I guess so.” He shrugged again, then modified his answer. “She’s okay.”
Because she was trying to get the boy to open up to her, Lucia tried to encourage him to keep talking. “Why don’t you tell me about her?”
Looking slightly bewildered, Ryan asked, “What do you want to know?”
Lucia thought for a moment. “Well, to begin with, what’s your teacher’s name?”
For the first time that morning, possibly that week, Lucia heard the small boy giggle. It was a charming sound, like a boy who adores his teacher.
He grinned as he answered, “Her name is Ms. Chee. She is Native American and used to live right here in Forever when she was a little girl.”
“On the reservation?” Lucia asked the boy.
Ryan thought for a moment, as if checking the facts he had stored in his head. And then he shook his head. “No, she said she used to live in a house on the skirts of town.”
“Outskirts?” Lucia tactfully suggested.
Ryan’s small, angular face lit up. “Yeah, that’s it. Outskirts. That’s kind of a funny word.”
“Yes, it is,” Lucia readily agreed. She’d heard that the new second/third grade teacher had moved into a house in town. “Did Ms. Chee say why she didn’t live there anymore?”
Ryan thought for a moment, then remembered. “Oh, yeah. She said when she came back to Forever, she found out that the house burned down a few years ago. She was sad when she talked about it.”
Lucia tried to remember if she recalled hearing anything about a fire taking place near the town. And then a vague memory nudged her brain.
“Was Ms. Chee talking about the old Stewart house?” She remembered that the house had been empty for a number of years before a squatter had accidentally set fire to it while trying to keep warm. The wooden structure had gone up in no time flat. By the time the fire brigade had arrived, there was nothing really left to save.
Ryan nodded. “Uh-huh.” He could see his school coming into view up ahead. Growing antsy, he shifted in his seat and began to move his feet back and forth again. “I think so.”
Now that she had him talking, Lucia was loath to stop him. “What else did your teacher tell you?”
“She didn’t tell me. She told the class,” Ryan corrected her.
Lucia had noticed that the boy was very careful about making sure that all his facts were precisely stated. She nodded, accepting the revised narrative.
“Did Ms. Chee say anything else to the class?”
“She said lots of stuff,” Ryan replied honestly. “She’s the teacher.”
Lucia tried not to laugh. “I meant anything more personal. Something about herself.”
Ryan thought for a moment. “Just that she liked teaching.”
“Well, that’s a good thing.” Lucia stopped the car right before the school’s doors. “Now, go in and learn something.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ryan replied dutifully as he slid out of the passenger seat and then closed the car door behind him.
Lucia watched him square his small shoulders before heading to the school’s front door. She shook her head and then restarted the vehicle.
The boy had a lot of weight on his shoulders for one so young, she thought. He needed his father. She only wished she could make his father understand that.
Lucia blew out a breath as she began to drive back to the ranch. Maybe someday, she thought. Hopefully, before it was too late.
Wynona smiled as she watched the children in her combined second/third grade class come trooping into the room. Seeing their bright, smiling faces as they walked in warmed her heart. It was like watching unharnessed energy entering.
Looking back, it was hard for her to believe that these same little people could have actually struck fear into her heart just a little more than a month ago. On the plus side, that feeling had passed quickly, vanishing like a vapor within the first few hours of the first day.
It was true what they said, Wynona thought. Kids could smell fear. Conversely, they could also detect when someone had an affinity for them, when that same someone really enjoyed their company and wasn’t just pretending that they did.
Kids were a lot smarter than they were given credit for.
Her own class quickly realized that she was the genuine article. That she wasn’t just saying that she cared about them; she really did. And when she told them that she wanted to make learning fun for them, they believed her, even though a few of them, mainly the older ones, had rolled their eyes and groaned a little.
Instead of calling those students out, Wynona sincerely asked them how she could make the experience more enjoyable for them.
Thanks to her approach, within a few days Wynona had a classroom full of students who looked forward to coming to school every day.
But as with everything, Wynona saw that there was an exception. One of her students behaved differently than the others. Ryan Washburn didn’t seem as if he was having any fun.
Covertly observing him, she saw that he acted far more introverted than the other students. Whenever her class was on the playground, unless she deliberately goaded Ryan into participating with the rest of the class, the boy would quietly keep to himself, watching the other students instead of joining in whatever game they were all playing.
After watching him for a month, she had to admit that Ryan Washburn worried her. When she talked to him, he was polite, respectful, but there was no question that he was still removed. The calls she’d placed to his home—apparently, there was only a father in the picture—had gone unanswered.
They were almost five weeks into the school year and she had placed four calls to the man. The man whose deep, rumbling voice she heard on his answering machine hadn’t called back once, not even to leave a message. She was going to give the man a couple more days, she promised herself, and then...
And then she was going to have to try something a little more to the point, Wynona decided.
“Good morning, class,” she said cheerfully as the last student, a dark-eyed girl named Tracey, came in. Wynona closed the door behind her.
“Good morning, Ms. Chee,” her students chorused back, their voices swelling and filling the room rather than sounding singsongy the way they had the first day of class after she had introduced herself.
Instead of sitting down at her desk, Wynona moved around to stand in front of it. She leaned her hip against the edge of the desk, assuming a comfortable position. Her eyes scanned the various students around the room. She was looking at a sea of upturned, smiling faces—all except for Ryan.
“Did
