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One Fell Swoop

“Dude?”

“Just five more minutes,” Skye Denison mumbled, still half asleep.

“Dude, are you okay?”

Skye slowly lifted her head from the desktop and swiped at the damp spot on the blotter. She turned toward the door of her tiny office, wondering if there was a rule somewhere in the cosmos that stated the smallest space in any school building was automatically assigned to the school psychologist.

Granted, she’d only worked in two places — New Orleans, Louisiana, and her present job in Scumble River, Illinois —

but from what she had heard from others in her profession, the fortunate few school psychs who were actually given an office of their own usually described it as being the size of a refrigerator box.

Before she could contemplate this complex issue further, the tall, thin young man standing at her door repeated his question, and it dawned on her that she had just been caught by the custodian not only asleep, but also drooling. She might as well get the L tattooed on her forehead, since she was now officially a Loser.

Skye swept the hair out of her eyes. “I’m fine, Cameron.

I was just resting my eyes. I haven’t been getting much sleep lately because . . . ” She heard herself babbling and trailed off.

Cameron nervously fingered the three whiskers on his chin that made up his goatee, and said, “Whoa, dude. TMI. ” He backed up, pulled a set of headphones from around his neck, and plunked them on his ears before escaping down the hall.

TMI. Too much information. The story of her life. Skye leaned back against the orange molded-plastic chair and scanned the drab green walls. The bright posters with positive sayings she had hung at the beginning of the year mocked her depressed mood.

She searched her mind for some task that she could accomplish in her present state, something that wouldn’t suf-fer from her distracted condition. Even though it was only the end of September, her to-do list was already several pages long. Already there were reevaluations to arrange, committees to organize, and the never-ending paperwork that was a major part of any school psychologist’s job.

Without a doubt, she had plenty of work waiting to get done — her appointment book should have a warning label on its cover stating DATES ON CALENDAR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR— just nothing she felt able to undertake with everything that was already occupying her thoughts.

Too bad there was no one around to talk to. Discussing her problems would probably make her feel better, but her best friend, Trixie Frayne, had left yesterday for a romantic Lake Tahoe getaway with her husband, and the rest of the staff had poured out of the building a half hour ago when the elementary school’s final bell had rung, eager to get an early start on their weekend.

Skye briefly considered walking over to the high school, but then remembered that Alana Lowe, the art teacher, whom Skye could usually count on for an after-school chat, wasn’t available. Alana’s boyfriend was visiting from New York, and that morning she had mentioned meeting him right after school to go into Chicago for a big night on the town.