I watched Mia, curious how she’d handle that.
“Your teacher has a responsibility to make sure you understand what you should and should not do, so she’s allowed to ask personal questions.She’s in charge of the classroom and needs to make sure no one gets hurt or bullied.”
Arne sighed.“It’s one of those things adults can do to us but not the other way around, right?”The kid was sharp.
Mia gave in.“Right.Sorry, kiddo, but that’s part of life.”
“How am I supposed to learn if I can’t ask anything?Adults can ask, but they already know everything.”
Mia shook her head.“You’re learning.You’ve got books that answer questions, and school—before you know it, you’ll be a grown-up.”
He narrowed his eyes.“Then I’m asking all the questions.”
I looked down at my plate, fighting back a grin.It had been a while since I’d been tempted to laugh, and that was probably not a helpful response right now.
Mia looked at me.“Are you okay if I use the bathroom for a moment?”
“Go ahead.”She glanced at Arne, and I knew she was worried about leaving him here.“He can stay.”I liked talking to him.No pressure, and he was amusing.
“I won’t be long.”She left the room.
Arne sighed.“It must be nice to be an adult.Then you can do anything.”
“Not everything.”His brows went up like he questioned that.“Adults sometimes ask me questions, and I don’t answer them.”
His mouth dropped open.“You can do that?”
I nodded.
Arne took another bite of toast but he was frowning, still thinking.“I bet it hurt, getting your hand broke.”Kid wasn’t asking a question, but he was asking for information.
“It did.”
He stared at the cast.“But you got cool signatures on your cast.”
“Still not worth it,” I assured him.“Your mom has to help me because I’m right-handed and I can’t do a lot of things with my left hand.”
Arne immediately switched his fork to his left hand and tried to pick up a piece of toast on his plate.He made several attempts before he managed to get anything in his mouth.
“Does everyone who breaks their hand need a nurse?”he asked.
I couldn’t explain to this kid exactly why I had a nurse/babysitter, but I didn’t want to be the adult who didn’t answer him.“I, um, live alone, so I don’t have anyone else to help out.”Before, Jess would have dropped everything to take care of me, but she needed to find her own happiness, and that meant I needed to learn to live on my own.
“Oh, that’s awful.I have lots of people who take care of me.”He stared at my cast again, looking enviously.“You must have friends.Lots of people wrote on your cast.”
Almost everyone on the team had signed there, though some of it was hard to read because the names overlapped.“Yeah.They did.But they’re busy back in Toronto or other places, and I’m here.”
“So you hired my mom.”He nodded, gaze still on the plaster on my hand.
I didn’t think it was necessary to explain the people the team had attempted to hire before Mia.“Do you want to sign my cast?”I wasn’t sure, but he seemed fascinated with it.It was coming off before I went back to Toronto, so he could do what he liked to it, and no one but me would see it.
A big smile crossed his face and he slid out of his chair and stood beside me, reading the names.“Opp…” He frowned.“Opp isn’t a name.Or this one…Duck?”
“Ducky.And Oppy.They’re nicknames.”
“Coop…er.That’s a regular name.Someone in the other grade one is Cooper.”
“Cooper is his name, and also his nickname.”