Big Feelings
Since Monday
Every morning, somebody fetched the reading books. Out to the cabinet in the hallway. Pick up the whole stack, heavy and a bit wobbly. Carry it back. Plunk it on Mr. Sandhu’s desk. Thump. Ninety seconds, and everybody got a turn. Everybody.
On Monday, Nora figured out that hers was Thursday. She checked the list twice. On Tuesday she thought about it in the bath. On Wednesday she whipped her coat off super fast, just in case it was early. It wasn’t.
Thursday. Mr. Sandhu was busy talking to someone about a permission slip. Without even looking up, he said, “Otto, get the reading books, would you?” And Otto, who was nearest the door and hadn’t been counting anything at all, hopped up and went.
The door did its slow thing. Swing… swing… click. Otto was already out in the hallway. Nora’s Thursday was walking off to the cabinet in somebody else’s sneakers.
It started all by itself. First her chin wobbled. Then her eyes went blurry. Then a sob popped out, a small one, in a classroom where twenty-eight other people were quietly doing a worksheet.
And the worst part, the actual worst part? Nora knew. She could hear it. A stack of books. Ninety seconds of walking. She was crying in front of everybody about the reading books, and she knew it, right while it was happening.
Mr. Sandhu had noticed. He was coming over. Bo, at the next table, put his pencil down to watch. The books were already on their way. It was Thursday, and Nora had known since Monday.
What does Nora do?
Every choice costs something. Let’s see what.
Keep crying, right there at the desk
Nora stopped trying to hold it in. She put her forehead down on her arms and cried, right there at the desk. Mr. Sandhu crouched by her chair and waited. He didn’t say a thing.
“It’s just the books,” said Bo from the next table, pretty kindly, actually. Nora heard every single word through her sleeves. The crying didn’t stop.
It took about four minutes. The sobs got quieter, then further apart, then stopped. Nora sat up with a wet face and a red stripe on her arm from her sleeve, and started the worksheet.
Nobody said a word about it. Nobody was mean. For a while, whenever Nora looked up from her worksheet, somebody was just that second looking away. Then Bo slid his good eraser across the table, the one shaped like a shark, and went back to his own sheet. By lunch it was just an ordinary Thursday again.
Say she has been waiting since Monday
“I’ve been waiting… since… Monday,” said Nora. She was still crying, so it came out in four wobbly pieces. But every word came out. In the right order.
Mr. Sandhu said, “Ah.” Then, “I didn’t know you were counting.” Then, “I can’t get it back, Nora. Otto’s already in the hallway.” He didn’t pretend he could. He didn’t say “never mind.”
Saying it didn’t switch the tears off. They kept coming for six more minutes, and Nora did her worksheet anyway, one wobbly letter at a time. At recess, Bo said, “Since Monday?” It wasn’t quite a question.
At the end of the day, on the list by the door, next to Friday, Mr. Sandhu had written NORA. In pen. The pen he uses for real things, not pencil. It wasn’t a sorry and it wasn’t a treat. It was Friday. Written down.
Push it down and hold it until recess
Nora pushed it down. Slow breath in. Slow breath out. She stared at the top corner of the worksheet until her chin stopped wobbling. When Mr. Sandhu got to her, she said, “I’m okay.”
And then she had to keep doing it. Not once. The whole time, like holding shut a door that really, really wants to open. All through the worksheet. All through the read-aloud. Even when Bo dropped his pencil, clatter, and everybody turned around.
It worked. Nobody saw a thing. But it took the whole morning, every single minute of it, and Nora couldn’t tell you one question on that worksheet or one word Mr. Sandhu read out. She’d been busy.
By recess, the tears had gone. So had everything else. When Elsie ran over with the jump rope, Nora shook her head and sat down on the painted circle instead. Ten-thirty in the morning, and as tired as bedtime. “After lunch, then?” said Elsie. Nora nodded. After lunch sounded about right.