Mary Tuchlein called that night. She said she wouldn't be in to work in the morning. She had thrown her back out. Minna was livid when she heard this, furious. She had wanted to go shopping in the morning -- alone -- without children. It was not on the schedule posted on the refrigerator door that Neil should go to work in the morning, she complained. Now he would have to go in. Neil told Minna that Mary Tuchlein had thrown her back out and could not be there in the morning. he would have to go in and work. Sometimes that's just how it is.

"With you," she said bitterly, "that's how it is -- always. Here I am, I work all day, looking everyhere for a house for us to live in and I want to have just a little bit of time for myself, to go out shopping, maybe I just get a little something nice for myself, but no. No, I can't go. Neil has got to go to work. Work, work, work, work, work." Indignant, she stomped off to bed. For all that, Neil still had to go in to work in the morning.

It was a very busy morning. People were spinning in and rolling out all day -- wearing summery Bermuda shorts, T-shirts, floozy blouses, Panama hats. Audrey was in on time, at noon. "It's unseasonably warm, isn't it?" she said. Downtown, there was a heated meeting of Town Department Heads. Sweating bullets, glum Barton Driscoll said he'd had a meeting with Martha Stronski. "Some money could be coming in from the state, and the museum could be the first in line to get restored funding -- if the money does come in."

Back at work, Wheel Barrow called. "Neil, I just got a call from, ah, Arnstrom -- Alicia Avery Arnstrom -- the reporter."

"Alice Armour Armstrong."

"Yes. Over at the paper. She wants to know about our money. She asked me some questions I thought had been answered. Somebody put her up to this. I said, 'Do you go asking the sponsors or the owners of your newspaper how much or from where the money comes in for the paper in order for you to get your job done'?"

After an ominous pause, Barrow said, "Somebody's out to get us. Martha Stronski wants us to use up all our trust money on operational costs, and she's putting somebody up to this. And I don't like it."

"You know my opinion on this," Neil reminded him. "I've said again and again that you don't use up Trust funds on operational costs. That is, in fact, a betrayal of the Trust."

"Neil, You don't know of anybody in the Friends of the Museum who would be feeding this Arnsberg girl this line," he asked. He said he was angry that everybody was not happy after he had gone out of his way to be open.

What with the New England chapter of the Guild of Bookcrafters meeting coming up in mid-April, Nick Wentworth volunteered to put in a display of Japanese papers and book arts materials through to the end of the month. Neil called Roland of the Artfacts Committee to get permission to for Nick's putting in his display. He said, "No, no no. I am scheduled to put in my collection of model cars, trains, and planes this afternoon."

In the evening, Neil went over to the high school for a meeting of the Task Force for Quality Schools in Camperdene and, after, returned to the library to help Audrey close. "What if Mary can't be in in the morning?" Audrey asked. She had an appointment with a doctor in the morning, and she and Mary had arranged for Mary to cover for her.

"Well, then I'll just have to come in again, won't I?"

At home, Mark was up, in bed, looking at a book. Minna was putting Jillian to bed. She was crying and Minna was late for a meeting of her Goddess group. She went off, leaving Jillian still crying. Neil went in to her, letting her stay awake a little longer. She turned suddenly gleeful. Little by little she made her way upstairs to Mark's room. Neil had closed the door. Mark was asleep. Sweet, persistent Jillian wanted in. She rattled the door knob. Cried out. Neil gently eased her from the door, but she went straight back, and rattled the door knob some more. Cried out again. Woke Mark. Then Mark started crying. Neil sang them both to sleep, right and left of him on the front room couch.

Mr. Tuchlein woke the three of them, phoning to say that Mary had really wrenched her back out, and definitely would not be in in the morning. "She can't even come to the phone," Mr. Tuchlein emphasized.

And so, in the morning, Neil walked to work and opened up the museum and got the lights and computers and air conditioning all up and running, and not five minutes passed but the phone rang. It was Martha Stronski, Chair of the Finance Committee. "How could you have betrayed me?"

"What? I betrayed you?"

"I'm hearing you're telling people I'm a tyrant!"

"Martha, that's not true."

Stronski said she could see now Neil was clearly in cahoots with Wallace Barrow. Neil told Stronski that all he was interested in was what he thought was good for the museum and for the people that it was there for.

Stronski contemplated that a moment, then said she had an idea and she wanted Neil's opinion on it: "Neil, If I can put together a group of representatives from the Finance Committeee -- and I can assure you I wouldn't be on it -- who could they go and talk with? Is there anybody on the Board of the Association who isn't hypnotized by Wallace Barrow?"

Neil mentioned Angela Perry, Association Treasurer.

"Yes, but -- Angela Perry. Isn't she the mother of the girl that married Wheel's son?"

"Right."

"What about Captain Cunningham?"

Silence. Neil said nothing.

"Is there anybody?" Martha said, despairing. "Well, I'm going to go ahead with this," she closed. "Some of us will be meeting with some of them and hopefully they can work something out, so that the museum can get something out of this."

"I hope it truly, Martha."

Audrey came in at 11:00. Neil crossed the street to the Barrow manor. Reggie was there -- and a guest. Wallace was on the phone. He hung up and said, "What do you want? -- Speak."

"In private," Neil requested. Barrow ushered him into the neighboring room.

"I'm being squeezed," Neil began, and spoke of the pain that the mischief and the animosity in the air brought to him.

"Animosity?" Wallace faked befuddlement. "I have no feelings of animosity," he said.

Neil could see it was useless to get to any better side of Barrow. That just wasn't there.

Barrow volunteered the information that he was deeply upset about the Museum Support Group. He said, "They're up to something. They're going to try to trip us up."

"Trip up what?" Neil said. "What's to trip up?"

Barrow leaned in close to Neil's face and said Neil was very close to making him angry, and Neil had best not make him angry.

"I'm only concerned for the museum" Neil said.

"You still don't get it, Neil. It's our museum --the Association's. It belongs to us. When are you ever going to see that?"

The next day, in the morning, Neil was awoken by his son. Mark took his father by the hand and led him outside, though they were was still in their pajamas, to show him there was a teepee in the backyard. It was Mark's sixth birthday and, on this cool and windy lovely day, there was to be a thematic party -- cowboys and Indians. Half a dozen kids would show up -- little Annie Oakleys, Davy Crocketts, Sitting Bulls.

Reggie Barrow phoned Neil at home and asked him where the hell he was. "Everybody's at the library," he said, "waiting for you. You'd better get in here pronto," he said, or there'll be hell to pay." When Neil got there, out of breath, the first thing he saw, in the plush old chair by the fireplace, was Camperdene Daily Journal reporter Alice Armour Armstrong. She had come in to look at the Association's records -- those which Wallace had handpicked for her.

At 2:30, Martha Stronski came in with her special subcommittee to meet with a special subcommittee of the Executive Committeee of the Museum Association -- Wheel, Powderkeg, and Carla Spagnoli. There was laughter -- gaeity. Wallace Barrow was charming them -- disarming them. The real problems weren't going to be addressed. They'd be trussed up, obfuscated, and then buried under Barrow's slippery leering laughter.

On the radio the next morning came the first report: the Finance Committee was recommending funding for three of the four-and-a-half positions at the museum.

Audrey departed that morning for a four week Florida vacation.

Neil got a call from the Chairwoman of the Public Relations Committe of the Massachusetts Museums Association: "You've won the PR award, Neil -- for the year's best museum PR Campaign'."