Konichiwa

Disclaimer: Possibly the strangest thing I’ve ever written. It’s about Chris but not really. Okay, I’m not making any sense. It’s about a character I made up, but it’s got Chris in it. Seriously, I don’t know how many people will like it; but I had nothing to do. I’ve been sick today and yesterday and am sick of sitting around doing nothing, so I decided to write something. This is what my brain comes up with when it’s all sluggish and whatever. Sorry if you hate it; I don’t mind if you tell me that (wink).

Disclaimer: I don’t own Charmed.

“All right, everyone, let’s put away the toys and come sit down in a circle on the floor,” called Maria, a kindergarten teacher in an elementary school in San Francisco. She flickered the light twice, and the children in the classroom raced around, putting away blocks, dolls, Lego, dress-up, and all the other toys strewn all over the floor.

“Clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere,” chorused throughout the classroom.

Finally, the room was back to its original semi-organized state—with the exception of a few stray Lego pieces that no one remembered to put away. The kids sat in a slightly deformed circle on the giant rug in the middle of the room. Maria hurried over to join the kids on the floor.

“That was very good,” she praised as the last words of the song died. “You played well today; I loved watching your nice sharing!”

One boy with short-cropped, blond hair raised his hand; and Maria smiled, nodding to him to speak. “Teacher,” he asked, “are we reading a story now?”

“No, Alex,” she replied, smiling gently. Alex always felt the need to call her “teacher” as if she deserved some sort of formal title. “Today we’re going to go around the class and say what we had for breakfast this morning.” Most of the children cheered, but one girl groaned.

“But what about—”

“Ah, ah,” Maria interrupted. “What do we do when we have a question?” Immediately, the girl’s hand shot into the air, almost taking off the head of the child beside her. Sighing, Maria said, “Yes, Rachel?”

“But you said we could read The Three Little Pigs, today,” the girl named Rachel protested.

“No, who remembers what I said? I said we would read it on… Wednesday. What day is it today, Rachel?”

“Wednesday,” Rachel answered confidently.

“Tomorrow is Wednesday,” corrected Maria. “So what does that make today?”

“Um…” Rachel blushed, embarrassed that she didn’t know the answer. She always knew the answer to everything. At least, she thought she did.

“Should we say the days of the week?” Maria suggested kindly, and Rachel nodded. “Okay, everyone together.”

“Sunday…” the children said in unison—with one or two voices straggling at the end of the word. “Monday... Tuesday… Wednesday… Thursday… Friday… Saturday!”

“Good job,” Maria commended proudly. “Which means today is still…?”

“Tuesday?” Rachel guessed uncertainly.

“That’s right!” Maria exclaimed in an overplayed tone that the kids seemed to take as genuine. “So tomorrow we’ll read The Three Little Pigs because tomorrow is Wednesday. Now, who wants to tell us what you had for breakfast this morning?”

“Me!” chorused the students, and a few hands here or there shot into the air when or if they remembered.

“Dominic, would you like to start?” Maria offered, smiling down at bright green eyes underneath a mop of brilliant orange hair.

“Yes, please,” replied the boy politely. “I had a cream-cheese sandwich for breakfast.”

“Wonderful. That sounds delicious. We’ll go in order, okay? So when the person next to you is finished, you can say yours. That means it’s your turn, Angela.”

“I had oatmeal,” Angela announced proudly.

“Me too!” shouted a girl from the other side of the circle.

Maria put a finger to her lips, shaking her head. “Jackie, raise your hand, please; it’s not your turn,” she scolded gently. Jackie’s hand flew up, and Maria suppressed a sigh. “Jackie, do you have something to say?”

Jackie nodded and stated, “Me too.”

Maria chuckled to herself, saying, “That’s good, but wait for your turn next time, okay? Who goes after Angela? Daniel?”

“I had Toasties,” Daniel said, licking his lips as he remembered his meal.

“I ate soup that we eated last night!” Michael, who sat next to Daniel, cried excitedly.

Before Maria could correct him and tell him there was no such word as ‘eated,’ Ria mumbled, “I had cereal.” She stared at the floor, her honey-colored skin tinged with a blush of red.

“I ate soup!” Michael repeated.

“Michael,” Maria reproached, wagging her finger at him, “it’s not your turn; you already had your turn.”

“But it is my turn,” Michael protested unjustly. “I’m next to Ria, see?” He patted Ria’s knee and smiled at Maria innocently.

“That’s true,” Maria admitted, “but Karen is also next to her, and now it’s her turn because you already got a chance.”

“Oh.”

“I had a bag of chips,” Karen declared, twirling one of her long, dark braids around in her fingers.

“I want ice cream for breakfast!” shouted Tommy, the boy beside Karen. Many of the kids consented raucously.

“I’m sure we’d all like ice cream for breakfast,” Maria replied, bringing order back to the classroom by holding up one finger. Instantly, the kids raised their fingers as well and fell silent. “But what did you have?” she asked Tommy when all was quiet again.

Tommy thought for a minute then replied, “Not ice cream.”

“Teacher, I don’t remember what I had,” Alex complained sadly.

“That’s okay, Alex. When you get home today, you can ask you mommy and daddy if they remember.”

“They didn’t make my breakfast,” he replied. “I ‘member they didn’t because my bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch spilled, and I gotst in big trouble for it.”

“So you had Cinnamon Toast Crunch?”

Alex looked deep in thought for a minute, and Maria hid a smile. Then, his eyes lit up enthusiastically. “Yeah, how did you know?” He stared at his teacher in wonder.

“You just told us,” she explained, repressing the desire to chuckle.

“I did?”

“My turn, my turn!” cried Rachel impatiently. “I had a fruit salad with apples in it.”

“That sounds very tasty, Rachel—”

“And bananas.”

“Wow, that’s—”

“But not oranges,” she added as an afterthought. “My mommy knows I don’t like oranges. A-cept on Fridays. I like oranges then.”

“I had what my mommy made for breakfast,” the boy beside Rachel said before Rachel could start to name all the rest of the fruit in her salad.

When she realized he wasn’t going to elaborate, Maria asked, “And what did she make, Chris?”

“She made pancakes, and they was really good a-cuz she’s really good at making food. She says it’s a-cuz she used to cook for people.”

“You mean she was a chef?” Maria supplied.

After a moment, the boy nodded. “Yeah, that.”

“Well, you must be very lucky. Sarah, what about you; what did you have for breakfast?”

Sarah’s bright, blue eyes sparkled as she ticked off the list on her fingers. “I had eggs, and orange juice, and cereal with milk—”

“I had—”

“Wait!” shrieked Sarah at Evan. “I’m not done yet! And I took a little piece of my brother’s waffles when he wasn’t looking, and—”

“I had—”

“No, no, no!” she whined in frustration. “I’m not done; you have to wait your turn!”

“Sarah, I think you should give other people a chance,” Maria reasoned. “You got a very long turn, and that’s not very fair.”

“But I’m not done yet!” Sarah wailed, beating her fists against the floor indignantly, like the dull drumming of rain against a windowpane.

“But you don’t need to tell us everything that you ate—just one or two things.”

“Fine,” she grumbled, scowling at Evan, who ignored her purposefully. “I had eggs and orange juice.”

“That’s good—that’s how you do it; thank you, Sarah. Evan?”

Evan sighed, annoyed at having had to wait for so long. “I had,” he said, heaving a sigh of relief when Sarah didn’t cut him off—she said nothing, but scowled at him. “…An apple.”

Maria waited for him to say more, but she didn’t; so she turned to the next kid.

Justin opened his mouth into a big, toothy grin and said, “For breakfast today I had ketchup.”

“Ketchup with what?” Maria asked, ignoring the impulse to cringe in disgust.

“Just ketchup,” he replied smugly.

“Ew!” most of the children cried. Evan merely snickered.

“Indoor voices, guys,” Maria called. She held up her finger again, and they slowly quieted down again. “Your mommy gave you ketchup for breakfast?”

“My mommy didn’t know,” he cackled mischievously.

“Oh.”

There was a pregnant pause for a moment before Maria heard, “I had oatmeal!”

Maria smiled and said, “Jackie, you already had your turn, remember?”

“But I sit next to Justin,” she protested.

Maria sighed wearily and conceded. “All right.”

“I had oatmeal,” Jackie repeated for the—how many times was that now? It was barely into the afternoon, and Maria was already exhausted.

When Jackie stopped talking, Haley immediately began. “I was going to have milk in my sippy cup, but it spilled on the floor; and Sammy licked it all up.”

“Is Sammy your dog?” Maria wondered.

“No, Sammy is my baby brother,” Haley corrected matter-of-factly.

“Oh…”

“Teacher, what did you have for breakfast?” Alex inquired.

“Alex, you need to raise your—”

His arm sliced the air, nearly taking off Rachel’s ear. He ignored her, “Hey!” and waved his arm eagerly.

“Yes?”

“Teacher, what did you have for breakfast?” he repeated.

“I had coffee,” she said, hiding a smile. She knew what was coming next…

“Ew!” the class chorused. Tongues peaked out of mouths, and noses scrunched in disgust. She merely laughed.

“Okay, guess what we’re going to be drawing today,” she exclaimed in excitement. The silence was so instantaneous it was almost deafening. “We get to draw pictures of our families!” she cried. “Okay, everyone go find a seat at a table and get started. The paper and crayons are already on the tables. I’ll come around to see how you’re doing.”

The children scurried to their seats—Evan meeting up with Haley and Justin, and Dominic meeting up with Chris. The others found chairs at random. Maria smiled at Dominic as he and Chris sat down in a corner. Those two were so similar it was almost scary. They were both shy—almost to the point of being called timid, though they weren’t. They were polite… as polite as two four-year-old boys could be, anyway. And their eyes matched in their dazzling, emerald color.

After five minutes of patient waiting, Maria started her rounds. She stopped at Haley’s table and paused to ask whom everyone in the picture was. Excited, the three of them—Haley, Justin, and Evan—proudly displayed their scribbles.

“This is my Mommy,” explained Haley, pointing to an especially gruesome squiggle with two thin lines that jutted out of the head—hands, Maria guessed. “And this is Sammy,” she added, pointing to a picture of a… thing on all fours.

“Wait, I thought you said Sammy wasn’t a dog,” Maria said, confused.

“I did,” Haley nodded. “He’s not—he just acts like it a lot ‘cuz he doesn’t know how to walk yet. See, ‘cuz he doesn’t have no tail or nothing.”

“Or anything,” Maria corrected. Haley just gave her a bewildered expression before turning her attention back to her masterpiece. Snatching the red crayon from the box, she scribbled furiously, her pink tongue jutting past her lips in concentration.

Evan shoved his picture into Maria face. “Look, it’s an apple. That’s what I eated for breakfast.”

“You were supposed to draw your family,” Justin laughed. “I drawed my family real good, right?” He, too, made his picture known. “It’s my Mummy and my Daddy, and David, and Griffin, and Jessie.”

“Your older brothers?”

Justin bobbed his head up and down in a nod.

“Well… I drawed an apple!” Evan exclaimed, his tone challenging his friend.

“This isn’t a contest, guys,” Maria sighed. “I just want to see your families, that’s all.” She glided over to the next table, resisting the sigh of relief that bubbled to the surface. “How are you all doing?” she asked the next group.

Without looking up from the illustration that seemed to need all of his attention, Tommy said, “I’m making my mommy. She has a big belly because someone’s hiding in her.”

“You mean she’s pregnant,” Maria said, having been told that information a couple months ago. Children Tommy’s age apparently didn’t get the concept of a ‘secret,’ so the moment he found out his mom was expecting, he went right up to his teacher and informed her of that fact.

“She said I’m gonna be a big brother soon, too.” He threw his chest out in proud satisfaction. His mom said he was going to be a big brother… Him.

“Well, where’s your daddy?” Maria asked, searching the picture for Tommy’s father.

“I’m not finished yet!” he whined. “You can’t even look at it ‘till I’m done!” He covered his paper with his hands to block it from her view.

“Okay, okay,” she said, smiling. “What about you, Alex? Can I see yours?” She moved over to his side of the table and watched over his shoulder as he carefully chose the color purple for his drawing. Pointing to one of the stick figures, she asked, “Who’s that?”

“That’s Jodie,” he explained. “That’s my sister. She likes the color purple, Teacher. It’s her favorite-est.”

“Oh, is it?” Maria replied. “Well, then, that’s very nice of you to use that color. Do you and your sister get along with each other?”

“When Mom and Dad make us,” he replied simply. “And when she’s not home.”

Chuckling, Maria turned her interest to Michael and frowned slightly at his drawing—or lack of a drawing. Before him was a blank paper, his forehead creased in intense concentration. “Where’s your family?” she asked in confusion. “Why aren’t you drawing?”

“I’m trying to make the marker move without touching it,” he explained.

From the other table, Chris looked up from his drawing. He listened to the conversation for a minute before shrugging and taking a different color marker for his beautiful work of art.

“Well, I don’t think that’s possible, honey,” she said through a hidden smile. “Why don’t you try using your hands?”

He shook his head firmly, and she shrugged and continued onward. All five squealing, giggling girls at the next table—Sarah, Jackie, Angela, Rachel, and Karen—were squeezed together, arms and legs sticking out of the tangle of girls.

Shaking her head, Maria sighed. “Girls, only three or four people per table, remember?”

“But we wanted to be together,” Sarah said in surprise.

“And I’m glad your all friends,” Maria agreed readily. “But only four people per table. When I come back, I want to see only four, all right? There’s a space next to Haley and Justin for someone.”

The girls shuffled around, and Maria moved to the next—and last—table. “So how is everyone’s drawing coming along?” she inquired with a cheerful smile. She looked at Dominic’s first. “Wait, Dominic, I thought you only have sisters.”

“I do.”

“So who’s this boy?” She pointed to the crudely drawn boy that was standing just beside the stick figure with bright red—was that hair? Probably.

“That’s Chris,” Dominic explained, grinning over the table at his best friend. Chris smiled back, peaking over to look at the drawing himself.

“It looks exactly like me!” he squealed in delight, clapping his hands together.

“But Chris isn’t in your family,” Maria replied, laughing.

“No, but he almost is. My mommy always says…” He paused, brow furrowing, and tried to recall what it was his mother always said. “Brother with a different mommy.”

Brother from another mother, Maria realized. “Oh, okay.” She felt a tug on her sleeve and glanced down to find Daniel.

“Can I go to make?” he asked.

“You mean go to the bathroom?” she replied, stressing the word. “Sure.”

Thanking her, he waddled off with his legs crossed over each other. She bit her lip and watched him leave, hoping he wouldn’t trip in that position. Why didn’t he think to ask her earlier—before it became an “emergency?”

Next, she went to Chris, and he leaned back in his chair so she could see his drawing better. “Can you tell me who they are?” Maria asked.

Nodding, he pointed to the first one. “That’s me,” he clarified. “And that”—he pointed to the red-headed boy beside him—“is Dominic.” Maria laughed and motioned for him to continue. “That’s Mommy, and that’s Wy.”

“Wy is your brother.”

Chris shook his head vehemently in annoyance. “You can’t call him that; only I can. You gotst ta call him Wyatt.”

“Okay, Wyatt, then. Is that all?”

He nodded, and she didn’t ask further. His mother had explained the predicament—she and her husband had gone through a divorce. He never came around to visit the kids, which—frankly—Maria found pretty cold-hearted. Children need their fathers, and here was Chris’s father just ditching his family like that.

Last, she came to Ria, the young, Hispanic girl, who was sitting there, her arms crossed over her chest, glaring. When Maria questioned her on why she hadn’t drawn anything, she muttered, “I want my mami.”

“Your mommy is coming soon, honey.”

“No! I want my mami! I want my mami! Leave me ‘lone!” Tears leaked from her eyes, and she shook her head. “¡Quiero mi mami¡Yo odio la os! Mami! Leave me ‘lone!”

Sighing, Maria knelt beside the girl and asked, “Should I let you call Mommy?” Instantly, Ria’s tantrum ceased; and she nodded ardently.

In the meantime, Chris and Dominic had both covered their ears to block out her screaming. Chris squeezed his eyes shut, as if to hide from her as well. Suddenly, the door crashed open. Maria jumped in surprised, as did the kids. Behind her back, Chris’s eyes widened.

And the flowerpots filled with dirt that lined the walls flew off the shelves and shattered on the floor. Maria whipped around and only just managed to stop herself from demanding, “What the hell is going on here?” She didn’t think it would sit too well with the kids’ parents if they came home cursing, however mild it was.

A low moan escaped Chris’s lips, and Maria finally noticed the kids. Assuming Chris was scared, she knelt beside him and assured, “Don’t worry, honey. It was probably just the wind.”

Now I just need to convince myself of that, she thought.

Emerald eyes glimmering with tears, he shook his head back and forth wildly.

The cardboard fish that hang from strings from the ceiling began to swing back and forth. The five girls, who had yet to reposition themselves, began to shriek in terror; and Evan started making ‘ghost noises’ to scare them.

“Stop that, Evan!” Maria snapped irritably. “Girls, enough screaming, all right? Just… continue with your pictures.” She turned back to Chris, whose tears were now cascading down his cheeks. “Don’t cry, Chris; it’s not so bad. It’s just the wind, see?”

“Nooooo,” he moaned, shrugging out of her grip. A lamp in the corner of the room crashed to the floor. Shattering on impact, the bulb went out. More screams. What was worse—this was beginning to get dangerous. Maria never believed in the Supernatural before, but she was starting to think the room had a Poltergeist.

“Okay, everyone line up single file!” she yelled above the tumult. “We’re going to recess, okay?”

We’re going outside where the classroom can’t kill us, she thought to herself as the kids screeched. “Come on, pretend it’s like a fire drill; no talking!” she cried, fighting to make herself known. “Find a partner.”

Dominic immediately reached for Chris’s hand, but Maria shook her head. She needed to calm Chris down first. “No, honey. You go be partners with Ria, all right?”

Eyeing Ria nervously, he reached to take her hand instead, half expecting her to pull back from him. When she didn’t, he sighed and rushed with her to the door.

“You’ll be my partner, Chris, okay?”

“No,” he whispered. “No, no, no, no!”

“Chris, now isn’t the time. We need to get out of the classroom and go to recess!” Maria cried, losing her temper. “You need to listen to what I’m telling you to do. Do you understand? Now stand right beside me so that you don’t get lost.”

Then, she went to the front of the double-filed line and said, “Follow me, everyone.”

Stunned into silence by the “Poltergeist” that inhabited their room, they all tagged behind her and into the schoolyard. There, she let them run free and play on the jungle gym. Whatever was in the classroom didn’t seem to have followed them outside. Inwardly, she let out a sigh of relief.

She heard a sniffle beside her and quickly lifted Chris into her arms. Why was he so affected? Granted, he probably wasn’t the bravest, most outgoing kid in the class; but even Dominic already seemed to have forgotten his fear.

“Come on, Chris. What’s the matter? It’s over, right? What’s the big deal?”

Gluing his mouth shut, he shook his head and refused to respond. Tears coursed, unchecked down his cheeks; his eyes were bloodshot and glossy from crying.

“All right, do you want to call your mommy, then?” she asked kindly.

“No!” he burst out, terrified of what she might say at the thought of… “No,” he repeated again, his tone resolute.

“Well, if you’re not going to tell me why you’re so worked up…”

He hung his head but remained silent. Sighing, she sat Chris down on the bench at grabbed her cell phone from her pocket. It was a good thing she brought it because she wasn’t about to leave the kids alone to go into a possessed classroom for the class phone.

From memory, she dialed Chris’s home phone number and waited for his mother to answer the phone. When she did, Maria quickly explained what had transpired, including the strange… occurrences—after all, why lie? She wasn’t crazy since the kids had noticed it, too. She had nothing to fear.

Nothing to fear but fear itself, she thought as she hung up the phone.

Forcing a smile, she said, “Your mommy’s on her way now.” She found it a bit odd that Mrs. Halliwell had sounded so… distant and—dare she say it?—angry after hearing about what had transpired. Maybe Chris had good reason to fear his mom.

Twenty minutes later, a car pulled up. Parking in the school lot, Mrs. Halliwell got out of her car, pulling a six-year-old boy out of the back seat. He glowered, as if he didn’t want to be here, and dragged his feet all the way down to the schoolyard. His blond curls bounced on his head.

“Wy!” Chris squealed, racing to his brother.

Mrs. Halliwell caught him around the middle and pulled him back to his teacher with a crisp, “Don’t think you’ll get off that easily, mister.” Chris lowered his gaze to his worn-out sneakers and blushed. Wyatt’s mood evaporated, and he flashed his younger brother an encouraging smile.

Poor Chris, he thought.

“Can I see what happened to the classroom?” Chris’s mother asked brusquely.

“Uh… I don’t know if it’s still going on, so—”

“I doubt it,” she interjected, shooting an irritated glare at her younger son. Ashamed, he hung his head, though Maria couldn’t figure out for the life of her why.

“All right,” she conceded with a sigh. After finding another teacher who was watching her kids play at recess and asking her to cover for a few minutes, Maria directed Mrs. Halliwell into her classroom. The room was a disaster after the mess that had been made, but it was completely still now.

Maria inched further into the room. Chris scampered into the room before she could stop him, clinging to Wyatt’s arm and jabbering excitedly. The older of the two brothers couldn’t get a single word in edgewise.

“Look, Wy, this is my cubby; and this is my picture of me, you, and Mommy; and this is our circle that we sit in for circle time; and—”

“Chris.”

Chris fell silent and glanced at his mother, biting his lip. Wyatt squeezed his hand supportively, and Chris shot him an appreciative glance before his gaze once against dropped to his feet.

“Uh… Mrs. Halliwell, is something—”

“Call me Piper,” Piper said with a calm smile.

“Piper, then. Is something going on here that I’m missing?” She looked from Piper to Chris to Wyatt and was met by three guilt-ridden expressions. Narrowing her eyes suspiciously, she crossed her arms over her chest, waiting for an explanation.

With a heavy sigh, Piper raised her eyes to the ceiling and yelled, “Leo!”

“Leo? As in your ex-husband—what does he have to do with this?” Maria questioned in confusion. She really hated being kept out of the loop.

“Why’re you calling Dad, Mom?” Wyatt asked in disbelief.

“Leo, you get you oh-so-blessed-butt down here right now!” Piper growled. “Or, I swear, I will blow you into next week!”

An array or musical, bright lights filtered into the room through the ceiling. Maria watched in wonder as the angelic glow took the form of a man—the ex-husband, she presumed.

Her eyes doubled in size as the man (in the strangest attire she had ever seen, by the way) appeared and said, “Piper, you know I can’t keep coming down here. It’s not right.”

“Daddy?” Chris whispered, his tone of shock the same one Maria felt.

“Not right?” Piper repeated, ignoring her son’s reaction and waving her arms wildly at him. He backed away slowly. “Not right?” she cried. “I’ll tell you what’s not right, Leo: you said you would be watching over your sons every second of every minute of every day!”

“I am,” he countered irritably.

“Then why is it that your son, the one you promised you’d watch over, was able to destroy his classroom?”

“Now, hold on one minute,” Maria said, finding her voice and speaking without even realizing it. “Chris was nowhere near any of those things when they fell.” She motioned towards the flowerpots and the lamp. Though she had no clue what was going on, she didn’t want Chris to get blamed when he was innocent.

Piper smiled gently. “He doesn’t have to be,” she explained calmly. “He’s a witch with the power of telekinesis; all he has to do is think something and it happens.”

“Wh-what?” Maria laughed.

“Are you insane?” Leo demanded in shock, saying the same words that Maria was thinking. “How could you tell her and expose magic! Piper, how—”

“I didn’t expose anything,” she interrupted, “because you’re going to clean this up.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. This is your fault for not watching his every move, so you get to deal with the aftermath. Meaning you get to dust all the kids and her.” Piper jerked her thumb at the teacher, and Chris cringed.

“Don’t worry,” Maria heard Wyatt whisper to his brother, and despite the predicament she had to smile.

After a few minutes of this heated discussion, she tuned them out and only caught the last part of the conversation. “No, Leo, I’m not sending them to Magic School!”

“Piper…” Leo replied, shaking his head.

“Don’t you ‘Piper’ me; these are my boys! When you walked out, I swore I would do what was best for them. Well, this is what’s best for them; they need normal lives, Leo. And that’s exactly what I’m going to give them.”

“Chris can’t stay in this school, though. It might trigger her memory.” He pointed to Maria, who frowned, not understanding what they were talking about.

“I know,” Piper concurred. “But Magic School is out of the question.”

Leo sighed, conceding, and stepped over to Maria, who instinctively took a step backwards. He smiled and apologized for what he was about to do.

“Wait, what are you—” she started to say.

When he opened his fist, she found it filled with a pile of sparkling, gray dust—like the sand in an hourglass. Before she could ask what it was, he blew it in her face. She blinked twice, swaying dangerously on her feet. She heard voices but made no sense of them. She was barely aware of her surroundings…

“Mrs. Maria?” Someone tugged on her sleeve, and she looked down. “Mrs. Maria.”

“Yes, Tommy?” she said, smiling down at him brightly.

“I’m done with my picture.” He handed it to her and added, “You can look at it now.”

“Oh, thank you.” Grinning, she looked at the beautiful display of colors splashed across the page. Underneath the wild rainbow were three people—one of them slightly obese. “So these are your parents?” she asked, pointing to two of the characters on his page.

“Yep,” he stated proudly. “And this is me.”

“That’s wonderful; do you want to take it home with you to show your mommy and daddy?” When he nodded, she handed it back to him to place in his cubby. “And then get ready to pack up because it’s time to go.”

Where had the day gone?

“Okay!” she called. “Clean-up time!” Just as before, verses of the “clean up” song rang throughout the classroom. When the room was relatively neat again—the markers back where the belonged and all the paper off the floor—Maria said, “All right, everyone get your bag and come sit down on the floor so we can say goodbye.”

They rushed to do as they were told.

She sat in front of them on a chair that forced her knees up to her chest and grinned at all of them. “When you come tomorrow,” she informed them, “we’ll be reading…”

“Three Little Pigs!” they cried in unison, and she nodded.

“That’s right,” she agreed. “But today it’s time to go. Let’s go around and say goodbye to everyone, all right?”

“Goodbye, Daniel,” they chorused. “Goodbye, Sarah; goodbye, Michael; goodbye, Rachel; goodbye, Karen; goodbye, Ria; goodbye Jackie; goodbye, Angela; goodbye Evan; goodbye, Tommy; goodbye, Justin; goodbye, goodbye, Alex; goodbye, Haley; goodbye, Dominic!”

Then, they all filed out of the classroom to where their parents were waiting in the hallway. As the last of them exited, she smiled wearily and began to tidy up for the next day. She was unusually exhausted and couldn’t wait to get into a nice, long shower and then just go to bed.

I’m going to start needing a naptime of my own, she laughed.

As she put away the papers and reached for a stray marker that had rolled under a table, she frowned. She just couldn’t shake the feeling that she was forgetting something...

A/N: All right, please review. I’d like to know what you think. I know it’s majorly different from my usual writing style. What can I say? My brain is fried this week, LoL!

Paalam

--Shan--