At the time, she was actually quite proud of herself when she finally ran over to her own house and got her mom to take the still-unconscious Patrick to the hospital.
She felt punished enough when Ms. Taylor yelled at her right there in the hospital when she showed up and had all the events explained to her by the doctor. She certainly didn’t have to spread rumours that Kaitlyn was unfit to look after children, and was a selfish, irresponsible, nitwit who couldn’t listen to even the most basic of directions. She assumed that was what Ms. Taylor said about her—she had said it directly to her first.
For a while, Kaitlyn agreed with her. It was irresponsible; she wasn’t told not to do those things—not to give Patrick a popsicle, not to talk on the phone with boys, not to lie about having first aid training—but she knew better. As lucky as she felt that things hadn’t gone even worse for her that day, she also felt horrible about it. But, that was in the past. Since then she had matured into a bright, responsible young woman. One who not only followed the rules, but made them! She just needed to prove that to everyone again. Once she did that, her phone would be ringing off the hook with jobs.
Just one simple thing to make it clear that she could handle herself and those left in her care.
She really hoped that printer posters would give her that chance.
DAY 1 - THE MORNING
ALEX
Alex didn’t skip school regularly. In fact, he had never actually gone through with a plan to play hooky. But he had not been looking forward to going that day.
For the whole week after the initial run-in with Jared, his former bully made a point of passing by the school just when Alex and his friends arrived at the door, somehow catching them off guard each time. When it started, they were evenly matched: Alex had Mark and Jeremy, Jared had his two chuckling gorillas at his back. Then, on Monday, Jeremy came down with something and had to leave school early. The next day, with just Mark, Jared pointed out that Alex was losing friends left and right. It didn’t help Alex that the following day Mark too was missing, likely due to the same flu. Jared came around as always with his two cronies, while Alex hid in the bushes. Finding him alone was just what they wanted. They said as much as they waited around for him while he hid. Alex wondered why they didn’t have better things to do, but pounding on him seemed just as good as any other activity they could be doing, like lighting fires or tormenting cats.
Last night, after finding out that Mark still wasn’t going to be back, Alex knew he couldn’t face Jared and his friends alone. He decided that he would just skip. He felt bad, pulling such a stunt at his age, but he knew he’d feel worse if he went, so he made a plan.
He didn’t think it would be so easy.
It may have been because, while he had worked himself up to outright lie to his father about being sick (using his friends’ illness to his advantage), he actually started to feel ill. He was sweaty and clammy when his father checked on him, though his temperature was the regular 98.6, so it was strange that Dad let him get away with it, without so much as a question. His father had just looked at him for a while, thinking it over.
The stranger part was the conversation that followed, though it was mostly just his father thinking out loud.
He wondered if he should stay home from work, which would have been quite problematic for him considering he had just started the job three days earlier. He even debated leaving Mary home with Alex for the day instead of taking her to daycare, but of course that didn’t make sense if he honestly believed that Alex was sick with a flu.
Alex had the suspicion that his father didn’t believe that at all. He knew that Alex wasn’t sick. And yet, he let him stay home.
Maybe Alex wasn’t playing his cards so close to his chest and his dad knew that he was having troubles at school with Jared. Or maybe something else was up—his dad seemed tense, though that could have been due to his new job.
Whatever it was, Alex decided to not question it.
“Okay,” he said. “Then I guess I’m off.”
“Have fun! You’ll do great with ...” Alex popped his head around the corner. “What are you doing, again?”
“Programming, Alex.” He looked at his son’s uncompre-hending face. “At the CBC station?” He sighed. “So nice to see you take an interest in all of our dinner conversations.” He picked up his bag and zipped his coat.
“No problem,” Alex said, with a phony grin. He looked to Mary, standing in her overly puffy sweater and hat—both of which used to be his. “Bye Mary! Have fun at ... baby school!”
Mary smiled cheerfully. “Bye Alex,” she said, and waved her hand—lost in the hand-me-down’s sleeve.
“Remember to call me if you need anything. Anything at all, okay?”
“I got it, Dad. No problem,” Alex said, as he settled back into his chair.
“And don’t go outside or anything, okay?”
“Yup. Got it.”
“I’m serious, Alex.”
“Dad,” Alex leaned back out, his most solemn look on his face. “I’m always serious. Now, have fun at work. If you need anything, or if the other programmers pick on you, call me, okay?”
“Nice to know you have my back.” He bent down and picked up Mary, who was still staring at Alex. “Come on, little Miss. You’re going to be late for daycare!”
“Bye Alex,” she said, now to her father.
“No.
