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“I’m guessing by your tone, she won’t think the fairy eraser was funny?”
“She would’ve thought so. Before the divorce. Now she’s always so serious.”
Instead of reaching for the phone, Principal Kidd leaned forward. “My parents are divorced too. They got divorced when I was your age.”
Molly spied a picture at the corner of the principal’s desk. In it was a picture of an even younger version of the man, still with gray hair. He wore a square cap on his head and was dressed in a dark cape. Likely his graduation. He was standing between two smiling adults.
“Yup, that’s them. Oh, they get along. They just weren’t right for each other. They’re both happily remarried to other people.”
Molly knew her dad was seeing other women. He’d started while he and her mom were still married. Maybe that’s why they got divorced? Molly wasn’t sure. But her dad did seem happier now. The few times she’d seen him since the divorce.
Her mom hadn’t dated any other man at all. Maybe her mom should start to date? Then maybe she’d laugh again.
Just like the principal laughed…
Molly looked up at Principal Kidd. He didn’t have a ring on his left hand. She hadn’t seen any pictures of him with women his own age. Just pictures of him with his parents and with kids.
“What’s your mom’s name?” he asked. “Oh, I’ve got it here. Kylee...”
“Kylee Romano,” Molly finished for him. “But she’s going by her original name, her maiden name.”
“Kylee Bauer? Your mom is Kylee Bauer?”
“Yes. Do you know her?”
Her mom had grown up in the small town of Saint Judith’s in Northern Virginia. Molly had never visited before now. Her grandparents would always come to visit wherever they were living at that moment in time. Molly and her mom were living in Grandma and Grandpa’s old house now that they’d retired and moved to Florida.
“Yeah,” said Principal Kidd. “Yeah, I know Kylee Bauer.” His eyes got that gooey faraway look like a Looney Tunes cartoon character when they fell in love.
Wait? So, Principal Kidd knew her mom. And he got the lovey-dovey look just at hearing her name. And he wasn’t married.
A plan began to form in Molly’s brain. One that would require a bit of imagination and probably some fairy sparkles if it were to work.
Chapter One
“We can’t keep going over this again and again.”
Kylee Bauer looked up at the kid looming over her. He couldn’t be more than twenty-two, fresh out of college, making more than she ever made in her twenty-nine years. But he was her supervisor.
He was also shorter than her, which was why she was sitting. She’d dealt with boys like him her whole life. Short, insecure, little boys who would take credit for the work she did because they were threatened by her intelligence. But Anthony Sims knew more about AI-generated learning programs than she did.
Just a decade ago, Kylee had been at the top of her high school classes. She’d earned a full scholarship partially based on her perfect SAT scores. She’d planned to major in Instructional Design. But that was all before she’d gotten pregnant in her sophomore year at university and had to take a temporary leave from college that turned into two years.
By the time she’d managed to finish her degree a few years later, everything had changed. Gone were the personalized curriculum planning and lesson plans she’d been introduced to in her freshman year. Now everything was digital, and Kylee was still stuck in an analog world.
With her Number 2 pencil in hand, she scratched out a circle on her notepad -the old fashion parchment, not a computer tablet. “I’m sorry, Anthony. Do you think you can explain the program to me one more time?”
The co-ed sighed. His head fell to his chin, giving Kylee a glimpse of the back of the man bun on top of his head.
“Actually, you know what,” she said. “I think I’ve got it now.”
Kylee tapped a few keys and prayed. Someone was listening because the program beeped to life and began to run. She tried to hide the surprise from her face as she looked back up at Anthony.
He eyed her skeptically. But luckily for her, he had a short attention span like many in this generation who spent their days staring at screens. Hardly anyone in the office of Thrive Learning Systems offices held a pencil. That was a shame because every standardized test from the SATs to the ACTs to the SOLs to the AP Exams all still required the use of pencil and paper.
Kylee looked back to the test she was in the midst of preparing a preparatory course for. Her problem remained that she had no clue how she’d gotten it to work. She still didn’t fully understand the inner workings of the new system. What she did know was how to prepare lessons and assessments.
She pulled out the sharpener for her pencil. There was something satisfying in watching the shavings fall off the lead. The pencil was being born anew as well as getting sharp for its new task. Much like Kylee.
