“The county audit board called at ten this morning,” Principal Vance said.

“Every file on my computer screen shows a zero balance.”

“That’s the way it ought to be,” I said.

By five thirty that afternoon the sun had sunk behind the tall concrete silos of the Oak Creek grain elevator.

The air was getting cold and smelled of woodsmoke and wet fallen leaves from the yard.

I sat on the concrete front porch step with a stiff corn broom across my knees.

Noah and Lily were chasing each other around the trunk of the old sugar maple in the front yard.