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“Hey there,” says an older woman, Sharon, according to her nametag. I force a smile to my lips.
“Hi, I’m here for the Big Brothers Big Sisters program.”
“Great! Do you know who your Little Brother is yet?”
“Um, yeah, they said his name is Noah,” I say, pulling the letter out of my back pocket.
“Great! Let me get him for you and I’ll get you the paperwork to fill out. Do you know what you were going to do together today?”
“Oh, um, I thought we would go to the park.”
“Which one?” she asks, flipping through some papers on her desk.
Which park? I don’t know the names of any parks nearby.
“Which one is closest?” I ask her.
“The one on Main Street is probably the closest, but it’s for younger kids. The one over on Maple might be a better option,” she tells me.
“Okay, we’ll go to that one.”
She smiles, passing me some papers to fill out.
“I’ll go get Noah for you. Be right back.”
I fill out the papers, entering in my information before I push them to the side.
Sharon returns with a boy trudging along behind her. I take him in, sizing him up. The kid, Noah, looks up at me and I can see him sizing me up, too.
He’s got to be about ten, and he scowls at me, his brown hair hanging like a mop and covering up part of his eyes. Noah glares at me, and I give him a passive look back.
“This is Noah. Noah, this is your new Big Brother.”
“Hey, I’m Remington,” I introduce myself, holding out my hand.
“Whatever,” he grumbles at me, rolling his eyes. Noah crosses his arms over his chest, ignoring the handshake offer.
Well, we’re off to a great start.
“Remington is going to take you to the park over on Maple,” Sharon tells him. The boy scoffs and shifts on his feet.
“Great,” he says sarcastically.
Sharon smiles at me like everything is going great, and I stare blankly back at her. Can I ask her to come with us? Would that be inappropriate on the first day?
Why did I think this would be a good idea?
“Well, off you two go,” she says, and I nod, turning and heading back out the door.
“I hate the park,” Noah mumbles.
I bite back a sigh. I have to at least try to set a positive tone here, even if Noah is just going to constantly bring it back down. “What do you want to do then?” I ask.
“My friend June is going to the ceramics place in town,” he tells me. “You can paint stuff and they bake it and you get to take it home.”
Huh. That sounds cool. I probably should have looked up a fun activity for us to do.Strike one.“Well, maybe we can go there next time. I already told Sharon that we were going to the park this time,” I tell him.
“If thereisa next time,” Noah grumbles as he climbs into my truck.
