Mason pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket.
It was bent soft from being opened and closed too many times.
“My English teacher made us write about our hero last month,” he said. “I wrote about him.”
He hesitated.
“Can I give it to you?”
I blinked.
“Why me?”
“Because I think maybe you’d understand it right.”
He handed it over and walked away before I could answer.
I didn’t open it there.
I couldn’t.
Something in the way he let go of that page felt too personal to unfold in a crowd.
When the last few kids drifted off, Principal Dawes came over with the careful smile of a man trying to manage twelve feelings at once.
“Ms. Brooks,” he said, “that was… memorable.”
I almost laughed.
Memorable is what people say when they mean powerful and inconvenient at the same time.
“Thank you.”
He cleared his throat.
“A number of parents were very moved.”
I waited.
“And a few are concerned.”
There it was.
Emma crossed her arms.
“Concerned about what?” she asked.
He glanced at her, then back at me.
“They feel some students may have received the wrong message.”
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