She was so busy with the colored tiles in front of her, that Belle didn't hear him the first time. At least she was pretty sure she hadn't heard what he was saying because he said it in that way her mummy used to when Belle got so busy playing a game or looking at a picture that she forgot about everyone else.

"Belle?"

With a little gasp and a jump, she dropped the little blue tiles onto the small table and looked up at the man who was rounding the table and coming to sit in a chair nearby. She bit her bottom lip and shifted nervously. He hadn't said she couldn't play with anything, but he hadn't said she could, either.

The man in front of her gave a gentle smile and held out his much bigger hand. "Thank you for visiting me today. I'm Dr. Hopper, but you can call me Dr. Archie."

She looked him up and down before shaking his hand with her good one. He wasn't nearly as big as her papa or even many other grown ups. Belle decided that she liked that. And he didn't pretend-smile at her like the lady in the office. She liked that, too. But she still didn't understand why her teacher had made her leave class when she didn't have special class in the morning. Or why she went to see the doctor that Jefferson had to see when he started talking too fast and giggling like he wasn't ever going to stop giggling again. The 'special friend,' that their teacher called when Rum got really angry one day and had to go calm down.

"Would you like to sit down," he finally asked, glancing at the different chairs nearby. There was a big one like his, a short sofa, and some cushy and squishy chairs like in the library corner in class.

Belle looked around and shook her head slightly as she glanced back toward the giant windows that went from the floor to the ceiling and showed into the rest of the office area. "I didn't do anything bad," she said softly.

"No, you didn't," Dr. Archie agreed, still smiling at her. She thought maybe she liked his smile best of all of the adults she had met here. "I asked you to visit me so that we could talk a little bit."

Her eyes narrowed a little. Sometimes when adults said 'talk,' they really meant 'listen.' She scooted back around the corner, picking up a tile and glancing at him to see if he would stop her. When he didn't, she considered the arrangement and finally set it down in a new place, moving several other tiles around on the table top.

Dr. Archie pointed at the tiles she was arranging. "Tell me what you're making."

It was the right thing to say because he said it in the nice and interested way that sometimes Rum asked about thing she did. "A picture."

"Can you tell me about it?"

Scooting around several other tiles, she tilted her head and studied the tiles before sliding a few into place and moving several others around. "It's not finished, yet. It's the water for the crog…croda…crocodile," she finally got out the word and started using her good hand to slide green tiles into place.

He was quiet, letting her work for several moments before asking, "Why is the crocodile important?"

She thought this over a little, letting it nibble around her mind while she continued to slide tiles into place, pulling a line of white triangles in to make a top and bottom row of teeth. "It's like Rum's."

"Rum has a crocodile?"

"Mhmm," Belle hummed, nodding slightly and shaking her head when her curls fell in her eyes. She'd taken off her headband earlier because it made her head achy. "He let me cuddle with it when my arm hurt." She spied the just-right black circle to make her crocodile's eye and slid it into place, too.

Dr. Archie slid forward in his chair and used his bigger hand to slide a big group of colored tiles closer to her. "Was Rum there when you hurt your arm?"

She paused a moment, nodding slowly and giving her picture a slow look over before looking up at Dr. Archie. He was watching her closely, and she wasn't sure she liked it right now. She didn't like when everyone was looking at her asking her questions all the time and trying to ask how she feels and how it's okay. "Yes," she answered, toying with a tile and starting to put it at the top before sliding it around to the other side. "Rum and Ruby and Viktor. And Granny—Ruby's granny, not grandmere. And it's only a little hurt," she answered, glad to know she only had to wear the arm thingy with all the Velcro straps for only twelve whole days, it was already day seven.

"That was nice of Rum to share his crocodile."

Belle nodded in agreement. "Oui, je pense qu'il est sympa." Scooting to her right, she pushed the other tiles, the other colors, back and studied the space left before sliding some more blue ad green into place.

"Can you tell me how you feel with your English words?" Dr. Archie asked quietly.

She blinked at him in surprise and nodded. "Rum taught me multi'cation, sort of. And I'm teaching him français. Ac-cept…" She trailed off, biting her bottom lip and glancing under her eyelashes to see Dr. Archie was studying her picture and trying not to seem too much like he wanted her to finish her words.

"Except?" When she didn't say anything for a few moments, he slid some more tiles toward her. "Does he ever do mean things to you?"

"No," she answered confidently, the loudest she'd said anything to him, yet, and she gave him a long, serious look. "He helps me sometimes, and we have our special extra class together and we do our work fast. Accept, he's not in my group."

Rum was in a group with David and Ashley. And sometimes they did okay, and sometimes he got tired of them and did his work fast so he could play something else. Only sometimes they had to do stuff together, and their teacher would say to not do it all himself. Belle was in a group with August, Billy, Kathryn, and Sean. They were… not mean, but August sometimes asked her questions she didn't want to answer, and sometimes he told all sorts of stories that she wasn't sure she believed.

"Did you ask your teacher if you could be in Rum's group?"

She shook her head slightly, studying more tiles and moving two more into place. "She just said which group to go to."

"And you think it would be better to be with Rum?"

Belle nodded, switching out three tiles and scooting a little closer to Dr. Archie to work on the back part of her crocodile. "Sometimes he gets big angry, and sometimes I do, too."

"What makes you big angry?"

"When people say it's okay when it's not. Lying's not good," she replied, glancing at him and seeing he was a little surprised. "And… when people say I'm little and tell what to do and don't ask."

"Who doesn't ask?" he asked quietly, sliding more tiles toward her as she worked faster with her good hand.

She shrugged. "Sometimes teachers and grown ups. It makes me big-angry inside like Rum gets big-angry outside."

Dr. Archie pointed at the crocodile. "Is that why you made the crocodile?"

Belle nodded slowly. "Rum said his crocodile is like when he gets angry and everything is quiet and down below like the crocodile, and then he gets big angry. And it gets mad and everything and then it goes back in the quiet again."

"And do you feel like the crocodile coming up and getting angry or the one going back down that's quiet?"

"Quiet," she answered, pushing the last green tiles back and leaning back to look at her picture.

"Thank you for talking to me," Dr. Archie said. "Can I take a picture of this to keep?"

She nodded and waited while he took a picture of the tiles. "Is that all?"

"Today," he replied. "Belle, do you know a compromise is?"

Chewing her bottom lip, she thought it over. "Compromis … like when someone does a little bit of what you want, and you do a little bit of what they want?"

He gave her another smile and his surprised look again. "Yes, that's exactly it. Would you do me the honor of coming to visit me again sometime, and I'll talk to your teacher about moving you to Rum's group?"

"I can stay with him?" she asked carefully, watching him closely to make sure they understood.

"In his group… Belle, you know that you can't stop him from being mad, right?"

She nodded slowly. "He knows it's not what he's s'posed to do. But he's… not as big angry as he used to get. And when he tries to tell me what to do, I tell him he's not my boss, and only I'm my boss."

Dr. Archie gave her a bigger smile and nodded. "You are definitely your boss. So do we have a deal?"

Belle held out her hand and gave him a little smile as she shook it. "Yes."

"You can find your way back to your class?"

She nodded and pushed a tangled lock of curls behind her ear before managing to tug open the glass door and roundly ignoring the pretend-nice lady at the desk. She could smell the lunch cooking in the cafeteria, and it was almost time for her class to go eat. Rum had promised to give her the fruit snack in his lunch, and she was going to give him the surprise Granny had helped her make. Granny said an ice cream cone would melt, but she knew he was going to like the cupcake cone. Maybe school wasn't so bad anyway.