"Hi Mrs. Goodrich…" Another male student greeted as he and his father approached the forming line.
"Well morning Bryant and Mr. Thomas." Mrs. Goodrich greeted.
"Okay dude, I'll see you after school; and make sure you be good." Jayden heard the man admonishing to the boy that Mrs. Goodrich had called Bryant. The man then tousled his son's hair and gave him a couple of hearty pats on his back.
"Okay dad see ya…" Bryant said back to the man catching Jayden's attention. Dad, he wondered. Suddenly it occurred to him he had never seen or heard of having a dad. Did he have a dad? Jayden wondered for the first time in his life. Hmm, he thought he would have to ask mom about this.
* * * * * * *
- 9:15 a.m.
"This is a picture of my family…" Five years old Tiffany explained as she stood up near table where she sat, proudly holding up her picture for the whole class to see.
"This is my mommy and she loves shopping more than anything in the whole wide world." She explained pointing to one of the figures in her family portrait. "This is our dog Roscoe and he loves our cat Cookie more than anything in the whole wide world."
"Un-uh… Everybody knows that dogs hate cats." Little Raymond protested in disagreement.
"Not true." Tiffany adamantly proclaimed while tilting her head up. "Roscoe loves Cookie like my daddy loves my mommy." She proudly finished as she pointed out her daddy with a great big smile on her face.
"You're weird!" Raymond outburst taking Mrs. Goodrich by surprise.
"Raymond that isn't nice! We don't call each other names here." She reprimanded.
"I'm not weird. You're ugly four-eyes." Tiffany quickly threw back ignoring the teacher's words.
"Tiffany! Raymond! That's enough!" She said while slightly raising her voice. It was evident that she didn't approve by the sound of her tone.
"We live in all different kinds of family. And yes Raymond; there are some dogs that do like cats…"
"Na… told ya…" Tiffany said sticking out her tongue at him. Raymond wouldn't be outdone and quickly stuck his tongue out back at her.
"That's enough from you two… If you don't want to lose your gold star for today then you had better stop it now." She gave them a first warning. She paused to allow her words to sink in. When there were no more outbursts she turned back to the task at hand.