AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He stiffened. This didn’t sound good. “What do you mean you had to move your desks away? Were you playing a game?”
Molly shook her head and didn’t lift her gaze again.
“What happened? Were you two in trouble?”
She pressed her lips together tightly, still drawing those maddening circles.
“Molly,” he said firmly. “You need to tell me what’s going on so I can make sure I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. Was there a note? Something she sent home so I could read it?”
Another shake. “I don’t think she wasreallymad. She didn’t yell at us or nothin’. She just told us that we needed to focus on our work and stop giggling.”
Stop giggling. “You weren’t following the rules.” It was a statement, one that finally made her lift her eyes to meet his.
“No, sir.”
He felt his frustration rise. Allie was supposed to let him know if there were problems that he could help her with. Hadn’t they agreed to something like that? He could have sworn as much.
“Are you mad?” Molly asked timidly.
His gaze cut to hers and he forced a smile. “No, sweetie. I’m not mad. I might be disappointed, but I’m not mad.”
“So it’s okay?”
“Now, I didn’t saythat.” He worked his jaw. This was a learning opportunity and if he didn’t help her understand where she went wrong, these problems would continue to grow. “One day you’re going to want to get a job. You’ll get hired to do certain things. And do you know what you’re going to get in exchange?”
“Money?”
“That’s right. You’re going to get paid to do work that someone needs you to do. School is pretty much the same. But instead of money, you get grades. And instead of friends you work with, you have friends at school. What do you suppose would happen if you got in someone’s way of doing their job? Do you think they’d like it? Do you think your boss would like it?”
She shook her head slowly. “No.”
“Exactly. That’s when either you or that other person would get fired. Right now you won’t get fired from school, but you might get your desk moved. Either way, there are consequences to your actions. This week you learned something very important.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
He got to his feet and pointed at her paper. “You keep working. I have to make a phone call.” Namely, he needed to speak with Allie about her lack of communication. If she continued to have problems with his daughter and refused to fill him in, then they would have bigger issues to work through. He stopped long enough to make sure his daughter was working, then left the room.
He pulled out his phone and suddenly realized he didn’t know if he had her current phone number. Back when they were in college, he did. But since then, she might have changed her number.
Luke groaned, throwing his head back. The impatient part of him didn’t know if he could handle waiting until school started on Monday for her to answer an email. They needed to nip this in the bud if he wanted to make sure a change would occur.
Pippa. She’d have Allie’s number. He’d get his sister to give it to him.
Finding her number in his contacts, he didn’t even hesitate before dialing. But he probably should have. That only occurred to him too late.
“Hello?” Pippa’s voice chirped on the other end.
“Hey, I need Allie’s number.”
There was a pause—a very pregnant pause. “I’m sorry, you want what?”
“Allie’s number. I know you have it. Can you just text it to me?”
Her voice sounded like she’d added pure maple syrup to it. “Why?”
“What?”
“Why do you want Allie’s number?”
