"Grace" Dr Beasel squatted down and put his bony hands on her shoulders. "I want you to know that we will really miss you here."
She pushed him away and ran out of the office, sobbing. Marty watched her go, then turned back to the headmaster. "Will you miss me, too?". Dr Beasel did not answer him.
Marty nodded, then began staring at a spot just beyond the headmaster's left ear and started moving his eyes around the room as if he were tracking a flying insect. "What is it?" Dr Beasel asked excitedly. "What do you see?"
"I don't know." Marty stood. "At first I thought it was a fly, but it's bigger than... Look, there it is! Jeez, I think it's a termite." He pointed.
The headmaster looked around frantically. "I
don't-"
"There!"
"Where?"
"Over by the window. No... now it's by the painting. Wow, it crawled right behind the picture frame. Did you see it?"
"Yes!" Dr Beasel said. "I believe I did!" He picked up the phone. "Is that fool of an exterminator still in the building? Well, find out and send him back up here!"
Marty reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of dead termites. While the headmaster was distracted, he tossed them under his desk, then left the office. There were some things he would miss about the school.
He found Grace sitting at her table in the library. She looked up at him through red-rimmed eyes. "You were useless." "Sorry. But Dr Weasel wouldn't have listened to me no matter what I'd said."
"I wish you wouldn't call him that."
"Why not?"
Up until their meeting, Grace could have given him a long list of reasons, but now she couldn't think of one. She'd always thought that Dr Beasel loved having her at the school, but he had caved in to their uncle's plan without a hint of protest.
"Look," Marty said. "I'm sure there's a logical reason why Mom didn't tell us about her brother." "Like, maybe she was embarrassed about him," Grace said. "Or maybe he's insane, or maybe he's been in prison all these years for murder or worse."
"Oh, please. Where would he get the money to pay for our tuition? And how could he run a computer company from a jail cell?"
"He's the executor of Mom and Dad's estate. Maybe he's after our money. A lot of computers companies have gone out of business in the past few years".
"Maybe" Marty picked up one of Grace's pencils and started rolling it through his fingers. "Do you think Mom and Dad are OK?" Grace sighed. "I go back and forth, but I think that if they were dead I would somehow know it."
Marty felt the same way. "I think they're OK too," he said. "They've survived worse things than a helicopter crash." "What are we going to do, Marty?" Marty shrugged. "What we always do. Deal with it."