Page 2 of Dark As Coal

I bumped fists with the boys and winked at the girls.

“Hey, Miss Adeline,” I heard as one of my favorite students of this year came through the door.

Smiling down at her, I tapped the tip of her nose, “Good morning, Olivia. How are you?”

She scrunched her little nose and smiled, “I’s good. Daddy made me blueberry pancakes this morning, and he didn’t burn them this time.”

Smiling, I nodded. “They do taste better when they’re not burnt. I tend to agree. Now, go take your seat.” I winked at her.

“Yes, Miss Adeline.” I smiled when she skipped to her seat.

So far, Olivia’s father couldn’t cook eggs and the bacon was too crispy, but he had mastered pop-tarts and now blueberry pancakes.

Shaking my head, I watched as the last kid walked into the room, and then I closed the door.

As I walked to my desk, I did my usual speech, “The best-ever kindergarten class is now in session. Who’s ready to have some fun?”

At once, they all clapped and nodded.

Climbing onto the edge of my desk, I called out, “Okay, for two points towards the magical chest this Friday, who can tell me what number this is?” I asked them as I held up seven fingers.

Mindy, my teaching assistant, had her eyes on the kids and caught the first one that raised their hand. She called out, “Ben?”

He smiled, showing a missing front tooth, and said, “Seven.”

I smiled, “Right on, Ben.”

We had a mini-board with all the kids’ names on it and a table of sorts. At the top of the board, we had the day’s Monday through Thursday. The top five students with the highest number of points got to raid my magical chest.

What it really was, was a small chest I picked up for a song. It was filled to the brim with little party favors, knick-knacks from the dollar store, and odds and ends from mom-and-pop stores in our town.

See, I did this, because the first year I started teaching, I had two boys, two twin boys. And after the fourth week of them coming to school in dirty clothes, the same clothes they had worn for three days, and never complaining, never not eating all their food, and being amazing kids, I reached out to a friend of mine.

She had informed me that sadly, they were the youngest of seven children and money was extremely tight because their father had been killed when he was working on a pipeline.

After my childhood, I knew what it meant when someone said the money was tight, oh how I knew.

Thankfully for those twin boys, they had brothers and sisters, and a mom that loved them fiercely, unlike I had.

But…. I bet you’re wondering, why the hell would a kindergarten teacher be a club girl?

Yes… I said a club girl.

It was a long story.

And I guess my story starts at the age of five.

Yeah.

Five.

Well… technically, that was as far back as I could solidly remember.

I learned that when the men came, I was to flip the lock on my bedroom door, go to my closet, flip my little lamp on, and lock that door, too.

And in the morning, I would have to grab the medical bucket, as my mother called it, go into her room, and clean her up.

The sight of blood and vomit stopped making me squeamish by the time I turned six.

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