Page 50 of Sweet Surprises

Normally, Chance was among the first, but today he was almost the last child out. And he was dragging his feet.

“Hey, buddy,” Olivia said, crouching down to his level. “What’s wrong?”

He collapsed in his sister’s arms without speaking, and Olivia’s eyes went worriedly to Charlotte’s. She knew that she needed to do something, but she honestly had no idea what.

“I have to tell you something, Chance,” Charlotte said, crouching and whispering loudly, hoping it would distract Chance from whatever had him feeling so low.

“What is it?” Chance asked, his face tearstained when he pulled it back from Olivia’s coat.

“When I’m really upset,” Charlotte said, “I like to talk about it like I’m telling a story.”

“What are you talking about?” Olivia asked.

“Like this,” Charlotte said. “Charlotte had a bad day today. She made a mistake at the ice cream shop and strawberry ice cream went all over the place. One strawberry was stuck on the ceiling, and she didn’t find it until later, and she had to use a mop to get it down.”

“You did do that,” Chance reminded her.

“I know,” she said, shaking her head and looking down sadly.

He giggled, as she had hoped he would.

“See?” she said, meeting his eyes again. “Sometimes, when you say it out loud, it even seems a little funny.”

“Not this time,” he said.

“Why not?” she asked.

“I was bad in library,” he said.

His voice broke on the last word, and his expression was so downcast that it hurt her heart.

“Well, it sounds like you’re very sorry for whatever happened,” she ventured, uncertain how to proceed.

“I’mnotsorry,” he said, stamping his little boot in the snow.

She wasn’t sure what kind of response she’d been expecting, but she was definitely caught off guard by that.

“What do you mean you’re not sorry?” Olivia demanded.

“They were making fun of Taylor for his scratch,” Chance said angrily. “I told them to leave him alone. And I said it in my loudest loud voice.”

“Taylor has a cleft palate scar,” Olivia said quietly, running the tip of her index finger between her nose and her upper lip.

The injustice of it lit up like a fire in Charlotte’s chest.

“Chance Lawrence, you listen to me right now,” she told him, placing her hands on his shoulders. “I don’t care what the teacher said. You did the right thing by standing up to those kids.”

“I did?” he asked, a tiny light of hope in his eyes.

“I wish I’d had a brave friend like you when I was little,” she told him honestly.

“But I wasn’t allowed to check out a book,” he said, his face falling again. “Because I was too loud.”

“You can borrow one of my books,” Olivia told him. “I’ve got tons.”

“Goosebumps,” he said, his eyes getting big with excitement.

“You’re still too little forGoosebumpsbooks,” Olivia told him. “But I’ve gotMiss Nelson is Missing.”

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