Continuing my Once Upon a Kindergarten series….this is part one of a two-shot. This part is Rumbelle while the follow up will have some shades of Red Beauty and will be a separate story and not a second chapter. Thanks to all the nice feedback from everyone. I hope you all enjoy…
"Can you tell me what happened?"
The voice asking it was nice, but Belle had no words to say to him. She had curled into the corner of the big chair knees tucked up against her chest and arms wrapped around them, head down. She wasn't crying, not like before, but she was still sniffling and her lip wouldn't stop being so trembly. She curled into a smaller ball and closed her eyes, not even noticing how tired she was or that she was falling asleep.
When she woke again, everything felt strange and far away like when she was under the water in the pool. Slowly, she sat up, rubbing at her eyes and looking around to find she was alone in the office. Through the big windows she could see that one pretend-nice lady and Dr. Archie in the outside office. She wondered if she could sneak back to class, but Belle froze at the thought. She didn't want to go back there. Not at all. It was teachers and school that had her here in the first place.
Dr. Archie was looking her way, and she tried to curl up really face. Her eyes scrunched closed, and she held her breath.
The light by his desk came on, and he walked quietly toward her, taking a seat in a chair nearby. "Ready to talk now?"
She took a tiny breath and held it again, not moving, eyes screwed shut.
"Belle, I know you're awake."
Another tiny breath and she hoped she could trick him this time.
There was a weird sort of snapping sound, and her eyes blinked open to see he was opening a little bitty bottle of water and setting it on the small table beside her. "How about a snack?" He asked, pulling out a little packet of fruit snacks. "I think your class already had a snack today, and you slept through it."
She turned and looked curiously at the clock, spotting the one that said 2:23 in big red letters. She'd missed snack and her special class with Rum today. Part of her wanted to curl back in her spot, but it was a fruit snack, and they were her favoritest. Eyeing him suspiciously, she finally accepted the packet, tugging stubbornly at it for a few moments before he reached in slowly and peeled the sides back.
The orange one on top looked like an excellent place to start, so she plunked it in her mouth and chewed as slowly as she could. As long as she had food in her mouth, she couldn't talk at all. Her mummy had said it was rude, and Granny had agreed. A teensy voice in her mind told her she should say 'thank you,' but she pushed it away for now. No talking with her mouth full.
As she ate, taking extra time to chew, chew, chew every bite; Belle glanced every so often to Dr. Archie. He was busy reading some papers in his lap, not looking at her like he expected her answers like her teacher had.
She was trying to get her jacket zipped when they were playing outside. It was her favoritest one, the blue one her mummy had bought because she said it matched her eyes. The little string that went through the hood was long missing, and while Granny had put a ribbon in its place a long time ago, even that was missing after the last wash. It had been big on her when they moved here, but now it fit just so. She was surprised to find it so snug and that didn't come all the way down like it used it. It must've gotten smaller when she wasn't looking.
"Come on, let's play on the slide!" Ruby called, running toward it and already climbing up the platforms. The best thing about recess right now was that they were the youngest kids, so they were the first ones for recess. Almost no lines.
"Ow!" Belle yelped when her long curls caught on part of the zipper. With a frown, she tugged it loose but not before the zipper pulled her hair again. She held her tongue between her lips in concentration as she tried to match up the silvery pieces. Another try, and she almost had it before the skinnier piece slipped up just as she tried again to zip it. "Caca boudin!" she grunted, trying yet another time.
"Maybe I can get it." Two hands were there before she pulled away in surprise, and she blinked in shock to see brown eyes staring into hers.
Rum's forehead scrunched up in focus as he took the ends of her jacket and started to line it up. He pushed down on the one piece, and almost had it in.
"Yes," Belle exclaimed, starting to pull the zipper up, and tugging too hard. It had started okay, but then it caught on the cloth, and it was really stuck this time.
Rum reached for it, yanking hard, and she warned him to be careful. "I know, it's okay," he promised, tugging again. One hand gripped the bottom edge of the jacket, the other held the zipper's tab, and he gave a hard yank.
The tug pulled her forward, making her take several stumbling steps that almost ended with both of them in a heap on the ground. "It's not working," she said, reaching down for herself and trying to tug again, still having no luck.
"You pull on it with both hands, and I'll hold the bottom," Rum decided, holding firmly at the bottom.
With a nod, she took hold of the tab as best as she could with both hands and pulled hard. There was an ugly riiiiipping sound, and this time both of them ended up sprawled across the ground, dusty and Rum legs tangled up in hers.
He scrambled back almost immediately. "Are you okay?"
She was staring at the fabric in her hands, unable to make meaning of the big hole in her beloved hoodie. Before she could find words, big tears were welling up and running down her face. The zipper was still stubbornly in its place, and she yanked at it angrily, as though it were to blame.
"I'm sorry, Belle," Rum said quietly, and later she would think it was the only time she heard him say he was sorry about anything and actually mean it.
With an angry sob, she tugged at it, yanking it off. She couldn't stand to wear it one more second, and Belle let out a long rant of angry words. It took several strange glances from kids playing nearby and Rum's look of concentration for her to realize it was all coming out in French.
"What's wrong?" one of the teachers who was on playground duty asked, frowning down at them.
Belle threw her jacket down. "Il est déchiré et je déteste, Je n'en reviens pas!" she huffed.
The teacher turned to Rum, "Does she speak any English?"
"Oui," Belle protested, "Yes, she speaks English. And you should ask me. Not him," she scowled fiercely at the woman, foot stamping in anger. Adults were always doing that to her, asking other people question about her, talking like she wasn't standing in front of them.
It hadn't helped, in fact it had made the teacher angry with her. "At this school we show respect, so I think you need to sit over on the bench and calm down for a few minutes. And pick up your jacket. It's going to get dirty, and it's too cold not to wear it."
"It's broken, and I hate it," Belle retorted, kicking angrily at the jacket again.
"Young lady, you need to go sit on that bench and calm down," the teacher commanded, "and pick up that jacket and put it on."
"But she's upset because—" Rum tried to defend her, but the teacher ordered him to go on and play and leave it to her.
Belle picked up the jacket with a glare, angry tears making her eyes ache when she tried to blink them back, but they spilled out anyway. She held the jacket with two fingers and let it fall onto the bench seat where she climbed up, arms crossed and sitting just enough apart that she wouldn't touch the jacket.
"It's too cold, but your jacket on," came the command again.
She shook her head and couldn't swallow back the sob that made her whole chest hiccup and then ache. She rubbed hard at the tears, but she couldn't hold them back.
"Then you're going inside to the office, come on."
Belle climbed off, sniffing and hiccupping and angry that she couldn't stop crying. She snatched up her jacket, making it into a ball of fabric, and shoved it into a trashcan when the teacher wasn't looking. They had ended up in the office, where Dr. Archie happened to pass by, took one glance at her and said he'd handle it as he ushered the mean teacher out.
She swallowed down her next to last piece of her fruit snack and looked up at Dr. Archie with sad eyes. He was reading calmly, eyes on his paper. "I don't have my … my capuche any more. I threw it away," she said so quietly she almost thought he didn't hear her.
He glanced up a moment later, giving her that look that Rum sometimes gave her when she felt like he really knew how she felt. "Your jacket?"
Belle nodded and gave a tiny sniffle. "Yeah. And now I don't have it at all anymore." She picked up the last piece of her snack and picked at the top of it, pushing with her finger and making a dent in it.
"Why didn't you want to wear it any more?"
She tried pushing on the other side of her snack to see if it would make it go back to the way it was. "Cause… it got stuck and then it got tored."
"It was torn?"
"Torn, yes," she repeated his word, rubbing at her eyes. "It happened on accident. I got it stuck, and then Rum and I tried, but then it got torn. And I was vert de rage, and I don't have it at all anymore."
"Do you think you could get a new one?" Dr. Archie asked softly.
"Not the same one. Not from mummy," she sniffled.
He was still for a moment, then set down his papers on the table nearby and leaned forward a little, closer to her but still in his chair. "It was a special jacket."
"It's not gone," came a voice from the door. Rum was standing there, holding a bundle of blue in his arm. He walked over to the couch and held it out to her. "It's kinda dirty and everything, but maybe Granny can fix it?"
She grabbed it eagerly, hugging it close and rubbing her face against the soft fabric. "Thank you, Rum," she whispered. "I don't think Granny can fix it, but I have it back."
He gave her a tiny smile and shifted from foot to foot before glancing at Dr. Archie. "She had to get it back 'cause it's hers," he explained. "I just went after my special class 'cause Belle wasn't back, and she shouldn't get in trouble—"
Dr. Archie gave him a nice smile and shook his head a little. "Let her finish her snack and wash her face, and you two can go back to class," he said softly. He nodded to the couch for Rum to sit and wait while he quickly called their teacher and explained Rum did an errand for him and that both would be back in class in a little while.
Belle tugged the last piece in half and offered him the bigger of the two. He traded for the littler one and they both finished it.
"Belle?" her friend finally asked after he swallowed the small bite.
"Hmm?" she hummed around her own treat.
"What does caca boudin mean?"
Writers note- in my research I came across "caca boudin" as a French phrase in common use among school children. It means, in essence, "poop pudding." I didn't want bitty Belle to use straight up cursing, so this seemed appropriate.