Timothy, the toothless boy, tugged at Miss Finch’s hand. “Can you teach me how to make a flower that glows in the dark?”

“Why are you so strange, Miss Finch?” asked little Timothy, who was missing two front teeth and all sense of tact.

What happened next was not the triumph of reason, nor the triumph of mob justice. It was something messier.

The vicar, Mr. Crumble, attempted to educate her. He brought her a Bible. She read it in an afternoon, then returned it with a list of forty-three logical inconsistencies written in the margins. He brought her a hymnal. She rewrote the melodies in minor keys, claiming they were “more dramatically satisfying.”

It was then that the peculiarities began.