Chasing the Sun (A Rebound Novella Book 2) by Nikki Mathis Thompson

Author:Nikki Mathis Thompson [Mathis Thompson, Nikki]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-09-08T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

She wore two braids and a dress with small flowers. Her legs were skinny and a pair of bright white sandals covered her feet. She stood in front of the class with her hands clasped in front of her stomach, her eyes on the linoleum floor.

“Class, we have a new student,” Mrs. Hardin, their elderly third grade teacher, announced. She was probably only in her fifties, but she might as well have been Grandma Moses as far as a bunch of eight-year-olds were concerned.

“This is Lena Hamilton. She just moved here from Nebraska. Please do your part to make her feel welcome.” She turned to Lena, took her by the shoulders and walked her to the empty desk in the back left corner of the classroom. Right in front of the Benjamin Franklin projects that were posted on the wall.

Ian noticed the energy in the room shift. Two little girls whispered in the front row, a soft giggle came from one of them. Abi Reynolds. She was a little curly red-haired girl that was probably mean right out of the womb. He heard a snide remark about her glasses from one of his buddies that sat behind him. Ian was uncomfortable, this new little girl was obviously scared and shy. He wondered why they were unkind without even knowing her.

Mrs. Hardin started to prattle on about verbs. Ian was jolted from his daydream when the bell rang for lunch which was followed by recess. These two events were the great equalizers for a young kid. You could be shunned into pariah-ville in the cafeteria— forced to sit alone, eyes on the table as you chewed your PB&J. And one could only hope to be ignored on the playground, where the weakest of the herd were separated and eliminated. That was blacktop warfare and he was worried about little Lena Hamilton. She had baby gazelle written all over her.

Ian was with a few friends, they were playing basketball on the blacktop when sure enough he heard crying. He threw the ball to Jeremy Teasley, trying his best to ignore the sniffs.

“I’ll be back.”

He walked into the shade where Lena sat on the ground, dirt on her pale knee.

“You okay?”

She didn’t answer at first. She sniffed and cleaned her glasses on the bottom of her dress.

“Yeah, I’ll be all right,” she said her voice sure.

“Which one pushed you?”

“I think it was the tall one.” Lena said, wiping her eyes with her arm. “They made fun of my dress and then the tall one had a very original four eyes comment.”

He laughed. This girl was tougher than she looked and he liked how she talked. She was different, in a good way.

“I’m Ian.” He offered his hand and helped her stand up. She brushed off the front of her dress and stood tall for the first time that he’d noticed.

“Lena.”

“Don’t let those jerks get to you. They’re mean to everybody, even each other. You see that girl over there with the purple

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.