“She worked in that cafeteria thirty-four years,” Principal Vance said, coming out of his office with a box of thumbtacks and a sheet of paper.

“Irene paid for plenty of hot lunches out of her own pocket when families ran short.”

He walked down the hall to the glass menu case mounted beside the cafeteria doors.

He unlocked the plastic frame to put up the lunch menu for the next week.

As he took down the old menu card, a yellowed sheet of paper slid out from behind the frame and dropped face down on the floor.

I bent and picked it up before the draft in the hall could carry it off toward the gym doors.