Page 97 of Welcome to Forever
The Friendship Club, created to help troubled students increase their self-esteem, is also working to care for Seaside’s local soldiers who are in need of a home-cooked meal and a show of appreciation…Principal Chandler believes every child wants to succeed. They want to do well at something, even if it’s doing well at stirring up trouble in the classroom, she says. The Friendship Club shows these children that they are capable of working together as a team to create something beautiful.
Kat finished the article and smiled up at Val. “This is amazing.”
“We’ll have to make sureeveryonesees it,” Val agreed, glancing in the direction of Dora Burroughs’s office. Then she lifted the paper off Kat’s desk and hooked her head with a wicked grin. “No time like the present.” She winked and walked out the door, closing it behind her.
Kat grinned ear to ear. Not that she wanted to rub her good news in anyone’s face.Much. She’d have to call and thank Mr. Todd for writing such a flattering article about the school and Friendship Club later.
Another knock sounded on her door. This one was softer than Val’s had been. “Come in.”
The knob turned and Ben pushed his wheelchair inside. “Hi, Principal Chandler,” he said in a sullen voice.
“Ben.” Just seeing him made her heart squeeze. She loved that disheveled hair. And that large, toothy grin he usually wore, stretching through his freckled cheeks. He wasn’t grinning today, however. “Everything okay?” she asked.
With his right arm, he rolled his wheelchair closer to her desk and stopped, keeping his head down.
“Are you sick? Do you need me to call your dad?”
He shook his head. “No. Miss Hadley sent me here.”
“To my office?” Kat straightened as she made the connection. Ben had been sent to the principal’s office. “Oh. Well, what happened?”
He lifted one shoulder, keeping his eyes planted on the floor.
“Can you at least look at me?” She lowered her voice. “Please.” As he slowly lifted his head, she saw the tears shining in his eyes, and her heart nearly broke in half.
“I’m s-sorry. Please don’t tell my dad.”
She quickly moved around her desk, grabbing some Kleenex and crouching beside him. “Tell him what? I don’t even know why you’re here yet.”
He sniffed, wiping quickly at his tears. “A girl in my class said that moms aren’t Marines. She said my mom didn’t really go to war, she just left me.”
Kat sucked in a breath. “You know that’s not true, though. Your mom is a Marine.”
“And she left me, too.” His eyes flooded over. “So I called the girl a stupid idiot.”
“A stupid idiot? Ben, that’s not very nice.” And it wasn’t like him to call people names.
His lips quivered. “I didn’t mean it. I was just…”
Large tears spilled down his cheeks. Kat dabbed them gently with a tissue in her hand.
“I just want my mom to want me,” he said. “And I don’t want her to die. And I don’t want you to leave me and my dad, either.”
She squeezed his hand. “I’m not leaving you, honey. Don’t worry about that. Have you talked to your dad about how you feel?”
He nodded, but she was willing to venture that Micah hadn’t heard all of it. “Listen, I have a friend. Mr. Blakely. I’d like you to talk to him, too. Would that be okay?”
“The school counselor?” Ben asked, looking up.
Kat nodded. “He’s been dying to hear about how you got the kids to talk to their plants this year.”
This made the corners of Ben’s mouth curve. “Okay.” He hesitantly met her eyes. “Are you going to tell my dad what I did?”
Kat pressed her lips together. “I might. But you’re not in trouble. As long as you apologize to the stup—”
Ben’s mouth fell open as she started to repeat the names that had gotten him sent to her office. And yeah, it was probably in bad principal form, but seeing his little eyes light up, she’d make the exception. “And promise me that you won’t call anyone else names.”
He nodded slowly. “Promise.”
