Chapter 168

#Chapter 168: Little Lawyer Moana “You know…” Ella frowned and folded her arms, puffing out her chest confidently before I could say anything. After those little girls nastily called her a half-blood and shoved her, I had expected Ella to come to me crying and that I would have to send them to the headmistress’s office, and all on my first day of teaching. But instead, Ella stood up straight and took on a confident air that I hadn’t expected from her.

“Buzz off,” one of the other little girls said, waving her hand dismissively. “We don’t bother with half-

bloods. You smell.” She pinched her nose, causing the other girls in her group to giggle.

“You’re really mean!” Ella replied. “Why do you have to say things like that? Didn’t your parents ever teach you to treat everyone equally and with respect?”

The little girls giggled nastily at Ella’s comment. Even though Ella was confident, I was well aware of how school bullies functioned, and I knew that she wouldn’t get through to them. I would have to speak to their teacher or even their parents, and that would be the only way to stop the bullying. Even then, many kids continued to be bullies regardless of the repercussions. It was sad that Ella had to realize this on her first day of school, but it was the truth.

“Ella,” I said finally, stepping in. “Take your seat. I’ll handle this.”

However, Ella just ignored me and kept reprimanding them with even more vigor.

“You should learn to treat everyone nicely,” Ella growled. “If you were half human too, or even a whole human, you wouldn’t like it if anyone else said mean things to you. My daddy always says to treat everyone else how you want to be treated!”

The gaggle of nasty little girls went silent. I was shocked by Ella’s impressive public speaking abilities;

she seemed to have gotten it from her father, I thought to myself. The mean girls’ apparent leader, the redhead with the pointed face, scowled deeply and seemed as though she couldn’t come up with anything nasty to say as a retort.

It also seemed as though the other children noticed the argument, and had now gathered around and were beginning to cheer Ella on.

“Rebecca, you’re a meanie!” one little girl said — I recognized her as the timid blonde girl from that morning.

“Yeah!” another girl, the one who introduced herself as Stacie earlier, said loudly. “You’re always bullying everyone! You’re just a big meanie because your mom—”

“Alright, alright,” I said, deciding to intervene before things got any worse and more insults got thrown around. “Let’s all settle down.” I then looked down at the mean girls, who were still sitting on the floor but whose faces were all beet red by now, and I frowned. “I won’t send you to the headmistress this time, but I won’t tolerate bullying in my class. If I see you three bullying anyone again, whether it’s in class or outside of class, you’ll be marching down to the headmistress’s office right away. Understand?”

The three nasty little girls nodded, clearly regretting their actions. I ordered them to sit at desks and revoked their privilege to sit on the cushions for that day, and instead let Ella and her friends sit there.

Ella grinned widely as she sat down.

“Thanks, mom,” she said to me.

My eyes widened. There was a chorus of gasps across the room. One of the kids who was sitting with Ella jumped up and exclaimed, “Ella, the new art teacher is your mom?”

Ella nodded vigorously before I could say anything — not that I would have been able to correct her anyway, considering the fact that Edrick had told the news that I was her mother, but it was still strange to hear her refer to me as anything other than my first name. Not only that, but I quickly became worried that the other kids would like her less if they knew that I was her “mom”. Maybe they would see her as even more of an outsider, and would accuse me of favoritism.

“Yep,” Ella said, grinning. “She’s the best mom ever.”

Everyone was shocked. I felt a tear come to my eye as I saw Ella smiling up at me, but I quickly blinked it away. A hush fell over the room for a few moments, before one of the other girls spoke up.

“I wish my mom was a teacher,” the little girl said. “But she works at an office. My dad says that she’s a ‘pencil pusher’. I don’t know what that means, though.”

I stifled a laugh, and finally decided to cut the discussion short and begin my lesson after that.

We spent the remainder of class playing fun games so the children could get comfortable with me, and then ended the class with a coloring session. I actually got along well with all of the kids, and even the nasty girls seemed to have settled down their bad behavior. Soon enough, the half hour of the class flew by and the childrens’ teacher came to take them back to their classroom. Ella and all of the other kids waved at me as they left, and I couldn’t wipe the smile off of my face after that.

That day, after Ella’s little speech and the way that she exposed our “relationship”, I noticed that no one seemed to be bothering her. I ran into Ella a few more times that day during lunchtime and recess, and she didn’t seem to be having any more trouble with anyone. In fact, it seemed as though Ella had even made quite a few more friends by the time we walked out of the school together that afternoon.

Everyone must have wanted to be friends with the cool new girl who stood up to the bully and whose mom was the art teacher. As I took her little hand and led her out of the school, I couldn’t stop smiling;

although I couldn’t tell if my smile was from Ella’s success on her first day of school, or if it was from her calling me “mom”. Maybe it was both.

Either way, as Ella skipped happily next to me and Edrick’s tall frame came into view in the golden light of the late afternoon sun, I felt happier than ever.

Edrick was waiting for us at the parent drop-off point as we approached, and when Ella saw him, she let go of my hand and raced up to him. He scooped her up and kissed her cheek, but as I got closer I saw that he looked a little worried.

“Well?” he asked. “How was your first day?”

“It was amazing!” Ella exclaimed. “I made lots of friends, and I learned all about sy…. Syl…”

“Syllables?” Edrick asked.

Ella nodded excitedly. “Yeah, those! And there were these mean girls, but I stood up to them…”

As we began to walk home, Ella continued to chatter nonstop about her exciting first day of school. She told Edrick all about how she stood up to the nasty girls in art class, and how she made more friends at recess, and how she couldn’t wait for her second day of school. Slowly, as she talked, Edrick’s look of worry turned into a warm smile.

And as he carried her on his shoulders, I felt his hand reach out and slip into mine.