Episodes

4-25-13

Fiction-y.
______________________________________

He smiled up at her, his front two teeth missing. He brandished the plastic bronze sheriff's star he was wearing. "Wanna know how I got this?"

"How?" she asked. Little kids always liked telling people whatever they were excited about, even if they had just met, and even if they hadn't even said what their names were.

"I got it when the police came when my mom hit my uncle with a knife," he said cheerfully. "Don't you like it?"

How could she answer that? "It's a good-looking star," she said.

***
"Watch out for her," the other adults said. "She's known to steal."

"Okay, good to know," she said.

But while the kids were off at specials, the other regular teacher added to that information.

"Her teacher got her and her little brother Christmas presents last year," she said. "But instead of going for toys, they kept trying to get food. Or clothes. Mostly food."

No wonder the girl had stolen stuff in years past. How was one supposed to learn if one's tummy was rather empty?

***
She turned around at the sudden sound of skin smacking skin. One of the bigger boys in the classes had punched one of the girls.

She spoke, using the boy's name, telling him to stop.

The boy made no notice of her, so she stepped in between the students. All of a sudden she realized that the boy was bigger than she was, but all he was doing was bumping into her arm as he tried to get to the girl.

She ordered him to the office, and he went.

Turns out the girl had started the fight (she confessed that to the principal). Both students were punished by spending the whole day out of class in an in-school suspension room.

At least, the principal told her that she'd been right to step in between the two. She'd done nothing wrong. That was a relief.
_______________________