Page 41 of Sweet Surrender

She glanced down to see Nick looking up at her.

“That would be lovely,” she told him. “And I’m sure Mr. Arnold will appreciate not having to clean up glitter from the floor.”

Nick’s little chest puffed up and he looked so pleased. All the children adored Mr. Arnold, who had nicknames for everyone, and kept on top of all the latest toys and trends with the help of his beloved grandchildren.

In no time, the classroom was neat as a pin again, and when the bell rang, most of them managed to gather their things calmly, something she was working on with them. Nearly all the children politely said goodbye to her as they left, instead of just darting off down the hall.

She stepped in the hallway to see them off, feeling proud of another day with her very own class. When the last student was gone, she headed back into her classroom to begin what she thought of as hersecond shift

“Becca,” a familiar voice called out from the doorway almost immediately.

“Hi Emily,” she said with a smile.

“Want to grab a slice of pizza?” Emily asked hopefully.

“I’ve got papers to grade,” Becca told her. “But have fun.”

“It’s Friday,” Emily moaned. “Can’t you get away on Friday night? We have the whole weekend for grading and plans. And it’s your first week.”

“I wish I could,” Becca told her, meaning it. The mere idea had her stomach grumbling, and she loved the idea of a chance to socialize. But that pizza place looked awfully fancy, and her first paycheck wouldn’t hit her bank account for a while yet.

“Maybe over the weekend?” Emily offered.

“I’ve got a pretty busy weekend,” Becca told her, gesturing to the chalkboard, which still held sample sentences from thepast, present, and futurelesson she’d taught today. Her examples included her past visit to the Lawrence dairy farm, her current activities in the classroom, and her future plans to visit the eye doctor’s office and the print shop for the project over the weekend, and then go iceskating. She was excited to read what the kids had written. It would be another great way to get to know them all better.

But Emily was clearly disappointed, and Becca didn’t want to seem rude.

“How about after the holidays?” Becca offered. “You can come to my place, and I’ll cook for you.”

“How can I say no to that?” Emily laughed. “I’ll tell the other girls you can’t make it.”

“Invite them for after the holidays, too,” Becca told her. “Make sure they like the idea of a big spaghetti dinner.”

“I’m going to go on record that they love the idea,” Emily told her with a warm smile. “See you Monday.”

“See you then,” Becca said, feeling happy.

Two hours later,Becca was still too keyed up from grading papers to pack up her bag and head home.

Smiling and pacing from one side of the classroom to the other, she thought again about Nick’s math quiz and felt like herwhole chest was a bottle of cream soda and someone had given it a quick shake.

Mrs. Staley had said that Nick didn’t try, and that Becca would be lucky to get him to write more than his name on most quizzes.

But Nick hadn’t just attempted to answer each question. He had answered them allcorrectly.

It was so miraculous that she almost couldn’t believe it. But Nick had been sitting right there in the front row, and she had watched him take the quiz herself, feeling proud at the time just to see him focused on his paper.

A burst of excitement went through her again and she suddenly realized she couldn’t stay in the classroom any longer. She organized the papers on her desk, putting all but two into a folder, and sliding those two into her bag.

Becca cleaned the board quickly, then grabbed her bag and coat and headed out before she could change her mind. As she hurried through the empty hallway and down the stairs, the only light she saw on was in the office, where Principal Chittenden was surely making plans for next week.

“Have a nice weekend, Miss Hawthorne,” Mr. Arnold called to her from the other end of the hall as she headed for the front doors.

“You too,” she told him, pleased that he already knew her name, and hoping it wasn’t because her classroom was untidy. She really did try her best to leave things more or less clean.

By the time she was pushing open one of the big glass doors to get outside, the frigid blast of wintry air felt good against her cheeks, and she found she was happy to see that the sky was a gray swirl of clouds that looked suspiciously like snow.

As long as it didn’t come before she did what she was planning to do, she loved the idea of more snow. Maybe it wasthe kids’ influence on her, but the idea of snowflakes drifting down made her smile.

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