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He turned his head and stared into a corner of the gym. Then, pointing his finger, he named the last member of his cabinet. "And Rebecca Abrabanel."

***

To his dying day, Mike would claim he was driven by nothing more than logic and reason. But the counterclaim began immediately. No sooner had the town meeting broken up into a half-festive swirling mob, than Frank Jackson sidled up to him.

"I knew it," grumbled his older friend. "I knew all that stuff about the American Revolution was a smoke screen. Admit it, Mike. You just engineered the whole thing to impress the girl."

With great dignity, Mike ignored the gibe. With considerably less dignity-almost with apprehension-he stared at the girl in question. She was staring back at him, her hand still gripping Judith Roth's hand. Rebecca's mouth was open, in stunned surprise. But there was something other than surprise in her eyes, he thought. Or, perhaps, he simply hoped.

"Oh, come on!" he snapped. Even to him, the reproof sounded hollow.

Chapter 8

Mike and his "cabinet" held their first meeting an hour later, in Melissa Mailey's classroom. Mike began the meeting with a fumble. Of the hemming and hawing variety.

"For God's sake, young man!" snapped Melissa. "Why don't you just come out and say it? You want me-the only woman in the room, except Rebecca-to be the committee's secretary. Take the notes."

Mike eyed her warily. Melissa Mailey was a tall, slender woman. Her hair was cut very short, and its color matched the conservative gray jacket and long dress she was wearing. Her hazel eyes were just as piercing as he remembered them, from days gone by when he stammered out an unstudied reply to a stiff question. She looked every inch the stern and demanding schoolmistress. The appearance was not a pose. Melissa Mailey was famous-or notorious, depending on who was telling the tale-for her acid tongue and acerbic discipline.

She was also famous for being Grantville's most unabashed and unrelenting liberal. Flaming irresponsible radical, according to many. As a college student, she'd been a participant in the civil rights movement. Arrested twice. Once in Mississippi, once in Alabama. As a young schoolteacher, she had marched against the Vietnam war. Arrested twice. Once in San Francisco, once in Washington, D.C. The first arrest had cost her first teaching job. The second arrest had done for the next. Boston Brahmin born and bred, she'd wound up teaching in a small town in West Virginia because nobody else would hire her. Her first year at the newly founded high school, she'd organized several of the schoolgirls to join her in a march on Washington demanding the Equal Rights Amendment. A clamor had gone up, demanding her dismissal. She held onto her job, but she'd been treading on very thin ice.

As ever, Melissa didn't give a damn. The next year, she got arrested again. But that was for denouncing an overbearing state trooper at one of the UMWA picket lines during the big 1977-78 national strike. When she got out of jail, the miners held a coming-home party for her in the high-school cafeteria. Half the student body showed up, along with their parents. Melissa even snuck out, halfway through the proceedings, and joined some of the miners for a drink in the parking lot.

Melissa Mailey had finally found a home. But she was still as unyielding and acerbic as ever.

"Look, Melissa," Mike muttered, "I know it looks bad. But we've got to have accurate records, and-"

Melissa broke into a smile. That expression was not seen often on her face. Not in Mike's recollection, at any rate. But it was quite dazzling, in its own cool way.

"Oh, relax," she said. "Of course we have to keep meticulous records." Again, the smile. "We're the Founding Fathers, you know. And Mothers. Wouldn't do at all not to have accurate notes. I know-I'm a history teacher. Historians would damn us for eternity."

The smile vanished. Melissa's eyes flicked around the faces gathered in the center of the room. Her expression made plain just how sloppily and carelessly she thought men would keep important records.

When her eyes came to Rebecca, Melissa's frown deepened. The young Jewish refugee, hands clasped nervously in her lap, was sitting on the edge of her seat. Her chair was pushed back several feet from the circle.

Melissa stood up and pointed her finger imperiously to a spot next to her own chair. "Young woman," she stated, "you move that chair here. Right now."

If Rebecca had any difficulty with Melissa's Boston accent-still as pronounced as ever, after all these years-she gave no sign of it. Hastily, like a thousand schoolgirls before her, she obeyed the voice of command.

Melissa bestowed the smile upon her. "Attagirl. Remember: United we stand, divided we fall."