"I wouldn't know where to look. I wouldn't know anything like that."
"Are there any teachers here who would have been here when Miss Major was here?"
"I guess there probably are. I guess there would be some. How long ago was she here?"
"About twelve years ago."
"Mrs. Stearns has been teaching here twenty-two years. Third grade. Room sixteen. That's on this floor just around the corner."
"I wouldn't want to interrupt a class."
"Any minute now they'll all be going home. Then you could ask her. I wouldn't know anything like that. I wouldn't know where to look or anything."
I waited outside room sixteen. There was a lull and then somebody started a record player. Sousa filled the halls with brass, at peak volume. There was a great scurrying in all the rooms. The doors opened. All the small denizens marched into the hall and stood in impatient ragged double lines, stomping their feet in time to the music. The floor shook. Weary teachers kept a cautious eye on the lines. The upstairs rooms marched down the stairs and out the double doors. Then the main floor marched out, yelling as soon as they hit the sunlight. The school was emptied. Sousa blared on for a few moments and died in the middle of a bar.
"Mrs. Stearns?"
"Yes, I'm Mrs. Stearns." She was a round, pale woman with hair like steel wool and small, sharp, bright dark eyes.