The phone call is brutal—Sarah knows that the person on the other end of the line deals with situations like these every day, and so probably has become slightly jaded, but can't they share some of the absolute terror that she feels now?
"Are there any visible marks?"
"No… No I haven't seen any but I didn't really… I mean he's just been acting like something's wrong."
She's getting almost hysterical now, and her frantic words stumble over themselves as she tries to explain the situation with the same gravity that she feels.
Sarah does her best to explain the situation further, but eventually she is thanked and hung up on. As soon as the phone call is ended, she spins over to her computer and opens up an internet page. CPS will most likely schedule a home visit, and with a little more probing, Sarah discovers that the standard investigation timeframe is thirty days. If nothing is found within that time, the case will be dropped.
Sarah is torn—if there's something going on at Zach's home, she wants it to be discovered, but at the same time she doesn't want that; if they find nothing, then hopefully nothing is wrong.
Sarah goes home and that night there are no strange thumping noises in her walls. The next morning she goes and purchases a pocket calendar, circles the previous day, and numbers that with a red 1.
With every day that passes, Sarah checks another block of the calendar off. Soon, she finds herself scrawling the number thirty onto the page.
Nothing has happened—though Zach has started bringing a lunch, he still eats in her room—and Sarah doesn't expect to be notified if anything did happen.
For a week he seems to be getting better and Sarah breathes a sigh of relief every day that he does not fall asleep or some in with horrible dark circles under his eyes.
"How are you, Zach?" she asks one day when he walks into her class a little late.
"Sorry Miss Williams. I left my house a little bit late and there was this bird in a tree and I got distracted… Are you going to send a slip home?"
"No, Zach. Just try not to be late again, okay?"
He nods and all but runs to his seat.
But that is the last day of the tenuous tranquility—the next day he comes in with a large bruise on his left arm.
That night, Sarah makes another call to CPS.