Page 17 of Christmas Criminal

I shake my head. "Any chance you can watch my class for a few minutes? Somebody"–I nod to Robbie–"thought it was a good idea to show the class what he learned in science class today."

She nods, turning back to her class. "Five minutes to finish your reading," she calls out, and then quickly scutters toward my classroom, where the noise level is only growing in my absence and spurred on by the chaos everyone witnessed.

Thank god Mrs. Harper's first post-lunch class is one of the quiet ones.

"Alright!" she shouts, closing the door behind her. "Settle down! Take your seats! I need everyone quiet so I can call the janitor."

I turn to Robbie, who has the decency to look sheepish.

"Robbie," I say, throwing my hands out in front of me. "What was that?"

He shrugs. "I thought it would be cool. It wasn't that messy in science class."

I nod. "I'm more miffed about you not listening to me. I told you not to do the trick and you did it anyway."

He shrugs again, his eyes glued to the floor.

I bite my lip, a mixture of emotions warring inside my brain.

And then a thought occurs to me. A way to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

I let out a long breath. "Well, I'm going to have to give you detention for that."

I've foundus a volunteer gig for the Christmas festival that gets set up in the town square every year. They need people to help build the little vendor huts that line the walkways, and although I'm not thrilled about the prospect of manual labor, I'm relieved we have a bigger purpose to support. And a solid itinerary.

When I asked Robbie if he was okay with the change–helping build huts instead of sitting bored in detention–he nodded enthusiastically.He's spent enough time in detention to know beinganywhere elseis preferable.

We're meeting at the school before walking over together, and I take my usual spot at the front desk once the teacher on bus duty clears out.

Robbie shows up first, raising his eyebrows in lieu of a greeting.

"We're waiting on one other person," I explain.

He nods, leaning against the far side of the desk.

And fifteen minutes later–what seems to be Noelle's usual–she wanders through the front doors toward the desk.

She smiles, nodding quickly to Robbie before turning toward me."Hi."

"Look who made it," I say as I stand.

She glares at me. "Sorry I'm late."

"Noelle, this is Robbie," I say, gesturing to him. "Robbie, Noelle."

She gives a small wave. "Hi."

"Hi."

And then there's silence.

This is going to be an interesting walk.

"Shall we?" I ask, grabbing my coat from the back of my chair and pulling it on.

I gesture for Noelle to lead the way, and Robbie falls into step behind her. She pushes through the front doors, holding one open for Robbie, who then holds it open for me.

"Do you go here?" Robbie asks, as we step down the stairs to the sidewalk. Noelle is in the middle as we turn, following the path that will eventually take us past the football field to the town square on the other side.

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