Chapter 1 #2
She was happy to see that Maya wasn’t the only child who seemed to benefit from a few minutes spent moving and walking like various kinds of animals. After the bit of physical activity, the whole class was especially quiet and well-behaved when she read aloud to them.
Today’s story was a picture book version of the classic Sleeping Beauty story.
“Once upon a time,” she began reading, before lowering the book. “What kind of story might this be?”
“A fairy tale,” the kids chorused back.
“How do you know?” she asked them. “Let’s raise our hands to answer.”
All the hands went up and she smiled and pointed to Stevie Reynolds, who was doing a good job sitting still.
“Every fairy tale begins with once upon a time,” Stevie said proudly.
“That’s right,” Allie said, nodding. “Other stories sometimes begin that way too, but fairy tales always do. And how do fairy tales end?”
“With happily ever after,” Esther Carson burst out, without raising her hand.
“Very good, Esther,” Allie said. “Next time let’s remember to raise our hands.”
When she looked up, Maya still had her hand up.
“Yes, Maya?” Allie said.
“Fairy tales teach a lesson,” Maya said.
“You’re absolutely right,” Allie said, impressed. “Fairy tales do teach a lesson. You children are becoming fairy tale experts.”
The kids all seemed pleased, and Allie couldn’t help noticing the look of pride on Maya’s face in particular. She had behaved so well, and she was focused enough to raise her hand and offer an insight too.
By the time her lunch break came around, Allie’s belly was rumbling. But she had something more important than eating to do today, so she scarfed down a granola bar on the way down to the admin offices.
“Miss Lawrence,” Principal Chittenden said when she arrived, waving her in.
Principal Chittenden had been running the school since back when Allie was a student. Her diminutive figure and pleasant demeanor sometimes made newcomers mistake her for a pushover. But Allie had learned that the principal was both fierce and wise.
Allie followed her into her pristine office and they both sat.
“Good morning,” Allie said. “Thank you so much for sitting down with me.”
“Well, it’s my pleasure,” the principal said kindly. “What can I do for you today?”
“The Harvest Festival was a real success this year,” Allie told her.
“You outdid yourself with the fundraising,” Principal Chittenden said approvingly.
“Thank you,” Allie said. “Some of our new folks in town were really keen to contribute.”
The principal’s smile faded a bit, but she nodded gamely.
Sugarville Grove was an old and beautiful town in rural Vermont, with many families who had been here since its founding, Allie’s included.
But in recent years, more and more families from out of the area had started moving in, drawn by the fresh air, good schools, and peaceful vistas. In Allie’s experience, a lot of them were lovely people who were grateful to be part of the community.
But there were plenty of locals who resented the new arrivals for pushing up housing prices and filling any empty storefront with some kind of store that was fancy enough to be called a shoppe or, heaven forbid, a boutique.
The old-timers called these newcomers flatlanders, since they weren’t from the mountains of Vermont.
Even Allie had to admit that she had been in line behind an angry customer or two in her travels who expected things in her sleepy little town to happen at a big-city pace.
But in her experience, people were just people. There were plenty of grumps among the farmers who had been in town for generations, and there were lots of lovely newcomers who made the town a better place. Allie tended to give people the benefit of the doubt.
And she was glad for it, because wow had a lot of their new townsfolk come through during the fundraiser. Bringing a little bit of money into the town wasn’t always a bad thing.
“As a matter of fact,” Allie went on. “I think we finally have enough to invest in something that I believe will serve the kids really well.”
She handed Principal Chittenden the brochure she had been carrying around with her teaching stuff for a couple of years now.
It felt strange to put her dream in another person’s hands, the brochure looked so small, and the fold was worn from all the times Allie had opened it up to gaze at the images inside.
But from this point on, it was going to take more than one person to champion her idea if she ever wanted it to actually come true.
“Look at that,” Principal Chittenden said with a wistful smile. “A greenhouse is a lovely idea, Allie.”
“The kids are going to love it,” Allie told her, her heart speeding up at the principal’s approval.
“We can make sure all our students know where their food comes from. They’ll get their hands dirty, get some fresh air, and come back to the classroom with so many great ideas and so much more focus. ”
“It’s a lovely idea,” Principal Chittenden said again.
Allie could feel a but coming.
Please let her see it my way…
“Unfortunately, Allie,” Principal Chittenden said.
“A project like this has more than a one-time cost. The maintenance on a greenhouse means we would need ongoing donations. And we can’t be sure how generous the community will be year over year.
I’ve seen too many big ideas like this fall by the wayside once the bloom was off the rose, to borrow a gardening idiom.
People love to move on to the next new thing. ”
Allie sighed.
Of course the principal was right. It was hard enough to know whether they would even have the funding they needed to cover the usual annual expenses.
Adding a greenhouse to the aging infrastructure of the school building probably was a burden they shouldn’t take on.
In all her daydreaming, she hadn’t really thought about it like that.
“If I could guarantee ongoing donations, would you consider it?” she heard herself ask.
“Oh, Allie,” the principal said.
“Just today I moved desks around in my classroom,” she went on. “We did breaks with movement activities between lessons and it really seemed to help out with some of my more wiggly students. Getting outside would be even better. And you know that’s tough in the wintertime.”
“Well, if you could guarantee ongoing donations then of course there would be nothing to say but yes,” the principal said, handing her back the brochure. “But I’m not sure how you could do that.”
Allie wasn’t sure either. And somehow the brochure, which had seemed to almost tingle with magic from the first time she had held it in her hands felt like no more than a crumpled bit of paper now.
“Speaking of your students,” Principal Chittenden said. “I’m glad you stopped by. Apparently, little Maya Tailor shoved another student in the bus line yesterday.”
“I heard that something happened,” Allie said, thinking back to Victoria’s tattling this morning.
“Well, the other child’s parents are unhappy,” Principal Chittenden said. “There’s going to be a meeting today after school. You aren’t responsible for the students after they’re dismissed from your classroom, of course, but I’d like for you to be there.”
“Of course I’ll be there,” Allie said right away. She certainly wasn’t going to let Maya be thrown to the wolves.
“Thank you for that,” Principal Chittenden said fondly. “Your heart is always, always in the right place, Allie Lawrence.”
As she headed back up to her classroom to prepare for her afternoon students, Allie felt off-balance.
Her heart might be in the right place, but did it always, always have to be bigger than her actual ability to make anything happen?