I know it's probably wrong to fantasize about giving a nun a karate chop in the neck, but I couldn't help it. She was making me mad.

"Listen, Sister," I said. "Father Dominic asked me to come see him this morning. I've got some, um, transcripts from my old school that he wanted to see. I had to have them FedExed all the way from New York, and they just got here, so – "

I thought that was pretty quick thinking on my part, about the transcripts and the FedEx and all, but then Sister Ernestine held out her hand and went, "Give them to me, and I'll be happy to deliver them to the Father."

Damn!

"Uh," I said, backing away. "Never mind. I guess I'll just … I'll see him after lunch, then."

Sister Ernestine gave me a kind of Aha-I-thought-so look, then turned her attention to some innocent kid who'd made the mistake of coming to school in a pair of Levi's, a blatant violation of the dress code. The kid wailed, "They were my only clean pants!" but Sister Ernestine didn't care. She stood there – unfortunately still guarding the only route to the principal's office – and wrote the kid up on the spot.

I had no choice but to go to class. I mean, what was there to tell Father Dominic, anyway, that he didn't already know? I'm sure he knew it was Heather who'd wrecked the school, and me who'd broken Mr. Walden's window. He probably wasn't going to be all that happy with me anyway, so why was I even bothering? What I ought to have been doing was trying as much as possible to stay out of his way.

Except…except what about Heather?

As near as I could tell, she was still recuperating from her explosive rage the night before. I saw no sign of her as I made my way to Mr. Walden's classroom for first period, which was good: it meant Father D and I would have time to draw up some kind of plan before she struck again.

As I sat there in class trying to convince myself that everything was going to be all right, I couldn't help feeling kind of bad for poor Mr. Walden. He was taking having the door to his classroom obliterated pretty well. He didn't even seem to mind the broken window so much. Of course everybody in school was buzzing about what had happened. People were saying that it had been a prank, the severing of Junipero Serra's head. A senior prank. One year, Cee Cee told me, the seniors had strapped pillows to the clappers of the church bells, so that when they rang, all that came out was a muffled sort of splatting sound. I guess people suspected this was the same sort of thing.

If only they had known the truth. Heather's seat, next to Kelly Prescott, remained conspicuously vacant, while her locker — now assigned to me – was still unopenable thanks to the dent her body had made when I'd thrown her against it.

It was sort of ironic that as I was sitting there thinking this Kelly Prescott raised her hand and, when Mr. Walden called on her, asked if he didn't think it was unfair, Monsignor Constantine declaring that no memorial service would be held for Heather.

Mr. Walden leaned back in his seat and put both his feet up on his desk. Then he said, "Don't look at me. I just work here."

"Well," Kelly said, "don't you think it's unfair?" She turned to the rest of the class, her big, mascara-rimmed eyes appealing. "Heather Chambers went here for ten years. It's inexcusable that she shouldn't be memorialized in her own school. And, frankly, I think what happened yesterday was a sign."

Mr. Walden looked vastly amused. "A sign, Kelly?"

"That's right. I believe what happened here last night – and even that piece of the breezeway nearly killing Bryce – are all connected. I don't believe Father Serra's statue was desecrated by vandals at all, but by angels. Angels who are angry about Monsignor Constantine not allowing Heather's parents to have her funeral here."

This caused a good deal of buzzing in the classroom. People looked nervously at Heather's empty chair. Normally, I don't talk much in school, but I couldn't let this one go by. I said, "So you're saying you think it was an angel who broke this window behind me, Kelly?"

Kelly had to twist around in her seat to see me. "Well," she said. "It could have been...."

"Right. And you think it was angels who broke down Mr. Walden's door, and cut off that statue's head, and wrecked the courtyard?"

Kelly stuck out her chin. "Yes," she said. "I do. Angels angered over Monsignor Constantine's decision not to allow us to memorialize Heather."

I shook my head. "Bull," I said.

Kelly raised her eyebrows. "I beg your pardon?"

"I said bull, Kelly. I think your theory is full of bull."

Kelly turned a very interesting shade of red. I think she was probably regretting inviting me to her pool party. "You don't know it wasn't angels, Suze," she said acidly.

"Actually, I do. Because to the best of my knowledge, angels don't bleed, and there was blood all over the carpeting back here from where the vandal hurt himself breaking in. That's why the police cut up chunks of the rug and took them away."

Kelly wasn't the only one who gasped. Everybody kind of freaked out. I probably shouldn't have pointed out the blood – especially since it was mine – but hey, I couldn't let her go around saying it was all because of angels. Angels, my butt. What did she think this was anyway? Highway to Heaven?

"Okay," Mr. Walden said. "On that note, everybody, it's time for second period. Susannah, could I see you a minute?"

Cee Cee turned around to waggle her white eyebrows at me. "You're in for it now, sucker," she hissed.

But she had no idea how true her words were. All anybody would have to do was take a look at the Band-Aids all over my wrist, and they'd know I had firsthand knowledge of where that blood had come from.

On the other hand, they had no reason to suspect me, did they?

I approached Mr. Walden's desk, my heart in my throat. He's going to turn you in, I thought, frantically. You are so busted, Simon.

But all Mr. Walden wanted to do was compliment me on my use of footnotes in my essay on the battle of Bladensburg, which he had noticed as I handed it in.

"Uh," I said. "It was really no big deal, Mr. Walden."

"Yes, but footnotes – " He sighed. "I haven't seen footnotes used correctly since I taught an adult education class over at the community college. Really, you did a great job."