Parent-Teacher Conferences

Chapter 2: Cara

This is the second to last chapter, the last of which will hopefully be done before long. Hopefully. Feel free to leave comments as well. Happy New Year and enjoy!

Cara Finn remembered the day that Samuel Winchester first walked into her fourth grade classroom- September 4, 1991. She had been reviewing her emails (mostly from concerned parents and news of staff meetings) when a slight noise made her look up from her computer. Standing in the doorway was a small boy (for his age, at least). His brown hair was combed, and he was relatively clean, if you didn't count the large, wrinkled flannel or the long red cut on his cheek. He stood there for a minute, clearly unsure of what to do. It was 7:13- nearly a half hour before school began.

Cara looked at him, wondering if he was there for class. It hardly seemed likely, being so early. After two minutes of nothing, however, she teared herself away from her work and approached the boy slowly.

"Hey there; are you here for class?" She said in her softest voice, smiling.

The boy looked up, giving Cara a quick onceover. He eyed the room suspiciously, then looked back to Cara.

"Yes." He said simply. "Are you Ms. Finn?"

"That's me." She led him inside and took the seating chart that she had completed an hour ago. "What's your name?"

"Sam Winchester. I'm new here."

"Aah, that explains why you're not on the chart. Well, why don't you have a seat in this desk here?" She led him to towards the back of the room and gestured to a desk, and after a moment asked, "You know you're early, right? Are your parents here?"

Sam Winchester looked uncomfortable for a moment, his dark eyes shifting nervously. "N-no, but my brother wanted to get here early." He offered no other explanation than that.

"Well, in that case, I hope you don't mind if I get a little more work done before class. Let me know if you need anything, alright?" Unsure of what to do, Cara awkwardly made her way back to her desk. Despite her best intentions, she couldn't help but stare covertly at Sam.

It was easy to see that he was uncomfortable with his new surroundings. His eyes shifted and he looked up every few seconds to look around the room. A few minutes after he sat down, he pulled out a piece of paper and began to draw. Cara watched him, mesmerized by the determined look he had when he wrote. So much so, in fact, that she didn't realize that kids were starting to trickle in.

Cara snapped out of her reverie and stood up, pulling the seating chart onto the middle desk in the first row. She calmly showed the other students to their seats and introduced herself, but her attention was always pulled back towards Sam. By now, the students were flooding in, and his head was up and alert, his eyes searching, studying each of them. He turned the paper on his desk over, hiding whatever he was drawing.

Before she knew it, it was 7:45, and the first bell rang. The class was almost full, and everyone was talking eagerly about their summers – all except Sam Winchester, who kept his head down, almost as if to disappear.

Cara stood up, and almost immediately the attention of the class was on her (minus a few kids talking here and there). She smiled at them and quickly wrote her name of the board, introduced herself, and pulled up her webpage. She handed out the class syllabus (due by Friday!), and set off on rules, expectations, and whatever else you could think of that might be involved with the first day of school. During second hour, her art class, she gave them a worksheet to fill out and a drawing sheet, then the rest of the hour was theirs to talk about what they like. Sam Winchester kept to himself.

Soon enough, the bell rang, and second period was over. Each student stood up and turned in their worksheet, then filed out to their next block of hours. Sam was the last one to leave, and after a moment of contemplation she pulled him off to the side.