Chapter Two

      Wynona smiled as she watched the children in her combined second/third grade class come trooping into the room. Seeing their bright, smiling faces as they walked in warmed her heart. It was like watching unharnessed energy entering.

      Looking back, it was hard for her to believe that these same little people could have actually struck fear into her heart just a little more than a month ago. On the plus side, that feeling had passed quickly, vanishing like a vapor within the first few hours of the first day.

      It was true what they said, Wynona thought. Kids could smell fear. Conversely, they could also detect when someone had an affinity for them, when that same someone really enjoyed their company and wasn’t just pretending that they did.

      Kids were a lot smarter than they were given credit for.

      Her own class quickly realized that she was the genuine article. That she wasn’t just saying that she cared about them; she really did. And when she told them that she wanted to make learning fun for them, they believed her, even though a few of them, mainly the older ones, had rolled their eyes and groaned a little.

      Instead of calling those students out, Wynona sincerely asked them how she could make the experience more enjoyable for them.

      Thanks to her approach, within a few days Wynona had a classroom full of students who looked forward to coming to school every day.

      But as with everything, Wynona saw that there was an exception. One of her students behaved differently than the others. Ryan Washburn didn’t seem as if he was having any fun.

      Covertly observing him, she saw that he acted far more introverted than the other students. Whenever her class was on the playground, unless she deliberately goaded Ryan into participating with the rest of the class, the boy would quietly keep to himself, watching the other students instead of joining in whatever game they were all playing.

      After watching him for a month, she had to admit that Ryan Washburn worried her. When she talked to him, he was polite, respectful, but there was no question that he was still removed. The calls she’d placed to his home—apparently, there was only a father in the picture—had gone unanswered.

      They were almost five weeks into the school year and she had placed four calls to the man. The man whose deep, rumbling voice she heard on his answering machine hadn’t called back once, not even to leave a message. She was going to give the man a couple more days, she promised herself, and then...

      And then she was going to have to try something a little more to the point, Wynona decided.

      “Good morning, class,” she said cheerfully as the last student, a dark-eyed girl named Tracey, came in. Wynona closed the door behind her.

      “Good morning, Ms. Chee,” her students chorused back, their voices swelling and filling the room rather than sounding singsongy the way they had the first day of class after she had introduced herself.

      Instead of sitting down at her desk, Wynona moved around to stand in front of it. She leaned her hip against the edge of the desk, assuming a comfortable position. Her eyes scanned the various students around the room. She was looking at a sea of upturned, smiling faces—all except for Ryan.

      “Did you have a good weekend?” she asked them.

      Some heads bobbed up and down while some of the more loquacious students in the class spoke up, answering her question with a resounding “Yes!”

      Wynona slanted a look at Ryan. He’d neither nodded nor responded verbally. Instead, he just remained silent.

      She hoped to be able to draw the boy out by trying to get her students to make their answers a little more specific.

      “So, what did everybody do this weekend?” As some of the children began to respond, Wynona held her hand up, stopping the flow of raised voices blending in dissonance. “Why don’t we go around the room and you can each tell the class what made this weekend special for you? Ian, would you like to start us off?” she asked, calling on the self-proclaimed class clown.

      Ian, who at nine was already taller than everyone else in the class, was more than happy to oblige.

      Wynona made sure to get her students to keep their answers short, or in Ian’s case, at least under five minutes. She was careful to move sporadically around the room allowing enough children to answer first so that Ryan would feel comfortable when it came to be his turn, or at least not uncomfortable, she amended. She didn’t want the boy to feel that her attention was focused on him, even though in this case, it actually was.

      After six children had each told the class what special thing they had done over the weekend, Wynona turned toward the boy who was the real reason behind this impromptu exercise.

      “Ryan, what did you do that was fun this weekend?” she asked him.

      When the boy looked up at her, she was struck by the thought that he resembled a deer that had been caught in headlights.

      After a prolonged awkward silence, Ryan finally answered. “Nothing.”

      “Nothing?” she repeated, searching for a way to coax more words out of Ryan. “You must have done something,” she said. When he said nothing in response, she tried again. “What did you do when you got up on Saturday morning?”

      “I had breakfast,” Ryan replied quietly.

      There was some snickering from a couple of the students. Wynona immediately waved them into silence. “That’s a perfectly good answer, Ryan. Everyone needs to take in a source of good fuel so that they’ll have energy to do things properly. What did you do after you finished breakfast?” she asked patiently.

      Ryan licked his lips nervously. “Chores,” he finally answered.

      “I’m sure your dad appreciated that you did those chores,” Wynona told him with feeling. She looked at him encouragingly. “Anything else?” she coaxed.

      The boy thought for a moment, as if trying to remember what it was that he did next. And then he finally mumbled, “I went for a ride on Nugget.” Exhaling a breath, he stared down at the floor.

      “Is Nugget your horse?” Wynona asked, hoping that might get him to talk a little more.

      This time, instead of saying anything verbal, Ryan nodded.

      There was color rising in his cheeks and Wynona realized that unlike the other children who all vied for her attention and were eager to talk, the attention she was giving Ryan just embarrassed him.

      Wynona quickly put an end to his discomfort. “Well, that sounds like a really fun thing to do,” she told him. “I loved going for a ride on my horse when I was your age. But I had to share Skyball with my cousin. Skyball was an old, abandoned horse that someone had left to die, but we saved it.” She remembered that as one of the highlights of her less-than-happy childhood. Looking back at Ryan, she smiled at him. “Thank you for sharing that, Ryan. Rachel—” turning, she called out to another student “—how about you? What did you do this weekend?”

      Rachel was more than happy to share the events of her weekend with the class.

      As Rachel began her lively narrative, Wynona glanced back in Ryan’s direction. She watched the boy almost physically withdraw into himself.

      This wasn’t right. She had to do something about it. Wynona was more determined than ever to get hold of Ryan’s father and talk to the man. She wanted to make sure that Washburn was aware of the boy’s shyness so they could work together in an effort to do something about it. She also wanted