Kate cradles the lizard in her lap as little faces peer up at her. Ellery is somehow shy, standing at her mother's side with her hands behind her back, pressing herself against Kate's shoulder.
Her substitute teacher sits in the big chair at the front of the circle, Kate to her right, Ellery beside her. Her daughter's classmates are up on their knees to see, and the teacher has to keep telling them to sit down.
So this is show and tell.
Kate turns to Ellery and nudges her. "Ella," she says softly so her friends can't hear. "Up to you, baby girl."
Her teacher is still trying to coax words out of Ella. "Ellery, can you tell everyone your pet's name?"
Kate keeps her eyes on Ellery, giving her an encouraging smile. Ella sidles a little closer, reaches out a hand to lay it on Kate's arm, nearly in Kate's lap with the lizard. She doesn't fidget, not exactly, but it's a close thing.
So Kate prompts her again. "Ellery, introduce your dragon to everybody."
Her daughter has that stubborn and silent look on her face, but she does answer. Her voice is strong if still quiet. "This mine dragon. Abe Lincoln."
"What a fun name, Ellery," the teacher says, smiling broadly. What she lacks in classroom control, she makes up for in kindness, apparently. "Did you name him all by yourself?"
Ella puts her cheek against Kate's shoulder. "Daddy help me."
"Oh, how nice. Daddy helped you name your. . .dragon is it?"
Kate jostled Ellery off of her, nudging her to keep talking. Ellery pushes her hair back from her face with both hands, but she speaks again. "Him a bearded dragon. It like a lizard."
"Oh, a bearded dragon. How neat. Can you tell me about him, Ellery?"
A kid in Converse sneakers and a black shirt, too cool for school, shoots his hand up but talks without being called on. "Why you have a lizard for a pet? That's weird for a girl."
Kate glances to Ellery, wonders what her daughter will say to that. Because she most definitely will say something - Kate doesn't have a shrinking violet.
Ella's face has morphed into a fierce look; she steps in front of Kate as if shielding her lizard from the boy's sight. "Him a dragon. Abe Lincoln has magic and fire and he likes me."
"How can you know that?" the kid says back. Kate gives the substitute a swift glance, but controlling the kids seems entirely out of her purview.
"In my room, him has a glass house. Him knock knock knock for me when I come in."
"Oooh," some of the kids awe.
"And I pet him and pet him and when I stop, him come up to me and nudge. Like this." Ellery lifts her hand and uses her other hand - shaped into a kind of lizard head - to knock against her fingers. "See? Him like me."
"Cool," one boy says, giving a half-hearted raise of his hand. "My cat does that to me."
"I have a cat," another kid says.
A girl lifts her previously-bored face and looks intense. "I had a cat but he ran away and then Daddy went out looking for him and found him and he lost his tail!"
"Whoa!"
"How do they live without tails?"
"Did it get cut off? Was it hanging there and bleeding all over and stuff?"
Show and tell degenerates from there, and even though the substitute tries to call everyone back to order, Kate's the one who gets it back on track. She lifts her voice over the babble of preschoolers telling their stories, and the sharpness in her tone has their attention.
"Ellery will tell you guys some cool things about bearded dragons, and then I'll let you come up, one by one, and pet him."
She turns to Ella and gives her a pointed look. Ellery has gotten past her initial shyness (or maybe it's an overwhelming and paralyzing joy), and she gives her mother a broad grin.
"I do know all about him." Ella puffs out her chest and lifts her chin, pushes back her hair again. "Them are from Australia. It's a country and a continent."
Every face in the room is confused. Yeah, most three year olds don't know what continents are, but Kate's three year old does. She gives Ellery a bright smile, proud of her for that extra bit of information.
"What else, baby?" she murmurs.
"Him just a little one," she continues. "So him needs lots of insects to eat. And some vegetables. When him get older, he eat more vegetables and not so much insects."
"What vegetables?" another kid asks. "Like broccoli? I don't like broccoli."
Ellery frowns. "No. Lettuce."
"What kind of insects does he eat?" the teacher asks, an eye on the kids to make sure they're paying attention.
"Crickets!" Ellery crows, grinning broadly at that. "Him does eat lots and lots of crickets."
"Ew! Gross!"
"Cool!" The kid with curly hair and a crooked smile is giving a fist pump. "Dude. I need a lizard."
Kate rubs her thumb over the top of Abe Lincoln's head, keeping him calm at the teacher settles down the kids again. Ellery is given the floor, and she starts talking, filling up the room with everything she knows about her dragon.
"Abe Lincoln does love me. He bob his head like this-" Ellery moves her head on her neck, mimicking the lizard. "And him can wave."
"He can?" Kate says, startled.
"Of course, Mommy," Ella says, as if sighing with her mother's lack of knowledge. "Watch."
She moves closer and strokes two little fingers over Abe Lincoln's head, and when she has his attention - how is it that a bearded dragon can actually look like he's paying attention? but he does - Ellery uses her pointer finger and moves it back and forth like an EMT checking for a concussion.
And then Abe Lincoln lifts a limb and waves, little dragon claw following the motion of Ella's finger.
Holy shit. Her daughter taught the lizard a trick.
"How did you-" Kate shuts up, glancing up at Ellery even as the kids are all scooting forward on their knees, creeping in to see more. "Wow. Good job, Ella."
Ellery grins wider and pats the back of her lizard. "Him a smart dragon."
"He really is. But you're a smarter girl."
And then the kids, who were sneaking in closer and closer, are surrounding Kate, hands reaching in, and she's stuck trying to organize them into a line and also keep Abe Lincoln from getting crushed, her daughter ordering everyone around.
Kate leans back against the wooden counter where the substitute is overseeing the washing of hands before snack. Ellery is at her mother's knee, holding the bearded dragon so that her friends can pet him before they have their turn and then go eat. Kate watches her daughter boss the other kids around, telling them what they can and can't touch, how to pet the dragon, who gets to go next.
Ellery is like a mini version of her mother sometimes. Kate shakes her head and glances up at the teacher's soft little laugh.
"She's a strong personality," the woman says, all sweetness in her voice so that the comment doesn't sound bad at all. "Before I started here, I felt like I knew her - just because Kelly talks about her so much. It's been so much fun to get to know her one on one like this."
"You're friends with Kelly?" Kate says, smiling back.
"And your dad. From church. They are just - so cute together."
Kate gives a quirk of her eyebrow. "Well, they are. . .definitely good together."
"Oh, I guess you probably don't want to see your dad being cute," the woman laughs. "I'm sorry. But they're kinda adorable."
"Mm, well. Good?" Kate's not sure what she thinks about this teacher - she's competent enough, her control is a little loose, but the kids seem to blossom under her sweet nature. She's a vanilla-flavored version of Kelly, actually, no spark, no sauciness. Nice enough but plain. In fact, Kate can't remember the woman's name. It's completely gone.
Oops.
Ellery's head comes to rest against Kate's thigh; she bends over a little and skates her fingers through her daughter's hair, rubs her thumb at the girl's forehead.
"You ready to put Linc away?" she murmurs.
"No."
"It's snack time and all your friends are eating," she adds.
"Can I hold him while I eat my snack?"
Such clear and precise language when she wants something. Kate lifts an eyebrow at the request but Ellery doesn't back down. She sets her mouth and looks stubborn.
"No, but I can put him in the shoebox and let him sit beside your chair on the floor," Kate compromises. "But not on the table. You know the rules."
"Okay," Ellery sighs, but she can't truly stay unhappy - her face is just suffused with peace. She's too grateful, it seems, to find fault with her mother's plan. "Him go right by my chair."
"Yeah, baby," Kate says, gently taking the lizard from her daughter and turning at the counter to place him inside the shoebox. Sometimes he climbs out - he did twice in the car - but he seems content enough right now. "Wash your hands, cvrčak."
Ellery giggles at the nickname and sticks her hands in the still-streaming water, sings the happy birthday song as she scrubs with soap, and then holds her hands up to her teacher in a silent command. The woman hands her a paper towel and Ellery wads it up, moving it from palm to palm, and then throws it away in the recycle bin, her hands still damp.
She turns from the recycle bin to side-skip back to her spot at the snack table, making her mother grin at her daughter's goofiness. Kate notices that Ella's name is written on a cute yellow duck and taped to the desktop - just like the duck picture on her take home folder. Ellery has the corner seat, so it's simple to leave the open shoe box beside her daughter's chair.
Kate washes her hands too, takes a paper towel from the teacher with a smile of thanks, and then crouches down next to Ellery.
"Good snack?" she murmurs, reaching out and stroking her finger down Ella's forearm. She sinks back against the wall to keep watch over the lizard, tugging her knees up to her chest and grinning at her daughter.
"Did good, Mommy," Ella says with a smile back, eating a piece of cheddar jack cheese, chasing it with a fat green grape.
"That was Daddy," Kate says softly. "He made your lunches and snacks today."
"Daddy is so smart. I do love grapes."
Kate grins. "He is. Most times. He definitely is. He knows you love those grapes."
Ellery puts her cheese down on her napkin and leans over towards Kate, snagging her by the wrist and making a bridge between her mother and her chair. Kate hangs on to her to keep her from falling, and she realizes that Ella is peering down past Kate's legs towards the lizard.
Of course. Should've known that's what the girl was angling for.
"Sit up, cricket."
Ella sighs and sits back up, wriggling in her seat as she reaches for her water. She sips at the camelbak bottle, her lashes long and slow as she blinks, her face in concentration. Kate watches her daughter until the girl's eyes focus again and then she turns to her mother, popping the spout of her water bottle out of her mouth to talk.
"You did come to my class, Mommy."
Kate grins. "I did."
"See all mine friends. And mine room. And my duck." She reaches out with her hand and pats at the yellow duck, fingers tapping. "You bring my dragon."
"I did. Just for your show and tell. You did a great job telling your friends about him."
Ellery gives a great big sigh, all smiles. "I do love you."
"All the ways, my sweet girl." Kate shifts forward and kisses her daughter's forehead, despite being in front of all the other kids in her class.
But Ella doesn't seem to mind; she squirms in her chair and lifts her face to Kate, smiling that soft, adoring smile.
Sometimes, Kate forgets that Ellery's heart - even if fiercely guarded - is just as tender as her brother's.
Maybe more so.
