“This is Jenny. She’s a little shy.”
Jenny was aware that her mother was talking, addressing another adult in this new school that she was apparently supposed to attend now.
Her family had moved across two states. In October. Apparently because her father had found his Dream Job, and so they’d had to move from Michigan to Minnesota in the middle of a school year.
Jenny remembered her parents discussing it. It had only been a month ago, and now her entire world had changed.
“But what about Jenny?” her mother asked. “She just started third grade. She’s finally starting to settle down.”
Jenny was in the other room, watching Bluey on her iPad. She was pretending not to listen to her parents, but it was impossible for her not to listen to every conversation happening around her. It made it so difficult for her to focus.
“Carol, you know this is a huge step for me. Double the salary! You wouldn’t even have to work anymore. And Jenny will make new friends. Kids are resilient at her age.”
“Most kids are,” her mother said. There was a soft sigh in her voice, the resignation that Jenny had gotten used to. “But Jenny’s different. You know that.”
“She’s a little shy, sure. But she’ll work it out. It took her longer here than other kids, but she worked it out.”
There had been more, of course. Quite a few arguments over that first week, and while it wasn’t fair that her parents had to put so much thought into how Jenny would react, it also wasn’t fair that Jenny didn’t get to decide where they lived or where she went to school or anything.
So here she was now, clinging to her mother’s skirt and peeking out at the class of complete strangers seated in ugly plastic chairs around ugly fake wood tables.
“Hello, Jenny.” The adult woman in a too-chipper flowery sun dress, her long brown hair in a ponytail that made her look almost too young to be a teacher, bent down, hands tucked between her knees, face nearly but not quite at Jenny’s level. She was smiling a plastic smile that went with the chairs and the tables.
Jenny leaned a bit farther behind her mother, then scanned the classroom again, assessing which children looked like potential threats and which might, possibly, potentially, be allies.
One in particular stuck out to her: A girl with red hair in a pixie cut, wearing a t-shirt that read “Princess Trouble!” in sparkly text. When Jenny made eye contact with her, the other girl smiled like the Cheshire cat in the Alice book at home.
Jenny jumped a little, stuck her thumb into her mouth, and curled her body over to her mother’s other side.
“Jenny,” the adult woman said. She rotated her torso to adjust for Jenny’s movements. “I’m very glad to meet you. You can call me Miss Heather.”
Jenny looked Miss Heather up and down, gently suckling her thumb, the fingers of her other hand clutching her mother’s skirt tighter. She could feel her heartbeat racing. Though she knew that she was being assessed by all of the other students right now, and the First Impression she was making wasn’t good (her father had briefed her, again, this morning on the importance of First Impressions), still, she didn’t feel in control of her reaction to this situation.
Miss Heather stood up again and went back to talking to her mother. “Does she talk?” she whispered.
“Yes, she’s just a little shy. Once she settles in, she’ll be fine.” Her mother looked down at her, and even though she didn’t look back, Jenny could tell from her voice that her mother wasn’t convinced.
“Well, there’s a chair open next to Beth,” Miss Heather said. “How about you sit there for now, Jenny?”
She motioned in the direction of Princess Trouble, whose eyelids flared in a carnivorous way, the smile getting just a little more sinister.
The direction of Miss Heather’s voice focused back on Jenny’s mother. “Beth is one of our classroom leaders. She’ll take good care of Jenny.”
That’s what Jenny was afraid of.
04.06.25