Bobby shouted, “Get down, Raye!” and sprinted for the front door.
I’m sure he thought someone was shooting at me. I’d have thought the same thing if the glass hadn’t shattered outward—and I didn’t know about Stafford.
“Stop that,” I said.
The children listened. Stafford did not. A second window went sploosh.
“That’s it,” Henry snapped.
Spink. A third window cracked, tiny tributaries spreading outward from the center, the sound similar to ice during the spring thaw. Pieces fell away like the parts of a puzzle. Tink, tink, tink. They bounced onto the blacktop outside.
“Everyone in the coat room,” I ordered.
Just because Stafford was sending the glass outward at the moment, didn’t mean he couldn’t change directions.
“You need to go to the apple tree.”
“Not now, Henry.” I was busy herding the stragglers.
“I don’t care when, though the way he’s behaving, it should be now.”
“He?”
“The horrid little imp. His bones are buried beneath the apple tree.”
People started appearing in the doorway—Mr. Jorgensen, the janitor, the principal, Mrs. Hansen, and Jenn.
“What the hell?” my friend asked as Mrs. Hansen went straight to the children and began to usher them out the door. Mr. Jorgensen stood over the broken glass shaking his head.
I ignored them, my attention on Henry. “You’re sure?”
“Genevieve told me what happened to the child.” He glanced through the hole where a window should have been and then back. The concern in his eyes made my heart tumble toward my feet. “Perhaps once it is known, he will be on his way.”
I nodded, not wanting to continue my conversation with air now that there were more adults in the room than myself.
Bobby burst in. “Why didn’t you get down? You could have been shot.”
“No one’s shooting.” I lifted my chin in the direction of the windows. At least Stafford had stopped at three. “Look for yourself. The glass shattered outward.”
His scowl deepened. “How?”
“That’s your department.” And I couldn’t exactly explain about the ghost child having a temper tantrum any more now than the two dozen times it had happened before.
I spent the rest of the day trying to calm my now wired class enough to teach them something, as well as ignore Mr. J as he taped cardboard to the window holes.
“Had to order the glass,” he said. “Won’t be in for a week.”
The glance he gave me made me want to apologize. The man spent more time in my room than almost all the others combined.
Then there was Bobby, who tried very hard to discover why my windows had exploded at all, never mind in which direction.
“Kindergarten classes always seem to have a lot of stuff go bad,” Mr. Jorgensen said.
He’d been the janitor at this school since I’d attended kindergarten.
“Though I ain’t never seen three windows crack like that without somethin’ hittin’ ’em first.”
Something had hit them—though I wasn’t sure if it were Stafford’s fists, feet, or the power of his ghostly mind. Did it matter?
Bobby spent a few hours after lunch surfing the office computer. I’d offered him the one in my classroom, but he’d studiously avoided looking at the children, shaken his head, and fled.
I was going to have to tell him about Genevieve. Not telling him certainly wasn’t helping.
First I had to deal with Stafford. And to do that, I needed to be alone.
After story time, I texted Jenn: Is Bobby still at the computer?
No. He’s in with Mrs. Hansen.
Excellent. Mrs. Hansen would talk his ear off for at least a half hour. It was what she did.
Can you come and sit with my class for a few?
Her answer was quick and brief. No.
They’re asleep.
You told me that last time. Then they woke up.
It hadn’t been pretty. I’d have to make sure I was back before that happened again.
Ten minutes, I promised. If I hadn’t found Stafford’s bones by then they were buried too deeply to be found with a shovel anyway.
Jenn arrived, scowling. She probably would have bitched at me some, but she was afraid to wake “them” up. If I hadn’t been the same, and in a big hurry, I would have bitched about her evening with Brad.
I’d been around to pick up the pieces when the two of them had self-destructed the first time. What had she been thinking to allow him into her house, let alone allow him to stay the night? Then again, she’d told me he was ridiculous in bed.
Another reason I zipped my lip and left the room without a word. My ears still burned from her telling me all about it years ago. Jenn had always had a tendency to overshare.