As she crammed her lunchbox amongst the others in the teacher’s lounge refrigerator, Lauret thought about how today was Jacob’s last day. As she walked past walls decorated with colorful paper wolves made by first graders, she thought about how, in the beginning of the year, Jacob had run away from her for weeks down that same hallway. When she heard “Miss A!” from small voices and “Good morning” from her coworkers, she wanted to respond with “Who is going to help him?” and “Why not wait until the end of the school year, at least?”, but instead she distributed the expected hugs and smiles.

On the playground, the early morning air nipped at her nose. As usual, several kids huddled near her; everyone shivering together. The playground slowly filled with life as the children trickled into school, many still half asleep with bed heads, others already screaming and racing like meteors. Lauret watched them all passively, one eye focused on whichever child had managed to win her attention for that moment. Everything was a balancing act. Lauret juggled her thoughts about Jacob in the back of her mind, covering them with an easy smile. At her elbow, Violet appeared wordlessly, eyes down. Lauret placed her hand on her shoulder and the two began shuffling away from the group. Some of the kids tried to follow, but Lauret shooed them away. 

“How are you?” Lauret asked, draping her arm around Violet’s.

Violet pointed her thumb down.

“Yeah, I get that,” Lauret sighed.

“It’s Jacob's last day,” Violet said, looking up at Lauret with big brown eyes.

“I know. How do you think he’s going to be?” Lauret asked.

“Not good,” Violet said, shaking her head and swishing her thick ponytail. 

“I know,” Lauret agreed. 

The bell screeched over their heads, but they didn’t flinch. Lauret squeezed Violet’s shoulders and walked with her to line up with the rest of her second grade class.

An hour and a half later, Lauret’s third grade reading intervention group was interrupted by a call from the office summoning her to the front of the school. The Special Education teacher, to whom Lauret was an aide, stepped up from her desk to continue the lesson. 

As Lauret approached the main entrance to school, she saw the principal holding the door open, Jacob’s mother standing in the doorway, and the school secretary chasing Jacob around the front lawn. The principal’s and Jacob’s mother’s faces lit up in relief when they spotted Lauret approaching. Already smiling, Lauret stepped between them and called out in one melodious note, “Jacob!” 

Jacob continued to soar like an eagle, arms out, head low. He swooped in one victory arc before gliding to her side and calmly following her into school. 

“How are you?” Lauret asked as they passed the colorful wolves.

“Bad,” Jacob answered, bobbing his head as he walked.

“We’re going to have a great last day, alright?” Lauret tried.

Jacob shrugged, “Maybe.”

Lauret delivered him to his classroom, exchanging a knowing glance with his teacher, Mrs. Davidson, as she closed the door. Jacob slid silently into his seat next to Violet, who smiled at him over her shoulder. Jacob smiled back not because he felt like smiling but because he was always happy to see Violet. As their teacher droned on at the front of the class, Jacob secretly poked Violet with whatever he could find. Violet was always patient with Jacob, but today she savored his ability to pull her away from unpleasant moments. She had a lot of friends, but none like Jacob, none who made her feel like there was another world to escape into. 

At recess, Jacob wanted to play tag. Tag was an old game that most kids grew tired of after a while, but almost every day Jacob tried to elect someone to chase him around the playground. Most days his peers said no and Jacob abandoned his efforts altogether, but everyone knew that today was his last day. Violet’s tennis shoes bit into the pavement as she raced after Jacob, reaching out to him, the hood of his coat just beyond her fingertips. Jacob hid behind Lauret, who stood in the middle of the field, expressionless behind black sunglasses.

“Miss A! Miss A!” Jacob sang, tugging on her arm to break her poker face. 

“Jacob! Jacob!” Lauret responded, unable to resist their classic exchange. 

Jacob tossed his head back and cackled. Lauret beamed down at him as Violet skidded to a stop, followed by several of her classmates. An audience gathered as Lauret and Jacob bantered playfully.

“Ok! Go play!” Lauret commanded with a smile, gently pushing Jacob towards the forming swarm of second graders.

Jacob took off with Violet at his side.

“Why is today your last day, Jacob?” a second grader named Kyler asked. He was smaller than the rest of his classmates, but never let that slow him down.

Jacob scrunched his face, stuck out his tongue and then ran away. 

“He’s going to live with his dad,” Violet said in her matter of fact way. “His mom lost the custody battle.”

“Why?” Kyler asked. He knew what custody battle meant, his parents went through it when he was five. His mom lost too.

“I don’t know,” Violet shrugged and took off after Jacob.

Jacob’s breath pounded through him as he ran. Everything was going to change, and he hated change. He thought about how his dad treated him like he was normal, even though his mom never did. Things his mother let him get away with, like his tantrums or hyperactivity, his dad refused to tolerate. The caseworker had the same thing in the courtroom, as if it was his mom’s fault that Jacob never felt like he belonged anywhere he went. Sometimes when he was with Violet he felt better, like someone actually understood him, or at the least didn’t mind if they couldn’t. 

“I don’t want to go,” Jacob said to Violet as she approached him. 

“We can still get married, when we’re older,” Violet offered.

“I know. We will. I don’t like my dad, though.”

“Yes you do. You miss him all the time.”

“But now I’m never going to see my mom!” 

Behind them, Lauret blew her whistle and all the second graders rushed back to her. Kyler had captured Lauret’s attention, craning his neck all the way back as he talked. She smiled warmly down at him, nodding along. Kyler was a kid she worked with often, but since he was in the same class as Jacob, a lot of Kyler’s support was sacrificed for Jacob’s needs. Lauret thought about this often. Mrs. Davidson told her not to feel guilty about it but she couldn’t help it. Lauret was young enough to believe she could still save all the kids herself. 

When Jacob saw Lauret talking with Kyler he broke into a run. 

“My Miss A! Mine!” he screamed as he ran into Kyler as hard as he could, pushing him to the ground. 

Lauret exploded, “Kyler! Are you alright?”

Kyler gazed up at Jacob with dizzy confusion. Jacob had never been violent ever. Once Lauret confirmed that Kyler was alright, she turned to Jacob.

“Why, Jacob?” Lauret snapped.

Jacob’s fists shook at his sides as his face filled pink. Then he turned and sprinted across the field. Lauret inhaled deeply.

“Violet, will you please stay with Kyler?” Lauret asked as Violet approached the scene.

Violet nodded. 

Across the field, Jacob paced along the fence. He knew better than to push Kyler, he knew Miss A knew it too. No one seemed to care what he wanted; no one was looking out for him, why should he? So what if he got in trouble, at least he expressed himself. Hot energy pulsed through him, making his hands and face itch. 

“Jacob! Come tear out grass!” Lauret called.

He turned around and saw Miss A sitting in the middle of the field. He rushed to her side and dove to the ground, gripping fistfuls of grass and sending clumps of dirt into the air like fireworks. In the past when Jacob’s emotions were beyond his control, ripping grass was all he needed to calm down. But today, she watched his hands race to the ground faster and faster, like he didn’t know how to stop. It wasn’t enough to pull out the grass. He wanted to rip the whole world apart just so he could put it back together in a way that made sense.

“Jacob!” he heard her shout.

“What?” he snapped, turning to her, noticing a fracture in her usually calm expression.

“I’ve been saying your name,” Lauret said. “Let’s do some deep breaths.”

“No!” Jacob shouted, throwing the last handful of grass towards the sky. “I don’t want to take deep breaths! I can’t do it! I can’t!” 

“Jacob-” 

“NO!” he screamed, slamming his fists into the ground so hard the earth rippled beneath them. 

Lauret jumped to her feet urgently, desperate now to calm him. 

Jacob pounded into the ground, shaking the whole field like waves in the ocean. From his red face, he released a scream so intense that Lauret had to cover her ears. She was fully aware that the power of this kid’s emotions was nothing short of extraordinary. 

“Jacob, please,” Lauret tried. “It’s going to be ok. I promise you.”

“Oh I’ve heard that one before!” Jacob shrieked, on his feet now, eyes wide. “And you know what? It’s never true. It’s never ok! Bad things always happen, just when things start to get good. So don’t promise me anything!” 

“Jacob-”

“Go away!”

Lauret glanced at the grass around Jacob’s feet. Smoke rose from his soles. She smelled the beginning of the burning. 

“Jacob…”

A thin red ring of fire spread from beneath him. A black circle of burnt grass grew outwards from his feet. 

“Deep breath, Jacob, please,” Lauret tried, inhaling deeply.

“Panic!” Jacob screeched.

He sprinted across the field, leaving a trail of black foot prints outlined in livid red sparks. With each step the fires grew, each footprint more alive than the one before. Small patches of fires ate up the grass between them, merging together into a low line of orange. Lauret sprinted to throw her jacket over as many fires as she could. Far away, Jacob lunged through flames, which could burn everything but him. He wailed in circles until he collapsed at the center of his fire.

“Panic!” he screamed. “Panic! Panic! Panic!” 

The world moved fast around him. All he could see was the red separating him from everything. He knew he couldn’t cross it, but he didn’t know why. Far away, Lauret fought her way through the flames by running with her jacket pressed to the ground over the trail, smothering the burning dead grass. Jacob sat in the middle of a fire almost three feet high. Lauret didn’t know that Jacob wouldn’t get hurt. All she saw was a kid surrounded by fire with no way out. She couldn’t leave him, even if it meant running straight into the burning herself.

Without hesitation, Lauret wrapped her jacket around her face, tying the arms tightly behind her head, preparing to barrel through the fire and come out the other side with Jacob. She pressed her feet into the earth, ready to leap, when she heard someone screaming her name. 

Out of the school ran Mrs. Davidson waving a fire extinguisher. Her blonde curls bounced around her head as she raced towards Lauret and Jacob and the fire growing out of control. 

“Cover your face!” Mrs. Davidson shouted. 

Lauret’s fingers had barely crossed her eyes when she smelled the chemical powder. White foam doused the flames and didn’t stop until the field resembled the middle of winter with a fresh layer of snow.

“Are you alright?” Mrs. Davidson gasped.

“Jacob!” Lauret screamed, running to him.

Jacob held himself in a fetal position at the center of the burned circle about six feet across. He was untouched by his disaster, unlike Lauret whose face was powdered with ash and the tips of her hair were singed. As he cried into his knees, Lauret and Mrs. Davidson put their hands on his back. Slowly he lifted his face to them, red cheeks streaked with moisture. 

“I’m sorry,” Jacob whispered.

“It’s ok, Jacob,” Mrs. Davidson promised.

“It’s ok,” Lauret agreed. 

“Can I stay with Miss A for a bit?” Jacob asked.

“Jacob! Jacob! Are you alright?” Violet called as she ran up behind them, holding a bottle of water in her hand.

“Violet, I told you to stay in class!” Mrs. Davidson scolded.

Violet ignored her and went up to Jacob. They looked at each other and then to Lauret.

“I told the teacher there was a fire,” Violet said.

“How did you know?” Lauret asked.

“I smelled the smoke,” Violet explained. “I know what it means.”

Mrs. Davidson nodded wearily.

“I’ll go call Jacob’s mom. C’mon Violet,” Mrs. Davidson said. “Let’s let them cool off.”

Lauret released an involuntary laugh and Mrs. Davidson winked. Violet followed after her teacher, looking back at Lauret and Jacob before reentering the school.

Lauret and Jacob walked away from the burnt grass.

“It looks like a lollipop,” Lauret pointed out. “Burned lollipop covered in vanilla frosting.”

“Lollipop burnt flavor,” Jacob laughed.

“Uh oh, someone burned my lollipop,” joked Lauret.

“Hey, why did you burn my lollipop?” Jacob squealed.

The two continued bantering until they turned the corner and sat on a bench under a large tree, out of sight of the field. A large yellow school bus pulled into the parking lot, prematurely ready to fill with children. Birds chirped above them, flitting from branch to branch. Jacob looked up at the tree. A white airplane cut through the blue sky, grumbling distantly. Calm closed in. 

“It sounds like summer,” Jacob observed.

Of all the things to say, Lauret thought. 

She watched him gaze into the distance with clear eyes, still expecting him to burst into tears and cling to her. His face was contemplative now, causing him to look older than his eight years of age. Lauret tried to think of something to say to bring closure to their journey together, but she was too exhausted to think. They sat in silence, letting the sounds of summer twinkle around them, a reminder that the world kept turning through it all. 

A blue minivan pulled into the parking lot and Jacob sprang to his feet. His mind was empty now. He turned to Miss A and hugged her.

“Good bye,” he said. 

“Good bye, Jacob,” Lauret sighed. 

Then he ran to his mom’s car and got inside without looking back.