Page 22 of Look What You Made Me Do

Daisy eyed Simon once Rosie had left. “Just so you know, this is your first test.”

“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow. “I thought that was you?”

Daisy hooted out a laugh and Jake gave him props for not only recovering from the culture shock of the introductions but not being intimated by the older woman.

“You survive your first curry, then we’ll worry about me.”

“Deal.”

“Cam grabbed some curry and took it upstairs,” Rosie said as she placed the large heavy pot in the center of the table and started dishing it into bowls. “He wants to watch the football.”

“That kid watches too much TV,” Daisy griped.

Jake, who was sitting next to Ella, noticed her pale a little at the comment. But that could have been the curry which was, as advertised, hot enough to melt his face off. It didn’t even start warm and build. It just went straight for the throat.

Simon coughed after his first mouthful and Daisy poured two glasses of water, passing them to the curry virgins.

“Some girl called him earlier,” Daisy said as she tucked into her curry with wild abandon. “Marissa…? Miri? Something like that.”

“Really?” Ella gaped. “How’d that go?”

“Kind of silent this end. He did a lot of nodding.”

She laughed. “Yeah. I bet.”

“Any more thoughts on a plan of attack, dear?” Iris asked Ella, changing the subject.

“Not really.”

“Problem?” Simon asked.

“Bureaucratic bastards at district are trying to shut Ella’s school down,” Rosie explained.

Simon pursed his lips. “Can they do that?”

“They sure can.” Ella grimaced as she worried a linen napkin between her fingers.

Had it been paper it’d be in shreds. She was clearly stressed about the situation given she’d mentioned it to him earlier. Maybe that’s why she’d been in such a mood at the bar?

“I still can’t believe they will,” she continued. “For a lot of the kids in this area the school is a refuge, a place where they’re seen and free from the everyday struggles of life for a while.”

Jake liked that Ella had become a teacher and it was apparent that it was more than just a job. The school and its students obviously meant the world to her. And not just to her if the wacky ideas for saving the school that were being thrown around – winning the lottery, having it declared an historic site – were any indication.

Simon, who’d been slowly making his way through his bowl, suddenly locked eyes with Jake. “I’ve got it,” he announced with a snap of his fingers.

Everyone turned to face him. Everyone except Cerberus, who was already looking at him adoringly, waiting eagerly for the next spoonful of smuggled curry. The other dogs, lounging far away from the table, appeared to know better.

“Does the school have a football team?” Simon asked, absently patting Cerberus’s head.

An itch shot up Jake’s spine. He did not like where this was going.

Ella frowned. “No. There’s a field so it must have at some point but there’s no money for extracurricular things like that. We don’t even have enough in the budget for the mandatory one lesson a week of PE.”

“How about getting a football team together and entering the high school football championships? You get to the playoffs and no way would they shut down a school that got that far.”

She gaped at Simon. “What?”

Jake, who’d been mentally preparing for the wackiest idea of all since Simon had eyeballed him, relaxed tense shoulders. Ella looked like she was about to have a stroke. Or at the very least ask Simon if he’d been dropped on the head as a baby.

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