Jessica ran down the hall, her long brown hair flying wildly. A binder was tucked under her arm, with all her lesson plans for the new third grade class that she would be teaching. She was also new at being a teacher, and with her college assignments, it was going to be a lot to handle. And she was already late on her first day!

She skidded to a stop in front of Room 67. That was her classroom. She couldn’t believe that she had her own classroom! Jessica looked at the shiny brown door leading to her classroom with awe, before checking her watch. Darn it! Ten minutes late! C’mon girl, you know you can’t spend a whole minute looking at a door! Jessica yanked on the handle, and saw….a fidgeting class, waiting for their teacher to arrive. 

“Hello, third graders! I’m your teacher!” No, no! You can’t do that! They won’t believe you! You know not many teachers are as young as you! True to her thoughts, they didn’t believe her. They looked at her, then started fidgeting again. Some of them even popped some gum in their mouths and started chewing. Jessica stepped back, abashed and angry that the kids would display such rudeness to her. 

But there was one kind young soul in that room. She was in the back of the classroom. Her head was tilted to the ceiling, but Jessica knew when she spotted the girl that the girl was really looking at a wonderland in her mind. One of the first things Jessica noticed about her was her bronze hair, that looked like it was a medal that had just been polished. But her real beauty was on the inside, where her imagination was kept. Just once, by pure chance, she drifted out of the dream that she was in, and thought about the scene that was actually displayed around her. She thought and thought about the scene in a special way that only people with that much imagination would think about it. “Hey. Maybe she is our teacher,” she said in a light voice that bounced around the room, but she still was looking at the ceiling, deep in thought.

“Her? Nah. She’s too young,” a boy said, waving away her thoughts. He had had gum in his mouth but he had spit it out just a few minutes before. The bronze-haired girl didn’t seem to notice that he had blown away her ideas, because she was already in the middle of another daydream.

“My name is Jessica AND I AM YOUR TEACHER!” shouted Jessica, jolted awake by the boy’s response. That got the kid’s attention. Some kids snickered at her. Actually, all the kids snickered at her but the bronze-haired girl. She had drifted back out of her daydream, though.

A few minutes later, Mr. Hawk, the principal, walked into the room. Jessica had called him on the school phone, explaining the whole situation.

“This…girl thinks she’s our teacher,” said the boy who had crumpled up the bronze-haired girl’s words, when asked by the principal “What exactly is going on?”.

“Really? Well, then, please go. I’m waiting for Miss Greenworth, the teacher who applied,” Mr. Hawk told Jessica.

“But I am Miss Greenworth-” insisted Jessica, but was cut off by “Go. Now.” She ran out of the room, tears forming in her eyes. She was Miss Greenworth. What was it with this world, and why was it trying to break her family?

“Okay, okay, thanks for letting me know,” said Mr. Hawk on the phone. Jessica had called him with her own phone after she had gone home and told him in a very calm voice that she was, in fact, Miss Greenworth, and that girl who had been in Room 67, telling him that she was the teacher, and remember, she hadn’t told him anything about her age other than that she was eighteen or older. She was eighteen.

Inside, she was bubbling hot with anger at her students and Mr. Hawk. She could’ve just gotten out her ID but Mr. Hawk had dismissed her from the classroom before she could do anything! 

Actually, there was one kid she wasn’t mad at. She definitely wasn’t mad at that bronze-haired girl. Jessica looked at her list of students with school pictures from when they were in second grade. Not that one, not that one, there was the boy who had shushed the very girl she was looking for! She scowled, her eyebrows forming a ‘V’ shape.

“Bruce Diamond, huh?” she murmured. “Sounds like a rich guy.” Jessica resumed looking for the girl. “There! Last one!” said Jessica, stabbing her finger on the paper. Violet Wong was her name. “Violet, I like you already.” She checked her watch. “Three minutes until I have to go for my first half day.”

Jessica walked into the classroom, her eyes darting from kid to kid. People say that the first impression is everything, and her first impression on these kids had definitely not been good.

“So, hi, we’re going to start our half day with some ocean inspired spelling tests,” Jessica said, wincing. She knew that spelling tests weren’t going to make her seem any better. Sure enough, there were a looooooot of groans from the sea of desks.

“Ugh! Nooo!” moaned the boy Jessica now knew as Bruce. “What are you trying to do to us?”

“Yeah! Any teacher who assigns spelling tests is a monster!” chimed in another boy.

“I hate spelling tests!” whined a girl in a fancy purple dress. There were more and more rude remarks, piling onto Jessica’s shoulders like boulders until the load got way too heavy.

“EVERYONE STOP!” Jessica yelled, her face red. “This is not the way you should ever behave to anyone EVER! Now, pull out your pencils and spell the word ‘octopus’!” The students pulled out their pencils and started scribbling on the paper in front of them. The kids who had shouted out glared at her between scribbles. “Put your papers on my desk when you are done,” Jessica demanded.

After school Jessica was at her desk grading the spelling tests. She saw the students had used crude handwriting and doodled mad faces, tornadoes and other things on the sides just to make a point. When she came to Bruce’s paper, she gasped in horror.

There she was, except she was an evil green warty slug monster, her smile showing off pointy teeth as she forced kids to do piles of schoolwork as tall as Mount Everest! She knew it was her because ‘Teacher’ was written in capital letters on her forehead in black ink. Jessica started sobbing, her tears raining down on her desk. “I can’t do this,” she choked out between sobs. “I can’t do this anymore!” She sprinted out of Room 67, letting the door bang behind her. She grabbed all of her belongings from the staff room, and then walked home.

Sitting on the couch at her apartment, Jessica stared into space in front of her white wall. There was something mesmerizing about it, pulling her closer and closer to an idea, a thought, until…Jessica sprang up. You could almost see a lightbulb on top of her head like in a cartoon!

“I should call Mom, to see what she thinks about this,” she said. Her mom always made her feel cozy and safe, and Jessica thought her mother could also make her feel better about this too. She took her well loved phone out of her jean pocket. When she got to the home screen, Jessica tapped on the green FaceTime icon at the bottom of the page. Then she clicked her mom’s number. Right away, her mother’s dark wrinkly face popped up on the screen.

“Hi, darlin’!” her mom shouted in the big ol’ voice that was hers. “What’s goin’ on? Why did ya’ call me?”

“The kids at school…bully me,” Jessica said, her cheeks flushing. “A lot.” She was the teacher! Kids were supposed to bully other kids, but nope. This year they were bullying the teacher. Her.

“Darlin’, you can’t let the bullies make you cry to your mama! Unless it’s this mama. But this is what the bullies want!”

“I doubt they could picture me doing what I’m doing now. I think they just want me to leave the school I’m teaching at,” Jessica said.

“Just get on with it! Count your blessings, girl! You have an apartment, a job, an online college…hey, maybe you’ll find a friend at school!”

“I’m not a kid anymore, Mom. School is different when you’re a teacher,” said Jessica. But deep in her heart, she didn’t mean it.

Jessica had gotten used to sitting in the front of the classroom at her desk, the student’s desks arranged like a box of chocolates in front of her. There was one chocolate that her eyes were pulled to most. Violet Wong. For the few words of kindness she had spoken, the only kindness that Jessica had gotten inside the stony building that was the school.

Right now it was writing. Jessica was doing what she often did during independent work, which was looking at her computer doing college courses while peeking every so often at the kids (Violet), which was pretty often, seeing if they needed help.

Through Jessica’s rose colored glasses, which appeared when something was related to Violet, Violet was the strongest writer in the class. It doesn’t matter if she was or wasn’t, because every writer, even or especially the strong ones, has moments when things get tough. When Jessica peeked at Violet, she saw that her eyebrows were knitting together, her pencil starting to move roughly. Jessica recognized the signs when she saw them. Violet needed help. 

Jessica quickly surveyed the other students. Violet was the only one with a struggling stance. Bruce’s pencil was leaping across his paper like a ballerina. Okay, I can do this, Jessica thought.

Clack, clack, clack went her boots as she swiftly walked through the classroom on the wooden floor. Violet looked up. Jessica walked towards her. She crouched down next to Violet’s desk.

“Do you need any help?” Jessica whispered. Violet nodded as she blinked back tears, staring at her paper.

“My story has crumbled. It’s not believable anymore,” Violet said succinctly. It was a unit on realistic fiction, and Jessica had told them in the beginning of the unit to make it believable but not boring.

“Why not?” asked Jessica. Violet opened her mouth and started whispering. Jessica nodded and explained to her what she could do. The corners of Violet’s mouth started going up. Violet said, “Okay.” And then her pencil started twirling around on her paper.

Jessica smiled as she walked back toward her desk. She gave me kindness, and so I gave it back. She realized how nice it was to share kindness. Maybe, just maybe, she could give kindness to the other kids and they would give it back, like Violet! Jessica started forming a plan in her head. 

At the end of the day, she grinned as she skipped gaily back to her apartment.

“Hi, class!” Jessica said brightly as she walked into the classroom with a tub full of little heart-shaped containers.

“What’s that?” asked a small girl, pointing to the tub.

“Oh! I’m so glad you asked!” Jessica said, sitting the tub on the ground. “These are gifts for you! Each of you gets one.” The kids all rushed to the front of the classroom.  Except for Violet, who smiled and looked at the ceiling. She knew what the gift was. And she had already gotten it, at least from Jessica.

The kids put the heart containers at their desks. “Now, don’t open it yet. You’ll know when the time is right,” Jessica told them. The kids groaned. Jessica looked at Violet. She hadn’t gotten up to get a heart container from the tub. But Violet smiled at her when she saw that Jessica was looking at her. Oh. She knows, and she thinks she’s already gotten it from me. Perhaps she has, Jessica thought.

“Wait,” said the same small girl. “I’ve opened it. Thanks.” She beamed up at Jessica. All the kids (but Violet) stared at her. The heart container was lying on her desk, clamped shut.

“Thank you for giving it back!” Jessica told her, her eyes sparkling. Everyone except Violet and the small girl turned to stare at her.

“It’s like a tennis ball! Back and forth, back and forth,” the small girl told her. Jessica laughed.

“Now, please get out your copy of Charlotte’s Web from your desk. Go to Chapter 6,” Jessica told everyone. She’d let them figure out what her gift was on their own, and let them open it by themselves.

The small girl’s name was Ashley. She was pretty smart, and had quickly figured out what the gift was. The reason Ashley hadn’t been nice to Jessica before was because she too was bullied by Bruce since she was smart but small and Bruce took advantage of that. The gift, however, had given her courage.

The heart container was symbolic. What Jessica had given them was something that no one could put in a box. 

Jessica knew that her class would have to open their hearts to get her gift. Ashley’s heart was already opened, she had just barricaded it to keep the kindness from flowing out because of fear. But the same thing, kindness, Jessica’s gift, had made it gush out.

One by one, each kid figured out what the gift was. It was like magic. Now Jessica had a class full of nice, happy kids. All except Bruce.

Bruce was now like a storm cloud, darkened by seeing all the kindness and happiness going around. He wanted in on it too. But he was trying to get it in a bad way.

“Hey!” he said in a nasty voice to Violet. “Give me your dessert or else I’ll-I’ll-I’ll…” he stuttered. Before he just psyched out people, now he was playing the ogre who stole lunch money.

But now Violet had friends. A group of kids fanned out beside trembling Violet.

“Why should she give you her dessert? What have you done to earn it?” asked Trisha. She was the girl who had once whined about hating spelling tests. Now she spent all her time reading.

“You’re not making sense,” Bruce mumbled, and he walked away. He had turned from brainy to oaf. Too much angriness bottled up in you does that sometimes.

“Honestly, what has happened to him? Why hasn’t he opened Jessica’s gift?” said Trisha, still looking at the empty space where Bruce had once threatened Violet.

“I think…I think he’s trying to get to the gift. But by stealing it, not opening it,” Violet said, looking down.

“That makes sense,” Trisha said.

“Why can’t we tell him?” asked Ashley. “Why can’t we tell him what it is?”

Violet looked her in the eye. “He knows what it is, or else he wouldn’t be searching for it. And…this is his journey. He has to learn it for himself.”

Jessica knew that Bruce needed a nudge in receiving her gift. She drove to Target and got a blank card. When Jessica got home, she wrote a long note in it. She scrolled through the addresses of the kids in her class on the computer, until she got to Bruce. Jessica wrote on the envelope that had come with the card, and stuck a USA Forever stamp on it. Then she went to the lobby of her apartment building, and stuck it in the apartment’s mailbox.

At home, Bruce ripped open the envelope that Jessica had so carefully written on. He read the message, his eyes racing around the card. Bruce slammed it on the mahogany coffee table with a bang when he was done.

“Bruce dear! Don’t break anything!” his mother called from upstairs.

“Don’t worry Mom! I’m not going to!” he called back. Quickly he stuffed the card to the bottom of the nearest basket he could find, and then backed away. Anything touched by Jessica he wanted to be at least six feet away from.

Then he sat down to think. Huh. I haven’t done this for a while. I have been just acting, not thinking. That was Bruce’s first noticing. His eyes got big when he noticed something else. I’ve been hurting people, haven’t I? His third noticing brought tears to his eyes. I don’t want to hurt people. But that’s what I’ve been doing all along. Bruce tried to piece the puzzle together, tried to figure out what he should do next. I know the person who has been hurt the most by me. Bruce knew what he needed to do.

Bruce walked into the classroom, his face peeking shyly at all the kids. Not that they noticed. Well, except for Violet. She gave a perplexed look to Bruce, and pointed to the box of chocolates in his hand. Bruce mouthed, You’ll find out. Violet’s face scrunched even more.

Slowly Bruce approached Jessica’s desk. She was typing into her silver computer, but stopped when she noticed Bruce. Jessica looked up at Bruce.

“What’s that?” Jessica asked.

“It’s for you. Gourmet milk chocolate,” Bruce said in a hopeful whisper.

“Oh,” said Jessica. “Oh, I’m so sorry Bruce. I’m lactose intolerant.”

“You are?” Bruce whispered, his voice hoarse.

Jessica grinned. “Welllll….It is a tiny box, isn’t it?” And she opened the box and started eating.

Epilogue

Jessica sat in the front row of the golden auditorium, parents and teachers chatting around her. It was the end of the year ceremony. She had built many friendships this year. It brought tears to her eyes to think about how far she and her students had progressed.

Mr. Hawk stood at the shining podium. “Attention, attention!” he shouted into the microphone, giving it a tap. The loud chatter in the auditorium turned into a murmur. “I am honored to announce that this year’s Teacher of the Year award goes to….” He paused for a dramatic effect. “Jessica Greenworth!” Jessica gasped and her hand flew to an open mouth. Waterfalls poured from her eyes, Jessica’s laughter choked from shock. “Come on Jessica, let’s give you your trophy!” Mr. Hawk held a golden apple in his hand with ‘Teacher of the Year-Jessica Greenworth!’ carved on it. Stumbling, Jessica made her way to the podium, parents and teachers clapping her on the shoulder.

Mr. Hawk started his speech with an Ahem.“Kindness is a skill that all humans need to have. However, before Jessica, our students were lacking it. Jessica introduced Kindness Day, which will be renamed to Jessica Day, when the magic of kindness is spread around the school. Of course, every day is a day for kindness, but Jessica Day serves as a reminder that kindness is power!” Mr. Hawk punched his fist into the air. When Jessica reached the podium, he hugged her and handed her the trophy. As Jessica plunged it up into the air while holding Mr. Hawk’s hand to a thunderous applause, she smiled. She had found her place where she made a difference. A difference that needed to be made. A difference that deserved praise.

About the Author

Grace lives in San Mateo County by a beautiful beach with her family and her black cat Buster. Her hobbies include writing, reading and baking. Oh, and also petting her cat! Grace chose to write about Jessica because her mom is a teacher. She hopes you enjoy her book because she’s spent a lot of time working on it!