It’s kind of obvious when people are having a mind-to-mind conversation, if you know the cues. Their faces change expression when they look at other, much as they would if the conversation were out loud. So I was looking away from the child frequently and keeping my smile steady. Hunter was too little to learn how to conceal our communication, so I’d have to do it.
Will all these kids fit in one room? he asked.
“Out loud,” I reminded him quietly. “No, you’ll be divided into groups, and then you’ll hang out with one group all day, Hunter.” I didn’t know if the Red Ditch kindergarten had the same schedule as the higher grades, but I was sure it would last past lunch, anyway. “Your dad will bring you in the morning, and someone will come get you in the afternoon.” Who? I wondered, and then remembered Hunter was listening to me. “Your dad will fix that,” I said. “Look. This room is the Seal Room. See the big picture of the seal? And that room is the Pony Room.”
“Is there a pony?” Hunter was an optimist.
“I don’t think so, but I bet there are lots of pictures of ponies in the room.” All the doors were open, and the teachers were inside, smiling at the children and their parents, doing their best to seem welcoming and warm. Some of them, of course, had more of a struggle doing this than others.
The Pony Room teacher, Mrs. Gristede, was a nice enough woman, or at least that was what my quick look told me. Hunter nodded.
We ventured into the Puppy Room and met with Miss O’Fallon. We were back in the hall after three minutes.
“Not the Puppy Room,” I told Remy, speaking very quietly. “You can designate, right?”
“Yeah, we can. Once. I can say one room I definitely don’t want my kid to be in,” he said. “Most people use that option in case the teacher is too close to the family, like a relative, or if the families have had some quarrel.”
“Not the Puppy Room,” Hunter said, looking scared.
Miss O’Fallon looked pretty on the outside, but she was rotten on the inside.
“What’s wrong?” Remy asked, his voice also on a confidential level.
“Tell you later,” I murmured. “Let’s go see something else.”
Trailed by Remy, we made visits to the other three rooms. All the other teachers seemed okay, though Mrs. Boyle seemed a little burned-out. Her thoughts were brisk and had an edge of impatience, and her smile was just a bit brittle. I didn’t say anything to Remy. If he could turn down only one teacher, Miss O’Fallon was the most dangerous.
We went back to Mrs. Gristede’s room because Hunter definitely liked the ponies. There were two other parents there, both towing little girls. I squeezed Hunter’s hand gently to remind him of the rules. He looked up at me, and I nodded, trying to encourage the boy. He let go of my hand and went over to a reading area, picking up one of the books and turning the pages.
“Do you like to read, Hunter?” Mrs. Gristede asked.
“I like books. I can’t read yet.” Hunter put the book back where it belonged, and I gave him a mental pat on the back. He smiled to himself and picked up another book, this one a Dr. Seuss about dogs.
“I can tell Hunter’s been read to,” the teacher said, smiling at Remy and me.
Remy introduced himself. “I’m Hunter’s dad, and this is Hunter’s cousin,” he said, inclining his head toward me. “Sookie’s standing in for Hunter’s mom tonight, since she’s passed away.”
Mrs. Gristede absorbed that. “Well, I’m glad to see both of you,” she said. “Hunter seems like a bright little boy.”
I noticed the girls were approaching him. They were longtime friends, I could tell, and their parents went to church together. I made a mental note to advise Remy to pick a church and start attending. Hunter was going to need all the backup he could get. The girls began picking up books, too. Hunter smiled at the girl with the dark Dutchboy bob, giving her that sideways look shy children use to evaluate potential playmates.
She said, “I like this one,” and pointed to Where the Wild Things Are.
“I never read it,” Hunter said doubtfully. It looked a little scary to him.
“Do you play with blocks?” the girl with the light brown ponytail asked.
“Yeah.” Hunter walked over to the carpeted play area that was for construction, I decided, because there were all sizes of blocks and puzzles around it. In a minute the three were building something that took on life in their minds.
Remy smiled. He was hoping this was the way every day would go. Of course, it wouldn’t. Even now, Hunter was glancing dubiously at the ponytail girl because she was getting angry about the brunette’s grabbing all the alphabet blocks.
The other parents looked at me with some curiosity, and one of the mothers said, “You don’t live here?”
“No,” I said. “I live over in Bon Temps. But Hunter wanted me to go around with him today, and he’s my favorite little cousin.” I’d almost called him my nephew, because he called me “Aunt Sookie.”
“Remy,” the same woman said. “You’re Hank Savoy’s great-nephew, right?”
Remy nodded. “Yeah, we came up here after Katrina, and we stayed,” he said. He shrugged. Nothing you could do about losing everything to Katrina. She was a bitch.
There was a lot of headshaking, and I felt the sympathy roll over Remy. Maybe that goodwill would extend to Hunter.
While they were all bonding, I drifted back to Miss O’Fallon’s door.
The young woman was smiling at two children who were wandering around her brightly decorated classroom. One set of parents was staying right beside their little one. Maybe they were picking up on the vibe, or maybe they were just protective.
I drifted close to Miss O’Fallon, and I opened my mouth to speak. I would have said, “You keep those fantasies to yourself. Don’t even think of such things when you’re in the same room with kids.” But I had a second thought. She knew I’d come with Hunter. Would he become a target for her evil imagination if I threatened her? I couldn’t be around to protect him. I couldn’t stop her. I couldn’t think of a way to take her out of the equation. She hadn’t yet done anything wrong in the eyes of the law or morality . . . yet. So what if she imagined taping children’s mouths shut? She hadn’t done it. Haven’t all of us fantasized about awful things we haven’t done? she asked herself, because the answer made her feel that she was still . . . okay. She didn’t know I could hear her.
Was I any better than Miss O’Fallon? That awful question ran through my mind more quickly than it takes to write the sentences. I thought, Yeah, I’m not as scary because I’m not in charge of kids. The people I want to hurt are adults and they’re killers themselves. That didn’t make me any better — but it made O’Fallon a lot worse.
I’d been staring at her long enough to spook her. “Did you want to ask something about the curriculum?” she asked finally, a little edge to her voice.
“Why did you become a teacher?” I asked.
“I thought it would be a wonderful thing to teach little ones the first things they needed to know to get along in the world,” she said, as if she’d pressed the button on a recording. She meant, I had a teacher who tortured me when no one was looking, and I like the small and helpless.
“Hmmm,” I murmured. The other visitors left the room, and we were alone.
“You need therapy,” I said, quietly and quickly. “If you act on what you see in your head, you’ll hate yourself. And you’ll ruin the lives of other people just the same way yours was ruined. Don’t let her win. Get help.”
She gaped at me. “I don’t know . . . What on earth . . .”
“I’m so serious,” I said, answering her next unspoken question. “I’m so serious.”