, Seth.”

He bowed. “Thank you for yours, Miss Garofalo.”

“Oh, no. Call me Lola.”

He nodded. “Would you like to meet the rest of my class, Lola? I’ll help hand these… Oh, dear.” Now he dropped the paper bag. “I don’t want to… I’m sure you’re perfectly capable of handling… giving… handing out… This is a hundred times worse because I stopped and started again. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I stole your bag of cupcakes. I wasn’t thinking. I only meant… Well, you’re a girl. Oh, no…”

“It’s like a car crash,” Maggie said softly, staring at her hyper-competent teacher.

“They teach rich people super weird manners,” Erik whispered back. “He’s disadvantaged.”

Lola just laughed. “My sexist knight in shining armour.” She gave him the bag and shook his hand again. “Let’s meet the kids!”

◈◈◈

They had a compliment of fifteen students today, many of them sitting on blankets. Excitement about the freaky dog some of them had seen in the neighbourhood was tempered by accompanying rumours the dog might not show. It was fun watching Maggie teach and all, but there were still trust issues and she wasn’t a metal dog. A couple of kids just intended to stay for the sandwiches and make their excuses.

Soup wasn’t there yet, but Seth had drawn a pretty good Samantha on the chalkboard.

“Analog,” Lola muttered, poking it. “Low res. You’re an artist!” This last was to Seth, with a disarming smile.

Seth made introductions while Erik and Sanaam got started handing out food. “…And this is Miss Lola Garofalo. She was a starcatcher! She and Erik are here to help us understand what it’s like to have metal modifications, since Samantha won’t be able to talk to us. Lola made these cupcakes herself!”

Bethany raised her hand. “My cupcake has a wood screw in it!”

“It can’t possibly,” Lola said. She scrambled forward and took the cupcake. “Ha! It’s a machine screw, little girl. Look at the threading!”

Seth’s smile faltered. “Everyone please say thank you to Lola for trying and put the cupcakes back in the bag. Please. Let’s not take any chances. Put the cupcakes back in the bag. Thank you very much.”

Lola slumped. “I have… I have a very small apartment, kids. I need a work surface. Carrot cake batter is lumpy.”

“That’s quite all right, Miss Garofalo, I’m sure they’re delightful apart from that. Bethany, please stop eating the frosting and give me the cupcake. Machine screws are bad for your teeth.”

Erik appeared concerned. “It didn’t fall off of you, Lo-Lo, did it?”

“I have rubber gloves for the kitchen,” she said. She raised her voice and removed her left glove. “Hey, kids? Lesson one. When you have exposed metal attached to you, you have to take care of it like metal. My arm is my arm and I feel it when I’m wearing it, but it’s a machine too. This part comes off.” She rolled up her sleeve. “But this doesn’t. I can only take a bath with one hand and I have to cover…”

Several of the adorable little waifs swore, a couple choked on their sandwiches and the pink girl who’d put the kibosh on the cupcakes said, “What happened to it?”

“Oh,” Lola said, apologetic and disappointed.

Maggie waved both hands for attention and slipped into teacher mode. “I’m sorry, Miss Garofalo, I think we need to back up. Lesson one,” she told the class, “is that we don’t flip out all over the place when someone looks different somehow. Okay, you guys?” She frowned. “That should be lesson zero, because you know better! Apologize!”

Most of them did. The pink girl said, “I just wanna know what happened.”

Lola smiled grimly. “I didn’t eat my vegetables.’

Bethany frowned and regarded her own arm. “Shit.”

“She just doesn’t want to talk about it,” Erik put in from among the desks. “Sometimes I want to talk about it, because I know you can see it and I feel weird. But I don’t like to all the time and it’s weirder if you ask, especially if I barely know you.”

“It’s, like, the worst day of your tiny life, of course you don’t like talking about it,” Lola said. She was replacing her glove.

Erik waggled a hand. “Top ten.”

“Yeah, but it’s like a privacy thing. ‘Tell me one of the top ten worst things that ever happened to you’ isn’t small talk. At least buy me a drink first.” She laughed weakly. “I shouldn’t have sprung my arm on you kids like that either. I’m used to it. Sometimes I forget.”

Erik shook his head at her. “Don’t say sorry just ’cos you can cover it up, Lo-Lo. It’s not like you forgot to wear pants, it’s your hand. Nobody else has to be embarrassed they have hands and eyes.”

“I guess, Eyeball Buddy, but that doesn’t make everyone feel okay about it and I don’t like to scare a bunch of kids.”

“I’m sorry I made you feel weird and put the glove back,” Bethany said. “I don’t have a drink. Do you want some sandwich?” 

“That’s okay, little girl. I know you don’t mean it that way.”

“I’m Bethany.”

“I’m Lola.”

“Okay. Are we friends yet or what?”

Lola snickered. She waggled a hand.

“People have different feelings and personalities,” Maggie broke in. “Which you guys should also know. I’m just reminding you what to do with it. You don’t treat everyone the same, even if they have some things the same.

“Erik and Lola both have metal parts, but you can’t treat them like cookie cutter people. It’s just like meeting anyone and making friends. You start small and build trust. If you leap right in there with a bunch of flowers and a hug, some people will be able to laugh it off, but most of ‘em are gonna feel weird and not like you.

“Forgive me the insulting segue, but dogs are like people that way too. If you see Samantha and want to make friends, you can’t just come at her like a freight train and expect her to be okay with it. Dogs don’t wave hi and talk about the weather, so I’m going to teach you how to introduce yourselves.” She smiled. “Erik, if you don’t mind?”

“I mind like crazy, but I’ll take a bullet for the cool dog,” he muttered. He reached into his pocket and took out a pair of socks.

◈◈◈

“I am doing this so you don’t hurt my friend the dog,” said the green boy with an argyle sock dangling from each ear. “If you say hi like this when you see me on the street, I’m gonna remember you and send Maggie after you, and you’ll be laughing out the other side of your face.”

“Please, Erik, we don’t threaten our friends,” Seth said.

“I’m sorry. I will totally not do that,” Erik said flatly.

“Um,” Seth said.

“Anyway, this is pretend!” Maggie said. “We can’t explain to the real Samantha that it’s a lesson and practice, and she might freak out, so Erik is helping. We don’t tease people who embarrass themselves to help out. That’s a dick move.”

“Academic setting, Miss D’Iver,” Seth muttered behind a hand.

“That’s inappropriate behaviour,” Maggie said with a smile. She dropped them a little bow. “Excuse me. Chances are, you’re going to meet Samantha when she’s out looking for food by herself. That’s like her job. She’s pretty friendly, but don’t go into this thinking she’s going to stop doing her job right away and play with you.”

“I don’t come to your work and ask to play hopscotch,” said Erik the dog. “Because I know you need to get paid so you can eat.”

“No, you do not know that, you are a dog,” Maggie said. “We’ve been over this. Stay in character.”

“Oh, woof,” Erik muttered. He turned to face the chalkboard and tried to look busy.

“If she’s never met you before,” Maggie said, “she doesn’t know if you’re a nice person or a dogcatcher. You need to act like you’re not going to box her in and grab her. Stand off to one side so she can get away if she wants, close your hands so they look smaller and not grabby, and say something to get her attention.”

She put on a smile and stood calmly to one side, also in-character. “Hi, Samantha,” she said gently, and not too excited.

“Give her some time,” she added, to her students. “She’s working. If you’ve got food for her, keep it in your pocket. She can smell it, she knows it’s there, but you don’t want her to get too excited and bite your fingers. No matter what, let her come to you. If she doesn’t want to meet people and you keep bugging her, she’s gonna remember you’re a jerk.”

Erik looked over his shoulder. “I’m a person with feelings and sometimes I want to be left alone. I can’t say it, so if you don’t pay attention, I’m gonna bite you. Every time I bite, it’s like Prokovian Roulette for me. Someone might call the dog cops and they won’t just put me in jail, they’ll kill me. I’m not a mean dog and I don’t want to hurt you. You have to be careful and make sure I know you’re not going to hurt me. And I don’t speak Anglais, so you can’t tell me. You have to show me.”

“Hi, Samantha,” Maggie said again. “Hey, Sam?”

Erik turned around. “Hi, little girl. I don’t know you or speak the language, but I’m telling you I’m interested. What’s going on?”

“Do not make eye-contact,” Maggie said. “That’s like pulling a knife on a dog. Look at her chest or her shoulder.”

She frowned. “Now, I’m gonna be honest here. Samantha’s face is pretty messed up. She’s not cute like Erik. She can’t close her mouth all the way and you will see her teeth no matter how happy she is. She might be drooling or bubbling, but she does not have rabies, Hyacinth got her all her shots.”

“I have no idea I’m messed up,” Erik said firmly. “I’m just gonna act like a normal dog. If you can’t handle the missing eye, the metal teeth and the drool, don’t even try to make friends. I won’t understand why you run away or don’t want to pet me. I’ll just be sad.”

“Let her come to you,” Maggie reiterated. “If she walks away, let her. If you want to bail, like maybe she’s covered in garbage or something, you walk away too. Don’t push or kick her. She probably won’t follow you if you don’t run. If you’ve got food for her, leave it. If you’re going to continue with the introduction, hold still and wait.”

Erik walked up to Maggie and folded his arms. “We are gonna imagine I sniff her and lick her hand, because that’s what a dog does, but I am not gonna do it for real.”

“Good girl, Samantha!” Maggie said. “If you’ve got a treat for her, you can give it to her now.” She took a Cherry Zing out of her pocket and held it in her hand. “If it’s big like a sandwich, you should put it on the ground. A little treat like this you can hold in the flat of your hand. Put your hand at her mouth height and serve it to her, don’t make her jump. It’s hard for her to sit up and jump. She’s not a circus dog.”

“I’m gonna take this with my hand because I’m a human being with fingers,” Erik said, accepting the treat. “Use your imaginations. If you’re gonna pet me, you wait’ll I’m done eating. If it looks like you’re going to take my food away, I will freak out. You guys know how it is when you’re hungry.”

When Erik was done chewing, Maggie lifted her hand. “Now, be really careful here, you guys. Samantha has a lot of metalwork and sometimes it hurts. Not all the time and not always the same places. Stay away from her head and her rear to start, that’s for close friends.” 

Erik rolled his eyes and shook his head at the ensuing laughter. “Don’t even.”

“Start at the shoulder,” Maggie went on. “Be gentle and pay attention. If she whines or cringes, she’s telling you it hurts. Do not hug her. She does not like being squeezed. Period.”

Erik drew back. “My left shoulder hurts today, little girl. But I haven’t walked away, so I’m willing to let you try again. Maybe the right one is okay.”

Maggie pet Erik carefully. “This does not mean you are best friends. You’re just introduced. Friendship is a lot more than saying hi. You need to meet her a lot more times and be nice to her every time. If she walks away, you’re done. When you’re better friends or if you have food, she might bug you when you want to be done.

“I’ll show you how to tell her when she’s being too friendly and how to introduce yourself if she’s already playing with a friend too, but do you guys have any questions on the basics?”

A forest of hands went up.

“Oh, boy.” Maggie smiled bravely. “I’m not a dog expert. My mom is for some reason. But I’ll do my best! Let’s go left to right. Miss Chevalier?”

Josette was there representing Emily, who was wary of showing up in person when her metal repairs might make her a topic of discussion. “Can I ask Erik a question or is he still being the dog?” the blonde girl said.

There was another ripple of laughter amidst the broken desks.

Erik smirked. “May I break character, Maggie?” He was already removing the socks. “What’s up, Josie?”

“Emily doesn’t like when it’s cold. Is it like that for everyone with mergers? Like, are we gonna hurt the dog if we pet her when it’s snowy?

“I don’t like cold, either, so maybe,” Erik said. “And sometimes right before it rains. Is it like that for you, too, Lo-Lo?”

One of the boys had politely given her a chair. She nodded. “But Samantha doesn’t have as much exposed metal as Erik and I do, so I don’t know if it’s the same for her. Heat bothers me, too, but I do stuff with blowtorches, and that’s a lot of heat.”

“Cooking!” Erik agreed. “Sometimes if I’m at the stove a super long time, I get a headache and I need to go somewhere to cool off. A sunny day feels fine, though. Don’t ever throw snowballs at Samantha, you guys. It’s not funny. You could really hurt her.” He paused and frowned. “Hey. Don’t… throw… snowballs… at… me!”

Josette seemed uncomfortable. “Hey, um, Erik? Is the dog…” This was difficult. They were at school and you had to come at things sideways or Seth got upset. “Is she like Emily or like you?”

“What? Like me how? Magical?”

“No.” Josette blinked. “Is she magical, though? That’s…”

“Is she slow?” Charlie piped up from the blanket.

Erik’s expression twisted. “Is… the… dog… stupid? Is… that… what…”

Maggie ducked in front of him. “Whoa. Hang on, you guys…”

“What kinda question is that?” Bethany said. “How’re you even supposed to tell if a dog is stupid? It’s a dog!”

The street school exploded in confused discussion and children began to take sides.

Seth wobbled and then folded his hands and remained where he was. He caught Sanaam looking at him for instructions, so he lifted one finger and gave a subtle shake of his head. No. You said let her lead. Give her a chance.

Sanaam stayed put, but he could not express his own misgivings. Seth, did I mention she’s set people on fire before? Are you aware of that?

Lola did not bother to wait for subtle signals or ask permission. She just stood up and said, “Listen, you disease-ridden little trash monkeys, disabled doesn’t mean stupid and I’m not going to sit here and let you call my friend…”

“Miss Garofalo, that is quite enough!” Maggie said. “Please let me deal with this. I understand why you’re upset.” She did not raise her voice, but she made it sharper, “This is not how we treat each other in school and I am disappointed in all of you. Mr. Weitz and Miss Garofalo came here to help you learn today. It is disrespectful to question their intelligence.

“But, Mr. Weitz, Miss Garofalo, you need to slow down and give my students a chance. They are trying to learn, and they might not always phrase everything perfectly. It doesn’t help to insult them, Lola. Nobody here is disease-ridden, trash or a monkey. I will not invite you to school or to my house ever again if you have such a low opinion of my friends.”

“I just got upset,” Lola muttered. “I tried to make cupcakes and ruined a whole box of quarter inch machine screws for you people.” She sat down again.

“I understand.” Maggie didn’t think it was a good idea to demand an apology from anyone just now. “Josie, did you mean that how Erik and Charlie took it, or something else?”

Josette had her head down on the desk with both hands clasped over it. “I don’t know,” she said, muffled. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean stupid. I know you’re not stupid. Emily doesn’t need what you need. I don’t have a word.”

“But Erik is slow!” Charlie said.

“Ah-ah-ah!” Maggie put a hand on Erik. “Erik, Lola, Charlie is five, please be patient. Charlie.” She smiled at him. “Please, for love of the gods, tell me you just mean Erik talks slowly. Because Erik is certainly not slow like he’s dumb, right?” She slumped.

Erik recognized a version of Sanaam’s funny fake desperation.

“Come onnn,” she said. “Help a student-teacher out, Charlie.”

Some of the kids snickered. Charlie said, “Yeah, not dumb slow.”

“Okay!” Maggie clapped her hands with a grin. “That is not a nice word to use for that. ‘Slow’ can mean ‘stupid’ too, so we need to be careful how we use it. Sometimes Erik talks slowly.

“It’s called ‘expressive aphasia.’” She wrote it on the board. “That just means it’s hard for him to talk sometimes. He knows what he wants to say, he just can’t, like the bad guys put tape over his mouth. That isn’t anything to do with how smart he is, and it’s cruel to treat him as if he’s dumb. He just needs us to wait for him sometimes.”

She turned with a smile, “I’m sorry, Erik. Is it okay I explained that about you?”

He nodded warily. “They better… remember it.”

“That’s how I mean it!” Josette said. “I’m sorry, Maggie. Miss D’Iver. Excuse me. Emily doesn’t like cold, but she doesn’t need extra time to talk to me. Do we just need to be careful with Samantha’s metal stuff, or is there more with her?”

Erik frowned. “She doesn’t wag normal,” he muttered.

He raised his voice and restated, “Her ears and tail are stiff. That’s how dogs talk, and she can’t use them like before she got hurt. Dog words are hard for her, like people words are hard for me. You have to watch her body. She puts her butt in the air and dances with her front feet when she’s really happy. It’s cute. I don’t know about other stuff. She hurt her head like me, but I don’t know how you’d tell anything else.”

“Her tail clicks when she happy-wags,” Maggie added. “But the rest of her clicks sometimes, too, so don’t rely on the clicking alone. I think we’d better take a break for a couple minutes. I’ve got these cards with a list of foods that do not make good dog treats. I’ll hand ‘em out, and you gimme your sandwich trash if you’ve got any. We get enough litter around here without adding more on purpose.”

“I have a paper bag, Maggie,” Seth said.

“Thank you very much.” She leaned in and hissed, “You hung me out to dry in front of my dad and my best friend and that is not cool, Seth!”

“I’m sorry, Miss D’Iver, but you managed it beautifully.”

“I copied you.”

“I see hints of your own style emerging. I think you do very well when you’re even less formal than I am, but that’s just my opinion. Would you like me to take over for a little while so you can plan your next attack?”

“Please,” she said.

“According to this helpful little card!” he announced. “These foods will hurt Samantha!” He began copying the list on the board and told Erik in a low voice, “Thanks for your help. Go on and have a sandwich. You did very well.” He returned to an educational volume, “This is very important, because she doesn’t know what she shouldn’t eat. You have to be responsible…”

Sanaam got up to help Maggie with the trash. “So proud,” he whispered to her.

“Don’t embarrass me,” she replied with a smile.

◈◈◈

Soup arrived a little after two o’clock, having convinced Samantha to join him with half a peanut butter sandwich. He had been making a list of her favourites, to compliment the list of things one should definitely not feed a dog — which Maggie’s mother had given him weeks ago.

“Ooh, there’s a bunch of them,” he said softly. “Hey, wait here. Let me check this out.”

She followed him anyway, clicking.

“Dumb dog,” he said. He crouched and put a gentle hand on her head. 

“Just to be perfectly clear,” Maggie was saying, “a disability does not give you superpowers. Do not tease Samantha trying to get her to do something weird and different, and don’t do that to Erik and Lola or anyone else you meet. These two have senses of humour, and we asked them here specifically to show you how this stuff isn’t scary. Sometimes their differences are fun, like Sam doesn’t mind coloured people anymore, but they’re not Night Monkey.”

Erik laughed. Lola curled her fingers into a backwards V-sign — without turning her hand — and said, “Hey, Maggie, don’t crush our dreams.”

“Dream-crusher,” Erik said, giggling.

“Hey, Mags?” Soup said. “It’s us.”

Maggie raised both her hands for quiet. “Please. Please. Before we start making our introductions, I think it would be fun to test our teacher and see if he was paying attention. Seth? Please show us how you say hi to Samantha.”

“You’re sure about this?” Seth muttered aside.

“She was fine with Bethany. Go for it.” She covered a snicker with her hand. “Live the dream, Mr. Zusman.”

He ignored the dog and waved at the boy in the chequered driving cap. “Hello, Soup. Please act like you know me and I’m not a threat. Ha, ha. May I say hi to your dog? Perfectly fine if I can’t.”

“No, she’s cool. Come on over.”

“Yay,” Seth said weakly. He inched sideways and stood stiffly with his closed hands at his sides.

Samantha looked up at Soup and wagged a few times.

Soup bit the inside of his mouth and did not say, “Kill, Samantha,” to the knee-high mongrel dog with metal teeth. “It’s okay, hon,” he told her. “He’s just a little nervous. Chill out, Seth. She listens to me. Well, like, sixty-percent of the time.”

“Oh. Splendid.” The dog was licking his hand. “I had a sandwich,” he said quickly. “I had a pastrami sandwich. Is she saying hello or does she think my hand is a pastrami sandwich?”

“Pretty sure this is hello.” Soup said evenly. “Do you want to bail out on this, Seth? She does know you’re scared. It’s freaking her out a little. I’m tryin’ to be calm for both of us.”

“No, no. Not in front of the kids.” He smiled, took a deep breath and tried to relax, which was something they taught him at teachers’ college. They put it on the bulletin board in cheerful construction paper — S. T. A. R.!

He touched the dog’s shoulder with two fingers and pet lightly. She wagged and clicked.

“Clicking is good, right? Maggie said clicking is good.”

“Usually. You okay?”

“May I stop now?”

“Sure.”

He staggered away, hands folded and shaking. “Oh. So much fun!” he told the class. Or maybe just something like that, he wasn’t sure.

“Why, you managed that beautifully, Mr. Zusman!” Maggie said with a grin. In a low voice she added, “That’s what you get.”

She clapped her hands. “All right, everyone! I can’t promise you everyone is going to meet Samantha today, but let’s line up by the chalkboard if you’re interested, and we’ll see if we can keep her interested. Okay? Super!”

◈◈◈

An hour later, the class had devolved into a loose association of people who wanted to play fetch with an old baseball, and one very happy dog who wished to do likewise.

“I think we’re done for today,” Maggie told Seth. “I better take Lola home. Ann promised her dinner. I’m sorry I teased you.”

He leaned down and spoke behind his hand, “I played it up a little. Believe me?” He winked.

She snickered, “Sure,” and she hugged him. There was something cold and she pulled back to look for it. “Oh. Hey. You’re wearing it.”

He picked up the prayer medallion. “I wasn’t sure… Is it more of a shrine decoration? I don’t have a good place to put it. Is it as if I’m wearing a set of fuzzy dice?”

“No, you’ve got it right. It looks good.”

“This is writing, isn’t it? What does it say?”

It was a decorative abbreviation meaning peace and completeness through submission to the True Gods, but somehow Maggie didn’t think Seth would like wearing that.

She smiled and shrugged. “I was so busy talking up the street school to the Imam, I forgot to ask. I’m sure it’s not a rude word or anything. He was a nice guy. I guess it’s significant squiggles.”

He seemed disappointed, but only briefly. “It’s all right. I love the design. It’s nice to have a reminder that it’s silly to make a person spell international capitals backwards. If you ever find out what it really means, let me know.”

“Sure thing,” she said, thinking, Yeah. I’m okay lying to this guy to protect him. About a prayer medallion or an attempted murder. It’s not even that hard. He’s worth it. “I’ll see you around, yeah?”

“You know where I’ll be.” He grinned and clasped his hands. “I’m going to go play with the dog!”