I wasn't planning on updating again so soon, but I had the chapter written so I thought I might as well share!
I'm hoping to work on the next couple of chapters over the weekend so hopefully I'll be able to update again soon!
Shelby wasn't surprised to find that Rachel retreated back into her shell as her first day at the new school crept closer. Some days Shelby was able to get through to her, to get her to open up and talk about her fears and worries, but on other days, it was all she could do to get Rachel to move from the floor in the corner of her bedroom. Shelby had already spoken to both Sarah, and the school about Rachel's anxiety and the school had promised that they'd do all they could to support her, but Shelby had a few tricks up her sleeve too. "There's still some ice cream left, so, how about, on Monday, when you get home, we have milkshakes to celebrate your first day at school?" she asked over dinner on Saturday evening.
"But what if I'm bad?" Rachel asked quietly as she pushed carrots around her plate.
"We'll have milkshakes. If you have a good day, we can celebrate with milkshakes, if you have a bad day, we can have milkshakes and talk about what happened and how you can make the next day better."
Shelby was sure to wake Rachel a little early for her first day at school, she knew Rachel was nervous and she didn't want to add to that if they were running late. They walked to school after a relaxed morning and Shelby allowed Rachel to cling tightly to her for a few minutes before she told her, "you're going to have a great day okay. You just do your best okay? And I'll see you later."
A member of the office staff led Rachel to her classroom and introduced her to the teacher who in turn, introduced her to the class, clapping her hands to get everyone's attention before speaking, "Okay everyone, this is Rachel, it's her first day here so we all need to give her a big friendly welcome and make sure we look out for her." She turned to Rachel once everyone had said hello, "you're going to sit at the red table with Brittany, Molly, Harry, Ryan and Jack" she told Rachel, pointing to each child as she named them, everyone waving as their name was said, "if you need anything or there's anything you don't understand just put your hand up and I'll come help you" she said before moving to the front of the class to begin the lesson.
"I like your glasses" Brittany said with a grin, "they're really cool."
"Thanks" Rachel blushed slightly, "I got them last week, I can't see well without them."
"My brother wears glasses" Brittany grinned, "but he's just a baby, so his go all the way round his head otherwise he pulls them off and throws them away!"
Their conversation ended as the teacher asked for quiet, explaining the lesson for the morning and passing out worksheets. Once she'd set the class going and reminded everyone that they could put their hand up if then needed help, she made her way over to Rachel, "did you understand what you needed to do?" she asked her calmly.
"I'll help her!" Brittany promised as Rachel nodded silently.
"That's great Brittany, thank you." She gestured to the sheet in front of Rachel, "these might be too hard for you, or you might find them really easy, both are okay right? You're new here so it might take us a little while to work out where you're at, but that's okay. You just do your best with these, and if you need a little extra help, or if you need an extra challenge then we'll know for next time okay?"
"Yeah" Rachel nodded, "okay."
"Great" the teacher said with a smile, "now, some of these are addition and some are subtraction so make sure you check which it is before you do it, but don't worry if you get it wrong, as long as you try your best then that's okay."
"You want me to help you?" Brittany asked as the teacher walked away, "Miss Walker doesn't mind us working together unless she's told us not to."
Rachel nodded, "okay."
"Cool" Brittany beamed, "do you know how to use a number line?" Rachel shook her head and Brittany pointed to a wide strip of numbers taped to the edge of the table, "they help you do math. You put your finger on the first number, then you count along as many as it says to, you go bigger numbers when you're adding, and littler numbers when you're subtracting, so look, "nine", she put her finger on the number, "plus four, one, two, three, four" she counted along the numbers the way she'd explained to Rachel, "and that's the answer."
"Thirteen?"
"Yeah" Brittany grinned, "so let's write that down and then you can try too."
With a lot of help from Brittany, Rachel was surprised to find herself flying through the worksheet, everything felt so strange, she'd always wanted to learn but she'd always felt too stupid to know how to do the work everyone else seemed to already know how to do. But Shelby had helped her, Shelby had been patient and calm, explaining things as many times as Rachel has needed, and now, now her teacher had explained what she needed to do without yelling at her, another kid had helped her work it out, and she was doing it. She hadn't been sent out and she'd almost finished the worksheet, it was something that was completely new to her and Rachel could only hope that Shelby would be happy that she'd been so good.
"I saw you helping Rachel Brittany" Rachel hadn't even noticed their teacher making her way around the classroom and she jumped slightly at her voice, "that was really nice of you, and you listened to her really well Rachel, I think I'm going to give you both a smiley face for great teamwork."
"What's a smiley face?" Rachel asked quietly once the teacher has moved onto another table after checking nobody was struggling or had any questions.
"It means you've been good" Brittany told her with a grin, "Miss Walker will tell your grownup at pick up that you've been good, and if you get a smiley face every day, then on Friday you get a big sticker!"
The morning passed quickly, after math, they'd had a literacy lesson that had involved games and silly words that had had Rachel laughing along with the rest of her class, but then it was time for her least favourite part of the day. Rachel stood by the wall on the edge of the playground, her arms wrapped around her chest as she watched everyone else enjoying recess, everyone else seemed to like recess but not Rachel, all it seemed to do was remind her that nobody liked her, she was bad and nobody wanted to be her friend, although, part of her was glad she didn't have friends, it was one less thing to feel sad about when she inevitably moved to a new house and a new school.
"Hey, what are you doing over here?" Brittany bounded over when she saw Rachel stood on her own, "come play with us. We're doing handstands" she said, not giving Rachel chance to respond before grabbing her hand and pulling her towards two other girls, "this is Quinn" she told Rachel, pointing to another blonde girl, "she's in our class but she sits on blue table, and this is Santana" Brittany gestured to the brunette, "she's in Miss Carter's class but she's still our friend. This is Rachel" she told Santana, "she's new. This is her first day, she doesn't know anyone."
Santana looked Rachel up and down before asking her, "do you know how to do a cartwheel?" Rachel shook her head, "Okay, watch me, I'll show you."
The rest of the day went better than Rachel could have predicted, her teacher explained everything to her, and, when the class had been reading their books, a teaching assistant had come in and taken Rachel to one side to read with her one on one. Everyone at her table in the classroom had been nice to her and, after finding her alone at recess, Brittany had grabbed Rachel's hand at lunch, "come on" she grinned, "you can sit with us."
Shelby had seen Rachel off with a wave and a smile, but she'd felt on edge all day. From the little she'd managed to get out of Rachel, she knew that the girl had never had a good experience of school, but then again she'd never had the chance to truly settle anywhere before. So she definitely felt her heart sink when she saw a phone call from the school flash up on her phone at lunchtime. She was surprised however that it was the principal calling to let her know that he'd spoken to Rachel's teacher and, in the teacher's words, Rachel was "settling in wonderfully." He told her how Rachel had engaged in the morning's lessons, she'd been working with other children in her class and she'd even spent recess and now lunch, with a small group of other girls. He even explained the behaviour system, how every child had the chance to get a good behaviour mark every day, and Rachel had earned hers before 10am. Shelby wanted to cry. It sounded like Rachel was having a great first day, and she only hoped that things continued like this, that Rachel got to have the childhood, and the education, that she'd been deprived of.
Even though her day had gone well, Rachel was a little nervous at the end of the day, one of her previous families had taken her to school and then Sarah had been there at the end of the day to tell her she was moving again. "You did my sandwiches all swirly" Rachel said as she walked towards Shelby at the end of the day, feeling like a weight had been lifted from her chest. She'd had a brief moment of panic when she didn't instantly see her, but then she'd heard Shelby call her name and she'd raced over to her.
"I did" Shelby nodded, she'd made Rachel ham and cream cheese sandwiches, using a dairy free cream cheese she'd picked out at the store, but instead of just cutting the sandwiches into squares or triangles, she'd rolled them into pinwheels to make her lunch a little more exciting.
"And you made my melon little flowers" Rachel held up her thumb and index finger about an inch apart to show how big the pieces of watermelon had been.
"I did" Shelby nodded again.
"And you gave me pretzels and one of my special yogurts."
Shelby nodded for a third time, "I did."
"Why?" Shelby wanted to laugh at the suspicious look Rachel gave her but she managed to keep a straight face.
"Because I wanted to make it fun and exciting for you, and I wanted you to know that I was thinking about you."
"Oh" Rachel looked up at Shelby, "will you do it tomorrow too?"
Shelby shook her head, "I'll do different shapes tomorrow" she winked playfully.
Rachel gasped, "really?"
"Really" Shelby nodded.
"What are you going to do?"
Shelby chucked, "if I told you that it would ruin the surprise, you'll have to wait and see when you eat your lunch."
"Thank you" Rachel said suddenly, her voice surprising Shelby.
"You're welcome" she smiled as she took Rachel's lunch bag from her, "so, how was your day."
Rachel looked up at Shelby, nobody had ever asked her that before. "I think I've made a friend. I don't know if I want to have a friend."
"Oh" Shelby frowned slightly, "why not?"
"Because it will make me sad when I have to go to a new school and I won't ever see them again."
"Are there any friends from your last school that you'd like to see again?" Shelby suddenly felt awful, she thought she was doing the best for Rachel by taking her out of that school, but she'd done it so suddenly that she hadn't given Rachel time to say goodbye to anyone.
Rachel shook her head, "I only went there when I went to the last house and nobody liked me there because I always got sent to the time out table because I was naughty".
"You weren't naughty Rachel, you might have reacted badly but you weren't being helped the way you should have been, that's not your fault. Did you have any trouble today?"
Rachel shook her head again, Miss Walker came and said what I had to do when she'd told everyone else. And when we did reading, another teacher came in to help me. And I was allowed to sit with other kids, and they all helped me too when I didn't know what to do."
"That's really good Rachel, you'll pick things up in no time, and it makes me so happy to know that you were working with the other kids."
"Do we still get to have milkshakes?" Rachel asked as they turned onto their street, "because you said we could have them and talk about my day but we're talking about it now."
Shelby smiled, "of course we can still have milkshakes, I've been looking forward to us having them all day."
"Really?"
"Really" Shelby nodded, "and we can talk more about your day if you want, or we can colour or play a game, whatever you want."
"Can we play the spelling game again?" Rachel almost pleaded.
"Of course, you can get it and set it up while I make us milkshakes." Rachel was so eager to learn and Shelby was willing to do anything she could to encourage that, to support Rachel and help her reach her full potential, and one of Rachel's favourite past times was a 'spelling' game, it was something Shelby had come up with, a modified version of junior scrabble where they laid all the letter tiles on the table and took it in turns to give each other words to spell out on the board, Shelby certain that it wouldn't be long before Rachel was able to play the game properly.
"Can I set it up?" Rachel asked as she walked into the kitchen with the game, Shelby just pouring the milkshakes into glasses.
"Of course" she nodded as she took four straws from the packet and placed two in each glass, "here you go, one chocolate ice cream milkshake."
Rachel's eyes lit up as the glass was placed on the table in front of her, "and it won't make me sick?"
"It won't make you sick" Shelby sat beside Rachel, it's the ice cream you had in your sundae, and the milk you have on your cereal, that's all."
"Oh" Rachel grinned, "okay, thank you!"
"You're welcome, now, can you spell 'milk' for me?"
Rachel nodded, "milk" she said slowly, kneeling on her chair as she studied the letters, "m" she placed it on the board, quickly followed by an i and an l, but then she paused, thinking for a minute before telling Shelby, "I don't know if it's that or that" she said pointing to a c and then a k."
"What do you think?" Shelby asked, "it's okay if you choose the wrong one, that's how we learn."
Rachel thought hard for a minute before pointing to the k, "is it that one?"
"It is!" Shelby held up her hand for a high five, "well done!"
"Thank you" Rachel returned the high five before taking a sip of her milkshake, "this is really nice!" she gasped before going in for more.
"I'm glad you like it" Shelby meant it, she loved seeing Rachel so happy, "what word would you like me to spell?"
"Erm…" Rachel glanced around the room, "chair" she finally decided, "you do chair."
"Okay" Shelby picked out the letters from the pile and set them on the board.
"C-hair" Rachel tried to sound out the word.
"Close, but when you get a c and a h together they make a 'ch' sound, like in your name." Ray-ch-l" she exaggerated the sound as she tried to explain.
"Oh, okay, ch-air" she tried again.
Shelby smiled, "That's right, can you think of any other letters that go together to make a different sound?"
Rachel frowned as she thought before gasping and reaching out, picking six letters and setting them on the board, "Sh-elby" she grinned as she ran her fingers over the letters, "s and h make 'sh'!"
"They do" once again Shelby held out her hand for a high five, "see, you're picking things up really quickly."
"I thought I was too stupid to do things like this" Rachel admitted quietly.
"You're not stupid Rachel, you just need time and patience, no one can learn things straight away, you just have to learn a little bit at a time, there's no rush"
Rachel smiled shyly, "can I do another word?"
"Sure" Shelby understood Rachel wanted to change the subject, "can you do 'and' for me?"
"A-n-d, that's an easy one" Rachel sassed as she picked out the right letters, Shelby loving the fact Rachel didn't feel like she had to watch her every move, that she felt comfortable enough to be a bit cheeky around Shelby.
"Okay, I'll give you a harder one then, what about 'green'?"
"I'll do green" Rachel nodded, "but its your turn first and you've got to do, erm…" she thought for a moment before grinning, she definitely had a hard word for Shelby to spell, "toilet" she giggled.
Shelby laughed and rolled her eyes, "toilet hey? Let me think about it"
The game went on for a while, until there weren't enough letters left to make another word when Shelby made sure she praised Rachel on how well she'd done, waiting for her to read out each word on the board before they packed it away ready for dinner, Shelby certain that, whatever had happened in Rachel's past, she'd do all she could to make sure that her future was more like this, that she always knew she was happy, safe and loved.