Haddie felt her pulse quicken and her cheeks warm as she waited for Levi’s response.
“I don’t think students are supposed to ask teachers those kinds of questions,” Levi told her.
“Sure they can,” Piper assured him. “My mom and I read the classroom policy and procedure book together because we like to know all the rules, and there was nothing in the book about asking one teacher if they think another teacher is pretty. Right, Miss Martin?”
Haddie hoped the color in her cheeks had receded when sheturned to face Piper and Levi again. “What’s that, Piper? I was over here keeping an eye on Christopher’s markers. Did you say something?”
Levi scoffed. “You heard, you little eavesdropper,” he teased.
Haddie looked at her watch and gasped. “Oh wow! Look at the time! Piper, make sure Mr. Rourke and your table are finishing their rainbows, okay? I’m not sure our visitor knows how to do the project.” She raised her brows, redirecting Piper into miniature teacher mode, a mode the young girl loved almost as much as being line leader.
“Okay,” Levi said to Piper and the three other kids in her little pod. “How are we growing a rainbow?”
Haddie stood and pretended to check on the rest of the pods. But she made a point to glide past Levi’s pod more than was necessary, especially with Piper at the helm. She watched from a distance as Levi’s group of children gave him his own precut and folded section of paper towel and showed him how they were laying it horizontally and then coloring each edge with six one-inch bars of color: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple.
“You have to color all the way to the end,” Piper told him. “And it’s okay if it gets on the desk because it washes off, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to color on the desk on purpose.” She gave him a stern look.
Levi nodded once. “Got it, Boss. Color to the edge, but don’t color on the desk on purpose.”
The girl next to Piper giggled. “She’s not yourboss!” she told Levi.
Levi’s mouth fell open in mock surprise. “She’s not?” he replied.“Well, then who is?”
“MissMartin!” the whole pod answered in unison.
They all glanced toward Haddie, who was of course already staring at them, which meant she was caught red-handed. So she simply shrugged and then busied herself straightening piles of papers on her desk.
Levi got back to work among his giggling cohort. Piper nodded toward the small plastic cups of water in front of him. “Do this,” she began, demonstrating with her own rainbow-edged paper towel. She laid the folded towel over the side-by-side lips of the cups, gently dipping the rainbow edges into each respective cup but leaving the white middle flat and facing up.
“How did you know what to do?” Levi asked, sounding genuinely awed at the small girl who was effectively teaching the activity.
Piper shrugged. “I’m table leader this week. And for all table activities, Miss Martin lets the table leaders help out when she does her demonstration so we can show our tables what to do. But next week? I get to belineleader, which is even better because I get to lead the class through the halls and to our specials classes. Specials means music, art, library, and physical education, in case you didn’t know.”
Levi nodded sagely and followed his table leader’s directions, as did the rest of the group. Once she’d assessed that the other pods were doing just fine, Haddie meandered among her clumps of students until she stopped at Levi’s clump.
For several seconds, they all simply stared at thenothingthat was happening on the paper towels. Haddie knew what wascoming, but they didn’t. And she loved seeing students’ reactions to a new lesson, especially when it went according to plan and wasn’t a teacher Pinterest fail.
A moment later, a collective gasp rose from the members of the pod, Levi included.
“The colors aremoving,” he stage-whispered. “So freaking cool!”
“I don’t think you’re supposed to say ‘freaking,’” the boy to Levi’s right accused.
Levi waved him off. “It’s okay,” he assured the kid. “Last time I checked the policy and procedures handbook, ‘freaking’ was not a swear.” He glanced up at Haddie and gave her a conspiratorial wink.
The boy relaxed into his chair and stared at his own rainbow as it started to grow from the outside in. “So freaking cool,” he parroted, and Levi’s mouth fell open.
Haddie returned his wink with a glare that she hoped conveyed,I’m going to have fun fielding that parent phone call this afternoon.
“But maybe only say it here?” Levi amended, and Haddie really hoped the kid would take him up on the suggestion.
For the next several minutes, the whole class seemed to watch in rapt silence as tiny rainbows bloomed from equally tiny glasses of water.
A phone timer sounded, and Haddie practically leaped toward the front of the room. “Okay, my little scientists,” she called. “Clap once if you can hear me.”
The whole class—Levi included—clapped once.
“Claptwiceif you can hear me,” Haddie said this time.
