"Shirley!" called Rilla, running into the kitchen one early August afternoon. "There's a letter for you from Avonlea. Who's writing to you from there?"

Shirley just smiled and opened the letter. Susan and Mother had been baking—while he snuck "tastes" from the bowls—and they and Rilla watched him curiously as he quickly perused the contents. Finally he looked up, a glad light shining in his eyes.

"Susan, Mother, I've got the Avonlea school! I put in for it, but I assumed they'd give it to somebody from there, not an outsider."

Susan gaped. "Avonlea? But Shirley, dear, I thought you were putting in for the Glen school."

Shirley shrugged. He knew he could never put into words how he felt about Avonlea—the peacefulness, the calm, the steadiness there. He knew he needed that before heading off to Kingsport and Redmond next year.

Mother's eyes were shining like a girl's. Shirley knew she understood. "It makes me very happy to think that one of my children will be teaching at my old school. I'll call Green Gables tonight and see if Davy and Millie can board you." She patted his hand gently. "I think you'll be very happy in Avonlea for the year."

"I think you'll be bored," put in Rilla with a sniff. "Avonlea is a fine place to visit, but to live there for a full year? Nothing ever happens there!"

Shirley could have said that that was the very reason he wanted to go, but he didn't.

"When do you leave?" asked Susan with a sigh. He knew that she'd been looking forward to having her pet home for a whole year, but he needed to get away, even if it meant disappointing Mother Susan.

He rechecked the letter. "School begins the last week of August, so I should leave in two weeks, just so I can get settled before term starts."

"Two weeks!" exclaimed Susan in dismay. "Do you mean to tell me that after you've been home barely a month you will have to be leaving us again?" She gave a sniff and muttered something about the way the school board ran things, and had they no compassion for anybody's feelings? Then she immediately began planning out a hamper of goodies for him to take along. "For your Uncle Davy's wife may be a good cook," sounding doubtful, "but when you are getting settled in you will want something that tastes like home, and I will never, no never believe that she can make fudge and cake the way you like. I will not have you starve even if you are sixty miles away."

Shirley grinned. Susan really was an old duck.

The first day of school came all too quickly. Shirley had been living with Uncle Davy and Aunt Millie for a week, and they were spoiling him shamelessly, only too happy to do whatever they could for one of "Anne's children." Aunt Millie wasn't quite as good of a cook as Susan, but her meals were always delicious and her pies praised her in the gates. Uncle Davy took him fishing, let him help out around the farm, and never thought it odd if Shirley just wanted to take a quiet walk through the woods. Their three children, Davy Jr., Robert, and Mary, thought that "Uncle" Shirley was quite wonderful. They loved to hear stories of what it was like to fly above the clouds.

As the time to start school approached, though, Shirley was hit by an attack of nerves such as he had never felt before, even in combat. He didn't think he had it in him to get so worked up over something. The thought of facing twenty to thirty children and actually teach them was overwhelming. He was sure he couldn't do it, sure he would fail. Still, he never turned aside once he made a decision, so on the first day he gritted his teeth and started down the road to the old schoolhouse where his mother had once taught. Robert and Mary Keith went with him, chattering excitedly about the new school year. Davy Jr. was at Queens this year, and Robert was bursting with pride at being the oldest Keith in school, and to have the teacher staying at Green Gables. Shirley barely heard their talk. His face was white underneath his tan. What had he been thinking? He hated being around lots of people, hated being the center of attention, hated the very thought of speaking all day long.

Little Mary tugged at his hand. "Uncle Shirley, we're here!"

He looked up, startled out of his daze, to see that they were indeed at the old graying schoolhouse. He drew a deep breath, wrestled his heart from his throat back to its proper position in his chest, squared his shoulders, and resolutely walked inside.

Twenty-five children sat in prim little rows facing the front. Fifty eager eyes watched Shirley curiously as he strode through the rows of desks to take his place at the front. For one horrible moment, his mind was completely paralyzed. Then the trusting gaze of plump little Mary Keith fell upon him. He smiled gently back at her, feeling his confidence return in a rush.

"Good morning class. I am Mr. Blythe, your new teacher this year. When I call your name, please stand…"

Later that afternoon, Shirley sat in his small bedroom at Green Gables and wrote an account of the day to Rilla.

"It was such a dreadful feeling, facing all those shining little faces, all expecting me to say something brilliant," he wrote, sitting comfortably at his own desk beneath a window facing out toward the Haunted Wood. "I really thought I was going to horribly embarrass myself by fainting or running away—wouldn't that have made a story for all the gossips!—but then I just imagined I was Mother, and the words came together. Once I got past the first few moments I was myself again, but oh Rilla, you cannot imagine how I felt at first—me, sturdy, sensible Shirley Blythe, who didn't even think he had nerves!

"I think the year is going to go well, though, although it is hard to tell after just one day. Most of the children are fairly well-behaved and reasonably intelligent. There are one or two I've discovered that are remarkably stupid, one being the youngest daughter of Mother's old nemesis, Josie Pye. Her name is Annabelle—heavy emphasis on the belle—and she is as vain and coquettish a thirteen-year-old as one would ever hope not to meet. She makes eyes at all the boys, except Robert Keith, because he thinks she's 'dumb' and refuses to help her cheat on her tests. The other amazingly brainless student is Richie Andrews. Thank all the gods that ever were that Mother didn't marry Billy Andrews! Today, when I asked Richie to define 'indecorous,' he blinked his big, round eyes and said 'something that wasn't decorated!' I tell you, Rilla, it took all my resolve to keep a straight face.

"But most of the students are likeable enough. The Keiths, of course, are darling. Young Fred Wright's two children are not brilliant, but solid and dependable, just like their father. Young Fred was awfully grown-up by the time you came along, Rilla, but I remember him as being too old to play with us, but always kind and jolly just the same. His youngest daughter, little Diana, is very sweet-hearted. She's only six, you know, and the exact image of Anne Cordelia: already tall for her age, slender, dark curly hair and rosy cheeks, and darling little dimples. Aunt Millie told me that young Fred wanted to go the war with Jack, but he had to stay home and take care of his family and the farm. It ate him up when Jack came home so badly wounded. Anne Cordelia, of course, lives on the mainland now with her family, and Jack seems a perpetual bachelor, so there aren't many students from Mother's old circle of friends—just little Diana and Martin Wright, Robert and Mary, and Julia and Bella Fletcher, daughters of Mother's chum Julia Fletcher nee Bell. The rest are mainly from people she at least knew. I've even got Jake Donnell's son in my class! Both his parents agree on his name, though, (Eddie), so at least I won't have any difficulties that way. Of course, Sloanes and Andrews' abound, but that was only to be expected. All in all, Rilla, I don't think I'll mind teaching. After class today, Mary looked up at me and said, 'Uncle Shirley, will you stay and be our teacher forever?' It's very hard to be anything but hopeful with a response like that."

Shirley finished the letter and looked out the window, chin held up in one firm hand as he gazed at the early evening sun tinting the tops of the spruce trees with crimson and gold. Normally his letters were as brief and straightforward as his conversation, but he knew the family would want all the gossip from Avonlea, so he had let himself go a bit. It wouldn't happen again.

He slid the letter into an envelope and set to work preparing his next day's lesson plan.