Angels Everywhere - Debbie Macomber [120]
“You know,” said the girl who’d claimed the desk closest to the door, “you might be all right, but it’s going to take some doing, getting used to a teacher who doesn’t look any older than one of us.”
“She isn’t married, either. Say, Teach, do you want me to set you up?” Emilio asked. “I got an older brother who could use a chick like you.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Brynn answered, reaching for her attendance book. “Now that you know about me, it’s time for me to learn something about each one of you.”
“But we don’t know you!” two or three protested in turn.
Brynn held the book against her breast and sighed. “What other information do you need?”
Questions were tossed at her in every which direction. She put a stop to them with a wave of her hand. “Listen, I’ll give you the basics and then we’ll have to get started. My first name is Brynn.”
“How many kids in your family?”
“Eight.”
“Eight!”
“She’s Irish and Catholic, ain’t she?”
Brynn ignored the comment. “I’m the fourth oldest and the first girl. My oldest brother is thirty-three and my youngest sister is sixteen.” She lowered the grade book and called out, “Yolanda Aguilar.”
“Here.” The Hispanic girl raised her hand and waved enthusiastically.
Brynn looked at Yolanda and made a notation next to the girl’s name. “Emilio Alcantara is here,” she said, making a second notation.
“What are you writing down about me?” Emilio demanded. He sat up on his chair and craned his neck toward her as if that would be enough to read what she’d written.
“I said you sat in the front row and revealed leadership characteristics.”
“I do?” He sounded surprised.
“What’d you say about me?” Yolanda asked.
“That you’re energetic and personable.”
“How’d you know that?”
“Yeah, how’d you figure that about Yolanda?” another boy demanded, then leaned over to the student at the desk next to him. “What’s personable mean?”
“Shhh, I’m next and I want to know what she’s gonna say about me.”
“Modesto Diaz,” Brynn called out, looking at the youth above the grade book.
He curled his upper lip and snarled at her. “Yo.”
Brynn added her comment to the book.
“What’d ya say?” Modesto insisted, straightening. He was halfway out of his seat. “I gotta right to know since you told the others.”
“I wrote down that you have a flair for the dramatic.”
“What’s that mean?” Modesto asked Emilio under his breath.
“The hell if I know,” Emilio complained. “She’s gonna be one weird teacher.”
By lunchtime Brynn was convinced Emilio was right. She was completely out of touch with their world. Her vocabulary, which she’d never thought of as especially advanced, served to confuse her students. Half the morning was spent repeating in simpler terms what she’d said previously.
She’d no more than handed out The Diary of Anne Frank and briefly described to them Anne’s story when the bell rang for their first break. The classroom emptied so fast, one would think the school was on fire.
Brynn sat down at her desk and exhaled sharply, weary to the bone. This was her first day in an inner-city high school, and she was going to need help—lots of help, and she didn’t expect it to come in the form of the PTA.
Bowing her head, she murmured a simple prayer, asking for patience and guidance. She yearned to teach her students to dream, to look to the future with enthusiasm. She hungered for them to see beyond the troubles they faced day in and day out and reach for the stars, and she wanted to be the one to show them the way.
* * *
Brynn’s whispered prayer fluttered past the chipped blackboard, echoed silently through the scarred halls, as it winged its way toward heaven. The request soared, swiftly spanning the distance between man and God. Carried on the brisk winds of faith, guided by devotion, navigated by love, it arrived fresh and bright at the very feet of the Archangel Gabriel.
“Brynn Cassidy,