Evolving

Grade One

"Heeeeey! Stop taking all the colors!"

"Stop screaming, you're such a baby!"

"Ms. Robin! Jesse keeps taking all the coloring pencils and I don't get any left for me!"

"Now now, Shayle, we have to use our inside voices when we communicate inside the class–"

"I want my coloring pencils back!" Shayle whined, nearing the river of tears.

"Shayle," Ms. Robin knelt beside her. "What grade are we in this year?"

Shayle sniffed. "First grade..."

"So we can't keep acting like the little Kindergarteners anymore, can we?"

Shayle rubbed her right eye. "I'm not a little girl anymore."

"Yes, exactly. So let's ask Jesse to share the colored pencils the polite way, okay?"

Shayle nodded.

"Now ask Jesse if you could please use the colored pencils to color your flower."

Shayle turned to Jesse who sat to her left playing with the precious colored pencils that she wanted in her possession. "Jesse?"

"What?" he answered curtly.

"Can we p-please share the c-colored pencils, ple-ease?" she hiccupped.

"Yes, of course." Jesse smiled a million dollar smile to his teacher that he admired so very much. She returned the gesture and moved onto another table.

Jesse immediately snatched the pencils back from Shayle once the coast was clear. "These are mine, cry baby. Little babies like you don't get to use my pencils."

"We're supposed to share, though!" Shayle wailed. "Ms. Robin said it."

"I don't care what she says, it's what I say."

Shayle gasped. "How could you say that to her?"

"I didn't say that to her, I said it to you."

"I'm gonna tell on you!"

Jesse was on high alert at the threat. "No!"

"Ms–!"

Jesse put his hand over Shayle's mouth. Even though he felt beyond disgusted with himself because her cooties were in the process of transferring from her onto him in that very moment, the relationship between him and his favorite teacher was more important. If Shayle had told on him, how would the lovely brown haired, green eyed woman see him then?

Shayle smacked his hand off of her and made regurgitating noises. "Cooties! Yuck!"

The other girls at their table all scooted away from them both, groaning in exaggerated disgust.

"I don't have the cooties, you do!" Jesse quipped, embarrassed.

"Jesse, please. Inside voices." Ms. Robin warned.

Oh no, now she hates me, Jesse thought.

He groaned and put his head down on the desk. He felt like he might cry himself! But he would never, he was six years old now, not five. He was a big boy and he knew he couldn't do it.

"Hand over the markers or I'll make Ms. Robin hate you even more by telling her what you said,"Shayle told him over his shoulder.

"Fine. Take 'em, you dumb little brat." He threw the pencils down on in her lap and the rest scattered across the carpeted floor.

Shayle's bottom lip puckered. She sobbed once. Then twice. Tears rolled down her face as her crying got louder.

She stood up and gave Jesse's shoulder a small shove. "I'm not dumb, I've gotten a candy for my excellent work before!"

"What's going on here?" Ms. Robin questioned, returning to their side of the class.

"Jessewasntsharingthecoloringpencilswithmeevenafteryoutoldhimtoandhesaidtonotlistentoyouand–"she took a deep breath. "–he threw the pencils at me and called me a dumb little brat...' her words were broken off with sobs.

"Is this true, Jesse?" Ms. Robin asked him.

He opened and closed his mouth repeatedly, trying to find the right words to explain himself out of the situation like he had been able to do so many times before, but to no avail. "Well, s-she hit me!"

"This behavior is not to be accepted in the classroom. Both of you find a chair in a different corner and wait for me to come over there."

Shayle and Jesse both shot glares at each other from the opposite side of the room.

"I hate you," Shayle mouthed.

"No you don't," Jesse mouthed back, scowling.

"You're stupid."

"I'm telling."

"Then I'll tell what you said about her."

Jesse couldn't read her lips well enough to make out her sentence. He squinted his eyes at her in a dramatized manner. "What?"

Shayle shook her head. "Never mind."

Suddenly, Jesse's lips twitched up until he was fully smiling, a look of mischief covered his features. "I bet I could sit in the corner longer than you."

Shayle narrowed her eyes at him, noting the challenge. "I bet you can't."

"Okay. If I win, you will admit that I'm better than you in everything."

Shayle nodded. "If I win, you'll share the coloring pencils with me always."

"Deal."

Because of Shayle's constant chatting with her friend Mara Lyn, and Jesse's inability to want to purposely upset his lovely teacher, Shayle had been in the corner longer and got the liberty to color with the beautiful 12 set colored pencils while Jesse waited sullen and impatiently. Shayle felt victorious.