Hidden Blessing

“She’s the one who found Pokey. He was lost, and the fire almost got him. But she saved him, didn’t you, Shannon?”

The cluster of grinning children beamed at Shannon in a way that made her want to sink into the floor. What could she say without taking away Kenny’s moment in the limelight? “I didn’t exactly find him—he found me.”

Laura Cozzins suddenly appeared at Shannon’s side, saving her from having to say anything more about Kenny’s dog. “Well, now, I see you’ve already made friends with Kenny and his pals. Wonderful, Shannon.” She beamed. “Why don’t you take them into the art room and let them draw and color and make all kinds of wonderful things?” She smiled broadly as she elicited nodding approval from the kids. “Doesn’t that sound like fun, children?”

Shannon could have summoned a hundred reasons why she was the last person in the world to be put in charge of a bunch of kids, but she didn’t have a chance.

Kenny grabbed her hand. “You can be our teacher.”

The rest of children nodded and crowded around her with smiles and beaming faces, effectively eliminating any chance she had for refusal. As the children began to pull Shannon toward the classroom Laura completely ignored her frantic plea for help.

“You’ll have fun,” Laura promised with a chuckle, and quickly turned away to draft someone else for one of her projects.

How in the world did I get myself into this? Shannon would have rather faced a roomful of hostile executives than a roomful of squirrelly youngsters. Raised as an only child by parents who never stayed in one city very long, she had always been the new kid in school, and being around younger children had never been a part of her upbringing. She grew up in an adult world where achievement and success were the driving goals. As a result, Shannon was competitive, motivated and competent when it came to the business world, but it only took ten minutes in the art classroom with a cluster of scattering children to discover that her people-management skills were sadly lacking in the present situation.

“Everyone sit down,” she said in a normal voice, which had little impact in the noise level of excited kids darting about the room, handling everything that wasn’t tacked or glued down.

Boxes of donated supplies were on the tables. She knew that if she didn’t do something, impatient children would be diving into them, and the chaos would grow worse by the minute. It didn’t help her confidence to realize no one in the room was paying any attention to her.

She had to take charge, and quickly. Remembering that one of the first rules of a successful business leader was to command attention, she clapped her hands loudly and raised her voice above the bedlam. “Listen to me! I want everyone to sit down now! And be quiet!”

Later Shannon wondered what she would have done if the kids had ignored her, but to her relief, they quickly filled the chairs at two long tables and fixed their grinning smiles on her. She guessed that their ages ranged from kindergarten to second or third grades. Now that she had their attention she didn’t know what to do with it.

She walked over to a table and looked at the boxes of pencils, crayons, paper and a few coloring books. She cleared her throat, hoping she would sound steadier than she felt. “All right, we’re going to draw and color pictures.”

“I want a picture to color,” a curly-headed girl named Heather howled when Shannon gave the last coloring book page to someone else.

“I bet you can draw a nice picture of your own to color,” Shannon coaxed.

Heather set her lips in a pugnacious line. “I want a real picture.”

“Sorry. I’m afraid that there aren’t any coloring book pictures left,” Shannon said flatly.

“Then you draw me one,” Heather ordered with pouting lips, and shoved her plain sheet of paper toward Shannon.

Fuming silently, Shannon grabbed a pencil, and as quickly as she could she sketched a house with a flower garden and tall tree with a child’s swing in it. “There. Color that.”

Heather looked at it, then gave Shannon a broad smile of approval. “It’s nice.”

“I’m glad you like it,” Shannon said in relief as the little girl picked out some crayons and began to color the picture.

Shannon dropped down in the teacher’s chair and wondered how long it would be before she could send all the kids back to the gym.

When Heather finished coloring her picture, she started showing everyone and bragging, “See the picture teacher drew for me.”

“I want one, too.” The children began to line up at her desk, all of them wanting a special picture of their own. “Draw me something, teacher.”

Shannon’s first reaction was to refuse, but somewhere at the back of her memory was a remembered pleasure in what her parents had called her doodling. Even though an art teacher had told Shannon once that she had an artistic flair, she’d had never had time or the inclination to foster it. Giving a soft laugh, she said, “All right, let’s see what I can do.”

Quickly she sketched some simple scenes, then some cartoon figures that seemed to come easily to her. As she handed each drawing to a child, she was rewarded with a broad grin and a thank-you.

“Do one for me,” Kenny begged.

“Well, let’s see.” Shannon pretended to think. “I bet I know one you’d like.”

She was drawing a cute puppy with ears and a tail just like Pokey when she was startled by someone leaning over her shoulder. “Very good,” Ward said, as his warm breath bathed her ear.

Startled and instantly embarrassed, Shannon almost covered the sketch of the puppy with her hand so he couldn’t see. A deep conditioning from her childhood had made her instinctively want to hide what she had been doing. She could almost hear her father’s voice. Wasting your time again, Shannon!

As Ward saw the muscles in Shannon’s cheek tighten, he reassured her. “I mean it. It’s very good.”

“It’s Pokey,” Kenny said happily. “I’m going to color him black and white. And I’ll stay in the lines,” he promised solemnly, as if someone had pointed out this little goal to him once or twice. He proudly took the picture to his table.

Ward eased down on the corner of her desk, lightly swinging one leg as he looked around the room. “I didn’t know you were a teacher in the making.”

“I’m not.”

“You could have fooled me.”

He grinned at her, and she didn’t know if he was secretly amused or impressed that the children weren’t climbing the walls.

“What brings you back to the school this morning?” she asked lightly. She wasn’t going to let him know that she’d been disappointed when he hadn’t come to the school at all yesterday.

“I had a little time between chores and helping out the fire wardens this afternoon. When I came in, Laura asked me to deliver a message to you.”

“And what was that?” Shannon stiffened, wondering if the preacher’s wife had come up with another volunteer job for her.

“It’s time to let the kids go to lunch.”

She looked at her watch in surprise It was almost noon. She couldn’t believe the morning had passed so quickly. When she announced that it was time for lunch, there were some protests from those who wanted to finish their pictures.

Shannon vaguely promised they could finish their pictures some other time or take them with them. Ward sat on the edge of the desk watching Shannon while she collected crayons, pencils and paper. For some reason, his smiling approval was irritating.

“Well?” she demanded, challenging him to say something. “You don’t have to look so smug. Laura caught me at a time when I had no chance to refuse.”

“It looks like she drafted the right person, all right.”

“At least it’s better than peeling potatoes, thank you.”

Ward laughed, secretly relieved to find her spitting words at him instead of curled up somewhere battling fear. He had some bad news for her. Flying sparks carried by the wind had ignited the tops of tall ponderosa pines on the other side of the high-ridge fire line. Ground crews were scrambling to clear brush in the area, and airplane tankers were dropping fire retardant chemicals in an effort to control the blaze before it became full-blown and started down the mountainside. A dozen homes were in danger of being lost—as well as a white sports car still perched precariously on a rugged rocky slope.

“What is it?” Shannon asked as his smile faded and his forehead furrowed in a frown. Her hands tightened on the piece of paper she was holding, crushing it. “My car’s gone, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s still there.”

“But?” she prodded.

“The fire is threatening to start down this side of the mountain. New fire lines are being set up, and crews are cutting down brush and trees around some of the high mountain homes in an effort to save them.”