They all headed out together. Eager to poke around, the dogs pulled the boys ahead of them. Then Barney and Brownie would find something irresistible they had to investigate and lose their lead.
As the sun dropped in the sky, the air was turning pleasantly cool. The colors were deeper with the golden shimmer of late afternoon suffusing everything.
Lara was the first to peel off from the group and then it was just the boys and the dogs closely followed by Wyatt and Noreen. They all walked on the side of the road together, and DJ kept glancing back toward Noreen with an expression of grave concern. Finally he came over to walk next to Wyatt.
"You're not making friends with Ms Kurtz, are you, Uncle Wyatt?" DJ asked in a whisper.
"Why not?" Wyatt wondered.
DJ stepped closer to whisper some more. "You can't be friends with her," he confided to Wyatt.
Riley had leaned in to eavesdrop and now he looked from Wyatt to Noreen. "Grown-ups can have friends too," he pointed out reasonably.
"Not teachers," DJ said then gave Noreen the side eye.
Riley didn't look sure about that, but in the end, he was willing to accept his big brother's verdict. Now he looked at Wyatt and Noreen like they were definitely breaking some kind of rule. DJ was still eyeing Noreen like she was some exotic animal that had escaped the zoo.
"When they aren't at school, teachers are just people," Wyatt told him.
DJ would be turning six and starting first grade next year, and he had some definite opinions about teachers. He shook his head at the idea that teachers could ever be people. "Teachers are teachers," he stated.
"Yes, we're a separate species," Noreen deadpanned. She wasn't helping.
"OK, but I think I still like her. Noreen and I are friends," Wyatt said to the boys, but DJ wasn't swayed.
"She's a teacher. You can't be friends with her," DJ insisted.
"Oh." Wyatt said and turned to Noreen. "Sorry. You heard him. It's against the rules."
"Says who?" Noreen said and gave DJ a stern look.
He shrank from her a little and drew closer to Wyatt.
"Uh oh, looks like you better let me be friends with her or she'll be mad," Wyatt said to him.
"If you have to," DJ allowed grudgingly.
"So are you from here?" Wyatt asked her once the boys walked ahead with the dogs.
"Not really. My dad moved away before he got married. Small town life wasn't for him. I only ever visited my grandparents here. My granddad was a teacher at the local school. He heard about a job at the elementary school and passed on the word to me."
"I'm glad there is an elementary school right in town," Wyatt said.
"Right. But the kids will have to go to Ashbury for middle school and high school," she told him.
Wyatt wasn't ready to worry about that yet. "That's not for years and years and years."
"Living in denial, I see," Noreen said to him.
They were in sight of town when they parted ways with Noreen. They had just waved to her as she disappeared behind a hedge, when a truck pulling a trailer passed them, and Riley called out, "A horse! A horse!" He yelled excitedly and jumped in place.
"It is!" DJ exclaimed, and the two of them waved to the horse in the back until the trailer was out of sight.
What Wyatt noticed was that he instinctively grabbed Riley and DJ's hands as the truck passed by. They were well off the road, but when it came to kids, better safe than sorry, especially with skittish little doggies in the mix.
Now DJ slipped his little hand away and told him solemnly, "Guys aren't supposed to hold hands, but it's OK for little kids like Ry." He leaned over to look at Riley, who pouted at him.
"I'm not a little kid," Riley claimed, but he still held on to Wyatt's hand. He looked at both DJ and Wyatt defiantly, like he was daring them to just try and make him let go.
