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Cassie nodded. “Got it.”
“That’s my girl.”
Cassie got in front of her room’s line to walk them down to the classroom. Before she got halfway down the hallway, Tonya, the school’s secretary, paged her over the intercom. “Ms. Randall, you have a visitor in the office. Please report there immediately.”
Cassie frowned. She hoped it wasn’t one of the child welfare workers she had to talk to last week about the bruises on Blake’s arm.
“I’ll take both our classes down to their rooms and leave my door open so I can listen in on them. Do you have a morning review worksheet for them?” Natasha couldn’t keep the serious look off her face. She didn’t know what the page was about, either.
“Yep,” Cassie responded.
“Alrighty. Don’t worry about them then.”
“Today is not my day, Tosh.”
“Good vibes only, girl. Good vibes only.”
Cassie gave her friend a salute and walked toward the office at the front of the building. “Tonya, I just started walking my kids to the office and need to do the milk, juice and lunch count. What seems to be the-”
Cassie’s voice trailed off as she saw the visitor that was so important the school secretary thought she needed to be paged. Cassie’s could feel the flush starting at her neck and working up her face.
“Cassie,” Tonya whispered loudly behind her hand. “It’sJamal Jenkins.”
“Thanks, Tonya. I can see that it is Jamal Jenkins. What are you doing here?” Cassie mentally cursed the quiver in her voice as she turned toward the man who was the topic of conversation throughout the hallways that morning.
“Well, you forgot something last night,” Jamal said with a glint in his eye, holding up a bagful of t-shirts. “I thought I would deliver them myself. Do you have a marker?”
“Marker?” Cassie asked stupidly.
“Yeah. Marker. So I can sign them.” Jamal held up the bag and shook it in her face. “You know. The t-shirts. That I brought. To your school. For your class.”
Cassie darted her eyes to where Tonya was watching the duo go back and forth.
“I can tell you where her classroom is, Mr. uh, Mr.-” Tonya stammered.
“Jamal is fine, ma’am,” Jamal shot her a megawatt smile and Cassie could see Tonya’s insides turning to mush and her legs becoming Jell-O the more he smiled.
“Wow!” Tonya mouthed her way.
Cassie did a mental eye roll. “Are you going to keep bugging me until I let you come to my classroom?”
“Yep,” he replied, a mischievous grin plastered on his face.
At that, Cassie really did anactualeye roll. “Fine. Follow me.”
Cassie turned on her heel, opened the secretary’s office door and marched down the hall to her classroom.
“Aren’t you supposed to make sure your students follow you in a straight, quiet line?” Jamal asked from behind her.
Cassie stopped where she was. Slowly, she turned around to face him, a frown on her face. “What doyouknow about elementary school rules?”
Jamal walked right up to Cassie and mimicked her hands-on-hips pose, the bag of shirts dangling on his right arm. “I have a daughter in second grade.”
“And you have substituted before, therefore knowing what proper hallway procedure is?”
“No,” he replied.
Cassie grinned.
