Page 56 of Sweet Surrender

She slid a piece of notebook paper across the desk to him. Sure enough, there were five problems and answers in Nick’s familiar scrawl.

“There were fifteen questions on the board,” Denise said, sniffing. “Nick is the only student who stopped at number five.”

Zane was at a loss. He’d never thought Nick would do something like that. But if the teacher saw him…

“Why was I not informed about this meeting?” a familiar voice called out breathlessly.

Zane turned in his seat to see Becca approaching. Unlike Zane, she wasn’t trying to remain calm, she was literally sprinting into the room, with Miss Wiggins trying to keep up.

“Miss Hawthorne,” Miss Wiggins called out. “Please…”

“It’s all right,” Principal Chittenden said calmly. “Miss Hawthorne may enter.”

“Why didn’t you involve me in the first place?” Becca demanded.

“Honestly?” Denise said. “I wasn’t sure you could be impartial when it comes to this family.”

Becca’s face went pale.

“Miss Hawthorne, please have a seat,” Principal Chittenden said. “Mrs. Staley’s students are in gym class right now, and I was going to call you in once the bell rang, but you’re here already, and that’s just fine.”

“Miss Perrault said you brought the boys to her office,” Becca said. “What’s wrong?”

“We thought their father might like to talk with them right away after this meeting,” the principal said kindly. “That’s all.”

Yes, I sure would,Zane thought to himself. He should have known it was a mistake to put the boys together. But he’d let himself get lost in the sweetness of this new teacher, and now it was coming back to bite them.

“Well, Mrs. Conard is sitting with my class for now,” Becca said. “What’s this about?”

Zane sat in furious silence as Denise explained it all again.

To her credit, Becca listened calmly, nodding and keeping her mouth shut until Denise was finished.

“I’d like to see their papers,” Becca said simply, once Denise was done.

“Be my guest,” Denise told her, passing over Cal’s paper, which had a few problems marked off, but definitely had problems on both sides of the sheet. “He’s got Nick’s—such as it is.”

Zane slid Nick’s paper over too.

“Thanks,” Becca said, putting her head down to review Cal’s paper first.

“In a situation like this one, we want to act with the utmost care,” Principal Chittenden said after a moment. “We might think about separating the boys within the classroom, or even?—”

“Excuse me,” Becca said suddenly, her eyes still on the papers spread out in front of her. “Before we make accusations or start moving the boys’ desks around, are we really sure Nick was cheating?”

“What’s the alternative?” Denise asked, smirking.

“Well, did no one else notice that Nick got all five of the first five problems correct?” Becca asked. “And Cal only got four of them?”

“He was staring at his brother’s paper, Becca,” Denise said dismissively. “He probably just copied Cal’s answer down wrong and got lucky.”

“That doesn’t feel right to me,” Becca said, shaking her head and turning to Zane. “Can you back me up on this? Something else is going on here.”

“You’re a brand-new teacher,” he heard himself say coldly. “And Denise Staley has been teaching the second grade for years. I want to put the boys back in separate classes. This was a mistake.”

Becca was looking right at him, so he was able to see the exact moment his words landed and her heart broke. It would probably haunt him for the rest of his life. But he had to put the boys first.

“We’ll talk with the boys, of course,” Principal Chittenden said calmly. “But I agree that separating them again may be a wise course of action. We can wait until they return after the holidays, that should cause the least amount of turmoil in the classrooms.”

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