Page 1 of Love in Tandem
It’s a terrible thing when a teacher survives an entire school year only to die the first minute of summer vacation.
“Whatcha doing, Miss Carter?”
“Don’t move,” Charlotte whispered to whichever first grader had spoken. Or maybe it was a second grader. Up until middle school, they all sounded the same. Like little mice helping Cinderella prepare for the ball.
“Are you playing statues?” the nameless child squeaked.
“Not exactly.” Charlotte puckered her lips and blew a soft breath without moving a muscle. “There’s a bee.”
“Where?”
Hovering an inch away from Charlotte’s face. What did the kid mean where?
“Oh. Now I see him. He’s about to land on your nose. Are you trying to get him to land on your nose?”
Must be Nash. She glimpsed a mop of brown curls in her peripheral vision, and of all the O’Mally siblings, he was the most inquisitive. Or troublesome when one wasn’t in the mood for inquisitive. “I’m trying to get him to fly away.”
“Want me to help?”
Definitely Nash. And definitely not. Nash’s attempts to “help” often led to blood, tears, and a trip to the nurse’s office—or principal’s, depending on the type of help involved. “I’m okay, Nash. Really. You can go.”
The final bell had rung, and children everywhere bubbled across the schoolyard full of summer excitement. Teachers too. She couldn’t be sure, but a conga line might have formed on the way to the bus stop with Ty Zemeckis, the principal, leading the way.
“Want me to shoo it away for you?” Nash persisted.
“Nope. No need to make it mad.” Charlotte exhaled another breath, hoping to mimic a gentle breeze that would carry the bee far, far away.
“I got stung once. It wasn’t that bad.”
It was when you were deathly allergic to bees. Or possibly deathly allergic to bees. Ever since the terrible night Miranda Woods babysat for Charlotte years ago and showed her the terrible movie My Girl, which ended with a young boy’s terrible death from bee stings, Charlotte had resolved to never find out.
Charlotte’s eyes crossed as the bee flitted in front of her nose. She should have boycotted field day. Told Ty she’d pass out popsicles inside the cafeteria. Scrub toilets. Clean gum from beneath desks. Anything but referee three-legged races and kickball tournaments in a field full of flower-pollinating assassins.
Thankfully this slayer must have grown bored buzzing around her head. It flew off, leaving Charlotte to live another day. Whew.
She spun for the brick school building, ready to pack up her meager belongings, maybe do a little conga dance of her own, then rush over to Mucho Mucho Queso. She couldn’t wait to see the look of surprise on her parents’ faces when she handed them a check for two thousand—
Smack!
Charlotte’s head flung back, and pain exploded in her nose. A gush of warm fluid sprayed from each nostril.
“Did I scare off the bee, Miss Carter?” Nash—of course it was Nash—chased after the basketball he’d thrown. He lifted it from the crater-size pothole it’d bounced into, then pointed at Charlotte’s face. “Uh-oh.”
Yeah, uh-oh. She pinched the bridge of her nose while Nash’s face crumpled into tears and the ball dropped from his hands. A few tears leaked from Charlotte as well. Mercy, that hurt.
“I—I’m sorry,” he whimpered. “Do I have to go to the principal’s office?”
And drag this day out any longer? Heck no. “Lucky for you, Nash, the principal’s office is closed. Have a great summer,” she said in a voice that now sounded like Kermit the Frog with a head cold.
Nash cried harder. “I k-killed you.”
Looked like this day was going to drag out a little longer. “No, buddy. I promise. This wasn’t your fault.” And honestly, it wasn’t. Things like this always happened when Charlotte spent more than fifteen minutes in the wild. And a schoolyard full of crazed children and lethal flying insects most definitely qualified as the wild.
“Shh. There, there.” She patted his back. Or at least that was the intent. Unable to see with her head tipped back, she groped the air until she found his hair and settled for petting him like a puppy. “I get nosebleeds all the time.”
If all the time meant first time ever. And in situations involving sobbing children on the last day of school, it did. “It’s probably nasal allergies. I used nasal spray the other day. Probably made my nasal passages dry. All that nasal constriction.”
She didn’t know why she was rambling to a nine-year-old, let alone using the word nasal on repeat, but if it dried his tears and distracted from the sensation that fire sparklers were lit inside her nose, she’d go with it.
