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“You’re the first,” he said, smiling shyly.
“Well, I bet I won’t be the last. Okay, I’m officially leaving all this to you.” Especially since it was going to be even more important to have the art supplies all ready for the kids. Maintaining normalcy would be important today.
For them and for her. Because geez.
Soon, the kids started arriving. Emma had been right—they were a great distraction from her less-than-stellar mood. Of course, they immediately noticed the window and asked a million questions, and were already bouncing off the wall over the impending winter break. She loved every bit of it.
And those fuzzy pom-poms? They were a huge hit.
Just as they were cleaning up from art, their fuzzy trees, snowmen, and menorahs all laid out to dry, Emma spied Principal Mackey waving to her from outside her door. “Okay, girls and boys. Finish cleaning your areas, wash your hands, and take your seats, please,” Emma said before stepping outside her room.
“Miss Kerry,” Principal Mackey said, “this is Sheriff Martin. He’s filing the report about the vandalism and wanted to speak with you and say hello to your class.”
“Hello, Sheriff,” Emma said.
Sheriff’s hat in hand, the brown-haired man nodded. “Miss Kerry, this shouldn’t take long. I walked outside this whole side of the building and there’s nothing to indicate who might’ve done the vandalism. But could you describe to me what you saw and when?”
Emma recounted everything that’d happened after she’d turned on her classroom lights, but honestly, there wasn’t much to tell.
The man took a few notes in a small flip pad as she spoke, then tucked it away. “Like I told Principal Mackey, we can have extra patrols ride through school grounds at nights and on the weekends. But it was probably just some kids from the neighborhood. Unfortunately, this kind of thing happens.”
“I know,” Emma said, her belly giving a weird flip.
He frowned and studied her face. “You sure you’re okay, ma’am?”
She nodded and glanced in her window, where the kids’ escalating volume indicated that they were getting restless without her. “Yes,” Emma said absentmindedly. “I’m just a little on edge because I got mugged on Saturday night and it’s left me a little jittery.”
“Oh, Emma,” Principal Mackey said. “I’m so sorry. What happened?”
She blinked, realizing that she’d just dropped that news out of nowhere. “I was walking home from the store when a man jumped out from behind some bushes and grabbed my purse. Another man saw him and chased him off.”
“Did you report this?” Sheriff Martin asked.
Heat infused Emma’s cheeks. “No. The mugger was wearing a mask and the man who helped me didn’t think the police would be able to do much since I couldn’t offer any identifying information.”
The sheriff’s frown deepened, and his expression made her feel guilty and not a little stupid for not having called the police. “Truth is, he’s not entirely wrong. But it’s still in your interest to file the report. Get it on record. For when we do catch him. And have us step up patrols in the area in the meantime.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t do it. I was just stunned that it’d happened at all.” She glanced into the classroom again. “I’m sorry, Sheriff, do you have everything you need?”
“Yes.” He handed her a business card. “If you want to follow up about the mugging, give me a call. I hope you will.”
Emma accepted the card, and made a mental note to call him after dismissal. She supposed she’d better at least dot her I’s and cross her T’s on this. “Thank you. Now, would you like to say hello? I know the kids would love to meet you.”
He grinned and nodded. “Absolutely.”
She led him in and introduced him, and the kids were immediately enthralled by his uniform, hat, and badge. He kept things light-hearted as he spoke to them about the police working to keep the community safe and inviting them to always feel like they can talk to a police officer, and then he left them with a big stack of crime dog McGruff and Faux Paw techno cat cyber safety stickers.
After that, Emma determined to move on from all the worrisome weirdness of the past few days. Something that was even easier to do when a couple of the other teachers invited her out for a girls’ night dinner that evening. With no real family to speak of, the community at Frederick Elementary had become a kind of substitute family for her, and they’d clearly known exactly what she needed.
Thankfully, she didn’t need to tell them everything that’d happened in the past few days because she’d told enough people over lunch in the teacher’s room that the story had made its way through the whole faculty. But when a family walked through the front door of their favorite Italian place—the man wearing the same denim-and-black-leather jacket that Caine had—Emma couldn’t help but wonder what her friends would think of Caine.
