Death Dangles a Participle (Miss Prentice Cozy Mystery Series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

sinking feeling filled my middle. “I didn’t see that earlier.”
    Vern nodded. “It’s hard to spot.” He looked out at the field of snow. “No tracks. He must have left before the snowfall this afternoon.” A long arm wrapped around my shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Amelia. I really liked the old boy.”
    Despite the cold of the porch, my eyes filled with hot tears. “Don’t use the past tense, please,” I whispered.
    “What’s going on?” Gil asked from the back door. The warm air from the house drew us inside.
    Vern told him.
    Gil led me gently inside. “Are you all right?”
    I gave him a watery smile. “I don’t know why this is upsetting me so. It’s not like I even liked that awful old bag of fur. Sometimes, it actually seemed that Mother loved him more than she did me.”
    Gil pulled me to his chest and hugged. “He’s your link to her. To her and your dad, that’s why.”
    “How did you get so smart?” I murmured into his shirt.
    He kissed my forehead.
    Vern gave a polite cough. “I’m too young to see this, I think,” he announced. “Besides, I’ve got a paper due. Don’t worry, Amelia. He’ll come back.” He disappeared into the abyss that was his room, leaving Gil and me to our cuddling.

CHAPTER FOUR

    “Miss Prentice? Are we going to have to do a Shakespeare paper this term?” was the poignant plaint from sophomore Hardy Patschke as I made my way through the hallway teeming with teenagers.
    “‘It must follow as the night the day,’ Hardy,” I quoted over my shoulder, not bothering to correct his use of my old name. There would be time enough for that later.
    Despite Sam’s disappearance, there was a smile on my face today that I couldn’t control by muscle power alone. It was nice to be married, I thought, and the mornings with Gil—even in a drafty pre-dawn bedroom—were the nicest.
    The first day back at school after Christmas vacation had never been my favorite, and I wasn’t alone in that sentiment. In September, students are at least temporarily happy to be back, resuming friendships and plunging once again into the familiar routine, but things are different in January.
    The two-week taste of freedom during the holidays serves merely as a cruel reminder of the imprisonment to which they must soon return. Of course, my students never asked me whether I was happy to be back. They probably pictured me rubbing my hands and cackling with glee at the prospect of renewed opportunities to torture them.
    I hung up my coat in the classroom closet and headed for the teachers’ workroom. In the now-packed hall, there was a steadily intensifying din from slamming lockers and assorted mating calls of the Human Adolescent. My ears caught random vignettes as I shouldered through the crowd.
    “So what’d ya get for Christmas?”
    “Yeah, we broke up. I can’t believe he’s taking her to the ice festival.”
    “—skiing at Whiteface. He’s in a hip-to-ankle cast.”
    “Amelia! How are you?” said someone, inches from my right ear. It was Judith Dee, the school nurse, shouting above the racket. Her helmet-style hairdo was unscathed in the churning throng. I doubted if even a hurricane could dislodge a single strand.
    Funny, I thought, it has never occurred to me before, but her hair is the same color as Sam the cat’s: a flat blue-gray.
    Saving my lung power for the classroom, I smiled and bobbed my head back and forth in response, then beckoned for her to follow.
    We entered the workroom together. The place was empty, I observed gratefully. I had lots of copies to make before the class bell rang. Because of painful memories, I no longer made copies at the public library.
    Judith shut the door with a sharp rattle. “Whew! It’s wild out there! Say, did you hear about the Eisler boy? Broke his kneecap skiing. And Mrs. Brannon’s psoriasis is back.”
    I frowned. I’d already seen Jimmy Eisler’s well-decorated cast and didn’t want to know about the Latin teacher’s