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“Another gift from your feline,” said the woman.

“And you’re presenting it to me,” said Hope sourly. “How lovely.”

“I really don’t want this to become an issue between us. We do have to live next door to each other,” the woman went on. “But this is unconscionable. You can’t just allow your cat to use everyone’s gardens as toilets.”

“It’s not exactly easy to stop her,” protested Hope. “What would you actually like me to do about it? I could sit down and discuss it with her, maybe have her sign some sort of contract, would that work?”

“Well, now you’re being silly, aren’t you?”

The woman swept off her glasses and pushed them on top of her head in a movement that gave Hope a memory of feelings she’d rather ignore. She filed that away for later. Note to self: women with glasses on their heads are sexy. By the time she returned to the conversation the woman was halfway through some kind of diatribe about cats in general.

“Hold on,” Hope said. “Just stop for a minute there. Rosie is an outside cat and always has been, I can’t keep her inside all the time, it’d be cruel.”

“Oh, can we keep Rosie inside, mum?” came Alice’s voice. “She can sleep in my room, in my bed even.”

Hope opened the door a little wider as she turned to see her daughter coming downstairs, a doll under one arm. “No,” she began. But something about Alice’s face stopped her.

“Alice?”

Now Hope turned to look at the woman on her doorstep. “You know her name?” she said. She remembered that the woman had stalked Rosie over the back fence and was suddenly furious. “You spied on us long enough to learn my daughter’s name? That’s… that’s terrifying and creepy and I’m in a good mind to call the police.”

“No, mum, please don’t,” Alice said, coming closer. “You can’t call the police on Ms. Stanford ‘cos then I wouldn’t have a teacher again.”

Hope looked down at Alice, mouth half-open, then back up at the woman on the doorstep, then shook her head in disbelief.

The woman cleared her throat. “Um, Ava Stanford,” she said, holding out the hand that wasn’t clutching a plastic bag of animal droppings.

“Hope Perkins,” said Hope, taking it.

“School secretary?” the woman said in a slightly less stern voice.

Hope nodded.

For a long moment the two of them regarded each other. Then Alice spoke. “You said it’s tea time,” she reminded her mother.

“Right,” said Hope. “Yes, it is.”

“I’ll let you go then,” said Ava Stanford, snatching her hand away from Hope’s. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Alice.” And she turned and stalked away.

Hope closed the door and then closed her eyes, leaning her forehead against the cool of the wood.

“I did try to tell you, mum,” Alice said. “I tried to tell you that she was the… the you-know-what-lady, but then you just told me not to say that anymore, so I stopped.”

“Right,” said Hope, wondering just how bad of a first impression she’d made and whether the relationship could be at all salvageable at this point.

“I won’t call her the P-O-O lady anymore,” Alice said. “Because now she’s Ms. Stanford.”

“Right,” Hope said again.

For God’s sake. What were the chances?

She sighed and followed Alice into the kitchen for dinner. Ms. Stanford was a bitch, not that she’d tell Alice that. The problem was that now she was going to have to pretend that she wasn’t. And Hope really wasn’t that good at pretending.

Chapter Eight

The headmaster crossed his very long legs and sat back in his desk chair. “I’m not sure I completely understand.”

Ava stopped herself rolling her eyes. “What’s to understand? There was some kind of mistake, that’s all. I don’t teach elementary school, I teach high school.”