When they finished, Drake looked to a little girl with red pigtails. “Megan, it’s your turn to lead us in our classroom rules.”
Drake had taken the advice of his former teacher when she retired that he establish a set of simple rules for the classroom, stick with them, and remind the students of them often. So each morning, his class recited his five classroom rules. The kids really got into it because there were movements that went along with each rule and he’d turned the rules into a song they could sing.
“Rule one is fun,” Megan sang and the rest of the students joined in. They held their hands to their ears and swayed back and forth. “I’ll follow directions and listen all day, even when I go out to play.”
Drake sang along with the students and made exaggerated movements as they went through the rest of the rules to raise hands before speaking, to walk inside and not run, to be helpful to each other and not hurtful, and to use kind words when speaking to others.
“Great job, everyone. Who finished their homework assignment last night?” he asked and smiled as fourteen students raised their hands in the air. “That’s fantastic. Go ahead and take your seats then pass your homework up to the front of the row.”
Drake collected the papers and set them in the basket on his desk to grade later. After he wrote down the name of the one absent student, completed the list of the number of lunches needed that day and clipped it in the holder outside his door, he checked his planner to see which student’s turn it was for show-and-tell.
He glanced over at a shy little girl who reminded him of Drew at that age. The cascade of her thick brown curls partially hid her face. “Amy, did you bring anything for show-and-tell today?”
The little girl nodded but didn’t make eye contact with him.
“Want to share what you brought?” he asked, hunkering down by her desk.
Another slight nod. She chanced a glance up at him and he gave her a reassuring smile and placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Want to go up together?” he asked in a whisper.
She nodded again, this time with a little more enthusiasm. Quickly, she reached into her desk and pulled out something wrapped in a pristine white cloth. Drake took the hand not holding her treasure and led her to the front of the class.
Normally, he sat at his desk and let the student talk about what they brought, but with Amy, he dropped down to his knees beside her. “What do you have to show the class, Amy? I’m excited to see it.”
The barest hint of a smile touched her lips as she uncovered her treasure, folding back the cloth. Gingerly, she held it up for everyone to see.
“It’s a brown rock,” Billy said from his seat nearby.
Drake smiled at Amy and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “It’s beautiful, Amy.”
While the side of the rock facing the students looked like an ordinary brown blob of stone, the side Amy held toward her contained bright ribbons of color unlike anything Drake had ever seen.
Slowly, Amy turned the big rock over and the students gasped in surprise.
“It looks like a rainbow,” Megan said, excitedly clapping her hands as she leaned forward on her desk.
“If I’m not mistaken, that is an iris agate thunderegg, is that right, Amy?” Drake asked the little girl as she slowly walked down the row of desks nearest her so each student could see the wondrous rock up close.
“Yes,” Amy said in a quiet voice.
Nick raised his hand and waved it over his head.
“Yes, Nick,” Drake asked, glad the boy remembered the rule about raising hands before talking.
“What’s a thunderegg, Mr. Miller? Does it come from a bird, like other eggs? I bet it would hurt laying a hard egg like that. My mom takes care of chickens sometimes and I’ve seen them lay eggs before. It wouldn’t be fun to lay a rock.”
Drake tried not to laugh. To hide his amusement, he turned to the white board and picked up a red marker. He drew two squiggly lines about a foot apart down the length of the board before he picked up a blue marker and turned back to the students.
“Thundereggs do not come from a bird, Nick, but that was a very good question.” Drake pointed to the red lines on his board. When a volcano erupts, lava flows out of it.” At the confused look on their faces, he tried to think of something to compare it to. “Have any of you ever seen soda pop flow out of a bottle or glass when it’s all foamy?”
Most of the students nodded.
“It’s kind of like that. Pressure builds inside and pushes the lava out. Some volcanoes that erupted a long, long time ago had a specific type of lava called rhyolite. It flowed slowly, kind of like if you squeezed a tube of toothpaste just a little too tight to watch it squirt out.” Drake pointed to the red lines again then moved his arms downward in slow motion. “So while this lava was slowly flowing down the volcano, gas pockets would form.”
“The volcano got the toots!” one little boy said on a giggle and soon the whole class was laughing.
Drake shook his head. “Not that kind of gas, Kale.” He opened the cupboard behind his desk and took out a balloon and quickly inflated it. “A gas pocket in the lava would have been kind of like this.” He held the balloon up to the board between the two red lines then traced its shape with the blue marker. “As the rock cooled and hardened, the gas would escape, leaving behind an empty shape with cracks.” He let the air out of the balloon, drawing more giggles from his students.
After giving them an indulgent smile, he continued with the unplanned science lesson. “Water would bubble up through the rock and carry something called silica. It would turn into a Jello-like substance as it oozed along. Then it would start to fill that empty pocket in layers. The outer layer would be darker, but inside, the Jello-like stuff would blend with minerals and form agates, jaspers, and chalcedony.”
“Mr. Miller?” Billy asked, waving his hand over his head. “What’s cal… cal’s pony?”
“Chalcedony is a form of quartz, usually gray or milky white.” Drake took the rock from Amy and held it up so light refracted through the brilliant array of colors. “This is an agate with the colors pressed into bands inside the rock. If we cut a thin slice of this rock and held it up to the light it would shimmer and shine.”
“Like glitter?” Emily asked, forgetting to raise her hand.
“Exactly,” Drake said, having too much fun to remind the little girl to raise her hand before speaking.
He handed the rock back to Amy and held the cloth while she placed the rock in the center of it. “Where did you find such a wonderful thunderegg, Amy?”
The little girl gave him a brief glance as she carefully wrapped the rock. “My daddy found it when he was working and brought it home. He let me watch when he broke it open.”
“I bet that was lots of fun,” Drake said, giving the child a pat on her back as she scurried back to her desk and tucked the rock inside. “What do we say to Amy for bringing in such a fun show-and-tell for us today?”
“Thank you, Amy!” the class chorused.
“Okay, let’s get busy with phonics!” Drake said, guiding the class into his lesson plans for the day.
While the students were at recess, he walked around outside, half-frozen, as he watched both his class and the second graders play. At least he didn’t have playground duty during the lunch break this week. It wouldn’t be his turn for a few more weeks, but by then they’d probably have a foot of snow on the ground and it would be freezing. Then again, it could warm up and be sunny. Although at their elevation, they generally had a white Christmas.
Thoughts of Christmas made Drake wonder what Angela would do for the holiday. The past two years, she’d taken Nick back to visit her grandmother in Tennessee, but her grandmother had passed away in January, so he doubted she’d go south. He thought it odd she never went to Colorado to visit her folks, never talked about them. It also seemed strange Angela had their last name, but perhaps she’d kept it for professional reasons. Since her husband died before Nick
was born, it made sense she’d given him her last name. Questions about her past niggled at him again, but he cast them aside as he stood and blew his whistle. Two of the second-graders had engaged in a shoving match.
“That’s enough, boys. If you don’t want to spend the rest of your recess sitting at a table in the hall, find something better to do than fight.”
The two boys stormed off to opposite ends of the playground, but continued glaring at each other. Drake was glad his students all got along. Even if some of his students could be challenging, they all abided by his rules of being kind and respectful to each other. The two troublemakers he’d just whistled at had been in his class the previous year. He hadn’t put up with any of their nonsense then, but the new second-grade teacher had yet to figure out how to keep her students in line. He’d tried to help her a few times, but Miss Bradshaw had her own ideas and opinions of how everything should be done.
Drake was glad he hadn’t been afraid to take advice from experienced teachers when he first started. Mrs. Edwards had been a jewel, sharing her many years of wisdom with him. If he hadn’t taken her tips for success to heart, he wasn’t sure he would have survived his first year of teaching.
With a glance at his watch, Drake blew his whistle in three quick blasts, the signal recess was over. The students ran to the door then got into line, with the second-graders leading the way.
When the children settled down and quieted, he opened the door and held it as they filed inside. Drake trailed his students to their room and closed the door behind him. The rest of the day passed quickly. By the time the bell rang at the end of the day, he was as ready to escape as the students.
He walked to the door and smiled at each youngster, wishing them a happy weekend. Before Amy walked out of the room, Drake hunkered down and smiled at her. “Thanks for bringing that cool rock, Amy. It’s really awesome.”
The little girl beamed with pleasure then hurried out to get on the bus.
Drake released a relieved sigh as the last student left his room. He glanced outside to see if Angela picked up Nick, but it was the vet clinic receptionist. Angela must be in the midst of something, or she never would have sent Tiffany to pick up her son. He started to text her to see if she needed him to help with anything, but stopped himself. She would remind him he already had plans.
Fridays evenings, he and Drew hung out with their good friends, Seth and Rhett. The four of them had kept their weekly get-togethers since Rhett moved back to Faraday a few years ago. Rarely did one of them have a date on Friday night, so they took turns hosting the gathering. They watched movies or ballgames, talked about happenings in the community, and relaxed after a hard week’s work.
Drake hurried to finish grading papers, made sure he had his class plans prepared for the coming week, and then cleaned the classroom. He made it a point to spray a disinfectant around the room because Kale had spent most of the day sniffling and wiping his nose on his shirtsleeve instead of the box of tissues he had in his desk.
Thoroughly washing his hands when he finished, he turned off the lights, gathered his things, and hurried out to his SUV.
The overcast sky spit out bits of sleet mingled with little flakes of snow.
“It’s only the second week of November,” he grumbled turning his face up to the darkening sky. If the temperature continued to plummet and the snow continued to fall, he wondered if the town council would cancel the Veteran’s Day parade. It would be a shame if they had to, but no one needed to be out in a blizzard.
In the time it took him to run by the grocery store, then the café where he talked his mom out of a dozen brownies before he drove home, the snow began to fall in earnest. Drake put away the groceries, took his messenger bag to his room, then jumped into a hot shower. He’d been cold since he went out at recess. He dressed in a thermal shirt then added a heavy sweatshirt over the top before sending a text to Rhett that he and Drew still planned to be there for dinner, but they might be late.
He’d just hit send when the door opened and Drew rushed inside along with a blast of cold air.
Drew shook flakes of snow from his hair and brushed it off the shoulders of the navy blue coat of his postal uniform. “I hate snow.”
Drake smirked. “Maybe you should have thought about that before you took the job as Faraday’s mailman.”
Rather than reply, Drew scowled at him and unlaced his work boots then removed his coat. “Give me a minute to take a hot shower and I’ll be ready to go. Did you get brownies from Mom?”
“I did. They’re packed in a box and ready to go,” Drake pointed to a take-out box on the counter in the kitchen. “And before you ask, no, I didn’t use all the hot water. Just hustle.”
Ten minutes later, they were on their way to Rhett’s place on the edge of town. Lolly, the famous camel, stood in the pasture watching them as they drove by.
“Suppose Lolly has welcomed Rhett’s new neighbor?” Drake asked as he turned up the lane that led to Rhett’s house.
The two brothers glanced at the recently restored Victorian house on the other side of the camel’s pasture.
Drew shrugged. “The lights are on, looks like someone is home, so Lolly probably hasn’t scared them off yet.”
After parking at the back door, Drake grabbed the brownies and the two of them hurried inside along with a flurry of snowflakes.
“What the heck did you two do?” Rhett asked as he glanced outside at the swirling snow. “It’s too early for a snowstorm.”
Drew glared at their friend. “I certainly didn’t order it. You think I enjoy delivering mail in this kind of weather?”
“The temperature dropped ten degrees in the last five minutes,” Drake said, removing his coat and giving it a shake outside to dislodge the snow before closing the door. “Is that your famous chili I smell or has Lolly been breathing through the window again?”
The evening went well until Rhett’s neighbor called, sounding near hysteria at Lolly being over at her house. Drake thought Rhett ought to call the woman back and apologize, or at least offer to retrieve the camel, but he ignored the call. However, Rhett kept glancing out the window in the direction of the neighbor’s house every few minutes. Perhaps Lolly continued going over to the woman’s house for a reason, one Rhett needed to discover.
Drake grinned to himself as he dug into the chili and mused over the romantic possibilities that could spring up in Faraday with the arrival of a new woman or two in town. Too bad he couldn’t dream of any future possibilities for himself. Hope was a cold, distant stranger when all he really wanted was to be with Angela.
Chapter Four
“Puh-lease, Mommy?” Nick begged, holding his hands beneath his chin and giving Angela his most angelic look. “Pretty please?”
Angela almost laughed at him because no matter how hard he tried to appear innocent, his snapping dark eyes and impish little face always made it look like he was about to embark on a venture of mischief.
“Baby, I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Angela said. She ran her hand through his dark hair then brushed his bangs away from his face.
“But, Mom,” he whined, dragging out every letter until it sounded like four words. “It’s my turn for show-and-tell. Why can’t I take Jasper?”
Angela tucked the snack she’d prepared for him in an insulated bag with her lunch and set it next to her purse by the back door. Nick dogged her steps as she returned to the kitchen and filled an insulated travel mug with sweetened spicy tea. She much preferred it to the taste of coffee and the caffeine in it gave her almost the same jolt as she got from java.
“Honey…” Angela hunkered down so she could look Nick right in the eye. “What happened when you took Shep to school for show-and-tell?”
Nick glanced down and scuffed the toe of his sock back and forth across the kitchen floor. “He got scared and ran over some kids, then made poopies in the hall. Mrs. Beeler was really, really mad.”
“That’s right. I don’t want th
e same thing to happen with Jasper.” Angela had no idea why the bird refused to fly. She’d examined him several times, even X-rayed his wings to make sure he wasn’t injured, but the dove seemed perfectly content to stay with her and Nick. She’d planned to take him to the clinic so he wouldn’t be alone in the quiet house all day, but a blizzard had kept her from moving him that weekend. Instead, she and Nick had made a place for him in the garage, which was warm and well insulated. He could at least coo at the cats and dog that way.
Oscar and Grover thought he was a new playmate and Brutus tolerated him as long as he didn’t try to land on the dog when he was out of his cage. Nick spent the better part of an hour each evening playing with his animals.
Since the weather had been so cold, Angela relented and let him bring Shep into the garage during playtime, but only if Nick cleaned up any messes that were made. So far, Shep had been good to not leave behind any accidents. Nick faithfully cleaned Jasper’s cage after he fed the dog and cats. While he did, Jasper hopped around the garage, playing with an old tennis ball Brutus liked to chew on. Between the bird, the ram, two cats, and the dog, the little boy had plenty of playmates.
However, Angela didn’t think it wise to take Jasper to school for a number of reasons, but the most prominent being she didn’t want to go inside and face Drake.
He’d practically begged her to spend Thanksgiving with him and his family, saying several friends would join them for dinner at the café. Angela just wasn’t in the mood to offer polite conversation. The holidays were a horrible reminder of the darkest point in her past and the faster they came and went, the happier she’d be. She knew she should embrace the season with a heart full of gratitude, but she struggled with it. Struggled to keep up a good front for her son when she really wanted to hibernate from Thanksgiving until after New Year’s Day.
On top of that, she couldn’t spend time around Drake and not be drawn to him, to his warm and caring spirit, or his fun and exciting personality. Everything about him intrigued her, fascinated her, and enthralled her.
Wings of an Angel Page 4