She said I sometimes touched things I wasn’t supposed to touch.
Then she said something that made me finally look at her.
“Daniel has a very active imagination.”
That was the sentence she had used every time she threatened me.
Nobody will believe you.
You’re just a child.
They’ll say you imagined it.
I looked at the officer.
“I didn’t imagine it.”
The classroom became silent again.
The officer sat beside me.
“What happened?”
I looked at Mrs. Carter.
She stared back at me.
For weeks, that look had been enough to make me stop talking.
But Grandma was standing behind the officer now.
So I finally told them everything.
It had started almost a month earlier.
One afternoon, I had forgotten my science notebook in the classroom.
I realized it after Grandma had already picked me up.
She was waiting in the car while I ran back inside.
