“We go to the school today,” I told my husband.
He nodded, his jaw tight.
“They’ll deny it. They always deny it.”
“We go to the school today,”
“Then we bring in someone who saw it.”
***
Twenty minutes later, we sat in the school administrator’s office.
He folded his hands on the desk and offered a smile that never reached his eyes.
“I understand emotions are running high,” he began. “But I want to assure you, this is a very ordinary situation.”
“Then we bring in someone who saw it.”
“Ordinary?” I leaned forward. “A grown man came to my door in tears last night.”
“Children tease,” he said gently. “It’s part of growing up. Building resilience. If we intervened every time a child felt left out, we’d never do anything else.”
My husband’s voice dropped low.
“This isn’t teasing. Another child is targeting Alice on purpose.”
The administrator sighed, as though we were the exhausting ones.
