No response from Mr. Bartley. I mentally make a list: four possible reasons why Mr. Bartley isn’t here: (1) his internet went down in last night’s storm; (2) he didn’t check his email; (3) he read it but wasn’t able to come to school early (then why didn’t he respond?); (4) he was abducted by an alien nation in need of a History of World Governments teacher (if only we were so lucky). Logan reverses directions. Her fingers tap against her hip like she’s keeping time to music only she can hear. After a few more circles, she stops in front of a poster-size sign promoting tonight’s Snow Ball dance. She waves me over.
“Your parents’ first date was the Snow Ball dance, right?”
“A couple centuries ago.”
A long awkward silence falls between us. Usually I don’t have any trouble reading Logan, but the way she’s staring at the couple slow dancing in the center of the winter wonderland, I can’t help but wonder if she feels like she’s missing out. Neither of us has ever gone to a school dance, and when she turned down Mason’s invitation to prom last year, I was relieved. Despite all the rumors at school, however, Logan and I will never be more than best friends. From the day she moved to Riviere right before eighth grade, she was destined to leave. I, on the other hand, was born to stay.
Logan turns away from the poster and starts pacing again.
“Do you want to go?” I blurt out, instantly wanting to stuff the words down my throat.
She stops. Surprise or maybe horror fills her face. “To the Snow Ball dance?”
“Yes. No.” I shake my head. “Of course I don’t want to go. It was— Never mind. This morning, before we left, Dad gave me the night off.” I shrug. “It was just something to do.”
Logan frowns. “But you hate to dance.”
“Yup. No moves.” I shuffle like a robot. “Forget I mentioned it.” If only the floor would open up and swallow me whole. Freshman year I told Logan that I didn’t dance, but that’s because she thought Kerrianne wanted me to ask her to homecoming. Not in a million years. There’s only been one girl I’ve ever wanted to dance with, and that’s Logan. “I should really be home anyway. With the wedding guests, there will be plenty of things for me to do around the inn.”
“Oh no. Definitely not. You’re taking the night off, with me, and that’s final. And since we want to have fun, that rules out dancing.” She smiles.
“No dancing. Got it. We can see what’s playing at the Riviere Marquee?”
“A movie is boring and ordinary.”
“What else is there to do in Riviere?”
“Leave it to me.” She sets her hands on my shoulders and gives me a shake. “I can’t believe it. You have a Friday night off! Why didn’t you tell me? We should throw a party, except I hate parties with people. What to do? Cade Crawford has the night off. How did this happen? Tell me everything. What did your dad say?”
I’m not going to tell Logan what he really said, which was that I should ask Logan to the dance. “We’re just friends,” I’d responded. To which he’d said, “Nothing wrong with going with a friend. Your mom and I were friends.”
Inwardly, I groan. I look at Logan. She’s waiting for an answer. “There’s not much to tell. He said I’ve worked hard and deserve a night off from the inn.”
She slaps a hand over the slow-dancing couple and places the other over her heart. “I, Logan March, solemnly promise to arrange an unforgettable, amazing night filled with adventure that doesn’t involve dancing. It’ll be a night we’ll remember years from now, like the kind some old people get nostalgic about when they long for the wild times they had in high school.” She beams at me.
I raise an eyebrow. “Have I mentioned that getting arrested is not my idea of fun?”
She winks. “Duly noted.” Her gaze shifts to the wall clock, then toward the main stairwell leading to the first floor. With a huff, she asks, “Where is Mr. Bartley?”
“Maybe the snow delayed him. We could come back at lunch?”
“But there will be dozens of students in his room.” She goes back to pacing.
I want to bang my head against a locker. Why did I bring up the dance? I can’t believe Dad suggested it. Worst of all, I can’t believe I’m actually disappointed. Doing something tonight is a bad idea. I’m tired of dwelling in the Friend Zone. I’m tired of pretending I don’t want more with Logan. I gotta figure out a way to cancel. Inn emergency? But then Logan might show up to help. Fake fever? Maybe…
Logan regains my attention with her mumbling. “…why…absurd…Mr. Bartley…fake…challenge…test, assignment, debate.” None of it makes much sense to me.
She comes to an abrupt halt. The happiness radiating off her is nuclear. Her backpack slips from her shoulder and thunks onto the floor. “I got it!” At first I think she means our plans for tonight, but then she says, “I have a theory about why Mr. Bartley gave us the assignment.” She gives me a playful shove. “There isn’t one. There can’t be an assignment because there is no legitimate debate. He’s waiting for someone to prove it. It’s a test on making moral decisions and how they impact humanity.”
“A test.”
Some of her conviction slips when she registers my skepticism. She unzips her backpack and pulls out the assignment. “You know those elaborate riddles that go on and on, twisting you up with too many details that you don’t see the simple solution?”
I nod. Logan loves riddles, like the one about the plane crashing halfway into Canada and halfway into the United States with 283 passengers on board. The twisty tale ends with If there were 283 passengers and 5 crew and they all died, how many survivors died in Canada?
The answer is zero. Survivors live.
Logan waves the paper. “That’s what I believe Mr. Bartley did with the assignment. I bet he wanted to make it look legitimate, creating detailed instructions to get us to think. I bet he’s waiting for someone to say it’s morally wrong.
“Let’s look at the facts.” She ticks them off on her fingers. “One. We’ve never had an assignment even remotely like this, so that sets it apart. Two. He’s a brilliant teacher, and he’s fair. Three. Giving a fake assignment is totally something he’d do. His lessons are sometimes unconventional. Four. It’s top-secret so that he can teach this lesson again next year.”
Logan’s theory sounds thought-out, but improbable, at least to me. If she’s right, Mr. Bartley sure went through a lot of trouble to teach a moral lesson. Sterilizing an entire people is evil. Ghettos are evil. Genocide is evil. How hard is that to figure out? But I get it. I get Logan. She needs an answer.