Page 95 of His Unforgettable Bride
“He’s mocking me!” Daniel cried.
Indeed, Paul mouthed the very same words.
Daniel was new to her classroom this year, his parents having moved to town last summer. She’d taught Paul in this schoolroom since he was six years old.
The two boys were alike in nearly every way. She’d been stumped since the first week of school, unable to understand how they had ended up as rivals instead of friends.
The whispers from the front of the room had grown in volume. A glance in that direction revealed Clarissa with her head bent over her book, lips moving as she silently read. Her seatmate was distracted by whatever conversation was happening amongst the six students in the three desks in front of her.
Merritt tapped the desk in front of Paul. “Why don’t you continue your arithmetic work from my desk? Take your slate and chalk with you.”
For a moment, she thought he would argue, but he reluctantly stood up and tucked his slate beneath his arm to trudge to her wooden desk at the front of the classroom. There were thick books stacked on one corner of the desk and paintbrushes lined up along the opposite side, but the center surface was clear. He should be able to do his work there.
“Please keep working,” she told Daniel before she walked to the front of the room. With every step, the whispers became more muted until she stood before the front two desks with her eyebrows raised.
“Would you like to share with the rest of the class?” she asked Harriet Ferguson. The eight-year-old was small for her age and hadn’t joined the schoolroom until last school year.
Harriet flushed and ducked her head, folding her hands in her lap as if Merritt had meted out a grand punishment, not asked a simple question.
“We was wonderin’ if it’s time to start practicin’ for the pageant yet.” Harriet’s seatmate, five-year-old Samuel Ferguson, was practically bouncing on the wooden bench.
The slate-gray winter sky outside the window was no help determining the hour. It had been threatening snow all day, but only an occasional flake had danced past the window today.
Merritt consulted the watch pinned at her shoulder. “We’ve another half hour of work at least.” She made her voice loud enough for the entire class to hear.
She felt the collective sigh of impatience and heard one audible groan. Though her glance encompassed the entire room, she couldn’t tell where it had come from.
The Christmas pageant was scheduled to take place in this very classroom on Monday evening, a mere seven days from now.
Christmas was three days after that.
Between the two events, it was no wonder her students were restless and distracted. After nearly ten years in her position as Calvin’s schoolteacher, Merritt expected it. Just like the tradition of holding the pageant in the schoolhouse had been upheld since she’d sat in one of the desks as a student, it was also tradition that the closer the performance loomed, the more distracted her students would be.
She had her own reasons for being distracted. This day had stretched interminably long already.Howmuch longer until dismissal?
She’d be happy if she could wrangle fifteen more minutes of work out of her students. Then they could all practice reciting lines. A glance at the nearly completed canvas backdrop leaning against the wall at the back of the classroom made her shoulders droop slightly. She’d meant to make more progress on that project over the weekend but had spent her time planning meals for the next few days, shopping for each one as the special occasion it was, and scrubbing and dusting her entire house from floor to ceiling.
The work will get done, she told herself.
But not tonight. Tonight she had an engagement.
“Miss Harding, what’s this?”
Paul held up a folded piece of paper. One crossed with cramped handwriting in even lines. One that she recognized.
Paul must’ve opened the drawer in her desk and found the letter.
“That’s personal?—”
“Are you getting married?”
Her words tumbled over his blurted question. It was too much to hope that no one else had heard.
She felt sixteen pairs of eyes swing in her direction as she hurried toward her desk.
“That’s private,” she snapped.
Paul’s eyes widened as she came to stand beside where he sat in the hard-backed wooden chair.
