“Are you going to be all right?”She said that she’d be all right, as she got them once in a while.“Well, don’t suffer needlessly.If you have something to take for it, then do it.No one would want youcoming to work if you feel that bad.”
“You’re a nice man, Brenin.Why haven’t you found your mate yet?She’d be lucky to have you in her life.”He said that he was looking, but she wasn’t his mate.“Good one.I’ll see you around.Try to find her before she gets married to someone else, then you’ll have a problem.”
He knew that the same thing had happened to Dana’s brother Carl.He’d been looking for his mate only to find out that she’d been married to another man for years, and she wasn’t willing to give up on a sure thing.He’d ended up killing himself over it, and she’d never been the same since.His heart broke for the other woman, and he wondered if she had someone out there for herself.He hoped so.She was a wonderful person, too.
~*~
Lisa was on her last table when she got a phone call from the school.Nervous about getting a call from anyone at work, she took the call and waited for them to put her on hold.Who did that sort of thing?Call a person about an emergency only to be put on hold so that she could talk to them.
“Mrs.Manchester?There’s been an accident at the school.Your son is all right, but he’s very upset that his other friend Toby is hurt.”She asked what had happened.“There was an incident on the play yard, and he was hurt by a bigger boy.He’s going to be fine as well, just needs a few stitches, but it’s your son who is upset the most.He said his best friend in the whole wide world is hurt, and he can’t help him.I knew your son was tender-hearted, but this about broke all of our hearts.He wants to go home with him so he can take care of him.”
“That’s terrible news about Toby.”Again, she was upset about how much information the school and daycare that Davy went to gave out information so freely.“Does he want me to come and get him?I can, it’s no problem here.”
“I think he just needs to talk to you.He is pretty upset.”She told the woman that she’d be more than happy to come and get him.“That might be the best thing.He’s still crying, and I’m fearful that he’s going to make himself sick over this.”
“I’ll leave here in a few minutes.Tell him that I’m coming.”She said that she’d do that and hung up the phone.Leaving her last table would be hard, but something that she’d done before when her son got sick.Davy might only be seven, but he was big hearted when it came to others that he considered friends.She told her boss what was going on, and they told her to leave.She was there to get him twenty minutes later and was glad that she’d gone to get him.
He was inconsolable.After taking him home, glad that she didn’t have to work tonight, he laid down on his bed and cried himself to sleep.He kept going on about the bully not hitting him, but hitting his friend.She had a feeling that Toby had saved her son from a good beating by stepping in, and it hurt her that there were still bullies around the school.When he finally fell asleep, she closed his door and worked on grading papers for the local high school until he got up.
Just as she thought, Davy had been the target of the bully’s attempts to hurt someone.He’d been picking at Davy for the past week, something that she wasn’t aware of, and he’d punched the other little boy in the face.After knocking him down, apparently, he kicked him in the belly and ribs until he was no longer conscious.No wonder he was so upset; it sounded to her like little Toby would be hurting for a while.He’d been sent to the hospital by ambulance, and that had upset her son, too.An ambulance had meant certain death as far as he was concerned, and that was what had upset him so much.
“We’ll call his mom in the morning to see how he’s doing.”He asked why they couldn’t call her now.“It might be too soon.I promise you I’ll call first thing in the morning and we’ll see how he’s doing.Is that all right with you?”
“Yes, I guess so.There was so much blood, Mom.I couldn’t believe how bad he was being hurt.It was like he was trying to kill him.”She asked about the bully and was ashamed to find out that he’d been knocking her son around for the past two weeks, and she’d not known anything about it.“Toby will be my best friend forever because he took the beating for me.I was going to be hurt, Markus said so, when Toby kicked him in the shin, he took it out on him.He said that I was a bastard boy.I don’tknow what that means.”
“It means that your father was never in the picture.”She was going to call the school in the morning, too, and let them know a piece of her mind.They had to know this was going on, as Davy said that he’d told his teacher every day that he’d be knocked around.Even Toby had tried to tell the teacher.“Your father died.He would have loved to have been here for us, but something happened, and he was taken from us too young.”
She held onto Davy for the rest of the night.Every time she got up to go to the bathroom, he would whimper.Maybe she was making him a momma’s boy because she was cuddling him so much, but she didn’t care tonight.He’d had his heart broken, and she knew only one way to make it better, and that was to be there for him.
After sending him to bed, she knew that he was going to have bad dreams.He’d been mostly upset that his friend had been hurt, but the amount of blood that was surrounding the little boy had scared him.As soon as she knew that the school was open, she gave them a call.
“Mrs.Manchester, boys will be boys.They just had a little scuffle on the playground, and one of them took it too far.”She asked how Toby was.“We’ve not heard anything.The last time we spoke to Mrs.Warfield was when we called her to tell her to meet the ambulance at the hospital.”
“You never thought to see if the little boy was all right?”She said that they assumed he was because the medics had said he’d be in the hospital for a couple of days.“My god, he’s seven years old.You should have called to tell her that you’re taking care of the bully at least.You are, aren’t you?Making sure that he’s been punished for what he’d done, correct?”
“Like I said to you before, boys will be boys, and things like this happen on the school yard all the time.He’ll be fine and back to school before too much longer.”She wanted to scream at the woman that wasn’t the point, but she hung up on her instead.Calling Toby’s mother, she was glad when she answered.Her voice was so solemn that she almost didn’t ask how her son was.
“He has a broken wrist and leg.Plus, he has seven broken ribs.”She sat down, she felt so guilty by feeling glad that it hadn’t been her own son that had been hurt.“His face got the worst of it.He has to have several surgeries to repair the damage done to his cheeks.You should see him.My little boy is a mess, and they have him on all kinds of tubes running into his body to keep him out of pain.”
“I’m so sorry.I had no idea it was so bad.Davy told me that there had been a great deal of blood, but I didn’t know what had happened.”She told her that she was suing the school as soon as she found an attorney who would take her on.“I’m so very sorry about this.If I can do anything, let me know.”
“I will.They said that Davy was the one who was in trouble with the boy.I’m so happy for their friendship, but upset that this had to happen.Toby will be in the hospital for weeks now, they told me.I don’t have any kind of insurance for anything like this.I just don’t know what to do but to sue the school.”She didn’t agree or disagree with the mom.“Do you know of a good attorney?I sure could use all the help I can get with this.”
“I don’t know any attorneys at all.I’ve never had the use for one before.”When Mrs.Warfield started to cry, it broke her heart that she couldn’t do anything for her.“I’ll ask around to see what I can figure out for you.I’m not making any promises, but I will keep my ear out to find one for you.I’m so sorry this happened to you.And with you just moving here and all.”
“We came here because we were told that they had a good school system.So far, I’m not seeing it.My husband is fit to be tied.”She would bet that he was.She was, and it wasn’t even her child.“I have to get off here now.Thank you for calling.If it’s all right, I might call you sometime.It’s done me a world of good just to be able to vent right now.I just don’t know what we’re going to do.This wasn’t his fault, and now we’re going to be up to our eyes in debt because some kid decided to knock the shit out of my son like he was nothing but a rag doll.”
After getting off the phone, she decided that she was going to keep Davy home for the day.She didn’t want him going to school upset and hearing what had happened to young Toby.She was going to tell him that he’d been hurt really badly, but that’s about all.She didn’t want him to be upset anymore than he needed to be.As soon as she woke him up to go to daycare, he said that he wantedto go to school.No amount of persuading would keep him from going.He wanted to talk to his other friends about it and be together.She supposed she could understand that.She didn’t want to take him, but he needed to go he told her.
Going to work after dropping him off at school, she was nervous all day.When the party of four came in that had stayed so late the other time for lunch, they asked for her.It was all she could do not to beg them to stay late as they had before, because she had an upset child at school and she might have to go get him.But she didn’t.When it turned into a party of six, she was glad that she’d stay busy for the afternoon when the school didn’t call her.
They were big men and ordered a great deal of food.She was always ready with a smile when she had a big table and got them their food in record time.As soon as all their drinks were refilled, she called the school to see how her son was doing.
“I would have thought that you’d have kept him home today, Mrs.Manchester.”She felt like they were shaming her and decided to ignore them for now.“He’s with his other little friends, and they’ve been hanging out together.He still seems to be upset, but not like he had been yesterday.”She asked about the bully.“Tommy?He’s fine.He’s in class right now.Why would you ask?”
“Because he beat a little boy nearly to death yesterday.Aren’t you going to do anything about him?”She said that again.That boys will be boys, and there was no harm done.“He’s going to be in the hospital for weeks now.He has broken ribs and a wrist, and a leg.His mother told me that he’s going to need more surgeries on his little face because of what Tommy did.You think that’s normal for boys to be?”
“I don’t know what it is you’re upset about.Nothing happened to your boy.Just stay out of it before we have to make sure that Davy doesn’t go to school here anymore.”She said that she couldn’t do that.“We have ways of getting rid of the bad apples.You just keep your opinion to yourself and not call here again, making accusations that you can’t cover.”Then the line went dead.
