East of Outback by Sandra Dengler Page A

probability stabbed at her too.
    She wandered back to the hallway and hefted her book-bag. She climbed the stairs to her room. By the time she reached the landing at the top she knew what she would do.
    But how to do it?
    Dinner that night began predictably unpleasant and slid downhill from there. Papa fumed. Mum ate in grim silence. Mary Aileen pushed her food around on her plate as if she were responsible for all the family’s ills. From time to time she’d glance at Papa with a hangdog look of fear and worry. And Edan? Like always, he simply stepped inside himself and closed the door. He sat, he ate, he excused himself, he left. No comment, no spark of life. Papa said he was dull. Hannah knew better. Edan soared, she was quite certain, but never where anyone could see it.
    She finished her meal. The questions with which she had come to this table had resolved themselves into answers. The plan spread before her mind’s eye, flawless.
    She folded her napkin. “May I be excused?”
    Mum nodded. Mary Aileen glanced at Hannah’s plate enviously. Mary Aileen was condemned to sit there until she finished her food.
    “Papa, there’s a—an, uh—a—an alternative . That’s it. The abbess says I may serve a detention, if you prefer. That means I must stay three hours past school each day and not go out at noon or recess, and I’ll receive extra work to do. Papa, please might I serve detention a few days and then —”
    “No!”
    “And then you could apply to the abbess. “Twill give you a bit of time to cool off, and her as well. Her even more; the floor will be dried out by then. Please, Papa? Your meeting with her will go so much more amicably, don’t you see? And I’ll not miss any school.”
    She hoped she had used the word amicably correctly.
    Apparently she had. He studied her and she held his eye.
    “No child of mine will take punishment she doesn’t deserve.”
    Hannah shrugged. “Mary’s child Jesus did.”
    Mum hid a smile behind her napkin. Mary Aileen watched intently, with great, liquid eyes.
    “I’ll discuss it with your mother.” When Papa said that, it equaled a delayed yes! She’d done it!
    She hurried around the table, bumping Mary Aileen’s chair, and threw her arms about Papa’s neck. “Thank you. Papa!” She ran to the stairs.
    The first part of her plan had concluded splendidly. Now for the second. She hurried to her room and closed her door behind her. She dumped out her books and stacked them in the back of her clothes press. She dug out the papers, and the notes from her teachers that Mum never saw, the pens and pencil stubs, the dry, rounded erasers, and the compass and protractor she had not yet used this year.
    In her bookbag she carefully packed her striped blue dress and the brown cotton one, all the stockings she owned, what underwear she had, the blue and black hair ribbons, her other pair of shoes, and her hairbrush. What else did she need? Books were too heavy, toys too childish. She found no room for Emily, the little rag doll that had been her companion her whole life. She would pack her nightie in the morning. She closed up the bookbag and set it by her little writing table.
    Late that evening, as soon as the house settled into its night quiet, Hannah slipped downstairs. Moonlight painted white rectangles on the kitchen floor as it streamed through the windows. The light glinted on two eyes. Smoke the cat hopped up onto the kitchen counter and curled into a watchful ball. In the darkness of the night, the little tortoise-shell cat was always watching.
    Hannah climbed up to Mum’s sugar bowl and robbed it of all its coins. Only Smoke knew. In the parlor she opened up the secret compartment in the secretary and took the money Papa kept there for emergencies when the banks were closed.
    The next morning Hannah put on her uniform, kissed Mum and Papa goodbye, and hurried out of the house with her bookbag. She hastened past the church, behind the school, down the busy