Pam's tenure as Jim's seat partner was short lived. The following day, she resumed her old seat next to a delighted Kelly, and Mr. Scott took no notice. Perhaps he thought she had been sufficiently punished, Pam didn't know.

"Oh, I'm so glad you're sitting with me again!" squealed Kelly. Pam smiled. "I'm glad to be back, it was wretched having to sit with a boy," she said, trying to convince herself of this. Truthfully, it hadn't been so bad, but she'd never dream of admitting it while she was still angry with him for teasing her.

She watched Jim enter the schoolroom and his eyes flickered from his empty desk to where she sat beside Kelly. He gave her a tight lipped smile and sat down. Pam ignored him. Who was he to think that just because he had made her laugh, she would forgive him for humiliating her?

She pulled out a book and began to study. End of the year exams loomed in less than a week, and she was nervous that she hadn't caught up properly. She was also aware of the fact that a certain young gentleman was doing very well, and this was good motivation to study even more.

As the rest of the pupils filed in, Mr. Scott bounded to the front of the room. He seemed very excited, and clapped his hands for attention. The older students quieted down, the primer class stopped fidgeting, and Mr. Scott smiled gleefully. "Ladies and gentlemen, today is a very special occasion,” he said happily, and Pam and Kelly exchanged glances, not understanding what was so special.

Mr. Scott continued, "Today is the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventy-seventh year, 7-7-77! It only happens once every hundred years, so the next time it happens in 1977, you'll all be dead! Deader than the Widow Gould's husband, rest his soul."

Pam glanced sideways at Kelly during this extraordinary pronouncement, but Kelly didn't seem to find anything strange about it. Beyond Kelly, Jim glanced over and caught Pam's eye, raising an eyebrow.

"I have spoken to Kevin Spurgeon MacPherson's parents, and they have graciously consented to host an all-school picnic there this afternoon! We will depart shortly after eleven and have our lunches there, to celebrate this wondrous occasion."

At this, Kevin held up both hands and whispered loudly, "I had nothing to do with this, and nobody told me anything!"

A frisson of excitement moved through the room at the prospect of having a free afternoon, and no one's minds were fully on lessons. Though Pam was keen on studying hard, she was delighted at the idea of having a picnic.

When the time came to leave, everyone poured out of the schoolhouse excitedly, lunch pails in hand. Just ahead of them, Katy Pye slipped her arm possessively through Jim's, and so Pam linked arms with Kelly and Meredith, with Angela on Meredith's other side, and the four of them began to sing "Nelly in the Hazel Dell," changing the words to "Kelly in the Hazel Dell" for fun.

The day was bright and beautiful and the MacPherson farm turned out to be a lovely place for a picnic. Some of the boys had brought a ball and were tossing it around. Pam and her friends found a lovely weeping willow tree to picnic under, and several of the smaller girls joined them.

Pam had slipped her sketch book into her apron pocket and began to draw little pictures for them. She drew little Sasha Sloane, the smallest child at school, as a little fairy perched on a flower. Sasha was so delighted that she ran to show her big brother Toby, interrupting the ball game. Some of the big boys looked at it as well, and both Toby and Jim smiled when they saw it.

Evidently Katy Pye had seen Jim smile, because she walked by and said, "That was sweet of you, Pam, but don't you think fairies are rather childish to be drawing?"

Pam gazed at her coolly. "Luckily, Sasha is a child," she said, and Katy flounced away.

"Those Pyes always think they're better than everyone,” said Meredith. Sasha waved to the girls, and Kelly squealed, "She is so darling! Don't you just love little children, Angela?"

Angela looked thoughtful. "I suppose I wouldn't mind a pair of small, well behaved boys of my own someday,” she said.

"Well, I am going to have dozens and dozens of babies, " said Kelly happily, standing up.”Hello, Ryan!" she called, waving to the figure about to catch the ball.

A few more hours passed in the lazy summer sunshine. Several of the smallest children fell asleep under the shade of the willow tree, and the ball game dissolved.

Apparently Katy Pye felt it was time to show off a bit, because she climbed up on the picket garden fence and walked around the perimeter as though on a tightrope. At the end, she called out, "Jimmy!" and Jim turned just in time for her to jump in his arms to help her down. "Thanks for helping me down, Jimmy,” she said, smoothing her hair, "I do hope I haven't mussed my hair. I do hate messy hair."

She smiled triumphantly at Pam, who rolled her eyes and turned to Kelly. "I guess some people think it a great accomplishment to walk a little garden fence, " she said loudly, and Katy scoffed, "I'd like to see you try."

"I could do it, " said Pam, a recklessness seizing over her as Katy slipped her arm into Jim's. "I knew a girl who could walk the ridgepole of a house," she continued. "I don't believe you could do it. Although, we don't know anything about you, your parents could have been circus folk," retorted Katy smugly.

That remark stung, and everyone looked at Katy, including Jim. Without a word, Pam pulled over the garden ladder to Kevin's kitchen roof. She climbed it carefully. "Pam, don't! You'll break your neck!" called Kelly. Pam paid no attention to her. She made her way to the ridgepole of the kitchen roof.

It wasn't so bad, she thought, surveying it. She wasn't afraid of heights, and she had mastered walking on a fence at the second orphanage she had lived at.

She could feel many pairs of eyes on her as she stepped from the ladder onto the ridgepole. She found her balance and moved forward, putting one foot carefully in front of the other, gripping slightly through the thin soles of her boots. She held her arms out for balance and felt the wind flutter her apron.

She was doing quite well until she heard Katy say, "She's going to fall, I just know it!" As luck would have it, on the next step forward, a piece of the ridgepole crumbled under her boot and Pam felt herself lose balance.

She heard a gasp and gasped herself as she fell onto the roof, rolling down the shingles. She bumped her head and elbows and slammed onto a bush, knocking the wind out of herself. Her boot got caught in the gutter and twisted when she hit the bush and she lay there, dazed and gasping for breath, her apron and dress covering her face. She heard people come running but could not move for choking.

Kelly was first by her side. "Pam! Are you killed? Please tell me if you're killed!" she cried, moving Pam’s apron and skirts off of her face. Jim was there, too, his face ashen. Pam caught her breath and said, “I’m alive, but I fear I may have been rendered unconscious.”

She tried to move her arms and legs, and everything seemed to be all right except for the dull ache in her ankle. Jim reached down and grabbed her arms to help her up. It was tricky work, but he was very gentle and his face so full of concern that it made Pam’s stomach twinge.

It was only when she was standing gingerly on one foot that she felt her skirts and apron fall into place and realized her bloomers had shown the entire time. Heat bloomed across her face and all she could say was, “Kelly!”

She flung an arm around Kelly’s shoulder and Kelly helped her hobble away from the house. “Please, let’s just go,” she whispered, and Kelly nodded.

“Pam, let me borrow the MacPhersons’ carriage and I’ll drive you home,” called Jim. “No!” Pam shouted, sounding a little more unkind than she meant to, and she watched Jim’s face fall slightly.

Katy came over to him, crying, and asking for his hanky. Pam glanced back and saw him hand it to her with a look of concern. This was the last straw for Pam, who faced forward again and didn’t look back.

Unfortunately for her, she never saw Jim walk away from Katy with a look of disappointment and disgust, his eyes never leaving Pam.

Instead, Pam and Kelly made their way awkwardly down the road. Pam’s mind was racing. She had to have imagined Jim’s concern, for he still was being nice to Katy who had goaded her in the first place. She knew it wasn’t correct to blame Katy for the whole thing, but her ankle ached very much. She repeated to herself that Jim’s concern was all in her imagination.

One arm clamped around Pam’s waist, Kelly worried, “The easiest way to get to Green Gables from here is if we take the shortcut through the Haunted Wood.”

Pam was glad to have something else to occupy her thoughts. “Oh, dear,” she said, “You don’t think it’s haunted during the day, do you?”

Kelly looked frightened. “Well, ever since you told me that story about the white lady ghost wailing for her long lost husband among the pines, I can’t step near it. I always hear her!” she cried.

Pam took a deep breath. “Well, I don’t think it is this particular wood that the lady haunts, and it’ll take ages to go by the roads.”

The girls put on brave faces and entered the woods. The path was winding and not much daylight escaped through the branches so that it felt like twilight.

A little ways in, Pam felt Kelly stiffen next to her. “What is it?” she whispered, half expecting to see a ghost flit by. “We’ve got to hurry, that’s Old Man Bratton’s house back there, and he’s scary! He grows all sort of strange herbs and I have a good mind that he pilfers things, too. Mrs. Lynde says he took three peach pies that she was cooling on her windowsill,” Kelly whispered back.

The girls made their way as quickly and quietly as Pam’s ankle would allow, and both breathed a sigh of relief once they were well past the tumbledown shack.

The tension had almost lifted fully after they had gone another decent distance without spying any loose specters when Pam stepped onto a bare patch of path and heard a crack. She found herself falling for the second time that day, and as she hit bottom, she realized it must be an old trap or cellar of some sort.

Kelly’s face appeared a few feet above her head, and she was nearly crying. “Kelly, run and get Bob Vance and tell him to bring some rope,” Pam called up, trying to keep calm.

“I won’t let the ghosts get you,” sobbed Kelly, blowing a kiss as she turned to leave.

As she disappeared, Pam was left alone with the dark walls of the hole and the canopy of dark trees. Green Gables was less than a quarter mile away, she told herself, and Kelly would soon return. A quarter mile was still a quarter mile, though, and so Pam waited quietly, scolding herself for telling Kelly the ghost story and for half-believing it herself.

After what felt like ages but was really only fifteen minutes, Kelly and Bob came running. As she was hoisted out of the hole, Pam found voice for the thought that had been running through her mind as she had sat in peril; telling Kelly, “I refuse to let my imagination run away with me any longer!”