Chapter Six – Can't Hurt Me

Jessie stared down at the page of numbers; it may as well have been in another language to her as none of them made any sense; she felt the Professor watching her from where he sat beside her at the desk.

She tapped her pencil on the workbook and hummed to try and bide some time.

"Come on, Jessie...write your answer down."

With a groan, she glanced towards the Professor, "but I don't know what sixty-take-away-thirty-one is! I don't have that many fingers to count!"

The professor smiled, and Jessie got the feeling he was slightly amused by her dramatic behaviour. "You must learn to count in your head."

"Can't I just use your calculator and say I counted in my head?" she gestured to the calculator at the other end of the desk.

Professor opened his desk drawer and swept the calculator into it, he shut it, turned the key, and pocketed it. "What calculator?" he asked.

"The one you just put in your drawer!" she admonished.

"I don't have a calculator. You must be imagining things," he smirked.

She pouted.

"In your head," he ordered gently.

Jessie paused, "the answer is...ten."

"No."

"Eleven?"

"No."

"Twelve?" she tried.

"Wrong."

"Thirteen."

"We could be here all day while you try every number you know," the Professor sighed.

"I can't do it..." Jessie whined, "I can't think numbers. It's too hard."

"Math is hard but it's a part of life, and you must catch up on this math homework for when you go back to school next week."

"I have to go back?" Jessie asked. She'd somehow assumed she might never have to go back, it had never occurred to her somehow that she'd only been allowed to skip simply because of her broken arm.

"Yes. Now concentrate."

"I can't..." she pouted.

The Professor paused, and then he reached over to a jar of paperclips on his desk, "Here..." he said softly. "Use these..."

Jessie raised an eyebrow at him and tilted her head to look at him curiously, "How?" she asked. She watched him spill out the contents onto the desk, a colourful pile of green, orange, yellow and bright pink.

"Count out sixty of them."

"I don't know how to count to sixty."

"Put ten in a line..." he instructed.

Giving in, Jessie began to carefully count out ten paperclips.

"Now put five more lines there..."

Jessie considered this, "so...six lines of ten is sixty?" she asked.

"Yes," he nodded.

Jessie grinned and began to do as she was told. It took quite a few minutes for her to get the six lines out on the desk.

"Now..." said the Professor. "You have to remove thirty one of them..." he explained. "How could you do that?"

She tried to work this out, it didn't make any sense to her how she could. "Thirty is three tens?" she asked hopefully, she was unsure if this was the right answer.

"Yes!" he nodded enthusiastically.

"Okay..." she swept her hand across the desk to brush away three rows of paperclips.

"Thirty-one," he reminded.

She paused and gazed down at the thirty remaining paper clips, she picked one up and put it in the pile of paperclips she didn't need anymore.

"What's left?"

Jessie counted each out, when she'd finished, she counted again, just to be sure. "Twenty...nine."

"There's your answer."

She grinned and picked up her pencil to mark the answer down upon her workbook. She'd just finished drawing in the tale of the nine when the office door opened, and in stepped Mr. LeBeau.

He smiled at Jessie, "I have someone with me," he said gently to her, and he stepped aside to let Rogue step in behind him.

Jessie hopped down from the chair she'd been kneeling on and rushed over to them both, "You're back!" she said gladly, her heart felt like it might swell to see that Rogue had returned after having been away so long. She threw herself at Rogue's legs and wrapped her arms around the woman's thighs.

Rogue stumbled a little, and held her arms up, as if she were confused how to react to this. Jessie felt Mr. LeBeau's hand in her hair and she turned and looked up at him, still holding onto Rogue's legs. His gaze at her was so gentle, so caring, it made her feel strangely complete, just his being there...an odd sensation that felt so...right.

Jessie moved back and stared up at Rogue, she stood on her tiptoes to try and bring herself up to Rogue's level a little more but this didn't quite work and she was still too small.

Mr. LeBeau put his hand down on Rogue's shoulder and pushed down gently, Rogue looked at him confusedly for a moment, then seemed to understand that she had to kneel down to meet Jessie's eyes.

It was strange, Jessie thought, that she felt oddly sorry for Rogue, that Rogue was a teacher here...and yet somehow didn't know how to be around kids. She watched the woman kneeling slowly and carefully.

"Jessie, I'm really sorry about breaking your arm..." Rogue said, her voice shaky.

"It was my fault though..." Jessie reminded, "I didn't mean to mess things up..."

"You didn't mess things up, sugar," Rogue assured.

"But you ran away!" Jessie had to point out.

"I was scared...I didn't want to hurt you again..."

"But you can't hurt me..." Jessie stated, "I told you you can't."

Rogue shook her head, her eyes were glittering with tears, "but I did."

"Not like that..." Jessie frowned a little. "I told you that you couldn't hurt me...but you didn't believe me...and I didn't tell you properly and that's why I got hurt..." she tried to explain. She wondered how she could make Rogue understand.

"Jessie...what are you talkin' about?" Mr. LeBeau asked curiously.

"Rogue can't hurt me..." Jessie said; she sighed in frustration.

"Jessie, you're being silly..." said Mr. LeBeau.

Without warning, she quickly grabbed Rogue's face with both bare hands, and held on hard to her cheeks with her tiny fingers.

"Jessie, no!" Mr. LeBeau yelled.

When nothing happened other than Rogue's gasping and breaking away, the little girl did nothing but shrug, and uttered one simple word.

"See."

The End...Or is it? Dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

Wow, three updates in one day, how'd I manage this one? Thanks to the people for their reviews (they mean the world to me, really, and they're my favourite part of writing is knowing what everyone's guessing about the story so far). I love keeping people in suspense...more to come hopefully soon. Keep eyes peeled :)