Page 75 of Shelter for Morgan

Morgan leaned her elbows on the table and lowered her voice. “Then, we can practice together, hmm? I think by the time you’re ready to take this a step further, maybe you and I will have become much better at these skills. Okay?”

Maribel nodded, slowly again. “I might still stumble…”

Morgan shrugged.“So how about we stumble together? And if one of us is having some trouble, we help each other out.”

Maribel’s whole face lit up. “That would be awesome!”

“You’re already awesome, Maribel. I’m honored that you would come to talk to me about this.”

Morgan could tell that Maribel’s mind was already whirring with excitement.

“Okay. You asked me if this was like peer counseling. I don’t think so. I think it’s a whole new thing that we haven’t tried here at the school. It’s more about personal responsibility and really reaching out to make a change with the other person.”

“The other person that you’re having a problem with?”

Maribel nodded. “I’m not saying that the person being bullied shares some responsibility for it happening to them, but it makes them an active participant in the solution.” Her cheeks warmed and her shoulders rolled forward a little. “In the past, bullying was ignored in some ways,” she looked up, “my sister had a bully and all the people in the office did was put the other person in detention and that only made them worse. No one really talked to them about why they did what they did and they certainly weren’t told about the effect it had. I think that’s why Eduardo wanted me to hear about this. I think he knew how interested I’d be in it.”

“Okay,” Morgan felt her own chest lighten as Maribel’s natural exhuberance lifted the feeling of the room. “Can you tell me how to pronounce this again?” She pointed at the heading of the paper.

“Ho’oponopono.” The lengthy word tripped off of Maribel’s tongue with ease.

Morgan could only lift a brow at it.

“Ho… the O is like o-h. So the first syllable is like Santa’s Ho Ho Ho.”

Morgan grinned. “All the Os are roundedlike that?”

Mirabel rounded her arms in front of her. “Yep. All Os are rounded.”

Morgan turned the paper slightly to look at it head on. So, it’s Hoh-oh-poh-noh-poh-noh?”

“Yes!” Maribel held up her hand for a knuckle bump.

Morgan met her halfway. “Okay. Next. How does this work?”

“Well,” Maribel wiggled in her chair a little, “that’s where this gets a little more difficult to explain, but I hope you’ll understand this when I’m done explaining.”

Morgan met Maribel’s gaze square on. “I’m listening.”

It didn’t take longer than a few minutes before Morgan was all in to help Maribel make her presentation to the school administration. It was going to take some work, but that wasn’t something that bothered Morgan. Especially when it came to students and their interest in being involved.

The fact that Maribel wanted to make a possitive difference in the lives of others?

Even better.

They were heavily into their conversation about the next step in the process when a knock at her doorframe turned both of their heads.

“Hello, ladies.”

Maybe it was just her previous interaction with Officer Munder, but her initial reaction to hearing his voice was to feel a pinch of unease between her shoulder blades.

Still, she did her best to keep things calm so that Maribel wouldn’t pick up on her own feelings.

“Hello, Officer Munder. Is everything okay?”

Maybe it was just her own issues popping up again, but when the school resource officer lifted his arm to look at his watch. He seemed to be over doing it a bit.

“It’s the end of the school day, Miss Rafferty. So I came by to make sure that you’re packing up so I can close up the school.”

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