See Jane Faint

When we last visited our heroine, Jane had just met up with Dr. Noway and his nieces in the church parking lot. Needless to say, she was a little upset to realize that her prayers had not been answered, and Dr. Noway was indeed attending her church.

Things got worse, however.

See Jane.
See Jane go white.
See Jane almost drop her fresh cup of hot coffee.
Jane is very happy to remember that she wore dark clothes -- she won't get a coffee stain on her dress.

Why is Jane startled?
There in the doorway of her classroom is the last person she wants to see for the rest of the day.
The rest of her life would be preferable, but Jane knows better.

Dr. Noway stands in the doorway, looking around the room. Jane can almost feel sorry for him, because he has that look on his face she recognizes -- a little lost, a little uneasy, a little wistful. Only a few years ago, she stood in that same doorway, her first day in the class, wishing someone would talk to her and welcome her.

Jane wishes, just for a moment, that the other people in her class will just ignore Dr. Noway. Is it too much to wish for an invisibility ray gun to drop down through a hole in the ceiling? If she can't shoot Dr. Noway with it, can she shoot herself?

But no, the other people in her class are nice. Before Dr. Noway can finish looking from one end of the room to the other -- and before his gaze can reach the end of the room where Jane is helping to cut up cake and serve other refreshments -- two men walk up to him and hold out their hands to shake his.

Jane almost calls out to them to be careful. After all, Dr. Noway sometimes wears thin plastic gloves and puts sleeping powder or truth serum powder on his hands, to trick his enemies.

But no, that was before he said he was quitting B.L. Zebob Industries. Is it too much to hope Dr. Noway doesn't pull nasty tricks like that anymore? After all, he needs to be a good example for his little nieces.

"Oh, this is just horrid," Jane says.

"No, I don't think it's horrid at all," says the quiet voice of O, her supervisor.

Jane looks around, but she knows better than to ask where O is hiding. When she doesn't see any video cameras in the room, she excuses herself from the refreshment table and steps out into the hallway through the second door of her classroom. (That is the first rule for semi-pseudo-secret agents: always make sure there are two exits in a room, so when the enemy comes in one, you can go out the other.)

In the hallway, Jane pulls her cell phone from her pocket. Sure enough, it is lit and O is looking at her. Jane stops herself just before she asks why O is contacting her on Sunday. She realizes that once again, she said "Oh" which sounds like "O" and her supervisor obviously thought she was calling him.

"Sir, Dr. Noway is at my church. He's in my Sunday class. What more could go wrong?"

"I suggest you get back into your classroom and find out, before you get an unpleasant surprise, 777." But O is smiling, so Jane doesn't feel too bad.

And she feels pretty good about everything, because Dr. Noway doesn't find her before class starts. She sits in the last row, on the other side of the room from Dr. Noway and his new friends. Jane even manages to listen to the lesson without being distracted, and doesn't watch him the whole time.

Jane thinks she has escaped with minimal damage, until their teacher introduces their newest member to the rest of the class ... and announces that Dr. Noway has volunteered to help with their class's game booth at the Spring Festival.

Jane is on that committee.
That means she will have to work with Dr. Noway.

What will Jane do?
Stay tuned for the next episode in the adventures of Bondservant. Jane Bondservant.