Ms. Petosa

You better THINK, think
Think about what you're trying to do to me
THINK, think think think

"After everyone figures out how to open his or her lock, Ms. FELICIA"  Aazim hissed, in place of the character's real name, "explains that she used to work for Wall Street but quit her job because it was her lifelong dream to be a teacher."
The sound whistling through the place where his front teeth should have been as he glared at the rest of the group.  The kids eyeballed him, while he smirked at giving them all the Felicia.  And, he was a year younger than all of the kids in my after-school group. 

"Is there any pig or cow in the sausage today?"  a student asked me in the lunch line.
"I don't know, why don't you eat pig or cow?" I responded, curious.
"I feel bad for the animals.  I went to this place, a burger place, and everyone sat around eating hamburgers.  They had pictures on the walls of happy cows and I couldn't believe anyone could sit there and eat them with those pictures in front of them."
"Thank you for letting me know.  I'm like you, too." I answered.

"¿Qué vas a hacer este fin de semana?" I asked my wild-ass, last class of the day on a Friday.  The rough girl, the one that makes everyone cry, the one that is rude to me for fun and pisses me off, Mikayla, raised her hand.
"I'm getting my ears pierced and my hair professionally done."
"I can't wait to see it," I responded "I'll look for you on Monday."

"Let's take a walk... so we can sit and talk...."  the band thundered in my ears as I stood in the park in the night, watching the moon rise with a red planet beside it.  A child ran by, and wrapped a glow band around my wrist.

"We have moved to Dubai!  We re-homed most of our dogs, but Lola's dad is the only one left.  He's eight and no one wants him.  Can you help us find him a home?"
"Of course!"  I answered.
I hugged Lola and told her over and over in my head that I would never leave her.  She would never be without our home.  She would never have to know new people, or a new place without us.

Mikayla passed through the lunch line early in the week.  Her ears weren't pierced and her hair was the same.
"Hey... what happened?"  I asked her.
She shrugged.
"Didn't work out."

I love it when children's authors visit our school.  I watched the guy entertain the kids and read from his book.  My class was enraptured, I didn't have to bitch at them once.  The author asked for a selfie with the kids and the kids went wild, running toward the stage.  We got all four hundred and fifty of them basically under control.  And then, he raised his phone and he asked for another from the kids.
"What an asshole." the fourth grade teacher to my left muttered.

"See, I'm not so good at Spanish... when I was at Whitford, my teacher, he uh, left, then I was at Trinity, and we had Chinese....".
Three schools by the beginning of fourth grade.
"Well, I'm not going anywhere, I'll be here...."  I almost said.

But, I didn't want to lie.

* Aretha Franklin, Think
**R.J. Palacio, Wonder
***The Rock-A-Teens