Teacher's Christmas Cowboy (Trinity Falls Sweet Romance - Icicle Christmas #5)

It was important for Sylvester to have a routine. Their counselor had said so back in Washington after Arthur passed. Cora kept to it religiously, knowing that her boy needed her to make everything in his life feel as safe as possible after he had lost a parent.

“Okay, now can we talk about it?” Sylvester asked impatiently, putting down his pencil.

“We sure can,” Cora told him. “Great work staying focused on your homework. Isn’t it nice that it’s all done now?”

Sylvester nodded, looking miserable and picking up his football keychain again.

She’d managed to get him to put it down long enough to do his homework, but he was clearly still worried enough to want the security it usually gave him. Seeing the memento of his dad made Cora wish for the millionth time that Arthur was still around. He always knew just what to say.

“You know I love you no matter what, right?” she said, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “Principal Tucker told me that you’re really good at reading and making friends, and that Miss Sullivan really likes you.”

“She did?” he asked softly.

“She sure did,” Cora told him. “That was the first thing she told me. The next thing she told me is that there have been two times when you’ve done something disruptive or unsafe. Her job and Miss Sullivan’s job is to keep you all safe and help you learn, so they have to make sure you know what to do differently next time. Do you know the two things she was talking about?”

Sylvester nodded, but he didn’t answer right away. Cora kept her mouth shut. She knew it was just as important for him to tell her in his own words about the negative things that happened as it was for her to let him explode with joyous explanations of the good things.

Besides, maybe Miss Sullivan’s description had lost a little of its accuracy since it had to travel through another person to get to Cora. It was better for Sylvester to explain things himself, from his own perspective.

“I gave Donny a noogie,” he said quietly at last, looking down at his hands.

“How come?” Cora asked him.

“We were just joking around,” Sylvester said.

“So you weren’t mad at him?” Cora asked.

“Of course not,” Sylvester said, looking up at her in surprise.

“And you weren’t teasing him?” she asked carefully. Kids were so attuned to the word bully these days that she knew she needed to not use it, but she wanted to know if that’s what was happening here.

“No,” Sylvester said. “Donny is my friend. I thought it would be funny to him, and he just laughed. And so did the other kids.”

“It must have felt good to hear them all laughing,” Cora said gently.

Sylvester nodded, looking slightly less worried.

“There are two reasons you can’t do it again,” Cora said. “Do you want to hear them?”

“It’s not safe,” Sylvester said. He didn’t look convinced though.

“Do you know why it isn’t safe?” Cora asked him.

After a slight pause, he shook his head.

“When you gave your friend Donny a noogie, you were careful not to hurt him,” she said. “But what if another student saw you do that and then they decided to do the same when they were teasing another child. And what if they were trying to hurt them? Or what if they also just wanted to be funny but they weren’t as gentle? It’s not safe to have your arm wrapped around someone’s neck. And in the classroom the rule is usually not to touch anyone else at all.”

Sylvester looked completely miserable. She could tell he was trying not to cry.

“I know you didn’t think of all that stuff, you and Donny were just having fun,” she said. “But now you know, you won’t do it again, right?”

He shook his head emphatically.

“What about the other thing?” Cora asked. “Do you know what that was?”

“I jumped up on my desk,” he said.

“Good heavens,” she let herself say. “Why did you do that?”