4. Becca
4
BECCA
B ecca jogged across the snowy playground, following little Aubrey Jensen, who was awfully quick on her feet for someone with such short legs.
Sure enough, a group of kids had gathered around behind the swing sets near the far end of the playground.
“Okay, guys,” Becca said in her clear, confident teacher voice. “Let’s have a look.”
The children stepped back, revealing a familiar pair of figures standing at the center of the group.
“You gotta tilt your head back,” Nick was saying to Cal. “Oh, hi, Miss Hawthorne.”
Cal looked up at her. It was hard to see his expression because what looked like a hand knitted mitten was pressed to his nose. Kids really were resourceful.
“Hi, boys,” she said. “Let’s get you to the nurse, Cal.”
“I’ll come too,” Nick said.
“No, you’d better not,” she told him, remembering how the nurse at her old school frowned at having friends or siblings in her office. Plus, Nick wasn’t technically her student, and she didn’t want to make any more waves with Mrs. Staley. “Enjoy your recess. Your brother will be just fine. Mrs. Conard is going to stay with my class so I can go with him myself.”
Nick frowned, but he nodded, and she gave him an encouraging smile.
“Okay, Cal,” she said. “Let’s head in.”
She said a silent prayer of thanks that she had given herself a tour of the school last night, so she knew exactly where the nurse’s office was. There was an awful lot of blood on that mitten, so Cal must have been hit pretty hard.
She wanted nothing more than to ask him what happened, but she knew he might not like to say since he didn’t trust her yet. And he was busy trying to keep his head tilted up and the mitten against his nose. She knew from experience that it wasn’t really the right way to handle it, but she figured they would be at the nurse in no time, so it wasn’t worth trying to give a first aid lesson right now.
“Bloody noses are the worst,” she told him lightly, placing one hand on his shoulder and hoping that wouldn’t make him feel like a baby in front of his friends. “I used to get them all the time when I was a kid.”
Cal didn’t respond, but he didn’t shrug her hand off either, so she counted it a win and hurried him down the hall, again hoping not to cause a commotion in front of the principal. It was normal for kids to get hurt from time to time on the playground, but maybe if she had been down with the kids instead of chatting with the other teachers, this wouldn’t have happened. And she didn’t even really know what had gone down, so she wasn’t prepared for any questions.
Please don’t let anyone be bullying this sweet little boy, she prayed as they approached the doorway to the nurse’s office.
“Now what’s all this?” a pretty lady in cute scrubs with little reindeer on them exclaimed when she caught sight of them.
She was fuller figured, with the kindest smile, and Becca could actually feel Cal relax when she smiled at him, even though she had a big voice and a big presence.
“I got a bloody nose,” Cal told her. His voice was muffled from the mitten, but friendly.
“I can see that, Mr. Lawrence,” she said, leading him into the office and motioning for Becca to join them. “Now let me guess, wait until I see the other guy, right?”
Cal didn’t laugh, but when Becca bent to see his expression she could see he was giving the nurse a wide smile.
“Angela Perrault,” the nurse said to Becca with a smile. “And you must be Miss Hawthorne.”
“Nice to meet you,” Becca said. “Yes, I’m Becca Hawthorne.”
“Oh, and I’ll bet that’s one of the pretty mittens your grandmother made you boys, isn’t it?” Angela scolded gently, looking back to Cal.
He nodded his head up and down.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Angela chuckled. “You hop right up on my table here.”
Cal did as he was told, carefully holding the mitten to his nose so as not to drip blood.
“I’m going to have to touch your nose,” the nurse told him solemnly. “You have my word that I won’t do more than I have to just to be sure you don’t need to go to the hospital. Okay?”
Cal nodded slowly.
“Miss Hawthorne here can sit with you if you want her to,” she said.
Cal looked to Becca, and she nodded.
He nodded back after a moment, and she felt her heart squeeze. The poor boy was really hurting, and it was a blessing that he would allow her to be with him. She sat carefully beside him, placing her hand next to his so that they were just barely touching, but not grabbing his hand.
“Okay,” Angela said. “Let’s get that mitten off there so we can have a good look.”
Cal pulled the soiled wool away, keeping his chin tilted up.
“I’ll see if I can get that cleaned up for you,” Becca offered.
He put it in her hand, glancing over at her gratefully.
“Well, that’s very nice, isn’t it?” Angela asked cheerfully. “Your new teacher is making a good first impression, isn’t she?”
Cal’s eyes flashed to Becca’s, and she smiled back at him, delighted that she had an inside joke with one of her students on the very first day.
“Here we go,” Angela said.
Out of instinct, Becca took Cal’s hand and gazed right into his eyes.
“You look at me,” she told him softly. “Don’t even think about your nose right now. Let’s think about the posters on the wall in your classroom, and what kind of fun things we might be doing this afternoon.”
Before she knew what was happening, his little hand was sliding into hers and squeezing. And she gently squeezed his hand back, grateful that he trusted her enough to take comfort.
“I’m going to tell you a little bit about our project before I tell the others,” she whispered to him. “So, you’ll have to keep it a secret until then.”
His eyes widened at the idea.
“You and your classmates are going to do a project about Sugarville Grove,” she told him. “I can’t wait to learn more about this town and what it’s like to live here. And I think you guys are the perfect people to teach me, and each other, all about it.”
He started to smile and then winced as the nurse moved her hand slightly.
“All set,” Angela announced, pulling back. “You’re going to be just fine. We just have to stop up the leak in the old sniffer.”
That made Cal grin in earnest and Becca smiled too.
“Thank goodness,” she said, watching Angela grab some gauze and make a better substitute for the mitten.
“You have such a pretty voice, Miss Hawthorne,” Angela said. “You don’t sing, do you?”
“Just in church choir when I was in school,” Becca said, shrugging.
“Soprano?” Angela asked.
“How did you guess?” Becca asked.
“Any interest in joining the choir in town?” Angela asked her, winking. “We’re down a second soprano for the tree-lighting event.”
“I’d love to,” Becca said right away.
She was actually feeling a little overwhelmed with everything she had to do as a new teacher. But she had always believed strongly that every teacher needed to be a good example to her students by participating in the community. And this opportunity to do something she actually enjoyed had fallen right in her lap. It was a sign.
“I’ll email you when I get a free minute,” Angela told her with a smile. “Now, you hold that right there, Mr. Lawrence. Don’t move a muscle, don’t flinch an inch, and I’ll be right back with an ice pack.”
Cal grinned.
“Should we call his dad?” Becca asked.
“If they’re not going home, we don’t normally call,” the nurse said, stopping in the doorway. “We usually just send an email home at the end of the day. And this guy’s way too fierce to go home early, right tough guy?”
Cal smiled up at her from behind the gauze.
Angela was off in a heartbeat, leaving Becca alone with Cal.
She couldn’t help noticing that he looked more like a tired child in pain when the nurse left. Maybe that was natural after what he’d been through, but she didn’t like it.
“I think I would feel better just letting your dad know what happened,” she said softly. “Would that be okay?”
Cal nodded.
“Do you remember his number?” she asked, pulling her phone from her coat pocket.
Cal recited the number to her, and she dialed.