She smoothed down her hair and settled the skirt that Kelly was wearing. Kelly giggled and swung their joined hands once they’d left the house.
“Kelly, my love, you seem more excited than me.” her voice was warm as her daughter skipped alongside her, hand still firmly in her mother’s.
“Course I am, Mama! It’s the first day of school!”
She nodded to any others in the halls once they’d entered the building that wasn’t far from their small home. She had chosen a house close enough to walk to her new job at. The Junior High that she had been hired at had a day school for children not yet old enough to attend the community’s kindergarten. That as well as the small military fort just outside of the seemingly small town’s borders helped her to feel safe even if the odds of said people being able to protect her and her child weren’t good.
She listened to Kelly’s chattering through the school’s halls on the way to the rooms that the day school was held in. The day classes were a small part of the school’s child development program, but from what she had been able to discern from the few people she had already met (and if she was being honest, the few waves of intent she had sent out) she knew that her Kelly would be safe.
After dropping Kelly off with her new teacher, and boy had Kelly made a lovely impression with her exuberance! She turned her path back towards the main entrance hall of the school. There she found the library and let herself in with the small key she had been given at the end of the hiring process.
There were already a few teens waiting for her to open up the small library and they were more than willing to chat with the new librarian for a few minutes while she finished opening the doors.
“I’m glad you were able to come in so early on your first day!” more than one of them took the time to tell her after introducing themselves, “The last librarian was always opening the library maybe ten minutes before the first bell rang, Ms. Smith!”
She smiled, “You don’t have to be so formal all the time,” she would tell a few of them, “I’m not just Ms. Smith, call me Hailey.”
She’d always felt more comfortable around children, no matter what age they were, than she had with adults. They didn’t feel threatening, even if they had threatened her, which none of these teens had done.
One boy smirked playfully, “Whatever you say, Ms. Hailey.”
Written for this week’s FreeWriteFriday prompt.
http://kellieelmore.com/2014/01/03/fwf-free-write-friday-time-place-2/
Breathing In 