Free No Ordinary Day by Polly Becks Page B

annoyance.
    “Dan Saunders, Donna Marquarte, and Joni Wolfe are all pretty soundly against it, or at least it seems that way,” Lucy said, leafing through her lesson plans.
    “Donna and Joni don’t surprise me—I expect you got a ‘how can you do more harm to the poor people in the community?’ bleeding heart speech from Joni?”
    Lucy looked up from her desk in surprise.
    “Well, yes, but I happen to agree with her,” she said.
    “So do I, but, unlike Donna, there’s something so, I dunno, so hippy-dippy about Joni that it’s hard to take her seriously.” Kelly dusted off her hands, then went over to the calendar. “I’m a little puzzled about Dan Saunders—doesn’t he live in West Obergrande? Aren’t there streets with his family name on them?”
    “I think so,” Lucy said, writing the morning’s riddle on the whiteboard in yellow, red, and black for Germany Day. “But he’s a business owner and seems like a very practical, hands-on kinda guy. I frequently see him down on the waterfront, working alongside his employees. He owns a lot of businesses in town, some of which are in East Obergrande. And it’s not all that hard to name a street in the Adirondacks if you want to. In Cold Brook, there’s one called Hooper-Dooper Avenue.”
    Kelly laughed. “That must be the one across from Sesame Street.”
    “That would be Mr. Hooper-Dooper Avenue. George Durant is all gung-ho for the dam, for the redesign of the town that the Public Benefit Corporation would pay for,” Lucy continued, fixing a spelling mistake in the riddle. “He kept saying ‘we can be better than Placid!’ over and over again. He got unanimous eye rolling when he said that—as if there is enough money in the world to out-class Lake Placid—no way.”
    “Sheesh. What about Phil Schirmer?”
    “He’s his usual flip-flop self—you know how he’s always with whomever has spoken to him last?”
    “Oh, yeah.”
    “Well, apparently the pro-dam side got to him last night.”
    “Great,” said Kelly gloomily. “Where do the mayor and the town supervisor stand?”
    “Mayor Tibedeau seems to be fairly objective,” Lucy said. “He seems pretty distressed at the thought of moving all those houses, relocating all those people from the apartments, but he did point out that there would be money for those things. He remained calm, except for the fruit-throwing.”
    “Fruit -throwing? Seriously?”
    “Yep. Bob Lundford was mad from the beginning to the end of the meeting, shouting at people and banging his gavel, but I can’t say I have any idea where he stands.”
    Kelly shook her head, as if to shake off the thoughts of the meeting and the weather. “Wonderful. So, change of subject—how was your date with Glen Daniels last night?”
    Lucy blinked in surprise. “How did you know about that?”
    Kelly laughed. “Girl, everyone knows about that. So dish—is he really as dull as the grapevine says?”
    “Not at all,” Lucy said defensively. “He’s great. We had a nice time.”
    “Ooooooooohh,” said Kelly as the racket of approaching feet and the children attached to them began sounding in the hallway beyond the door. “You’ll have to tell me more at the end of the day.”
    7:52 AM
    The class was in a somewhat better mood that morning, despite the rain, Lucy decided.
    The language arts lesson of the day was one that included poetry, music, self-awareness, and physical movement that she had come up with the year before. It had been a great success then, but the previous year the day on which she had presented it was so beautifully sunny that she had taken the class outside to do it.
    This day could not have been more different.
    Nonetheless, she and Kelly had brought all the kids together in a big circle with their sit-upons, low, thin pillows on which most of their floor activities were done.
    As Mrs. Moran turned on the CD player, Lucy ran through the rules again.
    “OK, who are the Mondays?”
    Four children sat