"We're just glad you showed up, Mr. Seaborn. I got the message from your assistant. Everything all right at the White House now?" asked Mrs. Banks, the principal of Clearlake Elementary School.

"Perfectly fine, thank you," he said, sticking the name tag to his suit coat.

"Everyone is in the gym." He nodded as he walked to the gymnasium. Entering through the main door, the music was almost loud enough to be considered obnoxious. He had to wait for his eyes to get adjusted to the dim lighting. The spinning disco ball didn't help much. In fact, it made him almost seasick. When he could finally see, he noticed that most of Clearlake's seventh and eighth graders were being wallflowers. Only five or so couples were trying out the dance floor, swaying to the teenybopper music. Chuckling warmly, he realized school hadn't changed much since he had been a student. There was that whole embarrassment factor that kept most kids on the bleachers.

"C'mon, cats and kittens, it's time to groove to the tune of Chip's Boys," announced the disk jockey, trading one bubble-gum rock song for another. As the song started, only one additional couple took to the gym floor. Sam, however, was more interested in finding another chaperone.

"Go ask."

"But Miss O'Brien…"

"You'll never know if you don't ask."

"What if he says no?"

"What if he says yes?"

"I thought boys were supposed to do the asking anyway." Sam stopped his search when he saw Mallory talking with a young girl.

"Candace, haven't you ever heard of a Sadie Hawkins Dance?" Candace pouted.

"This isn't a Sadie Hawkins Dance."

"It could be," said Mal, prompting Candace to sigh and shake her head.

"If I were you, I'd ask. Shows initiative. Guys like that," Sam told her. Both Mal and Candace looked up at him quickly.

"Who are you?" asked Candace.

"Hi. My name is Sam Seaborn," he said, showing off his name tag. It took Mal a minute to realize she was actually looking at Sam and not a figment of her imagination or the product of wishful thinking.

"What are you doing here?" asked Mal.

"I volunteered to help chaperone."

"How'd you know about the dance?"

"There's a sign out front that said `School Dance, Friday the 8th.'" Mal looked at him curiously. "That and your father may have mentioned something about it to me yesterday."

"My father?"

"Yes." Candace watched the exchange closely.

"Do you know him, Miss O'Brien?" Mal looked down at her and nodded.

"Candace, Sam. Sam, Candace. Are you going to ask Trevor to dance?" Candace took the hint and walked off.

"Hello," he said, smiling at her.

"Hi."

"Is it just me or could this dance use a little life?"

"Par for the course," Mal said, looking at the vacant dance floor.

"Find your honey and take her for a spin," said the DJ. "This tune is for Debbie from her guy Will." A slow song replaced the irritating kiddie song. More kids wandered onto the dance floor.

"They seem to like the slow ones, huh?" Mal nodded.

"You don't have to know any steps for them," she said. He turned to her with a roguish grin and a gallant bow then offered her his arm.

"If your dance card isn't full, would you honor me with a dance?" Mal laughed softly and tried not to roll her eyes.

"Sure," she said as she linked her arm around his. He led her out to the center of the gym floor. After a moment of comfortable silence between the two, Mal looked in Sam's eyes. "Why?"

"I'm sorry?"

"What possessed you to come out here on a perfectly good speech-writing Friday night to watch seventy-five pre-teen kids gawk at each other?" Sam shrugged.

"What possessed you?"

"It was either chaperone the dance or the band trip to Annapolis. I took the lesser of two evils." Sam smiled. "Now, fess up."

"Because I'd rather be with you on a perfectly good speech- writing Friday night." It always seemed to escape her that he wrote speeches for a living, painting lavish canvases with words, whenever he spoke to her. Even that simple sentence made her heart flutter, making her wonder how on Earth she ever got so lucky. Sam was wondering the same thing when shouting interrupted both their thoughts. Everyone in the gym looked to the scuffle as the music stopped. Two boys had started a shoving match. The wallflowers now stood between the chaperones and the quarreling boys. Mal and Sam started fighting the crowd to get to the disturbance. "Hey!" Sam called as he neared them. He almost made it in time to stop the first blow.

"You stay away from her!" yelled the boy as his fist connected with his rival. Sam slipped between the two, pushing the two apart.

"That's enough," Sam told them sternly. The boys disagreed with Sam wholeheartedly and each tried to punch around Sam to reach the other. Sam grabbed a hold of one while the basketball coach caught the other. Mrs. Banks was standing at the door to the school lobby with an exasperated expression.

"Bring them out here," ordered Mrs. Banks. Mal watched as Sam struggled to keep the angry boy under control. Glancing back at the DJ, Mal nodded. The music started again but the kids stayed in their mob, trying to catch a peek at what was going on in the lobby.

"It's a dance, guys," Mal said over the soft music. "Let's make the most of the time we have left, shall we?" The wallflowers replanted themselves on the bleachers while the few dancers in the bunch took back the gym floor. Mal cast a wary glance at the door before going back to her chaperone duty.

"Having trouble, are we?" Mrs. Banks asked. The boys were still ready to kill each other. "Sit," she told them, pointing to two benches along the wall. They remained standing, leaving Sam and the basketball coach to keep them separated still. "Fine, stand," she said. "Which one of you started it?" They started accusing each other, of course, which fueled their anger, consequently making the chaperones' job much harder. "One at a time," Mrs. Banks said. The two looked at each other, daring the other to go first.

"He started it!" one said quickly.

"Nu-huh!"

"Hold on, Billy," Mrs. Banks said. "You'll get your chance. Go on, Shawn."

"He started it," Shawn told her.

"What did he do?" asked Mrs. Banks.

"He… He threw the first punch."

"Only one punch landed," Sam said. "And I do believe it was from you to Billy, here."

"Man, you stay out of it," Shawn yelled.

"Billy?" Mrs. Banks asked.

"He hit me `cause I looked at Nicole," he said. "Didn't talk to `er, didn't go near `er, just looked at `er."

"All right, boys," Mrs. Banks said. "You both know the punishment for fighting. Two-day suspension for the both of you. Let's go call your folks to come pick you up." Sam released Billy to follow Mrs. Banks to the office to place the phone calls. The basketball coach loosened his grip on Shawn just enough to give the boy a chance to escape. He broke free of the coach and ran at Billy, who hid behind Sam. Shawn's slug caught Sam in the face. Sam never saw it coming. The coach grabbed Shawn again and dragged him into the office. "Are you all right, Mr. Seaborn?"

"Yeah," Sam said, feeling the skin around his eye. He had a bad feeling it was going to puff up and turn purplish-blue. He could already hear the snickers around the West Wing for getting a shiner from a thirteen-year-old kid in a schoolhouse fight. "Can you handle them?" Mrs. Banks nodded. "I'm going back to the dance, then," Sam said, stumbling back to the gymnasium. He was bathed in the darkness again as he entered, temporarily blinded for a second time.

"Sam?" Mal had been standing by the door, keeping the attendees of the dance away from going to see what vile punishment was being delivered to the belligerent boys.

"Yeah?" he asked as he felt her hand on his arm.

"Mrs. Banks is sending them home?"

"Yeah." She noticed he had yet to look at her.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine," he said, touching the now tender area under his eye. She didn't believe him.

"What is it?" She turned him to face her.

"What would be worse, you think? Showing up to work tomorrow with a black eye or sitting around here with a bag of ice on my face?"

"Sam?"

"That taller kid… Shawn? He's got a great left hook."

"Oh, Sam." She couldn't help but laugh. She had tried to suppress the urge to giggle but failed miserably.

"Yeah, I was afraid both options were out."

"I-I'm sorry," she said.

"Don't be. I should get used to it. I'll be hearing it constantly for the next few days." She smiled at him.

"I'll get you some ice," she said as she led him to a folding chair.

The rest of the dance was rather uneventful. Mal and Sam finally got to share an entire dance-the last one of the night. After making sure the last of the kids got into cars with their parents, Mal counted the money from ticket sales while Sam helped take down the decorations. He swiped two well-deserved cups of punch and a brown bag of cookies before the food table was packed away. He set the bag and one of the glasses in front of Mal, sitting at the ticket desk, and sipped on the fruity concoction. Mal heaved a great sigh, tossing a stack of one-dollar bills into the money box. "Problem?" Sam asked.

"Two hundred and thirty-one dollars," Mal said.

"How much did you charge for tickets?"

"Three bucks a head," Mal said. "And we're still short." With a questioning look from Sam, she explained. "We were going to buy this set of books and computer programs for this one little girl in third grade. She has several disabilities, bless her heart. We can't get the school board to buy it for us. We can't get anyone to donate it. I've already hit up my father; all the teachers have donated… We've been raising money for a while now."

"And?"

"Everyone here tonight donated their time, even the disk jockey, Sam," Mal said. "Of all things, we're nineteen dollars short." Mal sighed. "It's annoying. I can write another check but…" She sighed again. "Nineteen dollars." Sam set his drink down and reached for his wallet as Mal stood to find Mrs. Banks.

"Mal." She turned to him. She was standing three inches shorter than she had been during the dance having taken off her high- heeled shoes. He could see the exhaustion on her pretty face. He held out a twenty-dollar bill.

"Aw, Sam," she said.

"Take it."

"If anything, we should be paying you for that… awful… bruise." He walked up to her and pressed the bill into her hand, slipping his free arm around her waist.

"Just tell me next time," he said, falling into her eyes.

"How'd we do, Mallory?" Mrs. Banks asked, walking up to the couple having been in the gymnasium.

"Sign the order, Mrs. Banks," Mal said, smiling at Sam. "Thank you," she mouthed. He shook his head.

"Why don't you two go on home?" Mrs. Banks said. "We'll finish clean-up tomorrow." Mal placed the twenty-dollar bill in the top of the cash box and handed it off to Mrs. Banks before putting her high-heels back on. Sam carried the liberated goodies from the snack table as they made their way to the door.

"So," Sam said. "When's the next dance?"