Marcus picked up his desk phone and dialed three numbers.

“Who are you calling now?” I asked.

“The county clerk,” Marcus said.

“We need a rush hearing date on the docket before your family tries to file a preemptive custody petition.”

At three o’clock the school hallway was silent except for the low drone of the floor polisher working by the library doors.

The smell of floor wax and old paper hung in the corridor.

Principal Davis was sitting at the brown laminate table in the faculty lounge, a mug of black tea sitting on a paper napkin next to his lesson planner.