Page 19 of Hockey Heart

Maiden’s head slumped further forward, and he put it in his big hands.

“Hey, Hicks. Let me talk to him.”

Hicks looked up at me with a cross face, sighed, and then nodded. “Okay. I’ll go and tell Jill what happened.”

I kneeled down and Maiden looked back at me, his face distressed, scared, and confused.

“You know what you did wasn’t okay, don’t you, Maiden?”

He nodded and tried to swipe at the tears running down his face.Trying to be strong,I thought. That had his dad written all over it.

He didn’t seem like a bad kid, though. Obviously, he didn’t want this to be happening, so why was it?

“Hey, come with me. We can chat about it over dinosaurs, okay?”

It didn’t cheer him up any, but he still nodded, just glad of something other than sitting in a hallway being told he was a bad kid. We sat on two tiny chairs in the playroom, him sniffling and me watching him.

“Maiden. Matthew said you didn’t know the numbers on the floor. Is that true?”

He flashed an even brighter red than before and avoided looking at me.

“It’s okay, you know. Just tell me. Or… How about you tell Marvin?”

I held up the plush toy stegosaurus and he looked at it. Once he realized that Marvin wouldn’t judge him and didn’t care about the stupid numbers either, he took it from me.

“Sometimes they get all jumbled and I don’t like it when people say I’m stupid.”

“The numbers?” I said.

He nodded. “And sometimes the words.”

“Well, what about these?” And I pointed to the colored numbers on the playroom wall.

“They’re okay.”

“So, what was different with the numbers outside?”

“It’s when it’s all in a rush and I can’t think proper.”

“Like when you’re playing a game?”

“Yeah. Or if I have to answer fast in front of the class. It’s different then.”

He looked like the saddest boy in all the world right then. I didn’t even feel that sorry for Matthew Locklear, in all honesty. He was loud and annoying and a bit of a bully, just like his dad, but we couldn’t be sending kids home to their parents their kids with black eyes and split lips.

“I see.”

He started sobbing again, “W… Will my dad have to come and get me?”

“Oh. Probably. But hey, let’s try and sort this out, okay? Let me talk to the principal and we’ll see.”

Kensy came in to join us while Marissa, the new teaching assistant, took Matthew off to the bathroom to get cleaned up.

“Hey, have you met Kensy yet? She’ll look after you for a minute, while I go see what’s happening, okay? You wait here with Kensy and Marvin.”

Maiden nodded, and I gave Kensy a look that saidI feel bad for him, so go easy,and she nodded her understanding back at me. Neither of us were moms, but we probably knew as much, if not more, about kids' behavior than the best of them.

Jill and Hicks were pulling sighing faces as I went into her office.

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